Chapter 1317 - "Learn the Pirate's Techniques to Defeat the Pirates"

In the end, Old Squire Huang relented to his second son's proposal and dispatched Huang Bingkun's personal servant and study companion, Huang Ping, to attend Fangcao Di. Huang Ping was a distant relative of the Huang clan who had been at Huang Bingkun's side since childhood—a trustworthy soul.

During the first months after Huang Ping began his studies at Fangcao Di, he returned to the Huang Family Stockade every fortnight—or "two weeks," as the Australians called it—to rest for a day. Upon each return, he would report everything he had witnessed and heard at the school to Young Master Huang, and dutifully hand over his textbooks and supplementary materials. Huang Bingkun immediately set scribes to work copying them in rotating shifts.

Each homecoming found Huang Ping like a cheerful sparrow, chattering away endlessly. Wherever Huang Bingkun happened to be in the compound, he would rush back the moment his servant arrived, eager to hear fresh accounts of life at Fangcao Di.

Huang Bingkun listened to every word with rapt attention. This once-taciturn youth had grown increasingly talkative since enrolling at the school, returning each time brimming with inexhaustible topics: his coursework, the campus grounds, his fellow students and teachers.

When Huang Ping finally exhausted his stories, Huang Bingkun would offer a few words of praise before reminding him never to forget "the words of the sages" and under no circumstances to "let the pirates bewitch his mind." Huang Ping would assent repeatedly, then hurry off to reunite with his parents.

Huang Ping's parents worked the land within the Huang Family Stockade. Ever since their son had begun attending school, they greeted Young Master Huang with beaming smiles whenever their paths crossed, offering profuse thanks for "the young master's great kindness." This pleased Huang Bingkun considerably—he was simultaneously gathering intelligence on the pirates' secrets and winning the hearts of his people.

Huang Bingkun devoted considerable time to studying the copied textbooks and materials, hoping to uncover the secret methods for forging cannons, crafting muskets, and building great iron ships. Unfortunately, though the pirates' textbooks employed Chinese characters, the mathematics and natural philosophy courses made extensive use of letters to represent quantities, rendering them equally incomprehensible to Young Master Huang. Moreover, despite being fourteen at enrollment, Huang Ping could only start from the first grade of the Junior Elementary Department. The three courses comprising Fangcao Di's first-year curriculum—mathematics, language, and natural science—none touched upon the "techniques" Huang Bingkun most desperately wished to learn.

As for mathematics, while he had never studied it systematically, he possessed some familiarity with traditional arithmetic—"chickens and rabbits in a cage" problems, abacus calculations, and the like. After poring over the materials for some time, though many symbols and numbers remained mysterious, at least the word problems and mathematical theorems were written in Chinese, allowing him to grasp perhaps seventy or eighty percent.

The mathematical theorems left Huang Bingkun in a peculiar state: he could recognize every character individually, yet their meaning dissolved into incomprehension when strung together. The word problems, however, proved mostly intelligible: they addressed practical matters of daily life—measuring fields and calculating yields, digging ponds and constructing houses, trade and commerce. All eminently useful.

Learning such things would indeed be a valuable skill, Huang Bingkun mused. When Huang Ping completed his studies and returned, he could be put to good use—perhaps as a steward or something of the sort.

Useful as it might be, Huang Bingkun couldn't solve a single problem. He stared blankly at the exercises in the mathematics book for half a day. He yearned to ask Huang Ping for guidance but couldn't bring himself to lose face in such a manner. After further reflection, since this field-measuring and commerce material bore no relation to how the pirates manufactured firearms and cannons, failing to understand it was of little consequence.

So he turned instead to the natural science book. Huang Ping had mentioned that this course concerned the study of "investigating things"—essentially teaching the principles governing the transformations of all things between heaven and earth. In truth, it was elementary physics, chemistry, and biology, presented with illustrations and explanatory text. Huang Bingkun read several pages and found it rather fascinating. One chapter in particular caught his attention: a section specifically about buoyancy, using ships as examples. Why could ships float upon water? Huang Bingkun immediately sat up straighter and read with care.

When he reached the passage stating: "...The buoyant force acting on an object in water equals the weight of water displaced by the object. The larger the ship and the deeper it sits in the water, the greater the weight of water it displaces, and thus the greater the buoyant force it receives—naturally meaning it can carry more cargo," he couldn't help muttering, "Complete nonsense!"

In Huang Bingkun's understanding, ships floated because they were made of wood. Wood floated on water, therefore ships floated on water. Simple logic.

Yet the Australians' iron ships had severely shaken this conviction. When he pronounced his verdict of "complete nonsense," there was little real conviction behind it. He harbored an uncomfortable suspicion that even though he didn't fully comprehend the explanation, the Australians were making a valid point. As for the sections on the transformation between the three states of matter, those he basically understood—the examples given—water turning to ice, water turning to steam—were phenomena he witnessed regularly.

He leafed through the natural science book back and forth for a long while, almost unable to set it down. Although he had commissioned copies of the text, the diagrams could not be reproduced. He had heard from Huang Ping that this book was also sold at the bookstores in East Gate Market, which planted in his mind the notion of purchasing a few copies himself.

He flipped through the language textbook as well. Apart from the pinyin letters—which he neither endorsed nor understood—he found the content unobjectionable. The first-grade textbook focused on character recognition, with simple sentences and short passages all written in Australian vernacular. Interspersed throughout were elementary moral principles, mostly things the Australians repeatedly advocated—maintaining hygiene, being polite, and such—nothing more than material for instructing the masses. Though the language was plain, the intentions were proper.

Having obtained these three textbooks and heard numerous anecdotes about Fangcao Di from Huang Ping, Huang Bingkun felt he had gained considerably. He grew ever more convinced that his stratagem had been brilliant. He resolved to compile the materials Huang Ping gathered, combined with his own daily observations, into a Record of Essential Information on the Pirates. Someday, when the opportunity arose, he would present it to the imperial court.

But things gradually began to change. The introduction of public ox-carts in Lingao, while providing convenience, also shortened travel times throughout the county. The journey from Fangcao Di to the Huang Family Stockade had once required departing at dawn and not arriving until dusk. With ox-carts, an early morning departure meant reaching the Stockade in time for the midday meal. Yet Huang Ping's visits home grew increasingly infrequent—from every fortnight to every twenty days, then to once a month. After advancing to Junior Elementary second grade, aside from returning for festivals, he would merely send a letter to report his safety and stopped coming home entirely.

Though Huang Bingkun couldn't decipher the content of the pirates' textbooks himself, what troubled him even more was the growing sense that Huang Ping—a servant born in the Huang Family Stockade, his own former attendant—was gradually slipping beyond his control.

As for Huang Bingkun's proposal to visit Fangcao Di and observe it firsthand, Jasmine Pavilion's headmaster Liu Dalin had remained noncommittal. Ever since the Australians had cured his illness and provided over a year of rehabilitation treatment, not only had his overall health improved dramatically, but he could gradually walk without his wheelchair—able to move slowly with a cane and someone's support.

By all rights, this was cause for celebration. After all, Liu Dalin was not yet forty—still in the prime of life. In years past, chronic illness had prevented him from accomplishing much; many times he could only lend his name to projects without actual involvement. Now that his health had improved, it was time for great achievements. Many local gentry and scholars therefore invited him to serve at the County Consultative Bureau and "serve his hometown"—the Australians had always shown respect to this Successful Candidate Liu, and if he could represent the community on various matters, it would benefit everyone.

However, Liu the Successful Candidate seemed like a changed man. He spoke less often, and declined the invitation to join the County Consultative Bureau. Each day he would only travel to Jasmine Pavilion to deliver his lectures; once they concluded, he would return straight home, refusing all visitors. It was said he read very little now. He seemed weighed down by some heavy burden of worry.

The students at Jasmine Pavilion were dwindling by the day as well. The grand spectacle that had accompanied its renovation and reopening—when student scholars from all corners of the county had flocked to enroll—was already a fading memory. Aside from a determined few, most of the student scholars had reached a practical conclusion: rather than struggling here in devoted study, receiving a monthly stipend of only a few dozen yuan barely sufficient for self-support, they could leverage their ability to read and write into employment with the Australians. Even becoming a tutor at a Purification Camp to teach refugees the Thousand Character Classic and Hundred Family Surnames would present no difficulty and would adequately support a family. As for passing the examination to become a licentiate—what use was a licentiate's credentials in Lingao anymore? The Australians had instituted universal taxation, so the licentiate's exemption from two shi of grain tax had long since vanished. The privileges of meeting officials without kneeling, of immunity from corporal punishment—these held no meaning under Australian rule. No one had to kneel when meeting Australians, and the Australians didn't go about beating people's backsides at every turn as imperial officials were wont to do.

Furthermore, the civil examination system had never flourished in Lingao. Beyond licentiates, whose fixed county quotas offered some realistic hope, Recommended Men and Metropolitan Graduates were as rare as phoenix feathers and unicorn horns. From the county's establishment during the Tang Dynasty through the Ming, only Liu Dalin had passed the metropolitan examination; there were scarcely a dozen Recommended Men in the historical record. Those who did become licentiates had little prospect of becoming Recommended Men, let alone the student scholars who hadn't yet achieved even that humble rank.

(End of Chapter)