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“I know you, Mengde, and I worry,” Zhang Miao said.
“…So do I,” Yuan Shao realised. “Mengde, what-”
“Have a little faith,” Cao Cao said with a smile. “Mister Sima Fang
placed a lot of faith in me, and I have no intention of disappointing him.”
The scholar and court consultant Cai Yong - whose talent for
mathematics, astrology, calligraphy, music, literature and more besides was
known throughout the land - summoned a group of like-minded scholars for an
urgent meeting in his home, under the pretence of a banquet. Cai Yong faked the
usual banquet rituals of dances, music and toasts to various noted figures and
the emperor while his servants scoured the grounds outside for possible spies.
Once he was certain that no enemies would overhear him, the host - who, despite
being in his mid-forties, had the frailty of a much older man - prepared to
divulge the true reason for the gathering.
“…Something bothers you,” the famed septuagenarian scholar Zhao Qi said.
“Indeed yes,” the middle-aged Confucian commentator Zheng Xuan said as
he rubbed his grey beard. “What is wrong, Bojie?”
“Things are serious, friends,” Cai Yong sighed miserably.
Kong Rong raised his hand and said, “Is this about the eunuchs?”
“What is not about them these
days…?” Cai Yong scoffed. “They play on His Majesty’s distaste for ritual, they
allow the greedy and the corrupt to move freely, and now, as if that was not
enough, they seek that most terrible of things… they - and their wicked allies
- desire the rewriting of law and history to suit their purposes.”
The assembled scholars gasped with astonishment.
“What do they intend…?” Zhao Qi asked.
Cai Yong turned to his student Zhong Yao, who sighed and said, “It has
recently come to my master’s attention that they wish certain key phrases in
the teachings of Mister Kong Rong’s esteemed ancestor to be ‘reinterpreted’,
primarily so that certain acts of ‘self-progression in society’ that are
currently seen as immoral or unjust are no longer seen thus.”
“Damn them!” Zheng Xuan
cried.
“Is this evil nonsense really true?” the sickly elder official Yang Si
exclaimed.
“Confucius’ words are to be as sacred as the throne of Heaven!” one
thin, sunken-eyed young scholar cried. “Master Yang is right: how dare they do
this evil thing!”
“Mister Yang and my friend Mister Wang Lang are both right,” Kong Rong
said. “I could not put it better myself, even though it as a personal affront
to me as well as a crime against the state.”
“They do not stop there, as I said,” Cai Yong said sadly. “Certain
aspects of history are to be changed, recent and far-off; the position and
achievements of key figures are to be raised, lowered and reattributed as they
see fit… certain songs and plays will be edited, or quietly banned altogether…
books will also be changed, or disappear… and ancestors of the perpetrators
will be given new and more exciting contributions to the founding and
sustaining of the empire, which is perhaps the most ironic and preposterous
thing of all, since these fools will be its ruin.”
Kong Rong shook his head and said, “We will be left with a mockery of
humanity, all of our achievements laid waste for the sake of a few greedy
opportunists.”
“Is there nothing that we can do to prevent this?” Wang Lang asked.
“That is why we are here,” Cai Yong replied. “They can break and burn
bamboo, they can tear and burn paper… but what can a man easily do against stone…?”
The gathering murmured thoughtfully.