The Imperial Study remained a battleground, though the weapons were words and the casualties were ideas. Head Tutor Wo Ren and his two colleagues continued their daily ideological siege, a relentless assault of classical recitation designed to shape the Emperor's mind into a vessel of pure, orthodox Confucian thought. They were diligent in their task, utterly convinced that they were performing a sacred duty: saving the Son of Heaven from the corrupting influences of the modern world.
Ying Zheng, for his part, endured the grueling lessons with a placid, almost meditative patience. He chanted the ancient texts, his childish voice clear and obedient. He copied the complex characters, his brushstrokes showing a slow, believable improvement. He understood that his tutors were not just teachers; they were the intellectual champions of the very conservative faction that was now plotting to undermine his reforms across the empire. He could not dismiss them—that would give his enemies a political victory. So, he chose a different path. He would not destroy their classroom. He would conquer it.
On this day, Wo Ren was lecturing on a key passage from the works of the great sage Mencius. His voice was a dry, academic drone, filled with self-satisfaction.
"And so, Your Majesty, we see the core of righteous governance," he concluded, stroking his long, white beard. "Mencius teaches us that human nature is innately good. The duty of a benevolent ruler is therefore not to control the people with harsh laws, but to nurture their innate goodness. And this begins with ensuring their livelihood. If the people are hungry, if they are cold, if their families are not secure, they cannot be expected to cultivate virtue. A full belly is the prerequisite for a moral heart. Do you understand this fundamental principle?"
He looked at the boy, expecting a simple nod of assent. Instead, Ying Zheng set down his brush and looked up, his face a mask of perfect, scholarly innocence.
"I do, Grand Tutor," he said, his voice clear and thoughtful. "Your wisdom is profound. The sage Mencius teaches that a ruler's primary duty is to care for the material well-being of his people." He paused, letting the tutor savor the validation. Then, he sprung his trap. "Then, if new roads allow merchants to bring more food to a city that is suffering a shortage, is that not a profoundly benevolent act? And if new, stronger plows, made from a better kind of metal, allow a farmer to grow twice as much grain on the same plot of land, is that not a fulfillment of the sage's highest ideal? Are these not, therefore, deeply Confucian acts?"
Wo Ren's smug expression faltered. He stared at the boy, a flicker of confusion in his eyes. He had been so focused on the abstract moral principle that he had failed to see its brutally practical application. The boy had taken their most sacred text and forged it into a weapon to defend his own radical, modernizing agenda.
"Well… yes, Your Majesty," the old tutor stammered. "In principle… a tool that aids the people's livelihood is, of course, a good thing."
"Excellent," Ying Zheng said with a bright smile. He had just won the philosophical high ground. Now, he would occupy it. He signaled to one of his eunuchs. "Scholar Shen has prepared some materials for my supplementary studies. Please bring them in."
Shen Ke entered the study, bowing low to the tutors. He was there under the official guise of delivering rare classical texts from the library for the Emperor's perusal. He carried a heavy, silk-wrapped bundle of scrolls and books, which he placed on the table.
Ying Zheng turned to his three tutors, his expression one of earnest intellectual curiosity. "I wish to understand this principle of benevolence more deeply," he announced. "I have asked Scholar Shen to gather some historical case studies for us, so that we may learn from the successes and failures of the past."
Shen Ke, at the Emperor's gesture, unrolled the first scroll. It was a series of meticulously compiled reports—some were authentic historical documents retrieved by Weng Tonghe from the archives, others were convincing fabrications created by Shen Ke's own workshop of scribes. They detailed the great famines of the Ming Dynasty, graphically describing the immense suffering caused by drought, floods, and, most pointedly, the failure of the state's infrastructure to transport relief grain effectively.
"We must study why the ancestors' methods, for all their virtue, sometimes failed to prevent such suffering," Ying Zheng said, his voice filled with a somber gravity.
Next, Shen Ke presented a different set of documents. These were translations of European texts, reports on agricultural yields in England, production figures from German steel mills, and analyses of the incredible wealth generated by American railroads.
"And we must also study why the barbarians' methods, for all their lack of propriety, seem to succeed so well in creating material wealth and preventing famine," Ying Zheng continued. "A wise ruler, as Mencius taught, must learn from all sources, must he not? He must use any tool that allows him to better care for his people and fulfill his benevolent duty."
He looked at his stunned tutors. "Therefore, I ask you to guide me in this study. Let us debate the practical application of Mencius's teachings. Let us compare the logistical failures of the Ming with the industrial successes of the Germans. Let us discuss how we can use the Yong of the West to better achieve the Ti of our own Confucian ideals."
It was a masterstroke. He had completely turned the tables. He had taken their ideological prison and transformed it into his personal policy workshop, a think tank dedicated to his own modernization agenda. He was not rejecting their classical curriculum; he was demanding that they apply it to the real world, a task for which their abstract, backward-looking philosophy was hopelessly ill-equipped.
He was forcing his own conservative, xenophobic tutors to study and debate the merits of industrialization. They could not refuse. To do so would be to admit that their own sacred philosophy was incapable of answering the practical questions of governance, that it was nothing more than a collection of beautiful but useless phrases. They were trapped. They would either have to engage with his premises and, in doing so, legitimize his modernizing project, or they would have to reveal their own intellectual bankruptcy.
Wo Ren and his colleagues looked at the piles of documents, at the stark contrast between the reports of Chinese suffering and the evidence of Western prosperity. They looked at the small boy who was now demanding that they use their ancient wisdom to solve modern problems. They were the teachers, but they suddenly, terrifyingly, felt like the students, faced with a lesson they were not prepared to learn. Ying Zheng was not just going to counter the conservatives' ideological war. He was going to make their own champions argue his case for him.