Every year, the Feudal Lords of the Four Garrisons would each bring two hundred underlings to Chaoge for their customary audience and give a report on their work. The candidates for the palace selection would presumably be sent into the palace then as well.
But that happened in April, and it was only mid-December now.
Zi Shou could not wait.
After turning it over and over in his mind, he decided: let's celebrate the Spring Festival!
Zi Shou was not entirely sure how the Shang Dynasty viewed festivals, but as a descendant of the Yan and Yellow Emperors, he had to celebrate the Spring Festival.
Historically, the Spring Festival had a long history, tracing its origins to ancestor worship during the Yin Shang era. After a year of hard labor, people would use the fruits of their farming and hunting to honor their ancestors at the turn of the year, giving thanks for nature's bounty. This was the "Laji Festival."
Zi Shou summoned the Seasonal Official responsible for managing the dates and calculating the seasons. Upon asking, he learned that this world, reset by the system, had no concept of the Spring Festival yet, only the Laji Festival.
Precisely because the dates of the Laji Festival varied from place to place—Chaoge celebrated it in January, for instance, while Xiqi held it in February—there was no way to coordinate a common event. That was why the various Feudal Lords waited until April, after every region had finished its Laji Festival, before coming to Chaoge for their audience.
Zi Shou simply issued an edict: whether you were in Xiqi or the North Sea, all of you were to come to Chaoge.
Tribute and palace candidates were naturally mandatory.
The Seasonal Official at the time was named Wan Nian.
When King Zhou summoned him to ask about the calendar, he had not thought anything of it. He assumed the king was merely checking on his ministers' progress at the end of the year.
But after King Zhou issued an edict ordering the Feudal Lords to attend their audience early, Wan Nian no longer thought that way.
The court ministers had considerable objections. From the end of the year through January of the following year, the Feudal Lords were at their busiest.
The Shang Dynasty's taxation system was complex. It included both the land-tax system inherited from Xia and a new land-tax system of its own, built upon the well-field system.
For instance, the annual audience in April required the enfeoffed Feudal Lords to present local specialties as tribute to the King of Shang at regular intervals. This was a land tax levied on the Feudal Lords, and their payments came, in turn, from the land taxes collected from the common people.
The Feudal Lords were all busy handling land taxes at this time. Suddenly ordering them to come to Chaoge for an audience would surely catch them unprepared.
But was that really all there was to it?
Wan Nian tried to fathom King Zhou's intentions. The court ministers had verified that King Zhou was an enlightened ruler. Why would he suddenly change his ways and make things difficult for the Feudal Lords?
For several nights, he could not sleep. Only when he connected it to King Zhou summoning him to ask about the seasons did he finally understand.
The Seasonal Official was, in truth, a rather chicken-rib sort of post: little meat to enjoy, yet a shame to discard.
Because the seasonal calendar simply could not be calculated accurately at present.
Wan Nian still remembered the advice his predecessor, the former Seasonal Official, had given him when handing over the post: "If His Majesty asks why the seasons are miscalculated, you need only say that the seasons can be determined correctly only through ancestor worship. Never take responsibility yourself."
The calendar official did not even have to shoulder responsibility. Whether it was spring or summer, autumn or winter, he could simply foist everything onto the ancestors. As for what should be done in each season, or what happened if someone did the wrong thing, those were the seasons ordained by the ancestors. They had nothing to do with the calendar official.
Wan Nian had been dissatisfied even then. What sort of conduct was it to hold an office without carrying out its duties, then shift the blame onto the ancestors?
He was a young man with ideals and ambitions. But after working at it for a while, he discovered that the damn seasons really could not be calculated accurately. They changed every year.
Wan Nian could only watch helplessly as the chaotic calendar disrupted farming and livestock production, muddling through several years in a daze.
Today, he abruptly woke up.
Had King Zhou not prompted him, he might have forgotten his original aspirations. Decades later, he would have become just like that old Seasonal Official, using the ancestors to excuse his own dereliction and incompetence.
That would bring shame upon the ancestors!
Thank goodness King Zhou had awakened him.
The sudden change to the Feudal Lords' audience date was no arbitrary whim. It was King Zhou's signal that he wanted the seasons established properly.
Great Shang needed a new calendar, one that could accurately calculate the solar terms and determine the seasons.
Wan Nian clenched both fists. That young man with ideals and ambitions had returned.
He looked at the sundial and water clock in his courtyard, relics of his earlier attempts to calculate the seasons accurately. Now it was time to put them to use again.
Perhaps they needed some improvements.
"There is only one month until the Feudal Lords' audience. That is the deadline His Majesty has given me," Wan Nian murmured to himself. As he spoke, he bowed three times toward the distant royal palace. "Your servant will not fail your command, Your Majesty!"
In a courtyard in Chaoge City.
After receiving the edict bringing forward the Feudal Lords' audience, North Marquis Chong Houhu's brows lifted with delight.
Everything was just as he had thought. His Majesty truly was an enlightened ruler for the ages.
He did not set off for his fief. Instead, he sent his retainers back with orders to handle everything: choose the most beautiful women and the most expensive tribute.
He was even planning to settle permanently in Chaoge. King Zhou intended to purge the Feudal Lords, and he himself had little ability. Why oppose him?
Besides, Fei Lian had been granted the title of Marquis of the North Sea, reducing the Marquis of the North's fief by a third. There was not much trouble it could cause now.
Only by remaining in Chaoge City could he glean something of King Zhou's thoughts!
Take this early audience, for instance.
The Feudal Lords would not have enough time to prepare their tribute. Those who were insufficiently loyal would certainly throw something together to satisfy the formalities, then use the lack of time as an excuse.
Loyal Feudal Lords, however, would never let their tribute disgrace their sovereign, no matter how tight the deadline.
Moreover, with so little time, such sudden notice, and the busiest season of the year upon them, the Feudal Lords certainly would not be able to bring many personal attendants.
That would leave them like fish on the chopping block in Chaoge City, unable to stir up wind or waves.
If King Zhou's deliberately harsh demands and probing made them show their tails and reveal disloyal, rebellious intentions, the Royal Guards he had personally trained would seize them with thunderbolt swiftness.
Without personal attendants, and with their armies a thousand miles away, they would have no way to resist.
Chong Houhu sighed in admiration again and again. It seemed King Zhou had already formed this plan when he began training the Royal Guards half a year earlier. Even if the Feudal Lords harbored disloyal intentions, they were still lords enfeoffed by Great Shang. Deploying an army would inevitably cause a sensation. Once word spread, it would only backfire. Their heirs remaining in their fiefs might well decide that, having gone this far, they might as well go all the way and rebel.
The Royal Guards had none of those drawbacks. Small in number but elite, they could arrest people without much commotion, making leaks less likely and allowing the plan to unfold gradually.
Just as I thought, just as I thought...
Chong Houhu stroked his beard repeatedly.
At the residence of the Marquis of Jizhou.
Rumor had it that Su Hu, the Marquis of Jizhou, had a daughter named Daji, a beauty whose fragrance and grace could captivate a nation. Her piled tresses were dark clouds, her face an apricot blossom with peach-pink cheeks, her brows faint spring mountains, her supple waist a tender willow. She was like a begonia intoxicated by moonlight, a pear blossom beaded with rain, no less lovely than a celestial maiden descending from the nine heavens to Yaochi.
In short, she was very beautiful, with the looks of an immortal maiden.
And Daji was not merely beautiful. She was considerate, too.
Seeing her father frown in distress after receiving the edict, she asked what was wrong. The audience had been brought forward, and her father had not prepared the palace candidates or tribute in time. He was sure to anger the king.
Daji wanted to ease her father's worries. Thinking of her own beauty, why should she not offer herself to serve the sovereign?
So, when Su Hu set out for Chaoge in his carriage, she summoned a carriage of her own and followed him.
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