Chapter 219: 217: Lawless

Han Chengxuan and Fu Ruwei were off enjoying the mountains and rivers, but Wu Bing, the Jiangxi Director of Education, was working in earnest.

How does one work?

An education commissioner, of course, makes his money by administering examinations!

In the fourth month, the Nanchang prefectural exam was held.

The night before the exam, Wu Bing, as chief examiner, was still inspecting work at the largest pleasure house in the prefectural city.

This gentleman was a dramatist, so visiting a pleasure house naturally counted as an elegant pursuit. He arrived at the top courtesan's room at dusk, his every word and gesture quite proper, exchanging lyrics and songs with the celebrated beauty.

Gradually, warmed by wine and good cheer, Wu Bing and the courtesan sat closer and closer.

The two embraced, feeding each other small cups of wine as they leafed through the illustrated edition of The Great Unity Heroines.

"I hear that Pan Saisai, the Star of Subtle Wisdom, performs opera at the peasant association outside Nanchang County?" Wu Bing suddenly inquired.

The courtesan, named Li Ruochen, read the exploits of the many Great Unity heroines, her heart swelling with boundless yearning and admiration. Yet she could only force a smile and say, "A woman of the pleasure quarters like me — how would I know the whereabouts of the Great Unity heroines? If the gentleman is so inclined, he may seek out Miss Pan in the countryside himself."

Wu Bing sighed. "I would like to go, but I fear those unruly folk might kill officials and rebel."

Li Ruochen laughed. "If the gentleman does not provoke them, why would unruly folk kill an official?"

"True enough."

Wu Bing's heart suddenly grew heated. He resolved that once he returned from presiding over exams in the various prefectures, he would go meet that Pan Saisai, the Star of Subtle Wisdom. Surely, with his talent and open-handed generosity, he would win Lady Pan's favor. She might even break from the rebels and be taken into his household as a concubine.

No, he could not take her into his household!

If she broke from the rebels to become a concubine, Lady Pan would no longer be the Star of Subtle Wisdom — and what pleasure would there be in that dalliance?

Wu Bing not only loved reciting poetry and singing opera but was also fond of reading martial-arts novels.

The Green Peony tells the love story of Luo Hongxun, son of a military family, and the gallant swordswoman Hua Bilian during the reign of Wu Zetian. Wu Bing had already adapted this novel for the stage.

There was also The Legend of the Eagle-Shooting Hero, which had swept through Jiangnan, and Wu Bing was in the midst of adapting it. He was particularly fond of the swordswoman Huang Rong — not only a gallant heroine but also a clever, talented woman, the very image of a white lotus in the hearts of scholars.

When he arrived in Jiangxi to take up his post early in the year and read that volume The Great Unity Heroines, his first reaction was as if he had discovered a treasure.

He harbored a wish: during his tenure in Jiangxi, to seek out all one hundred and eight Great Unity heroines and become good friends with each of those "gallant women of the rivers and lakes."

According to the History of Ming and the Imperially Commissioned Record of Martyred Officials of the Vanquished Dynasty, both compiled under the Qing, Wu Bing died a martyr by suicide, starving himself to death after seven days.

But in histories compiled by Ming loyalists, Wu Bing surrendered to the Manchu Qing and died of dysentery not long after. Moreover, Qu Gongmei, a kinsman of Wu Bing's close friend, explicitly records his surrender to the Qing in The Record of Flickering Flames.

Which account is more reliable, readers may judge for themselves.

After a bout of pleasure, Wu Bing strolled out of the pleasure house and, in the middle of the night, took a sedan chair to the examination hall. He was thoroughly drunk, a copy of The Great Unity Heroines still tucked at his waist. Only when he reached the street where the hall stood did he sense something was very wrong.

Normally, the Nanchang prefectural exam drew at least several thousand candidates and had to be administered in rotation by county.

Why, then, did this lane seem to hold only a few hundred candidates?

Yawning, Wu Bing slipped in quietly through a side gate, careful not to let the candidates spot him. By rule, not only he himself but also the accompanying clerks had to enter the examination compound in advance, to prevent any mischief before the exam.

Once he had sneaked inside, Wu Bing, reeking of alcohol, summoned the prefectural clerk. "How many candidates are there for the Nanchang prefectural exam this year?"

"Eight hundred and twenty-seven," the clerk replied.

Wu Bing said in alarm, "Why so few?"

"Ah!"

The clerk heaved a sigh, too weary even to answer the question.

For schoolchildren and child students to sit the prefectural exam, they first had to register with the county magistrate, and then the county school instructor would organize their dispatch to the exam.

Now, every county magistrate in Nanchang Prefecture was merely going through the motions, and the instructors appointed by the court were doing the same. If it were the juren exam, that might be different — there was at least a chance to become a jinshi and leave Jiangxi. But what was the point of taking the prefectural exam to become a xiucai? Even if one passed, before they could ever sit for the juren exam, Jiangxi would long since have changed its ruling house.

Taking the exam was a waste of effort; they were better off studying on their own from the elementary-school textbooks Zhao Han had distributed.

By now, the reformed elementary- and middle-school textbooks had all been printed. They quickly sparked a rush of purchases among the literati. Too embarrassed to actually attend elementary school, they found studying the books at home on their own quite acceptable.

Self-study was not difficult, in any case — only some mathematics and Great Unity thought had been added; the rest of the knowledge they had long since mastered.

Wu Bing sat behind the screen, sighing in despair. If the students refused to take the exam, how was he supposed to make money?

At first light, the examination questions were distributed.

But then the candidates, as one body, walked out of the examination sheds, went before the screen, and knelt together.

A candidate representative cried out, "Director of Education, hear our plea! The rebel Zhao of Luling dishonors the sages, promoting that so-called mathematics in every county. This mathematics is not the arithmetic of our Great Ming but the script of barbarians — truly, it is forgetting one's ancestors and replacing the Chinese with the foreign. We, the scholars of Nanchang, have jointly signed a memorial, and beg the Director of Education to forward it to the court so it may reach the imperial ear."

"We beseech the Director of Education to take up our cause!" Over eight hundred scholars knocked their heads to the ground in unison.

Wu Bing said, "Hand over the memorial, and go back to your examination."

"Our thanks to the Director of Education."

Seeing that Wu Bing had accepted the memorial, the candidates finally returned to the examination sheds.

Tossing the memorial aside, Wu Bing lay down on his stomach to sleep. He had been up most of the night, was exhausted from drink, and could sleep soundly while the students took their exam.

As for a memorial to the Emperor?

If juren jointly signed a memorial, that might perhaps stir a ripple. But these eight hundred scholars before him had not even passed the xiucai exam — they were here today precisely to sit for it.

"Director of Education! Director of Education!"

After who knows how long he had slept, a clerk quietly roused Wu Bing. "A candidate has handed in his paper. Shall an oral interview be granted?"

In the Ming dynasty, the prefectural exam consisted of only one session, far more relaxed than the Qing-dynasty prefectural exam. If the chief examiner was in a good mood, he could even conduct an on-the-spot oral interview and admit the candidate then and there.

Wu Bing sat up, yawning, still longing for sleep. "Let them all go home once they finish," he said. "Do not disturb my quiet contemplation of learning."

Given the wretched state of Jiangxi, Wu Bing had already decided to smash the pot if it was already cracked.

The day the rebel Zhao dared to march out and seize Nanchang City, he, Wu Bing, would dare to join the rebels on the spot and happily become colleagues with the Great Unity heroines.

Of course, it would be even better if he could leave Jiangxi sooner — and when he did, he would certainly impeach Xiong Wencan!

Wu Bing had a personal grudge against Xiong Wencan. After Xiong Wencan was defeated in his campaign against Liu Xiang, he sought to confiscate the goods of foreign merchants — including Dutch, Portuguese, Japanese, and others — to make up his losses. He instructed Wu Bing to fabricate charges against the merchants. At the time, Wu Bing was serving as Prefect of Fuzhou and immediately rebuffed him, saying, "To kill men to curry favor — I cannot bear to do it."

He spoke with righteous grandeur, but it was really a matter of interest: Wu Bing still relied on those foreign merchants to line his own pockets!

Because of this affair, Wu Bing was continually suppressed by Xiong Wencan, forced to report illness and return to his hometown, where he devoted himself to writing dramas.

His restoration to office this year was thanks entirely to Chongzhen's revival of the recommendation system; Wu Bing had been recommended for reappointment.

Over the next few days, Wu Bing kept waiting for people to bring him money. He received over two hundred taels in total, and seeing that he could squeeze out no more, he could only lament the decline of public morals — even Jiangxi examination candidates showed no enthusiasm for bribery and cheating.

After skimming the papers and posting the results, Wu Bing gave himself a pep talk and decided to go first to the prefectures of Jiujiang, Nankang, Raozhou, and Guangxin. None of those places were the rebel Zhao's territory, so presumably he could rake in more; he must not give up on himself at this critical moment.

Keep it up, Wu Bing, you can do it!

Setting out from his official residence by sedan chair, Wu Bing intended to go first to Nankang Prefecture. He had just turned a street corner when he was blocked.

Wu Bing lifted the sedan curtain to look and saw countless commoners holding clubs and staves. Terrified, he immediately shouted, "Set the chair down, set it down — the rebels are attacking!"

The sedan bearers had no idea what was going on, but hearing Wu Bing yell like that, they instantly dropped the sedan and fled without a trace.

Wu Bing was thrown hard, battered and dazed. He scrambled out of the official sedan in a sorry state and was just weighing whether to run or surrender to the rebels when he realized those "rebels" had not charged over at all.

Wu Bing hid far away, steeled his nerve to watch, and soon breathed a sigh of relief.

It was the residence of the Jiangxi garrison eunuch, surrounded on all sides by a mob of small townsfolk. The crowd combined their strength to ram the main gate, and after a sustained effort, they finally broke it open.

"Kill the dog eunuch!"

"Guard the walls on all sides — don't let the eunuch climb over and escape!"

"Kill!"

"..."

Before long, the Jiangxi garrison eunuch, Wang Yongzhong, was seized and dragged out by these small townsfolk.

Wang Yongzhong had already wet his pants in terror. Tears and snot streaming down his face, he pleaded, "Spare me, good men, spare me!"

A peddler grabbed the eunuch by his clothes and demanded, "Do you still dare to levy taxes recklessly?"

Wang Yongzhong was limp all over. He promised repeatedly, "I dare not, I dare not, never again. Spare me, all you good men, I will absolutely never dare to collect them again."

"Don't believe this bastard's lying words. If we let him go today, he'll certainly take revenge later."

"Kill the eunuch — the officials won't dare do anything."

"Exactly. This Nanchang is Mr. Zhao's territory. A eunuch sent by the dog Emperor — kill him and be done with it!"

"Beat him to death!"

"Beat him to death!"

"..."

With the crowd's passions inflamed, the people on the outer edges pushed hard to squeeze inward, and the people on the inner edges instinctively began striking.

No one knew how long the beating had gone on when runners from the Provincial Surveillance Commission and the Nanchang Prefecture arrived.

But facing such a scene, those runners dared not intervene, afraid the unruly mob would turn and beat them instead. They could only stand far off and shout, "Stop beating him, stop beating him — murder means losing your head!"

The commoners paid the runners no heed at all. Only a few of the timid ones, frightened, slipped quietly away.

"The eunuch's dead — clear out now."

"Aiyo, don't shove — who stepped on my hand!"

"..."

No one knew how much time passed before the crowd finally dispersed, leaving only a corpse beaten beyond recognition lying in the street.

Wu Bing mustered his courage and went over to look, then immediately covered his face and turned away. The eunuch's death was too gruesome. Wu Bing's legs went weak, his mind went blank, and he only regained a little clarity after running back to his own lodgings.

Either quickly spend silver to get himself transferred, or just be a muddle-headed official in Jiangxi — Wu Bing could no longer entertain a third thought.

Xiong Wencan, along with the three provincial offices of Jiangxi and the Prefect of Nanchang, arrived at the scene one after another. Seeing the eunuch's corpse, none of them had anything to say.

Wu Shiliang, over eighty years old, had just been promoted in place from Right Provincial Administration Commissioner of Jiangxi to Left Provincial Administration Commissioner. The old man sighed and said, "The garrison eunuch Wang Yongzhong, through unbridled extortion, provoked a popular uprising and was beaten to death by merchants and peddlers in a mob. Pick a few ringleaders at random to execute and report it to the imperial court."

"Precisely so," Xiong Wencan nodded.

None of the officials dared object, and they collectively reported the matter "truthfully." As for the ringleaders who beat the eunuch to death, they would simply grab a few condemned prisoners from the jail and execute them.

This Jiangxi — it truly knows neither law nor heaven!

(End of chapter)