"Abolish the imperial examinations?"
The Ganlu Hall fell into complete silence.
To make things easier for everyone to understand, the descendant speaking through the Light Screen even added a simple diagram.
As the three waves of educational reform unfolded in sequence, symbols representing academies began appearing across the territory of the Northern Song. By the time of the third reform under the Chongning era, those symbols had multiplied until they were almost densely packed.
Arrows illustrated the effect of the Three-Tier School System with blunt clarity.
Blue markers representing county schools extended arrows toward purple prefectural schools. From there, more arrows pointed toward the golden icon of the Biyong Academy, which in turn sent a single arrow toward the red symbol of the Imperial University. Layer by layer, a finely meshed academic network spread across the entire Northern Song realm.
Points of light flickered across the territory, gathered by these schools, transferred upward step by step, and finally funneled into the capital. The whole network pulsed faintly, as if it were breathing.
Li Shimin stepped forward, studying the display closely. At last, with a tone that was half admiration and half lament, he said,
"When learning flourishes to its utmost, factional strife flourishes alongside it. Policies reach into every minor detail of governance, and yet…"
He stopped abruptly, as if something had struck him mid-thought. Then, without warning, he added,
"This Emperor Huizong clearly knew nothing of warfare, nor did he understand hunting."
The civil and military officials of Zhenguan exchanged puzzled looks.
Only Empress Zhangsun immediately grasped his meaning and gently followed his line of thought.
"Does Your Majesty mean that governing education and reforming institutions is like commanding an army or hunting in the wild? That it demands a struggle where life and death are on the line?"
Li Shimin glanced at her with approval and nodded.
"The Song emperor sat high in the halls of power, issuing orders for prefectures and counties to divert granary lands to support official schools, yet never explained how those lands were to be taken or managed."
"A decree to abolish the examinations, funneling all paths to office into the schools alone. How could those who had long profited from the examination system not harbor resentment?"
"This sort of educational reform is like marching into battle without provisions, or promising rewards before a decisive fight but distributing them unfairly. Disorder is inevitable."
"And all this while foreign enemies lurk at the borders…"
Li Shimin fell silent, unwilling to continue. What followed was the Jingkang catastrophe and the fall of the Northern Song.
Later generations rarely spelled out those horrors in detail. Yet even from scattered hints, one could sense how utterly inhuman the suffering had been.
"Your Majesty's insight is deeply thought-provoking," Zhangsun Wuji offered smoothly.
Unlike Zhangsun Wuji's easy flattery, Du Ruhui and Fang Xuanling both frowned, turning Li Shimin's words over in their minds.
The emperor had ascended the throne only five years earlier, yet when observing Northern Song politics, he seemed quicker to pierce the heart of the matter than even these veteran ministers steeped in civil governance.
Analyzing political reform through the logic of military formations was unexpectedly coherent. When paired with the later Song factional struggles, where rival camps twisted texts and fabricated charges in a fight to the death, the two men felt a heavy weight settle in their chests.
[Lightscreen]
[It should be noted that Emperor Huizong's abolition of the imperial examinations does not, by itself, prove brilliance or stupidity. Rather, it resembles flooring the accelerator on the road of reform.
Thanks to the Song dynasty's unusually strong civil culture, debates over the merits and flaws of the Imperial University system versus the examination system ran through every wave of educational reform.
During the Qingli reforms, Emperor Renzong ordered officials to discuss education. Ouyang Xiu and others submitted memorials criticizing the examinations and, for the first time, proposed the Three-Tier School System. At the time, however, it was not adopted.
Under Wang Anshi's Xining reforms, the New and Old factions clashed fiercely over the defects of both examinations and the Imperial University, neither yielding an inch.
The most unusual period came during the Yuanyou era, when Emperor Zhezong ascended the throne and Empress Dowager Gao held power. The Old Faction gained dominance and nearly abolished the schools altogether. Led by Su Shi, the abolitionists showed extreme disdain for the Imperial University, arguing that if sages were to return, they would surely have their own methods for selecting talent. Why rely on schools at all? The century-old examination system, they claimed, could not be altered.
In contrast, Su Song, who supported the Imperial University, offered a more grounded view. He was the first to emphasize that selecting officials should prioritize actual conduct and practical ability, and he challenged the examinations directly. If they tested only literary skill, how could they measure real action?
The most farsighted opinion came from Lü Gongzhu during the second reform. At the height of the examination system under Emperor Shenzong, Lü proposed building schools first while allowing both systems to operate in parallel. Each year, the number of officials selected through schools would increase, while those chosen through examinations would decrease. Over one or two decades, a smooth transition could be achieved. Unfortunately, escalating factional conflict buried this proposal.
Why did Huizong choose such an extreme approach?
Modern knowledge tells us that reform is fundamentally a redistribution of interests.
But in a feudal system, top-down reform is different. Reforms launched by imperial authority are, at their core, negotiations between entrenched interests.
New policies seek national strength, elite satisfaction, and personal benefit all at once. That is simply unrealistic. In every reform, it is the common people who are hurt.
When the people could no longer be squeezed for resources, the New Faction, having exhausted all room for compromise, could only move against the Old Faction directly. The examinations were abolished.
Looking back at Song history, the inherent weakness of feudal reform meant that every reform ultimately turned into further extraction from below. Corresponding to the three educational reforms, the first major surge in miscellaneous taxes occurred under Emperor Renzong.
The second surge came under Emperor Huizong, even without repealing earlier taxes. The misery of common households and the land consolidation of great landlords are easy to imagine.
The extreme corruption of Huizong's reign under Cai Jing is well known from textbooks, so it needs no elaboration here. The most famous example remains the "Birthday Tribute" in Water Margin.
Although Water Margin is a literary adaptation of the Song Jiang uprising, the Birthday Tribute tax was real, and in Huizong's time it was only a drop in the bucket.
With the examinations gone, the Imperial University system rapidly decayed. Corruption had already appeared during Shenzong's Yuanfeng era. In the Yu Fan lawsuit, Yu Fan denounced the Three-Tier System as advancement through power or bribery, prompting an imperial investigation that implicated even high ministers and the Kaifeng prefect. The resulting Imperial University scandal shocked the court.
After Huizong abolished the examinations, the schools soon strayed from their original goal of selecting talent by conduct. The Eight Virtues standard favored the wealthy over the poor, the young over the old, the noble over the humble.
With advancement relying solely on the school system, bribery and competition exploded. Academic corruption became rampant, and in terms of fairness, the system fared far worse than the examinations it replaced.
Local prefectural and county schools faced severe financial strain. Landlords colluding with officials to seize school lands became common. Sixteen years later, the examinations were reinstated.
In the end, the Chongning reforms also failed. Yet Huizong did inherit elements of earlier reforms, elevate Wang Anshi to near-saintly status, and push Northern Song cultural governance to its final form.
Looking back at the three reforms, one could list a hundred flaws. But Wang Anshi's declaration, "Heaven's changes need not be feared, ancestral laws need not be followed, and public opinion need not be heeded," remains a truly epoch-making idea.
Wang Anshi lit the fire of reform and education in the Northern Song, though even he likely did not know how far it could go.
After all, as the teacher once said, reform is not a dinner party.
Relying solely on a single imperial decree from the top, hoping to redistribute interests without bloodshed, was doomed to fail from the start.]
Zhuge Liang felt his mouth grow dry. He lifted his teacup and drained it in one gulp, yet it still was not enough. In the end, he stared blankly at the empty cup in his hands.
His face remained calm, but inside, waves crashed and thunder roared. Whether it was Wang Anshi's audacious words or the later commentator's clear-eyed analysis of reform, neither allowed him any peace.
That brief "casual talk" shook him more deeply than the Candle Shadow and Axe Sound ever had.
Everywhere it seemed to speak of education, yet everywhere it also seemed to speak of something else entirely.
The details invited reflection. The bold statements demanded contemplation.
At last, Zhuge Liang turned his head and met Pang Tong's wry smile.
"Is there truly no perfect solution?" Pang Tong asked bluntly.
"Fan Zhongyan was a man of lofty integrity. Wang Anshi, too, was willing to sacrifice himself for the realm," Zhuge Liang said, naming them with genuine feeling.
"But neither of us can expect all under heaven to possess the hearts and ambitions of sages."
Pang Tong fell silent.
Lu Su, standing beside him, was far more animated. He laughed and said, "If everyone were a sage, what need would there be for us to toil like this?"
Now overseeing the Imperial University at Liu Bei and Zhuge Liang's request, Lu Su felt as though a new world had opened before him. So many teaching methods made him itch to return and test them at once.
His lighthearted remark eased the mood. After all, from what the Light Screen showed, even later generations could not make everyone a sage.
And besides, Zhuge Liang reflected, whether it was the tangled relations of later China and its neighbors, or the almost uncanny power of future technology, such problems would only grow more complex.
Fa Zheng lifted his head from his notes and scoffed.
"When emperors and ministers pursue reform, it is the common people who suffer."
"They speak of eternal sage-kingship while taxes and levies crush livelihoods."
"Such reforms may benefit later ages, but for the people of the time, it might have been better not to reform at all."
This struck a chord even with Zhang Fei and Ma Chao.
Ma Chao hesitated, then said, "If that is so, why not make the great families contribute their surplus wealth for the good of the realm, earning virtuous names in the process?"
Zhang Fei burst out laughing, slapping Ma Chao on the shoulder.
"The Song talked pretty, but they would not even cut a single miscellaneous tax."
"Ask those families to give up their wealth, Mengqi, and you might as well ask them to die. It would be simpler."
Liu Bei smiled at the staggering Ma Chao and nodded.
"Yide's words are crude, but consider Emperor Wu's calculation and denunciation policies. They offer a useful comparison."
He sighed.
"We saw much of Tang history before, lamenting their failure to learn from earlier dynasties."
"But now, seeing Song history…"
After a pause, Liu Bei tore off a slip of paper, wrote quickly, rolled it into a ball, and flicked it into the Light Screen.
[Server Chat Log]
[Liu Bei: The Song bled the people dry like this. Does it not echo Li Erfeng's old words about ruler and people being like boat and water?]
The moment the message appeared on the Light Screen, Li Shimin snapped out of his thoughts. His eyebrow twitched.
He had already said that "Your Majesty" would do just fine. Why was it still so hard to get right?
Still, considering that Emperor Zhaolie was Zhuge Liang's lord, and by seniority alone centuries his elder, Li Shimin decided to let it slide for now.
[Li Shimin: Anyone capable of writing "Qinyuanchun" truly stands alone across the ages. In that regard, I fall short.]
Those words on reform were plain, almost blunt, yet they lingered in the mind. In just eight characters, they laid bare the life-or-death struggle between old and new factions.
Li Shimin found himself sharing much the same view, though his own way of speaking tended to circle the point rather than strike it cleanly.
[Fang Xuanling: "Selecting officials by conduct and substance." Such words deserve to be inscribed at the National Academy.
Du Ruhui: If it is to be displayed in schools, perhaps it should be adjusted slightly. For scholars, should not conduct come first?
Wei Zheng: Still too wordy. This reminds me of the Classic of Documents. Knowing is not difficult; acting is. To achieve true substance, one must both know and act.
Fang Xuanling: Then what should be written instead?
Du Ruhui: Please enlighten us.
Li Shimin: Unity of knowledge and action, to ground the people in substance. How does that sound?]
The three ministers considered it only briefly before reaching consensus.
[Du Ruhui: With Your Majesty's inscription, the students will have plenty to argue over. What is knowledge, what is action, what is substance, and what does it mean to ground the people?]
For the Zhenguan court, the Tang dynasty was still newly founded, with countless urgent matters awaiting attention. Arguing over reform or the abolition of examinations held little immediate value.
Far more practical was drawing on the strengths of Song educational reforms to reinforce Tang civil governance.
…
On the Light Screen, Liu Bei's lone comment left Zhao Kuangyin somewhat embarrassed.
Other matters aside, the Tang and Song were separated by barely a century. To forget the lessons of Zhenguan so easily was indeed inexcusable.
He wrote on the stone table, assuring that he would not forget Emperor Zhaolie's reminder.
Seeing his brother's eagerness, Zhao Guangyi spoke as if defending him, though in truth he was flaunting his own cleverness.
"Why worry, Brother? Our Song scholars also say that ancestral laws need not be followed."
"What Liu Bei cites from Tang history may not apply either."
Zhao Pu opened his mouth as if to speak, then closed it, leaving the matter for the emperor himself.
Zhao Kuangyin turned his head, his expression dark yet layered. Zhao Guangyi, skilled at reading faces, caught flashes of surprise, hesitation, reluctance, and finally resignation.
"Are you truly foolish," Zhao Kuangyin asked, "or merely pretending?"
Zhao Guangyi was baffled but answered carefully, "Your servant brother is favored by Your Majesty. That is enough."
Zhao Kuangyin shook his head sincerely.
"If you were not foolish, how could you say what you just did?"
He wondered privately whether those earlier blows had rattled his brother's head after all.
Setting that aside, Zhao Kuangyin issued an order.
"When Li Yu is captured, treat him with courtesy. Summon Qian Chu as well. Have them come together to Bianliang."
The lesson from the future was clear enough.
Education costs money.
Li Yu and Qian Chu could surely spare a little.