CH 93

Winding stream parties were currently the most popular kind of formal banquet; cups of wine were set in small canals to float with the flow. Whoever it stopped before would have to compose poetry or monologue; it was a very elegant entertainment. The late Emperor Wu loved very much to hold winding stream parties, and had had a winding pond built in the imperial palace at Luoyang, making it the prevailing fashion.

The lotus leaf floated languidly along with the melody and came to Sima Teng. As the host, and chief official of Bing Province, it was only proper for him to decide the subject. Sima Teng casually plucked the cup off the leaf, downed the wine, and mused for a moment before saying, “As the theme of the party today is dialectics, let us speak of ‘Fisherman.’” 

In settings like these, “Fisherman” referred not to the “Songs of Chu,” but Zhuangzi. “Fisherman” described an encounter between Confucius and his disciples, and a fisher they encountered on their tour of the many kingdoms. The fisher judged their actions, refuted the Ruist school of thought, and proselytized the Daoist concepts of holding to Truth and returning to the natural state. Such a writing might have been disregarded in later dynasties, but not in Wei Jin, for Laozi and Zhuangzi’s ideas flourished in this time, and debate about the interpretations of and differences between Daoism and Ruism abounded. “Fisherman” contained perfectly the questions that impassioned everyone the most; who was right, Daoists or Ruists, was a hot topic of intellectual discourse.

Thinking the subject he’d raised to be quite clever, Sima Teng ordered a wine cup to be placed on a lotus leaf and lowered into the stream. Beside him, Sun Zhi nodded approvingly. Owing to the fact that Sima Teng was not particularly versed in classics or poetry, occupied more by song and dance than by philosophy, the gist of the heated argument played out before him several days ago had, of course, left a suggestion in his heart.

This was exactly the result he’d hoped for.

Sun Zhi was born to a prominent clan of Taiyuan, but his father had died early, and his brothers had perished in the chaos of war; he had no firm backing to lean upon. Though he considered himself a man of surpassing knowledge, he was condescended to reside in such inferior places as Xinxing Commandery, being a senior subaltern. This was far from the ambition he wished to achieve. It was only thanks to his cordial relations with the commandant of the Northern Xiongnu Division that his life in Xinxing Commandery was not so burdensome. 

However, the news he’d heard from Liu Xuan recently had greatly displeased him. To think that Sima Teng would appoint a youngster with nothing to recommend him but his name as assistant administrator. His family was average, having not produced officials for two generations now, and his learning was shallow; his appearance was the only thing about him that could be considered satisfactory. It didn’t matter at all whether someone like that refused an appointment, but to have the provincial governor call upon imperial physicians on his behalf? Why was it that he, a descendant of high nobility, was bound to a poor, barbarian-ridden commandery, while someone could obtain that which he could not even dream of just by the advantage of his face?!

And so, when he heard that Liang Feng would attend the Shangsi celebrations at Jinyang, Sun Zhi crafted his plot. “Fisherman” was a dialogue that any well-read scholar could expound upon to no end, but Liang Zixi could not. How deep an understanding of Zhuangzi could a person inclined to Buddhist doctrine possess?

With all the well-bred aristocrats in attendance today, including prodigies from the Guo and Wen families, there was no doubt that they were more than up to the task. As long as Liang Zixi was unable to produce an acceptable answer when the cup passed into his hands, his overblown reputation would collapse in on itself. Excuses like “poems are words of the heart; I have not the heart for poems” wouldn’t suffice to let him shirk his turn!

The cup flowed along the currents, people stood to answer one after the other, Sun Zhi couldn’t help but glance at the sluice gate nearby. Just a while longer, and there’d be a show to see.

Liang Feng was enjoying a show too. This was his first time witnessing a winding stream party in person. Though the original had left him many memories, he had almost never attended any formal banquets like this before, and hadn’t many impressions of this type of event. This was just another drinking game, except that the person with the cup had to get up and perform a little something. But as everyone here was a cultured gentleman, no one could simply get away with singing a little ditty, they had to contribute a composition or a rejoinder to the intellectual discussion.

Thank goodness it wasn’t poetry this time. This banquet was no family dinner, Sima Teng would likely break off with him on the spot if he refused to compose a poem. Philosophical discussion was far simpler; after all, there weren’t many who’d truly attained any sort of penetrating insight, so it was more a game of logic, of using words to drive the other into a corner. Yes, it was utterly meaningless, but it wasn’t too difficult for him. At any rate, he’d already walked the red carpet; all he had to do now was keep up his swaggering act.

The scholars spouted geysers of high-handed dogma, each and every one of them citing classics and quoting verses, occasionally garnering some cheers and applause. The music never stopped, rising and receding in the background. Liang Feng leaned against the rest, sitting languidly by the stream. His posture was not proper enough, but by the green hills and clear waters, and amidst courtly melody and song, it was natural and self-possessed. The gazes that landed and lingered on his figure never lessened, not that Liang Feng took it to heart. He merely made idle chatter with Wang Wen, who sat beside him, completely unbothered by the wine cup drifting in the stream.

It appeared that Liang Zixi truly had no intention of entering officialdom! Was exclaimed by many, in the privacy of their minds. This was, if nothing else, a chance to show one’s face before the provincial governor of Bing Province. Regardless of whether he’d rejected Sima Teng’s appointment, he should have taken this chance to reveal his capability and draw his notice. 

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Not expecting that the wine cup would arrive to him so soon, Liang Feng raised a brow and glanced towards the far side of the stream. This winding pool had been dug out specially for this banquet; running water was diverted from the river into a long serpentine path, forming a vaguely irregular oval. The only way to affect the current in a man-made channel was to use the sluice gate to adjust the flow rate, meaning that whoever controlled the sluice gate could let the wine cup pause wherever he pleased.

Someone wanted to draw him into the contention! 

Liang Feng looked to the head seat and said impassively, “Due to my debility, I cannot imbibe, begging your pardon, Duke.”

Did he mean to demur to discourse? A murmuring susurration rustled along the banks of the pond; at a winding stream party, how could one refuse to drink? Sima Teng lurched as well, but before he’d even opened his mouth, Sun Zhi next to him hastily urged, “If he cannot imbibe, then why not grant him tea to take place of wine, Governor?”

A flash of realization came upon Sima Teng, Sun Zhi was reminding him to treat scholars with respect. As the parable went, though the lord of the Kingdom of Wu, Sun Hao, loved to indulge in wine himself, he was admirably considerate to his chief secretariat, Wei Yao, who had trouble holding his liquor, often granting him tea in place of wine. Sima Teng nodded at the suggestion, “Zixi, you may take tea instead of wine, of course.”

Taking in their expressions, Liang Feng lowered his eyelids, “Thank you for your understanding, Duke.” 

He said, as he received the teacup passed to him by the maidservant behind him, and drank its contents fully.

Sun Zhi’s eyes widened with excitement. Thank goodness he’d reminded him in time, or else that Liang Zixi might have avoided the conversation. Now that he’d drank the tea, it was about time to say something intelligent now, wasn’t it? The cup had previously passed by the Guo and Gao families, and a few of the scribes from the general’s staff who were most skilled in the use of rhetoric. Their rationales were all pointed and astute and highhandedly proclaiming the unique brilliance of Daoism. If Liang Feng were to say that Daoism was poorly matched against Ruism, he would need to be exceptionally well-versed in history. If he praised Zhuangzi, well then, what would that say about his supposed status of being a “bodhisattva?” This dead knot was unavoidable; it would be too difficult not to make a fool of oneself!

Liang Feng drank the tea, and did not pathetically rack his brain for answers as he had anticipated; he adjusted his posture and said shortly, “The fisherman and Zhongni are alike.”

What?! After all that everyone else had said, all he had to say was that? This classic was one that straightly pointed a finger at Confucius’ nose and castigated the folly of Ruism; it was an outright contest between Laozi, Zhuangzi, and Confucius, Mencius. The divide between them was so great, it was unthinkable that he could suppose them to be alike! 

The crowd was gripped by shocked appallment. Sun Zhi smirked coldly, “Why I never conceived that anyone would dare say the fisherman and Zhongni are alike! Have you never read the text of ‘Fisherman’ before, Liang-lang?”

His bitter barb only provoked a slight smile from Liang Feng, “May I ask, is the fisherman the lord of a land? Advisor to a king? If not, then in what way is he any different from Confucius?”

This was one of the opening lines of “Fisherman.” The fisherman asked Confucius’ disciples, what does Confucius do? Zi Gong extolled that Confucius was a moral man who determined rites and music, dictated rules of human relations; to above, he honors the foremost ruler; to below, he civilizes the people. Then, the fisherman asked if Confucius was the lord of a land, the advisor to a king? Zi Gong answered in the negative. Thus, the fisherman laughed, if Confucius was neither lord nor advisor, was it not that these toils of the mind and body would reave him of the Truth? Far he has strayed from the Way.

That section was the thesis of the entire work, and the basis that set its tone; that which begot the many ideas that came after. But Liang Feng had just asked, has the fisherman ever ruled a country himself? Assisted a king? If he hadn’t, then whence comes the vindication of his ideology, and on what basis does he rebuke Confucius’s ways? 

That was purely a matter of logic, and very difficult to refute. Sun Zhi gaped, and managed, “The sages are all possessed of innate wisdom, bestowed to them by Heaven, of course they are born with this knowledge!”

It was absolute fact, that the sages’ teachings were all correct, to deny this was to deny the fundamental ethos of both Daoism and Ruism. With heaven-granted knowledge, obviously they didn’t need to govern a kingdom themselves to know how a kingdom should be governed.

Liang Feng didn’t respond to that, asking instead, “Whence comes rites? Whence comes Truth?”

“Well…. rites are determined by man, Truth comes from the self,” Sun Zhi replied, not expecting that interrogation. 

“Whence comes man? And whence comes self?” Liang Feng tossed another question.

Who am I? Where do I come from? Was the ultimate question pursued by countless philosophers. It wasn’t a question a person like Sun Zhi could answer. Liang Feng lightly shook his head at his dull, agape expression, and pointed at the lotus leaf beside him, “One who sees the leaf would call it green; one who sees the flower would call it red; one who sees the root would call it white. But the red flower, white root, green leaf, are different routes to the same destination. The discrimination of the observer is not the difference of the truth, but the judgement of appearance. Thus, the fisherman and Zhongni are alike.”

The meaning of those words could not be clearer. The fisherman claimed that only if one obeyed the natural order and abide by Truth, could the world work properly. While Confucius sought to restrict man with etiquette and rites and  impose upon them the three principles and five virtues, thereby making the world work properly. Their “Ways,” in essence, their approach to solving problems, were different, but their goals were the same; that was what was meant by “different routes to the same destination.”

That was an interpretation Liang Feng knew well. By the modern era, Ruism, Daoism, and Buddhism had long since intermingled, each containing and being contained by the other. They had had no choice but to change in order to persevere on this great continent. And the essence of dialectics was the unifying of opposites. 

To Liang Feng, this interpretation was natural as night and day, but to the rest, it was especially novel. Who could have imagined that “Fisherman” could be understood in this way? But on closer investigation, it seemed seamless and irrefutable.

The study of Daoism experienced a resurgence in the Wei Jin period. Many Ruist scholars were deconstructing the canons of Laozi, Zhuangzi, Confucius, and Mencius in new ways, analyzing Ruism through the lens of Daoism, and vice versa. But though the two schools of thought were at odds, they both strove towards the same ends. Liang Feng’s argument was a brand new path of reasoning. Red lotus, white root, green leaf; that was exactly the nature of the dissimilitude of Ruism and Daoism.

But there were three objects in his analogy. Was it then, that aside from Ruism and Daoism, there was Buddhism as well?

Someone couldn’t resist asking, “And Buddhism is the same?” 

Liang Feng, already leaning back on the rest, smiled slightly, “The wish of the Mahayana is to deliver all creatures.”

He had said something to similar effect at the banquet Wang Wen had hosted, but said again, here and now, it was so masterfully subtle and sagacious. The capability to respond to the question so insightfully, without quoting a classic, using just a casual comparison was simply so spectacular! Was this not the Buddhist aspect of enlightenment?

The previous contempt was swept clean; even those who most disdained Liang Feng’s appearance and manner had to admit that he was exceedingly brilliant! Compared to his eloquent confidence, Sun Zhi’s stammering speechlessness was all the more wretched. Sima Teng applauded, “How clever your words are, Zixi! Quick, begin the music – let’s see what others have to say!”

This time, the stream carried the cup to a young man of around fifteen or so. He took the wine cup, pondered for a moment, then sighed, “I am no match for Liang-lang.” 

Then he drank the wine and unashamedly sat back down.

It had to be said that he was the youngest of the Wen family, Wen Jiao, widely lauded for his quick wit and creativity. To think that, he would admit defeat! Sima Teng laughed, “Zixi is perspicacious, Wen-lang is forthright, they’re both jade amongst men! A dialectic like this must be celebrated with a feast!”

Saying so, Sima Teng got up without regard for anyone else and left the party first. The guests followed him, of course, to the banquet space. Only Sun Zhi, his face ashen gray, remained frozen in his seat.

The author has something to say: 

Young Liang: trying to out-grandstand me? Heh