That same afternoon, Minglan wrote a letter of recommendation to her elder brother Changbai, attached the impromptu essay, and had it sent over immediately, asking whether Changbai might have time to receive young Chang Nian.

And then Minglan sat down to calculate — and promptly felt sour all over.

In ancient times, officials paid close attention to their morning arrival hours, but the time of leaving work was far more relaxed. (Note 1) As things currently stood, however, Changbai was still stationed at the Hanlin Academy, and for fear that the Emperor might summon scholars for an audience at any moment, he never dared to leave early. And so even if Changbai had time to receive the visitor, they would have to wait until the day off (Note 2) — and then he would need to find a suitable academy, make the introduction and recommendation… however one calculated it, this would take at least several days.

Minglan then called all the stewards and senior servants in the household together and gave them a sweeping set of instructions, assigning responsibilities clearly, going through everything in turn, and announcing that while she would be away for a few days, anything that could not be resolved during that time was to be handled by Nanny Cui in an overall supervisory capacity. If necessary, a fast horse was to be sent to reach her in the outskirts of the capital.

“You are all experienced hands who have managed affairs for years — I trust that things will go no differently whether the mistress is present or not,” Minglan said, seated at ease above them, smiling pleasantly. “When I return from this trip, I shall see how things have gone.”

The assembled stewards and household managers, both men and women, were clear-headed enough to understand what this meant: many of their posts still carried the word “temporary” before them. If they made a poor showing during Minglan’s absence, those “temporary” titles might well be revoked on the spot. And so the entire group nodded their assent like pestles pounding grain.

Minglan also held back Nanny Hua and Liao Yong’s wife for a separate word.

“You have only one task,” Minglan said to Nanny Hua in a gentle but deliberate voice. “Watch over Kouixiang Garden carefully. Rong Jie’er in particular — if she so much as gets a headache or a slight fever, immediately go to Xuancao Hall to fetch Dr. Zhang, and at the same time send word to me.”

Nanny Hua understood the cleverness of this arrangement: Madam had specifically put her in charge of watching over the two women in Kouixiang Garden. If anything happened to either of them, Madam herself could not be made to bear the blame. She stole a sidelong glance at Liao Yong’s wife standing nearby, and thought to herself — with eyes and ears planted everywhere inside and out by Madam, if she made any move at all, the fate of Nanny Lai would serve as her cautionary example. As things stood now, it would be far better to simply follow the example of Nanny Tian and genuinely pledge loyalty to the second Madam. She agreed solemnly.

“I need say nothing more to you,” said Minglan with a smile, looking at Liao Yong’s wife. “You know well enough yourself what to be careful about.”

Liao Yong’s wife assumed a grave expression and bowed her head. “I have taken all of Madam’s instructions to heart. I have already spoken to the stable yard — if anything arises, word can reach Madam within two hours at the most.”

She had long since understood the lay of the land. Unlike the longtime household servants, who had years of accumulated goodwill and standing — and who, even if they erred, would at worst be sent back to their home villages — she and her husband were servants who had come with the property, transferred from a disgraced official’s household, and their reputations were already in question. Any further misstep and they could be sold off on the spot, and no one would accuse Minglan of cruelty or lack of charity.

Moreover, Minglan had arrived at Cheng Garden as a new mistress with a limited number of trusted people at her side, and she would necessarily need to put new faces to work. Whoever could prove themselves in this moment would immediately earn promotion. And with Nanny Cui growing old and her energy declining, and Cuiwei still too young — if she could demonstrate her worth now and earn Madam’s trust, ten years of standing and respect would be well within reach.

She resolved in her heart to watch over the household with the utmost diligence.

The flurry of activity continued straight through to the evening meal, with Danju still directing the maids in packing trunks — from clothing and personal effects to tripod incense burners and fragrance censers, and even the round wooden bathing tub, all being bundled onto the carriages.

Gu Tingye saw all this and found it quite novel. He smiled and said, “You are admirably decisive — up and leaving just like that. I thought it would take you until the day after tomorrow before you’d be ready to set out.”

In his experience, women were for the most part slow and cumbersome when it came to preparations.

“I will set out tomorrow morning at the second quarter past the hour of Mao. Danju stays behind to finish packing, and will follow once things are in order.” Minglan had a brush in hand, carefully making check marks and notations on a rolled list. “We should arrive at Xiaoyu Farm by lunchtime. After looking around for an afternoon, the arrangements at Heishan Farm should be ready by then, and we can spend the night there. Have Ah Meng escort Danju and the luggage and go directly there. A few days later we’ll go on to Guyan Farm.”

Xiaoyu Farm was part of her dowry, managed by Old Nanny Cui, and Sheng Lao visited it a couple of times each year. She herself had been there several times as well, and it had always run smoothly — this visit was simply a post-wedding formality, to show that the handover had been acknowledged. But the other two farms were another matter altogether — they were not only considerably larger in area, but Minglan knew none of the stewards or tenant farmers there. It was very necessary to put in some real effort.

“It is only a farm estate — the annual income is not that many taels of silver. You need not fuss over it,” said Gu Tingye, frowning slightly, with apparent disdain for what the fields brought in.

Minglan strongly disagreed. The fundamental principle of household management was this: apart from fixed assets such as farmland and property, no other source of income could be counted as regular income. The expenditures of a large family should be balanced against the returns from fixed assets — and then all the extra windfalls could be used more freely.

But her current reason for wanting to put the two farms in order was something else entirely, and so she shook her head and said: “It is not that I am worried about a few extra taels of silver. I am worried that if we leave things unmanaged for too long, something unpleasant might happen — and then we would be the ones responsible for it. Someone might even file a complaint against us.”

When she was small and followed Sheng Lao on visits to inspect the farm estates, she had once seen neighboring tenant families begging at the roadside with their children. At the time, Sheng Lao had lectured her at length about guarding against having one’s reputation dragged down by corrupt servants. Encounters with unscrupulous masters or conniving stewards who bullied tenant farmers — treating them as less than human, who terrorized men and women alike, and who would cover up even deaths that occurred — were far from uncommon.

Minglan had taken careful note of all of it.

Gu Tingye sat at ease, his broad back resting against the headboard, flipping through a thick sheaf of ledgers in hand. In the warm amber lamplight he gazed with appreciation at Minglan’s white-jade-fine features — she was dressed in a white silk inner robe that made her already slight and delicate figure look all the smaller, yet she wore an expression of complete seriousness, one hand holding a purple-haired brush with a green jade handle as she wrote away on the paper before her. The hand holding the brush was white as writing paper itself, the fingertips touched faintly with green from the jade — the whole scene was like a child dressed up playing at being a grown-up, all the more adorable for it.

He was unmoved by her reasoning and laughed: “You are jumping at shadows.”

Minglan scrunched up her small upturned nose at him, set down her brush, rose, and went to sit on the edge of the bed. She settled against Gu Tingye’s arm, leaning into him, and then suddenly asked: “You are right that farmland doesn’t bring in all that much — so what line of work is it that truly earns the most silver?”

Gu Tingye was taken aback and laughed. “Now you’ve got me stumped. Butchering pigs? Highway robbery?”

Why does butchering pigs immediately precede highway robbery? Minglan was puzzled, but she did not get entangled in the question. She shook her head and said: “Neither. I once heard Master Zhuang say that the most lucrative enterprises in this world number only five: salt, mining, waterway transport, border trade, and maritime trade — in other words, every one of them is a business that can only operate with the imperial court’s blessing.”

Gu Tingye slowly let the smile fade from his face.

Minglan continued: “And so — who holds these major businesses in their hands today?” Gu Tingye’s expression became somewhat grim. Minglan looked at him and said, word by deliberate word: “I do not know whose hands they are in — but it should not be the Emperor’s.”

Gu Tingye’s expression grew grave. After a long pause, he finally nodded.

“To begin with, I didn’t think much of it. But then one day Mr. Gongsun let slip a remark that the imperial treasury is actually empty — and only then did I realize there was a problem.” Minglan said in a low voice. “Although I am only a woman, even I can see that the Emperor has great ambitions.”

Where great ambitions go, the consolidation of power is sure to follow. And to achieve centralized rule, the first things required are control of the treasury and control of the military. There is money — only not in the imperial treasury. There are soldiers — only they do not exactly answer to the Emperor.

What followed from that was simple: either those who held the money and power chose to hand it back peaceably, or the Emperor would find ways to “invite” them to do so.

“The great victory on the northern frontier last year — by a stroke of luck, or otherwise — opened a crack for you all to step through. Since the military affairs there proved incompetent, the Emperor could use it as a perfectly justified reason to reassign personnel. And once that happened, those who had their fingers in the border trade would be shaking in their boots.” Minglan shifted her body, pulling herself upright from the man’s side, knelt to sit properly on the bed, and said with earnest gravity: “You told me the Emperor originally intended to send General Geng to take charge of the northern frontier — and shortly after, he was impeached.”

Gu Tingye’s brow furrowed deeply. “He brought that on himself through his own conduct,” he said gravely. Between the lines, Minglan had hit on at least half the truth.

One censoring official is backed by a host of censoring officials; an entire host of censoring officials is backed by the whole of the scholarly and literary establishment, bound together through ties of teacher and student, fellow classmates, and examination cohorts into a formidable web of relationships. Under the late Emperor’s benevolent rule of more than twenty years, many of them had gradually forged alliances with powerful noble families, forming what amounted to factions. They had money, they had power, they had people — whether in the inner palace, the court, the military, or in local prefectures and counties, their influence was present everywhere.

When heaven rains and the earth floods, it is the crops that suffer. Minglan had no desire to become the family of a sacrificial pawn.

“Mr. Gongsun said it well,” said Gu Tingye, pausing for a considerable while, looking quietly at Minglan before he finally continued. “He said you think clearly and reason well, that your mind is open and capacious — that though you are a woman, you are someone worth consulting on matters of strategy.”

“Teacher flatters me too generously,” said Minglan, a flush of warmth spreading across her face.

“And yet you have never asked me about court affairs?” Gu Tingye asked in puzzlement.

Minglan hugged her knees to her chest, her small body curling inward on itself, and said with some self-consciousness: “Grandmother always said not to pry into a husband’s official business — that if you felt I ought to know something, you would tell me yourself.” There had been several times when she had very much wanted to ask.

Gu Tingye looked at her for a long time, his eyes deep and fathomless, before he said slowly: “When I was young, my father once told me — visible spears are easy to dodge; hidden arrows are hard to guard against. Many generals who excelled on the battlefield died in peacetime. If I were ever to have the chance to serve in battle, I must be careful of my conduct, lest someone seize on a weakness.”

Minglan’s heart seized at these words, and her fingers tightened involuntarily on the man’s arm. Gu Tingye soothed her and drew her over, settling her against him, and said in a low voice: “Don’t worry. The censoring officials may be fond of their reputations, but they are not fools. They know perfectly well which men can be impeached and which cannot be touched. The Emperor is in great need of capable men right now. Let alone me having no real faults — even Old Geng has nothing to fear.”

He wrapped both arms around Minglan, the two of them pressed close together, lying quietly for a while, the beating of each other’s hearts audible in the stillness. Gu Tingye laughed softly and kissed Minglan gently on her small face. “From now on, anything you want to know — I’ll tell you.”

“Mm!” Minglan nodded with a smile, leaned forward, and planted a firm kiss on the tip of his nose. Blinking at him, she said: “You labor and toil out there — I can’t do much to help, but at the very least I can make sure the house doesn’t cause you any extra trouble!”

Gu Tingye was moved to the heart. He ruffled Minglan’s hair, then said in a quiet voice: “Your father has good foresight. The children he raised are all excellent.”

Minglan poked her head out from his embrace, and looked rather smug. “Master Zhuang once said — had I been born a man, I would surely have accomplished great things.” The two were caught up in playful tussling, and Minglan’s collar had come undone, revealing a wide expanse of snow-pale skin — the edge of a pale yellow bellyband embroidered with emerald lotus petals, behind which something soft and round shifted in the lamplight.

Gu Tingye stared for a sustained moment, then sighed wistfully: “You had better stay a woman.”

The following morning at first light, Minglan set out through the gate with the Tu brothers leading a team of household guards and attendants — front and back altogether perhaps four or five horse carriages. Minglan sat in the second carriage; beside her, Xiaotao was so excited she had not slept a wink the night before and had been chattering away non-stop since they boarded.

“Eight lifetimes without stepping outside the door!” Luzhi could not help remarking with a roll of her eyes. “It’s not as if we haven’t been to Xiaoyu Farm before.” She turned to Minglan. “Would Madam like to sleep a little longer? Best to save your energy for when we arrive.”

Minglan nodded drowsily. She had always preferred staying up late and sleeping in, and at this hour her mind had still not come fully awake. Xiaotao nimbly tucked a padded quilt around her so she could half-recline against it, then turned to Luzhi and said in a lowered voice: “Qinsang and Little Cuixiu couldn’t come this time — they must be feeling put out. When I was leaving, Little Cuixiu’s eyes were all red.”

Luzhi sneaked a glance at Minglan and, seeing that she seemed to have drifted off, pressed her voice lower still: “We can’t all come at once — someone has to stay and watch the house! And Cuiwei can’t be the only one standing guard all day. Are you really comfortable leaving it to just anyone else?”

“I know that without you telling me!” Xiaotao whispered. “But if Ruomei wanted to stay behind — why did Madam insist on bringing her along? Look at that sullen, reluctant expression on her face.”

Luzhi pursed her lips slightly and said with a light, dismissive air: “That girl’s mind has been too unsettled lately. Madam is keeping her close where she can be watched — and who knows, maybe she’ll find her a husband out at the farm estate.” Then, as if the thought amused her, she gave a deliberate teasing nudge in Xiaotao’s direction: “And maybe find our Xiaotao a match while she’s at it!”

But to her surprise, Xiaotao thought about it for a genuine moment, then actually nodded. “That doesn’t sound too bad.”

Luzhi pressed her lips together, at a complete loss for words, and turned her head away.

Note 1: According to the Yuan dynasty’s Zhiyuan New Statutes: “All government offices shall begin their work at dawn; all matters due to be discussed and dispatched that day shall not be concluded until they are fully handled.”

Note 2: For the purposes of this story, these ancient civil servants are provisionally given one day of rest every ten days.