Chapter 41: The Trial

A century after the founding of the Great Song Dynasty, the eastern and western political winds continually vied for dominance.

During the reign of the Founding Emperor, military generals held the reins of power. Through campaigns both north and south, they pacified the realm. Despite the clever maneuver of releasing military authority over a cup of wine, military officials generally controlled the court's direction.

Later, when the Successor Emperor ascended the throne, he found himself utterly unable to endure being betrayed by the military commanders. Returning from the campaign at Gaoliang River, he reversed the prior policies and ushered in an era where civil officials dominated the government.

Until the period preceding the Qingli era, the northern factions finally reunited. Leveraging the wars against Western Xia, they once again seized the initiative.

Yet, their actions were far too drastic. By expanding the scale of the military without limit, they ultimately wrecked the finances of the Great Song.

Now, the aristocratic families of the southern realm had awakened. Following a tooth-for-a-tooth and eye-for-an-eye strategy, they pushed Wang Anshi forward to reform the moxibustion therapy of governance, ripping out the vampire-like tubes draining their bodies.

A century after the merger of north and south, the Great Song once again stood on the brink of division.

Fu Bi came from a middle-class family in Luoyang.

Who he was did not truly matter; the forces pushing him to power were far more significant—the Fu family, a super-powerful aristocratic clan of troubled times that had served through five dynasties.

The most famous figure of the Fu family was Fu Jian, the very same Fu Jian who once boasted that his army's whips could dam the flowing currents of the Yangtze River.

When the Former Qin fell and perished, the Fu family did not completely collapse. Instead, they entrenched themselves in Yecheng, transforming into a formidable regional power versed in both civil and martial arts.

From the Eastern Jin and the Sixteen Kingdoms all through the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, the Fu family remained a top-tier elite clan on the Central Plains of Henan, and a preeminent lineage of military commanders.

Wei, Han, Zhou, and finally Song—upon the arrival of the new dynasty, seeing no capital to contend for the hegemony of the realm, Fu Yanqing eventually received a royal title and retired into seclusion.

Yet, the influence of a five-hundred-year-old aristocratic clan far surpassed that of any single emperor.

After the Second Emperor of the Zhao line used civil officials to rein in the military, virtually all the founding military heroes of the Great Song gradually converged under the banner of the Fu family.

They formed a court that was not quite a court—a massive faction primarily composed of former officials from the Later Zhou and early Song dynasties.

While browsing historical records and searching for the forces dominating the nationwide tea trade, Li Chang'an coincidentally discovered a crucial fact: the tea trade of the northern territories was controlled entirely by Luoyang.

All the major tea merchants were, to a greater or lesser degree, connected to Luoyang.

And the largest power in Luoyang was the Prince of Wei's Fu family—a clan that the imperial court of the Great Song deliberately turned a blind eye to.

After navigating numerous twists and turns to verify this hypothesis, and guided by Sima Guang, he finally located the Fu family's representative in the court: Fu Bi.

The brawls of powerful noble houses had nothing to do with him; in fact, he rather enjoyed watching the spectacle.

However, the New Policy faction consisting of Wang Anshi, Lu Huiqing, and Cai Jing were by no means benevolent figures. Over the next fifty years, they would thoroughly doom and destroy the entire civilization.

While frantically strengthening imperial power, they ruthlessly squeezed and exploited the common populace.

One might say that the northern faction's counterattack conjured up a demon—a demon they themselves would ultimately be unable to defeat.

Even over a hundred years later, when the northern general Zhang Hongfan reined in his horse and carved a stone monument to vent his pent-up fury, history had already become reality, immutable and unchangeable.

That Great Song—where people could speak freely, where officials and commoners alike were not required to kneel before superiors, where citizens did not need travel permits to venture outside, and where people could freely wear whatever clothes they pleased—ultimately vanished all the same.

Determined to prevent this tragedy, Li Chang'an resolved to plunge into the game himself.

When he finished speaking, Fu Bi remained unmoved.

The old man had struggled for a lifetime and was finally on the verge of retirement, eager to live a life entirely belonging to himself. He had no desire to embroil himself in the vortex once again.

Wanting to be a chess player required not only brains, but also immense daring.

"Su Zhishu, a man of Shu?" Fu Bi smiled and shook his head. The northern factions were not even united among themselves; how could they possibly trust an up-and-coming talent from the Shu faction?

"Lord Fu must have forgotten: the ancestral home of the Su family is Zhaozhou in Hebei, making them authentic northerners. Besides, the one playing the chess is not him, but I!"

Having played all his trump cards without catching the old man's eye, he had no choice but to step up himself at this critical juncture.

With that, Li Chang'an smiled and gazed up at the towering tree overhead, where cicadas were chirping merrily, occasionally dropping a bead of moisture.

"You? Are your ancestors the Li clan of the former Tang or the later Tang?"

"What if they are neither?"

"Are you a descendant of Duke Li Weigong?"

Li Chang'an continued to shake his head. "Does Lord Fu value bloodlines to such a degree? What do you make of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, then?"

The old man tilted his head and pondered for a moment, finally looking enlightened.

"Then let us speak in terms of capital. You possess merely a money shop and a brokerage; what gives you the right to enter this game?"

"Lord Fu must be mistaken. It is not that I insist on entering this game, but rather that I hold the solution to untangle it. You simply have no other choice."

"Hahahaha..." The old man laughed heartily, his voice reverberating back and forth between the walls with a lingering echo.

"You ask me to protect Su Shi; I can do my utmost in that regard. But if you claim you want to be the chess player, then show me some genuine skill and capability. No matter how formidable Wang Anshi may be, he is still made of flesh and blood. In our lands of Yanzhao, Qin, and Jin, men of generous and tragic valor are the things we least lack."

Fu Bi deliberately raised his teacup to signal the end of the meeting. His conversational zeal for the day was exhausted; there was no need to continue sparring with a young man.

Chang'an stood up and made a formal bow.

"Then let us make a wager. Within five days, I shall stir up a gigantic wave. If I win, I hope Your Excellency will not break your promise when the time comes."

Five days later was when *Empires and Tea* would make its debut. He intended to use this analytical piece to thoroughly decode the inner workings of the empire.

"Farewell!"

Returning from the outskirts, Li Chang'an threw himself heart and soul into the preparations for the commentary article.

In an era devoid of academic search engines or digital databases, writing an economic research paper was roughly equivalent to an ordinary person composing a masterpiece like *When Will the Bright Moon Appear?*

Given the capabilities of the novices, they were not yet equipped to complete this monumental work single-handedly.

"Wei Ming, following the tabular statistical method, compile the tea taxes across various production regions using a ten-year cycle..."

"Wei Min, handle this: trace the fluctuation curve of the Tea and Salt Monopoly Agency's tea trade..."

"Xu Zhi, go to the archives of the Kaifeng Prefecture and check the total volume changes of the three major trading routes..."

No longer focusing primarily on training personnel, he began to issue direct commands.

As individuals were dispatched and various data gradually emerged, the members of the editorial team slowly realized they were participating in a magnificent and great project.

The imperial court officially began recording tea taxes during the reign of the True Ancestor Emperor.

In the fifth year of the Tianxi era, the physical tea tax collected by the court amounted to one million one hundred and seventy thousand catties. By the Zhiping era of the Inquiring Ancestor Emperor, the physical tax was converted into a monetary tax, bringing in approximately eight hundred and fifty thousand strings of cash annually. After the reign of the Militant Ancestor Emperor, the tax quota gradually increased and now hovered around one million two hundred thousand strings of cash.

What felt bizarre and contradictory was that, according to the Monopoly Agency's tax rate of fifty to seventy wen per catty of tea, plus additional transaction taxes, the final tax revenue failed to match the production output of registered tea plantations.

Not only did it fail to match, but it fell short by an entire order of magnitude.

Based on the tax levies, the Great Song should have had only twenty million catties of tea involved in large-scale trade.

However, across more than forty production areas nationwide and thousands of large-scale tea mountains and plantations, the registered portion alone produced eighty million catties of tea annually.

Adding in private tea plantations and mountain tea production areas controlled by ethnic minority groups, the total annual tea production within the borders of the Song should have exceeded one hundred and thirty million catties.

Clearly, a vast portion of official tea had been converted into private tea.

If the majority of this tea could be successfully taxed, the court might perhaps increase its annual revenue by eight to nine million strings of cash.

When Li Chang'an voiced this hypothesis, everyone felt a surge of intense excitement.

Only a view as earth-shattering as this could justify the hardships they had endured battling through the scorching summer heat.

"Everyone, put in a bit more effort! Once the article is finished, I'll treat you all to summon the courtesan champion at the Sea-Gazing Tower!"