Chapter 480 The Inspector and His Wife
"Please, Your Honor, do me justice! My family's mulberry orchard has been forcibly seized by that scoundrel surnamed Jia. When my father went to reason with them, they broke his leg!" A young woman's sorrowful voice pierced through the rain.
Daiyu paused slightly while holding the chess piece, and exchanged a glance with the Tenth Prince.
The Tenth Prince understood and nodded slightly.
“Wei Ming,” the Tenth Prince summoned the head of the guards, “go and ask what’s causing this commotion.”
Shortly after, Wei Ming reported back that the matter was not complicated.
A local gentryman surnamed Jia colluded with government officials and relied on his ancestors' distant kinship with a duke in the capital to run rampant in the village and forcibly seize farmland.
The woman crying out her story was surnamed Qin. Her family's several acres of prime mulberry orchards had been targeted for sale. Her father resisted and was crippled. He had no way to appeal to the authorities and was instead denounced as a "troublemaker."
Although Daiyu's voice was soft, it was very firm: "Now that we've encountered this, we can't just ignore it."
The Tenth Prince smiled and said, "That's what I think too."
They did not immediately reveal their identities.
The Tenth Prince dispatched his shrewd and capable guards to conduct a secret investigation. They not only confirmed that Liu, the local gentry, had forcibly occupied the mulberry orchard and beaten innocent people, but also uncovered his many misdeeds, including colluding with the county magistrate to evade land taxes and lending money at exorbitant interest rates, forcing several families to sell their children.
The county magistrate, upon hearing that an inspector had arrived in the capital, initially harbored a glimmer of hope and attempted to bribe his way out of trouble. However, upon seeing the dragon-patterned jade pendant belonging to the Tenth Prince, which symbolized his noble status, he was so terrified that he collapsed to the ground.
The case was handled swiftly and decisively.
With the Tenth Prince in charge, Daiyu listened quietly from the side, occasionally raising one or two key questions that went straight to the point.
The evidence against Liu, the local gentry, and the county magistrate was conclusive, and they were quickly dismissed from their posts and investigated. The mulberry garden was returned to the Qin family, who also received compensation.
When the news spread, the town was in an uproar. The people cheered and praised the inspector and his wife as "upright officials".
Before leaving, the woman from the Qin family came to express her gratitude with freshly picked mulberry leaves, her eyes glistening with tears: "If it weren't for Madam and the Prince, my family would have been doomed. Madam's great kindness will never be forgotten."
Daiyu helped her up, looking at her hands, which were slightly rough from picking mulberry leaves, and said gently, “The world is hard, and women should be more self-reliant. I see that you speak clearly and have a strong character. Would you like to go to the embroidery workshop attached to the women’s shops in the city to learn a trade? They not only teach skills, but also literacy and arithmetic. Only by having a skill can one stand invincible.”
A glimmer of hope instantly ignited in the woman's eyes, and she kowtowed deeply.
The carriage drove away again. Huaijin looked at the quiet Daiyu beside him and took her hand: "Are you tired?"
Daiyu shook her head, leaned on his shoulder, and looked out the window at the misty rain of the water town. She said softly, "I just feel that it's really good to be able to do something practical like this. It suits my taste much better than being hypocritical and deceitful in the court."
The Tenth Prince held her even tighter: "Wherever you want to go, I'll be with you."
Their footprints have covered the north and south of China.
In the northwestern border region, they mediated between villages on the verge of armed conflict due to disputes over water resources. Daiyu's suggestion to build irrigation canals and establish water allocation regulations, modeled after those in Jiangnan, was regarded as a golden rule by the locals.
On the shores of the East China Sea, they encountered remnants of pirates harassing the fishermen. The Tenth Prince personally dispatched the local garrison to devise a plan to capture the pirates, while Daiyu comforted the frightened women and children and wrote to the court to strengthen coastal defense.
Even in the picturesque Sichuan region, they uncovered a case of fraud in the imperial examinations, bringing justice to a student from a poor family.
The reputation of the "Inspector and his wife" spread far and wide.
They are not like imperial envoys, but they are more popular with the people; they do not concern themselves with criminal matters, but they can always touch upon the deep-seated problems and malpractices of local governance.
Wherever he went, corrupt officials and bureaucrats would stop in their tracks, while the wronged people would eagerly await his arrival.
Their carriages became mobile symbols of justice, and the deep bond between them, which had endured the test of time and remained as strong as wine, was widely praised.
Wherever he went, the Tenth Prince would always take good care of Daiyu's daily life, remember her favorite dishes, and find interesting local books or exotic flowers and plants for her.
Daiyu would also personally brew a cup of tea for the Tenth Prince when he was tired from handling affairs, and play a tune on the zither to soothe his mind.
Meanwhile, in the capital, at the Women's Academy.
Grandma Hongqu had indeed reached the age where she could enjoy her retirement, doting on her grandchildren.
She resigned from all administrative positions at the academy and lived only in a quiet little courtyard in the backyard.
However, she never truly left the place where she had devoted half her life.
Every fifth day of the month is the academy's biggest event—the day when the former headmaster gives a public lecture.
No matter what she talks about in class—whether it's a new interpretation of "Admonitions for Women," a legend of a woman from a previous dynasty, a trick for managing finances, or even just casual talk about Princess Lin's childhood—as long as she starts speaking, the largest lecture hall, which can accommodate three hundred people, will be packed to capacity.
Not only registered students, but also many female officials, businesswomen, and even some ladies from prominent families who had heard of her name would try every means to come.
There weren't enough seats, and the aisles, windowsills, and even the courtyard outside the lecture hall were packed with people listening intently.
Five or six hundred people gather together, yet it is often completely silent, with only Yuan Hongqu's peaceful and wise voice flowing slowly in the air.
She no longer teaches specific skills; instead, she imparts a kind of integrity, a vision, and the strength to maintain inner clarity and resilience amidst the ups and downs of life.
She often used Daiyu as an example, but never deliberately deified her.
“Your Governor Lin also cried when he was a child, and I scolded him for not being able to recite his lessons.”
Yuan Hongqu smiled, and a burst of good-natured laughter and gasps of amazement would erupt from the audience.
“But there’s one thing about her: she never admits defeat and never belittles herself. The books she’s read, the roads she’s traveled, and the hardships she’s endured have all become part of her very being. A woman’s success in this world isn’t based on family background or looks, but on this,” she pointed to her heart, “and this.” She then pointed to her head.
Whenever Daiyu and the Tenth Prince sent back letters and local specialties from their travels to the academy, it became a festival for all the teachers and students.
Yuan Hongqu would select suitable passages from the letters and read them aloud in class, recounting how Daiyu exchanged poems with female poets by West Lake, how she encouraged women to study medicine at the frontier, and how she cleverly solved a wrongful case…
These true and vivid stories ignite a flame in girls' hearts more effectively than any sacred text.
They saw that a woman, while having a happy marriage, can still have a vast sky and a stage to realize her self-worth.
Governor Lin's life is the best illustration of the teachings of Granny Yuan.
On this day, Yuan Hongqu had just finished a lecture on "Women's Friendships and Interpersonal Relationships," and the applause from the audience was thunderous and lasted for a long time.
With a smile, she was helped down from the podium by her maid and returned to her small courtyard. She sat in a rocking chair on the veranda and unfolded a thick letter she had just received from Sichuan.
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