Tang Dynasty, my wife Wu Zetian

Chapter 447 Wu Zetian Invents Characters
After a while, Princess Gao'an finished playing her piece, stretched, and looked out the window.

"Oh, the weather is so nice today, the breeze feels so refreshing! Sister, let's go for a stroll in the garden."

Princess Yiyang put down her book: "Very well."

The two women each draped a shawl over themselves and led their men past Li Lian as if he didn't exist.

“An’er, Hua’er, do you no longer recognize me as your elder brother?” Li Lian asked.

Princess Gao'an then turned to look at him, covering her mouth with an exaggerated expression.

"Oh, it's Fourth Brother! I thought I was seeing things. After all, someone as busy as Fourth Brother doesn't have time to come and see us!"

Princess Yiyang curtsied and said, "Greetings, elder brother. May I ask what brings you here?"

"I just came to see you all." Seeing her staring intently at him, Li Lian felt a little guilty and took out two clay figurines from his waist pouch, handing them over.

"I bought this on the way, take it and play with it."

Princess Gao'an pouted: "Brother, do you still treat us like children? We haven't liked playing with these clay figurines for a long time."

Li Lian laughed and said, "Alright, it's my fault. What are you playing now? I'll bring it to you next time I go to the palace."

Princess Gao'an snorted, took the clay figurine from his hand, handed one to Princess Yiyang, and muttered, "Fine, give us whatever you want, we won't lose anything anyway."

Princess Yiyang glanced at the clay figurine in her hand, then kept her gaze fixed on Li Lian and said, "Fourth brother, you've come to see us because you have something for us to do, right?"

Li Lian suddenly felt a little afraid of this younger sister, lowered his head, and said, "Yes, I want you to do me a favor."

Princess Gao'an was furious: "Fine, I knew you suddenly remembered us, so you came here because you had something to do!"

He was about to throw away the clay figurine in his hand, but halfway through, he hesitated for fear of hurting Li Lian's feelings.

Princess Yiyang remained calm and said, "Brother, please tell us what you want us to do."

Li Lian said in a low voice, "Whenever Mother hosts a banquet to entertain the ladies of the court, doesn't she always bring you two along? I want you to spread a message at the banquet so that Mother will know something."

Princess Gao'an asked curiously, "What is it?"

Li Lian said, "Just say that my second brother is engaged to a woman from the Wei family. This engagement was arranged by my aunt from Linchuan."

Princess Gao'an asked in surprise, "Why do you want us to spread this message?"

Princess Yiyang said thoughtfully, "Could it be that my second brother doesn't want to marry Lady Wei?"

"Oh, why is that?" Princess Gao'an asked in astonishment.

Li Lian exclaimed, "Hua Mei, you are so clever. It was my second brother who entrusted me with this task."

"Wait a minute!"

Princess Gao'an was still reeling from the shock. After thinking for a while, she asked, "Even if my second brother didn't want to marry Lady Wei, why did he make us spread this news in front of Mother?"

Princess Yiyang glanced at her and said, "You've forgotten, Mother hates Aunt Linchuan the most. As long as she knows that it was her who arranged the marriage and that the groom is from her own clan, Mother will naturally not agree."

"Ah, is that so?" Princess Gao'an suddenly realized.

Princess Yiyang looked at Li Lian: "Brother, is there anything else you need?"

"That's all, Hua Mei, would you be willing to help me?" Li Lian asked cautiously.

Princess Yiyang glanced at the clay figurine in her hand and said, "I'll help you this time since you brought a gift."

Li Lian was overjoyed: "I will definitely visit you more often and bring you more gifts!"

Princess Yiyang said expressionlessly, "Don't just talk the talk, I won't trust you so easily anymore."

Li Lian laughed and said, "Alright, just you wait and see." He then turned and strode away.

After Li Lian left, Princess Gao'an glanced at Princess Yiyang and chuckled, "Sister, I thought you would refuse."

Princess Yiyang sat back down in her chair and said softly, "Don't you think my brother has changed a lot since we last met?"

Princess Gao'an nodded: "I heard from Brother Ji'a that his father punished him and his second and third brothers by making them work in the restaurant for several months, and then punished them by making them go to Laizhou to help their eldest brother. It would be strange if nothing had changed."

Princess Yiyang sighed, "Father is truly resourceful. Since Fourth Brother is willing to repent and reform, we, as his younger sisters, should naturally give him a chance."

Princess Gao'an smiled and said, "That's perfect. Grain Rain is just a few days away. According to tradition, Mother will definitely host a banquet for the ladies of the court. Let's help Fourth Brother with this!"

Grain Rain is the sixth of the twenty-four solar terms, derived from the meaning of "rain nourishing all grains".

If there is sufficient rainfall around this time, it usually indicates a good harvest this year.

Therefore, every year around the time of Grain Rain, Wu Zetian would summon all the noblewomen to the palace, take them to the Leizu Temple to pray, and then hold a banquet.

That morning, Princess Yiyang and Princess Gao'an arrived at Ziyun Pavilion and joined the other noblewomen. Afterwards, they followed Wu Meiniang to the Leizu Temple to pray.

More than an hour later, after the prayers were finished, the women returned to the Ziyun Pavilion.

On their way back, while Wu Meiniang and Princess Xincheng were talking, Princess Gao'an and Princess Yiyang approached them and discussed the marriage between Li Xiao and Lady Wei.

Wu Meiniang only glanced at the two of them and did not ask any further questions, but Princess Xincheng was attracted to their attention and asked them about the matter.

After finding out the details, Princess Xincheng smiled slightly: "Sister-in-law, it seems that Erlang will get married before Dalang."

Wu Meiniang said calmly, "That Wei girl is not yet of marriageable age. Even if she gets married, it will be another two years. It won't be that quick."

Princess Xincheng said, "That's true."

Princess Gao'an and Princess Yiyang, seeing Empress Wu's calm reaction, both secretly felt that things were about to go wrong.

They naturally had no idea that Wu Zetian already knew about Li Xiao's marriage to Lady Wei, hence their lukewarm reaction.

Last year, Emperor Gaozong blamed Wu Zetian for not paying enough attention to the education of the princes because of Consort Zheng's wrist-cutting incident.

After that, Wu Zetian ordered people to investigate the three men's situation, including Li Xiao's marriage to Lady Wei.

Zheng Cai Ren was indeed right; Wu Meiniang was very dissatisfied with this marriage, but she was very shrewd and did not show it at all.

Since Lady Wei has not yet come of age, there is no need to rush this matter. She will naturally sabotage it when the opportunity arises.

It was Princess Yiyang and Princess Gao'an's reactions that aroused her suspicion, especially since Princess Gao'an seemed to be secretly watching her.

After the banquet, Wu Meiniang returned to the Lizheng Hall and instructed, "Go and check whether Prince Xu has entered the palace or visited the Princess's residence in the past few days."

Zhang Duohai took the order and left.

In less than an hour, it was found out that Prince Xu, Li Xiao, had not been to the princess's residence, but Prince Yong, Li Lian, had been there a few days ago.

Wu Meiniang lay on her side on the brocade couch and said calmly, "If I remember correctly, Prince Yong hasn't gone to see his two younger sisters for a long time."

Zhang Duohai said, "Yes, I haven't been there since I left the palace to establish my own residence."

Wu Meiniang squinted and said, "Has Prince Xu been seeing Prince Yong quite often lately?"

Zhang Duohai said, "That's right. After the three princes returned to Chang'an, they often visited each other and became very close. By the way, the second prince also went to the palace the day before the third prince entered the palace."

Wu Meiniang said "hmm".

"That makes sense. It must be that Li Xiao didn't want to marry Lady Wei, so he asked Li Lian to find Li Ling'an and Li Linghua and deliberately brought it up in front of me, hoping that I would stop it."

Zhang Duohai asked curiously, "If Prince Xu is unwilling, shouldn't he be able to refuse directly? Why does he need to ask you for help?"

Wu Zetian waved her hand and said, "We'll know in a few days. Let's just wait and see."

Seeing that Wu Meiniang had closed her eyes, Zhang Duohai said no more and slowly retreated to the vicinity of Tongmen, standing quietly by.

A moment later, he heard a faint sound behind him. He turned around and saw a eunuch gesturing to him.

Zhang Duohai tiptoed over and asked, "What's wrong?" The eunuch whispered, "Junior Supervisor, news has come from the Court of Judicial Review that Lord Di has investigated Zhou Boyu's case thoroughly."

Zhang Duohai hurriedly asked for details, and the eunuch told him everything.

At that moment, Wu Meiniang's voice rang out from inside the hall: "Duohai?"

Zhang Duohai hurriedly went inside and saw that Wu Meiniang had already sat up and was standing in front of the table, ready to practice calligraphy.

Zhang Duohai hurried over to help Wu Meiniang grind ink, saying, "Your Highness, news just came from the Dali Temple that Zhou Boyu's case has been investigated and cleared up; it was indeed him who framed the Feiyu Class."

Wu Meiniang hummed in agreement and asked, "Has Li Mengjiang made any moves?"

Zhang Duohai laughed and said, "I heard that she also pleaded with the King of Yue, but for some reason, after the King of Yue entered the palace, he did not mention this matter to the Emperor."

Wu Meiniang chuckled and said, "His Majesty naturally guessed that the Prince of Yue would come to plead for him. He must have come up with some way to keep him from speaking."

Zhang Duohai continued, "Princess Linchuan also sought help from Lady Wei, but Lady Wei did not agree."

Wu Meiniang said calmly, "Wei Hongji is a man who is very good at protecting himself. His Majesty was very angry about Zhou Boyu's matter this time. Naturally, a man like Wei Hongji would not want to get involved in such a mess."

Zhang Duohai said, "By the way, I heard some news a few days ago that Prince Ji, Li Shen, is on his way to the capital. It seems that Princess Linchuan has come to the capital to plead for her son."

The ink had been ground and mixed. Wu Meiniang picked up the jade brush, stood up straight, took a few gentle breaths, and with a flick of her wrist, left elegant and upright characters on the Xuan paper.

"It's no use. Since His Majesty has prevented the Prince of Yue from speaking, the Prince of Ji has even less of a chance to speak. If he insists on interfering in this matter, he will only anger His Majesty."

Wu Zetian had always wanted to deal with Princess Linchuan. Although this woman was from the Li family, she had long been aligned with the aristocratic faction.

After Wu Meiniang learned Xiao Siye's true colors, she sent people to investigate secretly. She discovered that Xiao Siye had secretly established a faction and wanted to support the fourth prince, Li Lian, to ascend the throne and replace the crown prince, Li Hong.

The core members of that faction included the Wei clan of Jingzhao, the Yuwen clan, and the Zhou clan. Princess Linchuan, a daughter-in-law of the Zhou clan, was also among them.

After Xiao Siye's death, they naturally abandoned their plan. Wu Meiniang, however, did not intend to spare them, but unfortunately, due to the presence of Princess Linchuan, she could not make a move.

Wu Meiniang knew that Li Zhi would not take action against her sister out of consideration for their relationship, so she had to do it herself.

She already had a personal grudge against Princess Linchuan. Back then, Princess Linchuan extended her reach to the two princesses in order to help the Xiao family, which completely offended her.

From then on, she forbade Princess Linchuan from entering the palace. After Princess Linchuan returned to Chang'an, she applied for a princess residence several times, but she interfered and ruined them each time.

Princess Linchuan has Prince Ji, Li Shen, and Consort Wei behind her, so Wu Zetian can only make things difficult for her for the time being, and cannot completely deal with her.

If Li Shen loses the emperor's trust because of Zhou Boyu's matter, Wu Meiniang will no longer need to worry.

Therefore, she was happy to see Prince Ji enter the capital to plead for Zhou Boyu.

By this time, Wu Meiniang had written thirty-six characters. She was completely immersed in the characters and their shapes, staring intently at each one. Below each character, she began to write.

These are the first thirty-six characters she is preparing to revise.

Wu Zetian had been reading through countless ancient texts these days and decided to simplify the methods using pictographs and ideographs.

Pictographic methods involve imagining a part of a character as the shape of an object in real life. Ideographic methods involve analyzing and deducing the meaning of a character to generate the base character.

Wu Zetian was so focused that she didn't hear the greeting "May Your Majesty be well" coming from outside, nor did she notice Li Zhi entering.

Seeing her focused expression, Li Zhi waved for everyone to leave, then came to her side and carefully observed her simplified characters.

I almost burst out laughing when I saw it.

However, since Wu Zetian was putting so much effort into creating characters, it would be disrespectful for Li Zhi to laugh, so he suppressed his laughter and observed carefully.

A moment later, when Wu Meiniang dipped her brush in the ink, she found that the ink had become sticky. Without even looking up, she ordered, "Grind the ink!"

Li Zhi looked around and saw that there was no one else in the room, so he had no choice but to do it himself. He poured a little water into the inkstone and picked up the ink stick to grind the ink.

Wu Meiniang continued writing, and after an unknown amount of time, she finally noticed something. She looked up and saw that the person grinding ink in front of her was none other than Li Zhi.

She quickly put down her pen, curtsied, and said reproachfully, "Your Majesty, when did you arrive? Why didn't you inform me?"

Li Zhi smiled and said, "I saw that you were engrossed in writing, so I didn't disturb you. Have you finished revising?"

Wu Meiniang pulled him to the table, her face unusually showing a hint of nervousness.

"I have only changed twelve characters so far. Your Majesty, please don't laugh at me."

Li Zhi glanced at it and laughed, "Meiniang, if you change the character '日' (sun) like this, won't it become the same as the oracle bone script again?"

Wu Zetian's revised version of the character '日' (sun) was a circle with a horizontal line added inside. It was simplified, but it looked a bit strange.

Wu Meiniang blushed slightly: "This is the simplest way I can think of."

Li Zhi smiled and said, "I think this character '日' (sun) is quite good; there's no need to simplify it further."

The character for "sun" at this time was exactly the same as that in later generations. In Li Zhi's view, it was already very simplified and did not need to be changed.

Wu Zetian's alteration of the character "星" (star) is even more interesting; it directly transforms into a circle.

"Meiniang, why did you change the character 'star' like that?"

Wu Meiniang said, "I think that the stars are the same as the sun, except that they do not emit light and the middle is empty, so the horizontal line in the middle is missing."

Li Zhi nodded.

Upon closer reflection, it's not entirely unreasonable to blame Wu Zetian for using strange simplified characters.

Because Li Zhi's requirement for her was to simplify the characters to make them easier to use, she tried her best to make them easy to write.

Putting aside the sun and moon symbols, the other simplified characters in Wu Zetian's writing are actually quite good.

For example, she simplified the character “国” to “圀”, and changed the four dots in the middle of the character “凤” to one.

The most unique thing is that she simplified the character “尨” to “龙”, which is the same as in later generations.

Wu Meiniang glanced at Li Zhi's expression and saw him nodding repeatedly. She was delighted and asked, "Your Majesty, what do you think of my revisions?"

Li Zhi suddenly picked up his brush and wrote the character "国" under the character "圀", saying, "Meiniang, what do you think of changing this character like this?"

Wu Meiniang examined it carefully for a while and said, "Your Majesty, why not remove that dot and change the character 'jade' in the middle to 'king'?"

Li Zhi slowly said, "Because the country does not belong to one person, but to everyone. The word 'jade' refers to all the beautiful and precious things within the country. Everything that everyone cherishes is protected by the country. If the country falls, the jade will shatter and the family will perish. Therefore, each of us must protect our country!"

Wu Meiniang listened very attentively, clearly pondering the meaning behind Li Zhi's words.

After a long while, she said softly, "Your Majesty, your revised character is better than mine, and I have no objection."

The two then commented on the other characters that Wu Zetian had changed.

Emperor Gaozong (Li Zhi) did not regard the simplified characters of later generations as the golden rule. As long as the characters that Wu Zetian changed were simple enough and conformed to the form and meaning of the characters, he would approve of them.

This greatly boosted Wu Zetian's enthusiasm.

The two were having a heated discussion when Wang Fusheng suddenly walked in.

"Fusheng, what's wrong?" Li Zhi asked.

Wang Fusheng reported, "Your Majesty, news has just arrived that Prince Ji has entered the capital."

According to the regulations of the Tang Dynasty, except for the end of the year, vassal kings could not leave their fiefdoms at will.

However, Li Shen had already requested permission from Emperor Gaozong (Li Zhi) to enter the capital to participate in the grand surrender ceremony outside the Zhuque Gate, and Emperor Gaozong agreed.

Therefore, he was not too surprised when he heard that Prince Ji had entered the capital, and simply waved his hand.

"I understand."

(End of this chapter)