Jinting Han people

Chapter 157: Sound of the Yellow Bell (4k)

No one knew where he came back from. After Liu Xian had been traveling for an hour, the mud on his horse's belly was covered with a layer of black mud, and so were his trouser legs and leather boots. He was completely exhausted.

He was accompanied by the county lieutenant Zhang Gu, the chief clerk Lü Quyang, and the imperial officer Li Sheng. They were all dressed similarly, their faces showing the fatigue of traveling back and forth. So as soon as they dismounted, they went to the well in the front yard of the county government to scoop water.

Perhaps it was the harsher winds and frost of Guanxi that stung. After a year, while Liu Xian, now twenty, looked much the same, his scholarly demeanor had diminished, and his words and actions betrayed a more martial spirit. As he and his companions scrambled for water, his Luoyang elegance was gone, replaced by a touch of Guanxi's bluntness.

It was at this time that Liu Xian learned the news about Xin Ran from his subordinates.

"The Ji Cao Yuan from the Zhengxi Army Headquarters said that there's something wrong with our county's weights and measures? Perhaps they'll report it to the court and hold us accountable?"

Liu Xian picked up a wet towel and wiped the dust off his face. He couldn't help but laugh. He wrung out the water from the towel and handed it to Zhang Gu beside him, saying with a smile:

"Ever since Prince Zhao arrived in Chang'an, I've been wondering what Jia Mi's men would do to test me. I never thought they'd use this trick after holding it in for half a year."

Zhang Gu's face was grim, and he sighed:

"Bi Ji, you are coming with such a fierce momentum, you are not a good person!"

Li Sheng was unmoved and said sarcastically:
"A bunch of fools, daring to start with weights and measures, I think they are risking their lives."

When Lu Quyang first heard about such a big thing, he thought a disaster was about to happen and his face turned pale. But when he looked back at Liu Xian and Li Sheng, they not only showed no signs of worry, but instead showed confident smiles. He felt a little strange and asked:

"County Lord, is there anything strange here?"

Liu Xian waved his hand and replied, "Qu Yang, you are of Di ethnic origin, and like the other laymen, your ignorance is understandable. But these people under Jia Mi, who are said to be in charge of the Ji Cao, don't even know the origin of weights and measures. It's ridiculous."

Liu Xian's words only confused Lü Quyang. In his view, weren't weights and measures set by the imperial court? If the court said you were wrong, then you were wrong. Was there any room for maneuver?

But Liu Xian didn't explain. After a quick cleanup, he immediately led his men to the treasury. Soon, he saw his subordinates, who were as silent as a mouse, and the smug and arrogant Xin Ran and his group.

Liu Xian was the first to liven up the atmosphere. As soon as he came in, he joked, "What's going on? Is there a funeral today? Aren't you all standing here perfectly still?"

His words were very rude, but the confidence and fearlessness in them still infected the county officials present. Originally, everyone was a little at a loss, but after seeing this young county lord, it was as if they had found a backbone, and their worries disappeared.

But such words obviously offended Xin Ran. He squinted his eyes at the county magistrate who had offended Duke Lu and the Queen, and felt that this man really deserved to die. He didn't even know how to say something nice to his superiors.

So Xin Ran decided to continue showing off his power and dampen the young man's arrogance. He asked pretentiously, "Are you Liu Xian, the county magistrate of Xiayang County?"

Liu Xian stood up straight and answered in a neither humble nor arrogant manner, "Yes, I am Liu Xian, the mayor of Xiayang."

"I'm Xin Ran, a clerk in the Zhengxi Army. I've been ordered to come to your county to collect household taxes, but something went wrong. Do you know about this?"

"Oh? I wonder what's wrong?"

"This year's tax revenue is a full 171 bolts of silk and 137 kilograms of cotton short of the government treasury. Do you know what's going on?"

"How could that be?" Liu Xian's eyes widened as he feigned surprise. "I've personally measured every piece of cloth here, and weighed every pound of silk floss. There's no way I could have made a mistake."

This was exactly what Xin Ran was waiting for, and the county officials beside him secretly said badly, because they knew that this nobleman from the Zhengxi Army was going to use his old tricks again.

Sure enough, Xin Ran pretended to be furious when he heard this, and said with a gloomy face, "But this is the fact. I measured and weighed it with my own hands."

"Could it be that there's something wrong with your ruler or scale?"

Liu Xian's composure was truly unfazed. He spoke with such composure that Xin Ran was deeply irritated. He felt no fear, no authority, which made him raise his voice and exclaim, "What nonsense are you talking about! This ruler and scale were personally given to me by Sun Xiu, the Chief Clerk of the Prince of Zhao. He said they were the official ruler and scale of the Western Expedition Army, designated by His Highness the Prince of Zhao! There's no way they could be wrong!"

Just as he was about to continue accusing Liu Xian and intimidating him further, Liu Xian suddenly raised his voice and shouted, "Are you serious?!"

His voice was extremely loud, like thunder, which stunned everyone present. Xin Ran's threat was immediately choked. He looked at Liu Xian seriously, with an expression as if he was ready to fight to the death, and his momentum weakened.

But then he realized something was wrong. He represented the Western Expedition Army, so how could he show weakness in front of a county magistrate? So he forced himself to speak confidently, "Why, what are you dissatisfied with?"

Liu Xian, however, still had a stern expression on his face as he spoke word by word, "Xin Zhuan, please repeat what you just said."

Seeing that he was so powerful, as if he had something on him, Xin Ran felt a little scared for a moment.

But he changed his mind and realized that he did represent the Western Expedition Army, and the weights and measures in his hand were indeed given to him by Sun Xiu. Although it was indeed different from the usual practice, he had the support of the two powerful figures of Duke Lu and the Queen, so what was there to be afraid of?
Thinking of this, Xin Ran slowly calmed down and said slowly, "This ruler and scale were personally handed to me by Sun Xiu, the Chief Clerk of King Zhao. They were also set by His Royal Highness King Zhao. The official ruler and scale of the Western Expedition Army will never go wrong."

"Okay!" Liu Xian took a few steps forward, approaching Xin Ran, and said with a smile, "Xin Ran, please lend me this ruler and scale for a look."

Xin Ran felt a little uneasy, but still nodded and signaled to his subordinates beside him to hand the ruler and scale to Liu Xian.

Unexpectedly, Liu Xian didn't even bother to look. He directly took out a cloth bag and threw the ruler and scale into it. Then he took out a piece of paper, ground ink on the spot, and wrote something on the paper. After writing, Liu Xian came over with a red ink pad and said to Xin Ran, "Xin Ran, please take a look and see if I have written anything wrong. If not, please put your fingerprint on it."

Xin Ran was puzzled. He took the paper and saw what he had just said written on it. He claimed that the bag contained the official ruler and scale of the Zhengxi Army.

Xin Ran finally understood. He held the paper in his hand with a somewhat amused look and said to Liu Xian, "You want to challenge me?"

Liu Xian's expression remained unchanged. He held the bag containing the ruler and scale in his hand and said slowly, "You still have time to retract what you just said. Otherwise, place your handprint on it, and we will report this matter directly to the court. I'll go to the Crown Prince, and you go to King Zhao. Let's see if there's anything wrong with the ruler and scale in the bag."

As expected! Seeing Liu Xian so calm, Xin Ran couldn't help but snort inwardly. He was simply relying on the Crown Prince's power. Before leaving, Sun Xiu had specifically told Xin Ran that the Jia family was now in power and there was no need to fear the Crown Prince. The more Liu Xian brought up the Crown Prince, the better opportunity it would be to strike back at the Crown Prince's faction.

So after a moment's thought, Xin Ran scraped the ink without hesitation, stamped his fingerprints, and then said, "Right and wrong are in the hearts of the people. County Magistrate Liu wants to scare me, but I work for the country and I am upright. I will not be scared by you." Liu Xian took the paper, tied it up in front of everyone, and then sealed it with clay and a small seal.

Then, with a triumphant look on his face, he said, "Xin Zhuan, have you seen the chimes in the Taiji Hall?"

Faced with this question, most people present were confused and didn't know why Liu Xian suddenly changed the topic.

Xin Ran thought Liu Xian was showing off his experience as a Beijing official and his extensive connections in Luoyang. He couldn't help but sneer and remind him, "I haven't met him, but so what? Even if County Magistrate Liu had met him, wasn't he also the County Magistrate of Xiayang?"

"No, no, no, Xin Zhuan, you misunderstood." Liu Xian shook his head and smiled. "I mean, do you know how the court used the chimes in the Taiji Hall to determine the scale?"

As soon as these words came out, Xin Ran was immediately panicked. He looked at Liu Xian in disbelief, and then looked at the followers around him. Most of the people present showed a confused expression.

They didn't know what Liu Xian was talking about, but they could tell that the court seemed to have a standard method that was applied everywhere.

Strange, didn't the imperial court decide how to calculate the weights and measures?

Liu Xian didn't keep the secret and said, "It's recorded in the Book of Han, Records of Calendars and Lü, that the measurements we use today are derived from millet. The width of one millet grain is one fen, ten fen is one cun, and ten cun is one chi. So, if you lay out one hundred millet grains, you get one chi in length."

"Xin Zhuan, do you want us to measure it on the spot? Does our county's official ruler correspond to one hundred grains of millet?"

After saying that, Liu Xian immediately took out the official ruler of Xiayang County, picked up millet from the treasury, and arranged them one by one. After counting carefully, he found that this official ruler could count out 106 grains of millet.

Seeing this, Xin Ran breathed a sigh of relief, as if grasping at a lifeline. "Ha! I almost got fooled by you! This method doesn't even match your own standards, how could it possibly be true?"

Liu Xian remained unfazed and smiled, "Don't worry. It's no secret that counties across the country are secretly increasing their measurements, so it's normal for them to not match. So, ten years ago, when the Minister of the Central Secretariat, Xun Xugong, was in office, he built a set of chime bells in the Taiji Hall and used musical scales to recalibrate the world's weights and measures."

"temperament?"

"Do you know Huang Zhong? It's the first of the twelve musical notes."

"The sound produced by blowing a bamboo tube with a standard length of nine inches and an inner diameter of three-tenths of an inch is the Huangzhong sound. If it is too long, the sound will be deep; if it is too short, the sound will be high."

"The amount of millet that could be contained in a bamboo tube was called a yue. Two yue made up a he, and ten he made up a sheng. This is the origin of the sheng."

"A flute should hold 1,200 grains of millet, and its weight is 12 zhu, or half a liang. This is the origin of the liang."

"The so-called weights and measures are derived from musical rhythms. They align with the will of heaven and respond to the will of the people. They are the sacred artifacts of our holy dynasty and cannot be easily altered."

"Your ruler and scale are here. After I present them to the East Palace, I will make a nine-inch bamboo tube. I will then compare the pitch with the chimes in the Taiji Hall and see if the weight matches your scale. Everything will then be clear."

"If this ruler and scale are right, I shall be damned."

"If the ruler and scale are wrong, who deserves death, you, or Sun Changshi, or His Highness Prince Zhao, it's hard to say..."

After saying this, Xin Ran was already sweating profusely. It was clearly a cool autumn day, but he felt like he was in an ice cellar. He had never imagined that there was such a thing as measurement.

This is not surprising, as since the Cao Wei Dynasty, the literary world has always been popular with idle talk and literature. As a result, although scholars are familiar with poetry and songs, and can even write good works, their research on mundane affairs is far inferior to that of the Han Dynasty.

During the Zhengshi period, when extravagance reached its peak, Emperor Xuan of Jin, Sima Yi, inspected the bureaucracy and discovered that among the more than 400 officials in the court, no more than ten could write serious political commentaries.

Nowadays, anyone who could read through the Annals and Biographies in the Book of Han was considered talented. Even fewer people could match Liu Xian, who, after being taught by Li Mi and Chen Shou, not only mastered arithmetic but also thoroughly studied the Calendar and Food and Goods.

Having said that, not many people actually know about or care about Xun Xu's research on music.

If Xun Xu hadn't been competing with Little Ruan Gong over musicality, and if he hadn't even banished Little Ruan Gong from Luoyang out of jealousy of his musical sense, Liu Xian wouldn't have even cared about the chimes in Taiji Hall.

But reality was so ridiculous. Sun Xiu's attempt hit a wall. Not only did he fail to accuse Liu Xian of a crime, but he also fell into a trap himself, and personally delivered the evidence to Liu Xian.

It's written in black and white, with witnesses and evidence. What does it mean to ask for trouble? This is what it means to ask for trouble.

Liu Xian now sat down leisurely and waved to the county officials, signaling them to leave first. Seeing this, Xin Ran's followers also tactfully retreated, leaving only Liu Xian and Xin Ran in the entire treasury.

Facing Xin Ran, who couldn't utter a word, Liu Xian smiled and said nonchalantly:
"Xin Caoyuan, I know that there are some things you can't decide, and you are also being instructed by the people behind the scenes, so I don't want to make it too difficult for you."

"But the people behind you are going too far. If they were just targeting me, it would be fine, but using something like this to collect taxes is a 30% tax increase, which is forcing the people to rebel."

"My personal safety is insignificant, but don't let this escalate into a rebellion throughout Guanzhong. It would also jeopardize the reputation of His Highness the Prince of Zhao, which would be bad."

"Please tell the people behind you that I can pretend this never happened. If there are any requests that aren't excessive, I can discuss them. We're all doing good for the people. As early as the day I left Luoyang, I was ready to put on a smile."

"But if someone insists on fighting me to the death, I don't mind a fight to the death. After all, I have a ready-made handle in my hand."

"I'm a bit pressed for time here and don't have time to prepare your dinner, so I won't see you off."

Having said that, Xin Ran was too embarrassed to stay here any longer. After leaving the county government, he left Xia Yang with his tail between his legs, not even daring to look back.

Sun Xiu's first attempt on Liu Xian ended in vain.

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(End of this chapter)