Chapter 15: Our Rules Are Just Two

The candlelight blazed bright, casting the new sovereign Zhu Youjian's shadow onto the wall, making it appear exceptionally tall.

He sat upright upon the imperial couch, his gaze falling calmly on the trembling figure below.

Wang Tiqian, brush-holding eunuch of the Directorate of Ceremonial, once a man who could summon wind and rain within the palace, now resembled a frightened quail, not even daring to raise his head.

"Wang Tiqian." Zhu Youjian's voice was flat, betraying neither pleasure nor anger.

"This slave is here." Wang Tiqian gave a start and hurriedly responded, his voice dry and rasping.

"We ask you, what is the state of this realm today?"

That question again!

Wang Tiqian's heart clenched violently, nearly leaping out of his throat.

Yesterday, a junior eunuch from his gate had come to report that the new sovereign had asked Wei Zhongxian the very same question.

Wei Zhongxian's answer had clearly failed to satisfy this new sovereign.

Now, the question had come around to him.

He could distinctly feel every fine hair on the back of his neck standing on end.

This was a trial that would decide life or death.

Speak pleasantries? Whitewash the peace? That would be courting death.

But if he spoke the truth…

This Great Ming realm was riddled with gaping holes, its problems piled mountain-high — where would he even begin? And to what extent should he speak?

Speak too shallowly, and it was perfunctory, deceiving the sovereign. Speak too deeply — would it provoke the dragon countenance and draw fire upon himself?

Just as Wang Tiqian's thoughts raced like lightning, his throat bobbing, and he was about to pick some less fatal matter to broach, Zhu Youjian's voice rang out again.

"Take your time. Speak only when you have thought it through." Zhu Youjian's tone remained flat, yet carried an undeniable pressure.

"Yesterday, We also asked Wei Zhongxian. His answer displeased Us greatly. We hope that your answer will let Us hear something different."

A buzz exploded in Wang Tiqian's mind, as if struck hard by a heavy hammer.

The new sovereign was telling him — do not think of imitating Wei Zhongxian's way of smoothing things over, and do not think of fobbing him off with those stale platitudes.

What he wanted to hear was the truth, the explosive truth!

Terror, like an icy tide, instantly flooded Wang Tiqian's every limb and bone.

He knew he had no path of retreat left.

Clear this hurdle today, and there might still be a sliver of hope. Fail to clear it, and Wei Zhongxian's today would be his tomorrow.

He thought of how, when he went to take over the Eastern Depot today, those former subordinates of Wei Zhongxian had fawned over him, and how they had cast aside the traitor Wei like a worn-out shoe.

He thought of his own luxurious mansion in the eastern city, and of the son adopted from his clan to continue the family line.

He could not die!

The will to survive overwhelmed all fear and wishful thinking.

He suddenly gritted his teeth, steeled his heart, prostrated himself, and said in a deep voice:

"This slave… obeys the imperial will."

"This slave believes that the Great Ming today, beset by powerful foes without and accumulated rot within, has already reached… already reached the state where borers multiply and the timber snaps, where the crack widens and the wall collapses!"

When borers multiply, the timber snaps; when the crack widens, the wall collapses — from The Book of Lord Shang, "On the Cultivation of Authority."

Zhu Youjian inwardly exclaimed in admiration — truly a top graduate eunuch from the Inner Palace School, truly the Grand Secretariat of the Inner Court who had helmed the Directorate of Ceremonial for seven years!

Compared with the semi-literate Eunuch Wei, this caliber was simply far too outstanding.

Once the words were out, Wang Tiqian had no further retreat.

"The external threat is the Jianzhou Jurchen. Though the barbarian chieftain Nurhaci is dead, his son Hong Taiji is even more cunning and formidable. Our Great Ming's officers and troops, now with arrogant generals and indolent soldiers, have long lost the valor of the founding era. In open-field pitched battles, nine out of ten are defeats; we can only rely on strong walls and heavy cannon to barely hold on."

"Just this year, Hong Taiji led his forces eastward and attacked Joseon. The Joseon king, Yi Jong, could not resist and was forced to sign a treaty under duress on Ganghwa Island. Our Great Ming… has lost yet another right arm. If this continues, the Jurchen will grow powerful in Liaodong — to the west they can harass the Mongols, to the east they can control Joseon, and to the south they will raid Ningyuan and Jinzhou daily. Our Great Ming's northern frontier will never see a day of peace."

"In this slave's humble opinion, in dealing with the Jurchen, we absolutely must not seek quick results. We should emulate the former strategy of advancing by building fortifications, consolidating step by step, carefully selecting generals, drilling the troops, and slowly squeezing their living space. Perhaps then there may be a turning point."

Zhu Youjian nodded inwardly.

Although Wang Tiqian's words still failed to perceive the colossal threat of the Jurchen someday sweeping through the Mongols and breaking through the passes from the west, they had already reached a qualified baseline.

"That is the external threat." Zhu Youjian's expression remained impassive. "And the internal rot?"

Wang Tiqian steadied himself and continued: "The internal rot lies first in revenue and grain. Of all the prefectures and counties under heaven, seven or eight in ten are in arrears on taxes and grain. The court's annual revenue runs at a deficit year after year. As for the cause, natural disasters are certainly one aspect, but more importantly, it is the corruption of local governance."

"Of the taxes the common folk pay — for every picul of grain, after layer upon layer of extortion, if three-tenths of a picul remain by the time it reaches the court treasury, that is already a fortunate outcome. The greater part falls into the private purses of officials at every level."

"Oh?" Zhu Youjian leaned forward slightly, his interest piqued. "Unfold this matter of officialdom for Us. Explain it thoroughly."

The air in the hall instantly congealed.

If discussing frontier affairs just now was merely "state business," then discussing official governance now was truly poking a hornets' nest.

And the nest being poked was that of the entire Great Ming bureaucratic apparatus!

On Wang Tiqian's forehead, the cold sweat that had just dried broke out once more.

He knew that the words to follow would be a true dance on the edge of a blade.

If he must die, so be it! If he, Wang Tiqian, was to die, then no one else should hope to live!

So be it — drag everyone down into the water!

"Yes, Your Majesty." Wang Tiqian's voice had grown somewhat hoarse, yet was exceptionally clear.

"The officialdom of today has long since formed a whole set of corrupt conventions."

"When a capital official takes up his post, he must first incur debt to cover social obligations and bribes. But if he goes into debt to serve as an official, how is the debt repaid? It is nothing but the fat and blood of the people."

"Another example: the pursuit and recovery of embezzled funds is originally an act to rectify the court's discipline. Yet the officials charged with the task invariably send men ahead to secretly communicate with the officials under investigation, demanding enormous bribes, and only then do they go through the motions. This is eagerness for wealth, not eagerness to govern!"

"Then there are the Depot and Guard officers dispatched from the capital on assignments. Originally they serve as the Son of Heaven's itinerant inspectors, to overawe the lawless. Yet now, whenever Depot and Guard officers leave the capital, there are always city idlers and local ruffians who pay large sums to obtain the title of Colonel, accompanying them on their travels, borrowing authority to intimidate, extorting and blackmailing. If there were not enormous profit in it, why would those ruffians be willing to part with such large sums?"

Wang Tiqian grew more agitated as he spoke, as if this indignation had long been pent up in his chest.

"They treat official rank as their very life, sycophantic scheming as custom, bribery as social intercourse, and pulling strings as a matter of course! When their tenure ends, should a man return home with empty pockets, the crowd mocks him in unison as incompetent! If this culture is not changed, the state will cease to be a state, Your Majesty!"

With those words, he knocked his head heavily against the floor and broke down, unable to speak through his sobs.

Zhu Youjian listened in silence, his face expressionless.

Only when Wang Tiqian's weeping gradually subsided did he slowly speak, his voice cold as iron: "Well said. And what of you, Wang Tiqian? How much have you embezzled?"

Wang Tiqian's whole body shuddered violently, as if struck by lightning.

To have spoken the truth to this extent — was it still not enough?

He jerked his head up, his face ashen as paper, his lips trembling, yet not a single word could come out.

"This slave... this slave is guilty!" Summoning every ounce of strength, he knocked his head to the floor again, the thuds ringing out.

"This slave is willing to surrender all his family property, and only begs that Your Majesty show mercy and permit this slave... to beg for his bones and return home to live out his remaining years."

"You think We intend to kill you?" Zhu Youjian sighed.

"This slave would not dare! This slave's crimes deserve death ten thousand times over! I beg Your Majesty to spare my life!" Wang Tiqian was already incoherent, doing nothing but kowtowing over and over.

"Get up." Zhu Youjian's voice softened a little.

He watched this eunuch disgrace himself utterly before him, yet felt not the slightest satisfaction in his heart.

Did he not already know everything Wang Tiqian had just said? In fact, what he knew was even more, and went even deeper, than what Wang Tiqian had spoken.

"What you spoke of just now was the state of the civil service. But you omitted one thing — one entrenched ill more pernicious than the rot in officialdom."

Wang Tiqian shakily rose to his feet, his face a complete blank.

"Factional strife." Zhu Youjian pronounced each word deliberately.

"In the Wanli reign alone, within the court there were the Qi, Chu, Zhe, Qin, Kun, Xuan, and Donglin factions — seven factions attacking one another, scheming against each other, forming and breaking alliances, just like the Warring States contending for supremacy! Affairs of state, in their eyes, were nothing but chess pieces for striking at their colleagues!"

"His Late Majesty Tianqi used the Depot and Guard to unify authority and dismissed the Donglin faction. And what was the result? Among you so-called 'eunuch faction,' how many sub-factions split off internally? Was it not all entangling with one another and fighting endlessly for your own interests!"

"When one man rises to power, all his partisans ascend to glory on his coattails; when one man falls from power, all his partisans are purged."

"Now that We have newly ascended the throne, I imagine word has already spread throughout the court and provinces that the eunuch faction will be entirely dismissed and the Donglin faction restored?"

A mocking curve tugged at the corner of Zhu Youjian's mouth. "With such factional solidarity and partisan feuding, cycling over and over, how can this realm ever recover?"

He fixed his gaze on Wang Tiqian, his eyes blazing: "We ask you again — why does factional strife exist?"

This question, truth be told, had never fallen within the scope of Wang Tiqian's reflections.

His mind raced, dredging up everything he had seen and heard in his entire life.

After a long while, he answered cautiously:

"In reply to Your Majesty... this slave believes it is... it is for a single word: 'profit.'"

"Like calls to like, and kindred spirits seek one another out. A man alone is weak, so he thinks of forming a faction to bolster himself. For their respective interests, people naturally find it easy to bind themselves into factions through ties of native place, teacher-disciple lineage, examination cohort, and the like."

"Well said." Zhu Youjian nodded, reasonably satisfied with this answer.

"Then We ask you further: if it is for profit, why is factional strife so ferocious? Why must one side utterly exterminate the other, driving them to their death, before they are willing to stop?"

At this, Wang Tiqian was truly unable to answer.

He opened his mouth, but in the end could only offer the feeblest of replies: "It is... it is because the morals of the age decline daily, and men's hearts are not what they were in ancient times..."

"Wrong." Zhu Youjian shook his head, his tone tinged with resignation. "It is because the price of defeat is too terrible."

"Once you lose in factional strife, at best you are dismissed from office and stripped of rank, never to be employed again. At worst, you are imprisoned, exiled, even... put to death. And death is not enough — your home is confiscated, your clan exterminated, your descendants and posterity implicated."

"When the cost of defeat is so crushing, and the victor's spoils so immense, how can those caught in the middle not fight with everything they have, stopping at nothing?"

"The entire officialdom of the Great Ming is like a dark forest. Everyone moves in stealth through the darkness; every man is both hunter and prey."

"No one dares expose himself; no one dares trust another. The moment someone tries to step forward and accomplish something, revealing a gap in his defenses, he is instantly riddled by arrows loosed from every direction — shot full of holes like a sieve!"

Wang Tiqian prostrated himself on the ground. Hearing this talk of a dark forest, he felt a sudden sense of dawning clarity.

Yet in the next instant, he cast all of it aside, his mind spinning frantically, thinking only of how to survive this calamity.

Zhu Youjian rose, walked to Wang Tiqian's side, and patted his still-trembling shoulder: "Get up. No need to keep kneeling."

Wang Tiqian shakily straightened his body, feeling that his underclothes were already soaked through with cold sweat, clinging to his skin, cold and clammy.

"Someone, bring brush and ink." Zhu Youjian ordered.

In moments, a junior eunuch entered with lowered eyes and a deferential air, bearing the four treasures of the study.

Zhu Youjian pointed to the writing desk: "Write down for Us a list of the eunuch faction — the names in your mind."

Wang Tiqian's heart leaped into his throat once more.

He was almost certain that Wei Zhongxian, before his death, must have written an identical list.

Was His Majesty... checking the answers?

He picked up the brush; his hand trembled violently. He dipped it full of ink, yet for a long moment could not bring himself to set it down.

Every name represented a living, breathing person, represented the rise and fall, the honor and ruin, of an entire family. Every stroke of his brush tip might decide whether these people lived or died.

Writing and pausing, he set down one familiar name after another on the paper, appending his own comments after each.

At last, he came to his own name.

The three characters "Wang Tiqian" — he wrote them with extraordinary difficulty. He hesitated for a long time, thinking of his own greed, thinking too of his sycophancy before Wei Zhongxian, and thinking even more of the heartfelt confession he had just made.

In the end, after his own name, he wrote eight characters: "Moderate greed, moderate ability; attached to the traitor, had no choice."

When he finished the last character, it was as if all the strength had been drained from him. He slumped limply into the chair.

Zhu Youjian picked up the list, still carrying the fragrance of fresh ink, and examined it carefully.

The names on the list were largely the same as the one Wei Zhongxian had provided, with only minor differences.

Only, on Wang Tiqian's entry, Wei Zhongxian's comment had been: "Petty greed, above-average ability."

One said of himself "moderate greed, moderate ability"; the other said of him "petty greed, above-average ability."

How very interesting.

Zhu Youjian set down the list, looked at the ashen-faced Wang Tiqian, and spoke slowly:

"Since We have taken this seat, We shall establish Our rules. Our rules are few — just two."

Wang Tiqian's ears pricked up at once.

"First, loyalty." Zhu Youjian's voice was not loud, yet every word weighed a thousand pounds.

"With me, loyalty that is not absolute is absolutely no loyalty at all."

"Whatever you see, whatever you hear — whether good news or bad — if it is something I ought to know, then I must know it."

"And what I must know is the truth — the whole truth."

He paused, giving Wang Tiqian no chance to pledge his devotion, and continued:

"Second, keep your hands clean. You draw your salary — so do not reach into the state treasury, or into the pockets of the common people."

Zhu Youjian patted Wang Tiqian on the shoulder. "The realm is in dire straits. If you can meet these two conditions, I can let bygones be bygones."

"This slave... this slave obeys the decree! This slave will surely repent past wrongs and give his life for Your Majesty!" Wang Tiqian, overwhelmed with tearful gratitude, kowtowed repeatedly.

Zhu Youjian let out a long sigh and said, "The dynasty's salaries are meager. Corruption, to be sure, has its roots in human greed, but the failings of the system cannot escape their share of the blame."

He looked at Wang Tiqian and said, weighing each word, "I will strive to change it, and I hope that you, my minister, will change along with me."

At these words, Wang Tiqian actually shed tears. He prostrated himself on the ground and answered through sobs:

"Your Majesty's benevolent heart and sagely virtue, your compassion that reaches even this lowly one — how could we slaves not give our lives in return?"

Zhu Youjian listened, and inwardly did not believe a single word.

But that did not matter.

Words like these — the first time he spoke them, no one would believe them, and no one would listen.

That was fine.

He would say them again and again, to every single person.

Those who could not understand, or did not wish to understand, would fall away. Those who could understand, and were willing to understand, would naturally follow.

He had all the time in the world — at least, in theory, seventeen more years.

"Enough. You are dismissed." Zhu Youjian waved his hand. "One more thing: tomorrow morning, summon Tian Ergeng and Zhang Weixian to the palace to see me."

"Yes," Wang Tiqian replied.

"One more thing — the former head of the Embroidered Uniform Guard, Luo Sigong. Where is he now?" Zhu Youjian suddenly asked again.

"In reply to Your Majesty, Luo Sigong has been living at home in idleness ever since he retired due to old age in the fourth year of Tianqi."

"Old age? So... how old is he now?"

"He should be... sixty-five."

Sixty-five... Zhu Youjian shook his head inwardly. At that age, in this era, a man was a candle guttering in the wind, with little spirit left in him.

"Does he have any sons serving at court?"

"His son, Luo Yangxing, currently holds the post of Centurion in the Embroidered Uniform Guard."

"Luo Yangxing..." Zhu Youjian murmured the name. "How old is this man? And what is his character?"

"Around thirty-two or thirty-three. As for his character... he is said to be fairly capable."

Zhu Youjian nodded. "Issue my decree: promote Luo Yangxing to Banner Officer of the Imperial Guard of the Presence, to take up the post immediately."

"As commanded."

"Also, send word to Zhang Weixian, the Duke of Ying. Have him enter the palace to see me tomorrow, after Tian Ergeng."

"This slave has noted everything." Wang Tiqian bowed in acknowledgment. Seeing that the new sovereign had no further instructions, he prepared to take his leave.

He had just retreated to the doorway when Zhu Youjian's voice came from behind him again.

"Tonight — do not go and inform them."

Wang Tiqian froze, then turned around and looked at the Emperor in puzzlement.

On Zhu Youjian's face, he saw a trace of an inexplicable smile.

"Let them all have a good night's sleep."