There in the outer corridor of the hall, Pei Jue kept his voice low — and yet the expression on his face appeared all the more severe for it.
The breath at the end of each sentence came quick and clipped, making every word sound all the more absolute and irrevocable.
A slanting gust blew into the corridor. The many jade ornaments hanging at Pei Jue’s waist swayed and clinked against one another, sending out a resonant ringing, while Pei Shaohuai’s two wide sleeves lifted and swayed gently in the wind.
Robes adrift, two sleeves full of clean wind — it was as though, in the silence, they were answering Pei Jue’s words.
After a long pause, Pei Shaohuai smiled and said: “I wish the Minister of Personnel peace and good health in his remaining years, and to watch from afar — what I seek will never be in conflict with what I guard.”
Pei Shaohuai was well aware that depending on imperial authority would one day bring with it being driven by that authority; he was equally aware that towering prestige and overwhelming power at court would one day invite suspicion and mistrust.
He even knew that even if he devoted himself wholeheartedly to the people’s welfare, the people of the realm would not always and in all things stand on his side. The Six Strategies states: “All under heaven comes rushing for gain; all under heaven goes rushing for gain.” Precisely because of this, Pei Shaohuai always sought to advance step by careful step, never daring to press for results in haste.
Pei Shaohuai said, almost with a note of self-mockery: “The Minister of Personnel may not live to see this subordinate achieve great success — but he will certainly never live to see the day this subordinate abandons what he guards.”
At that very moment, the doors of the great hall in the distance opened, and Grand Secretary Hu stepped out of the Imperial Study.
Pei Jue said: “Since Pei Daren puts it that way, this official would indeed like to see just what choice Pei Daren will make.” He gestured for Pei Shaohuai to enter the hall first.
Pei Shaohuai did not demur, and stepped into the Imperial Study ahead of him.
Inside the Imperial Study, the Emperor took a sip of tea to moisten his throat, and seeing Pei Shaohuai enter, said with delight: “Boyuan, you’ve come.” Setting down his teacup, he added with a teasing air: “The Spring Examination and Palace Examination are both finished now — you have no excuse left to keep hiding from Us.”
After Pei Shaohuai had paid his respects, the Emperor first chatted with him about the Palace Examination.
The Pei father and sons, all three of them, were talents that could be put to good use. The Emperor was greatly pleased, and his words were all praise. He said: “Truly it can be said that a tiger father has no mongrel son — one household producing two exceptional talents. The Palace Examination essay your younger brother wrote is filled with genuine insight. He vigorously urged the opening of maritime trade while never losing sight of the foundation of the people’s welfare. His future promise is assured.”
The sovereign and minister had not met for some time, and ordinarily the mood between them should have been easy and lively. And yet Pei Shaohuai found it difficult to put on a show of ease.
The Emperor asked: “Boyuan, does your heart carry some heavy concern today?”
“It is this minister who has caused Your Majesty to carry heavy concerns.” Pei Shaohuai replied. His gaze fell upon the pile of memorials sitting idle on the Emperor’s writing desk, and he continued: “If this minister has not guessed incorrectly, the memorials impeaching this minister for meddling in the examinations and disrupting the Palace Examination’s selection of talent have not been few of late.”
Pei Shaohuai was the Emperor’s trusted confidant, and had long been the one urging Da Qing to open maritime trade — yet the Palace Examination’s essay topic was precisely “the advantages and disadvantages of opening maritime trade,” and his younger brother, his relatives by marriage, and his fellow graduates had swept the top three positions. How could the hundred officials at court not feel suspicion and wariness?
Relatives by marriage and teachers and fellow students formed a natural “faction.”
The Emperor had let the memorials pile up, hoping to let the matter gradually subside — but how could the mouths of many be so easily stopped?
There was already a tension that had been quietly building toward an eruption. If the Emperor were now to issue an edict promoting Pei Shaohuai’s official rank and granting him a position of importance, there would surely be remonstrating officials who would speak out directly in court to impeach him, or even join forces to launch a coordinated attack.
Although the innocent will prove their innocence, and the opposition’s outcry no matter how loud could be suppressed by the Emperor’s sole authority, Pei Shaohuai did not wish for this — to rely on the Emperor’s imperial might to suppress “disorder” would in the end still leave undercurrents churning beneath the surface, and would not constitute true resolution. Throughout history, how many of those who relied on imperial authority and imperial power to enact reforms had come to a good end?
If he were to become labeled a “treacherous minister,” then the cause of opening maritime trade would certainly come to ruin.
Furthermore, if suspicion were allowed to spread unchecked, Shaojin and Yancheng, just entering their official careers — what footing would they have? How would they be able to exercise their talents?
These matters had all weighed upon Pei Shaohuai’s thinking. He continued his report: “This minister is willing to go out of the capital to serve as an official, to prove this minister’s integrity through action, and to spare Your Majesty this burden.”
The Emperor set aside the joy he had shown a moment before, and while growing more grave, his eyes also gained a measure of comfort and appreciation. It was clear that what Pei Shaohuai had guessed was not wrong — the Emperor had indeed been carrying his own concerns.
But the Emperor did not wish to post Pei Shaohuai away from the capital. He said: “The questions were set by Us, and the papers were personally reviewed by Us. We know your integrity, Boyuan. This matter, We have Our own arrangements — you need not trouble yourself.”
Pei Shaohuai continued: “Your Majesty, the opening of maritime trade was a proposal this minister put forward. If this minister cannot build a thriving port from nothing and bring benefit to the people of that region, then a thousand arguments made at court will always ring hollow and empty, and will be difficult to use in persuading the assembled ministers. Moreover, when the court issues new policies, the officials along the coastal regions find themselves navigating blind when it comes to implementation — as dangerous and unpredictable as feeling for a path across a river by groping for stones underfoot. This minister is willing to step into those waters, and to feel out the underwater riverbed for those who come after.”
His words rang clear and resolute. He had made up his mind.
Da Qing was at the height of a golden age of peace. If one did not press forward a few steps now, when would one?
The Emperor looked down at the paper on his desk, on which were written the titles “Director of the Ministry of Finance,” “Administrator of the Censorate,” “Left Deputy Commissioner of the Office of Transmission”… all capital official positions of the Fifth Rank. He had not considered sending Pei Shaohuai out of the capital.
Finding a capable minister who was truly to one’s liking was no easy matter.
“Boyuan, are you certain?”
“This minister is certain.”
The Emperor did not reject Pei Shaohuai’s petition. What he admired about Pei Shaohuai was precisely this drive in him — no flattery, no empty words, making his name through concrete facts and achievements.
The Emperor asked again: “Boyuan, where do you wish to serve?”
“In reply to Your Majesty — this minister wishes to serve at Jiahe Island.” Of the five open maritime trade ports, it was the one Pei Shaohuai regarded most highly.
After a long pause, the Emperor folded the paper on his desk and tucked it into a book, and said: “Let Us think on it a little more.”
Pei Shaohuai could hear in the Emperor’s words a note of reluctance, and knew from this that the matter was already six or seven parts settled.
Sovereign and minister looked at one another, and the atmosphere gradually softened. The Emperor let out a quiet sigh, allowing more of a smile to surface, and said: “Boyuan, you are a very determined person.”
Pei Shaohuai replied: “Without this determination, how could this minister have endured more than a decade of study by cold windows and come to stand before Your Majesty.” Then he added: “Fortunately, Your Majesty has been very generous toward this minister.”
After Pei Shaohuai withdrew, Pei Jue entered the Imperial Study with the resonant clinking of jade at his waist.
Many things were already understood by both parties without need for further words.
The Emperor looked at the jade ornaments hanging one by one at Pei Jue’s waist, and thought of Pei Jue’s more than twenty years of serving the court in the capital. He had indeed rendered no small number of genuine merits. With sincere feeling, the Emperor said: “Pei Aiqing, all these years, you have worked hard.”
To receive these words from the Emperor, on this day and at this moment — Pei Jue felt that was enough. Not daring to pride himself on his achievements, he replied: “This old minister thanks Your Majesty for your forgiveness, and for giving the Minister of Personnel’s residence the opportunity to make amends.”
The Emperor waved his hand, signaling that the matter was past and there was no need to speak further of it. He said: “We will honor Our promise and allow you to retire in honor.” It was a dignified and honorable retirement, not the resignation of a criminal official.
Having received the Emperor’s promise, Pei Jue should have taken his leave and returned home. Yet he hesitated a moment, then said: “This old minister has one final matter to report.” He would take it as one last small thing he could do for the court.
“Granted.”
Pei Jue said: “This old minister, acting under imperial command, went south to investigate the Fujian Administration Commission. What was cut away was only the crown of the tree above ground — in truth, beneath the soil the roots are tangled and interwoven beyond any easy disentanglement. In the coastal regions, the local government, the local gentry, the common people, the water bandits, and the Japanese pirates have each formed their own power base, existing in mutual dependence and mutual restraint. This old minister suspects that the recovery of over two hundred thousand taels of silver from that investigation, and the Administrator Commissioner’s suicide by hanging within the mountain villa, were nothing more than an illusion deliberately manufactured by the various factions in order to restore balance among themselves.”
The implication was that the coastal regions of Fujian were not in fact truly peaceful. The profits of official collusion and smuggling had not merely flowed into the pockets of the Administration Commissioner alone — they were more like an undercurrent that had seeped into every household, and everyone had tacitly permitted it.
To speak these words was equivalent to cutting in half the merits of his months-long southern inspection tour.
But in any case, he was going to resign. Whether his merits were halved or not had ceased to matter.
The Emperor’s fingers tapped lightly on the writing desk — tap, tap, tap — the words “Jiahe Island” lay beneath his fingertips, and his expression grew grave.
Pei Jue added: “All of this is merely this old minister’s suspicion — there is no evidence.” These matters had been concealed so thoroughly that even the deputy official of the Southern Embroidered Uniform Guard had been unable to uncover them. What Pei Jue had just spoken was based on his own intuition and inference.
“We are aware.”
Pei Jue left the palace. The Ministry of Personnel had already prepared a carriage outside the palace gates to send the old minister home.
Above the palace walls, dark clouds roiled and spread in great masses to the horizon — heavy and dense, refusing to be parted. It had something of the quality of those summer clouds, dark and pressing, before a sudden downpour.
Pei Jue said: “This sky looks as though a heavy rain is coming.” And yet he stepped into the carriage all the same.
The carriage driver replied with a smile: “The fourth month hasn’t finished spring yet — the rain can’t be too heavy.”
Halfway along the road, raindrops began to patter against the carriage, giving off a steady tap-tap sound, then trickling down along the curtain cloth in thin rivulets. Just as the driver had expected, the late-spring rain was not particularly heavy.
Yet in the dim light of evening dusk, with dark clouds blocking out the sun, it was impossible to tell whether it was the rain that hastened the dusk, or the dusk that summoned the rain. A quiet sorrow arose from somewhere without.
When they reached a roadside shrine, Pei Jue lifted the carriage curtain cloth and gazed through the fine rain at the weathered old temple, and suddenly said: “Slow down a little.”
He caught sight of an old man with white-streaked hair, sitting beneath the eaves of the shrine sheltering from the rain, his face raised, staring blankly at the drops of water falling from the eaves like broken beads.
Pei Jue removed his black gauze cap. A few unbound white strands of hair drifted in front of his eyes, and in a fleeting moment he seemed to see himself sitting beneath those same temple eaves, counting the raindrops one by one.
Just as the Southern Song master Zhushan had written in his poem “Listening to the Rain”: the speaker, now older, listening to the rain beneath a monk’s shelter, with temples already touched by grey — joy and sorrow, union and parting, all without feeling. Let the rain fall drop by drop before the steps until dawn.
In youth he had climbed a tower and lit red candles to listen to rain in the night; in his prime he had drifted on a lone leaf of a boat listening to the rain of travels; now he could only sit quietly beneath the shelter of the eaves, drop by drop, drip by drip — bleak and desolate.
Long ago, after sitting for the examinations, he had journeyed far to Chengdu Prefecture to take up his post. The mountain roads were long and remote, and he encountered rain again and again along the way. Road after road, night after night of rain, a single rain dripping and pattering from then until now — and still it had not ceased.
Pei Shaohuai, returning from the office at the close of the day’s business, likewise encountered this late-spring dusk rain.
He had still been turning over in his mind how to break to Shiyue the news of leaving the capital for a post elsewhere, when the carriage gave a sudden violent lurch, then tilted slightly and came to a stop.
“Chang Fan, what has happened?”
Chang Fan climbed down to look, then replied: “Young master, the wheel ran over a large stone — two of the rear wheel’s wooden spokes have broken.” He then asked: “Young master, would you like to go to the teahouse ahead and have a cup of tea while I go back to the manor and bring another carriage to fetch you?”
Pei Shaohuai had a bamboo umbrella beside him. He looked out and saw the rain was not heavy, and was struck by a sudden whim, saying: “No need — it’s less than half a li. I’ll get out and walk.”
With that, he opened his umbrella and stepped down.
Along the long street, the blue-grey bricks glistened with rain-dampened moss. In the grey and fading dusk, Pei Shaohuai walked with his umbrella, unhurried in his steps. The cooking smoke from the homes on either side drifted toward him together with the fine spring rain.
His official robes were wide; raindrops had dampened his sleeves, and the lower hem was soaked through across a broad swath. Looking out at the mist-veiled expanse ahead, Pei Shaohuai felt, unexpectedly, a sense of openness and clarity. Even as night drew in and fine rain fell, he would not lose his way home — every step was a step toward return.
He had no bamboo walking staff, no rain cape of straw — yet he was reminded of Master Dongpo’s line: “Bamboo staff and straw sandals lighter than a horse — what is there to fear? A life of mist and rain, one raincoat all that’s needed.”
Just as Pei Jue had said, Pei Shaohuai knew that some things were indeed very difficult. And yet — the road, however far, will be reached if one walks on; the task, however hard, can be done if one does it.