"1587, A Year of No Significance"

Elder Gao straightened up in his wicker chair and began leisurely:

"Of course. In Jiajing Year 15, the Taoist Shao Yuanjie was named Perfected One of Perfect Unity. In Jiajing Year 27, Tao Zhongwen was granted the title Count of Sincere Reverence. A Taoist could rank among the Three Ducal Ministers-that should tell you how the Jiajing Emperor felt about immortal cultivation."

That was understandable. Some emperors of mortal dynasties, after accidentally witnessing a cultivator's abilities, would clamor to cultivate immortality themselves.

Gao Jian looked at his grandfather with admiration and pressed him. "And then?"

The old man loved seeing that look in a child's eyes.

And he had not seen it in years. Ever since he was little, Gao Jian had disliked listening to him talk about history. He spent all day tinkering with little toys like his model rockets, had chosen the science track in high school, and would go on to major in science or engineering. He had never liked his grandfather's history talks.

The change in his grandson pleased him greatly, and he continued:

"Of course, if you look carefully through the Veritable Records of the Ming and check the list of grand secretaries during the Jiajing Reign-Yan Song, Xu Jie, Gao Gong, Zhang Juzheng... which of them wasn't a master of ritual prayers? What were those prayers? Supplications written to Heaven. To put it plainly, every one of those men was a sycophant steeped in immortal cultivation culture, all to satisfy Jiajing's dream of immortality."

Something stirred in Gao Jian's mind. "No wonder. Then the Jiajing Emperor must have trusted Taoists a great deal, right?"

"Not quite." Elder Gao shook his head.

"How could something as nebulous as immortal cultivation ever enter the center of power? The Jiajing Emperor's dream of immortality was simply a way to escape the grip of that center."

Gao Jian was puzzled. "Wasn't the emperor himself the center of power?"

"Heh heh. The officials were. What did the emperor count for?"

"The officials?" Gao Jian frowned and asked:

"Under centralized rule, couldn't the emperor appoint or dismiss an official with a single word?"

Elder Gao slowly shook his head.

Something clicked in Gao Jian's mind. He simply pulled up a chair opposite his grandfather and settled into the posture of an attentive student.

"An official could be dealt with in a word. The official class couldn't."

Elder Gao gazed through the plane-tree leaves outside the window and said:

"Let me give you an example. Jiajing inherited the throne as a regional prince, so his legitimacy was shaky from the outset. His father, Prince Xingxian, wasn't an emperor. He wanted to recognize him posthumously as one, but the civil officials opposed it en masse. The dispute dragged on for years, yet Jiajing insisted on having his way.

"Later, Yang Tinghe led the officials in kneeling outside the Left Shun Gate. More than four hundred of them wept together to stop him. In the end, Jiajing ordered them beaten with staves, killing more than a dozen in one go. But even that was useless. They kept kneeling and crying. You couldn't very well kill all four hundred of them, could you? That was probably when Jiajing realized imperial authority wasn't his to command. It belonged to those kneeling civil officials."

"Oh..."

Gao Jian understood.

"So he pursued immortal cultivation because the civil officials had him in their grip, right?" Gao Jian asked.

Elder Gao shook his head. "That was part of it, but the main reason was that the civil officials wanted Jiajing to cultivate immortality. The Song Dynasty lost the realm because its emperors were incapable. The civil officials needed Jiajing to stay away from court. As long as the emperor didn't interfere, they could treat the realm as their own chessboard. But the realm wasn't a game of chess, and those conceited fellows couldn't keep things stable either. Someone overturned the board along with them."

At this point, the old man shook his head. "They should bear the main responsibility for the realm being lost twice."

Gao Jian felt there was something odd about his grandfather's argument. Dynasties rose and fell-that was common knowledge. Foreign peoples taking over was unusual, but hardly impossible. How could all the blame fall on the civil officials? If nothing else, surely natural disasters bore some responsibility for a dynasty's downfall.

But when Gao Jian voiced his doubts, Elder Gao suddenly grew agitated. "How were they not involved? The civil officials monopolized the power of government. Wanli stayed away from court for thirty years, the Taichang Emperor died suddenly after taking red pills, and the Tianqi Emperor spent his whole life doing carpentry. Wasn't all that their doing?"

"The civil officials made a mess of things among the people, too. They put a stop to Zheng He's Seven Voyages to the Western Oceans and suppressed the budding capitalist class. The technology was already there, yet they still failed to bring about an industrial revolution. All day long, they guarded against foreigners while turning a blind eye to the Pu Clan's infiltration. When Tao Chengdao experimented with rockets in his early years, he was blown up because the Pu Clan sabotaged him behind the scenes. They guarded against the east and the west, against Heaven and earth, yet in the end they still couldn't protect their own home. Someone drove the barbarians to wipe them out. A bunch of good-for-nothings..."

Wait, wait.

Tao Chengdao? Wasn't Tao Chengdao the man later generations commonly called Wan Hu?

Wan Hu's Flight happened here too?

The old man suddenly stood up and walked to the bookshelf. His finger passed over row after row of spines before finally stopping on a thread-bound book. He took it down and handed it to Gao Jian.

"Oh, if you're interested in history, take a look at this book. A foreigner wrote it. It's quite good."

1587, A Year of No Significance.

The cover was already somewhat worn. Gao Jian noticed that the title on the spine was rather unusual: it was entirely in English, reading "1587, A Year of No Significance." The Chinese title on the cover, "The Fifteenth Year of Wanli," was the translator's rendering.

Gao Jian accepted the book, his mind in utter turmoil.

Elder Gao explained, "The author proposed a very famous approach to history called the Grand Historical Perspective. It means not focusing on gains and losses in a particular time or place, or getting hung up on the rights and wrongs of a specific historical event. Instead, you stand at a higher level and examine the problems of society as a whole. The vantage point is broader, and the judgments are fairer. Besides, the author is a descendant of Great Qin."

"A foreigner? A descendant of Great Qin?" Gao Jian was a little bewildered.

"Oh, oh, a descendant of the Romans. Ancient allies, more or less. We called them Great Qin back in the Han Dynasty. I've gotten used to calling them that too."

Just as Gao Jian was about to ask about Wan Hu's Flight, the telephone on the mahogany desk suddenly rang.

It was a very old-fashioned red landline. As it jingled, Elder Gao got up, walked over, and answered it.

"Elder Gao, it's Tongwei."

"What is it, Tongwei?"

The man on the other end hurriedly said, "I heard from my subordinates that the comrades from the State Security Bureau brought young Gao to Jingzhou, but didn't take him all the way to your door. I couldn't stop worrying, so I called to ask whether he's home yet."

Elder Gao beamed at that, then put on a stern face and scolded him. "You, always spending your days worrying about trivial things. Come here, Gao Jian. It's your Uncle Tongwei. Take the phone."

Gao Jian could only push aside the jumble of thoughts in his mind, take the phone, and force a smile. "Uncle Qi, it's me. Yes, yes, I'm back. I just got back from the United States. Sorry to have worried you, Uncle Qi. I'm fine, I'm fine. Everything's all right..."

It was ten minutes before Gao Jian finally hung up.

Elder Gao put on his jacket and told Gao Jian, "Your Aunt Zhang will be here shortly to cook. I still have something to do, so I'm heading out for a bit. You stay home and get a good couple of days' rest. If you have nothing to do, you can read the book I gave you. There's no rush to go back to work."

"Mm-hmm. I'll stay home and rest for a couple of days. Go ahead, Grandpa. Don't worry about me," Gao Jian said obediently.