"If we really let go—bang—the Wu Dynasty, this whole country... would all be gone."

In the room, Ning Yi made a "bang" gesture with his hand. Li Pin frowned: "How could it come to that?"

Ning Yi was silent for a moment: "Brother Li, have you ever wondered why, throughout these thousands of years of Confucian development, they keep repeating that merchants chase profit?"

"The sages advocate virtue and oppose selfish profit-seeking behavior. Is that not perfectly reasonable?"

"That's partly true." Ning Yi nodded. "But another part is that merchant learning isn't favorable for governance. Three words: hard to control. Take a person's whole life—you're in a mountain village farming, that's fine. Follow ancestral methods, marry, have children, die and get buried in the mountains. But one day you go to the county town and see all those colorful things. Another day you reach the provincial capital and see even more overwhelming things. Just like seeing those clothes—you want them, so you start thinking of ways... Greed, ah..."

Ning Yi smiled: "Of course, most times you'll work honestly to earn money for those clothes. But once you have desires, whenever there's an opening, you'll always try to exploit it. Brother Li, who do you think is easier to govern—a farmer facing the earth with his back to the sky his whole life, honest and dutiful, or someone whose heart already harbors desires? Among our dynasty's tens of millions of subjects, Brother Li, how many can our laws truly control? How many of them actually just live their lives peacefully like this? If commerce develops one step further, how many more desires will emerge?"

"This is actually a very interesting system. Since the Hundred Schools of Thought¹, there's been debate between rule by law and rule by virtue. Rule by law should have the upper hand, but throughout history—Qin, Han, Three Kingdoms, Jin, Northern and Southern Dynasties, Sui, Tang... as you go through them, you'll discover something: how many people could the laws of the past actually govern? Heh... Most relied on self-discipline. Simple folk customs—small villages had their own rules and that was enough. If you put today's Jiangning back in the Qin Dynasty, Brother Li, do you think with their laws and methods, they could keep peace here for long? Maybe Qin was very strict, but Jiangning... has too many clever people, too many loopholes to exploit..."

"Confucianism is a great thing. After thousands of years of development, Brother Li, the benefits of merchants weren't just discovered in the Wu Dynasty. If commerce were opened up, those rolling profits—surely people knew about them before today. The example of Tao Zhugong²is right there. Yet why, for a thousand years, has the whole world suppressed merchants? The deeper reason is that they saw the consequences. The capacity of the law... couldn't keep up."

"Our dynasty is the same. It's about ideology." Ning Yi tapped his forehead. "The more desires people have, the less predictable their behavior. The more they're tempted, the more they chase profit. Any loophole, they'll exploit it. Our dynasty doesn't suppress commerce—that has benefits. But civil officials greedy for money, military officials afraid of death, weak populace, soldiers just getting by—who's to say these aren't partly consequences of tasting that sweetness? Actually... they probably account for at least part of it."

Li Pin stared wide-eyed, frozen there. At this moment, he didn't even have the presence of mind to ask what "ideology"³meant. Just the parts he could understand were shocking enough. After a long while, he finally spoke: "Is Liheng saying that this learning of merchants chasing profit is the chief culprit behind our Wu Dynasty's weakness?"

"No." Ning Yi sipped his tea. "Definitely not. This is development. Our dynasty has foundations, and legal systems have been developing alongside commerce. They're meant to reinforce each other. It's just that many things haven't kept pace—that's the trouble. Too complex... Solving the Wu Dynasty's problems by focusing on merchants and money, hoping state intervention in the economy can double or triple revenues and magically fix everything—impossible. You can't fixate on commerce just because you've tasted sweetness. Develop it further and the whole balance tilts more. It's already distorted—something will break eventually..."

Ning Yi shook his head. Li Pin thought for a long time on his side: "Then where does Liheng think we should focus to find the key?"

"For real implementation? I don't know. But if it's just idle talk, speaking irresponsibly, heh..." Ning Yi smiled. "Why not start with Confucianism?"

"Confucianism... Is Liheng perhaps referring to the current redundant officials and students?" Li Pin thought about it and laughed. "I've often discussed with others that the root of our dynasty's problems might be that we truly have too many scholars and officials. It's a big problem. But... solving this would be even harder than commercial matters..."

"What if I said... it's not too many, but too few?"

"Ah?"

Li Pin blinked, looking confused. Ning Yi gestured toward the classroom.

"What does Brother Li think those students can do after studying?"

"With Liheng's teaching method, not just imparting knowledge but also teaching them how to see things and make decisions, several of them becoming good officials for their regions should be no problem."

Li Pin spoke earnestly. Ning Yi sat there and couldn't help but laugh, then sipped his tea and clapped his hands. Li Pin asked doubtfully: "What does Liheng think they can do?"

"Among them, that Su Wenyi could probably be a minor official. His grades aren't good but his personality is the most lively, good at socializing. The rest... I'm actually teaching them to be shopkeepers or clerks. Of course, having studied, since there's a chance to be officials, they might as well try. After all, being an official has good benefits..."

Ning Yi counted on his fingers: "Regular salary, grain allowance, position money, spring and winter clothing, attendant provisions, tea and wine, kitchen supplies, firewood and charcoal, livestock feed—once you become an official these days, the state covers all expenses for clothing, food, housing, transport, even your family and attendants. The state also grants you several acres of good farmland. Easy work, punishment doesn't reach scholar-officials⁴, not punished for speech⁵, evaluated every three years and promoted without major errors. Who wouldn't want to be an official..."

Li Pin was silent for a while: "Liheng actually says these students can only be shopkeepers?"

"It's not that they can only be, but that they're suited for it. Their personalities are mostly too honest and straightforward—being officials would be hard. The way of officialdom requires reading the situation and dealing with people above all. Add capability and ambition, and you can be a capable or good official. Dexin knows how to navigate situations, has ability and ambition, can weigh and judge—you can be a good official. They mostly can't. These things aren't simple."

Ning Yi shook his head: "Enriching people, strengthening military, then selecting talent. The way of selecting talent could actually be solved by specialized expertise. Why can't we open specialized schools? Those with skills needn't hoard them—we could arrange people to learn carpentry, arrange people to learn metalwork, arrange people to be chefs, arrange people to learn management—that is, to be shopkeepers. Most importantly, we could arrange people to study military strategy, arrange people to study water conservancy, arrange people to study mining..."

Li Pin was clearly doubtful: "Those who can afford to study—who would willingly learn such things?"

"That's exactly the problem. Being an official is so attractive—everyone who can study rushes toward officialdom. 'In books are thousands of measures of grain, in books are houses of gold.' But... why do we now have so many redundant students and officials? In ancient times, only a small group had the chance to study. Not many could read. Learning needed to be passed down, the country needed them for governance. A thousand pieces of gold for one scholar was hard to find. Therefore, these scholars only existed at the highest level, because there were so few. 'Establish the heart for Heaven and Earth, establish life for the people, continue the lost learning of past sages, open peace for ten thousand generations'⁶—too busy..."

"But what about now? Thousands of years have passed, the world has developed... Say there are many things waiting to be done in the world, with one being most important. We first do this one, constantly advocating for it. But now, Dexin, there are already too many people doing this thing! I'm not referring to Confucian learning, but to being officials. Why can't we allocate some to do other things? They've studied, they can think. With floods reaching this level now, if we had specialists researching water conservancy, organizing a system of knowledge for future generations to continue studying and researching—if these people researched nothing else but water conservancy, with Confucian learning just for self-cultivation—would floods still be this bad every year?"

"Specialized expertise—efficiency can be improved for anything, avoiding many detours. For instance, in the past with weaving, mothers taught daughters. Those farm women set up looms at home and slowly wove, some fast, some slow, quality uneven. Now cloth merchants all have workshops, hiring female workers to work there. People teach them how to use the looms, what tricks make it faster. Others consider how to improve the looms. One person can do the work of several, with uniform quality and efficiency multiplied several times. If every task's efficiency could multiply several times, what would the Wu Dynasty look like? Wouldn't strengthening the military be easy?"

"Of course, this is also just a joke. The difficulties are beyond imagination. You say there are too many Confucian students; I say there are too few people who can study. If we really had specialized expertise, there would be far too few. As you said, those whose families can afford education won't learn these merchant and craftsman studies. Confucianism also won't do something that seems to diminish its status. But since it's already saturated, excessive—if the Wu Dynasty really wants to take the next step, perhaps we can only consider going this route. For instance, gradually building public opinion, first establishing urgent projects like military strategy and water conservancy, resisting external pressure, ensuring people's livelihood. When everyone isn't suffering so much, when more people can study, then consider specialized expertise. This isn't like those rigid military strengthening strategies. Once their status rises, naturally knowledgeable people will think and act. Now other matters have no status, so of course everyone can only study..."

The room fell silent inside and out. Li Pin lowered his head in deep thought. The siblings crouching outside both propped their chins, looking troubled. Ning Yi picked up the teapot and poured himself a cup of tea.

"Confucian learning is a magnificent system. Beyond self-cultivation, it's also the study of managing people, of weighing the relationships between them. With over a hundred thousand students and so many officials, on an invisible level, the entire country's tens of millions of subjects are within its system of weights and controls. This is especially true in our dynasty, where redundant students and officials clearly exceed our needs, and where it faces challenges from Buddhism, Taoism, and various other schools of thought. After a few slight transformations, the rules of the game it created not only balance the interests among this excess of officials but also continue to grow, compelling countless students to throw themselves at it one after another. Ten years of cold study for a morning of fame that resounds throughout the world—it's a nearly perfect balance..."

He deeply inhaled the tea's fragrance. "I greatly admire this learning. Regardless of its merits or faults, anything that can record how certain people lived, in a certain form, in a certain place, can be called art. And Confucian learning is absolutely one of the greatest and most exquisite arts in all of history. To unify such a vast land and so many people under one set of game rules, in such an extreme yet harmonious way... Thousands of years of wisdom. It's like looking up at a high mountain..."

He raised his cup, clinking it against Li Pin's: "Meeting at the right time, you and I—let us savor it."

The tea fragrance had actually grown faint. Li Pin was still thinking. He stood up now, stepped back, and bowed deeply. Ning Yi had to stand up helplessly.

"What Liheng has said—much I haven't yet grasped. But just considering what I have understood, Liheng has already far surpassed me. This matter deserves my bow."

"Just a joke." Ning Yi returned the courtesy, then smiled. "If our dynasty punished people for what they said, and if you and I weren't so insignificant right now, I wouldn't have dared to tell you all that... It was just a joke, some idle chat..."