Beneath the summer sunlight, travelers came and went ceaselessly between the towers of Jiangemen Pass. Besides the merchants who had been most numerous before the great war, there were now also a fair number of wandering swordsmen and scholars mixed among the crowd. Young scholars walked forward with an air of spirited ambition, while older, more seasoned Confucians observed everything with cautious, discerning eyes. Since the repairs to the gate towers were not yet complete, traces of the war’s fires still remained in some places, occasionally drawing people to stop, look, and discuss among themselves.

The Huaxia Army had originally taken a relaxed attitude toward this, letting people look freely, but eventually, as the crowds gathering began to block the passage, soldiers had to come out from time to time to disperse people.

“Keep moving, keep order! Head onward — there’s plenty to see all the way to Chengdu—”

Ning Yi and Zuo Xiuquan watched from a hillside not far off.

“…So, Mr. Ning, what do you make of the new sovereign’s decision?”

Zuo Xiuquan posed this question, and Ning Yi smiled. “What does your own Zuo family think? Follow him, or not?”

“As Mr. Ning has said, the new sovereign is resolute — observing his conduct, one sees the resolve of a desperate stand, an army fighting with its back to the wall, determined to win against all odds. It is stirring, moving one’s heart with admiration. But such desperate last stands are worth talking about precisely because so few who attempt them actually succeed. Judging by the present circumstances, within my own Zuo family, opinion of this reform effort is not particularly optimistic…”

Ning Yi looked at him. Zuo Xiuquan paused. “…But, the Zuo family will follow him.”

Ning Yi laughed. “Not surprising — Zuo Duanyou really did know how to manage a family…”

“Before my uncle passed away, he said that Mr. Ning is broad-minded, and that certain things can be said plainly without your taking offense. The new sovereign’s ability, temperament, and natural gifts far surpass those of the emperors before him — it is regrettable that the Martial Dynasty came to possess him too late. But since it is he who has ascended the throne, then whatever lies ahead, the Zuo family intends to wade through it alongside him.”

Zuo Xiuquan clasped his hands, his words sincere, and Ning Yi nodded as well. “The logic behind the reform holds up… The new sovereign ascends the throne, rallying every faction to his side, and on the surface, it looks as though he can immediately inherit the legitimate authority of the realm — but then what? Patching things up here and there, its ceiling is already plain to see today. Lingering on for a few more years, facing off against that bunch of fools in Lin’an, against restless characters like Wu Qimei and Liu Guangshi — you could defeat them, kill them even, but before long, you’d still be doomed. Unable to beat the Jurchens, unable to beat me… To be frank, in the future, you probably won’t even be able to beat that woman in Shanxi. Without reform, you’re finished… but the problems with reform, you understand perfectly well too.”

Ning Yi’s gaze turned toward him. “This isn’t a question of whether one family or another supports it or not. If you frame it in commercial terms, this is a problem with the entire framework of the game — the talent-cultivation system simply doesn’t match up. For two hundred years, the Martial Dynasty has operated within the framework of ‘governing the realm together with the scholar-officials.’ Your talent cultivation, in countless details, has all been built to align with this theory. Today, with the Martial Dynasty facing imminent collapse, men in power like yourselves are certainly not without the conscience to sacrifice for the dynasty — the Zuo family will follow him, and no small number of great Confucian scholars and men of vision will beggar themselves to share in the nation’s crisis. But what about the people below you?”

“Over what will likely be a fairly long process, those who follow Jun Wu will have to consciously sacrifice more, while gaining less. For men at your level, Master Zuo, this is a matter of a sense of mission — you don’t want money, you don’t want reward. But the Zuo family alone influences thousands of scholars, and directly or indirectly affects the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands more who depend on you. For them, this comes down to the price of firewood, rice, oil, and salt every single day. For the sake of the Emperor, you can bankrupt your household and give everything away, and you yourself still won’t go hungry — but they will.”

“If this goes on long enough, everyone will increasingly see the difference. Those who defect to Lin’an, with a bit of connection, can rise above others — why can’t you? In the past, you could cut corners and get away with it; why is the law so strict today, to the point that ‘officials can barely survive’? Then they’ll start looking for reasons, concluding it’s because you’ve upset the foundation of the state, and that’s what’s caused this outcome. People will start saying, this won’t do… Most people in this world are creatures of this kind — most of the time, everyone is finding reasons to justify their own purposes, rather than acting only after truly understanding the reasons. Those who can genuinely judge a matter purely on its own merits have always been vanishingly few.”

“Your Zuo family may well be the staunchest ally standing beside the young emperor throughout this reform, but two-thirds of your own internal strength will turn into resistance within this very reform effort — resistance that’s invisible and intangible, showing up in every act of laziness, every moment of fatigue, every complaint, every stick of incense burned in outward compliance but inward defiance… This is the Zuo family’s own situation. And for the many other great clans, even if some elder patriarch declares support for Jun Wu, the part of every individual’s mind within that family that resists upheaval will still congeal into a quagmire, dragging this reform down from every direction.”

“This is the fundamental problem with every reform effort.”

Bustling voices drifted over from the distance. Having said this much, Ning Yi paused, and the two fell silent for a moment. Zuo Xiuquan said, “So then, in the end, reform comes down to the hearts of the people. Li Pin’s New Confucianism, and His Majesty’s Jiangnan Military Academy — these aren’t wrong approaches, then.”

“Many problems aren’t about the concept itself, but about degree,” Ning Yi said with a smile. “I once heard a joke — someone asked an old farmer, ‘Today the nation is in crisis; if you had two large houses, would you be willing to donate one to the court?’ The old farmer readily said yes. ‘And if you had a million taels of silver, would you donate it?’ The old farmer said, yes, that too. Then they asked, ‘And if you had two oxen, would you donate one?’ The old farmer shook his head, refusing. They asked why. He said… I actually have two oxen.”

Zuo Xiuquan was stunned for a moment, then burst out laughing.

“Today, with the Martial Dynasty in peril, ask anyone in the realm whether reform is needed, and everyone will say, yes, of course. But ask them to wear one less garment for the sake of reform, and who knows what they’ll say then. And if you ask them to skip a single meal? Would they still support reform, or not? Some will say yes, some will say no — but the truly complicated part is that many people will say they support reform while simultaneously insisting your method of reform is wrong. Some of this is genuine, some is not… How many people the young emperor can get to sacrifice their own interests in support of reform, and how much of their interests he can get them to sacrifice — that is the crux of the entire matter.”

Ning Yi looked at the crowds passing through the checkpoint below, then paused. “In truth, everything I’ve just said, you already understand perfectly well too.”

“I simply wonder, were the situation reversed, how Mr. Ning himself would act.”

“Ha, ha… see, now you’ve finally shown your true intent.”

“Given your level of cultivation, Mr. Ning, if you didn’t wish to say something, none of us could get it out of you. It’s only that, back when you and my uncle used to discuss philosophy together, you once said that what you most admired was the sight of a person, amid hardship, refusing to yield, burning brightly regardless. From last year to now, the actions of the Fuzhou court might just be worthy of your regard, Mr. Ning.”

Zuo Xiuquan’s words were sincere — neither provocative nor evasive, carrying instead an air of open candor. Ning Yi glanced at him and did not take offense.

“…Master Zuo, the only thing that can stand against an already-formed, mature ecosystem is another ecosystem.”

Zuo Xiuquan frowned. “What do you mean by… a formed, mature ecosystem?”

“To put it simply — today, in the Martial Dynasty, the idea that the Son of Heaven should govern the realm together with the scholar-officials has already sunk deeply into people’s minds, supported by an entire theoretical framework built to match it. In a village, when adults give birth to children, even if the children never study formally, in the course of growing up, they will constantly, bit by bit, absorb these ideas through everyday exposure. By the time they grow up, when they hear the theory of ‘governing the realm together with the scholar-officials,’ it will strike them as simply self-evident. A mature, self-sustaining ecosystem is one that can operate on its own and continually reproduce itself.”

“The Confucian system the Martial Dynasty relies on today is highly internally consistent. ‘Governing the realm together with the scholar-officials’ is, of course, only one part of it. But if you want to change it to ‘honoring the sovereign, expelling the barbarians,’ arguing that dispersed imperial power is bad and centralized power is good, you first need to cultivate people who genuinely, wholeheartedly believe in this idea, and then use them to train even more people, letting it flow and circulate as naturally as water.”

“Looking at Fuzhou today from the outside, the young emperor’s initial approach was, of course, not wrong — using New Confucianism as an annotation for ‘honoring the sovereign, expelling the barbarians,’ preparing the ground for centralized power; using the Jiangnan Military Academy to unify control over the military, turning military commanders into disciples personally loyal to the Son of Heaven… On one hand, because several hundred thousand elite troops are, for now, concentrated in his hands, with no one able to stand against him; on the other hand, because everyone has just been massacred by the Jurchens and, having learned bitter lessons from pain, has temporarily accepted the idea that reform is necessary — so the first step has begun.”

“But going forward, is Li Pin’s theoretical framework robust enough to serve as an annotation for a self-consistent, self-sustaining system of ‘honoring the sovereign, expelling the barbarians’? Is the loyalty-to-the-sovereign thinking propagated by the Jiangnan Military Academy a mature, thoroughly persuasive doctrine, or is it merely a rigid indoctrination? What you need is a mature theory, a mature narrative, capable of defeating what is, in fact, the more mature and established idea of ‘governing the realm together.’ Only once these ideas have formed a solid, self-sustaining cycle within this current limited scope will you have truly taken your first step. Today, if the court issues a decree that everyone must love their country, no one will listen.”

“The maturation of a theory requires countless questions, countless accumulations, countless clashes of thought. Of course, since you’re asking me today, I do have some things I could offer, that could be put to use over in Fuzhou.”

Zuo Xiuquan narrowed his eyes, seeing that Ning Yi’s gaze, half-smiling, had turned toward him. The feeling in his heart gradually grew strange. The two fell silent for a moment, and he sighed inwardly, unable to help himself. “What?”

He saw Ning Yi spread his hands. “For instance, the first idea I could recommend to them — from among the ‘Four Peoples’ doctrine, taking the concepts of people’s livelihood and people’s rights, one could reshape and merge them into a single concept: human rights.”

“Mr. Ning, this is…”

Zuo Xiuquan couldn’t help but speak up, but Ning Yi, with a sincere expression, pressed his palm downward gently. “Hear me out.”

Zuo Xiuquan didn’t particularly want to hear more…

…

“…I’ve said to others before that, throughout our history from ancient times to the present, nearly every reform ever carried out at court has been a matter of factional strife — forming cliques and attacking rivals. A group with special privileges forms a faction, some political problem becomes a festering wound — what do we do? We unite with other officials, persuade the Emperor, and topple whatever needs toppling. But the problem here is that once you succeed in toppling the previous vested-interest faction, the reformers you’ve rallied together inevitably become a new vested-interest faction themselves.”

“…Any system of interests, any faction, will automatically act to protect its own interests — this cannot be changed by any individual’s will. This is why we see a dynasty cycle through order and chaos across the centuries — one interest system emerges, another topples it, then a third topples that one. Sometimes this temporarily alleviates certain problems, but at the most critical level, the accumulation only ever grows worse and worse. By the time two or three hundred years have passed, certain problems can no longer be reformed at all, and the dynasty begins to disintegrate, inevitably descending from order into chaos…”

“…To defeat one system of vested interests, you can only become a larger system of vested interests yourself. To solve one problem, you must become the problem yourself… Is there any way to change this most basic rule of the game? In the past, it couldn’t be done — but perhaps today it can. We can see that, in the political games of the past, the common people were never taken into account. Even when someone claimed to act for the sake of the people, the people themselves couldn’t tell who was good and who was bad — they couldn’t participate in the struggle, and even when they were drawn into it, both sides could simply throw out grand-sounding principles to deceive them, rendering their choices meaningless anyway…”

“…But today, we’re attempting to bring the rights of the people into the equation. If the common people can become a bit more rational, if their choices can become a bit clearer, then the share they receive won’t be large, but it will exist. For instance, say the interest faction we’re fighting against today has a strength of ten, while your own strength is only nine — in the past, you would have needed at least eleven units of strength to defeat them, and an interest faction with eleven units of strength would then divide up eleven shares of the spoils afterward.”

“…Today it’s different. Millions upon millions of common people can now be reached by your words — of course, given their level of ignorance, they might only initially be able to generate two units of strength. But if you make them promises, you can temporarily borrow that two units of strength to topple the opposing interest faction. Once toppled, you become the privileged class, and you’ll take away nine units of the benefit for yourself — but you must at least fulfill part of your promise. Two units, or at least one unit, of benefit must flow back to the common people. This is the power of the people — this is the possibility of changing the rules of the game itself.”

Ning Yi tapped his finger a few times in the air, his gaze turning serious.

“…Today, if Jun Wu in Fuzhou wants to stand against the entire body of scholar-officials of the Martial Dynasty, to fight against their way of thinking, their theoretical framework — relying merely on the rationalism, the passion, and the fervor of a handful of you, Master Zuo, along with some great Confucian scholars — you won’t be able to accomplish anything. The resisting forces will be like a quagmire, pushing back against you from every direction. So the only solution is to bring the common people into the equation.”

“…But ignorant common people are of no use — if they’re easily deceived, then the scholar-officials on the opposing side can just as easily stir them up. To bring them into the political calculus and produce a controllable inclination, they need a certain degree of discernment, the ability to distinguish where their own interests actually lie… This couldn’t be done in the past, but today it’s different. Today we have the study of natural principles, we have technological progress, we can begin producing far more paper, we can open far more classes for learning…”

“…These classes don’t need to go too deep — there’s no need to train them into great Confucian scholars like yourselves. They only need to recognize a few characters, understand a portion of the principles involved, understand what is meant by human rights. Let them understand their own rights, let them understand that all people are equal — and then Jun Wu can tell them: I, the Emperor of the Martial Dynasty, will lead you in realizing all of this. In doing so, he could win over a force that no one had ever thought to tap into before.”

“…This whole inclination, in fact, is something Li Pin has already been unconsciously doing for the past couple of years. He runs a newspaper, and he tries to write in vernacular language as much as possible in it — why? Because he wants to win over more of the lower-class common people, those who are merely literate, or even those who simply enjoy listening to storytellers in taverns and teahouses. He’s already sensed this instinctively, but what I need to tell you all is this: a truly thorough enlightenment movement — stuffing the vast majority of people the scholar-officials have never bothered to win over into literacy classes and night schools, telling them that the fundamental nature of this world is that all people are equal, and then handling the Emperor’s identity and framing accordingly…”

“…Then, you’ll be able to draw the common people to your side and push back against the gentry-scholar class. At that point, something like ‘governing the realm together,’ which seems to have accumulated two hundred years of vested interest, will become a lesser, secondary problem by comparison… This is the only real chance you have of winning, today…”

Zuo Xiuquan looked at Ning Yi. When he first heard the mention of the ‘Four Peoples,’ he had assumed Ning Yi was simply being clever, and had listened with a mixture of guardedness and amusement. But by this point, he had grown involuntarily serious, his brows knitting into a tight furrow, his expression, without his realizing it, taking on an almost fearful cast.

Across from him, Ning Yi’s expression remained calm and earnest, sincere and direct, speaking on at length without pause… Sunlight poured down from the sky above.