Chapter 716: The Imperial Academy Is No Place for Ordinary Mortals!

Someone was crying!

Qian Qianyi followed the sound and saw that it was the great scholar Huang Daozhou wailing loudly, muttering as he wept: "A sage, a sage! How could such fine principles have been buried underground? Who buried them? This burial has delayed a matter of great importance..."

Then Zhu Zhiyu wept too. "Wuwu... for so many years, for so many years, we have known we must investigate things to extend knowledge, but how does one investigate? There was never a method... O Sage! How could you have taken the method of investigating things into your coffin?"

"It was not the Sage who took the method of investigating things into his coffin," Wang Fuzhi began to give play to his imagination. "It must have been the First Emperor who, when he burned the books and buried the scholars, burned up all the bamboo slips recording the 'Zilun Gewu' chapter..."

Ji Kun, universally acknowledged as a harsh official, ground his teeth. "Right, right, it must have been the First Emperor who burned all those bamboo slips! How utterly hateful!"

The First Emperor of Qin was wronged! How many years and months would he have to carry this black pot?

Kong Yinzheng also held a sheet of paper in his hand, on which were written the five great-seal characters "Zilun Gewu Pian," with no content. So he too did not know what this lost chapter actually said. He therefore asked: "Gentlemen, none of us have seen the real thing yet!"

Indeed, they had not even seen the real thing — how had they come to weep like this? What if it was a counterfeit?

"The Duke of Yansheng is mistaken!" Old Master Huang Daozhou held up the scrap of paper in his hands. "The lost treasure is right here!"

What? This was just a sheet of paper... Confucius's time had no paper!

Kong Yinzheng was somewhat confused. "Master Shizhai, this is a copy, is it not?"

"A copy is also a treasure!"

"This is the supreme treasure!"

"It is a supreme treasure equal to the *Analects*!"

"When the supreme treasure appears, the Great Way flourishes..."

Equal to the *Analects*? And "when the supreme treasure appears, the Great Way flourishes"?

Kong Yinzheng now understood: the principles in this *Zilun Gewu Pian* were the treasure! With this treasure, Confucianism had opened a new path of development. In the past, because no one knew how to investigate things, Confucianism had been unable to extend knowledge, and could only devote itself single-mindedly to morality and politics. Although these two things could bring many benefits to the sons of Confucianism and make Confucian learning a prominent school...

Yet no matter how illustrious Confucian learning became, it could not conceal the truth that its development had stagnated!

Neo-Confucianism had gotten stuck on the investigation of things, and the School of the Mind, after bypassing the investigation of things, had fallen into chaos... "The mind is the principle" and such — using it to cultivate the mind is fine; it makes a person inwardly strong, able to bear all kinds of setbacks and pressures. But can it be used to investigate things and extend knowledge? Whatever comes to mind goes? Is that not entering the mystical and the Chan? So in the end, after all its detours, the School of the Mind either turned into Western learning or became a study of "cultivating the mind to become a sage" — too empty and void.

If one bypasses the investigation of things, and bypasses mind-cultivation as well, what is left of Confucian learning? Examination-and-office-holding studies? Moreover, if things are not properly investigated, office is hard to hold well either — without a method of investigating things, one cannot promote the rapid development of productive forces; if productive forces do not rise, holding office is managing a fixed stock, and managing a fixed stock of course requires moral sages, on the one hand to fool the lower levels, on the other to restrain the upper levels. If everyone eats a little less and grabs a little less, the realm can enjoy a few more years of peace.

Therefore the true way out for Confucian learning was still the investigation of things and extension of knowledge, and to make this way passable, it seemed they would have to rely on the *Zilun Gewu Pian*!

"The lost chapter is certainly genuine!" Huang Daozhou had already finished reading all the copies and had reached a conclusion. "Whether or not the object is genuine, the principles are certainly genuine!"

"Right!" Zhu Zhiyu said as well. "The object can be forged, but these principles absolutely cannot be forged!"

"Exactly!" Wang Fuzhi also said. "The principles in this *Zilun Gewu Pian* are a ladder to heaven for exploring the Great Way. Whoever could set them forth would be a master scholar of the age!"

No longer merely a "great scholar," but a "master scholar," a "colossal scholar"!

Shi Kefa said: "We must obtain the complete text of the *Zilun Gewu Pian*, no matter how much silver it costs! Shouzhi, how much silver did you bring this time?"

"One hundred thousand taels!" Qian Qianyi said. "Banknotes from the Salt Merchants' Bank, payable on presentation at Lüshun."

"One hundred thousand taels... will that be enough?" Shi Kefa glanced somewhat worriedly at Kong Yinxi.

"Hard to say... that Jia Bushi of Jiale Market is black-hearted indeed!" Kong Yinxi said. "If he learns that we will pay any price to obtain the supreme treasure, he will certainly demand an exorbitant sum!"

"Then this official will mobilize troops and seize it!" Shi Kefa said with a dark face. "The Model Right Division is to come to Liaodong next month to relieve the Model Left Division. At that time this official can temporarily detain the Left Division, and we will have thirty thousand troops at our disposal!"

Qian Qianyi, Zhu Zhiyu, Huang Daozhou, and Wang Fuzhi were all startled by Shi Kefa's proposal — how had this Shi Kefa become so bellicose?

"That would not be proper, would it?" Kong Yinzheng, looking like a fierce Zhang Fei, stroked his great beard. "We should still win people over by virtue!"

As expected of the Duke of Yansheng!

Qian Qianyi, Zhu Zhiyu, Huang Daozhou, and Wang Fuzhi all breathed a sigh of relief.

"Duke of Yansheng, how do you propose we win people over by virtue?" Shi Kefa asked.

Here at Lüshun there was a great deal of "virtue" — the smallest of 3 pounds, the largest of 24 pounds. It was just unclear which caliber suited Jia Bushi.

Kong Yinzheng smiled with simple honesty: "That treacherous merchant Jia Bushi thinks what we want is the bamboo slips, but in fact what we want is the writing on the bamboo slips. Why not send someone posing as an appraiser to examine the treasure, looking at them one by one, and committing all the writing on the slips to memory... would not the supreme treasure then be in our hands?"

So this was what it meant to win people over by virtue!

Qian Qianyi, Zhu Zhiyu, Huang Daozhou, and Wang Fuzhi all nodded in approval.

"Who would be suitable to go?" Kong Yinxi asked.

"I will go!" Ji Kun volunteered. "I have a good memory; I never forget what I have seen."

Wang Fuzhi also said: "I will go together with Ji Chunfan... two people remembering together is always safer than one."

This room was full of top scholars, all with good memories. But Qian Qianyi, Zhu Zhiyu, and Huang Daozhou were all getting on in years. Kong Yinzheng, for his part, looked too much like a bandit. So the most suitable were Ji Kun and Wang Fuzhi, both in their thirties, their powers of memory not yet declined!

But even if the two of them had poor memories, it would not matter, because the great boss Jia Bushi was a greatly loyal merchant, who would let the two of them copy out the entire contents of the *Zilun Gewu Pian* to take back and study at leisure!

"Copy, copy as much as you like, copy it back and let the great scholars have a good look," said Jia Bushi inside the Ming-Qing mutual market at Jiale Market, pointing at the bamboo slips spread over an entire table, smiling. "If these principles are true, then the slips cannot be false!"

"Right, right..." Wang Fuzhi carefully picked up one of the bamboo slips and looked at the words on it: "Zigong asked: How does induction lead to inference?" Then he picked up the slip bearing Confucius's reply and looked at it again and again, murmuring under his breath, "It cannot be false, cannot be false... how could this possibly be false? Who could produce such a forgery?"

Ji Kun's brows were tightly knitted. He had already seen that the bamboo slips were forged!

He had always loved collecting antiques and had some familiarity with bamboo slips, jade objects, and bronzes of the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods. Over the years he had seen many genuine articles, but he had never seen a tableful of bamboo slips that looked battered and rotten yet had every single character fully legible — two thousand years, eaten by insects and soaked in water, and not one character could be effaced? And there seemed to be none missing or scattered... This Dorgon's tomb-robbing skill was too high, was it not? Digging up graves and robbing tombs is not easy work; one careless move damages the antiquities. To be so complete — even families that had done this for generations would find it hard to achieve!

"This... how is it sold?" Ji Kun of course could not expose it; Emperor Zhu had already spoken with him...

"Sell what?" Jia Bushi sighed. "Not selling, not selling... I just received a letter from the Prince, saying that the Gege of Penglai wants this batch of bamboo slips, and has ordered me to send them by ship. You see, these things could clearly have sold for over ten thousand taels of silver, and now the Gege has taken them. What a pity."

"The Gege of Penglai?" Ji Kun asked. "Is it Gege Dong'e?"

"That's right!" Jia Bushi sighed mournfully. "Perhaps the Gege heard that the Ming Emperor wants this portion of the slips, so she wrote to her Imperial Ama and asked for them. Truly, a grown daughter cannot be kept at home! You may copy them now, copy them however you like!"