Chapter 27: Teacher

Wang Zuogua has attacked Yao Prefecture.

Liu Chengzong had thought about it, and had discussed it with Cao Yao, his elder brother Liu Chengzu, and his father Liu Xiangyu — everyone believed Wang Zuogua would march south, perhaps even assault a city.

But hearing the news from someone else, in vivid, undeniable detail, that Wang Zuogua had attacked Yao Prefecture — it still came as a shock and a surprise.

Because for Wang Zuogua, attacking Yao Prefecture might have been nothing more than a matter of accounting: as he swept up more and more refugees and soldiers, he had no choice but to assault prefectural seats and plunder cities to keep provisions flowing.

Yet to outsiders, it looked far more like a political move.

As long as he did not strike a city, Wang Zuogua was a refugee chief, a bandit, a robber, a horse thief — whatever you liked — but he still fell short of being a rebel.

Strike a city, and he became a rebel army.

With such thoughts weighing on him, Liu Chengzong returned home together with his elder brother. The moment they entered the courtyard, they heard their father's hearty laughter ringing from the central hall. From a distance, they could make out a guest in a blue robe seated in the guest chair, holding a tea bowl and picking at the nuts inside, eating and laughing as he did so.

He had never seen his father take tea like this.

The income of a ninth-rank official was not much different from that of an ordinary commoner — at best a case of "falling short of the best but better than the worst" — yet the demands of work and social obligation required a slightly higher standard of living, and the corresponding expenses were a little greater as well.

They had moved constantly in the past, living for a few years in Mizhi and then in the prefectural seat of Yan'an, but the one constant was that the household always kept Shaanxi tea and Shaanxi wine of various grades on hand, for receiving and sending off guests.

These various grades, of course, stayed within the limits of what their means allowed: the low end was Yellow Dragon Mountain tea dust, which in a good season you could buy a big packet of for three qian of silver; the more steep-tolerant Shangluo Mountain Spring Buds, the finer Lüeyang Ziwu Immortal Down — cheap or dear, they had to keep a little of each in stock.

But he had never seen tea taken like this — it was rather fashionable. The blue-robed guest held a Yao Prefecture celadon tea bowl; on the tea table beside his hand rested a lacquered wooden tray, and on the tray were set a pair of willow-wood chopsticks, a Yao celadon spoon, and a blue satin guest hand-towel, with a small copper basin filled with clear water beside it.

The tea in the bowl had already been drunk. The guest did not use the chopsticks or spoon, but hooked out the nuts in the bowl with his little finger and tasted them in small bites — they looked like pine nuts and walnuts.

In any case, this was something Liu Chengzong had never drunk. His limited experience could not even imagine what steeping those two things in tea would taste like, and it was only at this moment that he recognized the guest seated in the hall. He exclaimed in surprise, "Sir?"

The blue-robed guest was in his thirties, wearing a pair of round-lens spectacles with tortoiseshell rims and straight iron legs perched on the bridge of his nose. He had long since heard the sound of footsteps approaching, but had taken them for some idler moving about the Liu residence and had not raised his eyes to look. Only when he heard the voice did he lift his head, raise his eyebrows, push his spectacles up, fix his gaze, and smile.

"The Ancestor boys are back?"

This "Ancestor" was a playful jab at the two brothers' names. In this era, people often called children "boy" — even the emperor in the palace would call his eldest son "boy."

Over on his side, Liu Xiangyu deliberately suppressed his smile and scolded with a laugh, "Hurry up and pay your respects to Uncle Yang, you two mannerless brats!"

The two brothers at once put on solemn expressions, kowtowed, and performed the formal greeting.

The guest was an old acquaintance of theirs, named Yang Dingrui, courtesy name Xingzhuang, a man of Ansai.

When Liu Xiangyu served as a Confucian instructor in the prefectural seat of Yan'an, Yang Dingrui had already passed from the status of stipend student to that of provincial graduate. Because he still harbored the ambition of passing the metropolitan examination for presented scholar, he had neither sought to fill a vacancy in a local government office nor gone out to find work, but continued to stay on at the Confucian school to study, occasionally serving as a substitute teacher to supplement his household income.

Thus Liu Xiangyu and Yang Dingrui were something like half-colleagues, while the two brothers were Yang Dingrui's students. Under him, they had not only studied literature but also laid a foundation for their love of physical activity.

Moreover, in Liu Chengzong's case, he had taken more than a few beatings from Yang Dingrui.

The reason lay in the spectacles perched on Yang Dingrui's nose.

In the Ming dynasty, spectacles as an article of use had basically become widespread among the wealthy classes — officials, merchants, and the like — but most were for presbyopia; people rarely suffered from myopia.

For one thing, ordinary households had very little need to overstrain their eyes; for another, scholars had the prospect of serving as officials, and serving as an official required not only learning but also met certain physical standards.

Moreover, because educational resources were not concentrated during the learning process — it was not the later model of one teacher facing several dozen students, but generally one master teaching four or five pupils — sitting and standing with proper posture was practically a rigid requirement throughout the course of study.

There was basically no opportunity to sprawl over a desk writing characters or reading books.

Yang Dingrui, because of his humble origins, had lacked a proper teacher to discipline him, and had from childhood developed the affliction of myopia.

In this era, myopia was called "able to see near, fearful of seeing far" syndrome, and was considered a kind of illness.

When Liu Chengzong studied under him, Yang Dingrui still could not afford crystal spectacles. He could only squint and bring his face close to the book to read; when he looked up and saw Liu Chengzong imitating him, he would pull out the discipline ruler and give his backside a thorough thrashing.

Since he considered myopia an illness, Yang Dingrui had sought medical help and medicines no few times — he had taken plenty of herbal decoctions and undergone plenty of acupuncture — and in the end, he still solved the problem by putting on a pair of spectacles.

In Yang Dingrui's own words back then, he had read through the words of ancient physicians extensively and finally concluded that this illness still had to be addressed primarily through prevention: massaging the meridians frequently while studying, and going outdoors to exercise were the most reliable approaches.

So he passed on a set of massage techniques to the Liu brothers — rather similar to the eye exercises in another set of memories — and often, after they had been reading for an hour or two, would take them out to run, climb hills, and hunt.

Of course, the hunting was done by Yang Dingrui himself with a bow; the two brothers were only responsible for running, climbing hills, reciting the classics, and carrying the game.

After the two of them followed their father to his official post in Mizhi, contact with Yang Dingrui was cut off. Later, they heard that Yang Dingrui had passed the metropolitan examination and gone to Beijing, and the distance grew even more remote.

"All right, between teacher and students there's no need to stand on ceremony. Come, sit down. In the blink of an eye, eight or nine years have passed without our seeing each other — you can't have the two lads sell off ten thousand taels of gold the moment we meet." Yang Dingrui raised his arm and lifted his palm to stop the two brothers, then turned to Liu Xiangyu and laughed. "The little lion cubs have become men!"

The two brothers sat. The elder brother, Chengzu, smiled and said, "We heard Sixteen report that a dignitary from the prefectural seat had come calling, so the two of us rushed back — we never imagined it was you, sir."

Yang Dingrui wore a loose robe, and when he smiled he had a refined and cultivated air. He waved his hand. "What kind of dignitary am I? I merely served a few years as a deputy officer."

"Deputy officer" was in fact a term for a second-in-command: positions such as assistant prefect, assistant magistrate, subprefectural deputy, county vice-magistrate, and registrar were all deputy officers.

For example, in a county, the chief official was naturally the county magistrate; the vice-magistrate and the registrar could both be called deputy officers. The exception was the police chief, ranked fourth in the yamen, who was called a chief officer.

Because while all the various officials handled matters, only the police chief handled people, dealing directly with the county's common folk. The police chief was not the chief of the county yamen, but the chief of the common people.

He had returned to Yan'an Prefecture to take up an official post. Under the avoidance system, as a native of the area, even if he rose through the ranks, unless he was transferred to a neighboring province, he could only serve as a deputy officer and could never hold chief authority.

As he spoke, his smile faded, and he shook his head. "I resigned. I'm done."

Though Yang Dingrui's smile carried a literary grace, the instant it faded, Liu Chengzong still felt a jolt in his heart.

It was not only because, as a child, his father had handed him over to this man to discipline, and his backside had been thrashed many times.

It was also because he knew full well that this presented scholar, who appeared so gentle and refined, had a temperament that was exceptionally unyielding.

"Sir, why did you resign from office?"

"I couldn't carry on — much the same as your father. Nowadays, in the various counties of Yan'an and Qingyang Prefectures, nearly half the posts of chief and deputy officials stand vacant. It's not a question of whether one wants to get things done, but that even if one wants to, nothing can be accomplished."

Then he pointed again at the spectacles perched on the bridge of his nose. "Nor could I serve as a chief official."

The atmosphere grew heavy. Yang Dingrui said, "I fear the imperial court in Shaanxi... is finished."

Note: "Able to see near, fearful of seeing far" syndrome — Jingyue's Complete Works, juan 27.