bayedsolid Chapter 141 Arabic Numerals
Chapter 141 Arabic Numerals
Xia Yichen rose and walked to the Emperor, kneeling on one knee with his hands clasped in a fist, saying, "Chen'er is guilty, please punish me, Your Majesty."
Fearing that news of Lu Mubai's imprisonment would cause panic, he deliberately suppressed the news and did not report it to the Emperor. Regardless, it was his fault, and he was willing to accept punishment.
Xia Yichen traveled thousands of miles to rescue Lu Mubai, who was trapped. The Emperor felt that he was not only innocent but also meritorious: "Concealing military intelligence is a fault; successfully rescuing the Duke of Zhenguo and others is a merit; the merits and demerits cancel each other out, so he will neither be punished nor rewarded."
"Thank you, Your Majesty," Xia Yichen said loudly, kneeling on one knee.
The Emperor took out a pardon from a hidden room and instructed Xia Yichen to draft an imperial edict on his behalf.
There are three "immunity tokens" in total. One is in the hands of Crown Prince Xia Chengyou, one is in the hands of Marquis Luting Xue Wuhen, and Wen Yuxia's is the last one.
The best way to prevent people from knowing that Wen Yuxia possessed a pardon was to secretly issue an imperial decree. The Emperor, slightly weary, said, "Chen'er, you personally go and deliver the imperial decree and the pardon to Mu Hua."
"Chen'er accepts the decree," Xia Yichen said respectfully, extending both hands to receive the imperial edict and the pardon from the emperor.
Upon seeing the four small characters on the gold medal in Xia Yichen's hand, Wen Yuxia's lips twitched. A pardon from death? The Emperor's reward was a bit too much!
Instead of reading the imperial edict aloud at the entrance of the princess's mansion, Xia Yichen, fearing that Wen Yuxia would misunderstand, whispered, "Not letting anyone know that you have a pardon is for your protection... The pardon recognizes the token, not the person."
Xia Chengyou was timid and cowardly. The Emperor feared that he would be used by those with ulterior motives and affect Xia Yichen, so he secretly gave him a pardon to protect himself.
The imperial pardon held by Marquis Xue Wuhen of Luting was bestowed upon him by the Emperor in front of all the ministers. To date, the Marquis's residence has been visited countless times by various forces.
Wen Yuxia exclaimed in surprise: "The Emperor wants to use the hands of various forces to get rid of Xue Wuhen?"
Xue Wuhen, confident in his martial arts prowess, disregarded the Emperor and openly contradicted him at court. The Emperor's public bestowal of a pardon on him was indeed a tactic of using someone else to do his dirty work.
Wen Yuxia guessed the Emperor's thoughts with just a few words, which made Xia Yichen somewhat uneasy. He lowered his voice and said, "Don't presume to know His Majesty's intentions."
“Thank you for the reminder,” Wen Yuxia curtsied, then stood up and continued, “I have a simple calculation method here, which I intend to present to His Majesty…”
To give Xia Yichen a more intuitive understanding, Wen Yuxia asked him to give her a math problem. Without using an abacus, she mentally calculated it twice and quickly wrote the answer on a piece of paper.
Xia Yichen picked up the abacus next to him, and finally got the same answer as Wen Yuxia. He asked in great surprise, "How did you do that?"
Wen Yuxia laughed, pointed to her heart, and said playfully, "I calculated it with my mind!"
"Mental arithmetic?" Xia Yichen countered.
Xia Yichen thought he was immune to Wen Yuxia's occasional strange ideas, but he never expected that Wen Yuxia's ideas would repeatedly challenge his understanding.
Wen Yuxia wrote a string of Arabic numerals on a piece of paper and calmly said, "With familiarity with these numbers and the multiplication table, anyone can be an accountant."
"Really?"
“Really,” Wen Yuxia nodded affirmatively, then continued, “The stewards in my household all use Arabic numerals for bookkeeping. I’ll have someone bring the ledgers over for you to see.”
Butler Li brought over last month's expense details. Wen Yuxia looked through them while teaching Xia Yichen to recognize Arabic numerals. Time passed by unnoticed until Bei Yi's voice came from outside the study, at which point Xia Yichen realized it was already dark.
"Sister Yuxia, farewell," Xia Yichen declined Wen Yuxia's invitation to stay for dinner, and hurriedly left the Princess's residence with the Arabic numerals written by Wen Yuxia.
Leaving the princess's residence, Xia Yichen took the reins from An Yi, leaped onto his horse, and galloped towards the palace. He didn't want to waste a moment; he wanted to meet the emperor now and share Arabic numerals, or rather, the multiplication table that Wen Yuxia had mentioned.
The Emperor had just returned to his palace when he received news from outside that Xia Yichen was requesting an audience. The Emperor frowned. What was Xia Yichen doing in the palace at this time? "Let him in."
"Your Majesty, Chen'er has something good to share with you," Xia Yichen said before he even arrived, enthusiastically handing the Emperor a piece of paper covered in Arabic numerals.
The emperor's head ached from looking at it, and he said impatiently, "Where did you get these scribbles?"
"What kind of scribbling is this? It's terrifying how uneducated you are! These are Arabic numerals, used for accounting."
Applying Wen Yuxia's comment, "It's terrifying to be uncultured," to the Emperor, Xia Yichen, in a rather cheerful mood, pointed to the Arabic numerals and taught the Emperor to count them one by one.
渐渐的，皇上沉迷在了1、2、3、4、5……100的数数游戏里，并且对数字产生了极大的兴趣，
The Emperor took a liking to the emperor, and Xia Yichen, though unwilling, had no choice but to keep him company. He stayed in the study all night until the Emperor could fluently read and write Arabic numerals in the hundreds. Only then did Xia Yichen receive the imperial decree to go home and catch up on his sleep.
The emperor, sporting dark circles under his eyes, went to court. After the morning session, he kept several ministers in the imperial study and personally read and wrote Arabic numerals for them. He even did a simple math problem using Arabic numerals.
"My beloved ministers, do you think Arabic numerals have any value in being promoted?"
Li Zheng, who was in charge of the Imperial Observatory, immediately realized that using Arabic numerals to record data was both time-saving and paper-saving, and also very convenient to review. He then conceived the idea of making Arabic numerals the exclusive numeral system of the Imperial Observatory.
He was the first to speak: "Your Majesty, I believe that Arabic numerals should be used exclusively by the Imperial Observatory for recording data, and need not be promoted to the public."
"Lord Li, you are mistaken. Arabic numerals can simplify complex ledgers; how can they become the exclusive numerals of the Imperial Observatory..." Minister Tang had a grudge against Li Zheng, and when Li Zheng said that Arabic numerals should not be promoted externally, he immediately jumped out to disagree.
The other ministers also spoke up, and apart from Li Zheng, everyone agreed that Arabic numerals should be promoted throughout the entire Great Xia Dynasty.
Minister Tang offered a good suggestion: "Your Majesty, education should begin from a young age. I believe that a course on 'Arabic numeral calculation' could be added to private schools."
The Emperor nodded and smiled, "Minister Tang's suggestion is good, I approve it. Minister Gu, within three days, have all the private schools in the capital send people to learn Arabic numerals... I will be responsible for arranging the teachers."
The Emperor had already made arrangements in his mind: the instructors would be the stewards from Wen Yuxia's household, and the lessons would be delivered on-site, city by city.
Gu Yue was the Minister of Rites, and education was his responsibility. He bowed and said in a firm and powerful voice, "Your subject obeys the decree."