Foreword to chapter two
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As you will probably have fathomed while reading my former texts I'm a man who believes in equality of Rights and who will never support any ideology that tries to restrict the Right of a Human Being to be free to believe in whatever Faith he wants, to say what he thinks is important (even if it is BS) and act (within the restrictions of law) as he/she wants.
What I hate with all my heart are those crazy nutcases (be them SJW or Djihadists) who want to force their sick ideology upon the rest of us.
Lizzy will be my spokeswoman on these matters in the coming chapter.
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Chapter One: Pemberley Institute for Political Studies
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November 1822
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Pemberley
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From time to time I do understand Jane's incapacity to speak with those people. They are unnerving!
She felt Fitzwilliam's love embracing her and what had been about to become unbearable just change into a simple difficulty.
That's the art of Politics, my love. You can't let your gut feelings take over. You must listen to them because the data they provide you with is important, but you will never let them smother your mind to make decisions for you. When all is told and said most people are incredibly egotistic beasts who let most of the time their basic instincts take over. That should never happen to people who are wielding power. NEVER.
I understand but these women just refuse to accept that their reality isn't universal. We are clearly not like them but they just refuse to consider our point of view.
Don't let yourself be caught by Jane's negative feelings. Even if she was right in her vision of what needs to be done, it can never be imposed from outside! As long as our guests refuse to look at arguments because they dislike the woman or the man who brings them at the table everybody loses. You must use what penetrates their thick shells and not what clearly bounds off.
It's unsettling…
It's called adaptation love! Your very favorable image within the Commonwealth has pampered you into believing that nothing will ever again be able to resist to your undeniable charm. But the Chinese Culture is an old fortress that, for centuries, has added layer upon layer of extra defenses. The only way to enter is the portal. If you try anything else, you'll either stay outside or destroy said fortress. And we don't want either of those events happening.
Lizzy nodded discreetly to herself and sent her love to her husband who had been able to immediately answer to her requests.
Thanks for you help, love. I'll try to find the proverbial patience Jane has clearly lost while negotiating with the Niohuru Ladies.
She's like you, she's forgotten how it was in the beginning! When everybody, even the womenfolk, was fighting against you. Now that, whatever you say, your words are taken as gospel truth you've lost your edge. It's perhaps time to climb out of your complacency and go back to work…
There was a note of irony within Fitzwilliam's words but it was very clear for Lizzy that he did believe what he just said. And, knowing him as she did, she had no problem to believe that he was right.
You are right even if it is unseemly to emit such judgments about feeble females like us.
In our family, the myth of feeble females had been shattered twenty years ago, love. I did struggle to admit it but now, after twenty years at your side, I know who amongst us is the rock of the family. And so does Geoffrey, believe me…
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Back into the arena!
Toregina, the Mother and Ounnga, the daughter were, as usual when they were alone, sitting cross legged facing each other and speaking to each other in a calm very civilized manner.
Having no interest in pushing her own cultural preferences down her guests' throats even by a choice of sitting amenities, Lizzy had changed and was wearing silk shirt and pantaloons to be able to sit at the same level as both her Mongol visitors.
The tone between daughter and mother seemed to be quiet and reasonable but there was a hint of exasperation in Ounnga's words that didn't go unfelt by Lizzy.
She looked at the Mother who, by age, was, even under Lizzy's roof, the leading female in the room to signal her return and ask for the right to sit.
- Just sit down, said Toregina with a sigh. She had spoken in Mandarin which was a language both she and Ounnga mastered easily. Since it was also the Chinese idiom Lizzy had learned, it had been in Mandarin that they had talked.
- Even if I'm the oldest here, you're still at Home and I'm a guest. When alone just act normally.
Lizzy sat and looked at Ounnga.
- I don't understand Manchu but you seem somewhat angered.
- She doesn't like to have her mother giving her advice… interfered Toregina. She believes herself old enough to stop listening to her elders. Youngsters like her always believe that the world is not at all similar to what it was a generation or two ago.
She looked at Lizzy.
- She believes she lives on another planet and that nothing I've gone through has anything to do with what she's currently living. How could the lowly Shaman of a secondary Clan have anything to teach to the great Lady Qin, the Emperor's wife? The woman who's about to singlehandedly transform the whole of Chinese and Manchu Society.
- That's not what I said…
- Because you are a polite young woman, daughter. But I do have that weird gift to hear the content of the hollow words that are thrown towards me. And those words say exactly what I have just described.
- And what I said this last hours has probably felt the same for the both of you, said Lizzy before Ounnga could react. I need to apologize because in hindsight I must admit that I was probably as arrogant as they come.
She shook her head.
- I'm afraid it comes with the background. We've forgotten, Jane and I, that we are not Royalty whatever our husbands have achieved.
She looked at Lady Niohuru.
- And we are certainly the most arrogant females you've ever encountered… So full of themselves and their cultural superiority.
Toregina nodded.
- I agree with the first part of your admission but the second is wrong.
She pointed at her daughter.
- She and her Chinese brethren are the champions of cultural superiority. She really believes that the Chinese Culture was, is and will be the pinnacle of all civilizations for millennia to come.
- Said Culture has been there for four thousand years, protested Ounnga.
- But said Culture has been, more than once, beaten, invaded and submitted by a few thousands of nomadic warriors coming out of their Northern steppes. We are the ones who have brought new blood into the mix, daughter! Without us to regenerate the undead corpse, it would have withered away anyway. Without us being smart enough to understand that the golden goose needed to go on living to shit for us the wealth we wanted, it could have ended like so many other civilizations destroyed by nomadic invaders.
She snickered.
- It's not that the Chinese civilization is superior in any way to those other cultures all over the world, dear, it is just that we, the Manchu, were smarter than greedy and that we fathomed that what all those previous invaders did in the past when they invaded Qin was the smart thing to do. So, we let the gold shitting thing that we just took over mostly unscathed and able to go on living its normal life. The fact that uncouth idiots were at the helm was no problem at all since the only thing we had to do was to go on stealing what the Chinese industrious people were producing year after year under the supervision of an army of Imperial Bureaucrats.
She looked her daughter in the eyes.
- We are lazy unproductive scavengers who are milking a civilization that prefers submission to honor and freedom. I'm not quite sure if there's anything within this mix we should be proud of.
Seeing no answer coming of a frowning Ounnga, she looked at Lizzy.
- I'm not sure that your civilization is any better but considering my present ignorance I will abstain with judging it. But I will ask for some time to talk with some of your wise women to get an idea of what your civilization is about at its core.
- I'm quite sure that I should be able to find people who speak Mandarin and who have the insight to answer all o your questions.
Toregina shook her head.
- No, that's not how we will do it. Provide us with a couple of teachers who will have the patience to teach us English. I don't want to hear what a few selected people have to say about you. I want to be able to ask whomever I want without any interference by you or the rest of the family.
She took a long breath.
- It's not that I don't trust you but, if my own daughter, whom I thought had been raised normally could become entranced by the flawed Chinese Civilization I'm quite sure that everything is possible. I want to build my own opinion of what you are…
- I'll have you a teacher as soon as possible. Probably even tomorrow morning.
- Good, said Toregina with a nod. Now that that has been solved, let's go back to the bulk of our discussion. Let's hear what you advise you could give us to help Yonglin in his current endeavor.
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- The main problem you'll have won't involve your men, said finally Lizzy. Your problem as it was ours, will be the women's inalterable fear for their offspring's fate.
She shook her head.
- And now that I'm have given birth to four little ones, I'm a lot more open to other women's fears. Change is fearsome and you never know what changes that look like minor ones will become after a few unsuspected twists.
She made a worried face.
- Even I who has huge means and quite a lot of people working to protect the family am no longer as prompt and ready to support change. I'm not afraid for myself but I'm very reluctant to embrace things that could blow up in my children's faces. When we embarked into our crusade we were young and very persuaded that what we had to do was necessary for the greater good. The problem I am now facing is that the greater good is no longer my priority. My priority has become the survival of my children.
She shrugged and took a deep breath.
- It did come slowly. When I was a young mother with my first-born kids, I still was persuaded that it was our duty to work for the greater good and that sacrificing my own security was an acceptable risk.
She looked up and smiled at the huge painting of the Darcy family David has painted after the youngest twins' birth.
They were together Fitzwilliam holding Charlotte in his arms sitting on a bench aside his wife who was holding Charles. Janet was standing behind her father while Geoffrey was standing behind her.
The fact that Janet was embracing her father and her sister from behind while Geof, always the stickler for decorum, was just lightly touching his mother with a hand on her shoulder while trying to hide a smile was very revealing about the Darcy family's inner balance. The males were uptight and honorable, while the females were weird and scandalous.
Thoughts about Janet's inexistent love-life came uninvited into Lizzy's mind.
She knew that Janet was in no hurry. She would stay young and beautiful for a lot longer than non-upgraded girls and her upbringing and official behavior had placed her for the last three years at the top of the list of the most desired single woman in Europe and elesewhere. A whole herd of interested -and interesting- young men had run over Pemberley and some of them had even been invited to stay a few more days because Janet wanted to know them a little better.
But Fluffy -and Speedy for that matter when he was available- had been a real pain with her unseemly habit to investigate what the young men's minds were hiding. Whatever faults they had or misdeeds they had done Janet was sure to be informed as soon as those two could get ahold of the information.
And if anything was a certainty than it was that a girl who knew too much about her suitors' defects wasn't interested in furthering her relationship with them.
Which had the current result of Janet having no love interests and her mother being worried about it.
She shook herself out of that thought strain. She had a job to do.
She made an apologetic face in direction of her guests who were clearly waiting.
- Sorry I was thinking about my eldest daughter… She's still unmarried and no man has, until now, found favor in her eyes. It does worry me!
Taregina looked at her daughter.
- Once she has found one there will be other problems, you'll see. Marriage learns daughters how to manipulate. And they rarely have the common sense not to try their newly learned skill on the rest of their family.
- I never… protest Ounnga.
- Of course, you did, interrupted her mother. And it is a good thing to try out your new skills on members of the family. At least if you are not as good as you think, it won't have unpleasant consequences. But one should be able to note when a skill doesn't have the planned results. Going on while getting always the same result is rather foolish, wouldn't you think?
- I was young and it was always succeeding on Yong…
- Probably because he was your accomplice! Young husbands who love their wives tend to try to please them, you know? Old mothers don't!
Ounnga gave up and looked at her knees.
- At least , said finally Toregina, thanks to you and your sister the problem of an heir, which had worried the whole clan quite a lot, will soon be solved.
- Those problems are easy to solve if a woman is not barren. It is rather rare, but it happens and if there are no eggs nothing can done at our level of knowledge. My mother thinks that in a few years even that could be corrected but I tend to doubt that something that seems impossible will become possible just because you believe that science will resolve everything. Some things are God's will and even science won't be able to help.
- I don't know enough science to have an opinion in that matter but I know that the Spirits are a lot more powerful than most humans believe. They could have done something for Ounnga, I'm sure of it…
- In fact, said Lizzy. They did! It was their help that gave us the means to intervene in a hurry. Water Spirits have very powerful means to help women to have children. They tend to be overzealous, hence the abnormal number of twins in the family, but they are helpful from the conception to the birth. And they are very determined not to let a woman die while giving birth. Whatever the number of kids she carries. There are other, more scientific, ways to get the same result but I personally prefer the path of the Water Spirits. And giving birth in a pond is a lot easier on the body than doing it in a bed or while standing.
- I will trust you on that and we will do what's in our power to get the Sacred pond in my country back into service. We have let the Spirits down once, it won't happen again.
- You cannot hold yourself responsible for a drought that has plagued your country for years now.
- We shouldn't have abandoned. The drought is still there and nevertheless you will regenerate the pond.
- The Pirit will. The only thing we will bring to the transaction is the opening of a door the Spirits will be able to use…
- We forgot, or perhaps never knew how to do that. We should have searched for a solution and should have refused to give up.
- The little ones were at risk to die, said Lizzy. When that becomes a possible outcome, we cease to envision dangerous solutions to embrace safe ones. Going south was the best alternative to risking dying of thirst.
- The Spirits told me that they would have stayed and helped had my ancestors shown that they were willing to endure.
Lizzy bed forwards and put her hand on Toregina's knee.
- The whole world was, in those times, suffering from too many people living on too few safe territories. The drought killed thousands and little ones are the most in danger to die of exhaustion. Your shamans are al women and I understand why they chose to quit. They could have found a solution but if not it would have been the kids and the elderly who would have paid the price. Your ancestors were right to favor the safe, if cowardly, approach. We will help you and your land will, once again, blossom and be fruitful.
Toergina nodded and looked at her daughter.
- And I appreciate your offer. But my daughter who has not an ounce of a Shaman skill is showing signs of impatience. We should perhaps forget about the Northern wastes and look at the overflowing south.
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- You need to convince the women in China that progress is what will not only assuage their lot but ensure that their children will have a brighter future!
- There are millions of women in China, said Ounnga. And most of them are illiterate.
Lizzy nodded.
- Twenty years ago, most women in the commonwealth were illiterate. Now the only illiterate women that still exist are to be found in India and next month I will be there with my sisters to do what's necessary to turn the tide. I don't see why you couldn't do the same thing in China!
- Those women are peasants' wives, and their workforce is needed by their family and their husbands to farm the land and feed their kids.
Lizzy didn't hide her opposition.
- That will soon change with the arrival of factories. The peasants here have, within a few years, been replaced by machines built in said factories. And our factories were a lot more primitive than what is about to over roll your economy. Your farm hands will be replaced by machines and your agriculture will soon need a lot less people to produce higher quantities. And the people who will no longer find work in the fields will have no choice but to emigrate to the towns where you'll have built the factories.
She frowned at Ounnga.
- If you don't anticipate and prepare your cities for their arrival, those farmhands and their families will be preyed upon by those who will try to use them to become richer. It won't be the factory owners since said owner will probably be the Company but there are others who won't hesitate for a second to use those people's distress to exploit them.
Toregina who was not a friend of cities wasn't very pleased to learn that farmers and farmhands would be replaced by machines frowned at her host and at her daughter.
- Why would you let those factories been built? Nobody needs these things. Our peasants have no problem to feed everybody. And our economy provides us with everything we need.
- China needs them, said Lizzy. And Yonglin is already convinced. He knows that if China fails to catchup, the Middle Kingdom will be, within two or three generations, Earth's backwater.
- We are a force to be reckoned…
- For now, mother, intervened Ounnga. But that won't last if we don't follow the way the western powers have initiated. There is no longer an alternative if we want to stay at the front of the pack.
- It would be as if your ancestors in Qin would have refused to learn the art of Iron smithing while all your neighbors had already know nthe skill and had already begun to create iron swords and arrow heads. The Qin Empire would have been eaten alive by the other Kingdoms.
Toregina looked at her daughter.
- I will acknowledge that what we have seen while flying over this country did look impressive. But is there really such a gap between them and us?
Ounnga nodded.
- We've wasted two centuries of technological progress, mother. With outside help we still have a small chance to catch up but to do so we must enter the race today without any more delays.
- We are ready to help you not only because of Geoffrey's links with the Middle Kingdom but because we really think that the Chinese Culture is an important part of Mankind's History. We won't let you be dismantled by invaders.
Toregina looked up and challenged Lizzy.
- Wouldn't you have been tempted?
- That's a difficult question, sighed Lizzy. A lot of rulers believed that a Nation doesn't have friends only interests it must defend. So, it is an open question, indeed. But I still believe that it wouldn't have been Great Britain who would have attacked you first. But as the Spanish had discovered in Western Amrica, we will defend ourselves and fight back should we be attacked. We have shown under Fitzwilliam and it will be the same under William's rule that we do try to follow a certain ethic while building the commonwealth.
Lizzy took a few seconds to thinks about what she needed to say.
- So, even if war of conquests never were in our agenda we never forgot the Nation's interests. If we are attacked we will retaliate and we will do it in such a fashion that the attacker will have no other choice but to understand that he has committed a huge mistake.
She stopped lady Niohuru's incoming comment.
- It's not a threat against you but, you need to understand that even if we prefer to have a fair and peaceful discussion with partners, we will never let bullies force us to submit to their pressure. Under Geoffrey's influence the military modus operandi of GGB has been built around the necessity to always show our will to retaliate.
Once more she chose her words.
- As long as we have a peace, we will do what is in our power to maintain it and to nurture it. But should said peace be broken by the other party we will embrace war and make sure that it will never happen again. But that's us. There are others out there who don't even try to look ethical. Napoleon who's already building an airship base south of the Himalaya would have had no scruples to do what is necessary to gain a foothold in China.
She looked at the worldmap the Heidelberg University had manufactured for William.
- I really believe that France has reached a point where Napoleon no longer believes that further expansion is necessary. But that doesn't mean that he won't jump on what could be considered as an opportunity. History had shown that the easy path to conquer China is to replace the current elite at China's top. As you've yourself pointed at, the Chinese people isn't very demanding when it comes to its rulers' race. The Chinese seem to be willing to accept that strangers could take over the Power at the condition that the societal changes were maintained to an acceptable level. The French or the Ottomans would have learned about that and if you can't defend yourselves, they will treat China as any other easy target. Your country is still rich enough to finance the revolution you need to stay at the top.
- We already know that, said Ounnga but that's not why we are meeting…
- Indeed, said Lizzy, I wanted to talk with you to share our experience, that is my sisters' and mine, about the best way to get your women to accept the cultural changes you will need to introduce into your society to be able to not only catch up but take the lead.
- You want us to take the lead?
- We want nothing of the sort but simple arithmetic shows that since you are more numerous than us, you have the potential to have more scientists, more researchers and more technicians than each one of the rest of us. And if you create the right tools to give those scientists the means to let their genius blossom, you will, in four or five generations, perhaps even earlier, have people who will think about and invent original and revolutionary solutions. But to get that you must stop to muster out half of your population.
- You mean our girls, said Ounnga.
- Of course, I mean your girls! You must get today's mothers to believe in a future where their daughters will play a role that even if different can be as important than their sons'. And the only path towards such a society will be through education. But even if you create the best schools and universities in the world, you will still fail if you can't convince the mothers that sending their little ones to school is important and, even more important, rewarding for the family.
She looked at Ounnga.
- Geoffrey says that Bureaucrats are an important and esteemed part of your society.
- He's right, acknowledged Ounnga. The path into bureaucracy is the Chinese cursus honorum where everybody with the necessary knowledge and will-power can strive to become part of the Imperial Administration.
- Then you need to create an opening for literate and strong-willed girls to become part of said Administration.
- Men will never accept…
- Men will obey the Emperor's orders and as I see it, they will, like everywhere else, let their arrogance take the upper hand. They will be certain that girls and women will fail. And, perhaps, the first years they will be right. Until the really motivated enter the fray and show them. And then it will be too late since they will have accepted the girls' participation when those were not ready. They will have problems to convince the Emperor to close the door when it appears that girls are those who have the best results.
- Will they?
- Here they do, answered Lizzy. And for a time, it looked as if girls would trust the most important places everywhere. That's when I convinced William to change the cursus to include matters where boys and men were better suited. Since we had kept for us why we needed to change the cursus the reform went through without a major problem. Now each year we have around a fifty-fifty score with a small advantage for girls since they are mostly better suited in all matters turning around management of people.
- So, you already know what to do…
- And we will share to let you avoid the risk of gender inequality. But all this has no sense if you are unable to convince your fellow mothers that their girls are needed for more than breeding and pleasing their husbands. You won't have problems to get the peasants with you. They will immediately see the advantage of giving their girls -and boys for that matter- a chance to escape their current tolling hell.
- But without the children working in the fields there won't be enough food on the table to feed the family.
- That is an easy to resolve problem since children who will be sent to schools will be fed by the school. Once in the morning, once at noon. It will cost the Emperor but it is a necessary investment that will speed up the whole process. Within one generation the educated children will earn more than their parents and so, will be able to send money home if such a thing is needed.
Lizzy took a long breath.
- The peasants and workers will soon understand that sending their children to school is not only the immediate solution but the long-term solution for their family. To be blunt, you'll buy their cooperation.
She sighed.
- Of course, that's not how you'll get the Manchu aristocracy in your boat. For those you need to create a network.
- A network?
- We didn't know that in the beginning of our crusade and we would probably have failed since we were nobodies at the time and, which is probably even more significant, we had no speedy means to inform and talk to the network members.
She pointed at the telephone on her desk.
- Now we have said means and you, you will have them from the very beginning of your campaign. And I urge you to use and abuse it profligately. With those phones and the new loudspeakers our techies have devised you'll be able to speak with more than one person at the same time. It will save you time and it will give you the opportunity to send out your message without risking seeing it altered because some weak-minded, or bad-intentioned correspondent was unable to remember your exact words.
- But there are only a few phones all over the Empire…
- If that's the case, then your priority must be to have two of them in each and every important household. One for the Master of the House and one for his first wife. And once they have it, it will be vital to create a link between you and every first wife in the Middle Kingdom who's been equipped with a telephone. While the phones are laid out, ask your husband to gather information about Husband and first wife and use that information to become the Empress each first wife has always dreamt of. Don't lie about the message but use what you know about the wife's preferences to convey your message in a way you know she will like. Even if the content of the message displeases her, you will still be a respected person of authority she will want to listen to. And the fact that you won't order anything will hugely help to create trust.
- But won't they be able to call back, asked Toregina.
- They will and it is important that you give them the possibility to do just that. Most will never call back but those who call back must be able to speak to somebody of your household. And if it is important you should take the time to call back. To show that you listen and that you care. That's the heart of any network: trust and availability.
Lizzy stopped there. For now, she had said what she had to say. Now her guests needed to think about her proposal and to come to an agreement. Or not. She would see soon.
What she hadn't said was the other, not negligible, advantage of having phones all over China's provinces. The technology wasn't spy proof and as soon as everybody in possession of a phone would have fathomed what it really meant in matters gossip and more important high speed communication, everybody in the loop would have a marvelous tool to spy on China's aristocracy. The Emperor and his smarter Nobles would soon understand the risk involved and devise ways to exchange messages in an encrypted mode. But there was one thing she was sure about: gossip would never ever be encrypted.
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Next Chapter: By the Fireside