Chapter 49: The Interlocking Stratagem (Requesting Monthly Votes)

Taking Guanghe and Guangxiaoping with him, he called for a carriage and headed straight to the Kaifeng Prefecture Office.

Along the way, he wasn't particularly anxious.

What kind of trouble could possibly happen at home? At worst, it was underpaying taxes or engaging in usury. The absolute ceiling of a crime would just be a fine. That would actually be ideal—it would save him from making black-hearted money that would only bring ruin to his descendants, and he was the descendant in this case.

By the time he arrived at the Kaifeng Prefecture Office, after a few days of restructuring, it was no longer as chaotic as it had been previously.

Su Shi was, after all, a philosopher; setting up some basic bureaucratic workflows was a piece of cake for him.

Stepping into the yamen abruptly felt like walking into the kitchen of a five-star hotel.

The five departments and six bureaus, along with the various runners and bailiffs, moved in and out like an assembly line, and they had even established a rule for keeping to the right-hand side.

For someone like him who was an acquaintance seeking an audience, there was a dedicated queue, personally received by Su Shi's page.

The little boy was delicate, bright-eyed, and full of spirit.

Li Chang'an fished a handful of copper coins out of his pocket, counted out ten, and called out to the boy.

"Here are ten coins for you. Could you be so kind as to go in and announce to your master that Li Chang'an has urgent business and requests an audience?"

Hearing Li Chang'an state his name, the little boy's eyes rolled around as if remembering something. He accepted the coins, patted his chest, and said, "Just wait right here, I'm going!"

With that, he scampered through the crowd and ran into the main hall where Su Shi worked.

Before long, he came running back, leading the way with a red bamboo tally.

"Follow me, mind the order, and don't get bumped by anyone."

Entering the room, Li Chang'an saw Su Shi drawing a curve chart. One of his students was responsible for reading out the numbers to him while Su Shi used a ruler to locate the coordinates.

Not wanting to interrupt, he stood to the side and waited for a long while until Su Shi finished drawing the population growth chart for the past two centuries.

"Oh, Chang'an is here. Sit down quickly. How did the matter regarding the refusal of the imperial edict go? I have already written to my teacher, and I expect we will know the internal reasons by tonight..."

Li Chang'an interrupted him: "I'm not here for that. Just now, my family reported that my maternal grandfather and uncle were arrested. I rushed over to see what this is all about."

He had arrested his good brother's family members? What law had the Zhang family broken, and should he exercise some favoritism?

"Let's go and ask the Vice Magistrate!"

The two of them walked out, made a turn to the side, and arrived at the official office of the Kaifeng Prefecture Vice Magistrate.

In the original timeline, this position should have belonged to Su Shi. Due to Li Chang'an's interference, the original incumbent remained unchanged—the old bureaucrat Liu Wushi.

Seeing his immediate superior arrive, Vice Magistrate Liu hurriedly stood up to welcome them.

"Don't rush, please sit. I'm inquiring about a case: has a certain Master Zhang from Sweet Water Lane in the West City been brought in, and what national law has he violated?"

***

The Vice Magistrate bent over to flip through the case files, counting back and forth before raising his head in confusion.

"My Lord, there is no such case recorded! If you don't believe me, have a look!"

Taking the case registry, Su Shi flipped through it once, his face also filled with doubt.

Then, Li Chang'an flipped through it himself.

Well, it wasn't there. Could it be that they were arrested by Kaifeng County or Xiangfu County instead?

While he was puzzled here, Young Master Wang Pang was equally puzzled at home.

Counting beans to avoid decapitation—this puzzle was quite interesting. At first, he thought it was very simple: as long as the person at the front took twenty beans, then regardless of whether the subsequent amounts were more or less, the first person would survive. Then the second person would only need to take fewer than the first, without making it too few, so they should take nineteen; following that sequence, it should be 20, 19, 18. With 37 beans remaining, the fourth person, to save his life, would inevitably take 19, leaving 18, resulting in three deaths and two survivors.

However, Shen Chengliang said that was incorrect. The person who took the beans first must not take twenty, otherwise, he would definitely die.

Taking twenty could only guarantee that he would not have the fewest, but it could not guarantee that he would not have the most, which was equivalent to placing his own head in the hands of the people behind him.

Thus, the two of them recalculated.

By the time Wang Anshi returned to the manor, the number of people participating in solving the puzzle had grown to over a dozen, virtually turning it into a competition.

"Pang'er, why is everyone so lively today?"

"Ah, father has had a hard day. We came across a mathematical puzzle today, so everyone is just relaxing their minds, passing the time for fun, and placing bets on who will treat everyone to drinks tonight."

Clever people love solving puzzles, and Prime Minister Wang was no exception.

He took the puzzle: Five people are dividing beans, and those who take the most and the least are put to death. Communication is forbidden, and the question is whose survival probability is the highest.

First, they are all very intelligent people and will not act out of emotional impulse;
Second, they all want to live, prioritizing their own survival above all else, and only secondarily causing trouble for others;
Third, the beans do not need to be completely divided, but every person must hold at least one bean in their hand;
Fourth, if there are identical quantities, they are also counted as the most and the least, and all of them are put to death.

The smartest person in the world, the living sage, the wise man who would posthumously be given the title of Wuzheng—Wang Anshi, the genius Wang—was also stumped.

He excelled in classical texts and philosophy, but was not well-versed in mathematics, and this puzzle was indeed tricky to crack.

However, he didn't say he wanted to join the bet. It was hard to tell whether his aged face was red or black; he curled his lip, pretended to be uninterested, and returned to the inner quarters.

He possessed a special skill: a photographic memory.

On his way back, he kept calculating in his mind.

To ensure each person held beans in their hands, the first person could take a minimum of one and a maximum of ninety-six.

Clearly, however, the first person could not possibly take such extreme numbers; he had to choose a number that was neither the most nor the least.

That is to say, this number must hover around twenty.

Returning to his room, he took out his counting rods, and old Wang began to calculate.

If the first person took a number less than twenty, say nineteen, then eighty-one beans remained.

The second person only needed to take fewer than him while ensuring they did not become the one with the fewest, meaning the second person should take eighteen...

With these calculations, time slipped away until the lighting of the lamps.

Old Wang felt the top of his head beginning to steam with heat, yet he still hadn't figured out the optimal strategy for the first person.

It seemed that no matter how he chose, the decisive power ultimately rested in the hands of the second, third, and fourth people.

What kind of damned puzzle was this? No wonder mathematics could never become a subject for the imperial examinations; it was simply too preposterous.

Putting the items aside, he went to the back to have his meal.

After taking a few bites, a sudden flash of inspiration struck him: if the life and death of the first person to take beans was placed entirely in the hands of others, why not simply...

Hurring back to his bedroom, he saw his wife tinkering with the counting rods, also trying to solve the puzzle.

His wife, Wu Qiong, was Wang Anshi's maternal cousin. She also came from a scholarly family, with her grandfather, father, and uncles all having attained the highest imperial degree of Jinshi.

As for intelligence, she was no less capable than him or their son.

After tinkering for a while, Wu Qiong put down the counting rods and shook her head.

Seeing that her husband had returned, she stood up to help him change his robes.

"My lord, the world is chaotic and difficult to resolve all at once. In any case, we can just work on it slowly. After all, since the Qin and Han dynasties, you are not the first to face this."

Wang Anshi was baffled. Could this actually be a classic mathematical puzzle? If so, why had he never heard of it?

When he asked, his wife's reply sparked a completely different train of thought in his mind.

"Was my lord not calculating the distribution of the imperial court's tax revenues? Calculated out of a hundred, how the royal family, the nobility, the military generals, the scholars, and the farmers and merchants should respectively utilize them to bring balance to the realm. Though I am a woman, I also know the principle that one should not worry about scarcity, but rather about inequality. Those who take too much are hated by the people of the world and will inevitably suffer the calamities of the Yellow Turban and Huang Chao uprisings.

"Nowadays, the court's three redundancies are difficult to resolve precisely because the first four groups have taken all the beans, leaving small farming and merchant households with no way to survive, which will inevitably lead to a mutual destruction where jade and stone burn together..."

Ah...

Old Wang stood in a daze. It turned out this puzzle had such profound implications. Could it be that after beating their son last time, he no longer dared to offer direct admonishments?

Yet, was the solution to this puzzle truly the solution for the Great Song?