In the afternoon, the sunlight slanted westward, while sandalwood burned thickly inside the Imperial Study.
Eunuch Li stood with his sleeves hanging at the doorway, personally guarding the hall.
A sedan chair came to a stop beneath the vermilion steps.
Xu Jie lifted the curtain and stepped down, supporting his lower back as he climbed the white-jade stairs.
Though he had long since passed the age of seventy, each of Xu Jie’s steps was firm and steady, without the slightest sign of disorder.
When Eunuch Li saw him approach, he hurried forward and bowed in greeting. “Chief Grand Secretary Xu, His Majesty is waiting.”
Xu Jie inclined his head and quickened his pace as he entered.
The hall was utterly silent.
Emperor Tiansheng sat behind the imperial desk. Dozens of red-covered volumes were stacked upon it, all expedited examination records sent from the various provinces.
Hearing Xu Jie’s footsteps, Emperor Tiansheng did not look up. “Have a seat, Chief Grand Secretary.”
Xu Jie replied, “Thank you, Your Majesty,” and quietly sat down across from him.
Emperor Tiansheng opened the topmost volume.
The Jiangnan provincial examination records.
Vermilion ink and black ink stood side by side on the first page, with the examinee’s name written in large characters.
“Someone from the Xie clan? Xie Yunting?” Emperor Tiansheng tapped the three characters with his fingertip. “I read this eight-legged essay twice. The parallelism is precise, the structure follows every rule, and the annotations all quote the words of great scholars from previous dynasties. Every passage has a source.”
He paused, and his tone turned cold. “Hmph! The entire essay is stuffed with the words of the sages, repeating nothing but the stale remnants of his predecessors. There isn’t a single word expressing his own opinion.”
Xu Jie smiled faintly and brought up another matter. “Ha ha! Your Majesty, the Xie clan possesses a library of thirty thousand volumes in Jinling and has donated eleven private academies. Half the civil officials in Jiangnan either studied under the Xie clan or under teachers who themselves came from the Xie clan’s school.”
“If a poor scholar wishes to study a copy of The Correct Meaning of the Spring and Autumn Annals,” Xu Jie said with a faint sigh, “he must walk thirty li to the academy, submit a name card at the gate, bow with clasped hands, copy the book himself, and return it before sunset. Yet from the moment Xie Yunting was born, all thirty thousand volumes were already displayed in his study.”
Emperor Tiansheng said nothing.
He drew out the second volume and turned to the first page. “The originally selected Provincial Graduate of Shandong: the Zhao family of Jining.”
He pulled out another volume.
“The Provincial Graduate of Liaodong: the second son of the military commander of Guangning Guard.”
Three red-covered volumes lay side by side on the imperial desk. Behind the three men who had placed first stood three deeply rooted aristocratic clans.
Emperor Tiansheng looked up at Xu Jie.
“Chief Grand Secretary Xu, I have a question for you.”
“I am listening, Your Majesty.”
“Are the Great Qian’s imperial examinations meant for all the realm’s scholars, or are they merely a means for these great clans and aristocratic houses to secure official titles and hereditary rank?”
His tone was heavy. The palace attendants standing nearby were so frightened that they all lowered their eyes to their feet, not daring to offend the imperial pronouncement.
Xu Jie, however, merely closed his mouth with the composure of an old hand.
Emperor Tiansheng then began examining the lists from Huguang and Bashu. After reading through half of them, his brows suddenly drew together.
He pushed the volume forward. “I remember that at the Lantern Festival poetry gathering two years ago, there was a student from Chengdu Prefecture whose talent surpassed even that of the Xie clan. What was his name…?”
“Su Zizhan,” Xu Jie reminded him from the side. “And Qin Shaoyou of Huguang. The fame of these two men’s poetry once resounded throughout Jiangnan.”
“Neither name appears on the list.”
Xu Jie shook his head slightly. “I examined the assessment records kept by the education officials of both regions. These two men spent their days composing and exchanging poems, praising one another and seeking empty fame. But when they faced questions on river works, tax revenues, and frontier defenses in the examination hall, they wrote more than three thousand characters, all of them ornate phrases utterly devoid of practical value.”
“Empty words, useless in every way,” Emperor Tiansheng said coldly.
“His Majesty is wise. The imperial examinations select men of genuine ability to govern the realm, not people who merely compose poems and moon over the breeze.”
Emperor Tiansheng tapped the list. “Issue an edict. Place the failed examination papers of these men in the lowest-grade archive. Add an assessment stating that the Great Qian court will never employ them.”
“Use this as a warning to all the realm’s scholars: no matter how renowned one’s poetry may be, if one does not understand how to govern the country and pacify its borders, one is worth less than weeds.”
Eunuch Li swiftly committed the order to memory.
Silence settled over the hall for a moment.
Emperor Tiansheng raised a hand and rubbed his brow, his face full of weariness. “I know very well that this is not the work of a single day. The late emperor once issued an edict condemning frivolous literary styles; there was another such edict sixty years ago. When I first ascended the throne, I likewise issued a stern decree.”
“Three imperial edicts in succession—and has the literary style changed? It remains trapped in the same old conventions.”
He stared at Xu Jie, waiting for this chief grand secretary, who had served through three reigns, to respond.
Xu Jie’s lips remained tightly shut. He did not take the bait.
Such admonitions against frivolous writing were nothing more than empty official rhetoric. Since they had never achieved any effect, responding to them would only invite trouble.
After waiting several breaths, Emperor Tiansheng suddenly chuckled. He did not reproach him.
He reached out and pulled a volume from the bottom of the stack.
The examination records for the metropolitan region.
He turned directly to a particular page and pushed it to the edge of the desk, positioning it squarely within Xu Jie’s line of sight.
The section listing the second-place candidate.
At the very top of the page, a thick streak of vermilion ink had been drawn forcefully over the character “first,” covering it completely.
Beside it, another character had been written neatly: “second.”
“That vermilion stroke was written by Yan Yuan.” Emperor Tiansheng broke the silence, his voice carrying a smile whose meaning was impossible to discern. “He changed the word ‘first’ to ‘second’ more cleanly than he usually writes his Daoist memorials. One stroke to erase it, one stroke to rewrite it—decisive and ruthless.”
Xu Jie immediately fell into thought. After a moment, he spoke directly to the heart of the matter. “Your Majesty, the harder such an extraordinary essay is suppressed today, the more violently it will rebound in the future.”
Emperor Tiansheng raised his brows slightly.
Xu Jie continued, “At present, the poor students of the Imperial Academy are copying that fragment through the night. Even when the frostbite on their hands splits open, they refuse to stop writing. Outside the Grand Academy, students of the two opposing schools—new learning and old learning—have already come to blows, with blood shed on the spot. Can the momentum of this essay truly be suppressed by denying it the top place? It cannot possibly be suppressed.”
“For now, it is merely lying dormant in the shadows. Once the results are posted, scholars throughout the realm will all be watching.”
“What kind of essay could it be, they will ask, that forced the chief examiner of the metropolitan examination to personally take up his brush and erase it from the top of the list?”
“That single stroke will not suppress the essay’s momentum. Instead, it will stir the indignation already burning in the hearts of scholars across the realm.”
Xu Jie paused, then struck directly at the truth.
“Yan Yuan’s original intention was to save him.”
“But the title of second place cannot shield him from the storm. Instead, it will cause the fire to burn directly around the question: ‘Why was he not first?’”
Xu Jie’s voice deepened. “Lord Yan’s painstaking effort has achieved the opposite of what he intended.”
Emperor Tiansheng remained silent for a long time.
“What is your assessment of Yan Yuan, Chief Grand Secretary?”
“Timid by nature, but not yet bereft of conscience.”
Those eight words settled the matter.
After hearing them, Emperor Tiansheng made no comment. He merely reached out and drew the metropolitan examination records back toward himself.
Yan Yuan’s future—along with his life and livelihood—now hung suspended within those eight words.
Beside them, Eunuch Li’s eyes suddenly darted about, and a pleased smile appeared at the corners of his mouth.
Emperor Tiansheng abruptly changed the subject. “A hundred copies of the fragment have been distributed for three days now. What sort of reaction has there been outside? The Grand Secretariat must have received reports.”
Xu Jie replied evenly, “We have indeed received reports. Zheng Bo'an, the Grand Sacrificial Scholar of the Imperial Academy, denounced the essay before several hundred students of the Grand Academy, declaring that it was the work of Wang Chong’s ghost, which had yet to pass from this world.”
“That old fool is as stubborn as ever.”
“Stubborn, certainly.” Disdain showed on Xu Jie’s face. “As for the learning contained in that copy…”
“It is truly astonishing.”
The hall fell silent for several breaths.
Emperor Tiansheng forcefully closed the metropolitan examination records and tossed them atop the pile of red-covered volumes.
“Excellent.” Emperor Tiansheng’s voice rang out. “I ordered someone to circulate the fragment precisely to test the reactions of the civil and military officials of the court and the scholars throughout the realm. The Grand Libationer denounced it as heresy meant to mislead the masses, the Chief Grand Secretary praised it as a work of genius, and some scholars even stayed up all night copying it by hand.”
“I wanted to see whom the scholars of the realm truly serve…”
Supporting himself against the desk, he rose to his feet. Seeing this, Eunuch Li hurried forward to help him, but Emperor Tiansheng brushed him aside.
With his hands clasped behind his back, he walked to the window and gazed out at the palaces of Great Qian.
Xu Jie studied the emperor’s back.
Only after Emperor Tiansheng fell silent did he slowly speak.
“Your Majesty.”
“Speak freely.”
“Before the greater situation collapses, someone must enter the game in person,” Xu Jie said solemnly.
“This time, all the examination papers from the metropolitan examination have been sealed and placed under the supervision of the Court of Judicial Review, with the First Prince personally overseeing the matter. When the results are released in the capital region, the name Xu Zijin is bound to be thrust into the very center of every open and hidden attack.”
Emperor Tiansheng slowly turned around.
Xu Jie understood perfectly, yet his face wore just the right measure of doubt. “Your Majesty, have you already decided to let them enter the fray?”
Emperor Tiansheng fixed his gaze on Xu Jie and remained silent for a long while.
In the emperor’s deep eyes, hesitation mingled with calculation.
In the end, Emperor Tiansheng gave a slight nod.
At this, Xu Jie’s lips curved into an ambiguous smile. He, too, gave a faint nod and said no more.
