"Grand Tutor Ma! Who sealed your acupoints?"
"That little wretch."
"Oh dear, why has someone sealed Grand Tutor Ma's acupoints again?"
"So it's the Grand Master for Splendid Happiness. Who beat you up like this?"
"Bah! A little beast called Wen Zhengchun."
Wang Chong smiled as he reassured them one by one. Though he received plenty of dirty looks, with some cursing him outright and others making barbed remarks, he remained breezily unruffled throughout.
Successive dynasties of the Central Plains had all maintained four capitals. In this dynasty, the Capital, Chang'an, stood foremost, with a full complement of court officials, while Shangdu, Luoyang; the Central Capital, Haojing; and the Heavenly Capital, Chaoge, each had their own administrative establishment.
Of those three capitals, Luoyang was the largest. During the reigns of Emperors Qin and Hou, men of iron backbone who dared speak frankly, yet whose reputations made them difficult to deal with, had all been banished to Luoyang. When the Empress held court, she too had transferred everyone who opposed a female sovereign's rule here. Now that An Dushan had entered Luoyang, the clever ones had all fled, and the quick-witted had surrendered wherever they could. Only this bunch of hard bones had been thrown into prison.
Naturally, Wang Chong did not think these foul, stubborn men, who feared neither Emperors Qin and Hou, nor his own Mother Empress, nor An Dushan, would fear him. Thus, he put on no overbearing airs, but neither did he go out of his way to honor worthy men with humility. As he reassured them, he was merely "appraising" them, calculating how much political value the man before him possessed and what benefits he could bring.
The simplest and crudest method was to sing his own praises in their names. After all, they were in