chapter 4
I avoided Qi Lan all winter after his proposal, but he finally caught me at the spring banquet.
The last trace of boyishness had left his face. In a moon-white robe patterned with fine silver flowers and a pale-blue sash, he stood tall and strikingly handsome.
“Yuqing, you don’t have to hide from me simply because you won’t accept. We are still friends.”
Several generations of noble wealth had accumulated in Qi Lan’s hands, and half the young women in the capital coveted him. After the Empress rejected He Feng, Qi Lan had guessed my concern.
“I am not like that young lord of the He family. I will have only one person in this life.”
“I know you are unwilling to resign yourself to your lot. But you are a woman. You cannot command an army and win glory as your father and brothers did.”
“If they were alive, they too would want a man to cherish and protect you so that you might live a peaceful life.”
After a long silence, I pushed him away and turned to leave.
“Perhaps everything you say is right.”
“But Young Marquis, the times have changed.”
…
The imperial examinations were the great event of spring.
Since taking the throne, the Empress had promoted equality between men and women, founded schools for girls, and permitted women to sit the examinations.
The ministers delayed from one day to the next. Only when the Chancellor recovered enough to receive visitors did everyone reach a conclusion: women taking the examinations was absurd.
There was said to be a sixty-year-old woman in one county who was still waiting for her chance. She had outlived her husband and son and no longer needed to study secretly by moonlight. She had believed the Empress would bring hope.
Now she did not know how many more years she must wait.
Seeing me sigh, the Empress offered a few words of comfort.
“It is normal for them to resist opening the examinations. Education develops with a certain independence. Once productive forces and the political and economic system move forward, education will naturally develop as it carries old knowledge onward.”
“Contradictions have primary and secondary aspects. We handle the primary one first.”
I understood none of it and could only nod numbly.
This year’s examination was peculiar. The Ministry of Works happened to be desperately understaffed, so every successful candidate was assigned there. Song Kai, the top scholar, was promoted straight to Vice Minister.
The Empress investigated their backgrounds and sneered. “The Chancellor may appear absent from court, but his shadow clones are everywhere.”
I considered this and recorded:
[The Chancellor once traveled to Liuhe, apprenticed himself to a ninja, and mastered the Shadow Clone Technique.]
The Empress rubbed her brow and told me to file that page under unofficial history.
No sooner had she spoken than the Minister of Works requested an audience.
In only a few months, Minister Guo seemed to have aged a decade. His once round, sturdy face had become all angles and hollows. After kneeling, he announced that he had composed a poem praising the Empress and wished to recite it.
The Empress looked at me.
I wrote:
[The Minister of Works can no longer survive at court and wishes to flatter the Empress.]
The Empress frowned. “Yuqing, how can you write nonsense? Minister Guo is the Chancellor’s finest pupil. With the Chancellor’s guidance, his official career has boundless prospects. What do you mean, he can no longer survive…?”
The minister smiled awkwardly, beard and brows trembling.
“Your Majesty, the historian writes beautifully. This subject truly has been troubled of late. Affairs in the Ministry of Works are gradually slipping beyond my control. I beg Your Majesty to point out a path.”
Seated above him, the Empress spoke with the calm of someone who had understood everything from the beginning.
“Minister Guo, since you and the Chancellor have fallen out and you can no longer intervene in ministry affairs, devote your energy elsewhere.”
“Have you heard of a dotted-line reporting structure?”
The minister looked bewildered.
I recorded from the side:
[The Empress speaks heart-to-heart with the Minister of Works, advising him to serve his wife and children well and take proper care of the household.]
The study fell silent.
After a moment, the minister asked softly, “Your Majesty wishes this subject to devote himself to assisting… his wife?”
“She took chemistry I barely remembered and studied it until she understood it completely. Her talent is extraordinary. When her refining method spreads throughout the realm, it will benefit millions.”
“The affairs of the world are not divided by sex, only by willingness. Since she wishes to serve the country and its people, she deserves respect.”
“And you? Do you still remember why you entered government service?”
When Father was in the army, he had never indulged me because I was a girl. At the last desperate moment in the northern campaign, he spent his final strength placing his saber in my hands.
He did not tell me to survive.
He told me to grip the blade, step onto his shoulders, and leap into the enemy ranks.
A general’s daughter must also become a general.
He had shielded the rivers, mountains, and people behind him. When he fell, it was naturally my duty to protect them in his place.
Men held the world in their hearts. Women could possess the same ambition and accomplish the same great deeds.
I wished the world would understand the Empress’s intentions and abandon its prejudice.
…
Late that spring, the treasury ran short.
Salt production had soared, but somehow it had disrupted the market, and prices across the provinces collapsed. The Ministry of Revenue had concealed it for months.
Such a thing would never have happened while the Chancellor was present.
The Minister of Revenue presented a memorial with an aggrieved expression. “This subject is dull and does not know what to do. I beg Your Majesty to decide.”
The Empress said nothing.
So I wrote:
[The Minister of Revenue was born an idiot and wishes to return home for treatment.]
His long, donkey-like face remained composed, every line as sly and calculating as the Chancellor’s.
“This subject truly is unequal to the task. I beg Your Majesty to remove my official cap. But what brilliant solution does Your Majesty propose?”
The audacity! Since when did ministers order the sovereign to solve their problems?
As I lifted my brush, the Empress laughed.
“Minister Zhao is young, capable, and has labored for the state. If I dismiss you over one failure, would that not make me an arbitrary tyrant?”
“Since the treasury is strained, let us begin with foreign exchange.”
After court, I asked how she could swallow such an insult.
She patted my shoulder. “Do not worry. He is an accountant. There are ten thousand ways to put him behind bars.”