The Hearts of Imperial Academy Students

The Imperial Academy had existed since ancient times. When Great Rui established its Imperial Academy, it followed precedent, though there were still changes in the specific details and scope of its authority.

Not only compared with the preceding dynasty or even more distant eras—even compared with the time of the dynasty's founding—the present Imperial Academy was vastly different.

When Great Rui had first been founded, the realm had only just been established and everything needed rebuilding. Many Grand Confucians and Grandmasters had died or been wounded amid the chaos of war; those who remained had either fled from disaster, died for righteousness, or withdrawn into seclusion. Nor was this limited to Grand Confucians. Even ordinary scholars had suffered tremendous casualties—during an age of warlords dividing the land, swords did the talking. Who would reason with you?

This had also created certain problems in the dynasty's early days: there were too few officials fit for use. Generals who had won the realm from horseback were skilled at war, but when it came to governing local regions, they fell short. Sending them out as officials was no different from letting tigers loose among sheep.

Thus, the method adopted by Great Rui's founding emperor was to grant heavy responsibility directly to the young scholars he had trained, promoting them across ranks. A great many of them came from the Imperial Academy.

As the times changed, the Imperial Examinations revived, and the systems of official advancement, assessment, and assignment gradually improved. The Academy students no longer had the opportunities their predecessors had enjoyed, but those cases of promotion across ranks had firmly established the Imperial Academy's standing and reputation, making it a place scholars yearned for.

Beyond spiritual considerations, there were practical ones as well.

The Imperial Academy was a state institution under a