Chapter 136: The Right Time, Place, and People

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After more than half an hour, the inspection clerk finally called out, “All candidates, enter the implement shed one by one. Find your work station by matching your satchel number to the numbers marked in white ash on the ground. Those who cannot read are to strike the township-name drum, and an inspection clerk will guide you.”

In front of the straw-weaving implement shed, an inspection clerk called, “Candidate Han Mu!”

The candidate had barely gone inside when he struck the township-name drum himself. “Han Mu of the western quarter of Duoyi County cannot read.”

“Candidate Wang Xiao.”

When Wang Ge heard the surname Wang, she grew excited for a moment. The man who entered was nearly forty. He, too, struck the township-name drum, declaring himself a native of Hefang Township.

The third candidate was another county native.

Why was everyone striking the township-name drum? Just as Wang Ge was beginning to wonder, it was her turn to enter.

The previous three candidates had not gone directly to their respective work stations. Instead, they stood in a line beside the township-name drum.

The inspection clerks stood on the opposite side and explained the rules. “Proceed from west to east, then turn back here. You may not linger inside any marked square. Once you have made the circuit, tell me which work station belongs to you. If you cannot identify it, strike the township-name drum. If you point to the wrong one, you are eliminated. Is that clear?”

“Clear,” Wang Ge answered at once.

All twenty work stations were square, separated by lines of white ash on the ground. There were two rows of ten. What the clerk meant was that she could make only one round trip and was not permitted to stop and think.

The materials in each work station were covered with coarse cloth. Wang Ge could not identify her station from the implements she had made earlier. She could only rely on the number marked in white ash before each square.

Her satchel number was “the character for a ritual vessel, twenty-five, two.” The most complicated character was ironically the easiest to recognize. But when it came to the numbers that followed, she did not dare try to identify them. Were they seal script? Or were they even older contract characters? Several looked like narrow shuttles—pointed at both ends and thick in the middle. Were those characters too? Did one of them represent “one”?

No, she could not risk it. And because she had to keep walking, the white-ash numbers appeared in her mind one after another, growing increasingly confused.

She did recognize the mark shaped like an X. It represented “five,” a loan character from the Shang period.

This was bad. She had already reached the end before finally realizing that the long character with two corners was probably the ancient form of “two.”

Bang!

But she did not dare gamble on it. She struck the drum and shouted, “Wang Ge of Bozhi Township cannot read.”

Even with a face as thick as hers, she could not help feeling embarrassed.

The inspection clerk called, “Wang Ge, second row, third from the east.”

“Yes.”

She was truly relieved. Her guess had been wrong: she had thought her station was the fourth square from the east in the first row. She stood beside the township-name drum as the next candidate entered.

All twenty candidates, without exception, struck the township-name drum.

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There were no candidates left outside the shed.

The examiners entered the various implement sheds and said, “Do you know why we made you distinguish between the different ancient scripts? Because without knowing ancient writing, you cannot identify ancient objects. When that happens, you will have to shamelessly ask scholars for help. And when someone tells you whether something is right or wrong, your minds will be blank—you will not know which is which!

“Why has the status of craftsmen been valued more and more by the court year after year? Why are we not treated with contempt by the civil and military officials? Because the origins of every kind of writing are all preserved in the Directorate of Works! Scholars who wish to study ancient characters must obtain access through the Directorate of Works.

“We who come after must commit every ancient script firmly to memory and pass it down from generation to generation! Whenever one ancient character is discovered, it must be remembered. It must be remembered! We craftsmen pass down more than our skills from one generation to the next. We pass down writing as well! Do you understand?”

“We understand!”

Wang Ge’s blood surged at the examiner’s words. She stretched out her neck and shouted hoarsely with the others.

“Say it three times!” the examiner commanded, raising his arm.

“We understand! We understand! We understand!”

The examiner waved his hand, and the timing drum thundered.

Following the inspection clerk’s instructions, Wang Ge entered the white-ash square that was third from the east in the second row. So the upright shuttle-shaped ancient character represented the number ten.

She lifted the cloth covering the pile of materials. All five kinds of objects she had made were in a single shallow bamboo basket: a needle-and-thread case, three feet of straw rope, a pair of square-toed shoes, ten counting rods, and ten pieces of arm armor.

There was an abundance of material.

Each type of object had a bamboo slip bound to it. Fortunately, the writing on them was no longer in ancient script.

But within this implement shed, that good fortune belonged to only two candidates, including her.

Where would ordinary commoners have had any opportunity to learn to read? One after another, the candidates rose and struck the township-name drum again.

“Wei of Xunren Township cannot read…”

“Zhang of Bozhi Township cannot read…”

Xunren Township, Hefang Township, Bozhi Township, Duoyi County, Xunren Township…

Wang Ge had grown numb to the din. She first examined the instructions for modifying the counting rods. They were exactly as she had expected: either reduce their number or make them easier to carry.

Ever since Huan Zhen had taught the multiplication table to Tiger Head, she had been considering how to bring the abacus into existence ahead of its time. Making one was simple enough. The difficulty was finding a convincing reason for it. Thus, whenever Young Master Huan demonstrated the basic use of counting rods, she had always listened in.

Counting rods were not merely, as she had initially imagined, “just counting ice-pop sticks.” First, positive and negative numbers were distinguished either by red and black rods or by triangular and square rods. The rules for recording numbers were: one vertical rod for ten horizontal rods; one hundred upright and one thousand laid flat; thousands facing tens, and ten-thousands corresponding to hundreds.

After that sentence, Wang Ge understood almost nothing.

The next time she could follow what was being said was when Huan Zhen gave his younger brother a “chickens and rabbits in one cage” problem. She had been dumbfounded at the time, learning that the problem had already existed in antiquity, more than a thousand years earlier.

Even more astonishing—and enough to give her a serious fright—was that Huan Zhen had also brought out a traveling-bead calculating board!

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In her previous life, Wang Nanxing’s education had been limited. She had not known that the abacus was among the second batch of items placed on the national list of intangible cultural heritage, nor that the earliest unearthed physical example of a Chinese abacus prototype was the traveling-bead calculating board found in the tomb of the Marquis of Haihun.

The earliest written record appeared in The Lost Records of Mathematical Arts by Xu Yue of the Han dynasty: “The bead abacus governs the four seasons and orders the Three Powers.”

This meant that a wooden board was carved into three sections. The upper and lower sections held movable beads, while the middle section fixed the place values. One bead above represented five, while each of the four beads below represented one, with different colors used for distinction.

Only after seeing the traveling-bead calculating board was she once again left deeply awed by the wisdom of the ancients. Thus, this examination had been blessed by the right time, the right place, and the right people. It was precisely the best opportunity for her to bring the abacus of later generations into the world.

At the same time, the results of the regional militia grand trial were announced.

Huan Zhen and Wang Tian had both passed. So had Sima Chong, whom Wang Tian detested.

The conditions for recruitment into the Young Guards camp were, apart from being under fifteen years of age, that the candidate must have a clansman serving at court in an official position of fifth rank or higher.

Most sons of powerful families registered from their household-registered districts. Huan Zhen was an exception. His father had punished him for committing some offense, deliberately sending him to serve as a militia soldier in a poor county. The matter had also been reported to the court and duly approved.

There were ninety-nine young militia soldiers waiting to compete for the available places as Guard Youths. The Sima clan had the largest number, making up more than a third of them.

Many of the Sima youths glared resentfully at Huan Zhen. He had taken a place belonging to their county; otherwise, the Sima clan could have sent one more of its own.

Two officials stood before the young men. One was the Military Affairs Clerk, and the other was the Commandant of the Capital Station.

The Military Affairs Clerk said, “Silence. First, congratulations to all our comrades on passing the regional militia grand trial. Rest for a few days. Once the preliminary examinations for ironworkers and woodworkers seeking master-craftsman status are complete, you will enter the final grand contest. Take note: only fifty will be retained!”

Wang Tian and Sima Chong raised their hands at the same time.

A layer of sweat sprang up behind the Military Affairs Clerk’s neck. One was the son of the commandery governor; the other was a member of the imperial clan. Whom should he let speak first?

From the corner of his eye, he saw that the Commandant of the Capital Station had vanished—he had retreated two full steps.

Few officials were fools.

The Military Affairs Clerk pointed straight between Wang Tian and Sima Chong.

You two can sort it out yourselves!

The two young gentlemen refused to yield and spoke at the same time, each asking his own question.

“What does our contest have to do with the craftsmen’s examination beside it?”

“What do you mean by a grand contest? Are you asking us to bully those weak craftsmen who know nothing but splitting bamboo and hammering iron? Ha ha—ow!”

Wang Tian had just planted his hands on his hips and laughed when Huan Zhen kicked him in the backside.

Military Affairs Clerk and Commandant of the Capital Station: both were county-official titles of the Jin dynasty. The Military Affairs Clerk administered local military affairs, while the Commandant of the Capital Station was responsible for maintaining order and making arrests. Ren Suozhi, mentioned here, was the commandant of an ordinary rural station.

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