Chapter 146: The Great Ming's Problems Today (End) (Bonus chapter for Alliance Leader Fó Xì Mǎ!)

"Luo Yangxing, now it is your turn."

The Emperor's words reignited the atmosphere throughout the great hall.

A restless stirring, like an undercurrent beneath the water, spread silently through the crowd.

Luo Yangxing stepped forward and swept his gaze across the hall.

He wore no armor today, nor did he carry his hammer; he was dressed only in an ordinary red padded military tunic, looking utterly out of place among the sea of vermilion and purple civil officials and nobles — like a rough, unhewn boulder.

The Emperor's words still seemed to echo in his ears.

"Luo Yangxing, you shall go last, as the rear guard."

"Whether this Daily Lecture truly purifies men's hearts or merely skims the surface depends entirely on this final blow of yours."

He drew a deep breath, and a fighting spirit he had never felt before blazed in his chest.

To borrow the Emperor's words...

— He had come to reason with them, and also to interrogate their very hearts!

"Honored ministers," Luo Yangxing began, his voice carrying the resonant power unique to a military man, "aside from the capital's population growth rate, we have in fact conducted another investigation."

"This investigation concerns a conjectured correlation between maternal age and child survival."

At his words, the junior eunuchs on either side stepped forward in unison and turned the screen to the next page.

An even more complex table, densely packed with figures, was presented before everyone.

Luo Yangxing strove to keep his tone steady, but his voice still trembled slightly despite himself, shaken by the truth he was about to reveal.

"In this investigation, we exhausted our manpower and recorded a total of thirty-eight thousand one hundred and eleven birth records from the capital and its surrounding areas. Among them, first-birth data accounts for roughly one-third of the total."

"We took these first-birth records, organized them somewhat, and recorded the mother's age alongside four corresponding data points: difficult labor, premature birth, infant mortality, and healthy delivery."

"After analysis, the result is this table."

He wanted to continue, but the hall had already erupted into a tempest even fiercer than before.

The uproar was more intense than when they had just seen that figure of one hundred ninety-three million five hundred forty thousand.

The population-land problem, though terrifying, still lay nearly a century away.

Even if Sun Chuanting's argument was correct, there were still fifty years left, were there not?

With sovereign and ministers united in heart and utmost effort, it might not be unsolvable.

Even if it could not be solved, that was a matter for decades hence; most of them were already past forty, and their sense of this crisis was not so acute.

Moreover, judging by the new sovereign's every deliberate step and layer-by-layer advance since his ascension, he clearly had a plan long in mind.

Serving a sage ruler, though like keeping company with wolves and tigers, inevitably also filled one's heart with much greater confidence.

But how could this conclusion before them be the same?!

Among the assembled high officials, whose household had not lost several children? Grandchildren?

If the population figure of one hundred ninety million was a Mount Tai pressing on their hearts — suffocating, yet still distant —

then this table before them was a steel needle piercing straight into their hearts!

A pain that strikes at one's own flesh is the most deadly!

"My... my daughter..." An official past fifty, seeing the words "survival rate only thirty percent" next to the "fourteen years old" column on the table, trembled all over and broke down in tears. "She was fourteen when she died in her first childbirth... just fourteen..."

A colleague beside him looked as if struck by lightning and murmured to himself, "No wonder... no wonder! I always thought that in noble houses, the women were delicate and precious, hence the many difficult births. So... so the root of it lies here! It is the age! The age!"

An old pedant even reflexively burst out in rebuke: "Absurd! Utterly absurd! How can such... such women's matters be discussed in Huangji Hall!"

Yet before he finished speaking, he could not help craning his neck, squinting through his aged eyes, desperately trying to make out every figure on the table, all the while muttering, "Can it truly be so? Can it truly be so?"

The clamor nearly lifted the roof off Huangji Hall.

Among the high officials seated there, whose household had not seen a child die young? Whose household had no grandchildren lingering on sickbeds?

These cold numbers stirred the deepest pain and regret in their hearts.

Finally, several Embroidered Uniform Guard lieutenants standing by strode forward, drew the whips at their waists, and lashed them down fiercely against the empty gold-brick floor!

Crack!

Crack!

Crack!

Three crisp, ear-piercing whip cracks, accompanied by the protocol officer's hoarse cry of "Silence!", gradually quieted the seething hall.

Only, everyone's breathing had grown exceedingly ragged.

Luo Yangxing waited until all eyes were focused on him again before continuing, his voice tinged with a trace of hoarseness.

"I presume you have all understood by now."

"According to our investigation, the older the mother, the lower the rates of difficult labor, premature birth, and infant mortality."

"For a child born to a fourteen-year-old, the survival rate is a mere thirty percent."

"At eighteen, the survival rate reaches fifty percent!"

"And by twenty-one, it exceeds sixty percent!"

"If we calculate the average infant survival rate for all recorded first-time mothers, it falls below fifty percent!"

A deathly silence filled the hall.

Luo Yangxing drew a deep breath and suddenly raised his voice.

"However, if that were all, this report would never have appeared in this Huangji Hall!"

"Gentlemen!" His tone grew urgent. "If this knowledge were widely disseminated, so that all people under Heaven understood this truth — delay childbirth by one year, and countless lives are saved!"

"If all mothers under Heaven could delay childbirth by a few years, raising the infant survival rate from under fifty percent to sixty percent..."

"Among the millions of common folk of the Great Ming, how many more lives would be saved each year? How does such life-saving merit compare to building a seven-story pagoda?!"

His gaze blazed, sweeping over the assembly like a blade.

In the eyes of some officials, excitement and fervor had already begun to show.

This is a deed of boundless merit!

Yet Luo Yangxing's next words struck like a basin of ice water, utterly dousing everyone's fervor.

He swept his hand down sharply and barked: "However!"

"If that were truly so, what kind of change would occur in our Great Ming's rate of population growth?"

"And how much time would still remain for our Great Ming?!"

Without waiting for anyone to react, he suddenly waved his hand and gave a final order to the young eunuchs before the screen.

"Tear it down!"

The young eunuchs moved in unison and forcefully tore away that sheet of data.

What had been hidden at the very back — the final page of this entire 'statecraft manifesto' — was at last revealed before everyone's eyes!

It was two red curves moving in entirely different directions.

But at their center, the intersection point representing the limit of what population and land could sustain was nailed viciously into every pupil by a single blood-drenched number.

The life-and-death line of two hundred thirty million people — only forty-four years remained!

Luo Yangxing turned around, faced the soul-drained civil and military officials filling the hall, and spoke one word at a time:

"Gentlemen, our Great Ming does not have ninety years."

"Only… forty-four years remain!"

"Gentlemen! The ruin of the state stands right before our eyes!"

With that, he looked at no one further, merely cupping his hands deeply toward the direction of the imperial throne, then withdrawing back among his four companions.

Within the great hall, one could hear a pin drop.

Those three words — "forty-four years" — struck like a formless sledgehammer upon every heart, smashing all their wishful thinking, all their composure, into dust.

How could it be merely forty-four years? Add to that what Sun Chuanting had said — perhaps ten years? Twenty?

The collapse of heaven itself was right before their eyes!

The assembled civil and military officials wished to refute it, yet knew not where to begin.

Even men as seasoned in household and population administration as Bi Ziyan and Guo Yunhou were inwardly shaken by this.

After a brief deathly silence, an irrepressible stirring, like magma beneath the earth, began to surge through the crowd.

No one spoke aloud, no one whispered in hushed tones, yet from some unknown source, voices gradually gathered and swelled into a chilling, palpable hum.

The atmosphere of the entire hall was oppressive, chaotic, yet carried a strange stillness, as if the end of days had descended.

Amid this suffocating clamor, upon the imperial throne, Zhu Youjian rose to his feet.

The assembled ministers instantly fell silent.

He did not speak, but merely stepped forward, one step at a time, descending the imperial dais.

He walked very slowly, very steadily.

Seeing the Emperor descend, Huang Liji, seated at the very front before the throne, was the first to rise.

Immediately after, Shi Fenglai, Zhang Weixian, Li Guopu… one after another, the nobles and ministers rose from their seats, none daring to remain seated.

This hall full of scarlet and purple robes merely watched him.

Watched this new ruler, a mere seventeen years of age, to see how he would face this blood-drenched, hopeless predicament that he himself had laid bare.

Zhu Youjian stopped before one of the screens, reached out his hand, and let his fingertips gently trace that vivid red curve representing the fate of the Great Ming. For a long moment, he said nothing.

The hall was terrifyingly silent; only the occasional rustle of robes could be heard.

At last, the Emperor spoke.

His voice was very soft, yet it carried clearly into every ear.

"My ministers, the situation may not be as dire as the projection suggests."

Zhu Youjian turned around, his gaze calm as he looked upon them all.

"Childbearing among the common people is a complex matter. Not everyone who learns of this method will wait until eighteen or twenty to bear children. The sixty-percent scenario is, after all, only the most extreme case."

"As for the realm's farmland, the registers record seven hundred million mu, yet no one knows how much land lies beyond the registers. In Northern Zhili and Henan, much wasteland still awaits the plow."

"And in places like Fujian and Jiangxi, the practice of drowning infants has existed since the Song dynasty."

"The common people may not grasp the grand principles debated in these high halls, but they understand this: if they cannot feed a child, they can only end the life of their own flesh and blood with their own hands."

"In a certain sense, this too is a cycle of the natural order."

He swept his gaze across the faces before him and asked softly, "Am I right?"

None of the assembled ministers answered. Some nodded unconsciously, but more of them slowly shook their heads.

Benevolence, as taught by Confucianism, was a conviction carved into their very bones.

However corrupt, however negligent in their duties, however driven by private gain, when faced with this ultimate moral question from the highest ground, none would believe that condoning infanticide could be a true solution.

Zhu Youjian seemed to have anticipated their reaction. He shifted his tone, his voice sinking deeper.

"However — the situation could also be far worse than the projection suggests."

"As Minister Sun has said, a popular uprising in a single corner of the realm can rot away several provinces."

"And the tax collectors in the localities, the military calamities at the frontiers, the famines sent by heaven — no one knows when the final straw will be laid upon the camel's back."

At this, a meaningful smile suddenly tugged at the corner of his mouth. "My beloved ministers would not truly believe that calamities sent by heaven are caused by the sovereign's lack of virtue, would you?"

Lai Zongdao, the Minister of Rites standing in the front row, moved his lips, his face flushing crimson, yet in the end he dared not utter a single word.

Zhu Youjian clasped his hands behind his back and began to pace slowly before the screens.

"And beyond all this?"

"In the final years of the Eastern Han, plague ran rampant, and thus the Treatise on Cold Damage and Miscellaneous Diseases appeared, saving countless lives."

"In our Great Ming today, the mere mention of smallpox turns faces pale with terror. If a great physician, going beyond the method of human inoculation, were to open a new path — one that could free the realm from the scourge of smallpox forever — should we promote it, or should we not?"

"And if yet another great physician were to appear, raising the survival rate of women in childbirth by another ten percent — should we spread this method throughout the realm, or should we lock it away on a high shelf?"

"If it spreads, the common people will be blessed — but the lifespan of the Great Ming will, for that very reason, grow shorter."

"And when the dynasty's lifespan ends, the realm will be overturned. Amid unending war, the population will surely be halved. In the end, the common people still cannot escape the misery of trampling and ruin."

"Within the Four Books, every word speaks of benevolence, every phrase expounds righteousness. Though I have had no renowned teacher to instruct me, the two words 'benevolence' and 'righteousness' have long been carved into my very marrow."

"Yet now, my left hand is without benevolence, my right hand without righteousness. Faced with such a dilemma, how is it to be resolved?"

His voice echoed through the great hall, knocking at the soul of every man present.

How to resolve it?

How to resolve it?!

The assembled ministers were silent.

A few men's lips quivered, then fell shut in dejection.

This question — there was no way, no resolution!

Heaven and Earth are not benevolent; they treat the myriad creatures as straw dogs.

This lies beyond the reach of human strength. This question has had no resolution since ancient times.

It is only that men of the present day have only now discovered this question!

Zhu Youjian halted his steps. He looked across every face, meeting each pair of eyes one by one — eyes that were fearful, or sorrowful, or lost, or evasive... some even carrying a trace of entreaty.

Huang Liji, Cheng Jiming, Han Kuang — men past sixty...

Yang Jingchen, Xue Guoguan, Huo Weihua — men past forty...

Lu Xiangsheng, Sun Chuanting, Ni Yuanlu — men barely past thirty...

To command the realm's finest talents and thereby accomplish an imperishable work of merit — this is the duty of an emperor.

Zhu Youjian's gaze came to rest at last upon the Chief Grand Secretary, Huang Liji.

"Chief Grand Secretary, you are fifty-nine this year."

Huang Liji's heart tightened. Bowing, he said, "This subject... is."

Zhu Youjian paused, then spoke words that sent a jolt through every heart.

"I will speak bluntly. Even if the Great Ming were to fall twenty years from now, I fear it would have nothing to do with you."

"That being so — are you still willing, together with me, to reverse this great course and shatter this Mandate of Heaven that has governed the cycle of order and chaos in Huaxia for two thousand years?"

At these words, Huang Liji's head snapped up, his eyes brimming with emotion beyond speech.

He looked at the young Son of Heaven before him, looked into those earnest eyes.

The Emperor was asking not after his ability, not after his loyalty — he was asking after his Dao.

He was asking whether, at this age of sixty, he was still willing to offer up everything he had for a great enterprise whose outcome he might never see, yet one sufficient to leave his name in the annals of history and bestow blessings upon ten thousand generations.

Huang Liji was silent for a moment. He carefully straightened his court robes.

Then, facing Zhu Youjian, he made a deep, profound bow.

When he raised his head again, the eyes of this old man who had spent a lifetime rising and falling in officialdom were faintly reddened.

His voice was choked with emotion, yet every word rang like struck metal!

"Though your subject is dull and obtuse, having been blessed to encounter a sage descended into the world, how would I dare not offer liver and brains upon the ground, and only cease when death takes me?!"

Zhu Youjian smiled and shook his head.

"I am no sage of this age."

He looked toward the assembled ministers and spoke slowly.

"I have said it before: he who would be a sage of the present age must answer the question of the present age."

"Now I have merely clarified this question — how could that be called sagehood?"

He sighed and said,

"More than anyone, I wish a sage would descend into the world and resolve this dilemma..."

— for example, Zhang Juzheng, Wang Anshi, Shang Yang, Yue Fei... but damn it, this era has none of them!

He raised his hand, as though he meant to call upon a few more men to answer.

Every gaze followed his finger. Every chest heaved with intensity, poised and eager.

A few of the younger officials, even before being called upon, already had hot tears brimming in their eyes, so stirred they could scarcely contain themselves.

But Zhu Youjian's finger stopped in midair.

Abruptly, he shook his head and laughed.

"Forget it. Calling on each man one by one is far too much trouble."

He lowered his hand, swept his gaze across them all, and declared in a ringing voice:

"Those who wish to join me in reversing this great course and shattering this Mandate of Heaven..."

"Raise your right arms together!"

Only a moment of silence.

"Shua!"

Standing at the very front, Huang Liji was the first to raise his aged arm.

"Shua!" "Shua!" "Shua!"

Next, it was Han Kuang, Cheng Jiming, Sun Chuanting, Ni Yuanlu, Yang Jingchen...

One wave after another!

Arm after arm — some old, some young and strong — rose up like a forest within Huangji Hall!

The Western Park, the Fishing Platform.

Within the lakeside pavilion, a fishing rod extended out at an angle.

Beneath the water's surface, a golden carp approached with cautious care.

It brushed lightly against the sweet-scented bait, testing it several times, but in the end could not resist the temptation — with a sudden snap it swallowed the bait whole!

The deathly stillness shattered in an instant! The fishing line snapped taut, the rod bending into a full-drawn bow.

The creature beneath the water seemed at last to understand its plight. It burst forth with all its strength, dashing left and charging right, struggling desperately, churning the still pool into ceaseless turmoil.

A sharp crack rang out — the fishing rod was wrenched clean away, plunging headlong into the depths of the lake, leaving behind only a trail of ripples fleeing swiftly across the surface.

Moments later, a few wisps of deep red blood slowly welled up from where the rod had vanished, spreading a faint stain through the emerald waves.

Yet these ripples and this trace of blood were but a brief clamor.

Soon the lake's surface returned to its deathly calm, as if nothing had ever happened.

All around, a profound silence reigned.

Only a few crisp birdcalls now and then cut across the vast sky, interweaving with the rustle of wind through the willow tips.

A blood-red setting sun was slowly sinking behind the towering palace walls in the distance, casting its last rays upon this deep inner court.