Holding the Emperor Hostage : Chapter 22: Crossing the Pass in White Clothing

Human adaptability is a terrifying thing.

A few months ago, Yin Shuhuai still felt that studying classical history for twelve hours, government administration for two hours, military strategy for two hours, and then carving out another two hours to visit the Palace Workshops or the imperial estate was something he could not possibly achieve. Yet after just a few months, Yin Shuhuai had actually grown accustomed to such a tightly packed schedule. He could even combine modern production knowledge with the current social environment, occasionally importing inventions from later eras to make the lives of the Yin citizens a bit more comfortable. He had finally become one of those high-energy individuals he used to envy the most.

Although his behavior of spending massive sums of money to support the inventions of the Palace Workshops was criticized by the scholars of noble families, and even the three masters frequently advised him during his lessons that a wise ruler should embrace frugality and stay close to virtuous ministers, absolutely avoiding extravagance and never favoring clever but useless tricks or heavily relying on eunuchs, Yin Shuhuai completely turned a deaf ear to them.

This was because Yin Shuhuai also had major complaints about the three of them.

Previously, Yin Shuhuai had issued an imperial decree ordering the three of them to collaborate on an introductory textbook to serve as the standard model for educating young children across the realm. He had also promised that once the book was completed, the imperial court would promote elementary education in their names, making the three of them the tutors to the entire world.

In the past, Zhou Xingzi of the Southern Dynasties could compose the widely celebrated Thousand Character Classic in a single night. Yin Shuhuai figured that since they were all highly respected academic masters, even if they lived in different times and spaces, their academic foundations should be roughly the same. He had very generously given them ten days to create it, fully believing that this matter would be resolved easily. As a result, more than three months flashed by, and these three great sages could not manage to produce a single book.

Not only that, the three of them almost came to blows over compiling the book. Dignified imperial court officials and leaders of various schools of thought actually argued until their faces turned red during the Emperor’s lessons, even rolling up their sleeves to fight physically. If the Emperor had not ordered the eunuchs attending him to stop the fight in time, the Minister of Justice Lu Kuan’s face would have been scratched to pieces by the Commander of the Imperial Guards Wang Su. And as for the Chancellor Chen Yong, aren’t you a student of Huang-Lao philosophy? Don’t you always advocate governing by doing nothing? Why were you picking up an inkstone next to them while Lu Kuan and Wang Su were fighting?!

Beyond his utter amazement, Yin Shuhuai finally gained a profound understanding of how physically aggressive the scholars of the Yin Dynasty could be. He also understood why the ancestors said that one monk carries water to drink, two monks carry water together, but three monks end up with no water to drink. Left with no choice, Yin Shuhuai could only alter his orders, telling the three of them to write their own introductory books separately, and whoever finished first would have their book promoted by the imperial court first.

With this order given, the three of them actually managed to write their own versions of the Thousand Character Classic overnight. Looking at the three virtually identical copies of the Thousand Character Classic, Yin Shuhuai felt thoroughly exhausted once again.

No wonder Huo Yan always said that the governance of the realm lies in managing people. As long as a wise ruler knows how to select and control talent, he can direct the realm as easily as moving his own fingers.

Yin Shuhuai knew he did not know how to manage people, so he asked humbly: “If the Prime Minister were to handle this, what would you do?”

“Your Majesty must first be clear about your own objective, what it is you want, and who can help you achieve this goal. Select the talent that meets your criteria based on your needs first. Then, you need to understand these people. Their backgrounds, their temperaments, their ambitions, and their needs. Only by mastering these will you know how to employ them.” Speaking up to this point, Huo Yan cast an indifferent glance at Yin Shuhuai. “Your Majesty wanted Chen Yong and the others to write a catchy, straightforward introductory book for you, and you targeted their needs by offering them fame. This was the correct approach, but Your Majesty misjudged the current state and needs of the Huang-Lao, Confucian, and Legalist schools.”

During the early days of the Yin Dynasty’s founding, several generations of emperors used Huang-Lao philosophy as the foundation of state governance, promoting governing by doing nothing. Later, Emperor Wu ascended the throne, banishing the hundred schools of thought to honor only Confucianism, yet he also favored the cruel officials of the Legalist school. By the time Emperor Li took power, because he was ambitious, deeply extravagant, and naturally suspicious, he not only relied heavily on eunuchs but also created the Night Owl Guard, which struck terror into the hearts of everyone in the court and the public. Thinking about it this way, the Emperor’s personality was actually exactly the same as Emperor Li’s.

He truly was the blood of the late Emperor.

Thinking this, Huo Yan added: “In truth, every emperor has his own preferences for employing people. However, as the Yin Dynasty has endured to this day, various schools have declined for many reasons, leaving only the Huang-Lao, Confucian, Legalist, and Military schools to stand the test of time.”

Of course, looking at the Emperor’s various actions of favoring clever tricks, loving inventions, and being passionate about working for the benefit of the commoners, perhaps the Mohist school was going to rise again. But those were matters for the future. The most important thing right now was that the Emperor wanted to open elementary education wide, allowing the young children of the realm to read. He had handed the heavy responsibility of compiling the introductory book to the Huang-Lao, Legalist, and Confucian schools. This meant that whichever school could seize the greatest voice in writing the introductory book would firmly hold the greatest opportunity for their own school to soar during the subsequent promotion of elementary education.

Just like the governance by doing nothing in the early days of the dynasty, or the exclusive honoring of Confucianism during Emperor Wu’s reign.

Thinking of this, Huo Yan gave Yin Shuhuai a meaningful look.

Perhaps even the Emperor himself did not realize that a decision he made entirely by chance had instantly created the possibility of rallying the three most influential schools of thought in the world to serve him. He was even feeling frustrated because he could not make three school leaders complete a book within ten days, believing he did not know how to use people, and even secretly complaining that the three leaders lacked scholarship!

Huo Yan could not be bothered to remind him, only saying impassively: “Your Majesty only let the people of the Huang-Lao, Confucian, and Legalist schools write the Thousand Character Classic. Do you feel that the Military school has nothing it can teach the people of the realm?”

Yin Shuhuai froze upon hearing this. Looking at Huo Yan’s expressionless old face, he suddenly remembered that Huo Yan came from a family of generals, so he must have studied military strategy!

“The Prime Minister wants to write a book to win fame too?” Yin Shuhuai blinked his eyes, believing he understood perfectly as he said: “The Prime Minister should write a version of the Thousand Character Classic too, and I will definitely have the imperial court vigorously promote the Prime Minister’s work.”

Yin Shuhuai felt he had probably underestimated the immense attraction of writing books and establishing theories for ancient people. To think that someone as deeply plotting and incredibly busy as the Prime Minister could not resist this temptation, hahahaha!

Looking at the Emperor who started acting foolish every now and then, Huo Yan turned and walked away. Upon returning to his estate, he immediately ordered his trusted aides to gather the military strategy masters in Luoyang city. Using the template of “The sky was dark and earth yellow; space was a vast, vast void” provided by Yin Shuhuai, they were to compose a military version of the Thousand Character Classic within three days.

Then, the Prime Minister overrode all objections, combining the Thousand Character Classic written by the four schools, cutting out the complicated parts and keeping the essence to create a single, most straightforward and catchy Thousand Character Classic. He used the imperial court’s name to establish elementary schools in Luoyang and various parts of Guanzhong, widely recruiting children aged six to fifteen to study, and promoted this book to the entire realm.

Right around the autumn harvest season, the ordinary citizens working hard in the fields reaped their rice and wheat while listening to the clear reading voices of their children, silently feeling grateful for the Emperor’s benevolence in their hearts.

This year brought a massive drought, with not a single drop of rain falling from March to August. Experienced elders all said this year’s harvest would make it hard to survive, and they were even organizing people to prepare to flee the famine. Yet they never expected that starting from June, the imperial court would actually construct many waterwheels across various regions to irrigate the farmlands. Later, when the riverbeds dried up, the imperial court installed hand pumps everywhere.

The citizens did not know what a hand pump was; they only knew that the Emperor and the Prime Minister had issued decrees ordering the court to use precious iron to cast these pumps. Once the long pipes were driven into the ground, after a brief period of operating them, water was actually drawn up from deep underground. The moment the citizens saw the murky water spraying out from the outlet, they all knelt on the ground, loudly cheering it as a good omen from heaven.

The Emperor received his mandate from heaven, yet now he was changing fate against the heavens. This led to word-of-mouth praise among the citizens: why was the Central Plains suffering a severe drought that turned the land crimson for thousands of miles, while the Guanzhong and Luoyang regions were entirely unaffected by the drought? It was all because the Emperor used his imperial authority to command water dragons to irrigate the fields and nourish the citizens. Therefore, even though the Central Plains had no rain in June, they could still achieve an abundant harvest of all grains, which was truly the Emperor’s benevolence moving heaven and earth.

The citizens of the Yin Dynasty, who had been immersed in the theory of interaction between heaven and mankind for hundreds of years, believed this implicitly. It was worth mentioning that because Prime Minister Huo Yan had vigorously pressured the imperial court to promote waterwheels and hand pumps in Guanzhong and Luoyang during the worst of the drought, after the citizens survived the disaster, they truly did set up long-life tablets for Prime Minister Huo Yan on their own initiative. They hoped the heavens would protect this pair of a wise ruler and a loyal minister, granting them a hundred years, a thousand years, and ten thousand years of life.

Huo Yan scoffed when he received the secret report from his trusted aide. Turning around, he entered the imperial palace and impassively asked the Emperor whether he had noticed anything unusual in the citizens’ homes when he visited the imperial estate to observe the people’s conditions.

Yin Shuhuai understood the hidden meaning the moment he heard the question. He immediately spoke with elegant eloquence, giving the Prime Minister’s merits a magnificent round of flattery. The Prime Minister appeared completely unmoved on the surface, but that afternoon, his voice floated slightly while explaining military strategy and court administration to Yin Shuhuai.

If the citizens of Guanzhong and Luoyang were fortunate enough to survive the drought because of this ruler and minister pair, the citizens of other regions fell into a horrific catastrophe that completely ruined human decency.

The simple phrase in the history books, “A year of great drought, people ate each other,” meant crimson earth for thousands of miles and zero harvest in reality. Countless families were broken, and people used every extreme measure imaginable just to stay alive, even falling into the despair of swapping children to eat them.

In order to consume the population and strength of the various regional lords, Huo Yan did not proactively share the blueprints of the waterwheel and hand pump with the lords and powerful families. However, the imperial court’s movements of installing waterwheels and hand pumps in Guanzhong and Luoyang could not be hidden. The spies of the great noble families had long since mastered the methods of making them. Yet most of the noble powerful families only installed waterwheels and hand pumps in their own private estates and farmlands.

Worse still, to ensure their own fields achieved a bountiful harvest, many powerful families actually forbade the commoners from using the water. They even enacted tyrannical policies stating that if a commoner stole water, their entire extended family would be executed. This forced the ordinary citizens to watch the crops in their own fields wither to death with wide eyes, yet they still had to sell their fields, houses, and children to the noble families as slaves just to stay alive.

To amass grain and expand their forces, the regional lords and powerful families used every extreme measure to exploit the citizens. They seized land, heavily accumulated slaves, and forced men into military service everywhere, leaving absolutely no way out for the people.

In a fit of rage, the citizens who could no longer survive but still possessed a shred of courage could only rise up with weapons, causing the peasant uprisings across various regions to grow increasingly fierce. The number of refugees rushing toward Luoyang also grew larger and larger.

In late August, the remnants of the seven great noble families who had fled everywhere and disappeared actually had their soldiers disguise themselves as refugees to blend into Sishui Pass. Under the cover of night, they slaughtered the Governor of Xingyang along with the generals sent by the imperial court to defend Sishui Pass, capturing the pass and marching straight for Luoyang.

The news spread rapidly, causing a massive shock across the realm. It was said that when Prime Minister Huo Yan received the report, his face changed drastically, and he actually spat blood, collapsing unconscious.

And it was only at this moment that Yin Shuhuai learned the general Huo Yan had sent to guard Sishui Pass was actually his eldest son, Huo Guo.

Suddenly learning of the terrible news, Yin Shuhuai immediately left the palace to visit his crucial minister. By then, Huo Yan had already woken up. He stared with bloodshot eyes, looking exactly like an enraged tiger as his massive hand firmly gripped Yin Shuhuai’s wrist: “Your Majesty, I will personally lead the troops to Sishui Pass to avenge my son!”

Looking at Huo Yan, whose hair had turned entirely white overnight, Yin Shuhuai’s tears came streaming down instantly.