I founded a heavy industry group in the late Ming Dynasty.

Chapter 171 No Retreat, No Victory, No Death

Chapter 170 The best weapon to attack officials in the Ming Dynasty was to start from the moral level. As the gossip of the city was published in the Da Ming Bao, the civil official group was instantly silenced. They really slandered Chen Boying against them. In their eyes, Chen Boying had caught them with solid evidence. Most importantly, Chen Boying had saved them face. If their real names were really put up, they would be doomed.

Who doesn't know that Chen Boying and Xu Xianchun, the leader of the five eunuchs, are so close they're practically inseparable? The Embroidered Uniform Guard has plenty of dirt on them, and they're not afraid to bring up their corruption and bribery because the salaries of officials in the Ming Dynasty are too low, and the cost of living in the capital is too high. To put it bluntly, after ten years of hard study, if they don't spend dirty money, they can't even afford vegetables and salted fish to be officials in the capital.

Officials have their own difficulties. Many officials in the Ming Dynasty came from humble backgrounds and were supported by their families. After much effort in raising them, when their relatives came to the capital to seek refuge or had requests for help, how could they dare not help? If they didn't help, they would be considered treacherous, ungrateful, heartless, and unjust. Who would dare to employ such an official? In fact, most officials in a society based on personal connections could not truly be as incorruptible as water. If Chen Boying had addressed this issue and implemented the early Ming Dynasty practice of punishing those who embezzled sixty taels of silver by having their skin peeled off and stuffed with straw, probably one in ten of the Ming Dynasty's officials would have survived.

But the problem is that moral issues are the real issue. As the saying goes, food and sex are fundamental human needs. Who hasn't had an accident? No, it should be called an accident. Just like some information published in the newspapers, coincidentally matching seventeen people, the people of the Ming Dynasty unknowingly discovered that these newspapers were actually more interesting than any storytelling or folk tales.

The Ming Dynasty didn't have the harmonious gods of later generations, so as long as they didn't get involved in politics, they could act with impunity. Stimulated by money, the novelists recruited by Chen Boying began to rack their brains and frantically fabricate all sorts of stories. Not to mention those people, even Chen Boying, who had lived two lives, felt ashamed when he saw the story plots made up by these novelists. These people just died young. If they were in the later era of online novels, they would definitely have a place. A truly good story is not about how bizarre and absurd it is, but about expressing complex human nature in a simple story.

Under Chen Boying's subtle influence, the newspaper's influence grew. Although some poor people would certainly not be willing to spend thirty coins a month to buy a newspaper, as the newspaper's influence grew, many restaurant owners began to recruit some down-on-their-luck scholars to make a living by reading the newspaper.

This practice actually developed into a fairly mature system in later generations. Many companies would use advertorials to peddle absurd concepts, such as claiming that MSG is carcinogenic and promoting the health benefits of chicken essence. As a result, Lotus MSG almost went bankrupt. Although Lotus MSG survived, the problem was that it lost almost its entire market share. Of course, this is not an isolated case. For example, there's the story "Under the Dome." The author doesn't actually understand any scientific principles, but in the company where the author works, with 40,000 to 50,000 workers who do this kind of work year-round, none of them have developed cancer; their bodies are quite healthy. On the contrary, it's those office workers who have more cancer.

The problem was that the common people were easily misled. Chen Ying used these stories, adding a lot of his own agenda. Unbeknownst to them, the people who read or listened to the newspapers began to accept the idea that natural disasters were not the emperor's fault, that earthquakes were caused by underground gas, and that heavy rains were caused by water in the clouds. These things had nothing to do with the emperor or the officials.

Once this idea takes root, it can never be uprooted. Half a month later, Wen Zhenmeng fell ill. He wasn't faking it; he was genuinely sick.

He never imagined that his hard work in publishing a newspaper would not only fail to refute Chen Boying, but would also ruin his own reputation. A joke began to circulate: Wen Zhenmeng said the phoenix sang on Qishan Mountain, but where was the phoenix? Did he eat it?

The joke reached the palace, and even the Tianqi Emperor heard about it. It is said that the emperor laughed so hard that he doubled over and kept saying "funny".

For Wen Zhenmeng, this was an utter disgrace.

However, what pained him even more was that he began to doubt himself.

That night, Wen Zhenmeng sat alone in his study, the latest issues of the *Da Ming Bao* newspaper spread out before him. He had read every single one of Chen Boying's articles, some even several times. Each time he finished reading, he wanted to refute them, but each time he picked up a pen, he found himself at a loss for words.

He couldn't answer any of the questions Chen Boying asked. For example, water, when heated, produces steam, and when the steam rises and encounters cold air, it turns back into water. This point can be perfectly verified by the pot lid theory. Chen Boying used a pot, a real pot, to verify his water cycle theory.

There is no such thing as a majestic sky. Extreme weather disasters such as hail, snow, drought, and rainstorms are simply caused by the water cycle. Water comes from the sky, evaporates, and then returns to the sky, turning into rain, snow, and hail to fall down. The cycle continues endlessly, that's all!

Although the reasoning was simple and straightforward, it dealt a heavy blow to these officials. Wen Zhenmeng also sadly discovered that many young students, especially Chen Zilong, a rising star of the Donglin Party, followed Chen Boying's theory and found a huge palace, built dozens of huge pots, heated them, boiled water, and created an artificial rain on the huge roof.

Wen Zhenmeng was in great pain. His worldview had been shattered by Chen Boying, and he was even somewhat lost.

"What does a phoenix actually look like?"

"Has anyone actually seen a phoenix?"

"What evidence do you have?"

Wen Zhenmeng's questions had no answers in ancient books. Sages accepted that the phoenix's cry on Mount Qi was real, but no one ever asked why it was real. He suddenly remembered a book he had read in his youth, not a classic of history, philosophy, or literature, but Shen Kuo's *Dream Pool Essays*. Shen Kuo had written many similar things in the book, such as using the waxing and waning of the moon to explain tides and using the presence of gas in the earth to explain earthquakes.

At the time, he found it novel but didn't take it seriously. Only today did he realize that Shen Kuo and Chen Boying were the same kind of people. They were not satisfied with what the ancient books said; they wanted to ask why. And this "why" is precisely the weakness of Confucianism: knowing what it is, but not why it is.

Wen Zhenmeng closed his eyes in pain and sighed deeply. He remembered a sentence his teacher had once said: "What we scholars fear most is not that the enemy is too strong, but that we ourselves cannot stand firm."

Now, he could no longer stand, and Wen Zhenmeng asked with a wry smile, "Teacher, was I wrong?"

The capital city, the Chen residence.

It was already late at night, but Chen Ying was still awake. He was sitting in his study, reviewing the new stories of the authors, when Su Mei pushed open the door and said softly, "My lord, Wen Zhenmeng has fallen ill."

Chen Ying paused in his book flipping, then looked up: "What illness?"

"The doctor said it was due to a sudden surge of anger, coupled with his advanced age and frail health, requiring rest. But—rumors are circulating that he was angered by the master."

Upon hearing this, Chen Ying fell silent. Among the members of the Donglin Party, Wen Zhenmeng was known for his uprightness, integrity, and outspokenness. He was praised in the History of Ming as having the demeanor of an ancient minister. However, because he refused to flatter the powerful, he repeatedly offended the eunuchs and the chief minister, resulting in a bumpy career. He was demoted three times, and even after entering the cabinet, he was dismissed from office after only three months.

He directly criticized Wei Zhongxian's usurpation of power, and remained unyielding even after being flogged eighty times in court. He was regarded as a pillar of the Donglin Party, and was known as one of the "Three Mengs of Wuzhong" along with Yao Ximeng and Gu Zongmeng. He also came from a distinguished family; he was the great-grandson of Wen Zhengming, the top scholar in the imperial examination of the second year of the Tianqi reign, and was well-versed in the *Spring and Autumn Annals*, poetry, and calligraphy.

This man actually fell ill from anger, and Chen Ying felt somewhat guilty towards him: "He spent his whole life studying the classics and taking the Confucian tradition for granted, yet I've driven him to this state. To be honest, sometimes I wonder, are we doing the right thing? We've overturned thousands of years of tradition; what will the people believe?"

People need faith because looking up to the heavens is their support. People must have reverence; without reverence, they will become reckless.

Su Mei thought for a moment, then answered earnestly, "My lord, I don't understand any grand principles. But I know that in the past, the common people believed in Heaven, but Heaven never provided them with a full meal. My lord, you taught them how to work, how to plant potatoes and sweet potatoes, and how to build irrigation canals. Now the people have enough to eat. Whether they believe in Heaven or not is not important; what's important is that they believe in you, my lord."

"You're right. It's better to believe in solid science than in something as ethereal as the heavens."

Chen Ying now has no choice but to go down this path to the bitter end. He has no way to retreat. Holding high the banner of science, he can only go this path to the end. Although Wen Zhenmeng has fallen ill, the Donglin Party is not just Wen Zhenmeng, but countless others. As long as there are interests involved, the Donglin Party will not perish. Life will choose its own way.

This applies to plants, animals, and especially humans.

This battle has only just begun, and he doesn't believe that the Donglin Party is only capable of this much.

Just as Chen Ying judged, the Donglin Party and the Ming Dynasty's civil officials were sharpening their knives; they would not accept defeat. Losing this struggle would be even more serious than being driven out of the court by Wei Zhongxian.

Being driven out of the court by Wei Zhongxian only meant they lost their official positions. But when they returned to their hometowns, they were still privileged gentry, still high-ranking local gentry. They could still be exempt from taxes and enjoy extraordinary treatment. But if Confucianism were to lose its right to interpret the Way of Heaven, that would be a terrible disaster.

This is a battle for life or death; victory or death.

They couldn't afford to lose, and of course, Chen Ying couldn't afford to lose either.

In this war without gunfire, both sides have already engaged in fierce fighting.