Take control of Wei Zhongxian at the start and confiscate 100 million from him!

Chapter 167 The Imperial Academy of Sciences of the Ming Dynasty: Disciple of the Emperor!

The next day.

It was a morning when the sky was high and the clouds were light, almost unreal.

The Western Garden of the capital, this forbidden royal area, has opened its mysterious gates for the first time ever.

Two hundred and eighty-six students filed in.

Their clothes varied; some were faded from washing, while others bore the dust of their journey, but each of them wore a remarkably similar yet complex expression.
It was the ecstasy of being struck by immense glory, the loneliness of being severed from friendship by classmates, and the unease of being regarded as a traitor by scholars across the land. These three intertwined, creating a sense of bewilderment on their young faces, a feeling of "uncertainty about the future."

They were the first and only group of candidates to pass the examination that was scorned by the Shihlin community as a "test to distinguish between strange skills and tricks".

The moment they stepped into Xiyuan, almost everyone was taken aback by the sight before them.

This... is the Imperial Forbidden Garden?
There was no magnificent, imposing fortification as I had imagined.

What comes into view is the vast expanse of Taiye Pond, shrouded in misty vapor like a light veil.

On the distant Qionghua Island, pavilions and towers are hidden among the pines and cypresses, their upturned eaves and corners like immortals about to take flight.

The air is filled with the sweet fragrance of flowers and the freshness of the lake water. Taking a deep breath, it feels as if your lungs have been cleansed by this ethereal atmosphere.

"This place should only exist in heaven; how often can one hear of it on earth?" A student recited unconsciously.

However, this paradise soon revealed its unconventional side.

As they followed the eunuch leading the way through the ornately decorated corridors to a row of originally elegant and unique palaces, everyone stopped in their tracks, their faces showing strange expressions.

The vermilion gates of those palaces, which should have been adorned with poetic and picturesque plaques, have now been replaced by brand-new, simple, and even somewhat rough wooden signs.

The wooden sign was made of ordinary pine wood, but it was engraved with several powerful characters in bold, unrestrained strokes, as if carved by a knife and axe. The characters seemed vaguely familiar to them, carrying an undeniable domineering air.

"School of Science".

"Mathematics Museum".

"Physics Museum".

"Medical Museum".

These words were completely unfamiliar to them, like a few stubborn pieces of iron forcibly driven into this ink painting, cold, rigid, and full of an alien aura that was completely out of place with everything around them.

It's as if a peerless beauty has the cold word "prisoner" tattooed on her face, which is both eerie and shocking!
The eunuch leading the way didn't give them much time to think and led them to a particularly magnificent palace.

The scene inside the hall once again ruthlessly overturned all the knowledge they had built up over the years.

It was spacious and solemn, yet filled with an unprecedented sense of order.

There were no cushions for people to sit cross-legged, nor low tables commonly used by literati and scholars; only hundreds of brand-new chairs arranged as neatly as an army formation.

Each chair is made of fine birch wood and has a slightly tilted tabletop for easy writing. They had never seen such a design before, and the posture they sat on was also quite unique, causing them to unconsciously straighten their backs.

Their gazes eventually converged on the front of the main hall.

The high platform that should have been there, where clay statues of gods were enshrined, was now completely empty.

There was no incense burner, no offerings, not a trace of worship whatsoever; only a smooth wooden board painted black, standing there quietly like a silent, giant black monument.

Next to the wooden plank, several shiny white "stone strips" of unknown material were neatly stacked.

This layout is both extremely simple and extremely unfamiliar.

The novelty it brought was quickly replaced by an inexplicable sense of tension. The students sat down cautiously as instructed by the eunuch, not daring to breathe.

They felt like strangers who had stumbled into a completely new world, where all the familiar rules, etiquette, and even ways of thinking seemed to have become obsolete.

……

Time flowed slowly in the suffocating silence.

Just as the students were restless, thinking they were about to turn into stone statues in the silence, the side door of the main hall opened.

The footsteps were steady and powerful.

A group of people walked in.

Leading the way was a young man dressed in a black dragon robe. The style of the robe had been simplified, without too many complicated patterns, making him look capable and dignified.

He was young, with a slightly thin face, but his eyes were so deep that they seemed to devour all light. When his gaze swept across the entire room, everyone immediately held their breath.

Following behind the emperor were several faces, some familiar and some unfamiliar.

Xu Guangqi, with his white hair and beard but still walking steadily; Sun Yuanhua, with a serious face and sharp eyes; Mao Yuanyi, who had just returned from Liaodong and was covered in dust; and several other Western missionaries whom they had never seen before, yet whose eyes were equally piercing and of different colors.

"Long live my emperor! Long live!"

The students seemed to awaken from a dream, and they all rose from their seats, ready to kneel down and perform the grand ceremony of three kneelings and nine kowtows.

"No gift."

The emperor's voice rang out, and with a casual wave of his hand, an invisible aura of authority descended, freezing all the students who had just knelt in place, unsure whether to kneel or stand. "Sit down," the emperor said calmly.

The students hesitated, then sat back down in the strange chairs, their bodies tense even more.

The emperor, like an ordinary schoolteacher, walked straight to the huge black wooden board, turned around, and faced 286 nervous and confused young faces.

"From this day forward, you have a new identity."

His voice was like the clash of metal, resounding and powerful.

"The first class of students at the Imperial Academy of Sciences of the Ming Dynasty!"

The emperor paused for a moment, his sharp gaze slowly sweeping over everyone.

"I know that you are filled with doubt and even fear at this moment. You have studied hard for more than ten years, but because of an exam, you are regarded as traitors by your classmates and as outcasts by the scholars of the world. Your families may be ashamed of you, and your teachers may have expelled you from their schools."

These few words precisely struck at the deepest pain and grievances in the hearts of all the students, and many of them had tears in their eyes and lowered their heads.

The emperor laughed.

"But I must tell you today!"

His voice suddenly rose, like a thunderclap from a clear sky!
"From this day forward, your glory will be bestowed upon you by me personally!"

"I am the first dean of this Institute of Science and Technology!"

It was as if an invisible thunderbolt exploded above everyone's head!

The whole place was silent!

It was an absolute silence, where even the sound of a heartbeat had disappeared!

Immediately afterwards, the silence was broken by a hissing sound of gasps for breath.

The students suddenly looked up, staring intently at the figure on the platform with incredulous eyes.

The Emperor... the Emperor himself is the Dean?!
What a divine favor! What great importance! What an insane act!
Since ancient times, emperors have been like heaven. They can respect teachers and value the Way, and they can treat learned scholars with great favor, but no emperor has ever degraded himself to be the dean of an academy!
This means that these 286 outcasts, abandoned by the world, now have the most prestigious, powerful, and incredible backer!
Disciple of the Emperor!

The word exploded in their hearts, instantly burning away all their unease, grievances, and fear.

What followed was an unprecedented sense of pride that was enough to burst out of my chest!

Looking at the faces below the stage, which had turned from ashen to flushed, a look of satisfaction flashed in Zhu Youjian's eyes.

An emperor must, in the manner of an emperor, use the most unreasonable imperial power to infuse this newly established academy with the most unquestionable legitimacy!
He slowly turned around, picked up a white stone strip, and wrote eight large characters on the dark wooden board, their strokes powerful and vigorous.

"Investigate things to acquire knowledge, and apply it to practical use in the world."

The emperor put down the chalk, turned around, and stood as still as a deep pool and a towering mountain.

"'Investigating things to acquire knowledge' comes from the Great Learning. But from this day forward, I will give it a completely new meaning!"

"What is the investigation of things? It is not about having you sit in your study, pondering over a bamboo for seven days and seven nights, trying to comprehend some vague and ethereal principle! What I want in the investigation of things is for you to measure, experiment, dissect, and explore the inherent laws of all things in the universe with your own hands!"

"What is the attainment of knowledge? It is not about quoting scriptures to argue about whether there is nothing outside the mind or something outside the mind! The attainment of knowledge I want is to obtain true insights that can be verified, repeated, and grasped by everyone!"

"And all of this ultimately points to the last four words—practical application to the world!"

"I want your knowledge to fill the granaries of my Great Ming Dynasty, to sharpen the military might of my Great Ming Dynasty, and to extend the reign of my Great Ming Dynasty!"

His words, like a resounding bell, stirred the blood and stirred the hearts of all the students.

Zhu Youjian didn't give them much time to reflect. He pointed to Xu Guangqi and others behind him and began a swift and decisive recruitment drive.

"I hereby appoint Xu Guangqi as the Vice President of the Institute of Science and Technology, concurrently serving as the Dean of the College of Science, overseeing all disciplines including mathematics, physics, chemistry, astronomy, and geology!"

With his white hair trembling, Xu Guangqi stepped forward, bowed deeply to the students, and tears streamed down his face.

"I hereby appoint Sun Yuanhua as the Dean of the Military Academy, specializing in firearms, city defense, and military industry!"

Sun Yuanhua, exuding a murderous aura, stepped forward, his eyes like knives, and nodded slightly to the audience. His icy gaze seemed to say that he had only trained machines for killing and protecting.

"I have issued an imperial decree that soon Wu Youxing, a renowned physician, will be appointed to head the medical college, specializing in the prevention and treatment of plagues, as well as internal and surgical techniques!"

"I have decreed that the Agricultural College shall also be overseen by Minister Xu, and that his practical disciples, whose hands are stained with mud rather than ink, shall instruct you in breeding, irrigation, and methods of increasing production!"

The emperor paused briefly here, his gaze sweeping across the entire hall as if examining the foundation he had just laid. Then, he changed the subject, his voice filled with an unwavering sense of accomplishment:
"However, this is only the beginning! These four academies are merely the four cornerstones I have laid for the new education of the Ming Dynasty."

In the future, wherever the principles of investigation and application of knowledge are needed, I will establish a separate branch for them!
Shipbuilding, metallurgy, accounting… I want this Academy of Sciences to take root here today like a towering tree, so that one day its branches and leaves will shelter my vast Ming Dynasty from wind and rain!

Each appointment is like a boulder thrown into a lake.

In that short moment, the magnificent framework of this mysterious academy was clearly erected before the eyes of all the students.

They are no longer rootless duckweed; they now have a magnificent palace where they can take refuge!

(End of this chapter)