Top Scholar

Chapter 516 Silver Medal Secret Memorial
After the military examination, the emperor would receive the military graduates in the Fengtian Hall, just as he would receive civil graduates, and then hold a military banquet at the Central Military Command, to show that he treated them equally.

Therefore, the emperor never intended to value civil officials over military ones, but rather hoped for a balance between them... It's really hard to guess who came up with the so-called "civil officials are superior to military officials".

The banquet for the military assembly was once again presided over by the Duke of England on behalf of the Emperor. Having served as the Commander-in-Chief of the Central Army for over a decade, returning here felt like returning home. He no longer felt constrained by hierarchy or put on airs; he was no longer sleepy and spoke louder. Compared to the banquet held at the Ministry of Rites, he was like a completely different person.

The Duke of England sat directly among the military scholars, eating large chunks of meat and drinking from large bowls. As the alcohol took effect, he rolled up his sleeves and started playing drinking games with the young scholars.

"The five champions..."

"Eight horses!"

In the midst of the commotion, the music suddenly stopped. The Duke of England turned around immediately and caught sight of a familiar figure entering, dressed in the clothes of a eunuch.

"Oh dear!" The Duke of England sobered up instantly and quickly stood up, about to kneel to greet him. But the newcomer waved his hand and pointed to the eunuch's robe he was wearing.

The British councilor, realizing the danger, coughed and said, "Gentlemen, please stop drinking and accept the imperial decree from me!"

The military graduates quickly knelt down to receive the imperial edict, and the eunuch delivering the edict drawled out:
"By the grace of Heaven, the Emperor decrees: Su Tai, the martial arts champion, is skilled in archery and horsemanship and his strategy is commendable. He is hereby appointed as a commander of the Embroidered Uniform Guard. Below him, those who were originally captains are appointed as acting deputy commanders, those who were originally junior captains are appointed as acting centurions, and those who are not from military or civilian backgrounds are appointed as probationary centurions. The rest are all promoted one rank and remain in the regiments for service. This is the imperial decree!"

"Your Majesty, we thank you for your great favor!" Su Tai led the group of military scholars in expressing their gratitude and accepting the imperial decree.

As they stood up, many people noticed that the eunuch who delivered the imperial edict was quite young, yet his features were almost identical to those of the emperor on the throne, except that he lacked a mustache.

Amidst the gasps of surprise, only Su Tai remained calm and composed.

The eunuch cleared his throat and introduced himself: "Ahem, let me introduce myself. I am Zhu Shou, the newly appointed commander of the regimental camp eunuchs."

"Don't you all think that our family looks a lot like the Emperor?" Zhu Shou pointed to his face.

"Yes." The military scholars, not good with words, could only nod in agreement. They couldn't find a way to praise him in a different way, saying he was "as handsome as an emperor and would enjoy long life and good fortune."

“That’s right. My family was originally the emperor’s stand-in eunuch, which is why we resemble the emperor.” Zhu Shou pointed to his smooth chin and emphasized, “Remember, the emperor has a beard, but I don’t. That’s the difference.”

"Ah, right, right, the one with a beard is the Emperor, and the one without a beard is Eunuch Zhu," Duke Yingguo hurriedly chimed in.

"Furthermore, I am the Emperor's most trusted confidant, and my favor with the Emperor is even greater than that of Eunuch Liu and the top scholar. This time, I have been specially ordered by the Emperor to oversee the troops and personally lead you in training—do you all understand?" Zhu Shou said, puffing out his chest and protruding his belly.

"Yes, Your Excellency, this humble servant greets you!" Everyone realized what was happening and hurriedly bowed again.

"No need for formalities." Zhu Shou waved his hand, his tone suddenly turning sharp. "Remember this—the Emperor raises soldiers who are fierce warriors, not dogs that only wag their tails!"

"Yes! Your humble servant will remember your teachings, sir!" The martial arts scholars hurriedly and respectfully responded.

"Report to the regimental camp tomorrow. I'll assign each of you a hundred-man squad. Train hard!" Zhu Shou paused, his gaze sharp as he swept over the group.
"Two months from now, you'll lead the troops in a martial arts drill at the drill ground! Those who pass will remain in the regiment as officers and soldiers, receiving full pay, and you will all be relieved of your acting positions and given official ranks! Those who fail will go home to farm, and you martial arts graduates will go back to where you came from—our regiments don't keep useless people! Do you understand?!"

Zhu Shou unleashed his full aura, truly displaying a touch of imperial might.

"Yes!" the martial arts scholars responded in unison, their voices shaking the roof tiles!

~~
On the other side, the Leopard Chamber and Dragon Tiger Hall.

The Dragon and Tiger Lecture Hall continues. Today, Wang Chang, the Commissioner of the Court of Judicial Review, introduces the Ming Dynasty's communication system to the newly appointed scholars:

"After the birthday celebrations, you gentlemen will inevitably have to submit memorials to the Emperor. Today, I will teach you how to present your memorials to the Emperor."

The newly appointed scholars listened very attentively, firstly because this was all practical information they would need in the future, and secondly because the tiger training sessions in the next two days would definitely allow them to practice this stuff.

Points will be deducted if the drill is not performed well.

Assistant Instructor Su had already made it clear that upon graduation, the Emperor's evaluation of them and their future destinations would be linked to the Dragon Tiger Class's performance...

"...Memorials must be in a proper format, with clear subject matter, and must be accompanied by concrete evidence; those that are merely empty talk will be rejected immediately."

“After writing, seal it with a yellow envelope. The envelope must be clearly marked as ‘Memorial to the Throne,’ ‘Suggestion,’ or ‘Petition.’ Any entries that are not clearly marked will be returned.”

"Those serving in the capital were sent directly to the Office of the Ministry of Justice; those sent to other places were handed over to the local government for delivery by post."

"Upon receiving the memorials, this office will first number and register them, then sort them by category—military affairs, people's livelihood, and impeachments will each be classified accordingly. Next, the Left and Right Offices of the Court of Judicial Review will verify them, eliminating those who falsely report achievements or make unwarranted comments on state affairs. Once verified, this envoy will compile a summary and present it to the Emperor for review every day at dawn. Remember! Anyone who withholds another's memorial will be executed! Anyone who bypasses the Office of the Court of Judicial Review and delivers the memorial directly, preventing it from reaching the Emperor, will be punished for overstepping their authority..."

Although Su Lu was a teaching assistant, he listened attentively and took notes diligently.

Firstly, this was also useful hot knowledge for him.

Secondly, he also needed to design a reasonable system for secret reports using silver seals, which naturally required careful consideration of the model of the Office of Transmission. Zhu Shou was not fond of this system of civil officials and had buried himself in his military camp, not showing his face for days at a time. This whole mess had to be handled by him alone…

Su Lu wrote down the key steps Wang Chang mentioned, such as the standardization of memorials, registration and sorting, and the circulation of documents via post.

Clearly, after over a century of continuous improvement, the Office of General Affairs has developed a very comprehensive system for communication between higher and lower levels... Numbering and tracing, classification for efficiency, and sealing to prevent leakage are all things that can be learned from.

However, it also suffers from the drawbacks of an aging bureaucratic system, such as cumbersome and delay-prone processes, and excessive steps that make it easy for interception and alteration to occur. These are areas that need improvement.

Drawing on the experiences of later generations, he quickly came up with a solution.

For example, the single seal of the Office of Transmission could be upgraded to a double-security system of 'physical encryption'—

The outer cover is a double-sealed exclusive sleeve, and the inner text is also written with an agreed password, with one password for each person, which is changed regularly... This is not a difficult task; one large book per person can solve the problem.

Even if the seal is broken and the letter is taken out, others will not be able to understand its contents. Even fellow holders of the silver medal will not be able to understand the secret report from another.

Of course, a 'tiered response mechanism' also needed to be introduced. Following later methods, he divided secret reports into four levels:

Urgent! Reports of extremely urgent situations such as foreign invasion, rebellion, treason, and major disasters.

In urgent situations, it was used to report critical matters such as disasters, official corruption, and deception of the emperor.

"Important" is used to report important but not urgent matters, such as offering bold advice or exposing corruption in officialdom.

The usual practice is to periodically report information such as local public opinion, official observations, and other relevant information.

Only the first three types of secret pieces require encrypted writing; regular pieces can be written in plain text to reduce the workload for both the sender and receiver... It is conceivable that more than 90% of special pieces are regular pieces, and if they were all written in code, wouldn't that be exhausting?

In terms of delivery speed, urgent messages traveled 800 li (approximately 400 kilometers) by express route; urgent messages traveled 600 li (approximately 300 kilometers); and important messages traveled 300 li (approximately 150 kilometers). All three types of confidential documents had to be delivered directly to the Leopard Chamber. The eunuchs on duty who received them had to present them to the Emperor immediately; any delay would be considered a crime of deceiving the Emperor!

As for routine documents, they can be submitted through the regular memorial process, but they can still be presented directly to the Emperor without needing to be reviewed by the Office of Transmission.

This ensured the rapid transmission of crucial information, avoided wasting the relay transport capacity, and also guaranteed the independence of secret reports...

After listening to the lesson, Su Lu already had a general framework in mind. All he needed to do next was to refine these ideas into specific processes and rules, and then work with his older brother and the others to refine them. The first version of the "Silver Badge Secret Reporting Plan" would then be ready.

~~
The afternoon's Leopard Transformation class was given by Su Lu.

The class had been running for a month, and his classmates had long since gotten used to his role as a teaching assistant. Moreover, the top scholar's profound scholarship and insightful knowledge had already deeply impressed his classmates... many of them had even become followers of his teachings.

But today Su Lu will not discuss the study of the Dao; his topic is "The Source of True Knowledge".

"If it were before the competition, I would certainly say that correct understanding comes from the words of sages, but now we are all officials, and we can no longer be so naive."

The students chuckled. Everyone knew that the Four Books and Five Classics, and even the teachings of Cheng Yi and Zhu Xi, were merely stepping stones to the imperial examinations; to actually become an official based on them would be foolish.

"Then where does correct knowledge come from? In my view, there is no such thing as correct knowledge that comes out of thin air; all true knowledge originates from practice." Su Lu then said in a deep voice:

"Of course, we must believe that the vast majority of classical texts and policies are correct, because they are the truths that Confucius and Mencius came to understand after traveling around the states and witnessing the hardships of the people; they are the strategies that wise ministers explored after personally getting involved and going through many trials."

"But times change, and the world changes. What was correct two thousand years ago may not be correct now. So when reality conflicts with the teachings of the sages, or when you encounter situations where the sages did not teach, you should seek the answers from practice rather than making assumptions."

"Because—practice is the sole criterion for testing truth!" Su Lu declared emphatically. "Any so-called truth must be tested by practice. Truth that cannot be tested by practice is not truth!"

"Just like the story of the little horse crossing the river, arguing with your mouth will be useless no matter how long you argue; but you'll know once you try it!"

"Therefore, we should talk less and do more! Empty talk that is divorced from practice, no matter how grand, is useless!"

"Furthermore—without practice, you will never be able to distinguish between truth and falsehood; you can only parrot what others say, like a hundred dogs barking."

The students listened intently; Su Lu's lectures were always so engaging and insightful, even better than those given by many older teachers.

At the end of the course, Su Lu assigned practical homework:

"To help everyone better understand what it means to 'have no right to speak without investigation,' please each of you choose a temple in or outside the capital and conduct an in-depth investigation of all aspects of it, striving for thoroughness. There are more than 700 Buddhist temples in Wanping and Daxing counties alone, so please discuss and each choose one, and remember not to choose the same one twice."

P.S. I'll revise this later, please vote with monthly tickets!

(End of this chapter)