Half a Spoiler Chapter 149

Chi Yi had once seen General Song in the palace. At the time, she had only found him quite outstanding, and they had crossed paths in Dan Province as well. The trials of life in the front camp had clearly left their mark on his temperament. Yet in the Emperor’s presence, he seemed no different from the aristocratic youth she had known in Jianping back then. It was only today, meeting him without the Emperor’s commanding presence, that she truly sensed the sharp, formidable aura of a renowned general.

At the same time, Song Nanlou was silently observing Chi Yi, rumored to be deeply trusted by the Sovereign.

Judging solely by the fact that she dared to venture deep into the military camp, standing firm amidst a forest of blades and halberds while remaining composed and unruffled, one could see that Chi Yi’s position as the sovereign’s confidant was indeed well-deserved.

Song Nanlou, recognizing her courage and boldness, could not help but feel a measure of respect for her.

Chi Yi arrived bearing the imperial tally, and after publicly proclaiming the imperial decree, she was invited by Song Nanlou into his tent for a drink.

She certainly did not think that General Song would be intimidated by such a remark. She suspected it was merely the Emperor’s mischievous nature prompting a bit of teasing. However, Chi Yi also understood that the Emperor was subtly hinting, through this jest, that she should do her best to ease relations with the front camp.

After a few rounds of wine, Chi Yi said, “I have brought something special for you today, General Song. Please take a look.” She raised her hand and clapped, signaling an attendant to present a wooden box.

Song Nanlou glanced at it and asked, “This is… stone?”

Chi Yi replied, “This substance is called cement. In Jianping, it is used to repair city walls. When first made, it is as soft as mud, but once set, it becomes as hard as rock and cannot be altered.”

Song Nanlou paused for a moment, immediately grasping Chi Yi’s meaning.

The recent earthquake had affected a wide area, and many cities in the northern region had suffered damage as a result. Most of this year’s corvée labor in the area had been devoted to rebuilding these cities. However, progress on construction projects near the forward camp had been slow, particularly concerning the various passes and strongholds in the vicinity.

When Song Nanlou sent men to urge the local officials to hasten the work, they made all sorts of excuses, claiming that there were simply too many places requiring repairs and that they could not possibly arrange everything at once. They asked him to be patient.

Their words were polished, but both sides knew the truth: this was a deliberate attempt to make things difficult, to pressure Song Nanlou into backing down and ceasing his interference with the so-called “roving bandits.”

Neither side was willing to yield, and so a stalemate had formed.

Song Nanlou commanded the front camp’s troops and certainly did not lack manpower. However, openly overstepping his authority was not an option; otherwise, he would have long since sent his own men to repair the damaged cities in the surrounding area.

At the banquet, Chi Yi showed Song Nanlou a piece of hardened cement. After the feast concluded, she went a step further and chose to stay temporarily in the camp.

The balance of power in this region could roughly be divided into three factions: the local gentry, the front camp represented by Song Nanlou, and the City Bureau, which had been dispatched by the Emperor.

Among them, the City Bureau was the weakest. Yet, given the irreconcilable hostility between the locals and Song Nanlou, this faction held the key to tipping the scales. Now that Chi Yi had chosen to stay in the military camp, the attitudes of those watching from the sidelines immediately began to waver.

After all, the stalemate had only held because neither side could gain the upper hand. The moment Chi Yi showed her inclination, the balance would be decisively broken. Moreover, rumors painted the eunuch officials as domineering and ruthless, capable of tearing down a family without hesitation. And while Song Nanlou was also known to resort to violence, he at least adhered to some aristocratic principles. The officials of the City Bureau, however, were rumored to be even more merciless – far more vicious than the others. If a conflict arose with them, it could spell disaster for an entire clan. Reluctant as they were, the local powers had no choice but to yield. Yet, uneasy at heart, they even sent people bearing gifts.

Not daring to send servants, the prominent local families dispatched their younger members to pay respects to Chi Yi.

After much trouble, the young emissaries arrived at the entrance, only to be denied an audience with Chi Yi herself. Instead, a young eunuch attending to her received the gifts from them and took them inside to present to the Cavalier Attendants-in-Ordinary. Throughout the entire process, the guests were not invited to enter. After fifteen minutes, the eunuch reappeared, bearing Chi Yi’s message along with a sheet of paper in his hands. “The Attendant says, since you have been so courteous, she would not wish to make things difficult for you. On this paper are listed certain posts. If five or six individuals can be found to voluntarily resign from these positions, then the matter will be considered settled.”

The current emperor’s authority now far surpassed what it had been at the start of her reign. Who in the northern lands had not heard of the Emperor’s temperament? How would they dare to truly clash with one of her trusted close ministers? To escape this situation unscathed was not the worst possible outcome – the posts listed on that paper belonged precisely to those officials who had deliberately delayed and refused to properly repair the city walls.

If inner court officials had come seeking bribes and the local authorities had resolutely refused, that would naturally have been a tale of integrity worthy of praise. But to be singled out and made an example of by an inner court official precisely because they deliberately delayed crucial city defense repairs – that was utterly preposterous. If such a story were to spread, people would laugh and question which side truly represented the dignified aristocratic families.

Barely twenty days after Chi Yi’s departure for the front camp, news arrived: the prominent local families had colluded with the chief officials, plotting to murder the Emperor’s envoy. Fortunately, General Song, in his valor, had intervened in time, helping Chi Yi and her company subdue the traitors.

To any discerning eye, this was clearly the outcome of a power struggle between the local forces and the central authority. The charge of treason was too severe; relatives and associates of those implicated naturally submitted memorials to defend them. Beyond the court, they also accused the Song clan of colluding with the eunuch officials.

The ensuing public outcry was fierce, bound to cause some trouble. Wen Yanran could easily suppress the matter at court, but she could hardly go and argue the case herself. Thus, she summoned Chu Sui.

During this time, Chu Sui remained busy at the Imperial Academy, her heart filled with melancholy – the movable type printing technique had been developed by them at the Emperor’s direction. Although they had maintained strict secrecy, some craftsmen in the service of certain powerful families had managed to reverse-engineer and create their own imitations.

Upon receiving the imperial summons, Chu Sui immediately hurried to the outskirts of the city. She had assumed the Emperor wished to discuss the matter of book printing with her. Who would have thought –

Inside the Gui Palace, the young emperor, dressed in light summer attire, smiled at her. “We are aware of your talent for writing, Minister Chu.”

“…”

Her smile involuntarily reminded Chu Sui of that infamous denunciatory essay.

In truth, the Emperor did not bring up the old affair from the pacification of the Eastern territories. After Hengping County had fallen, the court had formally restored Chu Sui’s reputation. Yet, in the public discourse of the time, she was still widely regarded as the true author of that essay which had denounced the Emperor from the East.

Wen Yanran said with an air of solemnity, “We have heard that there are those in the city who frequently discuss court affairs. You, Minister Chu, are also young. There is no need to remain cooped up at home. In your leisure time, you might wish to engage more with others.”

Chu Sui clasped her hands in resignation, understanding the Emperor’s intent – let public opinion be settled by public discourse. Recently, whenever she had free time, she would need to go into the city and engage in debates.

To gain the upper hand in scholarly arguments, one needed not only erudition but also a personal history that carried weight.

Thus, Chu Sui brought an inherent deterrence effect – regardless of the facts, in the eyes of those around her, she was the formidable figure who had once denounced the emperor and yet continued to thrive to this day.

Due to her work, Chu Sui had formed a close relationship with the Lu clan, who naturally sent their most eloquent members to assist in the debates. Additionally, young officials such as Du Daosi and Gao Changjian also participated. By the time public opinion had gradually subsided, Chi Yi, who had been dispatched to the north to placate Song Nanlou, finally returned to Jianping.

She had departed swiftly and returned without delay. Originally, Chi Yi had hurried back in order to arrive in time for the Emperor’s birthday this year. However, when she was only halfway through her journey, she received news of an imperial decree – the Sovereign had declared that henceforth, except for decennial milestones, her birthday was not to be celebrated extravagantly.

Upon first receiving the news, Chi Yi’s reaction mirrored that of many who were unaware of the Emperor’s true nature: The Sovereign must have canceled the birthday banquet to avoid excessive expenditure.

In reality, Wen Yanran had always had little interest in various team-building activities scheduled on non-workdays, especially now that she had just finished the previous phase of overtime work and only desired a peaceful holiday.

Now that Wen Yanran had gradually gathered significant power in her hands, she naturally intended to act according to her own wishes as much as possible. She had the Central Secretariat draft an edict to be sent throughout the realm: except for decennial birthdays, local officials need only send a congratulatory memorial to the capital, thus eliminating all unnecessary social engagements – even when she did turn twenty, Wen Yanran was not worried, as spoilers in the comment section suggested the Great Zhou might not last another five years anyway.

Wen Yanran remained comfortably in the Gui Palace until October before finally returning to the city.

Before going back to the palace, she made a special trip to the city gate to inspect the progress of the wall repairs.

An autumn wind swept through the clouds, and leaves fell from the trees.

Holding onto an attendant’s hand for support, Wen Yanran descended from her carriage and looked up at the city wall.

The wall stretched for nearly two kilometers and was over twenty meters wide. Though not as tall as modern skyscrapers, it possessed a unique sense of massiveness and solemn grandeur.

A mischievous impulse arose in Wen Yanran’s heart. She reached out and knocked twice on the city wall, finding it solid to the touch and producing a dull, muffled sound. She then summoned an official who had been involved in the project to inquire about the principles behind the wall’s construction.

At the time of the construction, the Imperial Household had nominally only played a supporting role, so the person summoned today was naturally a supervisor from the Ministry of Works.

The supervisor from the Ministry of Works bowed and then reported the matters one by one, also mentioning the materials used in the construction.

In modern society, information gets distorted as it is passed through layers; the same was true in ancient times – when Wen Yanran provided the cement formula to the Jingyuan side without additional explanation, the people there automatically assumed that the formula’s origin must be some secret texts stored in the palace. This matter then became known to the artisans in the Imperial Household, and after being passed through layers of transmission, it eventually reached the Ministry of Works.

“…According to the ancient method, white stone and clay are crushed and calcined, then ground together with discarded iron slag. After that, water is added to make a slurry, which is then mixed with sand and gravel to form the wall’s core – it is incomparably solid and sturdy…”

The “white stone” mentioned here refers to limestone, and “wall’s core” means the inner structure of the city wall.

As Wen Yanran listened, a piece of knowledge suddenly flashed through her mind -“Mixing sand, gravel, and cement in a 1:2:3 ratio yields the simplest form of concrete.”

She had indeed disclosed the formula for cement before, but she had absolutely never told anyone how to make concrete. Many years had passed between the maturation of cement technology and the initial emergence of a concrete prototype; it was by no means a skill that could be discovered and developed overnight.

Therefore, the words “according to the ancient method” spoken by the managing official from the Ministry of Works were likely the truth.

Wen Yanran did not know that the old city walls had originally been filled with earth and stones. The craftsmen here, seeking to reduce the trouble of transportation, had thought of utilizing waste materials, thoroughly mixing the cement with the original old materials to form a new core. As for the precise ratios, those were the results of the alchemists at the Jingyuan facility, who had absorbed the Emperor’s research mindset.

Wen Yanran took two steps back and once again surveyed the newly constructed city wall before her. A myriad of emotions welled up inside her – the wisdom of the ancients was truly not to be underestimated. Fortunately, the path she had taken was not the conventional one of a time-traveler focused on driving technological development; otherwise, every time she introduced a new technology, she might receive the reply, “Actually, we already have this sort of thing,” which would easily deal a blow to her professional confidence.