Chapter 194 |
The court assembly was dismissed, with both sides harboring their own thoughts.
After the New Year festival passed, no one brought up the matter of the draft again, let alone urging the emperor to marry and have children. This matter became a tacit secret among the civil and military officials.
However, the inner palace could not be left unmanaged.
The imperial concubines not only had the duty of serving the emperor but also shared the responsibility of managing the inner palace.
It wouldn't do for the previous empress, who had already been promoted to empress dowager, to continue managing the major and minor trivialities of the inner palace for the emperor.
It just so happened that Empress Dowager Xuan had also returned, and she spoke to Qu Dubian about this matter.
Empress Dowager An wanted to retire.
She was no longer young; how could she keep working all the time?
Furthermore, Dowager Consort Wen and Dowager Consort De had both moved out to live with their children. For her to manage the inner palace all by herself was simply too exhausting.
Empress Dowager Xuan, also known as Xie Mingxuan, asked in surprise, Female officials?
Qu Dubian, Yes. At the beginning of the previous dynasty, they continued the inner court female official system of the Great Wei. It was only later, when the Admonitions for Women became prevalent, that female officials gradually disappeared. There are precedents for this, so reviving it in our dynasty won't be considered abrupt.
In fact, as could be seen from the incident of his elder sister going to school, the status of women in the Great Zhou was not high.
This was a status quo that had formed little by little over thousands of years.
To implicitly and silently raise the status of women, starting with the re-establishment of inner court female officials was an excellent opportunity.
Inner court female officials were in charge of major and minor matters such as the inner palace's weaving, procurement, and financial power. They interacted with court officials and had some overlapping work handovers, but there was no conflict.
Zhi Yi asked, Then can I also come and manage people?
Qu Dubian smiled and said, Sister, you have to work with Mother and Empress Dowager An to formulate the assessment rules. Not just anyone can be a female official. As for you, you can be an examiner. In the future, when the first batch of female officials sees you, they will all have to call you teacher.
Just like the chief examiners in the imperial examinations.
His sister was a student taught by Grand Tutor Fang; her talent and learning were more than enough for the job.
Zhi Yi's eyes lit up. Leave it to your sister! You just focus on recuperating!
Xie Mingxuan said, There are quite a few pedantic people in the court. Will they agree to have work handovers with inner court female officials in the future?
Qu Dubian, Don't worry, they will be willing.
Sure enough, when he proposed that the inner court emulate the Wei Dynasty and re-establish the female official system, there were not many dissenting voices in the court.
Object?
Object to what?
The inner court had to be managed by someone. If eunuchs were allowed to interfere completely, wouldn't there be a hidden danger of eunuchs disrupting the government? They couldn't just keep exploiting Empress Dowager An alone.
Sigh... It wasn't as if there was no precedent. Let it be rebuilt.
After the inner court female official system was passed in the court, it was jointly taken over by Xie Mingxuan, Zhi Yi, and Empress Dowager An.
Not long after, Zhang Chansi returned from Yangzhou, bringing with her capable youths from her clan.
Your Majesty.
Sit.
Over the years, Zhang Chansi had not married, devoting herself entirely to the study of mathematics.
However, confined to the Astrometry Bureau, she never had the opportunity to display her abilities.
Qu Dubian gave her this opportunity.
He handed Zhang Chansi the list of personnel who would go to Lingbei for long-term field exploration.
After reading it, Zhang Chansi gripped the roster tightly. Your Majesty... what does this mean?
Qu Dubian, An opportunity to change the fate of the Zhang clan. Do you want it? If you accept it, the Astrometry Bureau will no longer require that only the Zhang family can be the bureau director. We can select excellent stargazers from all over the Great Zhou to predict the weather. At the same time, the Zhang family will no longer have the restriction that their descendants cannot participate in the imperial examinations.
It was equivalent to saying that the Zhang family's guaranteed iron rice bowl was gone, but more clan members would have the opportunity for upward promotion.
To gain, one must lose.
However, this loss was an opportunity that the Zhang family had sought for generations.
Zhang Chansi took a deep breath. I am willing to lead my clan members to fully assist Prince Dan and the lords of the Ministry of Works. I will certainly not fail Your Majesty's trust!
Work hard. If your achievements are outstanding, it is not impossible to make an exception and let you enter the Ministry of Works.
This light sentence exploded in Zhang Chansi's heart. She said in astonishment, Your Majesty, I am a woman.
Qu Dubian smiled and said, Teacher, do you feel that you are not capable?
Not an inner court female official, but the first female court official in the history of the Great Zhou.
...
Zhang Chansi was originally a person of indifferent temperament. She was interested in mathematics and had the ambition to climb up, but confined to the Astrometry Bureau, becoming the director meant her career had reached its peak.
She didn't expect that bringing her clan members to the capital this time, besides fulfilling the divination and resolving the Zhang family's predicament, would actually hold other surprises.
She suppressed her wildly beating heart.
Your Majesty, you restarted the inner court female official system and then told me these words. You... you are very different from the court officials who advocate the Admonitions for Women, and from the late emperor.
Although she had watched His Majesty grow up and knew that some of his ideas were different from those of the other princes, she never expected that he could give women the opportunity to enter the court as officials.
Qu Dubian, Teacher, what do you think of my aunt? What do you think of my sister?
Zhang Chansi's face turned serious. Eldest Princess Axiang personally went to the Northern Frontier for a political marriage, supported the pro-peace faction, and maintained more than twenty years of peace between the Great Zhou and the Northern Frontier. Naturally, she lacks nothing in terms of methods, temperament, and knowledge. Eldest Princess Zhi Yi took on the responsibility in a time of crisis, pinning down the pro-war faction in the Northern Frontier, dealing with tigers and wolves, and winning precious breathing room for the Great Zhou. She is also a heroine.
Not only my aunt and my sister, but also my moth... the Empress Dowager. She and my sister's mother are doing charity work in Yangzhou. Although it has just started, the future is promising. When my grandmother was young, she also helped my grandfather manage military affairs in the army. Which one of them is inferior to the men in the court? I have been deeply influenced by them, so how could I look down on women?
Qu Dubian gave her this explanation.
He knew that Zhang Chansi needed a convincing explanation. After all, someone like him was considered an anomaly among the past emperors of the Great Zhou, so it was normal for her to have doubts.
He couldn't tell her about his origins, so he explained it according to his own growth trajectory.
However, he was not foolish enough to directly confront the courtiers by openly establishing female court officials and allowing women to take the imperial examinations—taking too big of a step wasn't a good thing; rather, it would be a bad thing.
But as long as he left behind soil where roots could take hold, in ten or twenty years, the vigorous spring grass would naturally and stubbornly poke its head out, struggling to create a whole new world.
People like his aunt, sister, and mother would no longer have to be confined to a tiny square of the world.
This was hope.
Who knew, in a few decades, the Great Zhou might even produce a female emperor.
Of course, Qu Dubian did not explicitly voice these inner thoughts.
But Zhang Chansi vaguely sensed it.
The blood all over her body gradually warmed up. Even upon reaching middle age, she had unexpectedly developed a vigorous drive.
Qu Dubian added, Talent does not distinguish by gender. Anyone who can work for the Great Zhou is a good person.
Looking at the 007 and 996 work cultures of later generations, when it came to working, there were no men or women, only one common name: corporate slaves.
Zhang Chansi also couldn't help but laugh. Your Majesty, as long as you pay the monthly silver, it's fine.
Qu Dubian laughed. Naturally, I won't let Teacher work for free.
He was very good to the people working under him, okay? During festivals, there were small gifts and bonuses—real gold.
His smile then faded, and he said earnestly, "I have given you my promise, but whether it can be achieved depends on you, Teacher."
"If you can win their complete conviction, the day you stand in the imperial court will be the day you become a standard for all women of your kind in the world. I will personally confer your official title."
By then, with a precedent set, everything else would naturally follow.
Zhang Chansi stood up and bowed. "With Your Majesty's trust, I will certainly not fail my mission to connect Lingbei with the inland, bringing prosperity to our Great Zhou."
This conversation between the monarch and his subject in the Zichen Palace was known to no one else but the parties involved, Ye Xiaoyuan, and Yi Shier.
People only knew that His Majesty had added members of the Zhang family to the expedition team heading to Lingbei, to assist in mapping the region.
On the day she left, Qu Dubian heard the long-absent notification of Zhang Chansi's affection level increasing by one, and then by one again.
Time flowed on peacefully.
Great Zhou slowly regained its vitality. The three commanderies of the Xiang River resumed their tax contributions, and commerce gradually flourished after the Protectorate of the Northern Frontier established its governance.
The national treasury also began to slowly fill up.
This was evident from Lin Zongping's increasingly cheerful expression.
In the second year of Yonghe.
Zhiyi and Xie Lishan were married.
Qu Dubian had no idea which of these two blockheads confessed first, how the proposal went, or how they finally came to their senses. Regardless, he approved of this brother-in-law; the two had finally seen the sun shine through the clouds.
On the day of Zhiyi's wedding, Agumudo traveled thousands of miles from the Protectorate of the Northern Frontier to attend.
Qu Dubian, dressed in casual clothes at the Princess's estate, watched helplessly as Xie Lishan paused the moment Agumudo appeared, the smile on his face turning rigid and fake.
He immediately wanted to have Agumudo thrown out. It was his sister's wedding; how unsightly would it be if a scene was caused? Although he secretly wanted to watch the drama, he cared more about not letting anyone ruin his sister's wedding.
Fortunately, Agumudo was only there to deliver a gift. He presented a hand-carved scene of the grasslands featuring a woman riding a horse, exactly how Zhiyi looked when she was in the Northern Frontier.
"A wedding gift."
Zhiyi replied, "Thank you!"
She turned to look at Xie Lishan. "He came all this way to bring us a gift. A guest from afar is an honored guest; you must say thank you as well."
Xie Lishan's eyes curved into a smile as he finally looked at Agumudo. "Forgive my lack of manners, honored guest."
As sweet as those words sounded to Xie Lishan, they were equally heartbreaking to Agumudo.
He stood there stiffly, looking strangely desolate at a glance. Qu Dubian, who was cracking melon seeds nearby, pulled him aside.
"Seven... no, Your Majesty."
Qu Dubian whispered, "You have no tact. The wedding ceremony is about to start, and you are standing there being an eyesore."
Another knife pierced Agumudo's heart. He clutched his chest and found a place to slowly sit down.
"Your Majesty, why aren't you taking the seat of honor?" Instead, he was roaming around the wedding cracking melon seeds like a hooligan.
Qu Dubian replied, "This is my sister getting married. There is no Emperor here, only a younger brother."
Strictly speaking, it was actually Xie Lishan marrying into their family; his sister was the one taking a husband.
He cast a sidelong glance at the guy. Remembering their past camaraderie in the Northern Frontier, he didn't make him sit through the entire wedding ceremony, but instead had someone escort Agumudo out to the front hall.
Watching Agumudo's back, which could not hide his sorrow, he let out a sigh.
It couldn't be helped. Back in the Northern Frontier, he had chosen not to return with his sister, giving up on this fate that might have blossomed into love. That meant he was destined to have no future with her.
A month after Eldest Princess Zhiyi's wedding, the selection of female court officials was completed. With her duties fulfilled, she and Xie Lishan went to Lingbei for their honeymoon.
Great Zhou enjoyed another period of peace.
Until an internal rebellion broke out in Nanning.
The Emperor of Nanning, due to an overdose of Cold-Food Powder, became violently temperamental and fell into a coma for half a month.
The most powerful Sixth Prince of Nanning launched a palace coup, clashing with the Fourth Prince, who had already been named the Crown Prince, within the imperial city.
This palace coup was unprecedented. The palace maids and eunuchs fled in all directions, their screams echoing endlessly. Blood coated the floor tiles of the Nanning Imperial Palace.
The Second Prince, Yu Ruo, joined forces with the Crown Prince to suppress the Sixth Prince's rebellion.
The palace coup was quelled.
However, an even more deadly piece of news emerged from the fleeing palace servants.
The Emperor of Nanning had personally ordered the destruction of the Nanning dam, ignoring the wails of the common people, all to flood Great Zhou's three commanderies of the Xiang River and inflict damage upon Great Zhou.
He even used the bodies of his own people as a breeding ground for plague, throwing them into the river, which caused the great epidemic in Great Zhou during the Chongzhao era.
The speed at which the news spread was even more terrifying than the plague that had ravaged Great Zhou back then.
By the time Yu Ruo found out, the news was already out of control.
There were always others besides him who knew the inside story of what happened back then.
The Crown Prince of Nanning began to forcefully suppress the rumors.
But the heavens would not allow some evil deeds to comfortably remain hidden forever. They would eventually be uncovered, exposed to the light of day, and subjected to the judgment of the world.
The commoners, scholars, and conscientious officials of Nanning, every single one of them, fell silent upon hearing the news.
They could not comprehend that the Emperor they had studied so hard to serve loyally was such a person.
As a monarch, one could be suspicious, mediocre, or even lose oneself in frivolous pursuits, but the one thing they absolutely could not do was betray their people.
The ruler is the boat, and the people are the water; the water can carry the boat, but it can also overturn it.
Some did not believe it, while others did. There were even scholars who took off their scholarly hats and threw them at their feet in public, declaring, "This official rank is not worth pursuing!"
In an instant, the sparks of uprising began to appear everywhere.
This news brought resentment to Nanning, but to Great Zhou, it brought towering rage.
The three commanderies of the Xiang River, which had suffered from the disaster back then, had originally resigned themselves to their fate. It was a natural disaster that fell upon them; no one could do anything about it, so they just had to endure it.
But now they were being told that it was all a man-made disaster?!
That the Emperor of Nanning, in order to weaken Great Zhou, had blown up the dam and washed away the homes their ancestors had cultivated for generations?
"On what grounds!"
Someone smashed a bowl and stood up, burning with anger yet with a face covered in tears, gritting their teeth and saying, "On what grounds... just because of a single thought of his?"
"My children, my family, all died in the water. I want that dog Emperor of Nanning to pay for my family's lives!"
"The wrath of a common man spills blood within five paces! Dog Emperor of Nanning, give me back my family's lives!"
The roars of anger were like a single spark falling into dry firewood, instantly turning into a raging prairie fire.
The three commanderies of the Xiang River, and even the surrounding counties that had been affected by the plague, were enraged by this news. Filled with indignation, they gathered in front of the government offices, all united by a single core demand.
"We beg Your Majesty, send troops to Nanning!"
The governors of the three commanderies, pressured by the furious populace, wrote urgent memorials overnight and sent them by fast horse to the palace.
After reading the memorials, Qu Dubian furrowed his brows for a long time.
He had known the news two days earlier than these people; the shadow network had developed quite well over the past year.
When he first found out, the anger in his chest was no less than anyone else's. It took him half a day to calm himself down.
He was a survivor of that flood and plague. He had seen with his own eyes the tragic state of the severe epidemic zone in Le'an County. The cries of those who lost their loved ones echoed endlessly every day; a living hell was nothing more than that.
Le'an County was actually one of the better ones; the situation in other places was only worse.
Qu Dubian stood up. "Notify the heads of the Six Ministries, Grand Tutor Fang, Imperial Censor Xi, and General Xia to all come to the Western Warm Pavilion—for a meeting."
Ye Xiaoyuan replied, "Understood."