Wen Yanran remained at Gui Palace until autumn.
By then, the summer heat had eased from its peak intensity. The Imperial Academy submitted a memorial requesting the recruitment of craftsmen to repair the buildings, proposing that the students currently residing there be temporarily relocated to vacant royal villas on the outskirts of the capital.
In the final years of Emperor Li’s reign, the Imperial Academy had housed no more than a thousand students; now the number had quintupled.
The students were moved in groups to the outskirts, settling into old villas originally constructed during Emperor Si’s reign. This place was formerly known as Shangqiu Palace, but had gradually fallen into disrepair over the years. Once, when Wen Yanran rode past on horseback, her curiosity led her to explore the grounds. She found the courtyard weeds towering above a man’s height, and even saw common folk gathering wild vegetables there. She promptly renamed it Caihuo Palace and ordered the Imperial Household to carry out basic maintenance.
The grand halls of the Great Zhou were known for their expansive layouts, occupying vast areas of land – now they were perfectly suited to accommodate the Imperial Academy students.
Within Caihuo Palace, there were nearly eight hundred vacant rooms. By housing seven or eight students per room in modest quarters, there was enough space to accommodate them all.
One of the Imperial Academy students remarked, “Looking at it from the outside, it really does show its age.”
Another added, “I heard that the badly damaged areas have been newly renovated, though I wonder if they’re sturdy enough.”
They reached out to knock on the surface, only to find the sound muffled, as if what they were touching was a massive, solid boulder.
A young man carrying a book case set his things down and said, “I asked the Caihuo Steward about it. He said the new walls in the villa are all plastered with cement.”
Ever since the walls of Jianping were rebuilt, cement had gradually become widely known.
The Imperial Academy students exchanged a few remarks, caught between curiosity and disappointment.
By the standards of scholarly taste, Caihuo Palace was neither unpleasant to look at nor particularly elegant.
“Our quarters here are old halls that have been reinforced. There’s a row at the back that was supposedly built earlier this year – shall we go take a look?”
As the students wandered about Caihuo Palace, they eventually realized that not only did the original old halls lack ornamentation, but the newly constructed buildings were equally plain.
It was said that the craftsmen, following traditional methods, first erected the structural framework before building the walls. And since cement mixed with gravel and crushed stone proved hard enough on its own and unlikely to collapse, they began considering bamboo as a substitute for timber – had the construction process been documented in detail, it might well have prompted the reigning emperor to remark that bamboo-reinforced concrete was yet another instance of ancient wisdom.
With the students relocating to study elsewhere, the Imperial Academy’s erudites naturally had to move their teaching venue as well.
Lu Zhongmao, citing her advanced age and unwillingness to relocate, requested leave and remained at home to recuperate. Thus, most of those who came were young and middle-aged erudites, such as Chu Sui and Chen Zhi, who hailed from the Chen clan of Qing Province.
The crisp autumn air and clear skies were perfect for an outing, so the erudites took the Imperial Academy students to enjoy the autumn scenery in the surrounding area.
By then, most of the crops in the fields had already been harvested, leaving only a few farmers reaping wheat. The students sat cross-legged on the spot, using the farmland as their theme to compose poetry and rhapsodies, lamenting the hardships of the common people.
Chu Sui remarked, “Since you find the plight of the people so distressing, why not try your hand at working in the fields yourselves? I’m sure you’ll gain deeper insights.”
As an erudite of the Imperial Academy, her suggestion left the students with little room to decline. They removed their outer robes and took to the fields, while Chu Sui led by example, picking up a sickle to harvest wheat alongside them.
The Imperial Academy had regulations regarding student attire. On the surface, the young men did not differ much from one another, but once they set foot in the fields and began working, the gap between them immediately became apparent.
Among them, the most skilled were mostly from humble or aristocratic families – yet the most inept were also, in large part, from aristocratic families.
Watching this, Chu Sui found it unsurprising that the Emperor insisted on having these people pass the Talent Selection Examination before being appointed to official posts. The times were indeed in decline, and the number of useless heirs from prestigious clans seemed to grow with each generation.
After an hour of harvesting wheat, Chu Sui let the students rest. One student collapsed onto the ground, fanning himself with his sleeve, then gulped down several mouthfuls of water. Only after catching his breath did he say, “I had long heard that the lives of the common people were hard, but I never imagined it was to this extent!”
The Imperial Academy students buzzed with discussion, and inevitably, the conversation turned once again to the issue of low grain prices harming farmers.
Chu Sui said, “Since you have your doubts, go and ask the local farmers yourselves.”
A young scholar from a humble but respectable family, dressed in hemp clothing, rose and first bowed to Chu Sui before approaching an elderly man weaving baskets by the field to make inquiries.
Because the Imperial Academy students had already spent an hour harvesting wheat, the local farmers did not view them with much apprehension, and the two began conversing smoothly.
“The price of grain has fallen this year. Has your household suffered any loss from this, village head?”
The old farmer looked puzzled. “Why would we suffer any loss?” Then, after a moment’s thought, he seemed to grasp what the young man meant. Smiling, he said, “True, grain prices have dropped, but the price of salt has fallen quite a bit too. What a household really needs to trade wheat for is nothing more than coarse salt or simple pottery. These days, we have enough to eat and enough salt to season our food – it’s already far better than in years past. Even if market prices have gone down, how could that possibly harm us?”
The Imperial Academy student bowed respectfully. “Thank you for clearing up my confusion.”
In this era, the circulation of goods was actually very limited. Most exchanges occurred only between people from the same village or region. Of the grain harvested each year, after setting aside what needed to be paid as taxes, what the family kept for its own use, and what was used to trade for daily necessities, little remained.
Someone asked in confusion, “Since they are farming families, don’t they need to buy farming tools?”
The old farmer shook his head. “Farming tools – why would we need to buy them every year? Take this sickle beside me, for example. It was passed down from my grandmother. We just take it to be sharpened year after year.”
It was only then that Chu Sui spoke up. “In truth, the Sovereign understands these principles, and the ministers at court understand them as well. Bringing you here today to see this for yourselves is my hope that you will come to understand them soon, too.”
The Imperial Academy students rose together, bowed to their teacher, and expressed their gratitude for the lesson.
Young people of their age, though prone to falling into misconceptions, were equally capable of finding their way out of them.
By evening, it was too late to rush back to Caihuo Palace to prepare a meal, so the Imperial Academy students decided to stay and have dinner together with the local farmers.
Farmers’ meals were mostly made from wheat and beans, and the rice they hulled was not as finely processed as that at the Imperial Academy – there was a fair amount of chaff mixed in. As a result, the students ate with unusual delicacy. What surprised them, however, was that there was meat on the table.
It was not poultry raised by the farmers themselves, but pheasants caught in the nearby mountains and forests, along with various freshwater fish from the lake.
The area was not far from Caihuo Palace, and the surrounding mountains, forests, and lakes were mostly royal properties. In the previous reign, an imperial edict had forbidden commoners from entering freely. It was only in the past two years that Chi Yi and Zhang Luo, both Cavalier Attendants-in-Ordinary, submitted a memorial requesting that the Emperor follow established precedent by opening the royal parks and lakes to the public for a few months each year, allowing commoners to hunt and fish – provided the amount they took out each time did not exceed a certain weight, in which case no taxes would be levied.
The Imperial Academy students gradually came to realize that, in the eyes of these farmers, the imperial attendants were held in fairly decent regard.
The old farmer shook his head and said with a smile, “What does it matter to me what backgrounds the ministers at court come from? As long as we have enough to eat and warm clothes to wear, that’s all that matters.”
Several of the young men felt a surge of indignation upon hearing this, but mindful not to be rude to an elder, they restrained themselves and held their tongues. It was only after they had returned that they said to their fellow students, “Those imperial attendants are merely trying to win the people’s favor! How infuriating that the common folk are so easily deceived by them.”
Had these words reached Wen Yanran’s ears, she would likely have deemed the speaker to possess the same uncanny foresight as Zhang Bingshan. After all, her decision back then to grant this request – one hardly befitting a tyrannical ruler – had been precisely for the purpose of helping her two future eunuch confidants curry popular support.
Just then, the erudite who had come to make his rounds deliberately made his footsteps heavier. Several students rose and bowed in greeting: “Erudite Chen.”
Chen Zhi cast a glance over them and said with a solemn expression, “Since you take issue with the Sovereign employing imperial attendants, you must do better than them. Only then can Her Majesty rely on you, and the common people as well. Only then can you righteously criticize others. Otherwise, you will risk being dismissed as petty and narrow-minded.”
His tone was exceptionally sincere. Most of the Imperial Academy students were convinced by his words, and even those who still harbored some doubts lowered their heads and acknowledged his lesson with a respectful “Yes.”
It was late, and not the time for instructing students. After making his rounds, Chen Zhi urged the students to rest promptly – there were only a limited number of night watchmen at Caihuo Palace, and to prevent the risk of fire, the students were asked to avoid lighting lamps as much as possible in the evening, saving their reading for daylight hours.
After checking on the students, Chen Zhi returned to the temporary quarters where the erudites were staying.
Chu Sui was already there. When she saw him enter, she smiled and said, “Erudite Chen, that was a fine suggestion.”
They had long noticed the growing tendency toward ostentation within the Imperial Academy. After discussing the matter, they had agreed to take the students out for manual labor before reasoning with them – hoping it would yield twice the result with half the effort.
Chen Zhi smiled. “It wasn’t my idea – it was Her Majesty’s. To be honest, I once took considerable pride in my family name. The reason I came to understand these principles was because I had previously performed corvée labor at Liubo Canal, and it was through that experience that I gradually recognized how I had overestimated my abilities while lacking true substance.”
In the days when he was still at home, he would engage in lofty discussions with his friends, analyzing the state of the realm. Yet once he fell from favor, the young men of his household were forcibly conscripted and sent to Jianzhou – not to serve as officials or clerks, but to haul stones along the river canals.
When they arrived at Liubo Canal, the invisible divide between aristocratic families, powerful clans, and commoners was forcibly shattered. Chen Zhi and his peers had no choice but to be grounded in reality. Among them, some grew all the more resentful, becoming utterly alienated from the court. For those like Chen Zhi, whose moral principles ran high, the experience gradually gave rise to a set of novel thoughts – ones that might even be called heretical.
Just then, another erudite returned from his rounds, a bundle hanging from his arm as he walked through the door.
Chu Sui smiled. “Were you just coming back, or were you planning to go out?”
The erudite shook his head. “This bundle contains copies of The Landlord that I confiscated from the students.”
The Imperial Academy students had explained to him their reason for secretly playing the board game – after today’s outdoor activities, they had come to realize that they needed to study The Landlord firsthand in order to judge the likelihood of the Emperor being distracted from his duties by idle pastimes.
The next day, when the erudite recounted the incident, several students flushed red, rose to their feet, and bowed. “Sir, please do not mock us. We have indeed gained considerable insight recently!”
The erudite asked, “And what insights might those be?”
The students presented an essay titled On Cultivated Land.
The Imperial Academy student said, “At the start of the game, everyone is equal – each household possesses wealth. Then, as they each claim land, in the end only one household becomes wealthy while the rest are reduced to poverty and destitution.
“This scenario precisely mirrors the situation in which powerful local families and great clans privately hold land. Those who end up destitute in the game become, in the prefectures and counties, invisible households or attached dependents, forced into servitude.”
The erudite asked with a smile, “And how do you propose to resolve this?”
The student replied, “After careful thought, we realized that in The Landlord, there are only great households and commoners – there is no court. So we introduced officials and levied taxes.”
The erudites exchanged glances with one another. “That’s rather interesting,” they remarked.
The student continued, “Yet in doing so, those other than the winner ended up going bankrupt even faster.” Gritting his teeth, he added, “We initially followed the laws of Zhou, collecting taxes based on population. In the end, we switched to taxing land instead, which prolonged the time it took for the losers to go bankrupt.”
Chu Sui nodded. “Taxation is not as simple as it is in a game, but it is no small feat that you have managed to reason this far.”
The Imperial Academy students’ faces flushed with embarrassment – such a simple matter, yet they had failed to grasp it from the start. At first, they had truly treated The Landlord as nothing more than an ordinary game, indulging in its pleasures without giving any deep thought to its underlying significance.
Since the topic had come up, Chu Sui added an extra remark: “As a matter of fact, this game was created by the Sovereign.”
The students suddenly understood. No wonder The Landlord had spread so rapidly through the capital, especially within the Imperial Academy, to the point where nearly everyone owned a copy. So it turned out the Emperor had devised it to enlighten them.
One student asked, “Did Her Majesty tell you this, Erudite Chu?”
Chu Sui smiled. “When I first saw it, I had a feeling it bore the distinct mark of the Emperor’s style. Later, I had the honor of being summoned to the palace and took the opportunity to ask.”
The Imperial Academy students were filled with admiration. Truly, Chu Sui was worthy of being the outstanding talent of the Chu clan – her discernment was indeed remarkable. It seemed her early fame was not solely due to her literary prowess.
The weather grew colder day by day. Gui Palace and Yao Palace had originally been intended only as summer retreats, yet because the Emperor had canceled her annual birthday celebrations and insisted on lingering there, the civil and military officials had likewise delayed their return to the capital well into September and October.
The outskirts were naturally less prosperous than the city, and aside from outings, the officials had few pastimes to occupy their days. Yet during this time, a minor incident occurred while some officials were out on a stroll – several junior clerks who had recently entered the Six Ministries got into a heated argument with some Imperial Academy students passing by while discussing state affairs. The dispute soon escalated into a physical altercation, and in the end, the clerks suffered a bitter defeat.
The City Bureau, familiar with the details, understood that the matter had begun when the clerks criticized the policy of taxing based on land area, arguing that it was inconsistent with the laws of the Great Zhou. Upon hearing this, the Imperial Academy students mocked the clerks’ professional competence, accusing them of “filling their bellies all day while holding office in name only.”
Today, Chi Yi and Zhang Luo were out on business. Xiu Zhui, upon reporting back, tactfully mentioned the altercation between the two sides, choosing to gauge the Emperor’s stance before deciding on further action.
Wen Yanran had once heard the State Preceptor mention that the policies of Emperor Li’s reign had frequently been torn apart by Imperial Academy students as well. Unable to venture out daily to observe the people’s condition firsthand, she found some reassurance in knowing that these students were still so impassioned – it was a sign that she had not strayed from the right course in her tasks. She smiled and said, “They are, after all, just young people. No need to make a fuss over it.”
Xiu Zhui understood – the clerks were indeed quite young and inexperienced. Since there were Imperial Academy students to argue and spar with them, there was no need for the Emperor to concern herself personally.
