Chapter 288: Program

**Episode 1: Jiangning Morning Breeze**

August 15th, Mid-Autumn Festival.

After the lingering heat of summer, the belated autumn finally arrived in Hangzhou. When golden leaves drifted down in the wind, they always evoked a sense of laziness. If one were to rewind a few months, this was exactly the kind of atmosphere—or at least part of it—that Ning Yi and Su Tan'er had hoped to enjoy when they departed from Jiangning. However, in the months that followed, various events became chaotically intertwined, ultimately pushing reality towards an outcome no one had anticipated.

Ning Yi was now enjoying this autumn. To put it poetically, there was always a hint of loneliness. But regardless, at least on the surface, he maintained an attitude of enjoyment towards these things. Since complaining was useless, it was best to conceal any complaints beneath the facade of enjoyment.

Fang La had ascended the throne two days prior, and the festive atmosphere of the coronation ceremony still lingered in the city. For Ning Yi, his current status meant he couldn't feel much joy, nor did he need to feel much sadness. The only impact was that the academy had been closed for two days, so yesterday he had taken Chan out for a stroll.

Since returning to Hangzhou, this was his first outing purely for leisure and relaxation, signaling that the previous period of tension could temporarily be set aside. Chan's mood was also noticeably lighter.

At this time, Hangzhou was just recovering from the turmoil of war, and supplies had largely resumed circulation. Ning Yi and Chan visited several markets that had regained vitality thanks to the new dynasty's celebrations. Besides various flowers and banners made for the festivities, what met the eye everywhere were diverse bamboo and wooden frameworks, with workers in twos and threes creating a scene of rebuilding in the post-war city.

Prices in Hangzhou were expensive then, but Ning Yi was naturally accompanied by A-Chang and A-Ming whenever he went out, and the miscellaneous daily necessities they bought were likely on public expense. His new residence hardly felt like home, but with Chan there, running around arranging various items like a busy ant over the past few days, she made the place feel endearing. She had always been an all-around housekeeper in the Su family, and now, as she meticulously organized the rooms, it finally began to feel a bit more familiar.

Chan still worked at the medical clinic just a wall away, learning medical theory and pharmacology from the old doctor surnamed Liu while performing her duties. The old doctor had a good temperament, but Ning Yi was displeased, mainly because he didn't know if Chan would become a divine doctor in the future.

Every afternoon or evening when they were together, Ning Yi liked to ask Chan about what she had learned at the clinic. If he didn't ask, Chan would rarely speak about it, always meticulously adhering to her duties. When with Ning Yi, she would focus on cooking, washing dishes, boiling water, doing laundry, making tea, or even helping him move a stool. Sometimes, even when she chattered, it was only about interesting things around her, never reviewing the lessons the old doctor taught her – to her, those were ultimately secondary matters.

The academy was closed for the Mid-Autumn Festival, but the clinic still had some things to attend to, so Chan went to help there in the morning. Ning Yi had nothing to do at home. He picked up paper and pen, intending to write down some recent thoughts, but then found the act boring. He wasn't a Confucian scholar, so establishing a legacy wasn't his primary concern. However, after truly understanding some of the situations within Fang La's army through the Overlord Blade Camp, ideas like "How would I rebel if it were me?" occasionally arose. If he could use this as a basis to write a set of principles, it would ultimately be quite interesting.

The reason he found writing boring was that he hadn't yet found a key breakthrough point.

After thinking for a while, someone knocked on the door. Ning Yi went out to find a Taoist priest holding a banner talking with A-Chang. He was selling talismans and images of the God of Wealth for the Mid-Autumn Festival. At this time, Hangzhou was perhaps most abundant with such people from all walks of life. After the Taoist left, a monk soon arrived, begging for alms and selling things. Occasionally, martial artists with weapons would pass by in the street.

Every society has its own character. Ning Yi sat on the stone block at his doorstep, basking in the sun, pondering the few things he needed to do recently.

The most important task, and the core of all his plans, was to send Chan away, back to Su Tan'er. The ideal scenario, of course, was to go with her, but that seemed very difficult. Chan was here as his hostage, but sending her away was not impossible. However, the matter had two stages: first, getting Chan out of the city, and then ensuring she could safely travel hundreds of miles to Huzhou. The first stage was quite feasible, with many methods, posing no major problem. But for Chan to go to Huzhou alone, Ning Yi currently had no reliable solution.

Everything else revolved around the first matter as ancillary issues. If Chan failed to escape, how could he ensure her survival and his own? If Chan succeeded in escaping, how could he protect himself? These questions ultimately came down to increasing his own value, or increasing his sincerity in helping the other party. These were merely casual thoughts for him, without any fixed routine. The things he wanted to write were also part of this problem.

He wasn't writing to deceive people, but because he had genuinely thought about these things. Since he would be staying here for a while, he had to find something to do; simply teaching some academic subjects would probably be boring. What lay before him now was a living example of a peasant uprising. Although he wasn't writing yet, Ning Yi already had a basic framework for his ideas in mind.

Ambition, courage, or ideals—what later generations might call subjective initiative—can largely be the decisive factor in whether an individual or a group can accomplish a great feat. While this theory isn't universally applicable, at least in the current uprising, it had become the biggest constraint. A group of peasants lacked strong subjective initiative; most soldiers just looted, and eventually, they would feel they had "looted enough." They weren't literati seeking to bring peace for all generations, nor were they soldiers simply following orders to charge forward. When the proportion of peasants in the army became too large, they would eventually just slow down.

Throughout history, truly successful uprisings or peasant uprisings, first and foremost, were to some extent the inevitable trend of the times—that is, when a group of literati cried out that the current era should end. Second, the insurgents were able to train peasants into soldiers, meaning they could follow orders rather than ask, "What are we going to plunder?" Both factors had varying proportions, with the first being the most important. Of course, there were exceptions, such as Zhu Di raising an army in the later Ming Dynasty, but that was not a peasant uprising. In peasant uprisings, the importance of the first point was almost irreplaceable.

And throughout the long river of history, many peasant uprisings, triggered by famine, plague, or riots, saw tens or hundreds of thousands rise up with a single call to arms. They surged forward like locusts, then faded into obscurity. But almost all high-ranking leaders of these uprisings never truly considered how to mobilize the full strength of every individual. And the uprising that truly applied concepts like subjective initiative and even ideals to peasants, throughout ancient and modern times, in all the history and examples known to Ning Yi, occurred only a single, rare time.

That was the revolution of later generations.

Regardless of how later generations might evaluate that revolution, at least at the time, the strength exerted by those peasants was immense, creating perhaps the most incorruptible revolutionary army in human history.

Ning Yi had also had his "angry youth" phase. At that time, he had sought information about the Japanese Kamikaze Special Attack Units. As World War II drew to a close, the Japanese, shouting the slogan "One Hundred Million Die as One," prepared to repel the Americans. Japanese pilots would strap explosives to light bombers or fighters, sometimes taking only one-way fuel, and directly crash into American planes or ships. Due to such suicidal tactics, some American ace pilots were even psychologically affected, with some crashing their planes due to unstable minds when landing on their carriers.

Besides these Kamikaze units, along the Japanese coast at that time, torpedoes were fitted with steering wheels, and sailors were trained to pilot them, preparing to directly ram American ships in this manner. Of course, these tactics were prepared to defend against a large-scale American landing; later, the Americans did not land, and these torpedoes were never put to use.

When he learned about these things, Ning Yi felt a deep sense of horror. Of course, he also wondered how such a nation could be replicated, or how certain aspects could be referenced in business management. It wasn't until later that he read accounts of the Battle of Chosin Reservoir during the Korean War.

At that time, the Volunteer Army entering Korea encountered a harsh winter with a severe lack of winter clothing. To engage in sniper warfare against the American forces, troops were sent to ambush positions in advance. In the minus forty-degree winter, amidst heavy snow and ice, entire companies froze to death in their positions. Yet, even as they froze, these soldiers maintained their firing postures, never releasing their weapons. They simply hadn't waited for their enemies.

If the Japanese spirit came from "fanaticism," it was hard to describe what the spirit of these Volunteer Army soldiers came from. And throughout the War of Resistance against Japan and the Civil War, this kind of human spirit was omnipresent. No one could deny the sincerity of those early revolutionaries who sought to save China. At that time, due to various technological advancements, the role of mere manpower on the battlefield had been greatly suppressed. If such an army could be replicated in ancient times, where human labor was highly depended upon, even if only part of this method were copied, even the armies of Genghis Khan, who likewise fanatically spread war all the way to Europe, would probably amount to nothing before such a force.

Without higher technology, without gunpowder, tanks, or rifles, even using only swords, such an army could flatten the Wu Dynasty and the Liao Dynasty. Of course, the emergence of that spirit in later generations involved many contributing and constraining factors, making it extremely difficult to replicate. But perhaps a part of it could still be imitated and learned as much as possible.

Fang La had also preached "all are equal, with no high or low" in his army, but in essence, it was something he himself didn't quite believe, and it ultimately became just a slogan. The basis for people to believe is that one must act on it oneself. There must be a genuine set of principles that, in the eyes of the people, must be a doctrine credible enough to make them truly believe they are striving for a great cause, just as those scholars sincerely believed they were "bringing peace for all generations." Only then could everything begin.

Copying *Zi Lun* verbatim would be very troublesome, but referencing some parts was always necessary. Piecing together many sociological ideas from later generations to weave a program based on "fairness" was not impossible. Ning Yi himself was a skeptic, and it might already be too late to truly implement such things within Fang La's army. But if presented to people, it might not fail to convince them. The important thing was that some people already realized that a lack of faith and ambition was affecting them. Then he could be more thorough, and some people would be interested.

The intent should be lofty, while the foundation should be simple and popular. On this Mid-Autumn Festival morning, he sat on the sunlit stone block, narrowing his eyes in thought.

He thought of it as starting a pyramid scheme.

Then he reconsidered, thinking that starting a religion just to protect Chan and himself would be too much of a fuss. Of course, at that moment, it was merely a thought that stirred within him; everything still depended on adapting to circumstances. If he stayed here long enough, he would, by all means, have to find something to do.

After thinking for a while, just as he was about to go back to the clinic to see Chan, he stood up and noticed a man across the street who seemed to have been watching him for a while. The man was now walking towards him.

The man was dressed in black. He looked like a martial artist, but carried no weapon. He was tall and lean, with a somewhat serious expression on his face, frowning as he looked at Ning Yi. Ning Yi also frowned. From A-Chang's expression nearby, he probably understood that this person was indeed looking for him. He had been reviewing information about the Overlord Blade Camp for several days and had some understanding of the appearance of some people in Fang La's army. As he mentally went through names, the other party cupped his hands in greeting.

"May I ask if you are Ning Yi, Ning Liheng?" His words were quite polite.

"Indeed. And you are...?"

"I am An Xifu."

Ning Yi sighed. A challenger had arrived. So he smiled, "Have you eaten?"