Nation-Pacifying Strategy

After the chief examiner announced the topic for this Prefectural Examination.

Many faces lit up with excitement.

The predictions made across the various regions had been quite accurate this year. They had already anticipated the topic of securing the nation.

In truth, it was simple enough. After all, the reigning emperor had set the question, and the civil and military officials at court spent most of their time trying to fathom his intentions.

It was hardly surprising that they had guessed it.

Predicting the topic based on the state of the nation made perfect sense.

Now that the topic had been announced.

Everyone settled into their seats and began considering their wording.

Xu Qingxiao stopped pondering whether to use his Literary Brush for the examination.

He could try that during the imperial examinations.

Straightening the papers on his desk, Xu Qingxiao closed his eyes and began to think.

The topic was securing the nation.

Just as expected.

At present, there were only two approaches to the topic of [Secure the Nation].

The Barbarians and the Northern Expedition.

The national economy.

Xu Qingxiao had already rejected the first. As for the second, he was still working out his wording.

An incense stick soon burned down.

Almost all the students had begun writing.

Zhao Yuan looked at the scholars to either side, and his gaze soon settled on Xu Qingxiao.

An incense stick's worth of time had passed.

Yet Xu Qingxiao had not put brush to paper. That was rather strange.

The examination did indeed last six hours.

But only five hours were actually available for composing the essay. The final hour was for copying it out, as the students wrote their first drafts on paper they had brought themselves.

Once they had revised and finalized their work, they copied it onto the Examination Hall's official sheets for submission.

"His lyric poetry may be excellent, but I have heard that Xu Qingxiao began studying less than a month ago. An essay is not a brilliant lyric."

Zhao Yuan spoke. He was not looking down on Xu Qingxiao, merely pointing out a possibility.

The two elderly men beside him said nothing. They had high hopes for Xu Qingxiao, but they could hardly refute what the chief examiner had said.

Indeed, skill at composing lyrics did not necessarily mean skill at writing essays.

Another incense stick's worth of time passed.

Xu Qingxiao still had not begun writing.

He had even closed his eyes, countless pieces of information surfacing in his mind.

Xu Qingxiao knew what essay he wanted to write.

He also knew how to write it.

But he had to decide how it would begin and how it would end.

An essay needed to be written in one unbroken flow.

Only then would it carry vitality and spirit.

Poems and lyrics could be composed slowly, their rhymes adjusted and their words revised.

How should I write it?

After a long stretch of thought, Xu Qingxiao opened his eyes.

He steadied his mind and gazed at the azure sky.

Suddenly.

A breeze swept past.

It lifted the ends of Xu Qingxiao's hair.

The papers stirred with a soft rustling.

In that instant, Xu Qingxiao smiled.

He raised his brush.

Dipped it in ink.

A calm smile rested on Xu Qingxiao's face. He knew how to write it now.

The first line was the title.

[Great Wei Pacification Policy]

Xu Qingxiao was bold indeed. He had named his essay the Great Wei Pacification Policy outright.

From the moment his brush first touched the paper, Xu Qingxiao wrote swiftly.

Characters fell onto the white paper one after another. Perhaps he had finally thought everything through, or perhaps something had clicked, but Xu Qingxiao's handwriting was neat and full of spirit.

He poured his vitality and spirit into every character.

[Wei, having endured seven Northern Expeditions under the Former Emperor, has seen its people's livelihoods wither and its fields strewn with the starved. In my humble view, the policy for securing the nation lies in settling the people, restoring the state, and bringing peace to all under heaven.]

Xu Qingxiao opened with the Northern Expeditions, directly pointing out the emptiness of Great Wei's treasury before introducing what he wanted to say.

After seven Northern Expeditions, the Great Wei Dynasty's treasury was empty. With the country battered into such a state, what right did it have to wage another war?

As the saying went, when a dynasty rose, the people suffered; when it fell, the people suffered. In war, the people suffered. Without war, the people suffered too.

The Great Wei Dynasty had stood for so long. Under the Fifth-Generation Emperor Wen's governance, the nation had enjoyed peace and its people had prospered. Though the Jingcheng Humiliation remained vivid in memory, there was no denying that he had allowed the people to settle into homes and livelihoods, with favorable winds and timely rains.

It was precisely because of the Fifth-Generation Emperor Wen's governance that the Martial Emperor had been able to launch seven Northern Expeditions.

So war was not out of the question, but they had to earn money first.

That was the central point of Xu Qingxiao's first paragraph. Naturally, he expressed it through abundant classical phrasing, rather than stating it so bluntly.

Once he finished the first paragraph, Xu Qingxiao began the second without a moment's hesitation.

If his first paragraph had been relatively tactful, then the second cast off all restraint.

Securing the nation could not be separated from money and profit. Xu Qingxiao took Great Wei's seven hundred years of history as his foundation: it had produced countless outstanding talents, successive emperors accomplished in civil governance and military conquest, and even a Sage among its scholars. After the Jingcheng Humiliation, a Martial Emperor had emerged as well.

They had fought, and they had denounced their enemies. In seven hundred years, what had this dynasty not tried?

Thus, the debate over the Northern Expedition was not Great Wei's most pressing concern. The people's livelihoods were what it needed to consider now.

The people needed to rest and recuperate, and so did Great Wei.

The people therefore needed to earn money to support their families, while the Great Wei Dynasty needed to earn money to support the nation.

[When the people are poor, they have no grain; when the nation is poor, its people fall into unrest.]

After finishing the second paragraph, Xu Qingxiao swept his brush onward into the third.

This paragraph was even sharper.

[This student believes that throughout history, a thousand dynasties have aspired to endure for countless generations. Yet seas become mulberry fields, and dynasties succeed one another: this is the natural order of heaven and earth. Nine times out of ten, such changes arise from the people. When the nation is poor, the people grow restless; when the people grow restless, upheaval follows; and through upheaval, the Mandate of Heaven changes.]

The opening of Xu Qingxiao's third paragraph went beyond sharp wording. It could even be called outrageously bold.

He used the succession of past dynasties as the framework for describing Great Wei's present situation, yet his argument was extraordinarily direct. With almost no rhetorical embellishment, he laid out the fundamental reason dynasties were replaced.

Indeed, throughout history, nearly nine out of ten dynastic overthrows had resulted from foolish rulers, disordered governance, and people who could not fill their bellies, their cries of misery rising to the heavens. This eventually sparked rebellion, after which someone would follow heaven's will, overthrow the old dynasty, and establish a new one meant to endure for ten thousand generations.

These first three paragraphs were Xu Qingxiao's opening statement: setting out his views, citing the classics, and establishing his position.

What followed would be the solution.

If he pointed out a problem, he had to solve it. Otherwise, who could not point out problems?

What scholar would not dare to criticize the emperor?

Once you criticized him, you had to offer a solution. Good or bad, you could propose it. If it truly was sound policy, the emperor would accept the scolding.

If the proposed solution was not particularly good, at least you had put thought into it. The emperor would endure the scolding.

If you proposed a method that solved nothing, then the emperor could only deal with the person who had raised the problem.

And Xu Qingxiao had long since prepared his solution.

His solution was simple.

To make the nation prosperous, its people first had to prosper. And there was only one thing that could make the people prosperous.

Banks.

Yes, a banking system-and one centered on the state.

If Xu Qingxiao had transmigrated into the Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming, or Qing dynasty, he would never have proposed banks. The reason was simple: three problems would have been impossible to solve.

First, oversight.

Second, counterfeiting.

Third, inflation.

But after spending all of yesterday researching this world, Xu Qingxiao had discovered that a banking system would be practically a divine artifact here.

Confucian Cultivators could provide oversight. Anyone who had attained a rank in the Confucian Dao possessed moral integrity. If they squeezed the people's flesh and blood for profit, no one else would need to act; heaven and earth themselves would not tolerate them.

Thus, oversight could be managed exceptionally well.

As for counterfeiting, there was even less to worry about. This world had the Immortal Dao. Producing counterfeit-proof banknotes could scarcely be easier.

In other words, anyone capable of counterfeiting them would certainly not lack money.

The final issue was inflation, and that was even easier to solve. What was the greatest cause of inflation?

Reckless issuance and indiscriminate printing.

Place it under Confucian oversight.

Even the Son of Heaven could not print money at will. If he insisted, that was possible too-but every Confucian scholar and civil official would dash themselves to death in his Golden Throne Hall the next day. Would he still print it then?

Want to let everything rot? Then I'll keep my mouth shut. After all, everyone else certainly won't be the worst off.

Xu Qingxiao's solution was banking.

Great Wei had money houses, but they were extremely hidebound. They charged safekeeping fees for deposited silver, and substantial ones at that. Moreover, the money houses in different prefectures were not interconnected. Notes from Southern Yu Prefecture could only be used within Southern Yu Prefecture.

If you went to another prefecture, you had to find a note broker to exchange them for local banknotes.

Once you crossed into another commandery, even note brokers were no use. It was exceedingly troublesome.

At this thought, Xu Qingxiao's brush moved as though guided by a divine hand, and he incorporated the concept of banking into his essay.

Thousands of characters poured across the pages.

A full hour later.

After finishing his explanation of how banks worked, Xu Qingxiao began describing their benefits.

What was the most straightforward benefit of banking?

Put simply, it came down to one sentence: take from the people and use it for the people.

An old saying put it well: to grow rich, first build roads. Once the roads were built, trade would flourish. But who would pay for their construction?

The local Prefectural Yamen?

A wealthy yamen could afford it, but what about a poor one?

Everyone could contribute?

Was that realistic? Certainly not. Leaving aside whether everyone could unite behind a common purpose, even if they could, another problem would arise.

My family doesn't do business. Why should I pay to build a road?

My family is poor, so I can't contribute. But once the road is built, I'll certainly benefit.

The scheming and deceit among the common people of ancient times often came down to one thing: a mouse's narrow vision.

There were certainly plenty who would come to blows over a single copper coin.

Some would inevitably seek a free advantage, and others would inevitably resent it.

But what purpose did such resentment serve for the locality or the nation?

None at all.

But what if the dynasty built the roads instead?

The state would not care who benefited without paying and who did not. You were a subject of Great Wei, after all. If you wanted to give up and idle away your life like a salted fish, that was your choice. Not everyone was like you.

The Great Wei Dynasty could lend the people's silver to the local Prefectural Yamen for roads and construction, charging low interest and allowing ample time for repayment. Once the local economy prospered, the loan could gradually be repaid from the yamen's tax revenue.

That was one explanation of taking from the people and using it for the people.

Xu Qingxiao filled sheet after sheet of white paper.

Toward the end, the more he wrote, the more excited he became, and the more his thinking broadened.

Another two hours passed.

At last, Xu Qingxiao reached the conclusion.

He drew a deep breath.

Then slowly lowered his brush.

[This student believes that the people take food as their heaven, and the nation takes its people as its heaven. When the people prosper, the nation grows strong; yet when the nation prospers, its people grow stronger still. Poverty among the people brings decline; poverty in the nation obstructs its fortunes. This is a policy for securing the nation. The Great Wei Money House will benefit the present and render service for a thousand autumns, aiding the sovereigns to come and blessing the people for ten thousand generations.]

[Student · Xu Qingxiao · Southern Yu Prefecture · Prefectural Examination Answer]

At this point.

The Nation-Pacifying Strategy was complete. Across twenty-seven sheets of white paper, he had written more than ten thousand characters.

Xu Qingxiao let out a long breath.

As he set down his brush.

At that moment.

Without warning.

Something extraordinary happened.