Chapter 300: Bloodline Empathy (Six thousand-plus characters, two chapters in one — consider it a makeup update!)

Waves of recitation drifted through the air. Inside the Liangzhou Prefectural School, located in the Hexi Governor's headquarters at Liangzhou, all was youthful vigor. This was Fan Zhi's favorite place in Liangzhou, and he came here every day to wander about.

Since the decline and fall of the Great Tang, the prefectural and county schools across the land had essentially fallen into a state of abandonment.

The basic abandonment of the prefectural and county schools had dealt a tremendous blow to the state's civil governance, and nowhere was this more evident than in the imperial examinations.

Under the Later Tang, examinations were held only rarely, the dates were irregular, and the number of successful candidates was smaller still.

In the year Fan Zhi passed the examinations, only eight men were taken as presented scholars, and that was already the most in any examination period; very often only a single presented scholar was chosen.

This was nothing like the Ming dynasty, with its second and third tiers of graduates; they could not even fill out the top three ranks of optimus, second, and third, which is why the Five Dynasties had no such titles as optimus or second-place scholar.

Moreover, Fan Zhi discovered that this little Liangzhou academy was remarkably complete in its setup: the Three Rites, the Three Commentaries, the Three Histories, law, and mathematics were all offered, omitting only the Classical Studies track devoted to the intensive study of a single classic and the Daoist Studies track focused on Daoist teachings.

However, after Fan Zhi finished listening to a scroll of the Guliang Commentary on the Spring and Autumn Annals, his brow furrowed until it resembled the Loess Plateau.

The general outline was not wrong, but the minor errors were far too numerous, and there were also deviations in interpretation.

It seemed that after a hundred and fifty years of the Hexi region sinking into barbarian dust, the damage to its literary culture was indeed severe.

"I see the Imperial Envoy shaking his head. I imagine the level of Hexi's Confucian scholars must be far from encouraging!"

Fan Zhi was just shaking his head when a voice from behind startled him badly.

He spun around abruptly and saw Zhang Zhao standing behind him with Murong Xinzhang and Li Cunhui. All three were dressed as scholars, little different from the students in the prefectural school. Zhang Zhao even held a folding fan, deliberately striking the pose of a dashing young gentleman.

Uh! Fan Zhi felt somewhat awkward, not only because Zhang Zhao had seen him shaking his head, but also because Zhang Zhao's getup was a little hard for him to accept.

Where in the world had this Minister of Works Zhang learned to carry a folding fan as a mark of elegance?

In Fan Zhi's view, there was not much elegance about it; rather, there was a thick, how to put it — if he had known the word "shamate," then Zhang Zhao's current outfit, in Fan Zhi's eyes, was a dense, impenetrable shamate non-mainstream style.

Zhang Zhao, of course, had no idea that Fan Zhi was unimpressed by his outfit. He assumed Fan Zhi had been stunned into silence by his words, so he had no choice but to continue speaking himself.

"I must have made the Imperial Envoy laugh. The court abandoned Hexi for a hundred and fifty years. Though I have the will to bring it back to Han civilization, I am, after all, only a military man, and what I can do is limited. May I ask the Imperial Envoy: are there learned men in the Central Plains willing to come to Hexi?"

Only then did Fan Zhi realize that Zhang Zhao had misunderstood him somewhat, but he was even more astonished by Zhang Zhao's words.

"The edict has already been delivered, so I dare not accept the title of Imperial Envoy from the Minister of Works. May I ask the Minister of Works why he poses such a question?

The realm is now in chaos, and we should rely on martial prowess to bring order to the four directions. How is a learned scholar better than a brave and fierce general?"

Zhang Zhao looked at Fan Zhi with a meaningful smile. "You and I are close in age, and you are a little older than I am. Why don't we address each other as brothers?

Brother Fan, you must know that pacifying a chaotic age requires martial prowess, but governing a chaotic age and building a golden age cannot rely entirely on military men. Since ancient times, there has never been a principle by which one could conquer the realm on horseback and then govern it from horseback as well.

And in my view, why draw such a sharp distinction between civil and military? A warrior need not be unable to study letters, and a scholar need not be ignorant of military affairs."

Fan Zhi nodded lightly. In his heart, anyone who could say such things was a worthy lord of men. But such things were easy to say and exceedingly difficult to do.

In truth, in the Central Plains, whether under the Liang, the Tang, or the various regional rulers, everyone wanted to raise the status of the literati, because that would give their own positions and safety greater security.

Emperor Zhuangzong of this dynasty even went so far as to grant offices to actors in order to muddy the waters, yet in the end he became a pile of dry bones atop the Xingjiao Gate. Of course, Fan Zhi was not about to discuss such matters with Zhang Zhao when their acquaintance was still shallow.

"The Minister of Works speaks truly; I was being narrow-minded!" Fan Zhi put on an expression of embarrassment, as if to say he had misspoken, while the smile on Zhang Zhao's face grew even more playful.

It seemed this fellow was almost certainly the historical Fan Zhi: born of an official family, a presented scholar, once a County Magistrate, and already this smooth and slippery at a young age.

All these traits pointed to the man in history who betrayed Guo Rong's trust as the orphan-entrusted Chief Minister of the Later Zhou.

But then again, there was not much he could have done. In an age when warriors were lords of heaven, Zhao Kuangyin had already won over most of the palace army and was preparing to rebel. Had Fan Zhi refused to comply, it would only have cost him his entire family's lives.

And although this man's knees were a little soft, his abilities were extremely strong. From Shi Jingtang to Guo Wei and Guo Rong, all spoke of him with unceasing praise.

Whether drafting documents, handling government affairs, or stabilizing the regions, he had the makings of a great minister of the age.

In particular, he presided over the compilation of the Later Zhou's Xiande Consolidated Penal Code, upon which the Song dynasty's Song Penal Code was later based, exerting an enormous influence on later generations. He was precisely the kind of legal talent that Zhang Zhao currently lacked.

At this thought, Zhang Zhao warmly took Fan Zhi by the arm. "Since you happen to be free today, why don't you and I, Brother Fan, stroll arm in arm? I shall act as your guide and show you this newly built Liangzhou Prefectural School of mine."

With that, and without waiting for Fan Zhi's consent, he took Fan Zhi by the arm and set off.

The Liangzhou Prefectural School was actually built from the buildings of the Hexi Governor's headquarters, converted during the renovation of Liangzhou city.

It occupied roughly a third of the entire headquarters compound, a full hundred and ten-odd mu.

Zhang Zhao placed great hopes on this prefectural school headquarters. To fully win back the six Wenmo tribes, besides incentives of honor, material benefits, and driving them by force, the soft power of culture was still extremely important.

The charm of Han culture, one might say, lies entirely within books. If too few people can read and understand them, that charm is inevitably greatly diminished.

If everyone still lived as they had under the Tibetans as slave tribes, and their spiritual world remained the Tibetans' system of animistic worship and gods and Buddhas, then what talk could there be of converting the barbarians and returning to Han?

Even if they submitted on the surface, inside they would remain the same, and it would have no effect at all.

"Brother Fan, look. I have established two colleges in the prefectural school. Before us is the College of Mathematics and Law.

To its east is the College of Classics and History, which mainly teaches the Three Commentaries and the Three Histories. It is only a pity that books are few, Confucian scholars are few, and teachers are few as well." Zhang Zhao pointed out the buildings of the Liangzhou Prefectural School to Fan Zhi one by one.

In truth, Zhang Zhao was merely putting a good face on things. Given the situation in Liangzhou, what Confucian scholars were there to speak of? Anyone who could recognize all the characters and barely half-understand what the Spring and Autumn Annals and the other commentaries were saying would count as a great talent.

Fan Zhi nodded as well. In the Liangzhou Prefectural School, a dozen or more students shared a single book — that was what "books are few" meant. As for Confucian scholars... uh, he truly had not seen a single qualified one.

As for teachers, it was not that they were few; there were simply none at all. But that the Minister of Works Zhang could care about culture and education in this remote borderland was enough to make Fan Zhi regard him with new respect.

As he spoke, Zhang Zhao picked up a copy of Elementary Principles of Mathematics and showed it to Fan Zhi. This book had been compiled by Zhang Zhao himself.

He had written this textbook according to the standard of later primary school plus a touch of middle school difficulty.

That is to say, it taught basic addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division; the harder parts merely introduced simple one-variable or quadratic equations.

Of course, Zhang Zhao had also included the multiplication table and Arabic numerals.

However, "simple" was relative to Zhang Zhao. In later times, the multiplication table and Arabic numerals were nothing special.

But in this era, Fan Zhi felt as though his head had been struck by lightning. As a learned man who had passed the presented scholar examination, he was by no means unfamiliar with mathematics.

"Minister of Works, are you not a man of heaven?" After grasping the meaning represented by the Arabic numerals, Fan Zhi looked at Zhang Zhao with an expression of utter disbelief.

Arabic numerals were extremely simple, easy to learn, and could be called a tremendous leap forward in the study of calculation. As for how convenient the multiplication table was, that went without saying.

Do not think that merely inventing a simple set of numerals and compiling a multiplication table is a small thing. Such things cannot possibly be invented without long years of accumulation; indeed, they cannot even be fully summarized within one or two generations.

For these two things to appear, one needs an extremely rich accumulation of knowledge, followed by a very fortuitous flash of inspiration.

Fan Zhi even began to suspect that behind Zhang Zhao there was an entire school devoted to the study of mathematical methods.

Faced with Fan Zhi's gaze, layered with shock and reverence, Zhang Zhao was not the least bit embarrassed. He was even prepared to call Arabic numerals "Hexi numerals."

Because at this time, in India—the birthplace of Arabic numerals—only the three digits 1, 2, and 3 had actually been invented.

After they spread to Mesopotamia, they underwent several more centuries of development, yet remained very incomplete.

The later forms of 1 through 10 only took their present shape and base system around the sixteenth century, after countless mathematicians had continually refined and promoted them.

So the utterly shocked Fan Zhi merely flattered Zhang Zhao with a few words, then plopped straight down onto the ground and began studying them in minute detail.

Zhang Zhao was still somewhat baffled; though he wore a look of unfathomable mystery on his face, in truth he had no idea why Fan Zhi had lost his composure so completely.

After a long while, Fan Zhi drew a deep breath. "These Hexi numerals are simple, clear, and easy to calculate with. I just tested them, and many calculations that were once difficult in the study of mathematics have become far simpler because of them.

And this algorithmic formula in the book—it seems it can be applied to the Jigu Suanjing, making it simpler by more than tenfold!" With that, Fan Zhi raised his head and gave a long sigh, as though deeply despondent.

"Why was I not born in the glorious age of the Great Tang? Had I been, these Hexi numerals, along with the algorithms and formulas in this book, would have revolutionized the methods of calculation in mathematics, calendrical science, architecture, and the geography of mountains and rivers.

Had it been the glorious age of the Great Tang, the Sage would have issued a single edict, and all the learned men of the realm would have gathered in Chang'an, discarding the old and bringing forth the new, spreading and developing it—surely it would have shone through ten thousand generations!"

The algorithmic formulas Fan Zhi spoke of were the linear and quadratic equations in one variable that Zhang Zhao had added from memory.

Zhang Zhao himself had no real background in mathematics, so of course he did not know what mysteries lay in these seemingly unremarkable formulas. He had simply thought that since they appeared in later mathematics books, they must be useful, and so he had added them in.

This method of extracting roots already existed in the Tang dynasty mathematical classic Jigu Suanjing; in fact, the Jigu Suanjing had even progressed to extracting cube roots, and was regarded as the most difficult mathematical problem of the entire Tang dynasty.

The difficulty was not because the ancients lacked intelligence, but because the root-extraction method in the Jigu Suanjing was extremely complex, and because one had to write out calculations using the traditional forms of the numerals one through ten, making it extraordinarily cumbersome and difficult to learn.

But now, with the Hexi numerals "invented" by Zhang Zhao and the later root-extraction formulas, everything had become much simpler—which was why Fan Zhi had lost his composure so completely.

Only someone truly living in this era could truly understand the value of such a thing. Those things that later ages produced through the invention and refinement of countless masters, and which were then handed down, were without exception the crystallized wisdom of humanity.

Fan Zhi was right: had this been the glorious age of the Great Tang, it would surely have stirred up a great gathering of minds in the field of mathematics. An ordinary person could have lived off this one thing for a lifetime—and beyond that, his name would have been passed down through the ages.

"Brother Fan, do not be so disheartened. Do you not see that I have come? Where there is a will, there is a way. You and I are in the prime of life, with decades still ahead of us—who is to say there will not be another glorious age of the Great Tang?"

Zhang Zhao pulled Fan Zhi up from the ground and spoke with a double meaning.

Fan Zhi, for the first time, looked at Zhang Zhao from a different angle, feeling that this Minister of Works Zhang was like a sun suspended in midair, ceaselessly radiating light, possessed of a magnetic power that made one unconsciously want to follow him.

The four of them talked as they walked, and soon arrived at the place in the Classics and History Academy where the young beginning students received their introductory lessons.

Zhang Zhao's prefectural school was different from the Great Tang institution that admitted only a few dozen people—something akin to a later-era association of a certain profession.

His was, in fact, a miniature all-in-one educational institution spanning elementary school through university.

There were beginning students of six or seven sui coming to learn their characters, and there were also people of varying ages treating the place like a later-era night school.

There were also those who already possessed some cultural knowledge, who came here to further exchange and study. The upper-grade students were not only senior classmates, but might well serve as teachers for the lower grades.

All of this was the result of Zhang Zhao's forceful orders. As for ordinary people, Zhang Zhao could not control them, because they had to toil every day just to make a living, and simply had no time or energy to come study.

But the sons and younger relatives of the various leaders of the Six Departments and of the Hexi tribal chieftains and officials were a different matter. They all had to attend classes at the prefectural school, and their level of study and diligence could even become a criterion for evaluating their fathers and elder brothers—which was why the prefectural school had no shortage of students.

In the Classics and History class, an old Master Guo from Suyab was expounding the meaning of the classics to a group of beginning students who had completed their study of three hundred characters...

Perhaps it should be called storytelling, because this so-called "classical exegesis" had been personally compiled by Zhang Zhao, and was similar to later-era books of stories about famous figures in Chinese history.

Fan Zhi curiously flipped through it and found it full of stories that were rough-hewn but not crude—from Confucius traveling through the various states, to Mencius's mother moving three times, from Duke Wen of Jin, Chong'er, to King Goujian of Yue who slept on brushwood and tasted gall, and loyal ministers and righteous men such as Ba Manzi and Qu Yuan.

There were even more from after the pre-Qin period: Wei Qing, the model warrior of all ages; Huo Qubing, the Champion Marquis who performed the fengshan sacrifice at Langjuxu; the Dou Gu and Dou Xian brothers, who carved stone at Yanran and whose reputations were mixed.

Ban Dingyuan, who roamed the Western Regions; Chen Pohu, who would punish even from afar; the Thirteen Knights of Yumen, who laughed and talked of drinking Xiongnu blood; and down to the Great Tang's Duke Wei of Li, Zhang Xun and Xu Yuan of Suiyang, and the renowned minister Duke Yan of Lu.

On the platform, old Master Guo was telling the students the story of Zhang Xun and Xu Yuan defending Suiyang to the death. The structure of this story came from Zhang Zhao, but after hearing it, old Master Guo had made some small alterations.

To be precise, he had added a bit of his own private material—a bit of the experience of his own Guo family and the Three Kings of the Five Surnames of Anxi holding Kucha alone.

But this bit of private material was excellently added, making the whole story more vivid and more true to reality. Not to mention Fan Zhi, who was hearing it for the first time, even Zhang Zhao found himself somewhat entranced.

The four of them sat in the back row, together with a group of young students listening in rapt fascination, quietly listening to old Master Guo tell his story.

When he reached the part where the soldiers defending the city could only be allotted one ladle of rice per day, and when hungry had no choice but to eat tree bark and paper, everyone suddenly clenched their fists.

The climax of the story came when Zhang Xun killed his beloved concubine, cooked her, and rewarded his officers and soldiers with the meat, and Xu Yuan likewise killed his servant boy to feed the soldiers. Fan Zhi could not help but rise to his feet.

When the story reached the point where the Censor-in-Chief Helan Jinming succeeded Li Ju as Military Governor and garrisoned his troops at Linhuai, but adopted a wait-and-see attitude and refused to relieve the siege of Suiyang, the crowd had become thoroughly enraged.

Finally, Nan Jiyun, whom Zhang Xun had sent out to seek reinforcements, angrily cut off his own finger, but Helan Jinming remained unmoved. In despair, Nan Jiyun could only lead the small number of troops he had gathered back to Suiyang, back to Zhang Xun's side, where he perished together with Lei Wanchun and thirty-six others.

Perhaps because he felt it as his own experience, Master Guo told the story with tears streaming down his face, deeply moved. Fan Zhi listened in a daze, tears flowing uncontrollably down his cheeks.

In the Central Plains today, who still remembers Zhang Xun and Xu Yuan of those years?

In these chaotic times, everyone is merely struggling to survive as best they can; loyalty, righteousness, and integrity have all been buried in the yellow earth.

"Traitor! That man surnamed Helan is a traitor! Had I been there, I would surely have killed him. A true man born into this world should emulate Nan Jiyun and follow a loyal minister like Zhang of Suiyang!"

Young men are the most easily stirred. Murong Xinzhang listened with his chest full of fury, and he slammed his fist against the earthen wall of the classroom, howling in rage.

Li Cunhui was also red-faced. "Right! I'll go with you—first kill Helan Jinming, then return to Suiyang!"

With the two of them making such a commotion, Zhang Zhao at the back of the classroom could no longer stay hidden. He straightened his clothes, tossed aside the folding fan in his hand, and walked up to old Master Guo's lectern.

The dozens of beginning students below, along with Murong Xinzhang, Li Cunhui, and the others, were all so angry their cheeks were flushed and their eyes blazed, as if they wished they could find a traitor right now and tear him apart and eat him. The atmosphere was perfectly charged.

So Zhang Zhao decided to make the impression on these people even deeper—these were all the sparks of his future!

"Minister of Works, what became of Helan Jinming afterward? How could he be so hateful?" A young student with fire in his eyes looked at Zhang Zhao and asked.

Zhang Zhao pondered for a moment. "He later rose to the high post of Military Governor of Lingnan. Although he was eventually demoted, he died a natural death in old age!"

"How could that be? Why did the state not kill this villain? If this villain is not killed, how can the realm be appeased?"

The young student's eyes widened, even angrier and more bewildered. The "state" he spoke of meant the Emperor—a form of address for the emperor dating from before the Wei and Jin dynasties.

"My lord, if you were the ruler, you would surely exterminate this villain's entire family!" Murong Xinzhang behind him was also furious—so furious that for the first time he called Zhang Zhao "my lord."

"If I were the ruler, I would have Helan Jinming's belly split open and his heart gouged out, and kill his entire family!" Zhang Zhao answered decisively, and immediately a chorus of cheers erupted.

Fan Zhi had also recovered from his emotional turmoil. His eyes burned as he looked at Zhang Zhao on the platform. For a military governor of a province to conduct himself in such a manner was truly unheard of—and yet it made one yearn to follow him.

"It is a pity I am not a Xuanzong or Daizong of the former Tang, and cannot kill this traitor!" Zhang Zhao said with a touch of sorrow, then turned to look at the dozens of young students gathered before him.

"The traitor met a good end, while Zhang of Suiyang lost his life. He defended the city for his country, yet met such a fate. Tell me—was it worth it?"

The young students all began to shake their heads, but then suddenly felt something was not quite right. They stared blankly at Zhang Zhao as a group, their hearts filled with confusion and conflict, not knowing how to respond.

"But I think it was worth it!" Zhang Zhao quickly interjected, afraid that one of the young students might say "not worth it," after which it would be hard to continue.

"Because although Zhang of Suiyang died, he died a martyr in the identity of a loyal minister!"

With the single city of Suiyang, he tied down the rebel army of the Yan bandits and preserved the Jianghuai region for the state. The millions of common folk here were spared the calamity of war because of him. When the court finally destroyed the Yan bandits, Zhang Suiyang's merit was the greatest of all.

Though he died, his name for loyalty and righteousness has been praised through the ages. Not only do we now listen to his story and worship him with all our hearts — five hundred years from now, a thousand years from now, it will still be so!

Look instead at men like Helan Jinming. Even ten thousand years from now, he will be reviled, and his descendants, because of him, will never be able to hold their heads up for all eternity.

A true man born between heaven and earth should achieve something. If every man were like Helan Jinming, how could we Han folk have endured for so many years?

If our ancestors had gone to the Xiongnu when the Xiongnu came and submitted to the Turks when the Turks came, we would today be worse off than the Wenmo slaves of the Tibetans!

A real man who lets his own parents and children become slaves of foreign tribes, living worse than pigs and dogs — what face has he to remain alive? He cannot be called a man.

Fellow students, from Minister Qu to Zhang Suiyang, we Han folk have never lacked such loyal ministers and righteous men.

Even if we cannot become great loyal ministers like Zhang Suiyang, we must still be good men — men of whom anyone who speaks of them must say, "There is a good man."

I, Zhang Erlang, dare to say here: if one day I find myself in Zhang Suiyang's moment, I vow to follow his example. Are you willing to be my Xu Yuan, my Nan Jiyun, my Lei Wanchun?"

"I am willing! I will be Nan Jiyun!" Murong Xinzhang leapt out at once.

"Then I will be Lei Wanchun! A great loyal minister!" Li Cunhui roared back, not to be outdone.

"I want to be a loyal minister too! I want to be a loyal minister too!"

No one wants to be a traitor. Even those who became traitors in history once held, in their hearts, the dream of being loyal ministers and righteous men. This is the blood-deep inheritance the Chinese are born with.

The loud clamor drew people from more than half the prefectural school. Once they knew Zhang Zhao was here, the students called their friends, and soon nearly every student in the school had been summoned over.

"Sikong, how this resembles the Guo family ancestral hall at Suyab in days past! It was then that this old man resolved to follow you, Sikong, on the return east.

Today the students of the prefectural school are all here. They all wish to follow you, Sikong, and bring Anxi and Hexi — fallen to barbarian dust for a hundred and fifty years — back east to the motherland. Why not lead us once more in singing 'No Barbarians'?"

Old Master Guo remembered the scene of everyone singing "No Barbarians" together at the Guo family ancestral hall back then, and tears of excitement filled his eyes. Zhang Zhao was about to agree, but then a better poem suddenly came to mind.

"Today we will not sing 'No Barbarians.' I have newly composed a 'Song of Righteous Qi' to share with you all as encouragement! Bring me a brush!"

Zhang Zhao waved his hand grandly and shouted with great heroic spirit, while inwardly reciting silently.

'Master Wen Wenshan, in this time and space, I doubt you will ever meet such a fate again. Let me borrow this "Song of Righteous Qi" for a moment!'

Heaven and earth hold righteous qi, scattered and bestowed upon all forms. Below, it becomes rivers and mountains; above, it becomes sun and stars. In man, it is called the flood-like spirit, vast and filling the dark void.

When the imperial road is clear and peaceful, it breathes harmony into the bright court. When times are dire, integrity shows itself, each name recorded in the annals. In Qi, the Grand Historian's bamboo slips; in Jin, Dong Hu's brush.

In Qin, Zhang Liang's hammer; in Han, Su Wu's staff. The head of General Yan, the blood of Attendant Ji, the teeth of Zhang Suiyang, the tongue of Yan Changshan.

Or the Liaodong cap, pure conduct sharp as ice and snow.

Or the Memorial on Dispatching the Troops, making ghosts and spirits weep at its grandeur.

Or the oar struck across the river, boldly vowing to swallow the Hu and Jie.

Or the tablet hurled at the rebel, splitting the traitor's head open.

Fan Zhi forgot his identity as an imperial envoy, forgot all his calculations, and forgot who it was standing before him.

Tears streaming down his face, he followed the crowd in the room — from young children to white-haired elders — singing at the top of his lungs. Their suffering, their unity of heart from top to bottom, suddenly became something he felt as his own.

A ray of sunlight came through the window and fell on Fan Zhi's face. He suddenly remembered something his page boy had once said.

"This is truly a lord of men!"

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