Seeing Xiao Rongyan’s furrowed brow and his reluctance to let go, Bai Qingyan pushed against his chest: “Grand Marshal Lu has returned—there must be urgent matters!”
Only then did Xiao Rongyan reluctantly release Bai Qingyan with a face full of displeasure. Seeing Bai Qingyan straightening her robes as she walked toward the seat behind the couch, he also walked to his seat, lifting the hem of his robe to kneel and sit down.
Shortly after, Wei Zhong pushed open the palace doors and invited Grand Marshal Lu, Minister of Works Shen Jingzhong, Minister of Education Dong Qingping, and General Xie Yuchang to enter together and bow to Bai Qingyan.
Bai Qingyan glanced at Xiao Rongyan, who was properly bowing to each of the officials, and asked: “Imperial Teacher, you’ve returned with the Minister of Works, Minister of Education, and General Xie. Is there urgent business?”
“Your Majesty!” Grand Marshal Lu bowed deeply to Bai Qingyan: “This old minister has received word that the students of the Imperial Academy plan to gather and cause trouble, preparing to beat the complaint drums and kneel outside the imperial palace in a death remonstrance, requesting Your Majesty to withdraw… the edict allowing women to take the imperial examinations and serve as officials.”
“Have all the ministers come together for this matter?” Bai Qingyan asked.
Shen Jingzhong nodded: “Precisely!”
“The matter of the Imperial Academy students is of great importance…” Dong Qingping bowed to Bai Qingyan: “When Grand Marshal Lu received the news, this minister and Minister Shen happened to be there as well, so we specially invited General Xie to come together to ask Your Majesty… whether we should first have General Xie lead the Imperial Guards to control the Imperial Academy students, to prevent them from causing great chaos on the day of Your Majesty’s enthronement.”
On the first day of the emperor’s enthronement, with envoys from various countries present, if the complaint drums were to sound… it would not look good.
When Bai Qingyan issued the edict, she knew the students would be displeased, but she hadn’t expected… the students of the Imperial Academy would move so quickly to cause trouble.
If there weren’t people stirring up trouble behind the scenes, Bai Qingyan wouldn’t believe it.
“This way—I’ll trouble the Imperial Teacher, Minister of Works, Minister of Education, and General Xie to make a trip to the Imperial Academy. Tell the students that tomorrow I will personally visit the Imperial Academy. Whatever opinions or thoughts the students have, they can speak to me directly! The students of the Imperial Academy are all pillars of the court’s future, and the court values them greatly. Bai Qingyan will certainly treat them as distinguished scholars, so ask them to remain calm.” After Bai Qingyan finished speaking, she instructed Grand Marshal Lu: “Imperial Teacher, Minister of Works, and Minister of Education must properly appease the students.”
“Yes!” Grand Marshal Lu nodded in acknowledgment.
With Bai Qingyan personally visiting the Imperial Academy tomorrow, the students presumably wouldn’t come to beat the complaint drums today.
Dong Qingping had originally wanted to discuss Dengzhou matters with Bai Qingyan, but seeing Xiao Rongyan present, he bowed and departed together with Grand Marshal Lu and the others.
Seeing the palace doors close again, Xiao Rongyan set down his teacup and said to Bai Qingyan: “A’Bao… was your edict this time allowing women to take imperial examinations and serve as officials perhaps too hasty? I know you hope women can receive fair treatment, but for hundreds of years, the idea of male superiority and female inferiority has penetrated deep into the bones of everyone in the world, even women… are the same! It cannot be changed overnight!”
“Moreover, A’Bao, as Great Zhou’s Empress, you should plan for the overall situation and prioritize implementing urgent new policies first! Without planning for the overall situation, how can you plan for a nation?”
His concern was genuine. Even knowing Bai Qingyan’s strength and resilience…
Because he loved her, even seeing her hold a candle, he feared the wax would burn her hands.
“With a new dynasty established, if we don’t change the laws now to allow women to enter schools and take imperial examinations to serve as officials, it will be even more difficult to gradually implement such changes in the future.” Bai Qingyan understood what Xiao Rongyan was worried about: “Precisely because Great Zhou is a new dynasty, I dare to act this way! Just like reducing the feudal princes… if I had inherited the throne rather than founding a new dynasty, it would never have gone so smoothly.”
“To accomplish something requires the right time, favorable circumstances, and popular support. Time waits for no one… if we miss this opportunity, we’ll miss it forever!” Bai Qingyan was simply following her heart, wanting to build Great Zhou into what she envisioned: “History always moves forward and will never stop just because Great Zhou isn’t ready yet. No matter how difficult, this must be done, because I know… this is correct!”
Xiao Rongyan was usually aggressive in his actions, but this time he couldn’t agree with Bai Qingyan’s approach.
Yan’s governing philosophy and the Great Zhou’s governing methods were not entirely the same.
Yan sought to rapidly strengthen national power and unify the world.
While Bai Qingyan sought to unify the world, she also wanted to attempt things that predecessors had tried but failed at, or things predecessors had never tried—to break this world’s already solidified perception of male superiority and female inferiority.
Though too radical, if she didn’t act now when the new dynasty was just established, once the court situation stabilized, it would be much more difficult to implement such changes without the current convenient excuse of “new dynasty, new rules.”
“A’Bao, this will be very difficult… more difficult than your destruction of Shu and Liang!” Xiao Rongyan thought of his own mother’s failed attempt to advocate for women’s participation in imperial examinations and entry into government service: “Equality… as you said, is correct, but implementing it… will touch upon the interests of the vast majority of men in the world.”
“When my mother abolished slavery, the beneficiaries were the majority of common people, so… even with setbacks and hardships, it could ultimately succeed.” Xiao Rongyan spoke slowly: “But in the eyes of most men in the world, women are their appendages. When appendages can suddenly serve as officials alongside you, how many men could accept that?”
“And setting aside whether men can accept it…” he looked at Bai Qingyan and analyzed truthfully: “Breaking the established pattern of men managing external affairs and women managing internal affairs—how would families and clans balance internal and external roles? For a clan, men carry on the family line while women will eventually marry and become wives of other families. Changing this mindset requires an extremely long time to correct, since not every family can be like the Bai family in not looking down on women and allowing women to study under famous teachers like men.”
“For a family to let women attend school… to spend money supporting women in taking imperial examinations and serving as officials, they must plan to take in a son-in-law to bring glory to their family name. If women serve as officials, the division of labor between spouses… would require women to manage external affairs and men to manage internal affairs. Women’s status would rise while men’s would fall.” Xiao Rongyan shook his head: “A’Bao, not all men have this magnanimity—in fact, very few men in the world have such magnanimity.”
“You’re not wrong—advocating for gender equality is correct…” Xiao Rongyan’s voice was solemn: “I understand this more deeply than you, because I know my mother was more suited to be emperor than my father. But precisely because of this world’s prejudice against women, various new policies that would be praised as benefiting ten thousand generations if implemented by men were condemned as contemporary crimes when my mother implemented them.”
Even now, Xiao Rongyan remembered the scene after his mother’s death… when everyone clapped and cheered, calling his mother Empress Ji a demon empress, saying his mother was a hen crowing at dawn and deserved to die. This even included common people who had benefited from his mother’s new policies, all because… his mother was a woman.