Title Fourteenth Year of Chenghua (Tome 4).docx ✅

1 The Fourteenth Year of Chenghua (Tome 4) Written by Meng Xi Shi Original Chinese work (c) 2014-2015 Unofficial translation (c) 12/21/2020 - 01/14/2022 by Huang “Chichi” Zhifeng Both versions are protected by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Reposts are not permitted in any capacity. (No, not anywhere, no matter who you are, and no matter what you think you’re doing.) If you have found this translation anywhere except chichilations.home.blog, ko- fi.com/chichilations, or the huangzhifengtheosprey Google Drive, it has been stolen. There is absolutely no authorization for it to be posted anywhere else, especially not any site that charges money for access to those translations or has ads. I have never required payment to access any translations that I do, nor have I ever claimed ad revenue. Anyone else claiming my translation as theirs is fraudulent. Check the dates, eh? If you’re going to steal a translation, steal it from a machine. They don’t have feelings. Stealing from an anonymous bird on the internet is pretty… yeah. The original work was published on jjwxc. This translation was published originally on Wordpress. Translator Contact Information chichilations.home.blog ~ ko-fi.com/chichilations ~ [email protected] The blog is the source site, and the ko-fi has plans for further translations, though it’s a space solely for my original works, otherwise. Please send any inquiries, bug reports, typos, etc. regarding the translation to my email. Also let me know if anyone has reuploaded this translation elsewhere, especially if they’re redistributing it in epub/pdf format; I can and have dealt with them before, I’ll do it again. Ancient Chinese Units of Measurements, for your reading convenience shichen: one of the 12 two-hour time periods ancient Chinese folks used instead of hours cun: equivalent to 3⅓ cm li: equivalent to ½ a km chi: equivalent to ⅓ m zhang: equivalent to 3⅓ m catty: equivalent to 604.79g tael: equivalent to 37.8g Translator’s Foreword Welcome to the fanmade translation of The Fourteenth Year of Chenghua! This was originally an EPUB. I retired those originally, hoping that would prompt more official ebooks and translations. That didn’t quite go as planned, so now I made them hard to copy. Lessons learned, yadda yadda yadda. It’s not perfect, is less interactive than the blog (I like seeing comments :( ), and is missing
2 translator/author notes (for now), but GDocs does prevent copying and downloading. It’s the most I can do. (Don’t request edit access. Those emails go straight to the trash.) FYC is too massive for GDocs to handle, so I had to split it into four ‘Tomes’. Why did I name them Tomes instead of Parts? Because my name’s Chichi and the definition of chichi is ‘pretentious and overelaborate refinement’. That’s your explanation, bye. Here is a content warning for the whole book: pretty much every arc involves one or more dead bodies, so you can imagine the details surrounding it are not pleasant, and this time period is rife with sexism and double-standards. Be sure to buy the work from JJWXC, or donate directly to the author. If you lack in money, you can still contribute to the author’s works by viewing all the chapters that you can, liking everything, giving high ratings, and commenting (in Chinese only, or it’ll be auto-deleted). This helps their algorithms on jjwxc. It’s free to do this, so please do. JJWXC Raws — In-Depth English JJWXC-buying Guide
3
4 The Case of Suzhou 110: Soft Outside, Tough Inside The case originated from the eighteenth year of Chenghua, specifically in the between period of last year’s spring and autumn. For several consecutive months, there had been no rain, and many fields had become barren, their crops running out and withering one after the other. That alone was not much, as Suzhou Prefecture had always been wealthy and of ample food reserves, able to endure several months of famine, but come the spring-fall transition of this year, harsh rainfall had abruptly come down, causing Lake Tai to disastrously overflow. This time, not only had the fields been unable to yield a thing, but the citizens’ homes had all been submerged. The flood waters had not receded for a long while, leading to the propagation of disease in a very heavy tragedy. The Court had ordered Suzhou Prefecture to open its granaries for disaster relief, and ordered South Zhili’s Patrolling Censor to aid with surveying from nearby. Following the course of one winter, the situation logically should have taken a good turn. According to the rules, after the event’s completion, the Court would have to dispatch another censor to conduct a review, then report the results of the disaster relief. This was for the sake of preventing collusion between local officials and the deception of the Court, which was justifiable. However, at this time, a public case broke out: the South Zhili Patrolling Censor and County Magistrate of Wujiang had sent memorials denouncing each other, one after the other. The Censor, Yang Ji, denounced the Magistrate, Chen Luan, for ineffectual disaster relief, while the Magistrate argued that he had done everything within his power, it was just that the money and provisions coming from up above hadn’t been enough; even a clever wife would find it hard to cook without rice. His implication was that his counterpart was standing up and saying stuff, yet his back wasn’t hurting from work. Both sides each had their own statements, refusing to come to an agreement. The Court had ordered that the Prefectural Magistrate of Suzhou, Hu Wenzao, send a statement, but he expressed that he knew nothing of the situation, and stated that not long after Wujiang and other areas had been flooded, the Prefecture had opened its granaries, so that reasonably should have been enough for disaster relief. However, his argument was much too weak and powerless; it didn’t prove his own innocence, it just made the Court think that he was shirking his responsibilities. On the basis of these memorials alone, the truth was very difficult to see. At this point, the Patrolling Censor, County Magistrate, and Prefectural Magistrate had separate stories, making it impossible to determine. After the Cabinet discussed it, it requested the Emperor’s confirmation, as its ultimate decision was to have a censor from the Inspectorate go out to investigate the disaster situation, and clarify right from wrong while he was at it. Taking this chance, Right Capital Censor Qiu Jun recommended Tang Fan. Within this, there was no small amount of his desire to keep his young student far away from the capital turmoil, and temporarily shunning the limelight from him. It was currently difficult for Tang Fan to make any moves in the capital, and he was just putzing around. It would be better for him to walk around more outside, as that might get him a change of fortune.