Starting with a Wei Wu soldier

Chapter 274 Education of the Eldest Prince

In the first year of the Qiming era, at the beginning of the tenth month, the late autumn in Chang'an City had already painted the forests with vibrant colors. Chenghua Hall, a quiet and elegant courtyard on the west side of Taiji Palace, welcomed its most important visitor since its completion.

Chenghua Hall was not a newly built palace, but rather a renovated former study of princes from a previous dynasty. Chen Xing personally inscribed the plaque for the hall, but did not hang it; it was simply placed quietly behind the desk inside. He said that it would be better to hang it when Chenghua Hall truly had an owner.

Today, the master has arrived.

Murong Mingyue led a small figure to stand at the foot of the bluestone steps in front of Chenghua Hall. The child was about five years old, dressed in a small black brocade robe embroidered with gold patterns. His hair was tied up with a simple jade hairpin. Between his brows and eyes, he possessed both the heroic and dignified air of his mother and the subtle calm and depth of his father. He stood very straight, neither looking around nor tugging at his mother's clothes, but quietly gazing at the blank plaque above the hall's entrance, as if waiting for something.

"Mother," he began, his voice youthful yet possessing a composure beyond his years, "Father, are you going to teach me to read today?"

Murong Mingyue looked down at him, her gaze both tender and complex. This was her eldest son, Chen Xing's eldest legitimate son, named Chen Qi. This name was chosen by Chen Xing on the eve of his ascension to the throne, when he stood alone outside the Ganlu Palace gazing at the starry sky. He said to Murong Mingyue, "Qi means 'to open.' My Xingqi Empire will usher in the future. If this child is virtuous, he will be the one to open a new chapter." When Murong Mingyue heard this, she felt both gratified and a sense of unease—the child on whom such high hopes were placed would inevitably bear burdens different from those of ordinary princes.

"It's not just about studying." Murong Mingyue squatted down and gently straightened her son's clothes, which had been ruffled by the autumn wind. "What your father wants to teach you is the way of being a ruler, the study of things, and how to... become a person useful to the world."

Chen Qi blinked, seemingly understanding but not quite, but still nodded earnestly.

"Your subject has remembered."

From inside the palace gates, Chen Xing's calm voice rang out: "Come in."

Murong Mingyue released her grip, watching her son cross the threshold alone. His small figure was clearly outlined in the backlight as he steadily walked into the hall, step by step.

The palace doors closed gently behind her.

---

Inside Chenghua Hall, Chen Xing was not dressed in court attire, but only in a black casual robe, sitting behind his desk. There was no tea or fruit on the desk, only an inkstone, a stack of plain paper, several scrolls, and something that Chen Qi had never seen before.

It was an armillary sphere. The hollow sphere, cast in bronze, was engraved with stars and latitude and longitude lines at varying densities. Inside were rotating equatorial and horizon rings. It was exquisite and intricate, and under the sunlight filtering through the window, it gleamed with a dark and mysterious luster.

Chen Qi's gaze was so captivated by it that he forgot to bow.

Chen Xing didn't urge him, but simply watched his son quietly. His young face was full of focus and wonder, his little brows furrowed slightly, as if he was trying to understand the mystery behind this unfamiliar object.

After a long while, Chen Qi finally came to his senses and hurriedly knelt down: "Your subject pays respects to Your Majesty."

"Get up." Chen Xing didn't reprimand him for his rudeness. Instead, he pointed to the armillary sphere and asked, "Do you know what this is?"

Chen Qi stood up, took two steps closer, examined it carefully for a moment, and cautiously replied, "Your subject... does not know. But it is very beautiful, and also... strange."

"What's strange about it?"

"It's like the sky, but it's not the sky." Chen Qi thought for a moment, trying to organize the vocabulary of a five-year-old child. "The stars in the sky are bright, but it's not. The stars in the sky move, but it doesn't. But it drew stars... they're fake, yet they're real."

A hint of a smile flashed in Chen Xing's eyes. He didn't answer immediately, but instead got up, walked to Chen Qi's side, and gently turned the celestial globe.

"This is an armillary sphere, created two thousand years ago by Zhang Heng, a scholar of the Han Dynasty." His voice was not loud, but clear and steady. "It does depict the starry sky. Look, the Twenty-Eight Mansions, the Big Dipper, the Purple Palace Enclosure—they are all real. But it doesn't emit light, nor does it rotate on its own, because it is not the sky, but merely people's understanding and depiction of the sky."

He paused, letting Chen Qi digest this somewhat profound concept.

"You just said, 'It's fake, but it's also real'—that's very well said. All the systems, laws, and knowledge created by mortals are like that. They are not the Way of Heaven itself, but rather tools for humankind to understand, follow, and even utilize the Way of Heaven to a limited extent."

Chen Qi tilted his head back, his gaze shifting from the armillary sphere to his father's calm face. He couldn't fully understand what the emperor was saying, but he keenly sensed that what his father was going to teach him today was completely different from the "Thousand Character Classic" and "Classic of Filial Piety" that the tutors had taught him before.

"Father," he suddenly asked, "do you want your son to learn how to be an emperor?"

The hall fell silent for a moment.

Chen Xing lowered his head and met his son's clear and earnest gaze. This child was only five years old, yet he had asked a question that countless adults dared not or were unwilling to confront throughout their lives.

"Yes." Chen Xing did not evade the question, nor did he use phrases like "when you grow up" to brush it off. "You are the eldest son of me and your mother. If nothing unexpected happens, you will inherit this vast empire in the future."

He paused, then continued, "But the first lesson I will teach you today is not the art of rulership, nor the classics of history and philosophy, but rather—what is 'investigation of things'."

"Investigate things?" Chen Qi murmured these two unfamiliar words.

"'Ge' means to investigate and exhaustively explore. 'Wu' refers to all things in the universe. 'Gewu' means to thoroughly investigate the principles of all things in the universe." Chen Xing pointed to the armillary sphere. "For example, if you want to truly understand this armillary sphere, you can't just listen to me say 'This was created by Zhang Heng,' but you must touch it yourself, turn it, observe the relationship between the positions of the stars and the seasons, and calculate the cycles of the sun and moon. Only then will your understanding of 'Heaven' truly be your own."

He then pointed out the window to a locust tree in the small courtyard of Chenghua Hall that had not yet shed its leaves: "If you want to know why that tree sprouts in spring and sheds its leaves in autumn, you can't just recite the line from the Book of Rites, 'In the first month of spring, plants and trees begin to sprout,' but you have to observe: When does the earth's energy begin to rise? When are day and night of equal length? When does the first leaf turn yellow? And why do the trees next to it shed their leaves at different times?"

Chen Qi followed his father's finger and looked at the locust tree, his eyes gradually becoming focused and bright.

"Reading is listening to what the ancients said," Chen Xing said, his voice softening. "Investigating things is seeing, asking, and thinking for yourself. A ruler faces countless memorials, complex interests, and words that are hard to distinguish between truth and falsehood every day. Without the spirit of investigating things, one can only be led by the nose and will never see the true nature of things."

He sat back down at his desk, picked up a piece of plain paper, wrote four characters, and pushed it in front of Chen Qi.

Be realistic and pragmatic.

"These four words are the principles I want you to uphold throughout your life in learning, in being a person, and in being a ruler." Chen Xing gazed at his son's young but upright back. "Do not blindly follow superiors, do not blindly follow books, only follow the truth. In the future, no matter what you face, no matter how turbulent or dangerous, remember to come back and ask yourself: What is the true nature of this matter?"

Chen Qi lowered his head, gazing at the four characters whose ink was still wet. He couldn't recognize them all, but he vaguely knew that the weight of these four characters was perhaps heavier than all the classics he had memorized so far combined.

"...Your subject will remember." His voice was soft, yet unusually solemn.

Chen Xing nodded slightly, folded the paper, and put it into Chen Qi's shirt pocket.

"That concludes the first lesson of the day." He rose and walked towards the palace gate. "Your mother has been waiting for you outside for a long time. Go now."

Chen Qi didn't leave immediately. He stood there, hesitated for a moment, then suddenly looked up and asked earnestly:

"Father, when my younger siblings grow up, will you teach them the same way?"

Chen Xing stopped in his tracks.

He turned around, his expression obscured by the backlight, only his still-steady voice audible:

"Yes. But what I teach them is different from what you teach them."

Why are they different?

"Because they don't need to be emperors." Chen Xing paused, his voice softening. "But they need to understand what responsibility is, what choice is, and what it means to have the courage to choose while taking on responsibility."

Chen Qi seemed to understand, but he kept those words, along with the armillary sphere, the locust tree, and those four characters, in his heart.

He bowed to his father, turned around, and walked steadily out of the hall.

The palace doors opened, and the autumn sunlight poured in, illuminating Murong Mingyue's waiting figure. She reached out and took her son's small hand in hers, and the two walked side by side down the stone steps of Chenghua Palace.

Inside the hall, Chen Xing sat alone at his desk, gazing intently at the armillary sphere.

The shadows cast by the window moved slowly as the sunlight gradually slanted.

---

That evening, in the Lizheng Hall, Murong Mingyue was tidying up the brocade robe her son had worn during the day. Her hand touched the inside of the robe, finding a piece of plain paper folded into a square knot.

She unfolded it and saw the four neat and solemn characters.

Be realistic and pragmatic.

She gazed at it for a long time, her fingertips gently tracing the edges of the ink, as if trying to feel the emotions her husband had when he wrote those four characters. It was a father's expectation for his son, and even more so, a founding emperor's solemn entrustment to his future ruler.

She folded the paper again and put it back in its place without saying anything more to her son.

Some lessons he needs to learn on his own.

Outside the window, the autumn night was deep, and the moonlight was as clear as water.