Chapter 31

"The crown prince's situation is still unclear, and it's not our place to say much, so better to say little. Attending the emperor in the palace day to day, you can hardly avoid a great deal of anxious thinking — you must be careful."

Before he left, Tong Shipei didn't forget to charge Zhuo Siheng, full of worry.

That even his most easygoing, unfettered friend knew to tell him to be careful showed how much intrigue lay within the glory and pure prestige of a Hanlin post.

Luckily, over the next few days it wasn't his turn to go into the palace; he copied out edicts and Secretariat decrees within the academy, and checked the printed texts of government orders sent to the provinces — not busy, not tiring — and could even, now and then, leaf through and sort the copies of several reigns' government orders kept in the Secretariat, seeing how many past cases had been decided and policy set. Zhuo Siheng learned no few of the tricks of official document-writing as well.

The first of the fourth month was the day of the month-opening grand court assembly. On this day every ranked official in the capital had to make obeisance and submit memorials to the emperor outside the Xuande Gate, after which those of the fifth rank and above entered the Linde Hall for the inner court council. By his rank Zhuo Siheng was not entitled to enter — but Secretariat officials had always been admitted regardless of rank, and could attend the twice-in-ten-days court councils; this was another enviable thing about the Hanlin Academy: whatever one's rank, once inside one reached straight to the political center, and all one said and argued reached the throne's ear.

The officials outside the Xuande Gate stood ranged in rows; one didn't realize until one saw it just how many civil and military officials there were in the capital. After the obeisance, the lower officials set out their essentials in turn and stated plainly the matters they memorialized; the emperor held court at the gate, and the assembled officials discussed some of the submissions together, the rest left for the inner council to deliberate.

This was the first grand court assembly Zhuo Siheng had attended: the procedure was tedious and the items a jumble, and what the lower officials set forth was mostly impeachments, with some on the pros and cons of the finer points of governance. The officials stood a full two hours at least before the grand assembly ended — yet after it came the indoor court council. The blue and green robes gradually dispersed, leaving the vermilion and purple to file slowly through the gate, with a few green-robed officials mixed among them: some specially approved Participants in Governance, and the lowly little secretaries of the Secretariat.

In this dynasty an official's robe was purple for the third rank and above, vermilion for the fifth and above, green permitted for the seventh and above, and blue for the rest. As one of the few "single spots of green amid a mass of red" at this assembly, Zhuo Siheng stood out conspicuously — he might well be called on to speak before long.

But as the newly minted zhuangyuan, he felt he wouldn't get out of speaking at this court council.

Having prepared on every front beforehand, though, he wasn't daunted.

Besides, it would broaden his experience — a live viewing of the splendid performances on the stage where he'd be acting in future.

Such as quarreling.

Quarreling was a must-have skill for a civil official. One could of course call it debate — but Zhuo Siheng felt that debate stuck to the matter at hand, and wouldn't be laced with this many personal attacks.

Just now, the Minister of the Court of the Palace Treasury and the Vice-Minister of Revenue had already abandoned their respective arguments and were wildly launching utterly unprincipled personal attacks at each other — saying ugly things in fairly refined language.

"Talking only of the people's livelihood and not of Heaven's grace — perhaps His Honor Meng has his belly stuffed with other things, having cast off the books of the sages entirely, and so it's no wonder he asks such a question."

"His Honor Feng, with concubines filling his house, surely can't understand what 'the people's way is hard' means!"

...

Listening to it, Zhuo Siheng found himself hoping that at forty or fifty he'd still be able to speak in so resounding a voice.

The quarrel had begun when, at the grand assembly earlier, an eighth-rank director of the Ministry of Works' Bureau of Construction submitted a report on the progress of a project: repairs to the Eastern Palace, taken up after the emperor proposed naming a crown prince at the end of last year. The work had dragged on and on, and now, come the fourth month, several of the palace chambers still couldn't be lived in. After Emperor Xiaozong deposed the treasonous heir, the Eastern Palace had stood empty for over twenty years, so repairing it truly took a great deal and the matters were many and tangled; but the four-month delay was because the funds weren't in place. The Ministry of Works really couldn't account for it, and begged the emperor to press the Ministry of Revenue to release the money, so the crown prince's chambers might be finished as soon as possible.

The Minister of Revenue, it was said, had been mortally ill since the end of last year and hadn't attended court in a long while; the Ministry of Revenue was now run by Feng Jian. So the first thing the emperor did on coming inside was to ask him why the funds had been so slow to reach the Ministry of Works' account.

Feng Jian, not the least flustered, stepped out of the ranks and answered: "The earmarked appropriation was specially approved and, over four months ago, ordered drawn from the Court of the Palace Treasury; why it has been so slow to reach the ministry, I do not know."

Meng Haosong, the big boss of the Court of the Palace Treasury, flared up at once, and stepped out from the side: "May it please Your Majesty, this money comes from the proceeds of grain sold out of the Ever-Normal Granary. Last year was a bumper harvest, so grain prices this spring are steady, and there's no need for the Ever-Normal Granary to intervene; to force grain onto the market would be to throw the realm into chaos and plunge the people's livelihood into fire and water."

"For the Ever-Normal Granary to sell grain in a bumper year is not without precedent: in the seventh year of Xiaozong's Guanzheng era, which was also a bumper year, the Ever-Normal Granary went on selling grain as usual — simply because after successive good harvests the granaries could hold no more, and the surplus had to be moved to the poorer prefectures. Now the four northern prefectures have not yet done their spring plowing; why not move grain north to stock the granaries there?"

"The canal ends at Ningxing Prefecture, and hauling grain overland wastes a great deal; I fear the price the grain fetched wouldn't cover the loss, and if it were so year after year, wouldn't the Ever-Normal Granary run a net loss every year?"

...

The two of them quarreled a long while over whether the Ever-Normal Granary should sell off the grain it had bought back cheap last year and use it to repair the Eastern Palace, before it finally escalated into personal attacks.

The Ministry of Revenue and the Court of the Palace Treasury both handled money, but the Ministry of Revenue was more like an audit bureau and a finance ministry rolled into one, while the Court of the Palace Treasury was something like a commerce ministry and a tax bureau — and since ancient times audit and tax had shared no end of love and hate with the finance departments. From the drowsy looks of the officials near him and of his own immediate superior, His Honor Zeng Xuandu, Zhuo Siheng gathered that these two sides squabbling was probably a common thing, nothing to wonder at.

So he might as well go on watching, then.

The quarrel was fierce, but the emperor was very calm.

Looking at the emperor's face, still as water, Zhuo Siheng suddenly had a bold thought.

Perhaps the emperor was the same kind of person as himself.

They were both the sort who could digest all their feelings on their own, and never lightly showed what was in their hearts unless something truly touched them deep. Before family and friends Zhuo Siheng didn't rein in his mild pleasure and quiet gladness, but before outsiders even the degree of his smile didn't match the index of gladness within.

Might the emperor be like this too?

Just then, though, the emperor rose slowly and, with a mild gesture, stopped the quarrel: "In that case, set the matter of the Eastern Palace aside for now. The people are the foundation of the state, and farming its great enterprise; nothing else matters beside that. Let the Ever-Normal Granary take in grain at the prices of former years; the northern prefectures have had no winter famine, and there's no need for special transport."

His Honor Zeng's eyelids stirred.

Zhuo Siheng felt that, on its face and beneath it, this speech seemed to be about regulating grain prices and fiscal matters — but its real, effective message was that the Eastern Palace needn't be repaired.

If the Eastern Palace weren't repaired, the crown prince wouldn't move out to open his own establishment and build up a staff of his own, but would go on growing up, reading loosely within the palace.

How grim.

Zhuo Siheng even had a very bad feeling — as if the two officials who'd just been quarreling had been putting on a strenuous show to give a pretext for not repairing the Eastern Palace, and once they'd performed enough and the emperor came out to declare his stand, the whole thing fell into place as a matter of course.

Court affairs were truly hard to fathom, but there were always a few stray threads left showing; he felt his jigsaw was still one clue short just now, and so waited quietly for the emperor's next words.

"Since the Eastern Palace has come up, We have a question today too, to hear Our ministers' views. Though the crown prince cannot enter the Eastern Palace and open his own establishment, he remains a matter of the first importance, and must be guided toward the good. Yet though he now reads under several Hanlin academicians, there is no set curriculum or plan of instruction. What recommendations do you all have for the crown prince's education?"

For an instant, Zhuo Siheng thought His Honor Zeng before him had already turned on his ankle to step out and speak; but just then the emperor smiled and said: "This is a matter we may take our time over; if any of you have good counsel, simply submit a memorial in the next few days."

His Honor Zeng went still, but Zhuo Siheng understood.

The matter of spending money to repair the Eastern Palace could be quarreled over, but the emperor didn't want his ministers quarreling out in the open over the crown prince's education; he was very cautious about the relations between the heir and the officials, and didn't want this to become an occasion for taking sides.

Better, then, for everyone to write his own separately, and let the emperor decide in the end.

Only, if there were problems with what was finally settled, wouldn't there be a quarrel all the same?

Zhuo Siheng couldn't shake the feeling that this quarrel wasn't to be escaped.

He'd thought his own crisis wouldn't come until the next round of quarreling; who'd have known that today it was his and His Honor Zeng's turn to attend, and as the two waited in a side chamber of the Tianzhang Hall, His Honor Zeng, who'd had his eyes closed all along, suddenly opened them and looked at him: "What does Attendant Zhuo make of what His Majesty discussed today?"

On this matter Zhuo Siheng did have his own view, and he didn't think his view out of line, so he could well speak it — though the way he said it might need adjusting for the person he faced.

"The crown prince's schooling as it stands really isn't quite proper," Zhuo Siheng said, putting on a thoughtful look and speaking softly. "Though I myself was started on my letters by my father at home, I know that official schools and private ones alike have lessons that rotate day by day and instruction arranged to fit; yet when I went into the palace with you before, I saw the crown prince had no such daily schedule — he only studied according to the order in which the Hanlin gentlemen entered the palace each day. That truly isn't very fitting."

What he said was quite true. Indeed, for the crown prince, the heir to the realm, the present teaching plan could be called downright slapdash: whoever from the Hanlin Academy had his turn to enter the palace and discuss governance with the emperor that day would teach the crown prince a bit on the side. Ordinarily, whether the Imperial Academy or a private academy, there was a systematic timetable and a curriculum adjusted to the students' needs; the crown prince had none of it, all left to the teacher's mood — which was a little shabby.

His Honor Zeng nodded: "Just so. We enter the palace to attend on affairs of state and wait upon the emperor, running back and forth between the crown prince and the emperor — which both delays the governance the throne must hear and holds up the crown prince's studies. It's no lasting plan in the end."

Zhuo Siheng liked talking with His Honor Zeng: the man always stayed close to the point and never played at evasions, nor did he over-dress his own arguments. He decided to look into the records too — after all, on a thing like the crown prince's education the Hanlin Academy would likely have to give a collective recommendation, and he couldn't just watch and say nothing to keep his own skin safe. So he said gladly: "Let me look through the Secretariat's records of earlier reigns' decrees in the next few days, and see how the crown princes of our forebears' several generations were schooled, then consult you again."

Besides, the crown prince really did have it rough; in a case like this it needn't count as taking sides — arranging some lessons for the crown prince by the duty of his office was well within his proper business, and at least let the child get a proper schooling first.

Zeng Xuandu seemed well satisfied with this answer, and said "good, good"; then he suddenly stopped, and said slowly: "In truth, for the regulation and completeness of a course of study, the precedent of the treasonous heir is unrivaled — but... best not bring it up."

Zhuo Siheng thought so too.

The emperor had been adopted, as the treasonous heir's son, to the knees of the late emperor; his claim to the throne rested not on his descent from the treasonous heir but on a blood-tie to the late emperor that did not, in truth, exist at all — and so, in court and country, people were especially careful whenever they touched on the emperor's true birth father.

Perhaps His Honor Zeng feared that, given his family's connection, Zhuo Siheng might improperly cite examples he knew from the treasonous heir's case, and so warned him with a kind word.

Just as Zhuo Siheng was unsure whether to make his thanks plain, a eunuch came to pass word that the emperor had reached the Tianzhang Hall, sparing them both the awkwardness.

Though called a hall, the place was really no bigger than a study: inside it was only some ten-odd zhang square, with a very high ceiling and ample light, a ringed gallery on the second story holding books, and the side chambers to east and west serving as the emperor's places for writing and rest. Its furnishings were plain and unadorned, without the resplendent imperial grandeur of the Linde Hall; rather it held something of the refined, tasteful care of a wealthy family's study — Zhuo Siheng thought the study at the Tong residence had just this feel.

The emperor had changed into everyday dress too; seeing the two of them enter, he was very courteous, and after they'd made their bows chatted warmly with Zeng Xuandu about trifles — how His Honor Zeng had become a grandfather, how the emperor doted more and more these days on his own little son — and the two exchanged no small amount of fatherly child-rearing lore, leaving the unmarried and childless Zhuo Siheng hung out to one side a good long while.

At last, having chatted enough of other things, the emperor turned to business: "On the matter of the crown prince's schooling, We must still hear the Hanlin Academy's views. Minister Zeng, you've taught the crown prince some days now — what are your thoughts?"

Zhuo Siheng found that His Honor Zeng really wasn't the sort for glib words and ingratiating looks: exactly as he'd spoken to Zhuo Siheng a moment ago, so he now spoke to the emperor, scarcely a word different.

A person's character and nature often showed themselves most fully in how he said the same thing to different people.

When he'd heard him out, the emperor was silent a moment, then sighed: "It really is in no fit state."

His Honor Zeng said: "Attendant Zhuo and I already discussed it a little just now; Your Majesty might as well hear his view."

So the emperor, with a mild smile, turned to Zhuo Siheng, who stood at the back of the room: "Oh? Then let's hear you say something too."