GBP Chapter 351 Searching for Talented Individuals Across the Land
Chapter 351 Searching for Talented Individuals Across the Land
Shi Wanxia clutched the counting rods soaked with cold sweat in her sleeve, and suddenly felt her mind clear.
The ivory tablet bestowed by His Majesty three days ago is still painfully hard on my palm. Among the mountain of reports, the shortage of officials in the prefectures and the predicament of young ladies are strangely intertwined at this moment.
She suddenly knelt down, her jade hairpin striking the blue bricks with a dull thud: "Your Highness, I must take my leave now. I have just thought of a good plan that must be implemented immediately!"
Lin Chuying's pearl tassels swayed in her hair as she grabbed Wanxia's slender shoulder and said, "Wanxia, don't be afraid, I'll go with you!"
She turned to her personal maid and instructed, "Someone, go and inform His Highness the Crown Prince and the Princess Consort of Dong'an that I have important business to attend to with Lord Tong and must take my leave now."
Before he could finish speaking, a gust of wind lifted the bamboo curtain, and the corner of Shen Yanzhou's black python-patterned robe swept across the threshold.
The Crown Prince stood with his hands behind his back, the jade pendant with dragon patterns at his waist clinking lightly with each step, adding a touch of majesty that was even more imposing than the guards' swords: "No need. Since Lord Shi has already come up with a solution, then the Crown Princess and I will naturally go with you."
The ladies and noblewomen of the entire garden fell to the ground like startled birds, their jade pendants jingling and shattering.
Shen Yanzhou gazed at the wild grass stubbornly growing in the cracks of the blue bricks, and suddenly recalled the sigh of her father, the emperor, as he stroked the tattered scroll of "Admonitions for Women" during the morning court session, the memorial with vermilion annotations in his sleeve still carrying the scent of ambergris: "Ladies and young ladies, please rise."
"I remember that Miss Cui and Miss Wang are quite talented writers, and I think they can be of help. You two should come along too!"
Cui Yashu stood up, clutching the plain silk handkerchief with crescent-shaped marks left by fingernails.
She caught a glimpse of Wang Shiwan's trembling hand hidden in her wide sleeves, and suddenly realized that today's encounter was even more thrilling than the account books in her third uncle's study.
As the group passed through the hanging flower gate, Shen Yanzhou suddenly stopped and pointed to the screen wall: "Lord Shi, is there a plan?"
"Your Highness, a 'Gynecology Department' may be established."
Shi Wanxia unfolded the crumpled counting rod diagram in her sleeve, "testing arithmetic, law, and accounting, and selecting the best to fill the positions of registrars in the Ministry of Finance."
Before she could finish speaking, the jade pendant with two fish on Lin Chuying's waist had already fallen onto the stone slab—this was a family heirloom that the Crown Princess's maternal family was forced to hand over when the Empress Dowager issued an imperial edict forbidding women from interfering in politics.
Shen Yanzhou stroked the dragon pattern on his waist, recalling the secret memorial hidden in the imperial study: "Your Majesty, due to the floods in Jiangnan, the chief clerks of each prefecture all claim that 'women are not allowed to handle documents,' resulting in chaos in the disaster relief accounts..."
He suddenly chuckled: "A fine gynecology department. I will request permission at the morning court tomorrow."
As dusk settled over the palace walls, the group had already unfurled a three-zhang-long scroll in the side hall of the East Palace.
Cui Yashu wrote down the vacancies in each prefecture, Wang Shiwan checked the numbers against the Ministry of Revenue's accounts, and Lin Chuying ground the peacock inkstone bestowed by the emperor until it was filled with the fragrance of ink.
Shen Yanzhou leaned against the dragon-carved pillar, flipping through old precedents. The candlelight cast his shadow on the "Admonitions for Women" screen, making it seem as if a thousand-year-old rule had been torn apart.
"Brother Crown Prince, how do we solve this problem?"
Princess Ninghua chased after them, holding abacuses, her forehead ornament getting disheveled from the friction.
Shen Yanzhou noticed the grass clippings on her skirt and suddenly remembered when his mother was scolded by the Empress Dowager for "failing to educate her daughter properly" when she was young, the spilled rouge stained half of the "Inner Rules" red.
He took the counting rods and drew a crisscrossing pattern on the paper: "First, find the least common multiple..."
As the drumbeat startled the roosting crows, Cui Yashu suddenly pointed at the map and chuckled, "The Cui family of Qinghe has twenty-three daughters, all of whom are proficient in arithmetic."
Wang Shiwan's pen paused on Jiangzhou Prefecture: "The Wang family has a niece who once worked with her father in the canal transport office."
Lin Chuying gazed at the densely packed list of names on the wall, like a spider web, and recalled the sighs of those trapped by embroidery frames at the Crown Princess banquet this morning.
Shen Yanzhou pressed the vermilion brush heavily onto the blank space, the ink spreading like red plum blossoms: "Draft the decree. Tomorrow morning at court, I want all the civil and military officials to see it—"
He glanced at the young ladies holding pens at their desks, the candlelight reflecting the sparkling light in their eyes. "The daughters of our dynasty can also wield pens to bring peace to the world."
The night rain began to fall outside the window, pattering on the glazed tiles.
This revolution, which began with three arithmetic problems, was like a thunderclap splitting the dark night, quietly ushering in a new chapter deep within the imperial palace.
The candlelight flickered on the dragon-shaped pillar, casting a long shadow of Shen Yanzhou.
Lin Chuying's fingertips, gripping the silk handkerchief, turned white; the peacock inkstone on the table had already turned to black ink. "Your Highness," she said, "please reconsider. If this is mentioned in the morning court, then..."
Her voice was broken by the sudden gust of wind outside the window, and she vaguely recalled the scene three years ago when the Crown Prince was punished by being forced to kneel in the Wenhua Hall for remonstrating with the salt administration reform.
Shi Wanxia slowly rolled up the abacus chart, the ivory tablet still bearing traces of ink she had just ground: "Your Highness, I think it is advisable to go to the palace first and explain to His Majesty."
She recalled the day before yesterday in the Imperial Study, when His Majesty's temples suddenly turned white as he looked at the military reports from the border.
"With the war in the Northwest raging and the grain transport in the South in ruins, perhaps Your Majesty..."
"My father hates his subjects forming factions the most."
Shen Yanzhou suddenly spoke, and the pearl on his jade crown swayed slightly with the movement.
"If the proposal to establish a gynecology department were suddenly raised during the morning court session, the impeachment memorials from the Censorate would pile up to the threshold of the Qianqing Palace."
He stroked the tiger tally left by the late emperor in his sleeve, recalling the report from the secret agent the day before that the Minister of Rites was rallying eighteen censors to bring up the revision of the "Admonitions for Women" again.
Princess Ninghua suddenly looked up from the pile of account books, her butterfly hairpin askew: "Then let's sneak off to see Father! Just like when I was little, I would bring the candied plums I had hidden to Mother!"
Her words silenced the room, but Cui Yashu chuckled softly at that moment: "Your Highness, why not copy these three arithmetic problems a hundred times and let the sons of officials in the capital all try them?"
Wang Shiwan clicked the abacus away, then suddenly pointed to a page in the Ministry of Revenue's account book: "The disaster relief report personally approved by His Majesty half a month ago, the loss figures reported by the Prefectural Governor of the Capital Prefecture, differ from the total figures from all the prefectures by 37,000 strings of cash."
"If we could find someone skilled in arithmetic..." Before she could finish speaking, Shen Yanzhou suddenly stood up, his python-patterned robe sweeping the wolf-hair brush off the table.
"Lord Shi, which people would you like to invite?"
His gaze was intense as he suddenly recalled the secret memorial hidden in the imperial study—that salt merchants from Jiangnan were colluding with pirates, and yet no one in the court could unravel the truth behind the affair.
Shi Wanxia unfolded the yellowed list from her sleeve, her fingertips tracing over a few names: "Pei Yan, the second son of the Vice Minister of Works, who improved the dam calculation method during his flood control work in Jiangnan;"
"There is also Su Mingshu, the adopted daughter of the Vice Minister of the Court of Judicial Review. Her book, 'Essentials of Criminal Law,' is a masterpiece for its meticulous analysis of legal provisions."
She paused, then added, "Most importantly, I would like to invite Xie Qingwu, the daughter of the Grand Secretary."
The teacup in Lin Chuying's hand suddenly tilted, and the scalding tea spread dark stains on the Persian carpet.
The name Xie Qingwu reminded her of the talented woman who had amazed everyone at the palace banquet last month with her poem "Xuanji Tu," only to be slapped in public by her father the next day because "women should not trespass on literary gatherings."
"Send someone to deliver the test questions overnight."
Shen Yanzhou took off the jade pendant with a dragon pattern from his waist and pressed it heavily onto the blank document.
"Tomorrow at 9:00 AM, a martial arts contest will be held at the East Palace training ground. Anyone, regardless of gender, who can solve these three questions will be granted an audience with the Emperor."
He gazed at the inky night outside the window and recalled the way the women who had been turned away peered out from behind the walls when he accompanied his father on an inspection tour of the Imperial Academy in his childhood.
When the night watchman's drum startled the roosting crows, Cui Yashu had already transcribed three hundred exam papers with her maids.
Wang Shiwan sealed the secret letter in a bamboo tube and handed it to the Crown Prince's assassins.
Princess Ninghua, biting the pen, suddenly drew a phoenix with outstretched wings on the rice paper, but then hurriedly changed it into a gentle peony.
Lin Chuying stood under the corridor, watching Shen Yanzhou's departing figure.
The moonlight overlapped his shadow with the totem on the dragon pillar, and in a daze, she seemed to see the pearl pendant on the phoenix crown twinkling along with the stars in the night sky.
Is this scheme, kept secret from His Majesty, a sharp blade to break the deadlock, or a dagger to pierce the Crown Prince?
On the other side of the palace wall, Grand Secretary Xie Chongnian stroked his daughter's swollen hand, which had been beaten with a ruler, and looked at the arithmetic problem that had suddenly appeared on the table. A strange light appeared in his cloudy eyes.
Meanwhile, Pei Yan unfolded the examination paper under the oil lamp in the Ministry of Works' office, while Su Mingshu hid the examination questions in the interlayer of the "Tang Code Commentary," a meaningful smile playing on her lips.
A contest concerning the fate of the imperial court and the destiny of women is quietly unfolding under the moonlight.