Chapter 132: A Slippery Old Fox (Updated After All — Leave Request Canceled)

The autumn sunlight was bright, but the draft sweeping past the palace walls already carried a deep chill.

Wang Yongguang drew his sleeves together and, following two junior eunuchs, walked unhurriedly along the walled lane within the imperial city.

In the cracks between the gray bricks beneath his feet, a few weeds were faintly visible, swaying gently in the autumn wind — much like his own unsettled state of mind.

The three-day deadline had arrived.

He, Cheng Jiming, and Lu Xiangsheng had each been summoned to enter the palace.

Entering the palace was ordinarily a routine matter, yet today the affair seemed somewhat out of the ordinary.

Wang Yongguang's gaze flicked inadvertently toward the two young eunuchs walking ahead.

In the past, a single eunuch was usually enough to escort a court official into the palace; now there were two.

So much so that the silver he had prepared could not even be slipped to them.

It was not that the money was insufficient, but that he dared not.

And he suspected it was not only he who dared not — the two eunuchs probably dared not either.

In that "Memorial Requesting Rectification of the Inner Palace" posted on the Gate of Accepting Heaven, the contents concerning oversight had been entirely redacted because they touched upon palace secrets.

But what he saw today already revealed the severity of this oversight regime.

The new Emperor had introduced many elegant reforms, yet this one matter alone was enough to glimpse their fundamental character.

Though His Majesty was said to possess the manner of the Han founder, readily offering warm words and a seat, inwardly he was, after all, wholly devoted to the methods of Shen Buhai and Han Fei.

A young Son of Heaven, after all — he had read a few inferior Legalist texts and taken them as holy writ; truly too hasty, too crude, too impatient.

To rush in recklessly at a time like this, one might well not even end up with a fate as good as Zhang Taiyue's.

His thoughts raced; the junior eunuch had already led Wang Yongguang around to the entrance of the Qianqing Hall.

Wang Yongguang glanced over and saw that the great hall was filled with desks and tables, where a large circle of brawny soldiers were scratching their heads and ears, writing furiously.

At a glance, there seemed to be nearly a hundred of them, every face showing difficulty, sweat beading on their foreheads.

This scene was utterly incongruous with the solemn and stately Qianqing Palace, appearing somewhat comical.

What was this new sovereign up to now?

Wang Yongguang's puzzlement deepened, but he dared not ask.

The two junior eunuchs led Wang Yongguang carefully around those soldiers bent over their writing and arrived at the entrance of the Eastern Warm Pavilion on the hall's western side.

Lu Xiangsheng and Cheng Jiming were already there; seeing him arrive, they gave a slight salute with clasped hands.

(Attached image: illustration of the Eastern Warm Pavilion entrance)

One junior eunuch quietly withdrew, while the other went in to announce him. In a moment, he came back out and said, "Minister Wang, please enter; His Majesty is already waiting."

Wang Yongguang drew a deep breath, expelled all the stale air from his chest, and stepped into the warm pavilion.

He knew the test had begun.

Inside the Eastern Warm Pavilion, although the Son of Heaven's throne was placed there, it was raised only a single inch and was not as lofty as the one in the great hall.

Zhu Youjian sat upon the throne, the imperial desk before him. The routine memorials on it were affixed with strips of blue, red, yellow, green, and white, sorted by category in perfect order. Gao Shiming and Wang Tiqian stood in attendance to his left and right.

"Your subject, Wang Yongguang, pays homage to Your Majesty. Long live His Majesty, for ten thousand years, ten thousand times ten thousand years."

Wang Yongguang kowtowed in audience, his voice resonant, his bearing deeply respectful.

"Rise," Zhu Youjian said, his voice carrying the clarity of a youth.

He gestured with his hand, indicating the brocade stool before the imperial desk, and said warmly, "Minister Wang, you are advanced in years — sit and speak."

Wang Yongguang sneered inwardly. Here it came — the so-called manner of the Han founder.

He carefully seated himself on the brocade stool and raised his head, yet he still sat a head lower than the Emperor.

This made him slightly uncomfortable; being granted a seat did not seem much more comfortable than standing to reply.

Zhu Youjian inquired solicitously about the hardships of Wang Yongguang's journey to the capital and the state of his health, his words brimming with concern.

Wang Yongguang knew, however, that these were merely opening remarks. The true blade would soon be unsheathed.

Sure enough, Zhu Youjian finally cut to the heart of the matter and asked directly, "Minister Wang, do you believe that this realm, as it stands today, requires the rectification of abuses?"

Wang Yongguang thought to himself, "Here it comes."

Well prepared, he replied unhurriedly, "In response to Your Majesty: since the founding of our dynasty, when have military campaigns ever been absent? Yet never has there been a campaign so protracted, so costly in provisions, and so difficult to bring to success as the eastern affair."

He paused, his tone grave: "From a single glimpse one may see the whole leopard; the state of the realm can be seen in this one matter. As for rectifying abuses, it truly brooks no delay."

Zhu Youjian nodded, his face betraying neither pleasure nor displeasure.

He continued, "The realm's many abuses are numerous and tangled. Where should one begin? Does Minister Wang have guidance for me?"

Wang Yongguang knew this was precisely the question hotly debated in the streets and alleys these past few days — where exactly did the Great Ming's problems lie?

Fortunately, he had also prepared a draft in his mind for this question.

What he would say would be neither too deep nor too shallow.

Wang Yongguang replied, "This subject believes that the realm's decay begins first and foremost in matters of personnel."

"Personnel means, first, the selection of men by the Ministry of Personnel, and second, the oversight and discipline of men by the Censorate. If we grasp these two points, select the worthy and employ the capable, then the realm's abuses will resolve themselves."

Zhu Youjian waited a moment, but Wang Yongguang did not continue speaking.

Zhu Youjian could not help raising an eyebrow.

What?

Was that it?

The reasoning was logically impeccable, but it did not match Wang Yongguang's caliber.

Unable to fathom his intent for the moment, Zhu Youjian simply followed the thread and pressed further: "Personnel has abuses such as negligence, corruption, factionalism, and incompetence. Which of these does Minister Wang consider the most critical?"

Wang Yongguang drew a deep breath, hesitating inwardly for a brief moment.

In the end, he resolved to stick to the decision he had made before receiving the summons to the capital.

— Better to place one's bet late than to place it wrong.

Wang Yongguang gathered his thoughts, and quickly produced a polished piece of rhetoric:

"To answer Your Majesty, these four ills are in fact one whole, each the other's face and lining."

"The incompetent easily form cliques; the cliquish are often corrupt; the corrupt inevitably neglect governance."

"Tracing it to the root, the crux still lies in the use of personnel. Employ one worthy man, and all four ills vanish; employ one unworthy man, and the four ills proliferate."

"Therefore this subject believes the foremost task is not to debate the sequence of these four ills, but to strengthen the foundation and purify the source — strictly enforce selection, rectify the disciplinary apparatus. Let the capable rise, the mediocre fall, let laws be clear, and the ills will eliminate themselves."

The question had been impromptu, the answer hurried, yet the phrasing was not without polish.

A pity it still gave no answer — it merely skirted the weighty issues and circled back to the starting point.

Zhu Youjian now saw it clearly. He could not help but look intently at Wang Yongguang.

Wang Yongguang's hands hung at his sides, his eyelids lowered; the hair at the temples beneath his black gauze cap was already streaked with grey. The skin of his face was somewhat slack, a few faint age spots emerging, the crow's feet at the corners of his eyes very pronounced.

Zhu Youjian did not reply, only watched him in silence, tapping his fingers against the tabletop as he did so.

The warm pavilion sank at once into an indescribable silence, broken only by that rhythmic tapping — once, and again.

Wang Yongguang lowered his head and pressed his lips together, yet a thread of unease could not help but rise in his heart.

At last, Zhu Youjian's fingers stopped. He opened his mouth and asked, "Minister Wang, what you have said is very fine. Now We have only one final question."

He paused, leaned his body slightly forward, and asked, word by deliberate word: "When Our Imperial Brother was on the throne, he decreed the proscription and destruction of all academies throughout the realm. What is Minister Wang's view on this matter?"

Wang Yongguang's heart seized.

In the earlier exchange on the ills of personnel, he had been unwilling to commit himself, evading the weighty and grasping at the light. The Emperor had not yet shown anger, but that gradually vanishing smile and this suffocating silence were already a wordless warning.

He had already sensed the Emperor's displeasure.

This young Son of Heaven did not need safe, impeccably balanced old-counselor platitudes — he needed a clear-cut, banner-waving "stance."

He had originally wanted to wait a little longer, to see things a little more clearly.

But now it seemed that if he made no declaration at all, he would likely not even be allowed a seat at the table.

What right has a man who dares not even place a bet to claim a share of the stakes in the game to come?

When that time comes, it will not be a question of betting wrong, but of having no chance to bet at all.

From the corner of his eye, Wang Yongguang caught a glimpse of that young, utterly expressionless face upon the imperial dais.

He could feel what kind of will, brooking no doubt, lay beneath that seemingly calm gaze.

So be it.

Wang Yongguang let out a sigh in his heart, all but inaudible.

Since there was no retreat, he could only choose the lesser of two harms.

With the new sovereign so impatient, the civil service and the land tax would certainly be touched; judging by the discussions of these past two days, perhaps even the Cheng-Zhu School of Principle would be shaken up a little.

Any one of these was a matter that could easily draw the condemnation of a thousand pointing fingers — and compared to them, the matter of the academies was a minor affair after all.

After all, Wei Zhongxian had already proscribed them for three years. If he now carried on the same, what more could come of it?

Moreover, he truly bore no goodwill toward those scholars of the Donglin faction, who made a pose of moral remonstrance while practicing factional persecution.

That being the case, why not go with the current?

In a flash of lightning, Wang Yongguang had made his decision.

His originally lowered eyelids lifted slightly; the hesitation in his gaze was swept clean away, replaced by a look of resolution.

He replied: "To answer Your Majesty, the academies, under the name of lecturing, in fact form cliques and factions, with masters and disciples aiding one another, persecuting those who differ — they are truly the wellspring of the corruption of scholarly mores. This subject believes they should be proscribed."

It was only after Wang Yongguang had withdrawn from the warm pavilion that the smile on Zhu Youjian's face finally vanished entirely.

He pondered in silence for a moment, his gaze sweeping over Gao Shiming and Wang Tiqian. Suddenly he asked, "What do you two make of this?"

Gao Shiming stepped forward with a smile, cupped his hands, and said, "To answer Your Majesty, this Minister Wang seems somewhat slippery. Between his words, much was held in reserve."

Wang Tiqian was more direct. His narrow eyes glinted with a baleful light, and his tone carried a trace of contempt: "This man Wang Yongguang, toward Your Majesty's new policies, is clearly resistant in his heart and unwilling to participate."

Zhu Youjian nodded, saying nothing. He merely picked up Wang Yongguang's personnel dossier from the imperial desk and read it through once more.

The Directorate of Ceremonial's overhaul of the official personnel dossiers had been undergoing continuous iterative refinement.

At first they contained only native place, examination background, official posts, a summary, and some supplementary information added by the Eastern Depot.

After that all-nighter he had pulled during the Sun Chengzong Liaodong affair, Gao Shiming had simply requested orders to add each man's past memorials one by one as well.

The dossiers went from a slim volume to a "weighty volume."

Zhu Youjian had even provided some indexing and collation methods from later-era libraries for this purpose, urging that all memorials from the Wanli era onward be reorganized, tagged, and archived.

One order sent down, and it threw the ordinarily idle Office of Transmission into a great flurry of overtime — and to this day only a small portion had been completed.

Wang Yongguang Personnel Dossier — Last Updated: Eleventh Day, Ninth Month, Seventh Year of Tianqi

Wang Yongguang, jinshi of the twentieth year of Wanli.

This man belongs neither to the eunuch faction nor to the Donglin. Judging by his past conduct, the words "forceful and baleful" suit him well enough.

Add to that thirty years in office, with ample experience in the rough-and-tumble substantive posts of every ministry.

He had originally been Zhu Youjian's chosen candidate for Minister of War, and a key locomotive for the next round of new policies.

Just how forceful was this man?

Set aside the Battle of Ningyuan.

Take the matter of the great Wanggong Arsenal explosion alone — he had dared to use it as a portent of heavenly change and submit a direct remonstrance.

Within it, the passage — "Since the various ministers submitted their sealed memorials, apart from suspending punishments and abolishing taxes, in the end no favor has been exempted, no person shown leniency; all has been answered with the three words 'We have taken note.' To consign it to ignorance still leaves hope for a day of repentance; but to know and not change — when shall the time of respite and revival ever come?" — was more unyielding than anything.

And yet, this very "hard-necked magistrate" had today handed him such an answer!

— No initiative, no participation, no choosing of sides.

One could only say it was fortunate that Zhu Youjian still retained the habit of later ages: in appointing officials he did not heed recommendations, did not rely solely on résumés, but always insisted on a face-to-face interview to make the final call.

Otherwise, had this slippery old greaseball actually been pushed into the post, he would likely have had to play a fine bout of shadowboxing with him.

Only, he did not know what reason this old greaseball had for making such a decision...

Is it that you fear I cannot weather the storm? Or that you are getting on in years and simply do not want to get involved?

Or something sharper still — that you have glimpsed the direction of my new policies from these early signs, and chosen to keep your head down and protect yourself?

None of that matters now. If you do not commit fully, you are sitting on the fence. And sitting on the fence makes you a latent opponent.

The new policies can manage perfectly well without the services of one such as you.

Zhu Youjian weighed the matter in his mind for a moment; his decision was already made.

He spoke. "Gao Shiming, two matters."

Gao Shiming stepped forward and cupped his hands, awaiting orders.

Zhu Youjian said:

"First."

"Wen Tiren, Minister of Rites in Nanjing, has been summoned to the capital by decree. I intend to employ him in another capacity."

"That will leave the post of Nanjing Minister of Rites vacant. Have the Grand Secretaries and the Nine Chief Ministers jointly recommend several candidates."

He paused, then added: "Dispatch a supplementary secret memorial on this. Have Yang Jingchen exert his influence to push this Wang Yongguang into the pool of candidates."

Gao Shiming nodded in acknowledgment.

Since his enthronement, Zhu Youjian had issued multiple direct palace edicts for appointments, including Sun Chengzong, Xue Guoguan, Zhang Zibing, and others.

But that did not mean he intended to make every appointment through direct palace edicts.

Under the current political system, a direct palace edict, in a certain sense, eroded the Emperor's prestige.

Therefore, he resorted to direct palace edicts only for the most certain and most critical appointments.

On the one hand, this was for speed; on the other, it was to bind himself to these candidates, so that he might share in their achievements and thereby offset the prestige lost through the edicts.

Appointments and removals by direct palace edict had to maintain as high an accuracy rate as possible, so that the authority of such edicts could gradually be magnified later.

Wang Yongguang?

He was not yet worthy of a direct palace edict.

The academies of the southern regions, shut down and destroyed during the Tianqi years, would surely spring back to life now that the pressure of the secret-police state had eased a little.

Let Wang Yongguang, who had no love for the Donglin, go and suppress them in that nest of wolves for a while.

Slackers have their uses too. In this Great Ming, no one escapes being squeezed dry by him!

Wang Yongguang was one such case, and other latent slackers even more so.

Zhu Youjian picked up a thick routine memorial from his desk, tapped it against his left hand, hesitated a moment, and in the end steeled his resolve.

I never expected that before Li Banghua arrived, I would get you two first.

Very well, I shall give you this opportunity. Let us see just what your talent and courage amount to!

Zhu Youjian continued:

"Second."

"Issue secret-memorial dispatch boxes to Vice Minister of War Huo Weihua and Chief Supervising Secretary of the Ministry of Personnel Yang Suoxiu. Order them that all future iterative updates concerning this memorial are to be submitted via secret memorials, and no longer sent through the Office of Transmission."

Zhu Youjian turned to Wang Tiqian and handed him the memorial. "All Eastern Depot personnel and intelligence are to coordinate with those two. Have them refine this document thoroughly."

"I am giving them another half-month. They must do the work deeply and thoroughly, but without alarming any of the parties involved."

Wang Tiqian took it. The title on the memorial met his eyes.

— Memorial Requesting the Reorganization of the Capital Camps

Wang Tiqian's eyes lit up, and he let out a long breath of relief deep inside. The anxiety that had tormented him for three days eased a little.

At last, a new assignment! And by the look of it, a big one, a good one!

Setting everything else aside, just thoroughly sifting through the assets and dealings of the ennobled families and military officers would likely yield a mountain of merit.

Wang Tiqian cupped his hands and accepted the order. "This slave will certainly investigate the matter with absolute clarity — like spring rain seeping into the night, moistening all things silently, without stirring the slightest ripple."

Zhu Youjian nodded, reviewed the plan once more to confirm nothing had been overlooked, and then said, "Good. Summon Cheng Jiming in."

Why Wang Yongguang, Cheng Jiming, and Lu Xiangsheng in that order?

For no other reason than to respect seniority.

If he followed his own inclination, Zhu Youjian would of course have wished to see Lu Xiangsheng first, but that would have been tantamount to an insult to the other two veteran ministers.

No matter. A fine wine only reveals its full flavor once it has been gently warmed.