Pei Shaohuai returned to the classroom to find the old draft lying on his desk, and felt a mild start of surprise.
It must have slipped from among his papers when he tidied up, or perhaps a draft from the window had blown it down, and someone had picked it up and placed it back on the desk.
He could only hope that whoever had picked it up had not paid much attention to what was written on it.
He straightened his desk, then took out several volumes of the Jiangnan Literary Selections and settled in to read carefully. The collection featured exemplary essays written by scholars from the Southern Metropolitan Region. The Jiangnan scholars wrote with a fine, penetrating touch — beginning from small and particular observations to arrive at expansive meanings, with graceful and proper diction. Pei Shaohuai lost himself in the essays, finding the more he read, the more he admired them.
During this stretch of time, he had been focusing his practice on policy examination essays, though he had not neglected the eight-legged prose form either.
In his estimation, the Jiangnan scholars’ eight-legged compositions were truly superior.
When he finally set the essays aside and stood to stretch, he noticed two young students who had been waiting quietly behind him.
“Senior Brother Pei, forgive us for disturbing you.” The two juniors bowed. One of them added: “There is a term we cannot quite grasp, and we hoped to ask for your guidance.”
Pei Shaohuai had been at Donglin Academy for nearly a full year now. Beyond the close friendships he had formed with Tian Yonglu and a few like-minded peers, he had also earned considerable respect and standing among the younger students in the second and third cohorts — and for no particular secret reason: whenever the junior students came to him with questions, he answered each one with patience and care, speaking freely of whatever he knew, and treated everyone with warmth and generosity.
The other students who had already passed the provincial examinations were nowhere near as approachable as Pei Shaohuai.
“Please go ahead.”
The junior student said: “Both the Great Learning and the Doctrine of the Mean speak of a term: ‘watchfulness over oneself when alone.’ Zhu Xi, in his Collected Annotations on the Four Chapters, glosses it as: ‘In places of darkness and obscurity, in matters that are subtle and minute — though no trace has yet appeared outwardly, the stirring within has already begun; though others do not know, oneself alone knows.’ We cannot fully grasp it — we still do not understand what this watchfulness in solitude truly means. We humbly ask for Senior Brother Pei’s instruction.”
Though the Great Learning and the Doctrine of the Mean were not Pei Shaohuai’s primary classical texts, he had studied this passage before. Drawing on the interpretation his teacher Master Duan had once offered, he replied: “‘In places of darkness and obscurity’ refers to being at ease and alone — and so the premise of Zhu Xi’s gloss lies in that state of being at ease, undistorted by others and undisturbed by external affairs. This is the meaning of ‘alone’ — the first layer of meaning.”
He continued: “Being at ease describes one’s outward circumstances; watchfulness in solitude describes one’s inward state of mind. Learning depends on effort, and effort depends on this watchfulness in solitude. One who is truly watchful over oneself in solitude needs no one else to supervise or oversee them — they are capable of achieving things on their own. This is the second layer of meaning.”
The two junior students listened closely, writing quickly as he spoke, then bowed once more. “Thank you, Senior Brother Pei, for resolving our confusion.” Though they had not yet fully understood everything, they had found the thread to follow.
The juniors had barely left when Pei Shaohuai spotted Tian Yonglu making straight for him, all urgency and purpose — the look of a man coming to settle a score.
“What’s the matter, Senior Brother Tian?” Pei Shaohuai asked.
Tian Yonglu fixed him with a steady stare. His lips trembled slightly, his expression a portrait of aggrieved resentment — and after a long moment he finally got out a single sentence: “Junior Brother Pei, how could you be so heartless? I’ve been kept in the dark, and it has cost me so dearly…”
Anyone who overheard that, quite unfamiliar with the situation, would surely have thought they had stumbled upon the confrontation scene of some tale of faithless lovers.
That single word — “kept in the dark” — made Pei Shaohuai glance at the old drafts on his desk. He pieced it together quickly enough. “Those two drafts — was it Senior Brother Tian who picked them up and put them back?”
Tian Yonglu gave a single nod.
Pei Shaohuai pressed his fingers to his forehead, a little embarrassed — of all people, it had to be Senior Brother Tian who discovered it first. He asked, “What if I said I wasn’t — would Senior Brother Tian believe me?”
Tian Yonglu shook his head.
After a pause, Tian Yonglu asked plaintively: “Is your next essay finished? Might I be allowed a first look?”
Pei Shaohuai raised an eyebrow, visibly taken aback. “How could it possibly be ready so soon? This essay was only just submitted…” It seemed that from now on, he would have Senior Brother Tian at his elbow every month clamoring for new drafts.
The two of them found a quiet corner to talk.
Tian Yonglu’s earlier aggrieved mood had by now transformed entirely into excitement — not only had he come face to face with Northern Guest, but it turned out he and Northern Guest were already on excellent terms.
“Junior Brother Pei, with all that talent, why hide it? If you published under your real name in the Quarterly, wouldn’t it be far easier to build your reputation?” Tian Yonglu asked.
A strong reputation was a great asset for a scholar — it could carry real weight in the examinations.
He also said: “Northern Guest, a guest from the north — I can’t believe I never managed to work it out.”
Pei Shaohuai thought back to his original reasons for submitting, and replied: “At first, I used the name Northern Guest as a calling card of sorts — to test the waters. As time went on, I found that exchanging ideas and discussing essays from behind a pen name felt purer, somehow, and so I kept it.”
Had he published under the name Pei Shaohuai, he would inevitably have been seen through the lens of his reputation as the top graduate of the Northern Metropolitan Region’s provincial examinations, and drawn into the old tensions between north and south.
And once that happened, the way other scholars read his work would naturally shift as well.
Tian Yonglu thought of how peers like Cheng Si and Cui Zhengjie had viewed Pei Shaohuai with a certain prejudice, and let out a quiet sigh. “I don’t want to admit it, but what you say is true — the ideas under a pen name really do feel purer… If those senior brothers in Chongwen Hall knew that Northern Guest was you, they probably wouldn’t be so eager to champion Northern Guest’s essays anymore.”
Not everyone, after all, admired Northern Guest’s essays as simply and purely as he did.
“Then I hope Senior Brother Tian will help me keep the secret.”
“If you have a fine new essay, let me read it first — or perhaps leave me the draft…” Tian Yonglu said with a grin. “It’s not as though I couldn’t manage that.”
Several days later, the new issue of the Chongwen Quarterly was printed. Because another essay from Northern Guest appeared in its pages, the issue sold out rapidly.
With only a limited number of copies in circulation, students were copying the contents out by hand.
“Northern Guest’s essays seem to have risen to yet another level — it’s just that my own learning isn’t deep enough to pinpoint exactly where… I feel there’s been a change in the style, but I can’t put my finger on it.”
“All I know is that they flow better — what I admire most is his insights: so fresh and utterly his own.”
“Exactly. Take this new essay, for instance — Northern Guest is arguing how to build and train a naval force, and he writes: ‘Cultivate your generals to strengthen their strategy; drill for battle and defense to inspire their spirit; accumulate resources and provisions to sustain their campaigns.’ In just a handful of phrases, he binds together the commander’s strategic thinking, the daily demands of training, and the logistics of rear support — all as one whole, none separate from the others. How masterful.”
“I’m increasingly curious to see how the Nanju Scholar will comment on Northern Guest’s essays this time.”
“I’m just as eager for the Nanju Scholar’s detailed analysis.”
With a thorough analysis, one could better understand and absorb the essence of Northern Guest’s essays.
As a result of all this, the Chongwen Literary Society’s reputation grew yet further across the various prefectures and counties of the Southern Metropolitan Region.
In the second and third months of spring in Jiangnan, the grass and water were the same color. The people were busy nurturing their rice seedlings and turning over the paddy fields.
After an entire winter of repair work, the commercial wharf on the eastern edge of Taicang Prefecture — once a tangle of wild grass and tumbled rocks — had at last taken shape and now showed the first clear outlines of a functioning harbor.
For several li along the coastline, a stone embankment had been laid using rough stone, and sandbags had been piled up on the shallows beyond the wharf to break the tidal surges, keeping the waters within the harbor calm and protected. This stretch of coast had always been a natural harbor to begin with.
To make the unloading of cargo more convenient for incoming vessels, a long jetty running directly into the harbor had been cleared and repaved with bluestone steps. In time, goods from the ships would flow along this jetty in an unbroken stream into Taicang Prefecture, and from there be distributed to every corner of the Da Qing empire.
On the shore there was a wide stretch of open land. Pei Shaohuai had suggested to his father that part of it be built up into government offices and market stalls — so that patrol officers and local militia could be stationed there — and the remainder be developed into a row of commercial shops. Once the wharf grew lively enough, merchants would naturally hear of it and come looking for premises to lease.
For the time being, though, as the spring planting was underway, construction had to be paused — it would be taken up again once the farming season was over.
In the latter part of the third month, an imperial edict came down, authorizing a number of coastal prefectures and counties to open maritime trade. Taicang Prefecture was among them.
The Zhenhai Guard had assumed all along that Pei Bingyuan’s construction of a wharf was aimed at competing with them over the grain transport routes — the canal shipments of grain — and had repeatedly mocked him for overreaching. The transport of grain by waterway was a matter of military importance, they said, and naturally it could only remain in the hands of the garrison. There was no point in Pei Bingyuan trying.
There had indeed been very few cases in all of Da Qing’s history of a prefecture or county administration controlling a waterway grain route.
But as it turned out, Pei Bingyuan’s ambitions had never been directed at the inland grain routes at all. He was looking to the sea trade. The Zhenhai Guard had simply been too insular, too narrow in their outlook.
By the time the Zhenhai Guard received the news, it was already too late — and they finally understood why the prefectural administration had gone to so much trouble to restore an abandoned commercial wharf. Pei Bingyuan had by then firmly secured his hold on it.
And not only Pei Bingyuan — the Prefect of Suzhou, the Regional Inspector of Jiangnan, and the Board of Finance were all involved. The Zhenhai Guard did not dare make any moves.
When the people of Taicang Prefecture heard that the new wharf would bring them a prosperity like that of Yangzhou, morale soared. As soon as the spring planting was done, they threw themselves straight into building the wharf.
Pei Bingyuan gave the people his word: working on the wharf construction would count toward their corvée obligation, and any household that contributed extra labor beyond what was required could have the additional work hours converted into grain, to be deducted from their year-end tax.
Next came the drafting of the customs tax policy for the wharf. Pei Bingyuan and his son Pei Shaohuai made several visits to the Zou household to seek Elder Zou’s counsel.
Elder Zou had entered the Grand Secretariat by way of serving as President of the Board of Finance, and was a recognized authority on such matters.
When Elder Zou learned the purpose of the father and son’s visit, he was greatly pleased, and shared his knowledge in full: “Merchants do not fear taxation. What they fear most is uncertainty in the tax regulations, and what they dread after that is going to all the effort of a voyage only to be denied passage. If Pei Zhizhou wishes to draw up a customs policy, he might approach it from the following directions.”
“First, classify goods by category. When merchant ships return laden from the Southern Seas, what do they carry? Precious stones are small in size but yield the greatest profit — they absolutely cannot be overlooked in any tax schedule. Grain is difficult to transport by sea, and few merchants engage in that trade; yet grain benefits the state and the people, so the tax rate on grain should be lowered to encourage merchants to bring it in. Beyond that there are spices, equipment, timber, and countless other goods that are too numerous to list — Pei Zhizhou will need to categorize them carefully.”
“Second, determine the valuation. The higher the valuation, the greater the tax collected; the lower the valuation, the lesser the tax… But by what standard should goods be valued? This, in fact, is not so difficult — simply gather and compare prices from various localities, and take the median as your benchmark.”
“Third, set the rate of taxation. This is the most critical matter of all. I need say little about it — Pei Zhizhou surely has his own views on this.”
“…” And then he went on at length about many further details.
Pei Shaohuai had never studied anything related to this field in his previous life — he understood well enough that having a standardized and clearly defined tax policy was vitally important, but had not known how to go about creating one.
This was an excellent opportunity to gain hands-on practical experience. Pei Shaohuai listened with rapt attention, and came away greatly enriched.
After more than a month of work, Pei Bingyuan completed a first draft and submitted it to the Board of Rites for review, after which the Emperor would make the final decision.
Though the court had not yet issued its official ruling, Taicang Prefecture’s reputation for taxing goods by a fair and consistent standard had already spread. A good number of shipping merchants came to make inquiries: if it was truly as described, they said, they would choose to dock at Taicang Prefecture when next they returned from sea.
In the blink of an eye, several months had passed since Pei Ruozhu left the palace. On a spring day, with a garden excursion to Fanyuan planned, Lian Jie’er and Ying Jie’er had specially pulled Ruozhu along to join them.
Pei Ruozhu gently declined. “I know you mean well, sisters,” she said, “but my mind is not in it at the moment — even if I went, I doubt I’d be in any mood to enjoy myself.”
Then, with a small smile, she added: “Besides, the matchmakers have not stopped arriving at our door this whole time… Sisters, if you have the leisure for a garden excursion, wouldn’t it be better spent helping me sort through some of these proposals instead?”
Pei Ruozhu herself was accomplished in every regard; with the added standing of her father’s merits and her younger brothers’ scholarly achievements, quite a few families had indeed set their sights on this match. To take a second or even a concubine-born son and marry him to a capable daughter-in-law, securing a connection with a household of rising prospects — by any calculation, such a marriage was advantageous.
The Empress had gifted her a small estate on the outskirts of the city, comprising over a hundred mu of farmland — in reality, a modest manor with only a dozen or so tenant households. With spring planting approaching, the estate manager came that day to present the household’s records of harvests across the years, requesting that Pei Ruozhu review them.
Several thick volumes in total. Pei Ruozhu leafed through them, picking out pages at random.
Seeing this, the estate manager lowered his head to conceal a quiet, satisfied smile.
But without even looking up from her teacup, Pei Ruozhu said in a slow, measured voice: “Manager Liang — is this the sort of ledger you bring to deceive me with? Do you think I cannot read accounts? Or do you think that because you manage an imperial estate, I do not dare touch you?”