Ashes Illuminate the Land

On the Laba Festival of the twenty-third year of the Yonghe era under the Great Sheng dynasty, the entire Shen family of Wujiang was condemned. Seven-year-old Shen Guan was hidden in a rice jar by his mother. As he listened to his family die, he counted every grain of rice in the jar. Fourteen years later, he passed the imperial examinations and entered the capital. Starting in the worst government office, he investigated padded winter clothes made of reed fluff, traced military pay across a thousand li, crushed a hundred thousand Northern Frontier cavalry, and toppled the Grand Secretary in the Golden Hall. The entire court urged him to become emperor, but he declined the throne three times. Instead, he established a single office and set up a bronze scale: the Office of Merit, to select the worthy and appoint the capable, applying the law without favoring even family. He did not want to change dynasties. He wanted to cut the idea of “rule by man” out of the hearts of the people. While he was alive, the realm truly knew five years of clean government. A mirror can reflect the land, but it cannot reveal the human heart.