Chapter Seventy-Six: The Rise and Fall of the World

No matter how meticulously one plans, it is impossible to foresee every detail. A single, seemingly insignificant thread can unravel the entire tapestry—a minor oversight or a neglected link can set off a chain reaction. Just like when Zhen Qian forgot about the Zhen family’s private academy, news of it somehow reached the ears of the clan patriarch. With someone like that getting involved, it was hard to say whether their efforts would ultimately come to nothing.

Zhen Qian himself was at a loss for words to describe his feelings about such an outcome. After all, his way of thinking from the future had not fully integrated into the workings of a great clan like the Zhen family; mistakes were perhaps inevitable.

After discussing the possible consequences with Wang Qun, Zhen Qian realized that since the Zhen patriarch had been disturbed, he, as the central figure in the matter, could no longer avoid meeting him. There was no escaping a visit to the patriarch—he would have to hear his opinions in person.

Having settled things with Wang Qun, Zhen Qian decided that he would return to the Zhen family estate in three days. If all went as expected, he would pay his respects to the patriarch in the old family residence.

Despite having adopted more than a dozen sons, Zhen Qian found his role as foster father surprisingly light. He was ill-suited to teach the Four Books and Five Classics, and the remnants of memory from his previous life allowed him to barely decipher some archaic texts. Even though he had studied the Analects in his time, explaining them was another matter entirely—his page boy Wang You was probably a better tutor than him. Luckily, no one came to him for advice on essays, for he truly wouldn’t know how to respond.

Fortunately, everyone knew that he had not taken the imperial exam as an aspiring scholar but rather as a candidate in mathematics. For someone who had always dealt with numbers, this was no challenge at all. He was confident that his retained mathematical skills would suffice.

When he adopted these children, Zhen Qian had never expected to cultivate scholars or philosophers. The elderly men assisting him in teaching were not even as knowledgeable as the private tutors at the academy; the goal was merely to ensure these children could recognize and write a few more characters.

In these times, literacy was a rare privilege. Most people were illiterate—anyone who could read a few words was considered a person of status.

Zhen Qian would occasionally step in as a stand-in teacher, but he taught not the classics, but arithmetic, which he was familiar with. He also brought in a collection of historical works—Records of the Grand Historian, Book of Han, even legal codes like the Tang Penal Code. Thankfully, the rigid philosophies of Zhu Xi and Cheng Yi had not yet taken hold, or he would have been branded a heretic long ago.

In this era, being a foster child was nothing shameful, but most such children were little better than household servants and lived in constant fear. At first, these children were nervous and uneasy, especially after being taken from the city to an unfamiliar mountain valley. But after a month, they found life here akin to paradise. They who had never eaten their fill discovered they could not only eat their fill but enjoy a variety of delicious dishes and meats. In a month, they had all grown plumper.

A man is nothing without his word. Though Zhen Qian had made grand promises when adopting these children, at first they had nothing to believe in. But after a month, when those promises were fulfilled, the children gradually accepted him as their foster father and became motivated in all they did.

The regimented, almost military daily schedule—harsh in Zhen Qian’s eyes—had worried him at first. Every day before dawn, they rose for morning reading and drill, then after breakfast, they attended class, practiced their writing, and copied out essays. Afterwards, the boys and girls separated: the girls learned needlework and cooking, while the boys practiced riding, archery, and physical training, often helping with various chores. They rose at dawn and were not permitted to sleep until late at night; apart from meals and rest, their days were packed from start to finish.

When the dozen children stood in neat rows before him, Zhen Qian was overwhelmed by a feeling he could not name. These children were like blank sheets of paper—far easier to shape than the minds of grown Tang people. They were, without doubt, the finest canvases on which to paint his vision.

No one found it strange that Zhen Qian had not hired a proper private tutor for these children. After all, education was a luxury, unaffordable for ordinary families. It was not only the loss of a laborer, but also the costs of tuition, brush, ink, paper, and books—these alone could cripple a household. It took the resources of four or five people to support a single child’s education. That did not even include the expenses of socializing and making connections, which were comparable to sending a child abroad in modern times. In the Tang dynasty, where productivity was low, the most talented children were quickly absorbed by the great aristocratic families. This explains why, in early Tang times, the aristocracy monopolized the channels of officialdom.

Unlike modern times, when many children grow tired of school, here the opportunity to study was so rare that Zhen Qian hardly needed to encourage them, much less lecture them about lofty ideals. If he did not force them to go to bed at night, who knows what wild things they might attempt—boring holes in walls to steal light to study, or tying their hair to roof beams to keep from dozing off.

That day, Zhen Qian was reading Chen Shou’s Records of the Three Kingdoms to the children. In this era, Luo Guanzhong’s Romance of the Three Kingdoms had yet to be written, and Zhen Qian had no interest in penning a Tang version. He simply felt that reading history was a more direct route to understanding life’s truths than Confucian classics. It required no moralizing and lent itself to lively discussion.

“Foster Father, what does it mean that the empire, long divided, must unite; long united, must divide?”

Perhaps influenced unconsciously by the later novel, Zhen Qian sometimes quoted famous lines. “The fate of the empire, you ask?” He did not wish to force their understanding, so after some thought, he replied, “You’ve all read Sima Qian’s Records of the Grand Historian. From the Xia, Shang, and Zhou dynasties to Qin Shi Huang, Han Wu Di, and now the Tang, every dynasty began and ended with great turmoil. That is the fate of the empire.”

“Why must it be that way, Foster Father? Why can’t unity last forever?”

Zhen Qian looked approvingly at the child who asked—only an innocent mind could pose such a question. But he did not wish to answer just yet. “That’s a very profound question. Many great scholars have pondered it, and there are many different answers. When you have finished reading the Records of the Grand Historian, you’ll have your own ideas. We’ll discuss it again then.”

Zhen Qian also selected works such as the Classic of Mountains and Seas and Wandering Beyond for the children to read together. When they came to the passage, “In the northern sea there is a fish, its name is Kun. The Kun is so large, no one knows how many thousand li it spans. It transforms into a bird, the Peng, whose back is likewise beyond measure…” the children would begin to dream of one day journeying to the Eastern Sea in search of the legendary great Peng. Whether they would return disappointed, only time would tell.