“…That’s all for today, but I want to tell you all one more thing. Yesterday, over on the east side of the city, I watched an execution, and met an old gentleman there—his name was Qian Xiwen. I learned of him because, the day before, Ru You told me some things, and that was what made me want to go see him. I hadn’t known this Qian Xiwen very well before, though we’d met a few times. He was a man who understood power and human nature exceptionally well. In the Hangzhou region a few years back, if something happened, a single word from him could tip the scales decisively. Today, I want to tell you all about this old man’s story.”
Shade rustled and shifted in the courtyard trees, the languid chirping of insects drifting through the air, as the young teacher’s voice rang out in the academy classroom—though what was ostensibly a lesson had, as usual by now, turned into storytelling. At this point, the classroom held several dozen students of various ages, while outside the window, another five or six students had gathered as well—some leaning on the windowsill, others crouched on the ground counting pebbles—all listening to what was being said inside.
Ever since a series of conflicts had broken out at the academy over the teacher named Ning Liheng, the students had split into several factions—some wanting to do away with this teacher, others wanting to stay close to him and protect him, and, of course, the majority who remained indifferent either way. Whatever people’s feelings toward him, word had gotten around that Teacher Ning’s lessons were entertaining, and quite a few students were happy to come sit in on this History class in Class C.
In a traditional old-fashioned schoolhouse, students freely wandering about like this would surely have earned them a beating from the teacher. But at the Wenlie Academy as it now stood, there were few teachers left who truly dared to discipline the students. By this point, whenever the History class in Class C was in session, some forty-odd students from the pro-Ning and neutral factions would generally gather in the room, while those crouching outside the window with less friendly intentions were, for the most part, from the anti-Ning faction come to spy out the lay of the land under the pretext of “know your enemy, know yourself.” But these were, after all, children ranging from eight or nine to fifteen or sixteen years old, and however much they claimed indifference, they usually found themselves listening to Ning Yi’s stories with rapt attention, only putting on a show of disdain once the story had finished.
Today’s story, however, left the mood both inside and outside the classroom feeling rather strange.
“The Qian family were originally one of the great and prominent clans of Hangzhou, and their family had produced many high officials in the past. There’s actually a rather interesting little story about Qian Xiwen… A few months ago, when I first arrived in Hangzhou, I went to visit him at the Qian residence carrying a letter of introduction from an elder of mine. On the way, I ran into two young men chasing after each other, and ended up picking up a red coral brush rest… I got ten strings of cash for it because of that—not paper notes, mind you, but actual strings of copper coins, ten full strings, quite a chore to carry. I asked around afterward and learned that coral brush rest was Qian Xiwen’s most treasured possession…”
The story of Qian Xiwen, starting from the coral brush rest, gradually moved on to the famine of a few years back, the Start-of-Autumn poetry gathering, and so on. A faint stir of unease rippled through the classroom, inside and out. The children in the room were, after all, still children, but most of them could sense well enough where this story was heading. Those who supported Ning Yi did so partly because they assumed he had already thrown in his lot with the rebel army—and now, hearing him speak this way of Qian Xiwen, a fair number of them began to feel a certain wavering unease.
As the story went on, two teachers from the academy happened to pass by in the corridor outside, apparently sensing something unusual about the atmosphere inside, and stopped to listen for a moment—only for their faces to take on a look of shocked alarm. “Has this man lost his mind?”
“Doesn’t seem like it… he’s awfully bold, isn’t he…”
The two of them listened on, alarmed, and a moment later a third teacher joined them, listened for a bit, and exchanged an equally stunned glance with the other two. All three were originally Hangzhou scholars themselves, and naturally knew the name Qian Xiwen well. But to speak like this, on Fang La’s own territory, wasn’t that practically asking to be killed?
Just as the three stood there, alarmed, a young man in a black short jacket came sauntering down the corridor from one side, glancing this way and that as though out for a leisurely stroll. Though his face was unfamiliar, given that the academy had guards posted outside, anyone able to walk right in, judging by his bearing, was clearly a martial man of some kind—likely a commander in Fang La’s army. The moment he appeared, one of the children loitering outside the classroom was visibly startled, backing away several steps and apparently discussing with a companion whether they ought to leave.
The three scholars exchanged glances, lowered their heads, and slipped away. The young man watched their retreating backs for a moment, then glanced sideways toward the classroom where Ning Yi was speaking. After a moment’s thought, he sat down on the corridor railing about ten feet from the classroom, plucked a blade of grass to chew on, and seemed to settle in there to rest. From this distance, he couldn’t see what was happening inside the classroom, but he could hear both sides of the corridor clearly enough, and before long, he too had grasped what was being discussed.
“So-called ‘guarding the Way’ means dying before your eyes, at the appropriate moment. That’s what the old gentleman said. There are a great many clever people in this world, and speaking for myself, I too think that if he’d wanted to accomplish more, he really didn’t need to die here—didn’t need to come back at all. This old man was a clever man too. And yet what he feared was that, if everyone chose to be clever like this, then when people spoke of dying for one’s principles, there’d be no one left to point to as an example. People would say, all you teachers go on and on about integrity, about loyalty and righteousness—so why did everyone run the moment the enemy attacked? Because he stayed, people will be able to say: there was a Qian Xiwen, who did this. And everything he spent his whole life studying and writing on—none of it was false.”
“He and his family were executed yesterday.” The teacher named Ning Yi paused a moment. “I hope all of you will remember this story, remember that there was a man like this. That’s all for today’s lesson. If any of you have thoughts, you may speak now.”
He had barely finished speaking when a child shot to his feet, indignant. “Teacher Ning, are you saying that means the court’s side is the good side? That we’re the bad ones?” Several others quickly chimed in agreement. Ning Yi looked on calmly, and once the clamor in the room had died down, he finally spoke.
“Good, bad—it’s never that simple. I can’t tell you who’s good and who’s bad. All I can tell you is how to be a person. Your parents sent you to this school to study the Four Books and Five Classics, to read, to study history—why do you think that is? The people at court have spent their whole lives studying these same texts too. You stand in different places, but you’re studying the same things. What I want to tell you is that everything you need to learn is contained in what this old man did. I’m your teacher, and I believe that if you truly want to learn well, you shouldn’t overlook him.”
“As for good and bad, right and wrong—it isn’t as simple as one person standing on the good side meaning another automatically stands on the bad side. Corrupt officials extorting the people without restraint, the Flowers-and-Rocks Convoy leaving common people with no way to live—you rose up, you killed them, and that was a good thing. What you study, what I want to teach you, at the very least, is exactly this kind of thing. What that old gentleman did was also a good thing. I tell you his story because I want you to remember that there was an old man who studied Confucianism, who held to his own Way, who carried it through with true greatness—that has nothing to do with which side he stood on. You too should hold to your own convictions in the future, and not fall short of him… Will you fall short of him?”
Children and young people, in the end, tend to have plenty of fire in their blood. When Ning Yi asked this, they all shouted at once: “Of course not!” The cry rose up around the room, and even the few children outside the window seemed swept up in it. But naturally, some still wanted a simple answer as to right and wrong. Ning Yi paused for a moment, then looked out over them all.
“If you were children born into peaceful times, I shouldn’t be telling you any of this. Tian Yuchang, Chen Qiu… some of you are still too young, and I shouldn’t be teaching you something this complicated too early—you might not even understand it yet. But you weren’t born into peaceful times. Most of you have lived through war yourselves—your fathers have fought in battles, just like Yu Sihe, who’s already been on a battlefield himself, haven’t you?”
A boy of about fifteen or sixteen among them lifted his chin proudly.
“Then you should understand—this war is far from over. I hope none of you will ever have to go to battle again, but you’re the sons of military families, and you need to be ready. On the court’s side, there are many corrupt officials, many people so consumed by the scramble for power and profit that they’ve become utterly hopeless, caring nothing for the people’s suffering—but there are also some among them who are just like this old gentleman. I don’t want you to become the kind of corrupt officials who only care about squeezing the common people dry, not even a small part of you.”
“Since you’re studying here, and you call me your teacher, I want all of you to become people like that old gentleman. For the rest of your lives, you need to have faith in something. When you pick up a blade, remember why you picked it up. If officials are corrupt and lawless, you rise up and kill them, you rebel—if the world has fallen into ruin, you set it right. Remember that you picked up that blade in order to make what’s around you better.”
“Children born into peaceful times go to school to learn how to become officials, or simply to learn their letters, so that someday they’ll have some skill to fall back on, some way to make a living with a pen. Your parents send you here too, saying they want you to have a bright future—but I don’t want that future to mean only learning how to scheme and maneuver, how to climb the ranks of officialdom through cunning. If what you learn here is faith, then it will actually mean something—then you will have truly learned what’s contained in these classics and histories.”
Once he’d said this, the classroom fell into a kind of silence. Some of the children clearly grasped, at least vaguely, what he meant, but the youngest among them could do little more than memorize it by rote, only half-understanding. Many years later, some of them might still remember that someone had once said these words to them, but for now, they could only glance around at their companions, feeling somewhat lost. One nine-year-old raised a timid hand. “Then… teacher, was it wrong of us to kill that old gentleman?”
“It wasn’t wrong.” Ning Yi shook his head. “In the future, you’ll need to learn to respect your enemies, to learn from them—but not to try to pity them. Especially a man like this one, who would never have surrendered no matter what—there was no choice but to kill him. If you’re on a battlefield facing an enemy with tremendous skill, someone everyone agrees is formidable, and you find yourself thinking, even as you’re about to strike him down, ‘he’s truly impressive, I can’t bear to kill him’—then you’re as good as dead already. You need to hold to your own convictions. The more formidable your enemy, the more imposing they seem, the harder you should strike to bring them down. But… if you have the time, you might go bury the old gentleman’s remains properly, and light some incense for him.”
The children, in the end, couldn’t fully grasp such a complicated notion of good and evil. The younger ones, for the most part, simply concluded that the old gentleman had been a good man who’d died a pity, and upon hearing Ning Yi speak of burial and incense, they nodded along in agreement.
Outside on the corridor railing, the young man in black spat out the blade of grass he’d been chewing, frowned, and strolled off again with the same idle, wandering gait…
…
Nothing much ever happened at the academy, but Ning Yi’s lecture on Qian Xiwen sent ripples through the entire school over the following day or two. On one hand, everyone was moved by the tragic nobility of what Qian Xiwen had done; on the other, it stirred up all manner of talk about Ning Yi himself—some admired his courage, others thought he’d simply grown weary of living, but as for the latter half of what he’d said, quite a few found themselves genuinely uncertain which side he actually stood on.
Amid this atmosphere, aside from his interactions with a group of students, Ning Yi had become the most isolated figure at the academy—some admired him but dared not associate with him too closely, others resented him but simply watched quietly to see what fate would befall him. Outside the academy, too, his lecture that day had left a certain lasting impression.
The remains of the Qian clan later received a relatively proper burial, arranged by a commander named Yu Kaitai—the father of that very Yu Sihe. Yu Kaitai knew nothing of Ning Yi’s background; he simply felt that “this teacher has taught my son quite well.” A few who’d heard what Ning Yi said thought his intentions deserved punishment, but in the end, no one took any rash action against him—it seemed someone had quietly intervened to prevent it.
Then, starting on the sixth of August, a stretch of auspicious dates followed one after another, and the city of Hangzhou grew increasingly festive, including a grand gathering of the martial world’s wandering heroes, meant to elect Fang La as leader of the martial world south of the Yangtze, along with a deputy leader as well. With official backing, the event drew considerable fanfare. Parades and celebrations followed, along with “tribute from all corners of the realm” sent in by the various rebel strongholds and mountain fortresses, and at last came Fang La’s enthronement ceremony.
In truth, all of this had already been settled half a month earlier—the court had been more or less assembled, and word had already spread in advance. It was only now that it was formally proclaimed to the world: the founding of the Yongle Dynasty.