Section 16

Naturally, Gu Yanwu's administrative proposals met with fierce opposition from officials both inside and outside the court. Yet, despite this intensity, the matter unfolded entirely in accordance with traditional Chinese political procedures.

The ministers' primary reservation concerned the attitude of Lin Feng. Lin Feng's stance on the issue remained rather inscrutable. Viewed through the lens of Chinese political tradition, the political proposal to delegate the powers of minting currency and regulating the empire's native banks and financial houses to the Jin-Hui financial consortium could be described as "perverse and absurd." Many could hardly believe their eyes upon first reading it. Consequently, out of consideration for public opinion, although the proposal was put forward by Gu Yanwu, the Prince of Han did not make any official statement on it. Nevertheless, everyone was well aware that unless the Prince of Han harbored specific intentions regarding this matter, no matter how advantageous it might theoretically be, it would have forever remained pigeonholed in the Zhongnanhai Study. Now that these proposals had been made public through the imperial gazette, it signified that the Prince of Han must have taken an extraordinary interest in the affair.

In the political commentary of the court, Lin Feng was regarded as an "ambitious monarch." What is an ambitious monarch? From the perspective of historical allusions, this term carries more praise than criticism and is often considered an honorable designation in many contexts. The traits of such a monarch include being proactive, adept at managing subordinates, possessing exceptional political acumen, maintaining a crystal-clear understanding of the grand strategy, and being notoriously stubborn. Once they formed an opinion, it was generally exceedingly difficult for other ministers to sway them. This was the positive side. The negative side was that their minds were unfathomable and their moods mercurial. Most terrifying of all, an ambitious monarch was the least afraid of executing people.

At the very outset, these officials had harbored lingering anxieties. Traditionally, no matter how capable "former dynasty loyalist ministers" might be, and regardless of the great achievements they accomplished, they could easily be struck down with the stigma of being "turncoat officials," rarely coming to a good end. The reason was none other than their acts of surrender and betrayal of their former masters.

They were completely different from figures like Zhou Peigong, Li Guangdi, and Chen Menglei. When Li Guangdi and Chen Menglei pledged allegiance to the Prince of Han, they were both minor, obscure officials. According to convention, this status could be considered as "the greatest hermit living in court." Therefore, upon their fateful meeting of minds with monarch Lin Feng, they immediately pledged unwavering loyalty and accomplished many earth-shattering feats, ultimately "becoming famous throughout the empire overnight," with no one accusing them of a lapse in moral integrity.

The concept of moral integrity among the Chinese also possesses a latent scale, where responsibilities and obligations are weighed to the finest detail. A minor official rebelling is not equivalent to betraying one's master for glory; hence, Xiao He was not a villain. Conversely, when an official attained the rank of provincial governor or administrative commissioner, it constituted a case of "profound imperial grace," making betrayal impermissible. Any violation would inevitably draw public condemnation, and even centuries later, they would inevitably be censured by historians in the annals of history.

Zhang Shuyu belonged to this latter category. Before defecting to the Han court, he had been an official of the bogus Qing regime. Starting his career as a Shujishi, he successively held posts as an academician of the Grand Secretariat, imperial lecturer, head academician of the Hanlin Academy, and vice minister of the Ministry of Personnel—a thoroughly proper and high-ranking imperial official. Furthermore, the Qing court had indeed treated him with utmost benevolence and righteousness. His official career followed the extremely traditional "path of a prime minister," with two successive emperors of the Qing court grooming him as a prime minister-in-training. Therefore, under such social circumstances, his betrayal was heavily criticized, and the pressure he faced in life must have been immense.

Yet now, he had stepped forward to become the first to question the memorials endorsed by Lin Feng. This was highly abnormal. Upon first seeing the memorial, Lin Feng did indeed feel a rather bizarre sensation. To be fair, Lin Feng had treated these surrendered officials of the former Qing remarkably well. As matters stood, those officials left behind by the Qing court who were willing to surrender were, provided they possessed ability, occupying lofty and powerful positions. The head of the recent court restructuring committee, Li Fu, was a surrendered official. In addition, current high-ranking officials such as Chen Tingjing, Minister of Revenue, and Xu Xueqian, Minister of Rites, were also surrendered officials. Furthermore, individuals with high capability and regional administrative experience, such as Zhang Ying and Zhang Shuyu, were appointed as powerful frontier viceroys, trusted implicitly and without a shred of doubt. To extend such courtesy and imperial favor was exceedingly rare throughout Chinese history.

Only after carefully perusing the entire text did Lin Feng grasp the situation and realize his initial misjudgment. Zhang Shuyu indeed had solid backing when he dared to submit this memorial. Zhang Shuyu was the Governor of Nurgan. As is well known, the Nurgan region was economically barren, its people fierce and unyielding, and its ethnic minority tribes numerous. Within the current borders of the empire, it could be described as the most difficult region to govern. Originally, according to Lin Feng's thoughts—since this region had historically been one of the sources of warfare for China—he had intended to dispatch Tang Bin, a capable general, there to accomplish great things. However, the consequence of doing so would be the injection of massive amounts of silver into frontier construction. As the nation was not yet unified, circumstances did not permit such a move. Consequently, upon the advice of his ministers, he temporarily shelved the plan and instead selected a capable, old-school senior official to pacify and rehabilitate the region properly.

This was how Zhang Shuyu came to be governor. His jurisdiction was exceptionally complex, and because it was a frontier province, his authority was immense. Due to ongoing unrest, Nurgan Military Commissioner Ma Ying was frequently ordered to mobilize troops on campaigns, meaning that virtually all civil and military grandees within the province were subject to the governor's command. Presently, besides managing provincial civil affairs and livelihood, he could also dispatch three elite brigades out on bandit-suppression missions. He was truly endowed with both civil and military authority, making him a veritable "regional warlord." Such lavish favor and trust left Zhang Shuyu overwhelmingly grateful, prompting him to apply himself with utmost dedication upon taking office.

There was a reason why he was referred to as an old-school official. Ever since Lin Feng established his rule in Beijing, he had promoted a series of policies that liberated commerce and industry and encouraged regional exchanges, successively abolishing numerous population-restricting policies such as travel passes, transit permits, and official clearances. Consequently, within the territories ruled by the Greater Han Empire, commercial activity flourished and population movement was frequent. While this greatly invigorated the local economy, it also drew harsh criticisms from a large contingent of scholars. Views on Lin Feng's policies varied among scholars in the northern and southern parts of China. Ordinary people in the Central Plains and the north derived many benefits from these policies; hence, northern scholars mostly offered praise over criticism, holding that "when a sage governs the world, whatever benefits the common people benefits us." This sentiment implied that although these policies ran counter to tradition, the ideology of the sages was profound and could not be fully comprehended by just one or two individuals. Yet the core message remained singular: as long as the common people reaped benefits and the country grew rich and the people secure, it conformed to the requirements of Confucian classics—grasping the spirit without being bound by the form. This perspective was vigorously promoted by the officialdom of the Great Han Empire, carrying a strong realist color that emphasized recognition and practical application.

Armed with an overwhelming military advantage, Zhang Shuyu had achieved quite remarkable administrative accomplishments over the past two years. In the first year of the Han army's conquest of Liaodong, Nurgan was still a place of fractured factions and continuous warfare, unable to produce enough food and cloth for self-sufficiency. By the second year, all rebellions had been suppressed, and the majority of tribes lurking in the mountains were forced out through bloody measures such as sealing off the mountains, searching, encircling, and hunting them down, after which they were ordered by the authorities to congregate and cultivate the land. By the current year of the Han dynasty's founding and institutional reform, even wandering and fugitive nomads had been purged from the Nurgan region. All tribes possessed sweet potato plots, hillside cornfields, and wheat fields, achieving basic self-sufficiency in food. The women of many tribes had learned to operate wooden looms, enabling them to process hemp and cotton. Merchant caravans from other provinces traveled with ease, exchanging the local specialties of medicinal herbs, furs, livestock, and timber for substantial wealth.

Zhang Shuyu's rewards were naturally substantial. The Ministry of Personnel rated his performance as excellent every year, and Lin Feng even affectionately referred to him as a "pillar of the state" in an imperial commendation decree. Through the extensive publicity of the Han court, Lord Zhang Shuyu became a household name across the land for "pacifying Liaodong in three years." Even his aged father back in Jiangsu shared in the glory, and his friend, the renowned poet Wu Meicun, composed a lengthy lyric in his honor. The poem described Nurgan as a place of "white mountains and black waters, fierce northern winds, where heroes of a thousand ages helplessly tie their hands..." yet Zhang Shuyu could "saunter in light robes and flowing sashes, making the Mohe bow their heads amidst casual chat, setting the cosmos in place..." Its grand verses and flourishing literary style rivaled Su Dongpo's *Recollections of Red Cliff*. People throughout the realm competed to recite it, and contemporaries marveled at the feat. Zhang Shuyu thus attained immense fame, ranking alongside Tang Bin and Wang Shirong as one of the "Three Heroes of the Han Revival."

Given all this, his memorial opposing Lin Feng's endorsed gazette was both shockingly unexpected and entirely logical. What was unexpected was that this man was a surrendered official of the bogus Qing; by all rights, he should have kept his head down, yet he had the audacity to be the first to step forward and "provoke the dragon's wrath." What made it logical was that he was himself an old-school official, renowned throughout the divine land, and a celebrated statesman known to all under heaven. He possessed sufficient stature to counter Gu Yanwu's reputation, while the policies he implemented had achieved unprecedented success in Nurgan—a practical result that could undoubtedly serve as the cornerstone to validate his own political philosophy.

Therefore, when Zhang Shuyu's memorial arrived in the capital via an eight-hundred-li express courier from Nurgan, it acted like a lit fuse. Following more than a month of tense anticipation and held breaths, the political storm finally erupted.