Ships of every description lined the shore in dense ranks, a magnificent spectacle set against the azure sea, creating a beauty all its own.
Dumb Great Scholar Tian Songshi's vessel was an ordinary sailboat.
Poetry was Tian Songshi's weakness, so after becoming a Metropolitan Graduate, he had abandoned its intensive study altogether, merely memorizing poems when he encountered them. His strength lay in the knowledge accumulated through years of reading and experience; he excelled at essays and Classic Interpretation.
Though many people had formed sailboats, most were unhappy with them. Tian Songshi, however, was delighted and strode aboard, for had he entered the Sea of Learning when he became a Palace Examination Metropolitan Graduate, he would probably have been sitting on the poorest bamboo raft.
As more and more people recited poems exhorting learning, medium-sized warships soon appeared. Each new vessel drew cries of astonishment from those nearby.
Most of the medium-sized warships were armored assault ships, with two full stories of cabins above their decks and more than ten pairs of oars along their sides. Once those oars began moving, they would travel swiftly. Such ships were better suited to fighting on rivers and lakes, but this was the Sea of Learning, not a real ocean: the larger the ship, the greater its power.
Before long, a rarely seen large warship appeared, and many people looked over enviously.
The gray vessel had four full stories of cabins above its deck, three great white sails, and more than thirty pairs of oars along its sides. Ever since the Sea of Learning had appeared, even three-story tower ships had been rare, and four-story ones rarer still. Yet now one had appeared.
A Grand Academician in blue robes stood at the bow of the four-story tower ship. A gentle breeze stirred his