15th Day of the First Month, 933 CE I reached Mengjin in Luoyang and there watched fish leap the Dragon Gate. …
15th Day of the First Month, 933 CE
I reached Mengjin in Luoyang and there watched fish leap the Dragon Gate.
Master Feng said, "The Dragon Gate stands high, and few who pass it ever rise beyond. But if the waters were raised another chi, what then? The way of guiding the people must begin from this very point."
I knew already of his great undertaking, engraving the Nine Classics and founding an academy. For several days we spoke of the Dao, and he even invited me to help revise his primers. Yet whenever I read those elementary texts, unease stirred in me. Confucian learning has endured for a thousand years, and history may indeed serve as a mirror. But if elementary schooling is opened to all, can Confucian learning alone truly raise the waters another chi?
Then I saw a frog leap from the water. Loaches, black turtles, even tiny river shrimp were there as well. It is not the carp alone that may leap the Dragon Gate.
Moved by this thought, I asked Master Feng, "If an old farmer hears the Guan Ju, will it help him till the fields? If a craftsman recites the Analects, will he learn to build a spinning wheel?"
Under Heaven, it is not only carp, nor only the Dragon Gate. The first awakening of the mind ought not to rest on Confucian learning alone. Academies of the investigation of things might be founded to supply what elementary learning lacks. Then perhaps the waters truly might be raised another chi, lifting the common people with them.
This would be to awaken the minds of all under Heaven, and by that awakening renew the world.
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6th Day of the Sixth Month, 937 CE
After parting from Master Feng, I spent several years traveling and studying, seeking the Dao among the people, and in time gained some understanding. Of astronomy and geography, of the hundred trades and thousand callings, only mathematics and craft can serve as the foundation for the investigation of things. Those of craft have the Mohist Hill. As for those of number, none should surpass Lone Cloud.
Yet to my surprise, the men of Lone Cloud proved stubborn as dead wood, even more so than the Mohists. Resentment rose in me, and so I went to the Calculation Exam to test my skill against them and strip Lone Cloud of its pride.
But what kind of question was that?
By good fortune I met the young Meng Shiliang, a man who also held the will to serve the people. We talked by candlelight deep into the night, and I came to regard him as a true kindred soul. In that alone, the journey was not wasted.
Only, it is a pity the young man had only just entered Lone Cloud...
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5th Day of the Sixth Month, 938 CE
The Calculation Exam drew near in the fifth month, and Shiliang, already the finest talent of Lone Cloud, invited me to study mathematics with him.
After more than a month of study, I could only marvel at his gifts. He had already mastered Lone Cloud's four disciplines: field reckoning, grain calculation, excess and deficit, and equitable distribution.
Now my heart is settled. This time, my wish shall be fulfilled.
After nightfall, I invited Shiliang to a farewell drink. Once the wine had taken hold, I bound him with a Lu Ban Lock.
With such a worthy talent before me, why should I seek afar and neglect what lies near?
You shall help me found an Academy of the Investigation of Things.