1636- the China Venture

by Eric Flint

  “Moreover, we must ask, is Heaven infinite or finite? If it be finite, then the whole of Heaven can be comprehended by the mind of Man, which is contrary to all the ancient teachings. Hence, Heaven must be infinite. If it be infinite, then the layers of regularity must also be infinite. Since Man cannot comprehend the infinite, the mind of Man cannot supply a theory which alone explains the movements of the infinite.

  “But can the calendar be formulated only empirically? No, because then only the irregularities would be seen, and one could only make a calendar of what has already been seen, and not what is yet to come.

  “So the calendar must be constructed like a piece of pottery, with the theory as the basic form, and the empirical corrections as the ornamentation.”

  There, thought Yizhi. I hope that will satisfy both camps.

  The next three policy topics were lengthy and written in a way that made clear the answer that the officials wanted, and Yizhi gave it to them. All he had to do, really, was regurgitate the question without the question mark, turning it into an answer.

  The final one was trickier, however. It began by asking for a history of literary examination in China. That was innocuous. But then it asked the candidate to address the balance of “eight-legged” literary essays with policy essays, and even more provocatively, whether examination should be the sole method of selecting officials.

  Was this an attempt to send a message to the court, by passing candidates who advocate reform? Or was this a trick, an attempt to provoke reform-minded individuals into revealing themselves, so they could be sidetracked?

  He decided that it was too late to try to decide how to proceed. As he composed himself to sleep, he brooded about the examination. What it tested primarily, he acknowledged, was the ability to memorize ancient writings, to structure one’s writing according to the stultifying requirements of the eight-legged essay format, and to draw Chinese characters elegantly. His thoughts turned to his childhood, when he listened to his father Kongzhao, then a district magistrate in Fujian, talk to Xiong Mingyu about the “Western Learning” brought by Matteo Ricci and the other Jesuit priests. That was when Yizhi was just nine years old. Ricci was dead by then, but his legacy lived on.

  He couldn’t help but wonder how Ricci had acquired his own learning. Did the Europeans have schools and examinations? Did they have to memorize the writings of Euclid and Aristotle as the Chinese do those of Confucius and Mencius?

  The next morning, he started writing his answer to the fifth policy question:

  “It was once customary to select candidates for office by a process of recommendation. In order to prevent abuse, it was understood that if the candidate was appointed and did not perform well, that not only the candidate but also the recommending official might be demoted.

  “However, it remained common for the recommendations to be limited to young men of certain families, and thus it was difficult to satisfy the needs of the empire by recommendation alone.

  “Hence, the system of examination was instituted, and is now dominant. However, the examination tests only the literary ability of the candidate, and not the candidate’s morality or common sense, and thus those who are malevolent or doltish may be given preference.

  “In the marketplace, storytellers speak of divine intervention on behalf of candidates whose conduct was exemplary, or against those who behaved repugnantly. They speak of examiners who receive dreams in which Yama tells them to reconsider a particular paper, and of candidates who suffer from nightmares caused by the spirits of those they have oppressed.

  “But Censor Mao wrote that in practice, of those chosen by recommendation, only one out of ten is unworthy of reappointment, while of those selected by examination, nine out of ten are disappointments.

  “In each prefect and district, let each official be given a quota of men to recommend as filial, scrupulous and just, and then let these be given a special examination.”

  Yizhi set down his pen and read through his answers. Satisfied, he handed in his final exam booklet and left the compound.

  Year of the Rooster, Ninth Month (October 3–November 1, 1633)

  Outside the Nanjing Examination Compound

  It was noon on Announcement Day. A giant board had been placed outside the Great Gate, and a large sheet of white paper attached to it. At the top of the paper, two auspicious animals had been drawn, a tiger on the left and a dragon on the right. Below these illustrations, the examiners would soon write the names of those who had passed the exam.

  Yizhi was not surprised that it had taken more than a month to grade the papers. First, to avoid the chance that an examiner might recognize the handwriting on a paper, the candidates’ submissions—the black copies—were sent to copyists with only the seat number and the answers visible; the information identifying the candidate was sealed. The copyists made duplicates in vermilion ink and these were given with the originals to the proofreaders, who wrote in yellow ink. Both versions were given to the custodian, who passed only the vermilion copies to the assistant examiners, and placed his seal on the originals. The assistant examiners wrote their comments—mostly negative—in blue ink. The recommended papers were passed up to the associate examiners and, to resolve the highest rankings, the chief examiner. They wrote their evaluations in black ink.

  After the examiners had made the lists of candidates who had passed, identified only by seat number, the vermilion copies of those candidates’ papers were compared, in the presence of inspectors, with the black originals. If all was in order, the seal on the cover information was broken.

  According to an impeccable source—a courtesan who had entertained the chief examiner a few nights earlier—of the seven thousand or so candidates who had come to the Nanjing examination, only ninety could be given a passing grade, that being this year’s quota for Nan-Zhili Province. Only that lucky few could call themselves juren, “recommended men,” and only they were eligible to take the metropolitan examination in Beijing. Nowadays, to become an official of even the ninth rank, you needed to pass the metropolitan exam, thereby becoming a jinshi, a “presented scholar.”

  There would also be a list published of eighteen runners-up. These were thereby qualified as kung-sheng, that is, as a tribute student. They were exempt from the annual qualifying exams, they could take classes at the national university in Nanjing or Beijing, and they would receive an annual stipend of eight taels of silver. It was a nice consolation prize.

  Perhaps two thousand candidates were waiting expectantly for the results. Presumably, the others were so sure that they had failed that they didn’t think it worth waiting in the cool autumn air to have their negative expectations confirmed.

  There was a blare of trumpets, and the chief examiner emerged from the depths of the compound, followed by the deputy and associate examiners, and some clerks and guards. Yizhi, standing close to the front of the crowd that greeted them with a roar, could see how they all blinked their eyes, blinded by the sun. Yizhi knew that all of the examiners had been locked up within the compound from the day that the first session papers were handed in, on the tenth day of last month, until this very moment.

  With a flourish, the chief examiner wrote the name of the sixth ranked passing candidate, leaving space for inserting the first five later. A herald standing beside the poster shouted out the lucky fellow’s name, county and district, lest the assembled crowd bowl over the officials in a mad rush to see who was listed. Then the top-ranking deputy examiner put down the name of the seventh-ranked man, and so on through the day, as each examiner participated in order of rank.

  Yizhi knew that the odds were against his passing on this, his first provincial examination, but nonetheless he fidgeted like a monkey on a leash. Vendors worked through the crowd, selling food, drink and good luck charms. Yizhi couldn’t help but wonder what the point of the last would be, now that all the exam papers had been graded, but the charms did sell.

  Yizhi waited, minute after minute, hour after
hour. Once, a fellow standing a few yards away started jumping and screaming with joy, and Yizhi couldn’t help but hope that this neighbor’s good fortune would prove contagious.

  At last, all but the five top candidates had been announced. Now, indeed, Yizhi’s hopes were threadbare, but he waited anyway. Escorted by guards and aides, the provincial governor arrived and exchanged greetings with the chief examiner. The two of them then read off the names of the candidates with the five highest scores.

  Yizhi’s name was not among them. He had failed.

  Chapter 5

  Year of the Rooster, Tenth Month (November 2–30, 1633)

  Nanjing

  “Master Fang, we should go back home to Tongcheng,” said Xudong. “Seeing your wife and child will cheer you up, won’t it?”

  “It would, for a few days. But while my boy is too young to know better, my wife, my aunt, my father, and all my friends and relations would know that I failed my family. I need to wait until my failure is not as bright in my memory before I can bear to see them.”

  They left the examination compound, but this time Yizhi paused in front of the Old Court, Nanjing’s most famous brothel. “Xudong, you head back to our lodging. I need to unwind.”

  * * *

  When Yizhi left the Old Court, it was already daybreak.

  He went back to his lodgings to find Xudong. Despite the noise of passing carts, Xudong was still asleep.

  “Wake up, Xudong. Rise and shine.”

  “You were inaptly named, Xudong,” he said as Xudong finally stirred. “Your mother should have named you after the setting sun.” The name Xudong meant rising sun, that having been the time of day that the servant had been born.

  “I think the sun rises earlier here than it does back in Tongcheng,” Xudong grumbled.

  “I need you to go to the apothecary for a hangover cure,” said Yizhi. “Consider it a matter of life or death.”

  “Right away, sir! And welcome home!”

  “Not home yet, but soon.”

  When Xudong returned with the medicine, Yizhi poured the concoction into his tea, and sipped. And sipped again.

  Some minutes later, he announced, “That apothecary should have his name inscribed in the Veritable Records as a Benefactor of All Mankind. The stuff tasted vile, but it works.”

  “Glad to hear it, young master.”

  “Now, I am going to sleep for a million years,” said Yizhi. “Do not wake me up even if the city is on fire.”

  * * *

  Yizhi visited the examination compound once more. As he crossed the courtyard before the Great Gate, he felt insubstantial, like a ghost. It was a sunny day, but the sun did not appear to have power to warm him.

  Still, he had a better reason to be here than just to suffer regrets. Here, he could show his entry certificate and pay a small fee for the privilege of having his marked-up exam papers returned to him. He would go home to Tongcheng, read the examiner’s comments and meditate upon them, and, three years from now, he would pass.

  That night, he did not return to the Old Court, but he played for several hours on his zither. And the following day, he had Xudong pack up their belongings, and they headed for the docks. It was time to return to Tongcheng.

  “I am glad that I saw the Southern Capital before I died, Young Master, but I am even gladder to be heading home,” said Xudong.

  Yizhi didn’t respond immediately; he had been watching the boatman propel their boat upriver with powerful strokes of the yuloh, a large oar. Normally, the boat would rely on its sail to overcome the current, but for now, the wind was not cooperating.

  “I am looking forward to seeing my family, too, Xudong, although I dread seeing their disappointment in me. I will enjoy seeing old friends and revisiting old haunts. But I think I will stay in Tongcheng only for a few months, perhaps a year.

  “The problem, Xudong, is that I have been too confident of my own natural abilities. I must find a teacher who can inspire me to greater heights. And I doubt I can find that teacher in Tongcheng.”

  Tongcheng

  As the crow flies, it was about one hundred and thirty miles from Nanjing to the town of Tongcheng. However, not being equipped with wings, Fang Yizhi and his servant had taken a river boat up to Zongyang, the nearest Yangtze port. From there, a road ran first northeast and then northwest, weaving between the lakes, to the town of Tongcheng. Yizhi knew the lakes well; he and his friends had sometimes abandoned their studies for the pleasures of fishing.

  The county of Tongcheng was home to about sixty thousand souls, most of whom were farmers of rice, wheat and barley. In the north and west, tung trees were cultivated; a valuable oil could be squeezed from the seeds inside the shells of the tree nuts. Indeed, “Tongcheng” meant “Tung Oil Tree Town.”

  Even though Tongcheng County itself was an agrarian backwater, when it came to producing officeholders, its performance was quite respectable. And of the Tongcheng gentry families, none were more renowned than the Fangs. Over the last two centuries, the surname Fang had appeared more often on the rolls of those who had passed the provincial or even the national examinations, than had the Chang, Tso, Ma, Wu, Ch’i, Tai, Ho or even the Yao.

  Of course, that had made it all the harder for Fang Yizhi to return home. But home he now was. He threw himself into the day-to-day chores of managing his family’s land. And when he wasn’t too tired, he wrote to his friends in other cities, asking whether they had heard of any teachers who promised more than merely preparing a candidate for the examinations.

  * * *

  “Yizhi, we need to talk.”

  “Yes, of course, Auntie.”

  “While your father and I appreciate your help at home, you have been neglecting your studies. I was sorry, but not surprised, to hear you didn’t pass the provincial examination. I must remind you that only one man in a thousand makes it as far as you have already, and you are still very young.”

  She paused. “There are some who would have wanted to take it, and never had the opportunity.”

  Suddenly, Yizhi realized that she was speaking of herself. She was an expert poet, calligrapher, painter and historian, and she had tutored Yizhi in the classics from 1625 to 1630. The woman who disguises herself as a man, takes and passes the exam, and ends up revealing her true sex and marrying the optimus, the first-ranked candidate, was the stuff of several novels, but as far as Yizhi knew, it had never happened in real life.

  “At the provincial examination, were there not graybeards in the compound? Do we not hear of men sixty years old who have only just passed?”

  Yizhi conceded that this was true.

  “And I know from correspondence with others that you are well regarded in scholarly circles in Nanjing. Did you not win the poetry contest on the Marquis’ thirtieth birthday?”

  Again Yizhi nodded.

  “So I am confident that in a few years you will earn the highest degree and ascend the ladder of success. If you are not yet ready to return to study of the classics, then at least do something with that marvelous mind of yours.”

  “I will not disappoint you, Auntie. I will study the classics again, but I think I need to seek out a fresh viewpoint. A new teacher, perhaps. If there is no one in Tongcheng, I will write to my friends in other cities, and see if there is anyone they would recommend.”

  “I want only the best for you, Yizhi.”

  “I know, Auntie.”

  Chapter 6

  November 1633

  Magdeburg

  Captain David Pieterszoon de Vries had never been in pre-Sack Magdeburg, but even now, with the construction boom occasioned by its selection as the capital of the United States of Europe, the scars were still visible. Almost the entire area west of the Elbe had been burnt and, as the barge from Halle rode the current downstream and thus northward, he could see on the left bank a hodgepodge of old and new construction, not to mention the occasional pile of rubble that now served as an informal quarry site.

  The United
States of Europe itself was “new construction.” The loose confederation of the kingdom of Sweden, the republican New United States and their allied Germanies that had been known as the Confederated Principalities of Europe was now the USE, with Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden as its emperor. And the New United States, centered on Grantville, would be the State of Thuringia within the USE.

  De Vries disembarked, not at the main city dock, but further north, by the Navy Yard. He could hear in the distance the rumble from the steam-powered sawmill and rolling mill. He presented his credentials to one of the dock guards and was conducted to a small building that stood apart from others. Plainly, the group he was meeting with, while nominally private investors and their consultants, was being given a considerable amount of governmental support. And he suspected that they thought that the Navy Yard security was better than that of the Government House, in the Altstadt. They might even be right.…

  “Captain De Vries! I am so glad you could join us.”

  His greeter was an up-timer named Eric Garlow, who was some sort of aide-de-camp to Don Francisco. De Vries, who prided himself on his language skills, had already figured out the proper American vernacular term for him.

  Spook.

  The young American had a firm handshake, which De Vries found modestly reassuring.

  “And this is Mike Song.” De Vries hadn’t even known that any of the Grantvillers were of Oriental descent, but knew better than to show his surprise.

  “Perhaps you already know Willem Usselincx?” Eric gestured toward an elderly man with a goatee, whose clothing was almost entirely of pre-RoF design.