Chapter 228: The Mother of All Absurdity Opens the Door — Absurdity Has Come Home

As for the "Science Questions" in the *Great Ming Times*, they actually did not stir up much of a stir at first.

Among the hundred officials, the ennobled nobles, the government students, and the examination candidates in the capital, there were many clever men; some of them, glimpsing the subtlety in the titles, were not without the desire to try their hand at it.

Yet the majority, fiddling with the three items — a wineskin, a bottle, and an egg — could not come up with a fitting explanation.

Even the few who had an answer were reluctant to submit a memorial to the throne over such a trivial matter; after all, the New Policies were being rolled out with great fanfare, and to suddenly turn one's brush to this would very likely earn one the label of not knowing what truly mattered.

What was more, everyone knew that whenever this new sovereign posed such a grand question, he actually already had the answer in mind.

His present posturing was merely like past precedents — a means of stirring up waves to draw out what would follow.

For this reason, people paid it even less mind, simply waiting quietly for the riddle to be unveiled.

If the literati and scholar-officials felt this way, then the common folk of the capital were even more utterly indifferent to this damned "Science Question."

A wineskin? A bottle? An egg?

For most people, given their means, even gathering these three items together was no simple matter.

Besides, that so-called "science" sounded at once like something that had nothing to do with them.

What the majority were keen on, after finishing their hard labor or coming off their shifts, was buying cheap liquor at the wineshop,

and, accompanied by a dish of fried soybeans, listening intently to a good session of *The Loyal Record of the Liao Sea* — that was what truly mattered.

Of course, if one had no money, standing outside the wineshop to eavesdrop was no great issue either; sometimes, when the story reached a climax, the wineshop owner would even share some fried soybeans with the bystanders.

What was most hateful was that the *Great Ming Times* came out every day, yet *The Loyal Record of the Liao Sea* did not update with every issue.

The previous installment told of how Wang Sancai joined the army and was wrongly accused of being a spy. Then, on the parade ground, just as the executioner's blade was about to fall, at the most critical moment, the imperial commissioner in brocade uniform came galloping up on horseback, rose in his stirrups, and from a hundred paces away loosed a cloud-piercing arrow that struck the execution blade dead-on and saved him.

After that came a fine sequence of mustering troops on the drill field, an imperial decree of personal command, and the commissioner beheading a general — scenes that set every man's heart surging with emotion, unable to contain himself.

At the end of the tale, after dismissing everyone in the night, Wang Sancai, heedless of his wounds, presented the "Plan to Cross the Liu River in Secret."

The man declared outright that the barbarian chieftain's Fourth Beile was right across the river at Niangniang Palace, and at that moment had only three hundred troops with him!

He implored the commissioner to muster the troops and cross the river at speed, certain that they could capture them all in one net!

And then — the plot just fucking stopped right there!

What was even more agonizing was that this had been the plot from seven or eight days ago!

Science Questions! Science Questions! If you have the free time to ask this and that all day, you'd do better to update an issue of *The Loyal Record of the Liao Sea* — that would be satisfying!

Now, in the vicinity of the capital, if you asked who was a worthy minister, everyone had their own opinion: the Beheading Vice Minister, the Wei Zheng-like Grand Secretary, the Statecraft Prefect — each had their own partisans.

But if you asked who was the treacherous minister, then all unanimously agreed: it was none other than the author of *The Loyal Record of the Liao Sea*!

Yet, money moves men's hearts, now as ever.

The news of the Wu family's ten-thousand-tael reward, relying on no newspaper's power and borrowing no official's mouth, spread like a gale through the grass; within two days, it had swept through the inner and outer cities of the capital.

Old farmers in the fields, peddlers in the markets, laborers on the docks, apprentices in the shops, idlers on the streets, clerks in the government offices, and even the noble scions of high households — everyone with ears spoke of this matter, passed from mouth to mouth, growing ever more fantastical in the telling.

And so, the heart's desire to seek truth and question the Way might be set aside for a time, but the dream of a fortune around one's waist drove men onward.

Countless eccentrics and adepts, men of every sort and station, bearing their own solutions to the puzzle, surged toward the Wu residence like a tide.

The Wu family steward dared not be negligent; he set up ten green-cloth tents outside the gate and invited ten scholars to record every manner of insight.

For a time, a thousand strange and wondrous solutions came flooding in, a magnificent spectacle.

There was the theory of "Yin and Yang, Void and Substantial."

It stated: The fire burning in the bottle is Yang energy rising; when the fire dies, the Yang disperses and becomes false Yang. The egg, being an embryo, belongs to true Yin.

Since the bottle contains false Yang, the egg naturally intrudes into it, through the union of Yin and Yang, the mutual transformation of the substantial and the void!

There was the theory of "Heaven-Earth Resonance."

It stated: The nature of Heaven and Earth abhors the void and favors the substantial.

When the fire in the bottle dies, a void realm forms inside. The egg, being a substantial object, senses this void and throws itself in, seeking to bring about fullness.

There was the theory of "The Acupoint Swallows the Elixir."

It stated: The bottle is like the human body; the bottle's mouth is the acupoint.

The fire in the bottle is like moxibustion, causing the acupoint to open wide.

When the fire dies, the Qi becomes deficient; the acupoint, seeking to secure itself, then "swallows" the egg as if it were a Golden Elixir.

This is also the principle of "the Golden Elixir entering the abdomen" — in truth, it is not swallowed by the throat and tongue, but swallowed by the acupoint opening of its own accord, as deficient Qi is filled by the substantial.

Apart from these, there were also various other explanations such as "Hexagram Evolution," "Mutual Transformation of Form and Emptiness," and "The Dragon Probes for the Pearl."

Even the red-haired priests at Xuanwu Gate joined the excitement, speaking in somewhat awkward Mandarin about "vacuum" and about "God."

The Wu family steward listened in utter bewilderment, suspecting it was some White Lotus "Vacuum Homeland" doctrine, and in fright gave the direct order to drive them out with clubs.

Yet all of this was still nothing.

The whole affair, from then on, careened forward in a manner both utterly bizarre and yet perfectly logical.

A crowd of Daoist priests, Buddhist monks, fortune-tellers, and fengshui masters, having recorded their ideas, were still not satisfied.

Numerous sects and Daoist priests simply gathered outside the Wu family residence to perform rituals and debate scriptures back and forth.

Before long, the orthodox Buddhist and Daoist factions of the city, people from various proper temples and abbeys who had initially held back out of dignity, also entered the fray one after another.

In the end, hardly anyone cared about any "science" anymore, nor were they much concerned with that egg.

Various sects and doctrines took the stage in turn, attacking and denouncing one another.

The audience below listened with rapt fascination, at one moment thinking this school had reason, at the next thinking that school had reason.

Some wealthy patrons who delighted in learning and the Way simply put up funds and erected an enormous scripture-debating platform near the foot of Chongwen Gate.

The platform had two tiers, with carved beams and painted rafters, and from its four corners hung the scripture banners of various sects, looking neither fish nor fowl, yet extraordinarily solemn.

Following this, peddlers, itinerant performers, monkey-trainers, strongmen who shattered stones on their chests, and vendors selling all manner of snacks all gathered there, a scene of tremendous bustle.

Every day, with a roaring din of voices and swirling incense smoke, the area around Chongwen Gate was transformed into the largest temple fair in the capital.

Inexplicably, it swept away the slump that had lingered there since the commercial tax reforms, and in the end, it was even livelier by three parts than it had been in its most bustling days.

"Your Majesty, this is the intelligence from yesterday's you hour to today's mao hour."

In the Western Park, within the Hall of Earnest Reflection, Wang Tiqian stood with his body bent forward, having just finished his morning briefing on the capital news.

A little later, at the you hour, he would conduct another evening briefing.

This was an order the Emperor had suddenly issued some ten-odd days ago — the Eastern Depot's "incident reports" on the capital were renamed "news."

And what had been one report a day became two reports a day.

Reckoning the days, it had begun roughly when the assembled officials jointly submitted memorials requesting His Majesty take a rest from governance.

Everyone understood the deeper meaning, of course, and Wang Tiqian in particular exerted every ounce of his skill, whipping the Eastern Depot's agents like spinning tops to ensure the many news items were fast, accurate, and detailed.

Yet after hearing this report, behind the imperial throne, the seventeen-year-old Yongchang Emperor only remained silent.

Zhu Youjian could only feel that this world had probably gone mad.

What kind of absurd turn of events was this?

The Wu family currying favor was entirely within his understanding.

The crowd's fervor over the ten-thousand-tael reward — he could also grasp the reasons behind it.

But how had it so suddenly and seamlessly turned into a scripture-debating assembly?

Could this be some sort of spiritual-energy-revival scenario, where next a Daoist master of profound attainment would leap out, and he would appoint him as National Preceptor, and then cultivate immortality and attain the Dao, and then casually blast Liaodong flat with a single Palm Thunder, and then blast open the Gate of Heaven with one palm, and go forth to conquer the myriad realms?

Utterly preposterous.

I was clearly trying to gradually introduce a breeze of science — how did it turn into a grand exhibition of Ming superstition?

In any case, Zhu Youjian had at last gained a still deeper appreciation of this era's fundamental character.

No wonder, in dynasty after dynasty, when enemy troops reached the city walls, the capital — and whether it was Nanjing, Beijing, the Western Capital,

or the Eastern Capital — would always pour forth a contingent of divine and ghostly monk-soldiers, claiming to be impervious to blade and spear.

Truly, this custom ran solidly through the entirety of history.

The Chinese people are, in the end, a wondrous nation that both does not believe in gods and yet believes in gods —

This was the crux of why Zhu Youjian could plan and strategize most of the time, yet occasionally be caught completely off guard.

No matter how much he investigated, questioned, or interviewed, he was ultimately not a man of this era, and ultimately could not act using this era's mode of thought.

But precisely because he did not understand, did not see clearly — that was why he had to ask, had to learn.

If he did not get to the bottom of this sort of thing, at some point his future strategic judgments might well suffer a major problem.

"I do not understand."

Zhu Youjian's voice broke the stillness within the hall.

"Ten thousand taels is indeed a high sum, but how could it come to this?"

"And that so-called scripture-debating assembly afterward is even more absurd — how could it be convened within just a few days? Is there truly no one pushing it behind the scenes?"

Wang Tiqian exchanged a glance with the Embroidered Uniform Guard Commander Tian Ergeng standing to one side, then bowed and said, "In reply to Your Majesty, at least neither the Eastern Depot nor the Embroidered Uniform Guard has yet discovered any clear behind-the-scenes instigator."

"The wealthy merchants and ennobled nobles putting up the funds have also all been investigated, and they are indeed people who have long been zealous patrons of Buddhist and Daoist affairs."

"In some cases, it is even the elders of the household, men of seventy or eighty, who are managing this matter."

He paused, the light from the corner of his eye flicking toward Gao Shiming, who stood on the other side.

"Perhaps — Eunuch Gao could offer Your Majesty a brief explanation."

Gao Shiming cast a faint glance at Wang Tiqian, and only then spoke calmly: "I was just about to report to Your Majesty. To say that this great array of eminent monks and lofty Daoist masters does not care for these ten thousand taels of silver would be untrue."

"But this subject believes that what most attracts them is, I fear — the precedent of Emperor Shizong!"

Gao Shiming continued, "When Your Majesty reviews the memorials shortly, you will see that many ministers drafted remonstrance memorials overnight, urging Your Majesty on no account to engage in idle talk of the arcane and the void, or devote himself solely to matters of spirits and gods."

"Several ministers, such as Liu Zongzhou and Sun Shenxing, submitted requests for an audience early this morning and are now awaiting a reply."

Shizong?? Shizong!!

The Jiajing Emperor! That Jiajing who did not attend court for decades, obsessed with cultivating the Dao and refining elixirs!

In Zhu Youjian's mind, it was as if ten thousand alpacas went galloping past, and in an instant he understood everything.

You pack of treacherous ministers, slandering me again!

Having been misunderstood once before over the craftsmen affair was one thing, but now here it was again!

The baggage the Great Ming's successive ancestors had left him was truly a bit too abundant.

But in any case, once he understood the root of the matter, it became easy to handle.

He, Zhu Youjian, had never feared matters being difficult to handle; he only feared matters being unclear.

Zhu Youjian let out a long breath, put away his earlier wild fancies, and while sorting out his thoughts, gave instructions in a deep voice: "First, all remonstrance memorials are to be pulled out together later. You will uniformly apply the red endorsement. The content will be three words: Do not slander my innocence!"

Gao Shiming cupped his hands in acknowledgment, not intending to correct His Majesty that this was in fact six words.

"Second, as for that scripture-debating assembly — if they want to hold it, let them. Have the Shuntian Prefectural Office keep an eye on it; just ensure it does not go too far and cause trouble."

"Third, initiate a task and post it on the task board at the Gate of Accepting Heaven. Say that the various Buddhist and Daoist sects engage in no productive labor, devoting themselves solely to arcane speculation. Now that the state is undertaking reforms, although I have no intention of suppressing Buddhism or Daoism, they ought to show some sincerity."

Zhu Youjian looked at Gao Shiming and added, "Polish this item nicely. In substance, it means they must contribute money, but soften the phrasing on the surface."

"Once the statecraft documents are gathered, have Lai Zongdao of the Ministry of Rites take the lead in reviewing them. After all, the Buddhist Registry and the Daoist Registry both fall under the Ministry of Rites."

Gao Shiming nodded, then asked, "Does it need to be published in the Great Ming Times to further stir the winds?"

Zhu Youjian pondered for a moment, then shook his head. "No rush on this matter. For now, just use the task to stir the winds a little. We'll talk again once those men of virtue take the initiative to come and speak with me."

Gao Shiming nodded to show he understood.

Zhu Youjian continued: "Fourth, the rhythm of the Great Ming Times proceeds as normal. Tomorrow, publish 'The Bronze Vessel's Thunderclap' from the Huainan Wanbi Shu as usual, and have them answer once more — why this occurs."

"Fifth, that ten-thousand-tael reward from the Wu family — have them withdraw it. I hold the answer in my hand. In the end, would that money not simply be issued to me? Although the state is short of funds at present, the way to obtain money is not this —"

Zhu Youjian's voice suddenly halted at this point.

As if in a trance, a flash of inspiration seemed to streak across the void of his mind, stopping his words.

With his pause, Wang Tiqian, Tian Ergeng, and Gao Shiming dared not speak either, and the hall instantly fell into complete stillness.

A private reward? A science prize? The Accepting Grace Prize?

A string of terms flowed through Zhu Youjian's mind.

No — this was not the right moment for that approach.

Zhu Youjian shook his head, rejecting the view he had just formed.

This method of using material rewards to spur invention could be divided into several types.

The first was government-led — Britain offering a prize for the development of the marine chronometer was an example. The reward notices for the radio and the telescope that he had issued through the Embroidered Uniform Guard were essentially this type as well.

The second was funding by wealthy merchants, aimed at solving a weak link in their entire industry, in return for the corresponding patents and profits.

This type was essentially driven by profit. The emphasis lay not on the prize itself, but rather on improving the environment and status of merchants.

This was precisely why he had begun by taking up the Mount Huang case.

It was not merely about using merchants as imperial purveyors, nor simply about squeezing money out of them.

It was because this class was, by its very nature, meant to be a vital driving force behind a "Great Age of Invention."

The third type was the Nobel Prize model — rewarding the most outstanding invention of a given period.

What the Great Ming needed most urgently right now was not the third type, but the first; only then should it gradually prepare the ground for the second.

In fact, considering the culture of the Ming people, a fourth type might even be added.

Namely, allowing investors and inventors to jointly name a technology or theory, which might, from the perspective of securing a place in the historical record, inject some additional vitality.

As for the Wu family's baffling ten-thousand-tael reward — if one had to classify it —

It fit none of the four types above. To put it bluntly, it was simply paying money to save their lives.

Damn it! I have said over and over that I will not seize your wealth — why will you not believe me?

Having sorted out his thoughts, Zhu Youjian spoke again.

"A fifth matter: have Wu Cheng'en enter the palace once more. I will speak with him again."

Gao Shiming committed the several orders to memory, then turned and instructed a junior eunuch to relay them.

Only then did Zhu Youjian formally begin reviewing the day's memorials.

He opened the one on top — the sole Grade-A memorial of the day.

Confirmation of Agenda Items for the Great Court Assembly, Twelfth Month, Seventh Year of Tianqi

This was different from a month ago.

Back then, the many agenda items for the Great Court Assembly had still been driven by Zhu Youjian, with the various new-policy personnel reporting up one by one and the Directorate of Ceremonial compiling the results.

This time, however, the entire new-policy apparatus had transmitted and compiled the items layer by layer, coordinated them across the board, and only then submitted the final result for his approval.

Although there were still a few imperfections, Zhu Youjian did not mind.

He reviewed them one by one, nodded, and picked up his brush to write the two characters "Approved" at the end.

"I have no further issues on my side." He handed the memorial to Gao Shiming.

"Send word: the day after tomorrow, the Great Court Assembly at Huangji Hall will convene as scheduled!"