Chapter 2932: Tianjin Wei (11)

"Others who come here, one and all, praise this old man for governing well." Xu Guangqi shook his head with a bitter smile. "But how much bitterness and how much heart's blood went into it — that this old man alone knows clearly."

Such baring of hardship and gall was by no means the Grand Secretary's everyday manner. Li Luoyou's heart started; and thinking besides of that body declining day by day of late, there rose in him at once a presentiment of ill. He hastened to speak comfort:

"That the Venerable Sir, with the dignity of a Grand Secretary, should come in person to this corner of the sea, laying his own hand to the farms and the coastal defenses, doing the work himself in all things — such lonely devotion, heaven and earth themselves may witness. If the toil of it cannot be wholly known to the world, this junior at least sees it with his eyes and keeps the reverence of it at heart. The affairs of the state are hard-pressed; all leans upon the Venerable Sir to hold them up. Take ten thousand cares of your body — that alone is the fortune of the altars of state."

"You and I are brethren of the faith; such flattery between us is too distant by half." Xu Guangqi laughed, a thread of teasing in the sound. "This old man's own countenance — do I not know it myself? I am merely holding myself upright, no more. The Court's affairs, Tianjin's affairs, matter upon matter and item upon item, all press upon these shoulders; rest, even if I wished it, is not to be had."

As he spoke he studied Li Luoyou with a questioning eye: "Master Li, coming to Tianjin this time, and expressly to see this old man — is there some pressing matter, perhaps?"

Li Luoyou came and went through Tianjin often, and did not call upon Xu Guangqi on every pass — first, because a gulf of rank stood between them; second, because the Grand Secretary was old and frail, and he had no wish to weary him. Happily both were of the faith: when there was business, a meeting could be arranged at once, without the ceaseless visiting and tending that the other great ones required to keep a relationship alive.

Li Luoyou weighed it a moment and resolved to speak plainly: "In coming to Tianjin this time, my first purpose was that it had been long since I waited upon you, and I came to ask after your health; the second was the matter the Grand Secretary entrusted to me on the last occasion."

So saying, he opened a fine sandalwood case he had brought with him, and from its wrapping of black velvet took out several bright-shining brass instruments, made with the utmost nicety. "These are proportional compasses, made expressly for taking the aim and the charge in serving the great Red Barbarian cannon. I had them bought in Italy through the Portuguese merchants. With the same cargo came various other instruments, which will be delivered together presently." He sighed. "Lingao has such things as well — only the Australians keep them under the strictest control; to export one requires a permit."

A servant took the case and bore it to Xu Guangqi's desk. The former Grand Secretary bent over the Western instruments within, his gaze passing slowly across the fine graduations and the meshing works, a glitter kindling in his eyes, delight past hiding; he nodded again and again in praise: "Fine things! Fine things!"

Long he fingered and studied them; then at last, gently, he set the instruments down upon the desk and heaved a deep sigh: "With such clever devices to aid the casting of cannon and the reckoning of firepower — truly, a tiger given wings."

Li Luoyou spoke at his ease: "Only, these things do not come easily, and the stock on hand is scant. For the craftsmen of the cannon bureau to measure with, they will serve; but to fit one to every gun would fall far short. And bought overseas as they are — the price high, the road long — the cost over time is no small matter. If they could be taken apart and copied at home, and the method of their making learned, then they might be had for use always."

"Copied?"

Xu Guangqi started at the word; then he stroked his beard in thought — and in a moment brow and eye smoothed open, and approval showed in his face. "Jizhi, you have struck the very joint of the matter. Be Western instruments never so exquisite, to lean upon another's breath and be ruled by another's hand is no plan for the root or the long years. I have had just this mind. Some day soon I shall gather skilled craftsmen, study out the forms and the rules of their making, take them apart and copy them, and strive with all my might to stand on our own feet — to make our own and use our own!" He glanced at Li Luoyou. "When that day comes, I fear I must trouble you again."

"The Grand Secretary sees far; your student will do his part," Li Luoyou answered, and at once brought up the matter nearest his heart. "There is another weighty affair on which I would ask the Grand Secretary's guidance."

"What affair?"

"The Court has newly established a Note Bureau, with the imperial in-law Tian set over it, apportioning out note bills in every place. My own Liaohai House has already subscribed thirty thousand taels in the capital; only on reaching Tianjin did I learn that here another ten thousand had been laid upon us." Li Luoyou sighed. "Though your student is but a merchant, he knows the Court's purse is strained and the soldiers' pay runs short; to share the state's cares is duty's own portion. Only the handling of these note bills is, perhaps, somewhat..."

He did not go on, but the meaning was already plain enough.

Xu Guangqi was silent a moment; the smile on his face folded slowly away, and in its place came a deep unease.

"The note-bill business — this old man knows of it too," he said slowly. "His Majesty issued a personal edict establishing the Bureau, going over the head of the Revenue Ministry and the Grand Secretariat; I, the governor of Tianjin, learned of it only afterward. Of this Tian Hongyu I had best not say too much. But the note bills themselves — handled well, they might yet raise some silver; handled ill, I fear we shall see the old story of the Wanli years played over again, when the mining agents and the tax eunuchs threw the realm into disorder."

This was, in some measure, to dodge the weight and touch only the light. These so-called note bills were the Great Ming Treasure Note in another dress; carried forward on such a course, they could sooner or later escape nothing but the fate of waste paper. Xu Guangqi had no command of the economic doctrines of later ages, and knew no such term as inflation; but he understood the logic of order and disorder through every dynasty: when a dynasty's last years begin to reel, the Court invariably claws the wealth out of the people by casting base coin, flooding the realm with worthless paper, setting empty values on bloated money. Such plunder — drinking poison to slake a thirst — breeds a poison in the root whose running sores run several times more bitter than the mining agents and tax eunuchs of old.

"The Grand Secretary speaks to the very point." Li Luoyou nodded slightly, his look grave. "Only, this junior fears the note bills are but a beginning. Once the in-law Tian and the eunuchs who run the errand have tasted the sweetness in it, they will surely press on, doubling and redoubling without measure. So carried on, the merchants, skimmed at layer upon layer until the burden can no longer be borne, will have no course but to fold their stalls and shut their markets. And once the trade of south and north ceases to flow and the market lanes wither, then the taxes and revenue on which the Court depends for its spending will be the first to run dry."

"What you fear — does this old man not fear it too?" Xu Guangqi sighed. "But what I can do now is to manage the farming and the training well upon this little plot of ground that is Tianjin. As for the Court's affairs — my words carry no weight there any longer."

Li Luoyou heard it with a cold desolation of his own. He knew that though a small circle of men of the faith gathered about the Grand Secretary, they stood for the most part outside the chief powers of the court; deeply trusted by the Emperor he might be, but age and frailty, and the faith besides, left his weight in those halls very slight.

Without power — never mind sweeping away abuses and spreading the new — merely to keep the court's balance is hard beyond measure. The Son of Heaven abhors faction above all things; yet in those halls nothing moves without one. Without a faction, to say nothing of doing, even surviving is a matter of the last difficulty.

As a man already passing out of the weather, there was in truth but little the old Grand Secretary could do in this perilous hour.

Xu Guangqi said slowly: "Tomorrow I shall send a letter to the capital. As for the note bills, you need concern yourself with them no further."

"Yes — my deepest thanks, Grand Secretary!" Li Luoyou rose hastily and bowed to the very ground.

"Do not thank me. What this old man can do now is, in truth, already little enough. I may help one man — I cannot save the myriad people of the world."

In the old Grand Secretary's words was a sighing full of wistfulness, and beneath it a thread of the desolation of a man powerless to turn back heaven's course — every syllable steeped in the loneliness of one who sits high yet cannot hold the times. Li Luoyou sighed in silence too.

"Enough of this." Xu Guangqi waved a hand, as if to fling the vexations away. "Jizhi, you come rarely — let this old man show you the farms of Gegu. You have lived in the south: come see how these northern fields of mine stand against the southern."

So saying, he rose and walked out upon his bamboo staff, and Li Luoyou followed quickly after.

A few steps out of the study, the attendants beneath the eaves came forward at once. Xu Guangqi gave an order: "Go and ask Master Han Zhaoxian to come here."

Then he explained: "He is this old man's secretary here, and a capable right hand besides."

In a little while a man came walking slowly in at the door — figure upright and correct, thirty years old or thereabouts, his face clear and handsome, brow and eye mild and refined, dressed in a dark-blue cloth robe of the straight cut, untouched by the airs of the gilded youth. His bearing was composed and measured; between his brows rested that reverent humility particular to men of the faith; at his waist hung no gold or jade, only a small wooden cross, hidden beneath the lapel.

Entering, the newcomer bowed to Xu Guangqi — the forms of courtesy complete, his look respectful.

Xu Guangqi raised a hand with a smile to bid him rise, then turned to Li Luoyou and made the introduction at his ease: "Jizhi, let me present a young man. His name is Han Zhaoxian, styled Zhongming, of Jiangzhou in Shanxi — a junior of Han Lin's clan. From childhood he was formed by those two men; he gave his heart to the Learning of Heaven and keeps the Church's rule strictly; he studied the investigation of things and the reckoning of calendars under Father Gao Yizhi, and was baptized into the Church in his boyhood. Among the younger generation of our faith he is one of the settled and dependable — a man who may be charged with real work."

At this Han Zhaoxian stepped forward and offered Li Luoyou a long bow, his voice mild and steady: "Your junior Han Zhaoxian greets you, sir. Long have I heard tell of you — a leader among merchants, firm in the holy faith, glad to do good and open-handed in giving — and long have you stood in my heart's regard."

Li Luoyou's eyes took the young man before them, part by part: young in years yet with a bearing drawn inward, none of the flightiness of youth, courteous in speech, carrying both the bookish air of a scholar and the devout stillness of a churchman — at a glance, the product of an old family's rearing and a heart given over to learning.

Han Lin stood at the head of the Catholic gentry of Shanxi; around Jiangzhou the mission had borne rich fruit, and he was a figure of weight in the Church. That such a man as this stood in the room could only mean one more sturdy arm at Xu Guangqi's side — that went without saying.

Li Luoyou hastily clasped his hands in return, his smile mild and courteous: "Worthy nephew — young yet ripe, gentle and mannerly, reared under the care of Lord Wending and the masters Han and Duan, and versed besides in the Learning of Heaven and Western principle: truly a rarity. That we meet today is itself a kind of fate."

Xu Guangqi said slowly at the side: "Though Zhaoxian keeps to the countryside, he attends closely to the temper of the times, knows something of firearms and city defense, and carries a steady correspondence with friends of the faith in Shanxi and in the capital. Master Li walks north and south in trade; should matters of the Church or of Western learning arise hereafter, you may deal freely with this young man. His character is honest and good — he may be trusted entirely."

Han Zhaoxian stood with hands clasped and said with humility: "Lord Wending praises me past my due. Your junior's talents are thin and his learning shallow; he merely keeps the Church's rule and has skimmed the surface of Western learning. To receive Master Li's guidance and instruction would be honor enough."

Li Luoyou nodded with pleasure: "Well said, well said. Sharing the holy faith, we are of one way; henceforth we shall naturally see much of one another."

"Master Li comes to Gegu for the first time. The river landings, the dwellings of the faithful, the farm fields, the workshops of Western learning — all lie scattered here and there, and a stranger cannot find his way among them. Zhaoxian lives here year-round; every matter great and small in the district has passed through his hands, and he knows them all. Let him serve as your guide — walk about with Master Li, look here and there, and tell him in detail of the country's sights and people, and of how the Church's work now stands."

(End of chapter)