Chapter 49: Chivalrous Men? Bandits? Or Heroes?

In the first ten days of the fifth month, the circuit examination results were posted.

Yanshan County produced a total of twenty-one xiucai, and Hanzhu Academy alone accounted for four. The private schools down the mountain did not yield a single one — all came from the academy halfway up the mountain.

Of these four newly minted xiucai, only one bore the surname Fei; the rest were all sons of outside families.

Classes resumed soon after. At the midday meal, a crowd of schoolchildren came swarming in, clustered around Fei Ruyu.

"Which family does this Fei Ruyu belong to?" Zhao Han asked, curious. "I've never even heard of him before, and suddenly he tops the county examination as principal candidate."

Fei Yuanjian sneered. "He's from my second nephew's household. Must have bribed the County Magistrate."

If you place first in the county examination, you are guaranteed to be accepted in the prefectural examination — otherwise the Prefect would be openly snubbing the County Magistrate.

Therefore, bribing the County Magistrate to become principal candidate ensures advancement to child student!

Fei Ruhe also mocked him. "What's he so smug about? He only passed the child-student exam, yet he's swaggering around as if he'd made xiucai."

"How could the xiucai degree be so easy?" Fei Yuanjian began to gossip. "I've heard people say that this year's Jiangxi Education Commissioner is a very famous Confucian scholar. His name is Cai... Cai something or other?"

Xu Ying suddenly cut in. "Cai Maode."

"Right, Cai Maode!" Fei Ruhe joined the discussion. "My father was talking about him a few days ago. This Commissioner Cai is a truly incorrupt official. This year, anyone who tried to cheat on the circuit examination was caught. Those who tried to buy the xiucai degree were all driven away by Commissioner Cai. In the spring, he was invited to lecture at White Deer Grotto Academy. Several thousand scholars came to hear him — the lecture halls couldn't hold them all, so in the end they had to hold open-air lectures for three days."

That impressive?

Zhao Han seemed to have some impression of this, yet also seemed to be hearing it for the first time.

While Zhao Han's table chatted idly, Fei Ruyu had also taken a seat over on his side, surrounded by schoolchildren fawning over him.

"First in the county examination, and I also passed the prefectural examination — it was truly a fluke," Fei Ruyu said, surprisingly modest and low-key. He asked a clansman beside him, "Eighth Brother, how did you manage to pass the prefectural examination?"

The child student addressed as Eighth Brother burst out laughing. "I just scribbled nonsense. All thanks to the fellow sitting next to me."

Fei Ruyu asked, astonished, "The one next to you helped you break open the topic?"

Eighth Brother shook his head, grinning. "Heh heh, the one next to me broke half of it for me."

"Do tell." Fei Ruyu was quite curious.

Eighth Brother himself found it hilarious. "The Prefect is a madman. He set a 'cut-and-paste' topic that left me completely dumbstruck."

Fei Ruyu said, "I know the one — that 'The king is fond of women; the king's minister entrusts his wife and children to his friend.' How did you break open the topic?"

Eighth Brother said, "I just kept muttering 'the king's minister entrusts his wife,' until I annoyed the student next to me. That fellow then said, 'He entrusted them to his friend and not to the king, because the king is fond of women.' I hurriedly copied it down word for word, and that's how I passed the prefectural examination!"

"Ha ha ha ha ha!"

All the schoolchildren roared with laughter.

Xu Ying's expression turned strange. He said in a low voice, "For that man to pass the prefectural examination, he must have bribed the Prefect — or at the very least bribed the Prefect's private secretary."

Zhao Han, meanwhile, exclaimed in amazement, "Is the Jiangxi civil examinations really so difficult that they set this kind of topic even at the prefectural level?"

The Prefect was a complete scoundrel!

He had taken two passages from the "King Hui of Liang" chapter of the Mencius, brutally hacked them apart, and then yoked them together.

The general meaning of the two original passages is: if a ruler can let the common people live well, then being fond of women is nothing shameful — it is merely human nature... A man entrusts his wife and children to a friend while he goes off traveling, and returns to find his wife and children suffering from cold and hunger. How should one deal with such a friend?

And that Eighth Brother's topic-breaking answer was completely off the mark. Its meaning was: the minister did not entrust his wife to the King of Qi, but instead entrusted her to the King of Qi's friend, because the King of Qi is fond of women.

And then, this man was admitted as a child student...

It would be a miracle if no money had changed hands!

After lunch, Fei Ruyu and that Eighth Brother were escorted up the mountain by their little companions.

Even if one failed the xiucai exam, merely becoming a child student was enough to leave the private school at the foot of the mountain and go study at the academy halfway up.

If not for the integrity of Vice Education Commissioner Cai Maode, those two fellows, by slipping money under the table, could probably have directly bought their way to xiucai status!

At this very moment, Cai Maode was drafting a memorial. He intended to impeach the Prefect of Guangxin, charging him with wantonly setting examination questions and deliberately leading candidates into a ditch.

Why set questions wantonly?

By throwing the majority of candidates into confusion and making them all perform disastrously, he could easily guarantee passage for several dozen, without leaving any trace of examination fraud.

After this incident, Zhao Han completely abandoned any thought of the civil examinations.

"Never mind them. Let's go practice martial arts!" Fei Ruhe said cheerfully.

Fei Yuanjian chimed in, "Right, right, martial arts!"

Fei Ruhe picked out a dozen or so schoolchildren from the private school and drilled them in the military formation the teacher had just taught, swaggering with the air of a great general.

The schoolchildren, cowed by his overbearing might and also finding military drill and mock battles amusing, were all full of enthusiasm at first.

But by the second day, half of them were having problems — some had diarrhea, some had caught colds and fevers. In any case, they simply did not show up for drill.

It was just too grueling!

Fei Ruhe flew into a rage. "They dare fool this young master? I'll go beat them to death!"

Zhao Han hurriedly held him back and said with a smile, "If they're unwilling, what good is dragging them here to drill? These people can't be counted on. Let's just practice on our own."

The next several months passed smoothly and without incident.

Zhao Han spent each day reading, practicing martial arts, and studying military texts. His friendship with Xu Ying and the three Feis grew ever closer.

Fei Yuanjian acquired a new study attendant, sent over by Madam Chen. The attendant was named Fei Yu — clever, quick-witted, and quite sensible. And so the three Feis became four.

Zhao Han began to shoot up in height, growing six centimeters in half a year.

That winter, a burly man suddenly arrived at Hanzhu Mountain, followed by two more burly men, one black and one white.

"Fourth Uncle, what brings you back to Yanshan?" Fei Ruhe was beside himself with joy.

Fei Yinggong said, "Matters of family and state!"

Fei Ruhe said, "Fourth Uncle, I've made a few good brothers. In the future, I want to follow your example and roam the land righting wrongs."

"Get me a bowl of water first. I'm dying of thirst," Fei Yinggong said, his mouth parched and tongue dry.

Uncle and nephew went to the dormitory, and Zhao Han was given a start.

One of the attendants this Fourth Uncle had brought with him was unmistakably a black man — a devil-slave sold to China by the Portuguese!

("Devil-slaves are black servant-boys from foreign countries. The wealthy of Guangdong keep many devil-slaves; they possess tremendous strength and can carry several hundred catties. Their speech and desires are incomprehensible, their nature is simple, and they do not run away. They are also called savages. Their color is black as ink, their lips red and teeth white, their hair curly and brown. There are both male and female.")

In the whole of East Asia, the Great Ming was the principal importer of black slaves. The wealthy mostly bought them to guard their homes and compounds, not to till the fields or pick cotton.

The black slave beside Fei Yinggong stood over one meter eighty tall, clearly hand-picked, and had cost an exorbitant sum to purchase.

"My respects, Fourth Uncle!" Zhao Han cupped his hands and bowed.

Fei Ruhe introduced him: "This is the foster son Father adopted, Zhao Han — also called Fei Han."

Fei Yinggong downed a bowl of water in one gulp, nodded to Zhao Han in acknowledgment, and said, "I'm heading up the mountain. Amuse yourself."

Fei Ruhe hurriedly asked, "Fourth Uncle, you haven't been home in years — why rush up the mountain the moment you're back?"

"A disaster has struck," Fei Yinggong said as he walked.

"What sort of disaster?" Fei Ruhe quickly fell in step.

Fei Yinggong said, "The Tartars have broken through the passes. The court is helpless — eight-hundred-li express summons to relieve the throne. Governor Wei is mustering a Jiangxi relief army, and I've come back to Yanshan to raise Fei clan volunteers. Damn it all — not one branch of the Fei clan is willing to relieve the throne. They just fobbed us off with a few taels of silver and called it a war contribution. I've come to the academy to try my luck, see if I can recruit a few men of resolve."

Zhao Han, greatly startled, chased after him and asked, "When did this happen?"

"Just last month," Fei Yinggong said, too impatient to say much to a boy. "No more talk — I must get up the mountain at once!"

Wei Zhaocheng, Governor of Jiangxi — greedy and incompetent though he was — was, in the winter of the second year of Chongzhen, the only provincial governor in the entire south to answer the summons and relieve the throne.

At the very least, his loyalty was commendable!

Watching Fei Yinggong head up the mountain, Zhao Han could not help asking, "What does your Fourth Uncle normally do?"

"A great gallant!" Fei Ruhe said, swelling with pride as if the honor were his own.

In the mid-to-late Ming, as social conflicts intensified, the ideal of the "knight-errant" flourished into a vogue and grew into something misshapen.

For example, Chen Zushou, the Southern Metropolitan Provincial Graduate of the first year of Tianqi, was already keeping gallants in his household by this time. Later, when he became a Director of the Ministry of War, he openly gathered over a thousand stout fellows, all "Gallants of Yuyang." After his death, when someone tried to recruit these gallants, they replied, "We were stirred by righteousness and swore to die for Lord Chen — how could we stoop to fawn upon some civil official?" The gallants wept at his funeral, then scattered.

Another example: Yin Geng, a Military Defense Vice-Commissioner of the Jiajing era, had no money to travel to the capital for the metropolitan examination. He won ten taels of silver by cheating at gambling, bought a broken-down horse, and headed north. Barely a hundred li out, he had acquired a fine horse. By the time he reached the capital, he was laden with money and goods — all gifts from the bandits along his route.

And Liu Tao, Chief Censor of the Left in the Jiajing era: when he was posted to Shandong, the chieftains of the Central Plains bandits flocked to join him and followed him to Jinan Prefecture to take up his post.

Gao Jie, elder brother of Chief Grand Secretary Gao Gong, was a gallant in his youth. Even after passing the provincial exam, he still robbed merchant caravans alongside gangs of bandits. Only after earning his jinshi degree did he finally rein himself in.

Among the disciples and followers of Wang Yangming, great gallants of the rivers and lakes appeared in droves.

In ordinary times these men were grand Confucian scholars, traveling about with their disciples to deliver lectures that always drew crowds so vast the lanes emptied. Bandits and gallants flocked to them, became their disciples, and the grand Confucian scholars transformed overnight into chieftains of gallants.

Cui Chengxiu, foremost of the Five Tigers of the eunuch faction, befriended many gallants while serving as Regional Inspector of Huaiyang. Any bandit arrested locally who could produce two thousand taels of silver, he would release.

The Fei clan's Fourth Young Master, Fei Yinggong, was just such a "Confucian gallant."

The fellow carried the books of the sages with him and roamed everywhere under the pretext of "study tours." At times he sought out renowned masters to pursue learning; at other times he consorted with outlaws to rob and plunder. He had already made a name for himself across the three provinces of Jiangxi, Fujian, and Guangdong, and many local officials treated him with courtesy and respect.

For this relief expedition, he had brought over a hundred bandits and outlaws, already placed under the command of Governor Wei Zhaocheng.

When a kingdom nears its end, monsters are sure to appear!

(End of chapter)