Chapter 22: We Shall Begin the Performance (Votes for the Monthly Ticket, Please!)

Zhu Youjian walked slowly back to the imperial desk and picked up those three thin booklets.

He said nothing, merely flipping one of them open at random.

His long, slender fingers brushed across the pages, producing a soft rustling sound.

The sound was not loud, yet in the deathly stillness of Wenhua Hall at this moment, it was exceptionally clear.

Time seemed to stretch on endlessly.

Every breath was torment.

At last, Zhu Youjian closed the booklet, raised his eyes, and swept a calm gaze over the assembled officials below the dais, their expressions a study in contrasts.

This was an undisputed sharp sword, but actually thrusting it out would be sheer folly.

A missile drawn but not launched is what truly possesses deterrent power.

Once it is actually fired, then everyone can only roll together in the mud.

The central and local governments would instantly have over two hundred vacancies, which would not only inevitably throw state affairs into paralysis and chaos.

The scramble, the tearing, the faction-forming, and the mass attacks over those vacancies would further magnify the chaos.

Of course, that is the choice the historical Chongzhen would have made.

But I, Zhu Youjian — my choice, naturally, is to begin the performance!

Zhu Youjian raised his eyes, swept a gaze of near-compassion slowly over the crowd below the dais, and then lightly tossed the three booklets aside.

"We have been thinking: if these three name-lists were made public and all on them investigated and punished, would the court of our Great Ming not be nearly emptied?"

He paused, leaned forward slightly as if consulting with them, and asked in a mild tone:

"My various ministers, tell Us — should We… make these lists public?"

A deathly hush filled the hall.

No one dared answer this question.

Say yes?

That would not only offend colleagues throughout the court but also push oneself to the crest of the storm.

Who could guarantee that one was absolutely pure as water and not among those two-hundred-odd names?

Say no?

That was an even surer path to death!

The new sovereign had just used thunderous measures to seize seven stalwarts of the eunuch faction — this was precisely the moment to establish his authority. If you jumped out to say they should not be investigated, what were your intentions?

Were you trying to shield the corrupt officials, or were you yourself one of them?

This was a question with no right answer.

The hundred officials were as silent as cicadas in winter; many even buried their heads lower, terrified of being swept by the Emperor's gaze.

The several Grand Secretaries standing at the front of the ranks were now as if sitting on a bed of needles.

Li Guopu urgently signaled with his eyes to the Chief Grand Secretary, Huang Liji.

The duty of a Grand Secretary was precisely to mediate between the Emperor and the hundred officials and to steady state affairs. At a moment like this, it was exactly the time for the Chief Grand Secretary to step forward.

Yet Huang Liji seemed not to see his look at all. Eyes on his nose, nose on his heart, he even lowered his head slightly, wearing the expression of one whose spirit had wandered far away.

Seeing this, Li Guopu could not suppress the indignation in his heart.

Huang Liji! Huang Liji! You damned old relic!

The state entrusted you with the duty of Chief Grand Secretary — how can you hide yourself away at such a moment, seeking only to save your own skin?!

He raised his head to look at the young Son of Heaven upon the imperial throne; that young face still wore a gentle smile.

But he could clearly see that smile gradually fading.

This could not be delayed any longer. If it dragged on, it would no longer be a matter of whether to make them public or not.

Silence, at times, could enrage a monarch more readily than opposition.

When it reached that point, it would likely not be just over two hundred people. Once a great judicial dragnet spread, who could guarantee they could keep themselves clear?

And where would the affairs of the state then be headed!

Enough!

Li Guopu steeled his heart, drew a deep breath, and resolutely stepped out of the ranks.

"This subject believes they should not be."

The moment these words were spoken, it was like a sudden thunderclap on level ground.

Everyone's gaze instantly focused on him, nearly all of it filled with astonishment and admiration.

Zhu Youjian looked at him, the smile still on his face. "Oh? Why should they not be?"

Li Guopu bowed deeply toward the imperial throne.

"Your Majesty, the malady of corruption is not the cold of a single day; it is a chronic ailment accumulated over many years."

"If the name-lists are now made public in their entirety, the implications will be vast, and the court and the realm will be shaken."

"At that point, of the various ministries and offices, scarcely one in ten would remain, and the governance of all under Heaven would likely fall into paralysis."

"State affairs are like the human body. When a chronic ailment has persisted so long, one absolutely must not administer a wolf-and-tiger draught. One should use a gentle tonic, proceeding slowly, consolidating the foundation and nurturing the root — that is the path to lasting health."

"If thunderous measures are used, We fear only that the old illness will not yet be gone while the vital energy is first wounded, shaking the very foundation of the state, Your Majesty!"

He delivered this speech with the utmost earnestness. When he finished, he bowed deeply and remained prostrate on the ground.

The hall remained utterly silent. Everyone was waiting for the Emperor's reaction.

Zhu Youjian felt a small shock in his heart.

He had originally designed this as a monologue he would perform alone.

He had never imagined that in this Tianqi-era court where ten thousand horses stood mute, there was actually still such a courageous man.

Whose subordinate commander was this, exactly?

Why did I have absolutely no impression of him when I read later histories?

Zhu Youjian strode down to the official-name screen beside the steps, his eyes roving over it a moment before he plucked out the duty roster slip for "Li Guopu."

He skimmed it at ten lines a glance, then turned his head with a look of near disbelief.

"Minister Li, you are actually a man of Gaoyang County, Baoding Prefecture, in Northern Zhili?"

At these words, Li Guopu's body, prostrate on the floor, gave a violent shudder.

Here it comes...

An indescribable bleakness surged through his heart.

Yes, Gaoyang County — barely seventy li from Suning, the hometown of that great eunuch whose power overshadowed the court and whose name would stink for ten thousand years: Wei Zhongxian.

At this critical juncture, for the Emperor to bring up his hometown — the implication was self-evident.

He was suspecting him, suspecting that this "fellow townsman" was pleading for the remnants of the eunuch faction!

A tremendous sense of grievance and unwillingness welled up in his chest. Li Guopu abruptly raised his head and looked straight at Zhu Youjian, his voice trembling slightly with agitation.

"Your Majesty! This subject... this subject and that traitor Wei, though from the same district, have never had any dealings!"

"Every word this subject has spoken today comes from the bottom of his heart, all for the great policy of the realm, with not the slightest selfish motive! If Your Majesty does not believe me, this subject..."

"Good!"

Not waiting for him to finish, Zhu Youjian loudly cut him off, even as his own mind raced.

A fine one-man show had suddenly turned into a script about a minister risking offense with iron-gutted, solitary loyalty.

No great problem — watch me turn this whole situation around!

"Excellently spoken!"

He strode quickly before Li Guopu, reached out and raised him up, then gripped both his hands firmly.

His words were earnest to the utmost. "Guopu's words truly strike deep into our heart."

"That before this day we did not know Guopu's loyal liver and gallant courage is truly our own failure of discernment!"

He then turned to face the assembled officials and declared with a ringing laugh:

"Gentlemen, behold!"

"Undaunted by suspicion, unafraid of death, wholehearted in public service — what is a loyal minister? This, this is a loyal minister!"

"This — this is our Wei Zheng!"

The entire civil and military court was, for a moment, uniformly stunned.

Wei Zheng? The Emperor had actually compared Li Guopu to Wei Zheng?

Watching the officials' shocked expressions, Zhu Youjian slowly reined in his smile, his countenance turning solemn.

"We know that in many people's eyes, Minister Li's action borders on foolishness."

The moment he opened his mouth, everyone's hearts jolted with alarm.

"Guopu shares a hometown with the traitor Wei — already a cause for reproach. At this moment when wind and rain converge, instead of thinking to avoid suspicion, he steps forward instead. Is that not the height of folly?"

Zhu Youjian's gaze swept across them, as if he could see straight through their innermost thoughts.

"Minister Li knew full well he would invite suspicion. He knew he might anger us. Yet he feared even more that the realm would be shaken and governance paralyzed!"

"So he would rather risk being misunderstood, risk being implicated, and still stand forth to speak that which 'should not be spoken'!"

"This sense of duty — 'doing what one knows cannot be done' — this moral integrity that places the altars of state above personal life and death: is this not precisely the Wei Zheng of our age?!"

He turned his head and signaled the brush-holding eunuch Gao Shiming.

"Gao Shiming, Grand Secretary Li Guopu — upright and selfless, daring to speak directly — one red endorsement!"

Li Guopu stood rooted to the spot, as if in a dream.

He had imagined countless possibilities: being rebuked, being dismissed from office, even being thrown into the Imperial Prison...

But the one thing he had never imagined was that what awaited him was such lofty praise and reward from the Son of Heaven!

His long-sealed heart surged with hidden currents, and countless verses he had read in the past flowed through his mind.

To repay my lord's grace on the Golden Terrace, I shall carry the Jade Dragon and die for my lord!

Thrice visited for the realm's great plan, two reigns sustained by an old minister's heart!

To settle His Majesty's affairs under Heaven, and win renown both in life and after death!

Could it be that I, Li Guopu, today, have the fortune to meet such an enlightened sovereign?!

A hot current rushed to his eyes. This youngest of the grand secretaries actually reddened around the rims.

"Your Majesty... Your Majesty is sagely wise! This subject... is ashamed and unworthy!"

His voice already carried a faint sob.

Seeing this, the assembled officials woke as if from a dream and prostrated themselves upon the ground one after another. A voice like a roaring mountain and crashing sea resounded through Wenhua Hall.

"Your Majesty is sagely wise!"

Zhu Youjian's own heart surged. This small accident had not flustered him; instead, it had fired him up.

He had found once again the feeling of his past life's pep rallies!

He took a few more steps forward, standing among the hundred officials, and only when the roaring cries gradually subsided did he slowly speak.

"My ministers, all of you, rise."

His voice was calm and richly resonant, carrying a power that could soothe men's hearts.

"We have dwelt in the palace since childhood. In idle hours, our sole delight was reading history."

At these words, everyone was bewildered, unsure of His Majesty's intent.

"The annals record a thousand thousand affairs, and men of a hundred different casts."

"We have seen men who, when first entering officialdom, also strove to cleanse the turbid and extol the pure — their lips speaking of the altars of state, their hearts mindful of the myriad people, their ambition set on leaving a name in the histories."

"Like Yan Song, Grand Secretary Yan, in the time of Shizong — he passed the highest imperial examination at twenty-five and entered the Hanlin Academy."

"At that time, Liu Jin held power and the court was filthy, yet he resigned on grounds of illness, stayed home reading for eight years, and never took office."

"If he had died then, would the annals of history not call him worthy and able?"

Zhu Youjian sighed softly, his voice full of regret.

"A pity that the lust for power stirs a man's heart, and riches and rank dazzle his eyes."

"That once spotless youth grew vile scales on his body and sprouted venomous horns from his brow, until at last he became a vicious flood-dragon that harmed the realm — how lamentable, how tragic."

Zhu Youjian paced slowly, his arms waving as he spoke, his tone gradually rising.

"Yet in the histories, We have also seen another kind of man."

"Infamous through the first half of his life, but after a sudden awakening, his latter years were crowned with an unsullied name, and the annals of history sang in sympathy with him."

"Zhou Chu of the Jin dynasty ran wild through his village as a youth, counted alongside the tiger of South Mountain and the flood-dragon of Long Bridge as the Three Scourges; the villagers feared him and hated him."

"But later he repented, slew the tiger and slaughtered the flood-dragon, then gave his life for his country, and in the end became a man of loyalty and righteousness."

"Who can say that he was born a sage?"

His gaze swept across the assembled officials, and every man his eyes touched felt as though the Emperor were looking straight at him.

Among the officials, those long in office merely flickered their eyes, still inwardly weighing the new sovereign's intent behind these words.

But the greater number of younger officials were already utterly absorbed, their whole attention fixed on the pacing figure in the hall.

"The Book of Odes says: All things have a beginning, but few reach their proper end."

"Which of you ministers seated here did not endure ten years of cold-window study, steeping yourselves in the classics?"

"Which of you, when your name was posted in gold on the honor roll, did not hold the ambition to 'make one's sovereign surpass Yao and Shun, and restore purity to the customs of the age'?"

"Yet the court's difficulties, the world's complexities — whether through a moment's confusion or circumstances beyond your control, you were swept along by the torrent of official life and gradually forgot your original purpose."

Zhu Youjian turned around, mounted the imperial steps one by one, and once again stood before the throne.

"But what if We are willing to be that King Zhuang of Chu?"

He paused, his manner utterly commanding, then with a sudden sweep of his sleeve he turned to face the assembled ministers.

"What if — on this very day!"

"Right here in Wenhua Hall, before the witnessing eyes of all you ministers —"

"We are willing to hold with you all a Feast of the Torn Hat-Strings?"

At these words, a stir instantly ran through the hall.

Some had read the Garden of Stories, and their hearts were already surging with emotion.

Others had worn themselves out poring over the classics and exhausted every effort just to pass the jinshi examination; of this allusion they knew absolutely nothing, and their faces remained blank with bewilderment.

"Gao Shiming, bring it in."

Gao Shiming obeyed and had junior eunuchs carry in from behind the hall a brazier blazing with a roaring fire.

Now nearly everyone understood!

The officials broke into heated discussion, no longer able to restrain themselves.

"What Feast of the Torn Hat-Strings — isn't this the old story of Emperor Wu of Wei!"

"The tale from the storytellers — Cao Cao burning the letters at Guandu!"

"Such a method… such a method…"

"Gentlemen!" Zhu Youjian stood before the brazier and gave a great shout, cutting through the clamor of the officials.

"The faults of a gentleman are like eclipses of the sun and moon. When he errs, all men see it; when he corrects himself, all men look up to him."

"We, this day, are willing to open this new road for you all, and utterly cast aside the past!"

As his words fell, Zhu Youjian released his grip, and the three thin booklets dropped into the brazier.

In an instant the flames leapt high and gradually burned the three booklets to ash.

For a moment the hall was utterly silent; the assembled ministers felt as though they were in a dream.

Before the officials could react, Chief Grand Secretary Huang Liji was the first to rush out from the ranks, prostrate himself on the ground, and with tears streaming down his aged face cry: "Your Majesty is sagely and enlightened! Long live His Majesty, ten thousand years, ten thousand times ten thousand years!"

Then came a thunderous response!

"Your Majesty is sagely and enlightened! Long live His Majesty, ten thousand years, ten thousand times ten thousand years!"

The assembled officials followed in quick succession, all prostrating themselves, and the entire great hall trembled under the force of this violent emotion.

Watching this scene, Zhu Youjian let out a long breath of relief in his heart.

This performance, though it had a few small mishaps, had more or less been sung through to the end.

But he certainly did not expect this one performance to reverse the culture of corruption — that would be far too naive.

Salaries, human hearts, the morale of the gentry, institutions, rewards and punishments, investigation and surveillance — unless every facet of the matter was put in place, so-called incorruptibility was nothing but muttered nonsense.

For now, he had merely used three booklets in exchange for a thread to start pulling on this matter, and a righteous mandate.

As for those three booklets — he had burned them, but who would dare believe he had truly burned them?

He raised a hand, signaling for everyone to quiet down.

"The matter of corruption, as Minister Li has said, cannot be accomplished in a single stroke; it must be simmered over a low flame."

His gaze settled upon Li Guopu.

"This matter, We wish to entrust to Minister Li to lead."

"But the matter of corruption affects the entire dynasty and is exceedingly vulnerable to slander and attack; every dynasty has regarded it as a perilous path."

"We wonder…"

Li Guopu cupped his hands, hurried forward a few steps, and stepped out from the ranks.

He adjusted his robes and cap slightly, then with the utmost solemnity bowed deeply.

When he straightened up again, his eyes already blazed with a fervent light, and his voice was resolute and decisive.

"This subject stakes the head upon his shoulders as surety — he will surely, for Your Majesty, purge the realm clean!"

Zhu Youjian could not help but be solemnly impressed.

He stepped to one side of the imperial desk, returned the salute with a bow of his own, equally resolute and decisive.

"If you do not fail me, I shall never fail you!"

The assembled ministers in the hall watched this display of sovereign-minister rapport, their hearts a tangle of complicated feelings.

The annals of history stretch on through countless volumes — one can well imagine that the name of Li Guopu will surely be recorded henceforth!

How maddening, how utterly maddening — why did I not step forward just now!

They looked again toward the young Son of Heaven upon the dais, the faint smile on his face, and a hazy, indistinct sense stirred in all their hearts.

This Great Ming — could it be, truly, about to change?