Chapter 119 — To Take the Head From Your Neck
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 3
The whole Grand Academy was silent as a tomb; not a sound could be heard.
Emperor Yanfeng had plainly been moved to speak from the heart, and meant to seize this chance to overawe his ministers, to bind their hearts to his, so that sovereign and subject might be as one. After a moment he smiled and sat down again: "I have let myself go somewhat.
Guozijian, bring me the register. " Daoist Lingyun hurried forward with the register held up in both hands; Emperor Yanfeng took up the vermilion brush, wrote a few words after Shen Mu's name, and said, "From this day forth, he is a disciple of the Son of Heaven.
" With that he closed the register and handed it back to Daoist Lingyun. Then he looked to the young Patriarch. "Grand Libationer, the choosing of scholars is properly your office.
I have overstepped and chosen for you. What say you?
" The young Patriarch smiled.
"Your Majesty is sage and wise, a man of great talent and grand design; it is a blessing for the Wasteland. " Emperor Yanfeng laughed heartily and shook his head again and again.
"Flattery. Flattering me again.
Enough, then; let the scholars continue their trials. " The Guozijian of the Grand Academy took the order and set the many scholars to their contests once more. A few primary-school scholars had still not finished their examinations, and these too were tested together before the Grand Academy Hall, with Daoist Lingyun again presiding.
Even had Daoist Lingyun wished to let the sons of great officers and nobles through, he could do nothing. After all, those present were powerhouses whose eyes were sharp as snow; the least trickery on his part would be seen through at once.
The great examination barely ended by afternoon; some rejoiced and some grieved, and for the grand-academy scholars especially the contest was savage and merciless. To enter the Grand Academy, one might say, was to be one in a hundred. Among the primary-school scholars only five places remained.
Those of illustrious birth were, after all, the more deeply learned and surpassed the sons of humble houses; of those five scholars, only the one called Si Yunxiang passed the great examination and became a Grand Academy scholar, and the other four all came of great and illustrious houses.
It was not that scholars of humble birth did not strive, but that their resources were limited.
The primary schools and the grand academies taught the same martial arts, the same spells, the same swordsmanship; however finely one practiced them, one could not break past that hedge. The great houses, besides cultivating what the primary schools and grand academies imparted, possessed the peerless arts handed down in their own families, from their ancestors, and from their sects, and had elders at home to guide them; hence the small proportion of scholars from humble gates. Shen Mu saw it all, and thought: "If this goes on, I fear the upper ranks of Jingping will in the end be held by the great houses and the sects; the sons of humble gates will never have their day, and can never rise to the court. And so the state cannot long endure.
Emperor Yanfeng has a mind to reform; whether he can change this, I do not know. " In such a state of things the ruler is forever the ruler, and the strata harden between them; and among the rulers some faction must inevitably grow great, greater and greater, holding more and more resources, until at last it becomes a cancer in the empire. Then when the scholars of humble gates rise in revolt, the cancer seizes the moment to stir up wind and waves, and the empire falls in a single day. When the great examination was over, the Guozijian assigned lodgings.