Chapter 36: The Revival of Spiritual Energy?

Liu Xiu was regretting his choices.

He should not have picked the Book of Documents, and certainly not Xu Ziwei. The old Confucian scholar's learning was no doubt first-rate, but when he lectured, he parsed every word and split every phrase into tedious, rambling minutiae that put a man straight to sleep.

In the few days since term began, Xu Ziwei had been expounding the "Canon of Yao" chapter in the Book of Documents — and guess how many words he had spent on the two-character chapter title alone?

"Over a hundred thousand!"

Liu Xiu unburdened himself only to Deng Yu, and it struck a chord — Deng Yu was also studying the Ouyang recension of the Book of Documents, though under a different master.

Deng Yu said, "My master is the same. The 'Canon of Yao' opens with the line 'Examining into antiquity,' and on those four characters alone he lectured for thirty thousand words — and made us copy it all down and memorize it."

For a prodigy like Deng Yu, this was sheer torture. How many more bamboo slips would it cost him? And the slips had to be bought from the stewards and assistant lecturers under the Erudite — expensive, and poor quality to boot.

The Five Classics were not long to begin with, some even remarkably short, yet every school frantically stuffed its own private cargo into the canon, calling it "glosses" and "philosophical principles." The result was that the content of the Five Classics had been watered down a thousandfold, ten-thousandfold, even a hundred-thousandfold.

And so half a lifetime got smashed to pieces inside them.

Liu Xiu now understood why some men entered the Imperial Academy as boys and still could not master a single classic by the time their hair turned white. At this pace, he and Deng Yu could spend a whole year in Chang'an and still not finish the "Canon of Yao."

Liu Xiu revealed what he had learned from his fellow townsman Zhu You: "I hear that disciples are ranked as 'outside the gate,' 'ascending the hall,' and 'entering the inner chamber.' We are mere 'outside the gate' disciples, so naturally they will not teach us with their whole hearts."

One had to grind out the time, build connections, and serve the old Erudite as if serving one's own father before possibly advancing. Only after becoming an "inner chamber" disciple could one receive the Erudite's recommendation and qualify to sit the Shece examination, competing for one of the eighty official posts awarded each year.

Liu Xiu had never wanted to spend his life burrowing into the classics anyway. Now that he saw how deep the waters ran, his enthusiasm for the Shece examination cooled entirely. He merely shook his head and said, "So be it. A rough grasp of the broad meaning will do for us."

For sons of right-side-of-the-village families like them, if study did not pan out, they could always go home and inherit the family estate.

Unlike his boredom with his own course of study, Liu Xiu found his interest kindled by certain "miscellaneous learnings."

Back when Wang Mang built the great academy halls and broadly recruited scholars, he did not limit himself to orthodox classicists; those skilled in military strategy, astronomy, calendrical calculation, esoteric arts, and prognosticatory charts and apocrypha were also included.

What fascinated Liu Xiu was precisely the chen and wei — the prognosticatory apocrypha.

As it happened, the man sharing Liu Xiu's dormitory, a fellow from the Left Watch Commandery (Yingchuan) named Qiang Hua, had come to the Imperial Academy specifically to study the chen and wei.

"Heaven and man belong to the same kind and communicate with each other, resonating mutually. Heaven can intervene in human affairs, and human affairs can likewise influence celestial phenomena! These words are recorded in the 'Great Plan' chapter of the Book of Documents. Has Wenshu studied them?"

Liu Xiu had read the scripture, but as for the specific philosophical glosses, he would probably have to study another ten years before he got to hear Xu Ziwei lecture on them.

Qiang Hua continued: "Thus, ever since the Three Dynasties, calamities, prodigies, and auspicious omens have all arisen in response to order and chaos in the human realm, and they are accompanied by prophetic riddles and heavenly writings descending into the world. The former are the chen, the latter the wei; together they form the inner and outer aspects of the Five Classics."

To put it plainly, the chen and wei were political prophecies about the future.

"When things reach their zenith, an extraordinary transformation must first appear as a portent for that person."

Qiang Hua spoke of these matters with great assurance: "In the time of Emperor Zhao of Han, a withered tree in the altar of the Changyi kingdom revived and put forth branches and leaves, presaging that the King of Changyi, Liu He, would succeed to the great throne. Sure enough, not long after, he was escorted into the capital by Huo Guang."

"But could Heaven's mandate be so simple? When Liu He was still in the Changyi kingdom, he once saw a white dog, three feet tall and headless, swaggering right into his chamber, though no one else could see it. There were seven or eight similar portents, all foretelling that Liu He placed his trust in slanderers and sycophants and would surely meet with calamity."

"Sure enough, Liu He reigned for twenty-seven days before being deposed for boundless debauchery."

"Earlier, a great broken willow tree in the Shanglin Park suddenly stood upright one morning, put forth branches and leaves, and ants ate the leaves into written characters, which turned out to be the five words 'Gongsun Bingyi shall be established.' Not long after, Emperor Xuan of Han, Liu Bingyi, rose from an orphan of a deposed house to receive the mandate as the true Son of Heaven!"

The Zhao-Xuan restoration! Hearing this, Liu Xiu could not help but yearn for that era — only to regret that it had been the last glory of the Great Han.

"After Emperor Cheng took the throne, the sun and moon lost their brightness, the stars ran retrograde, mountains crumbled and springs gushed, the earth quaked and stones fell from the sky, frost came in summer and thunder in winter, plants withered in spring and bloomed in autumn, killing frosts failed to kill, floods, droughts, and locusts — every single calamity and prodigy recorded in the Spring and Autumn Annals appeared, without exception. These were warnings against Emperor Cheng's fatuousness, his employment of the treacherous, and his infatuation with Zhao Feiyan and Zhao Hede. By contrast, auspicious signs symbolizing the Wang consort clan came one after another, until at last the dynastic vessel was overturned."

Liu Xiu listened with a secret pang of regret. The third man sharing their dormitory, however, had been snoring through his midday nap and, after being disturbed for so long, actually burst out laughing at this.

This man was named Zhuang Guang (Yan Guang), courtesy name Ziling. He was past fifty, his beard flecked with white — old enough to be Liu Xiu's father — yet he was indeed Liu Xiu's classmate and dormitory mate at the Imperial Academy.

Despite the great gap in age, Liu Xiu rather liked Zhuang Guang's freewheeling, unconstrained style. He patted Zhuang Guang's bare belly and said, "Ziling, Ziling, what's so funny in your dream?"

Zhuang Guang could not even be bothered to sit up. He merely slapped away Liu Xiu's dirty hand from his stomach. "I'm laughing at Qiang Hua, going on about chen and wei all day long. Is he hoping to become a second Ai Zhang?"

Ai Zhang, who had come to the Gentlemen's Office today to lecture Diwu Lun and the others on prognostications, was the "pride" of the Imperial Academy.

From the academy's expansion under Emperor Ping of Han right up to the present, out of over ten thousand students, Ai Zhang was the only one to become a high official. As one of the "Four Generals," he held the post of State General and was also enfeoffed as "Duke Who Glorifies the Xin," a position of the highest rank.

But Diwu Lun had heard that Ai Zhang had not risen through classical scholarship; he had simply caught the wind of Wang Mang's dynastic transition and the submission of auspicious omens.

From the Zhao-Xuan period onward, as the theory of Heaven-man resonance sank deep into the popular mind, the chen and wei flourished, and Wang Mang exploited this. The very year he returned to power — what a coincidence! — the "Yueshang clan," unheard of since the Zhou dynasty, traveled untold thousands of li to present a white pheasant. The assembled ministers declared this proved Wang Mang's virtue equaled the Duke of Zhou's and had transformed the barbarians.

One trick eaten all over the realm — once he tasted the sweetness, things became ever more unbridled.

In the third year of the former dynasty's Jushe era (AD 8), the Precinct Chief of Changxing Precinct in Linzi County, Qi Commandery, encountered a deity in a dream. The deity said to him, "I am the emissary of the Lord of Heaven. The Lord of Heaven sends me to tell the Precinct Chief: the Acting Emperor shall become the true one. If you do not believe me, a new well shall appear in this precinct."

The next day, the Precinct Chief rose and made a circuit of the precinct offices. To his astonishment, he found that where the ground outside his gate had been flat the day before, a new well had indeed appeared! He peered inside — it plunged a hundred feet into the earth, its walls smooth... This, this, this was absolutely not dug by human hands.

When the Precinct Chief hauled himself down on a rope, in the manner of a monkey fishing for the moon, and felt around the bottom, he pulled from the bone-chilling water a flawless white stone! It was rounded on top and square below, and on the stone, in cinnabar script, were eight ancient characters.

"Inform the Duke Who Pacifies the Han, Mang: become Emperor!"

The Precinct Chief, in great excitement, clasped the white stone from the well and rushed to the capital. Before long, this auspicious omen, together with the Ba Commandery stone ox and the Yong stone inscription — discovered at different places but the same time — was delivered to the Guanzhong region, throwing scholars and commoners alike into an uproar. The three stones were placed in the front hall of Weiyang Palace, and Wang Mang brought a few trusted aides to view them.

The very moment Wang Mang stepped into the front hall, a great wind suddenly rose from the heavens, whipping sand and stones through the air. When the wind died down, there on the ground before the three stones — previously utterly empty — lay a glittering bronze talisman with a silk chart!

Upon it was written: "Heaven proclaims the imperial talisman; he who presents it shall be enfeoffed as marquis. Receive the mandate of Heaven; act upon the divine command."

A miracle! An absolute miracle! Presumably, only by gathering all three divine stones could it be summoned.

The assembled ministers immediately fell to their knees, crying out in chorus that Heaven's mandate had been made this explicit — the Duke Who Pacifies the Han should stop dithering as Acting Emperor and directly accept the Han abdication to become the true Emperor!

But Wang Mang still refused. He probably felt the time was not yet ripe — three refusals and three deferrals, you had to complete the set. Diwu Lun understood this perfectly.

At that moment, the Imperial Academy student Ai Zhang scented opportunity.

In the twelfth month of the third year of Jushe, Ai Zhang, dressed all in yellow, delivered two boxes, exquisitely crafted by artisans, to the High Temple. He told the temple's Deputy Director: "An emissary of the Heavenly Thearch has commanded me to deliver these golden caskets. Please present them at once to the Duke Who Pacifies the Han."

When the two golden caskets reached Wang Mang's hands and were opened, they were found to contain two written edicts. One was labeled "Chart of the Golden Casket with the Heavenly Thearch's Seal," the other "Edict of the Golden Casket with the Red Thearch's Seal Transmitting the Throne to the Yellow Thearch."

The edicts stated that even the Red Thearch, Liu Bang, agreed that the Han's virtue was exhausted and that Wang Mang was the true Son of Heaven, and that the Empress Dowager should obey Heaven's will.

Crude trickery though it was, a surprising number of people believed it. Wang Mang went along with the current and decided to strike while the iron was hot. He proceeded to the High Temple, accepted the abdication, changed the era name and dynastic title, initiated a new beginning with all under Heaven, and completed the enterprise of supplanting the Han.

However, the golden edict also contained other content — for instance, the bold prophecy that the Xin Dynasty would have a core leadership council of eleven men. Aside from eight of Wang Mang's trusted men, including Liu Xin, Ai Zhang himself was, of course, listed among them.

Most absurdly, he had also fabricated two other men — one named Wang Xing, the other Wang Sheng — borrowing the auspicious meaning of "flourishing prosperity."

What was to be done? To verify the mandate omen, Wang Mang sent men searching throughout the capital. At last they found a cake-seller named Wang Sheng and a city-gate guard named Wang Xing. A diviner was called in to read their physiognomies and declared them to be the very men named in the edict. Thus Wang Xing and Wang Sheng ascended to heaven in a single bound, joining Ai Zhang among the eleven supreme dukes.

Recalling the exploits of this Ai Zhang, Diwu Lun thought to himself, "So this is the legendary pig that just happens to stand in the wind's mouth and instantly takes flight!"

And he even dragged a cake-seller and a gate guard into the air with him. The founding of the Xin Dynasty was sheer farce. If this wasn't magical realism, what was?

Still, men like Ai Zhang were, after all, too shallow in their foundations and were scorned by the senior ministers and nobles. Wang Mang gave them no real power either. Ai Zhang was left to manage propaganda work — otherwise he would hardly be so idle as to come brainwash the newly appointed Filial and Incorrupt Gentlemen.

Ai Zhang no longer looked like a Confucian scholar; he seemed more like a shaman. Once seated, he began to ramble mystically about the dynasty's various miracles.

"The Emperor is humble, thoroughly prepared yet firmly declining — but the twelve talismans pressed upon him, and the mandate could not be refused."

A native of Zitong in Shu, Ai Zhang was practically a half-fellow-townsman of Yang Xiong, but his accent was far thicker than Yang Xiong's.

Ai Zhang said that the Xin now kept twelve sacred artifacts in its collection.

The first was the Martial Merit Cinnabar Stone, which appeared in the final years of Emperor Ping of Han. When the virtue of Fire was utterly spent and the virtue of Earth should succeed it, August Heaven looked with favor, departed from Han and turned to Xin, and by the cinnabar stone first mandated the new Emperor.

The second: the new Emperor humbly declined and ruled as regent, not yet matching Heaven's intent, so in the autumn, the seventh month, Heaven reiterated with the "San Neng Patterned Horse."

The third was the Iron Covenant; the fourth, the Stone Tortoise; the fifth, the Yu Talisman; the sixth, the Wen Gui Tablet; the seventh, the Xuan Seal; the eighth, the Maoling Stone Writing; the ninth, the Xuan Dragon Stone; the tenth, the Divine Well; the eleventh, the Great Divine Stone; and the twelfth, the bronze talisman and silk diagram submitted by Ai Zhang.

The twelve sacred artifacts are kept in the Wanglu Hall of the Shoucheng Chamber, displayed and venerated in the inner court's great hall. They are divine auspices sent down by the supreme deity officially worshipped by the court, "August Heaven, the Grand Unity, the High God."

Far more impressive than the Liu family's trifling Snake-Slaying Sword, wouldn't you say?

Anyone who dares harbor doubts about the Xin's legitimacy is not merely disloyal and unfilial — they are outright blaspheming the divine will and Heaven's mandate! They shall suffer Heaven's punishment!

Finally, Ai Zhang, in his heavily accented courtly speech, intoned the convoluted words: "The omens of the reiterated mandate grew ever more manifest, reaching twelve in number, to proclaim clearly to the new Emperor. With the Xin now established, the spirits rejoice, reiterating with blessings and auspicious signs; fortunate omens pile one upon another."

Ten years had passed, and according to Ai Zhang's account, it was as though the world had experienced a resurgence of spiritual energy, so much so that the unicorns, phoenixes, tortoises, and dragons discovered, along with all manner of auspicious signs, numbered over seven hundred!

Things like a yellow dragon swimming in the river, branches and leaves sprouting from a catalpa pillar at the tomb gate of the Wang ancestors, a hen turning into a rooster overnight — who knows whether it was a distortion of human nature or a collapse of morality.

Diwu Lun was stunned. "Is this… a resurgence of spiritual energy?"

If all of this were true, then this era might as well be renamed "Mythic Edition Xin Dynasty."

Fortunately, Diwu Lun had observed carefully over the past few months and confirmed that this world still operated under the physical laws he was familiar with — nothing beyond his understanding had occurred, aside from his transmigration.

In short, with one auspicious omen every two months on average, according to the theory of Heaven–man resonance, Wang Mang's new governance truly rivaled the rule of the Three Dynasties and brought about a Great Unity! It was leagues beyond the so-called Zhaoxuan Restoration of the previous dynasty.

Ai Zhang was declaiming the divine right of kings with cadenced passion, and the assembled crowd was actually listening with keen enjoyment — how could they not? Even two thousand years later, plenty of high-level intellectuals and even officials believe in prophetic chenwei texts, believe in the Tui Bei Tu, and spend all day discussing auspicious signs.

But their tradecraft was still unpolished; the counterfeiting skills of Ai Zhang and his ilk were utterly shoddy compared to later ages. Even just listening, Diwu Lun could see holes everywhere.

Diwu Lun found it absurd and ridiculous, and couldn't help breaking into a smile. He hurriedly pressed his lips to stifle it.

At that moment, however, he noticed someone sitting to his left, also lowering his head to suppress a laugh, his hand tightly gripping his thigh to keep from bursting out.

It was precisely the young Palace Gentleman who had earlier been clamoring about going to "Zhangtai Street" on his leave day to seek out beauties.

By now, Ai Zhang's lecture was drawing to a close. Having at least been a student at the Imperial Academy, he concluded with a line from the Book of Songs.

"The Book of Songs says: 'He is good to the people, good to the worthy; he receives his blessings from Heaven. Heaven protects and mandates him, and from Heaven it is reiterated.' That is the meaning. Gentlemen, you must always remember: August Heaven is bright and awe-inspiring, the virtue of Yellow shall flourish, the great mandate is made manifest, and the realm is entrusted to His Majesty. May the Xin endure ten thousand years!"

"May the Xin endure ten thousand years! May His Majesty endure ten thousand years!"

Diwu Lun joined the Palace Gentlemen in the ritual shout against his conscience. When he rose and turned around, the young Palace Gentleman who had been secretly laughing at Ai Zhang was standing before him with a grin, and the moment he opened his mouth, a thick Zhao-Wei accent poured out.

"This gentleman here — why were you stifling a laugh just now?"

Diwu Lun shook his head. "I was only holding back a smile, but you, dear brother, nearly laughed out loud. Isn't that the pot calling the kettle black?"

The two shared a knowing look and laughed again. Diwu Lun cupped his hands toward him. "I am from Liewei Commandery. Diwu Lun, courtesy name Boyu."

The other returned the courtesy with perfect posture, standing ramrod straight. "From Julu Commandery. Geng Chun, courtesy name Boshan!"

……

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