Chapter 176: Archery Trial

"What does the Princess think of this man?" In a side hall nearby, a eunuch of the Directorate of Ceremonial asked.

Upon hearing this, Zhu Meichuo, who had been summoned by imperial decree, took another careful look at the two men speaking directly ahead. "This man has a dignified bearing and carries himself with grace as he walks, yet he doesn't seem as frail and weak as the typical scholar. Not bad."

"The Princess has judged correctly." The eunuch had long since received Wang Cheng'en's instructions and naturally knew what to say. "This man placed first in the county examination at sixteen, and when tested on military matters, he placed first in both horsemanship and archery. His Majesty has praised him many times as a rare talent of both letters and arms in the Great Ming."

"Is he really that remarkable?" Although her imperial father was firmly opposed, Zhu Meichuo and Zhou Shixian had grown up together as childhood sweethearts, and even now, she still thought of him somewhat.

"Ah, Princess, look quickly—they've come out of the hall. It seems His Majesty is about to test military skills." The eunuch was easily startled and excited, appearing even more animated than Zhu Meichuo herself.

Since she had already come here, Zhu Meichuo found it difficult to defy her father's command, so she could only follow along and observe this "talent of both letters and arms" carefully from behind.

One saw Zhang Huangyan and the Chongzhen Emperor walk out of the Winter Warm Pavilion and, surrounded by a host of eunuchs, arrive at the pavilion where straw dummies for practice had long been set up. To make things seem more realistic, each straw dummy had been draped in the armor worn by Tartar soldiers.

The Chongzhen Emperor understood that a stationary target was easy to hit, but this bow was not one of those ornamental playthings of later ages—it was a true instrument for killing.

Not to mention that scholars who could not even truss a chicken regarded such things as crude; for them, even drawing the bow was impossible. If this Zhang Huangyan truly possessed talent in both letters and arms, one should be able to discern it from the very manner in which he drew and loosed the arrow.

"Very well, since Your Majesty wishes to see, this commoner shall once again make a poor display of his skill!" Zhang Huangyan was forthright; hearing that the Chongzhen Emperor wished to watch him shoot, he agreed directly.

Zhang Huangyan took from the eunuch's hand this powerful bow decorated with imperial insignia, first testing it with a slight pull, then laughed: "This is a one-dan bow. Does Your Majesty not trust this commoner? Bring a three-dan strong bow instead!"

"Only one dan?" The Chongzhen Emperor was somewhat surprised and turned to look at the eunuch in charge of the matter, who immediately fell to his knees in terror and begged for mercy:

"Your Majesty, spare my life..."

It turned out that this eunuch, wishing to make the Chongzhen Emperor look good, had privately inflated the draw weights of the imperial bows when reporting them. For instance, the imperial bow in Zhang Huangyan's hands, which might not even be one dan, had been reported directly as three dan.

"Your Majesty, he was only thinking of the imperial dignity. Please forgive him this once." Zhang Huangyan also said that he himself had not considered the matter deeply and had committed no deliberate fault, then turned back to plead for the eunuch.

The Chongzhen Emperor first glanced at Zhang Huangyan, then said: "In that case, I shall spare you this time. And all of you remember—the imperial bows of my Great Ming are however many dan they are. Do not engage in such exaggeration!"

There were some things Chongzhen left unsaid. In later ages, that Kang the Pockmarked's imperial bows were mostly only fifty or sixty pounds. How could he learn from that fellow? Things should be as they are—if you cannot draw it, you cannot draw it.

The Jianzhou barbarians crawled out of mountain gullies; originally they were homeless wanderers. Thanks to the benevolence of the Great Ming's Yongle Emperor, they were given a place to settle and call home.

Who would have thought these ingrates, unsatisfied with stability and boasting of their peerless martial prowess, would repay kindness with enmity? Nurhaci was even more amusing—his "Seven Grievances" read like a son crying that his father had treated him unfairly. In the Chongzhen Emperor's eyes, it was quite ridiculous.

That Huang Taiji, who had already kicked the bucket, once said something about the Great Ming's emperor being frail and weak. To Chongzhen, that was nothing but hot air. In the end, who was it that finished first?

You could kill men on the battlefield, so by all rights your constitution should have been decent—how did you kick the bucket so early?

The Chongzhen Emperor had never killed anyone with his own hands, and when he went to the battlefield, he wore brightly colored armor as a mascot. But that was enough—it did not mean his constitution was in any way frail.

That one in history could ride a horse and shoot arrows just fine; it was only that he himself had not yet learned.

Did an enlightened sovereign have to charge into battle with bayonets or draw strong bows that even military commanders could not pull? That was pure nonsense.

Kang the Pockmarked was never seen drawing any particularly heavy strong bow—he spent all his days on incognito inspections, strolling about with a few brats in tow. If someone like that could pass himself off as a sovereign of a thousand ages, then someone like me should at least be one unmatched in ten thousand ages!

This trend of deceiving superiors and hoodwinking subordinates absolutely must not be allowed to start. I have no desire to be that King Xuan of Qi who was taken for a fool by his underlings, smugly believing a broken bow of less than one dan was a mighty three-dan weapon.

Just as Chongzhen was thinking this, he saw Zhang Huangyan take the newly delivered three-dan strong bow, nock an arrow with great familiarity, and with a "whoosh," the arrowhead struck steadily into the straw dummy's chest.

"Excellent!"

None of those around had expected that Zhang Huangyan, who appeared to be nothing but a frail scholar, could draw a strong bow that even some Regional Commanders and great generals could not. They all clapped and cheered.

Zhang Huangyan, however, set down the bow and gasped for breath with some difficulty, then smiled and offered his apologies: "Your Majesty, this commoner could not help but overreach himself before the imperial countenance. This truly was my first time drawing a three-dan bow, and after a single arrow, I can barely stand steady."

The Chongzhen Emperor smiled and waved his hand to indicate it was no matter.

No joke—with a bow like this, even the Guinness World Record holder of later ages might not be able to draw it. If this fellow were to compete in an archery event, winning a world championship would be utterly effortless.

With that, Zhang Huangyan returned the three-dan bow to the eunuch and took up a two-dan bow instead, loosing two arrows in smooth succession, both striking the straw dummy square in the head. He looked rather spirited and pleased with himself.

It had to be said that this Zhang Huangyan fellow was very much to the Chongzhen Emperor's liking—what he said was what he meant, and he spoke plainly. Unlike certain people who insisted they could do what they clearly could not, only to delay important matters and lose all face publicly in the end.

Earlier, the Chongzhen Emperor had gone to ask Song Yingxing, and learned that these three-dan strong bows were only brought out during the military examinations for testing draw strength. In daily battlefield use they were not very practical, because hardly anyone could draw them—even those warlords commanding their own armies were no exception.

The works written by Song Yingxing were displayed right there in the Winter Warm Pavilion, and they detailed the matter of Ming dynasty war bows at length.

Due to the frequent outbreak of war, Song Yingxing felt that the limit for a war bow should be one hundred and twenty jin, roughly equivalent to one hundred and forty-four jin in later reckoning, or about one hundred and sixty pounds. At such a weight, if the arrows were of superior quality, they could inflict heavy casualties on heavily armored enemies.

At a minimum of fifty-six pounds, one could still inflict casualties on lightly armored enemies from a distance.

Still, the Chongzhen Emperor felt some regret, for he had learned from many mouths that although wars were frequent in this age, the general draw weights of bows were clearly inferior to those of the Tang and Song dynasties, let alone the Great Han renowned for its martial prowess—they simply could not be compared.

Yue Fei could draw a bow of three hundred jin. In the late Northern Song, one jin was six hundred and forty grams, and the Song dynasty often summoned those who could draw two-dan bows from across the realm to serve as imperial guards in the capital. By that reckoning, were all the soldiers of the so-called "weak Song" forbidden army actually world champions like Zhang Huangyan?

There was, however, some suspicion of exaggeration in this. How much exactly a dan was in the Song dynasty was debated even in later ages, and there was no way to verify it. But even calculated at the lowest figure of ninety jin, a two-dan bow would have a draw weight of nearly two hundred and forty jin in today's terms—truly not low.

In the Tang dynasty, one jin was a bit over six hundred and sixty grams, which converts to roughly two hundred jin today, or about two hundred and twenty pounds. Men like Zhang Shigui and Wang Zhongsi all used bows with draw weights of at least one hundred and fifty jin.

Whether these figures were true or false, that the martial physique of warriors had universally degenerated during the Ming dynasty was an indisputable fact.

The reason the Chongzhen Emperor continually issued edicts of self-blame and preferential policies for men of arms was precisely to awaken the martial spirit that had lain dormant across the land of Cathay since the Tang and Song.

As things stood now, the effect existed but was not yet obvious. This was something that needed to be built up bit by bit—one could not swallow a fat man in a single bite.

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