Chapter 58: CH 58

In the 20th year of Chenghua, an earthquake erupted in the following days after New Year’s. On New Year’s Day, the officials paid their respects and greetings to the Emperor and on the 2nd day, there was an earthquake that shook the capital, causing everyone to feel anxious. Zhili’s Yongping Prefecture and the Xuan Prefecture, Datong and Liaodong all likewise felt the harsh jolt, the sound clapping like thunder, and the lands in the Xuan Prefecture cracked open, creating gushing springs of sand in its wake. Countless beacon towers and forts outside the capital had collapsed.

While news from other places had not yet reached the capital, the officials were mainly concerned that the earthquake was a warning from the Heavens and that the Emperor should cleanse his heart, free the mind from worries, in order to shut out transgressions and cultivate virtue. They also advised for the Emperor to grow closer to his loyal cabinet ministers and not to be confused by those Imperial concubines and eunuchs. Emperor Chenghua was not a person that was easily manipulated. Moreover, these criticisms mostly targeted Imperial Noble Consort Wan. The Emperor’s fighting spirit immediately exploded off the charts, and he said, “You like to admonish zhen as one wishes, but never listen”, this kind of character who never tried to offend anybody had turned into a combative Emperor that exclaimed, “If zhen is guilty, then you are all not clean either”.

In the written Imperial edict, he lightly skipped over himself and instead pointed out that all ministers and the Emperor had “shared duty”, and the calamities sent down by the Heavens certainly had to do with the negligent ministers who played fast and loose with the law. As such, all ministers were ordered to reform and start afresh, in order to be qualified to receive salary. The Imperial Censor of the court presented continuous memorials to the Emperor. Emperor Chenghua kept certain ministers, and for the ones he did not, he condemned them with a criminal charge and had them dismissed to somewhere remote and farway to serve as a County Magistrate instead.

The officials who served outside of Zhili and were currently staying in the capital during the New Year’s rituals were feeling even more panicked. On one hand, they were paying attention to the situation in the Imperial Court, and on the other hand, they worried about the disaster-stricken and how to help disaster victims in the areas affected under their jurisdiction. This all happened as they were waiting for the Ministry of Appointment to send down their assignments for the year.

Fortunately, they did not have to wait long——North Zhili and other various prefectures directly subordinate to the Six Ministries were arranged to be at the forefront of the inspection process. After inspecting those of the Shuntian Prefecture and the Baoding Prefecture, it was finally the Yongping Prefecture’s turn. Prefectural Magistrate Wang was the first to be called in for questioning by the Vice Minister, and Supervising Secretaries were personally in charge of the procedure. They took into consideration each county’s literacy efforts, land taxes, the supervision and direction of transportation, construction of buildings, mining, and whether the official was a husband of integrity and righteousness as well as other merits. This was then reviewed by the higher-ups through point-by-point commentary.

There was nothing particularly special about the other counties, and only Qian’an County had established  a library for scholars to read books and articles free of charge, slightly arousing Li Yu’s interest, who was currently the Right Imperial Censor-in-Chief. When it came time for Qian’an’s County Magistrate to report for his evaluation, he asked, “Does that library of yours really allow students to read books without spending money? How is this any different from those bookstores that allow anyone to transcribe their books?”

County Magistrate Qi had put forth a lot of mental and physical efforts into building the library for the past few months and regarded the matter as one of his proudest undertakings. Hearing someone ask about this, he could not help but to add a few more words: “Replying to da-ren, in fact, our county’s library is open to both scholars and commoners. The books available are merely provided for others to read, not at all used to gain profit. There are a total of 300 different kinds of books in the library collection, and each categorized bookshelf has three editions of a book. Furthermore, the storehouse has spares and replacements, adding up to a total of more than 3000 volumes of books. The library is open from the start of chenshi (7-9 am) to shenshi (3-5 pm) and anyone who is fond of books is allowed to go in and read books of their own choosing. Additionally, the establishment always has pen, ink, paper and inkstones prepared, so that people can copy down famous pieces of writing while reading.”

Li Yu nodded slightly. However, the Left Vice Minister of Appointments, Geng Yu asked: “How did you obtain the funds to open your library and where did the books come from? Were they donated by the county’s wealthy households or did the county allocate part of the budget to do so?”

Qi Sheng bowed and replied: “The residence and books were donated by a high-minded and righteous youth as well as countless wealthy households from within the county. Originally, the youth wanted to set up such a library by himself so students in the county could borrow books free of charge. But this lower official saw that his family’s financial situation was poor, but the youth still possessed such ambition, making one feel extremely ashamed in my heart, so I thought to take over this matter. Unexpectedly, he was determined to help the Imperial court handle matters and donated his family’s property and book collection for the cause. This lower official has already erected a monument recording his efforts, to mark his righteous deeds.”

Geng Yu sighed, “Such a righteous act, why did you not request the Imperial Court to send down a commendation? What is the name of that righteous citizen and what does the family do?”

With some pity, Li Yu added, “After all, what he donated was neither grain or rice for disaster relief and such a case is not in the list of instances for receiving an Imperial plaque. With Qian’an’s County Magistrate erecting a monument for him to pass down his contributions and recording his contributions in the county annals, this is sufficient enough to honor his deeds.

Qi Sheng hummed in agreement twice, saying: “It is the righteous citizen who has received an Imperial commendation before, his family….” Just as he was about to say that the family’s da-ren was Official Cui in the Ministry of Revenue, he suddenly recalled that he had just blurted out that Cui Xie’s family was impoverished just a moment ago. And with Official Cui’s financial situation, he had made some inquiries about it these past two days in the capital, and it seemed the family wasn’t particularly poor?

At least not as poor and destitute Cui Xie appeared to be when he had first arrived in Qian’an.

His parents resided in a beautiful residence with vermillion-colored gates and there were many servants and concubines in the household; But, their son was stranded by himself, living in another county, with only two male servants to accompany him, one old and one young. In order to make a living, Cui Xie had to run the bookstore by himself and even had to receive humiliation from the slander of family servants. At that time, Qi Sheng had only felt that the servant was domineering and taking unfair advantage of his Master, but now that he thought about it, he was somewhat apprehensive——what if it wasn’t just the servant who had or tried to humiliate Cui Xie?

Qi Sheng had hesitated for a moment, but the two officials thought he had forgotten the name of the person in question, so they told him to stop thinking about the matter and return to the courier station to wait for the results. They had to finish their evaluations of the two capitals and the 13 provinces before the 10th, as well as process the 3,523 different records of deeds from the chief officials from their various prefectures and counties. They had already spent quite a bit of time on Qi Sheng and truly were too busy to wait for him to continue thinking.

When Qi Sheng exited the Ministry of Appointments, he was about 80% confident that he could remain in office this time. But nevertheless, there were still worries that weighed on his heart, and after separating from his colleagues, he quietly walked to Official Cui’s Residence, looking at that exquisitely decorated compound from the outside.

The Cui Residence’s Second Young Master just happened to be heading out at this time, taking a group of brightly dressed servants with him, calling back and forth with them. He then mounted a horse with a very proud expression and galloped past, not even sparing a glance to him, a minor official dressed in black official robes.

Qi Sheng did not want to take a second look at this hedonistic son of a rich household, a proud and extravagant character, so he swiveled around and headed back to the courier station.

On the 11th of January, the results of the Ministry of Appointments large-scale audit had finally come out and the report was submitted to the Emperor. Not only was County Magistrate Qi not dismissed from office and had not landed one of the undesirable eight grades, but he had even been given the evaluation “Adept at Enlightenment” and he safely returned home from this year’s re-evaluations.

After that, the Ministry of Appointments needed to promote officials below the government sub-prefect level to fill the gaps of the dismissed officials. However, County Magistrate Qi reckoned that his qualifications and official merits were not enough to overcome the damage received from the earthquake’s impact and he no longer stayed in the capital. Once the audit ended, he quickly made his way back to Qian’an.

In fact, a large part of the officials whose domains were within the earthquake’s impact area all wanted to leave, but only an awful few could mount a horse and ride back like Qi Sheng——because he was lean, had good physical strength and often traveled up mountains and long rivers. He was long used to riding for long periods of time.

While the majority of officials were still procrastinating in the suburbs of the capital, with a spur of his galloping horse, Qi Shenghad already returned to his own county.

Fortunately, the epicenter of the earthquake was located near a border station further up north and Qian’an had not suffered from any disasters. But, some shacks had collapsed from the earthquake’s violent trembling and several buildings had been burned in fires. Luckily, there was heavy snowfall that day and the fire did not spread very far.

The victims were arranged to be relocated to the Lord Guan Temple and the Xuanjue Monastery by County Deputy Tian. There were clothes, quilts and congee served by the wealthier families of the county. Thankfully, the complexions of the victims were not too bad, which allowed County Magistrate Qi to exhale a sigh of relief. He ordered people to visit the wealthier households to try to coax them to donate some rice grains and also planned to head to the Department of Revenue to request that they open the granaries to help disaster victims.

As such, County Deputy Tian explained, “I have submitted a request once after the earthquake and obtained about five 100-catty-heavy grain sacks, a hundred or so old cloths, and twenty carts of wood charcoal. The weather is currently not too cold and if the victims go outside the city to chop up some firewood, it will be enough to survive until mid-spring.”

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County Magistrate Qi grasped the other’s hands, the rim of his eyes slightly red. He said with great emotion, “It is providential good luck that I have Brother Tian to help me, otherwise with me at the capital, I would have been too far to be able to help, and just what would have happened to the common people?”

County Deputy Tian replied, “This is originally this lower official’s duty, how can I dare to receive the da-ren’s praises? Fortunately, Qian’an was not badly affected, if we were hit as badly as the Yongping garrisons did, even if this official had the ability to reach the skies, it would have been impossible to handle.”

The duo praised each other for a while and the County Magistrate followed after him to check on the victims currently housed in the monastery: checking whether the congee was thick enough and whether the clothes the victims were wearing was thick or not. Just as they were looking over the situation as their subordinates handled matters, a person wearing a green cloak suddenly entered the courtyard. While the person’s stature could not be regarded as tall, his legs were long and he took large strides that carried along wind with each step. From the side, the tip of a snowy-white, slightly upturned nose was exposed, which was extremely bright. A name suddenly fell onto the tip of County Magistrate Qi’s tongue.

“Cui Xie.”

Cui Xie’s steps paused for a moment and he subconsciously glanced over. His eyes widened in surprise and cupped his hands in greeting, calling out: “Da-ren! Da-ren returned from the capital so quickly?”

County Magistrate Qi nodded and casually asked, “You are not studying at home, why did you run over here?” As he asked, he took the chance to size up Cui Xie’s appearance before him.

Although Cui Xie’s body was draped in a fur cloak, in one glance, one could discern that the material and fur were just merely ordinary goods worth a few taels of silver. But outside the gate of Official Cui’s Residence in the capital, the young master Qi Sheng had observed had been wearing a cloak made out of top-notch cloud brocade, and the decorative fur edges of the cloak were much better than Cui Xie’s. Even the servants next to that Young Master had been dressed in thick wool garments, the fabric also seeming to be brighter than the one he was looking at currently.

But while Qi Sheng was preoccupied about the quality of Cui Xie’s clothing, the person in question had already quickly walked up to them: “Greeting County Magistrate da-ren and County Deputy da-ren. This student had overheard from the clerks in the yamen that there was an insufficient amount of medicinal ingredients needed to expel the cold so I specially asked someone to send some over from Tongzhou, and just happened to deliver it just now.”

To be able to think of this, this was thanks to Colonel Xie, who had sent him baskets of nourishing medicinal ingredients last month. He had consumed them all after a spell and when people from the yamen came to solicit donations, he then thought to buy some medicinal ingredients and boil them for the victims to take to prevent illness. However, there were only a few pharmacies in Qian’an, and they were sold out after he bought a little bit. As such, he asked one of the younger clerks to head to Tongzhou and ask the clerks who had opened a branch over there to buy some medicinal ingredients.

County Magistrate Qi could not help but recall the image of that proud and extravagant Young Master standing outside Official Cui’s Residence. Then, he looked at the young man standing in front of him who seemed to be even more sensible and perceptive than adults. He only felt indignation at this disparity. However, despite that being the case, there was no such principle in disparaging one’s father and there was no such saying. So, he just sighed, calling Cui Xie to his side to ask, “You donated these medicinal ingredients?”

Cui Xie nodded: “Precisely so. At that time, this student had heard that the victims had no other choice but to temporarily stay at the monastery. Thinking of the cold weather and frozen ground, one is likely to fall ill, so I donated some medicinal ingredients. As it turns out, there were still some surplus silk cloths left behind in the new bookstore by the fabric shop, so I donated those too ….”

County Magistrate Qi smiled and warmly praised: “You have done well. During natural disasters, those with strength to spare ought to donate grains, money and medicine, to help one’s people. But, you are still just an ordinary commoner, if you were in my position…..if you were to occupy a position in the Imperial court, one cannot just donate money, grain, cloth and silk to help disaster victims, and there are many other things to consider. Look around, what do you see? Does anything come to mind?”

Upon seeing the two talking, County Deputy Tian and a few accompanying runners retreated and went to check on some of the older and weaker victims.

Cui Xie was not afraid of being tested, he had watched a lot of TV in the past: Generally, leaders would immediately fly to a stricken region to make an inspection. Soldiers and doctors would be stationed in the disaster area to provide relief and treatment, building tents and simple prefabricated buildings to resettle the victims. After that, the rest of the work consisted mainly of post-disaster reconstruction efforts. Ordinary people like Cui Xie in the modern era would donate some money, or donate some clothes, tents, mineral water and food….

He recalled such memories for a spell and then combined them with the principles of the current era. As long as it wasn’t a taboo in the Ming Dynasty, he said everything that came to mind.

County Magistrate Qi declined to comment and only said: “Although the earthquake had not severely impacted Qian’an, the disastrous situation stretching from the capital to Datong and Liaodong are extremely serious. No matter how good your idea is, if it cannot be used by the Imperial court, of what benefit will it be to the victims? It is only by occupying a position in the Imperial court and possessing enough authority that can one apply such thoughts to the nation and allow the common people under the skies to live in peace and work happily….” When he said this, he suddenly glanced at Cui Xie, his eyes filled with solemnity.

Cui Xie’s heart moved and he stored this sentence in his heart to mull and ponder over.

The people listening nearby didn’t think anything of it, but County Deputy Tian had vaguely heard the phrases “Common people under the skies” and “live in peace and work happily”. He came up and released chimes of flattery: “Da-ren is devoted to the people, truly a paragon for all officials.”

County Magistrate Qi also broke out into a grin and praised him back: “County Deputy Tian praises too much, these days, I have entirely relied on Tian xiong[1] to support the overall situation. Only then can this county survive the earthquake in a smooth and peaceful manner, and prevent the common people from becoming destitute or homeless.”

The two joked back and forth with each other and Qi da-ren glanced at Cui Xie and gently encouraged: “Go back and properly review. The first day of the Double Third Festival[2] is later this year. This Magistrate must make sacrificial offerings at both the civil and military temples before I can preside over the county examinations. There is still a month left, do not slack off.”

Having said this, he no longer paid attention to Cui Xie and continued to make his rounds as he inspected the victims

After Cui Xie said his farewells, he headed over to the receptionist monk he had met last time regarding the Diamond Sutra to inspect and accept the medicinal ingredients. As he tallied the things that the temple was deficient in, he repeatedly reflected over the words County Magistrate had said earlier : Occupying a position in the Imperial court will allow the common people under the skies to live in peace and work happily….

Interpreting this sentence, was this the so-called “Happiness and peace for the people of the world”? 

When Mencius visited the state of Qi, there was an episode where he said: “If the Emperor were to use me, would it be for the happiness of the people of Qi only? It would be for the happiness of the people of the whole kingdom.”

Footnotes:

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