Yan Shifan wanted to argue a few more points, but Luo Longwen gave him a look, and Yan Shifan had no choice but to recite:
"Ah, for Lingbi's great sigh, regretting the connection of the divine earth to the Qian Gang.
Tempered through ten thousand ages, containing nature and perfecting creation.
...
Beholding the auspicious clouds nurturing the soul, ascending the jade stone to connect with the Northern Dipper.
Striking the chimes and drums to pacify the pronouncements, listening to the autumn waters speak of the morning breeze."
Yan Song leaned against the bridge railing, shaking his head and savoring it. He felt this scroll of Qing Ci was indeed written with great flavor, capturing the celestial emperor's majesty that Jiajing favored most.
"Hmm, good, good, truly good... Old man is relieved..."
Yan Shifan, Luo Longwen, and Yan Maoqing were all beaming. Yan Shifan said, "Father, now in the two capitals and thirteen provinces, our people are spread throughout the court and the country. The Emperor trusts you so much, we cannot fall... With those useless fellows like Xu, Gao, and Zhang, they cannot contend with us!"
Yan Song was immediately displeased, his eyes flashing. "Silence! They are all Grand Secretaries and Assistants. Do not underestimate them!"
Yan Shifan chuckled, "Old Father! Ascending to the Emperor's hall in the morning, becoming prisoners at the foot of the stairs in the evening. Whether they will be Assistants next is not yet certain... Your son has just thought of it, only one word: impeach! The Qing Ci they wrote angered the Emperor so much, that is a crime. We must impeach them, impeach them to death!"
Yan Song cast him a sidelong glance, mockingly asking, "How do we impeach them?"
"Father, I will have Old Luo draft a memorial, stating that the Qing Ci written by Xu Jie and Zhang Juzheng are not in accordance with the law and fail to comprehend the Emperor's will. Then, your cabinet will issue a ticket, have the Directorate of Ceremonial approve it with red ink, and order every official in the Hanlin Academy to present their Qing Ci anew. Everyone must write one, and everyone must pass. Those who fail will be impeached!
Finally, we will impeach Xu Jie, Gao Gong, and Zhang Juzheng, saying they taught their subordinates poorly, and that these idlers in the Hanlin Academy do nothing all day but slander the court! If we can find fault in their Qing Ci, it would be even better, directly expelling Xu Jie or Zhang Juzheng from the cabinet..."
Yan Song pondered for a moment, then shook his head. "What if they write well? Wouldn't that be like lifting a rock only to drop it on your own feet?"
Yan Shifan suddenly burst into laughter. "Hahaha! Father, Xu, Gao, and Zhang, and those wastes in the Hanlin Academy, I know their limited ink capacity quite well. If they could write, wouldn't they have done so long ago?"
Luo Longwen chimed in, "Grand Secretary, rest assured. The over twenty Imperial Lectors in the Hanlin Academy only have that much ink. They spend their days reading the sayings of Confucius and poetry, how would they understand Qing Ci?"
Yan Song closed his eyes and thought for a while, pondering in his heart: Xu, Gao, and Zhang, in league with Prince Yu, would eventually be detrimental to the Yan faction. If one of them could truly be expelled, that would be good. Even if it couldn't be achieved, it could suppress the arrogance of the pure officials...
"Alright, alright... If you want to scheme, then scheme. At eighty, this old life will eventually be exhausted by your schemes..."
Yan Song walked away trembling, while Yan Shifan, Luo Longwen, and Yan Maoqing exchanged knowing smiles.
...
Meanwhile,
In the hall of Prince Yu's mansion, Xu Jie, Zhang Juzheng, and Gao Gong had been in a state of chaos for some time. Prince Yu, already timid, had almost fainted from the bad news and had retreated to the rear chambers to rest.
Zhang Juzheng, famously a prodigy, was completely bewildered. Finally, he sighed dejectedly, "Grand Secretary Xu, what exactly is the Emperor dissatisfied with? Your Qing Ci has been very much to the Emperor's liking these past few years, hasn't it?"
"Alas, this old man does not know either..."
Upon recalling the rapid sound of jade bells from the Yuxi Palace, Xu Jie's brow furrowed even deeper, making him appear twenty years older.
Gao Gong, one of the "Three Assistants," was known for his forthright nature. After arguing fruitlessly for a long time, he became impatient and blurted out,
"Damn it! So what if one Qing Ci is not written well? Isn't our impeachment of Yan Shifan for corruption true? Qing Ci, Qing Ci, Qing Ci isn't good, my ears are ringing from hearing it! If we can't write Qing Ci well, will the sky fall down? Humph, I don't believe it!"
Xu Jie, however, shook his head repeatedly. "You, Gao Gong, are a rough fellow. How would you understand? Our dynasty is a dynasty of Qing Ci. If we want to overthrow the Yan faction, Qing Ci is the first hurdle. If we can't even get past the first hurdle, how can we talk about saving the common people? Today, the Emperor not only rejected our memorial but also dismissed our Qing Ci, which means the situation is somewhat serious. It's possible the Yan faction will counterattack..."
Just as he was about to advise Gao Gong, he saw four eunuchs bearing imperial edicts hurrying from a distance outside the door.
The three quickly knelt to receive the decree.
The eunuch proclaimed:
"By the mandate of Heaven, the Emperor decrees: I am devoted to revering Heaven, yet my ministers do not understand Heaven's will. The Qing Ci presented are incoherent and lack sincerity in revering Heaven, deeply disappointing me. Xu Jie, Gao Gong, and Zhang Juzheng are ordered, along with all officials of the Hanlin Academy, to each compose a scroll of Qing Ci and present it the day after tomorrow, to atone for their sins. Respect this!"
"Ah?"
"This..."
Xu Jie, Gao Gong, and Zhang Juzheng were instantly shocked and paled.
"Lack sincerity in revering Heaven?"
"Incoherent?"
"To atone for sins?"
The weight of these words was not light, and all the officials of the Hanlin Academy were also to write one? If this wasn't the Yan faction's counterattack, what else could it be? They had discussed the possibility of a counterattack, but they hadn't expected it to come so quickly.
Xu Jie sighed, a chill of fear running through him. "How could Old Yan Song possibly let go of this opportunity... This Lower Yuan Festival, I fear, is a tribulation for the pure officials?"
Thinking that a single misstep could lead to losing everything, and that they would be bitten by the fierce tiger instead of successfully hunting it, Zhang Juzheng gave a bitter smile and said to Gao Gong, "Brother Su Qing, you said a scroll of Qing Ci was no big deal. Look, isn't the sky about to fall now?"
Gao Gong's face had already turned ashen.
...
In the Hanlin Academy,
Zhu Mo, lost in thought, was wiping down the red wooden furniture in the Hall of Classics, feeling a sense of unease. He had a feeling something significant had happened today...
As he was pondering, hurried footsteps accompanied by a cacophony of anxious voices signaled a large group of Hanlin Academicians flooding into the Hall of Classics.
They gathered in twos and threes, with furrowed brows or scratching their heads. Some held their heads in their hands, others sat at their desks, their mouths clamped tightly around their brushes...
"It's ruined! The Emperor wants it tomorrow, how can we possibly write it?"
"Qing Ci? That's considered base work! We are disciples of the sages, how can we, how can we..."
"Alas... We must write! We must write!"
"Grand Secretary Xu said that we should write whatever we can, as long as we write it. There's no other way..."
"Why is the Emperor asking us to write? Why is he always targeting us good, pure officials?"
"The Yan faction commits corruption and fraud, living luxuriously, while we... guarding a cold bench, alas... Comparing people makes one furious!"
"If we don't write it well, we might be beheaded...?"
"..."
The Hanlin Academicians whispered amongst themselves, drawing upon a lifetime of accumulated knowledge. They felt it was a hundred times harder than taking the imperial examinations, especially the feeling of dread, which was unprecedented.
Upon hearing the words "Qing Ci," Zhu Mo's heart immediately tightened. "Jiajing is making the Hanlin Academy write Qing Ci? Impossible, right? This is not something mentioned in books! Has it really come to a showdown?"
He thought and thought, but could not recall any major showdowns in Jiajing's thirty-ninth year. If one were to talk about major events of the empire, it would be the resistance against Japanese pirates in the southeast and the resistance against the Tatars in the north. If one were to talk about crises, it would undoubtedly be the financial crisis, as the national treasury had long been depleted. Other than that, there shouldn't be anything else!
As he was wondering, a sharp voice called out from outside, "Everyone come to the Hall of Close Reflection! Grand Secretary Xu, Minister Gao, and Grand Tutor Zhang have arrived. They want us to stay here tonight and write, and we can only leave after we have written and passed!"
Whoosh!
Dozens of Hanlin Academicians were stunned. Their already taut nerves, seeing this formation, instantly became ten times more so.
"Tsk tsk, is this a death sentence?"
"Is the Yan faction trying to eradicate us completely?"
These scholars, having never witnessed such a scene, immediately drooped their heads. The words they had planned all vanished from their minds.
...
Everyone had left, and the Hall of Classics fell silent.
Zhu Mo finished sweeping and tidying, taking a look at the words they had written. As expected, they were all quite ordinary, with only a few surprisingly eloquent lines. Some became dull after the first two sentences, some pretended to be profound, some were patched together, and some were simply nonsensical...
"Alas, how can the Hanlin Academicians of the Ming Dynasty be of this caliber...?"
Zhu Mo remembered seeing a television drama that mentioned Yan Song and Xu Jie's Qing Ci, which were much better written than these.
"Daoist Master is about to leave, I should leave some trace for you..."
Zhu Mo chuckled, picked up his brush, and began to write, but after just two sentences, he forgot the words.
At this moment, a "ding dong" sounded in his ear.
"Detected Host is writing Qing Ci, the Dynasty Civilization System is activated..."
Dynasty Civilization?
What was this? It was the end of an era, what dynasty civilization? Could writing a Qing Ci improve national fortune?
Zhu Mo knew he had activated a blind box system, but he didn't know it would be something like this! A civilization system at that? The era was almost over...
And after a brief glance, he felt a bit surprised—
This system was quite complex, encompassing politics, military, economy, society, culture, population, education, religion, science, art... and many other aspects. Furthermore, under each section, there were numerous branches, covering everything imaginable...
And it had several modes, which could start progressions from ascended worlds, prosperous worlds, orderly worlds, precarious worlds, dying worlds, chaotic worlds, etc. Once selected, their respective evolutionary paths were also very different.
Zhu Mo had been in the Jiajing era for over a decade, so he naturally understood which one to choose.
"Then I'll choose a precarious world..."
With a "ding dong,"
[The Dynasty Civilization System is integrating information data of the era the host is located in...]