Cixi's new strategy was one of intellectual assault. Having concluded that the Emperor's strange insights stemmed from a mind "poisoned" by the wrong ideas, she decided to confront the problem head-on. Her rigid tutors, led by the arch-conservative Wo Ren, had failed to break the boy's spirit with rote memorization alone. So, she would escalate. She would send one of her intellectual champions, a scholar of immense repute, to engage the boy in a philosophical debate. Her goal was twofold: to publicly humiliate the child, exposing his supposed "divine insight" as a fluke, and to ideologically steamroll him, proving the absolute superiority of traditional thought.
Her chosen champion was Zhang Zhidong, a real historical figure and one of the most brilliant scholar-officials of his generation. He was a man of vast learning, a master of the classics, but also a staunch conservative, a firm believer in the unassailable superiority of Chinese civilization. Cixi had appointed him as a special "guest lecturer," and his arrival in the Imperial Study was met with great ceremony.
Ying Zheng sat on his small throne-like chair, watching as the famous scholar entered. He knew of this man. Shen Ke's reports had identified Zhang Zhidong as a powerful voice, a man whose intellectual weight could sway the entire court. This was not a lesson; it was a carefully staged ambush.
The topic of the debate, chosen by Wo Ren and Zhang Zhidong, was a core concept of the Self-Strengthening Movement, a philosophical battleground for the empire's future. It was the principle of Ti-Yong (體用), which could be translated as "Substance and Use" or, more pointedly, "Essence and Application."
Zhang Zhidong began, his voice resonant and filled with the confidence of a man who had never lost an argument. "Your Majesty, this humble servant has come to discuss the great challenge of our age. The barbarians from the West have powerful machines and weapons. Some in the court foolishly believe we must become like them to survive. But they fail to grasp the principle of Ti-Yong."
He warmed to his theme, his words aimed not just at the boy, but at the other tutors and listening eunuchs, a formal declaration of the conservative creed. "Chinese learning—our Confucian ethics, our social harmony, our ancestral rites—is the Ti. It is the fundamental, sacred, and unchanging substance of our civilization. It is the root of the tree. The learning of the West—their science, their engineering, their machines—is merely Yong. It is the practical application, the useful tool. It is the branch of the tree."
He smiled, a condescending, professorial smile. "We can adopt their Yong without ever corrupting our Ti. We can use their ships and their guns as a farmer uses a new plow. The tool does not change the soul of the farmer. We can remain fundamentally Chinese in our essence, while using barbarian tools for our own purposes." He then turned his full attention to the small boy. "Your Majesty, can you tell this humble servant what is the root, and what is the branch? What is the enduring substance, and what is the temporary application?"
It was a trap, a complex philosophical question designed to be unanswerable by a child. They expected him to be confused, to stammer, to fall silent, thereby proving he was just an ordinary boy, his previous insights nothing more than lucky guesses or parroted phrases.
But they had made a critical error. They were attempting to debate philosophy with the most ruthless pragmatist in Chinese history. Ying Zheng, the man who had unified the warring states not with superior ethics but with superior siege engines, a centralized bureaucracy, and an iron-fisted legal code, saw the flaw in their argument with blinding clarity.
He did not answer with a quote from the classics. He did not engage in their philosophical terms. He answered with a simple, practical analogy, using the objects on the table before him.
He picked up a fine porcelain teacup, its surface a delicate blue and white. "This cup," he said, his childish voice clear and steady, "has a beautiful shape, a noble history from the kilns of Jingdezhen. This is its Ti, its substance. Is that correct, Scholar Zhang?"
Zhang Zhidong nodded, pleased. "A perfect understanding, Your Majesty."
"And its Yong," Ying Zheng continued, "its use, is to hold this tea, so that I may drink." He took a small sip. "Its application is to serve my thirst." He then pointed a small finger out the window, towards the distant outer walls of the city. "A barbarian's steel cannon also has a Yong. Its use is to shatter our walls. Its application is to kill our soldiers."
He set the cup down gently and looked directly at Zhang Zhidong. "If our cup's Ti, its substance, is so vastly superior, why can it not stop the cannon's Yong? If I were to throw this cup at the cannon, the cup would shatter. The cannon would not notice. Where, then, is the superiority of the substance?"
The tutors stared, stunned into silence by the brutal simplicity of the question.
Ying Zheng continued, his voice taking on a harder, more logical edge. "You say the tool does not change the farmer. But what if the new plow allows the farmer to till ten times as much land? He must then hire other men. He must learn to manage them. He must learn to store and sell his surplus grain. He must engage with merchants and moneylenders. His new tool has not just changed how he plows; it has changed his entire life, his entire way of thinking. It has changed his Ti."
He leaned forward, his ancient eyes pinning the famous scholar in place. "A tool is not separate from the mind that created it. To build their steam engines, we must build their foundries and their machine shops. To build their shipyards, we must learn their mathematics and their engineering. To master their engineering, we must adopt their scientific method—a method based on questioning, experimenting, and discarding old ideas that do not work. That way of thinking is the very poison you fear. It is the opposite of revering the unchanging classics."
His final words were delivered with a quiet, devastating finality. "To say that we can have their Yong without our Ti being fundamentally changed by it is the logic of a fool. The branch, if you allow it to grow strong enough, will eventually change the shape of the root itself. Or it will become so heavy that it will break the trunk in two."
A profound silence filled the study. The three tutors and Zhang Zhidong stared at the small boy, their faces a mixture of shock, confusion, and a dawning, horrified respect. The child had not just grasped their complex philosophical concept; he had dissected it, exposed its core fallacy, and refuted it with a pragmatism so ruthless it was almost alien. He had turned their own intellectual weapon against them and shattered it.
Zhang Zhidong, the great scholar, the champion of debate, had no response. He opened his mouth, then closed it again. For the first time in his public life, he was utterly speechless. He felt as though he had come to debate a promising schoolboy and had found himself facing a mind of formidable, ancient, and terrifying intelligence.
Cixi's attempt to humiliate the Emperor had backfired in the most spectacular way imaginable. She had not proven him a fool. She had proven he was something far more dangerous.