Months passed. The emperor's "food-for-work" program, implemented with frantic efficiency by Minister Wang, was a stunning success. The tide of desperate, idle refugees became a tide of motivated laborers. New canals snaked through the arid northern lands, and sturdy refugee camps, almost like new villages, sprung up along the routes.
The emperor, meanwhile, perfected his lazy routine. He held court from a reclining divan, often yawning through petitions. But his lazy exterior masked a busy mind. In the privacy of his study, he would sketch designs for improved water wheels, recall the principles of crop rotation (explaining it to his bewildered ministers as "the ancient art of not exhausting the earth's spirit"), and compose simple pamphlets on basic hygiene to prevent cholera outbreaks in the camps.
He governed through seemingly offhand comments. "Wouldn't it be easier to grind flour if the millstone had these grooves?"he'd muse, sketching a more efficient pattern. "These nightsoil collectors should be organized and paid.We're wasting good fertilizer," he'd remark, horrifying and then enlightening his court.
He became known as the Lazy Dragon—a emperor who found the most effortless ways to solve immense problems, all while appearing to be on the verge of a nap.
Finally, after a year-long voyage, a ship returned. The captain, sun-beaten and weary, presented himself at court, carrying a small, dirt-covered chest. He kowtowed before the emperor, who was delicately eating a pastry.
"Your Majesty! Your humble servant has returned from the barbarian lands of Luzon. We faced storms and savages… but we found them! The miraculous plants from your vision!"
With trembling hands, he opened the chest. Inside, nestled in straw, were a few knobby, pinkish roots already sprouting vines, and a handful of strange, multi-colored kernels on a cob.
A hush fell over the court. Zhu Haolang put his pastry down. He stood up for the first time in a court session that anyone could remember. He walked down from his throne and picked up a sweet potato. It was smaller, less perfect than the ones in his supermarket, but it was unmistakable.
A genuine smile, the first anyone had seen, broke across his face. "Well done, Captain. You have brought the empire a treasure greater than silver or jade."
He turned to his stunned court. "Take these to the imperial farms. I want every single vine and kernel planted with extreme care. I will personally oversee their cultivation."
Gasps echoed through the hall. The emperor? Leave the palace? Work the earth?
"Your Majesty, you cannot!" Grand Secretary Zhang cried. "It is beneath the Son of Heaven!"
Zhu Haolang fixed him with a look. "What is beneath the Son of Heaven is to sit in comfort while his people hunger. These plants are our future. We will learn their ways. We will multiply them. And then," he said, his voice ringing with an authority that brooked no argument, "we will give them to the people. We will end this fear."
He looked at the humble sweet potato in his hand. Li Wei, the data analyst, was gone. In his place was Zhu Haolang, the Lazy Emperor, who had just set in motion a revolution that would enrich his people and change the destiny of the Ming Dynasty. And the best part? Once these high-yield crops were established, they'd practically grow themselves. Now that was his kind of long-term solution. He could finally get back to his nap.