Wenren Sheng had also seen the flaws of the Eastern court.
After Lu Old Empress Dowager had gone through all that trouble, nearly a century had passed. The dynasty had indeed grown far more prosperous, and the treasury never lacked silver.
Wealth among the common people had also begun circulating on a much larger scale. As long as they were willing to work hard, and did not encounter illness, accidents, man-made disasters, war, or natural calamities, ordinary people could finally secure a stable life as servants.
Even without land, they could still sell their labor to survive.
Seafaring, treasure hunting, and the court's various major projects... all absorbed vast numbers of cheap laborers.
As long as the court had money, it could provide disaster relief and suppress rebellions.
Even if seventy percent of the silver was siphoned off at every level, that seventy percent would ultimately return to the court anyway.
The officials fooled the Empress Dowager and the Emperor, while the Empress Dowager used poison to fool the officials and wealthy landowners. A virtuous cycle...
Maritime trade was equally flourishing. Countless people wanted to find the Fountain of Youth and break the royal family's monopoly.
Do not assume the royal family held such great authority. A single phrase—"the people must not be deprived of profit"—was enough to prevent many emperors from intervening in many industries.
Unfortunately, they could never find something that did not exist.
Yet none of this was what Wenren Sheng most wanted to see.
What he most wanted to see—the foundation of science and an atmosphere of rationality—still had not developed.
People studying Western Learning were still the same as they had been at the end of the Ming Dynasty: picking out whatever was most practical and easiest to apply to reality.
Those true Western foundations—universities,