Emperor Jingren’s plan was to use gain as a lure.

The new law promised enormous benefits for both merchants and farmers. The merchants didn’t lack for money; raising business taxes would indeed hurt their profits, but what the merchants cared about more than these minor losses was a glorious future for their children, their grandchildren, and future generations. They had money; money could buy many things, but it couldn’t buy rank. Even if some merchants could purchase an official position for a large sum of pure silver, these positions were meaningless, without true power or privilege, nothing but a balm for the emotions.

But it would be another thing for their descendants to be able to take part in the imperial examinations. When it came time for the court to choose talented individuals as usual, the sons of the merchant families would have futures as well.

Some immensely wealthy people out there were far more interested than Emperor Jingren in having this new law pass. They wouldn’t oppose it; instead, they would do everything in their power to clear away all obstacles so the new law could be enacted.

However, no amount of money could make the obstinate upright party change their minds. Someone had to come forward and oppose the upright party, and take on the whole burden of the reproaches of future scholars.

Emperor Jingren couldn’t take on this burden, but for the already notorious Chancellor Li, it meant nothing. His reputation was already so bad that, as long as he received sufficient inducements, he would go along with the emperor’s plans this once. Chancellor Li was entirely willing to bear this infamy and clash head on with the upright party to push through the new law.

Chancellor Li hadn’t spoken yet because he hadn’t received sufficient benefits. As soon as Emperor Jingren let word get out about the new law, infinite riches would naturally flow to Chancellor Li’s doorstep, and then everything would be easy.

Reasonably speaking, this sort of corruption ought to have been prohibited, but sometimes, if an emperor wanted to implement certain laws, he had to make use of such methods.

Emperor Jingren knew that in order to act in the best interests of the people, it was sometimes impossible to be a good ruler by the standards of historians. But as long as the people benefited, he was willing to be a bad ruler on occasion. In Emperor Jingren’s mind was a gauge: some principles he would not deviate from, but others he could bend in order to attain his goals.

Once Emperor Jingren had made his plans, he meant to let word get out in a couple of days. He couldn’t do it now, not right after Grand Secretary Lin’s display; first he had to settle the minds of the upright party. After Grand Secretary Lin recovered, when the upright party was convinced that they had scored a victory against the emperor by holding their own lives hostage, when they were numb from the preceding battle, that would be the time to carry out his plans.

But a common adage says that plans fall short of reality. Before Emperor Jingren could let word get out, the very next day at court, Grand Secretary Lin’s son, Lin Boyuan, a member of the Censorate, submitted a statement in support of Emperor Jingren.

Lin Boyuan had been the first place graduate of the palace exams three years ago, the Zhuangyuan. He was a talented essayist. His memorial to the throne was written with first-class style, meticulously well-reasoned, refuting point by point all the arguments Grand Secretary Lin had made the day before.

Censors did not normally dare to argue with civil officials, because they were too learned. With each sentence they cited authoritative sources to support their arguments; the great erudition behind their words made it impossible even to understand what they were saying. Emperor Jingren had been well educated, but listening to Grand Secretary Lin the day before, he had felt practically illiterate; he couldn’t understand a word. The upright party’s speeches were always full of “Thus spake Confucius”; when all they said made reference to the words of the sages, it was impossible to refute them.

But Lin Boyuan was his father’s son and then some. He too cited authoritative sources; he too quoted the words of the sages. But somehow he was able to rebut everything his father had said the day before. Some members of the upright party stood up to berate him for being an unfilial son, and he said with flawless aplomb that in the ranking of allegiances one owed, one’s sovereign was above one’s parents. How could they call him unfilial when he was obeying the decrees of his sovereign?

Lin Boyuan deserved his reputation as the foremost member of the censorate. Despite being a minor sixth-rank official, he left all the upright officials in court speechless. In sum, he fully supported Emperor Jingren, his father had rammed his head against a pillar yesterday because he was getting senile in his old age, and if there was nothing else do be done, His Majesty ought to send him home to grow yams. His son was here to take over.

Emperor Jingren was delighted.

Sitting on the dais, he made a close observation of Lin Boyuan’s countenance. Though he wasn’t an especially handsome man, he was scholarly and refined in manner. It was no wonder that when the top graduates of the imperial exams had paraded through the street three years ago, countless women had thrown flowers at the Zhuangyuan’s carriage; he was a fine young fellow.

Because of Lin Boyuan, the new law that had been quashed by Grand Secretary Lin yesterday was raised once again, and today Emperor Jingren was confident of success. But this struggle couldn’t be wrapped up in a day or two, so when the court session broke up, the civil officials’ arguments had yet to achieve anything.

After court, Lin Boyuan didn’t leave. He was asked by Emperor Jingren to stay in the palace for deliberations.

To guard against the walls having ears, Emperor Jingren sent even Eunuch Lian and the young eunuch Little Shunzi out of the room, leaving only his secret guards. But the secret guards were invisible to Lin Boyuan, so from his point of view, he was alone with Emperor Jingren. Lin Boyuan was thrilled!

“Your Majesty!” When the two of them were alone, Lin Boyuan fell to his knees and performed a profound obeisance. He extemporaneously composed an essay to express his admiration for Emperor Jingren; the resplendence of his rhetoric and the sincerity of his sentiments made Emperor Jingren wonder in spite of himself whether Lin Boyuan had written this essay in advance and memorized it. If it were truly composed on the spot, Emperor Jingren would have had second thoughts about putting his trust in Lin Boyuan. A person who could blurt out such a mass of praise, overblown to the point of being nauseating, must have a knack for flattery so great that he might be suspected of having poured all his talent into composition. This sort of person was well-suited for academics, but could he really translate his words into reality?

When Lin Boyuan was finally finished, Emperor Jingren drank some tea to steady his nerves, then said, “Your compositions are good, Subject Lin, but what our new law needs is not someone who will extol its virtues. We have practical goals to accomplish. It seemed to us earlier in court that you had considerable understanding of the new law. Might you share your views?”

As soon as he heard this, Lin Boyuan took something from his sleeve—a whole stack of paper, so thick that it made Emperor Jingren suspect that his sleeve contained a pocket universe. How else could he have kept so much paper in his sleeve mid-argument?

“Since I heard that Your Majesty was concerned about the new law, I worked through the night writing down my ideas about how it can be put into practice. I have not yet had time to arrange these thoughts into a memorial to submit to the Bureau of Communication for examination. It really is a little inappropriate to present it directly to Your Majesty like this.” As Lin Boyuan spoke, he presented the stack of paper.

Emperor Jingren was speechless.

Since Lin Boyuan was carrying these papers on his person despite not having arranged them into a memorial, he must have meant all along to evade procedure and present them directly to the emperor; yet he made it sound so nice. This Censor Lin was quite smooth. But he was also right; the majority of the Bureau of Communication belonged to the upright party. If they had intercepted this memorial and sent it back for corrections claiming that there was a formatting error, it was anyone’s guess when it would have reached Emperor Jingren’s desk. The Bureau of Communication wouldn’t dare fail to deliver a memorial, but they could have delayed, and kept on delaying, till the new law had come to nothing and the memorial had become meaningless.

When he cast an eye over the composition, Emperor Jingren was astonished. At present he had only a general idea about the new law; deciding how to implement it would require deliberation. But Lin Boyuan’s plan was a careful analysis of the background, benefits, and future impacts of the law, as well as potential abuses and ways to mitigate them. He had even considered the likelihood of a dramatic rise in the frequency of cheating in future exams and offered a systematic set of improvements to the current state of testing protocols.

At first Emperor Jingren was only skimming, but later he began to read in detail. He read for four hours without even drinking a drop of water. Lin Boyuan meanwhile had been standing there too long, and he had been bowing the whole time. His legs were beginning to shake.

Emperor Jingren was only brought back to himself by unbearable thirst. Seeing Lin Boyuan’s shaking legs, he immediately called for Lin Boyuan to be given a chair.

Eunuch Lian and Little Shunzi came in, looking grim. One poured tea for Emperor Jingren while the other brought a chair for Lin Boyuan.

Little Shunzi was youthful and handsome; normally there were two small dimples in his round, smiling face. Emperor Jingren liked to have Little Shunzi around him; looking at him put him in a good mood. But now Little Shunzi was looking at Lin Boyuan with a grimace, while Lin Boyuan had a provocative stare trained on Little Shunzi.

Meanwhile, as he poured tea for Emperor Jingren, Eunuch Lian caught the scent of familiar incense. He glanced out of the corner of his eye at the stack of papers on Emperor Jingren’s desk; the smell was coming from that.

All the incense in the palace had been confiscated, but there was still incense outside the palace. Who knew what kind of dreams the emperor would be having after spending so much time reading these scented papers?

Eunuch Lian quietly cast down his eyes, finished pouring the tea, and withdrew.