"Father… what does it mean, an age that has fallen behind?"
Zhao Dezhao's question left Zhao Kuangyin silent.
The Emperor of Song had watched the luminous screen for long enough to understand what the word age meant.
Or rather, each time he heard the Martial Marquis Zhuge Liang speak of restoring Han while pacifying Cao, each time he saw Emperor Taizong of Tang boast of maritime strength, and then remembered what he himself had read in the Records of the Three Kingdoms and the histories of Tang, the feeling only grew stronger.
As for the meaning of the word backward, it needed no explanation at all.
That only made Zhao Kuangyin fall deeper into silence.
He had already seen many marvels of later generations with his own eyes. Thanks to the chance to glimpse the heavens alongside those descendants, he understood better than anyone the vast gulf of a thousand years.
Understanding, however, did not mean acceptance.
Especially when he began to see clearly the flaws of the age in which he himself lived.
"Minister Liu," Zhao Kuangyin suddenly asked, breaking the quiet. "For a single human body, how many bones are there truly?"
Liu Han's expression immediately twisted in discomfort.
Until now, he had been quite content to remain an invisible figure in this strange gathering. Watching, learning, quietly reflecting on medical practice, and privately congratulating himself that he remained in imperial favor had already been more than enough.
Today's revelations, though they felt like rain after a long drought, also meant something else. The emperor would inevitably question him.
And indeed, here it was.
If the emperor had asked this question in earlier days, Liu Han might well have answered, "Three hundred and sixty-five."
But now that later generations had pierced through that barrier with such clarity, he knew exactly what he should say.
"Your Majesty," Liu Han replied, bowing, "this subject studies pharmacology, and so I cannot claim precise knowledge of the number of bones. However, I have heard from those in my family who practice medicine that the number is roughly a little over two hundred."
"A little over two hundred…"
Zhao Kuangyin murmured the words slowly, then sighed.
"Over two hundred. Compared to three hundred and sixty-five, that is nearly a difference of one hundred."
As for the other mistakes mentioned by later generations, he did not even need to ask Liu Han about them.
In his years as a military commander, corpses had been among the most common sights.
Once clothing was stripped away and flesh decayed, white bones were simply white bones. There was no black or white distinction between male and female. There was no great difference in the number of ribs either. At best, one could guess the sex from the size of the skeleton.
He had heard that some veteran soldiers could judge by the subtle shape of the hip bones whether the remains were male or female.
Perhaps that was what the later generations meant by differences in the pelvis.
"Minister Liu."
Zhao Kuangyin's gaze suddenly grew distant as he asked another question.
"If I were to order you to preside over the correction of medical texts from earlier dynasties, to examine their errors… if I were to grant you assistance from the Imperial Guards so that the bodies of executed criminals might be dissected, their meridians mapped upon paper, their bones counted and recorded as the foundation of medicine…"
Before the emperor could finish, Liu Han had already stepped forward.
"Your Majesty, this subject would accept death ten thousand times rather than refuse!"
"I do not want you to die," Zhao Kuangyin said calmly. "If you are unwilling, your name need not be recorded. You need only verify the numbers. The editing, preservation, and distribution of the work across the realm will be done in my name."
Liu Han said something more after that, but Zhao Kuangyin no longer heard it clearly.
He was staring at the luminous screen above the hall.
Suddenly, he remembered Emperor Shizong of Later Zhou and his suppression of Buddhism. In that instant, a kind of understanding seemed to dawn on him.
Song Ci recorded false numbers while hiding the truth. First, he feared imperial authority. Second, he feared the laws of the ancestors.
But what if imperial authority collided with ancestral law?
Which would prevail?
Zhao Kuangyin suddenly found that he wanted to try.
Perhaps the reforms of Northern Song recorded by later generations would give him an answer. After all, Wang Anshi had once declared that changes in Heaven need not be feared, and the ancestors need not be followed blindly.
That man would be a minister of his younger brother's descendants.
Yet when he thought of that same brother's son, the one who performed the Fengshan sacrifices, Emperor Zhenzong of Song, Zhao Kuangyin could not help but shake his head.
At that moment, another line rose almost instinctively in his mind.
"Though the state of Zhou is old, its mandate is renewed."
"Sun Yaowang…"
Li Shimin spoke instinctively, only to meet Sun Simiao's look of open disdain.
"The volume this subject presented to Your Majesty a few days ago," Sun Simiao said flatly, "has Your Majesty opened it yet?"
The Emperor of Tang was honest enough to nod.
"I will read it tonight."
Sun Simiao nodded. He was not especially surprised. The book he had submitted was indeed rather thick.
"That volume is so thick because more than half of it consists of illustrations drawn by Assistant Minister Yan," he explained.
"The texture of human skin, the positions of the organs, the structure of the skeleton, the placement of each bone. All are marked clearly. Naturally, that includes the total number of bones."
"Your Majesty may rest assured. It is not three hundred and sixty-five."
Hearing this, Li Shimin relaxed slightly.
Then he thought again about what the book contained.
Perhaps he should find a mealtime and look through it together with Guanyinbi.
[Lightscreen]
[In addition, The Washing Away of Wrongs contains some entries that seem almost superstitious.
For example, it claims that when a tiger attacks a person, it bites the head at the beginning of the month, the body in the middle of the month, and the legs at the end. It says the same pattern applies when cats attack mice.
It also states that those who drown before death lie face down if male and face up if female.
However, taken as a whole, The Washing Away of Wrongs unquestionably represents a crystallization of the wisdom of working people at the time.
More importantly, Song Ci broke from the traditional style of judicial texts, which merely told stories and left readers to infer the principles themselves. Instead, he compiled a complete and practical system of forensic inspection methods.
For this reason, it became the first specialized forensic work in human history with the character of a procedural guide.
From the time of its appearance, it became essential reading for officials handling lawsuits and criminal judgments.
Because Song Ci established a model, imitative works soon appeared on the market. Two in particular became relatively well known. Their titles were also similar: Records of Clearing Injustice and Records of No Injustice.
Later, when the Ming dynasty compiled the Yongle Encyclopedia, the editors even commented on these works. They noted that Records of Clearing Injustice was passable, but Records of No Injustice, compiled in the Yuan dynasty, was essentially a patchwork text.
Most of its cases, conclusions, and theories were copied directly from The Washing Away of Wrongs and Records of Clearing Injustice. Only two points could be considered new contributions.
One was a discussion distinguishing hanging from strangulation.
The other was the famous method often seen in historical dramas: testing poison with a silver hairpin.
Modern chemistry shows that the silver hairpin test has serious limitations. Its effectiveness depended largely on ancient refining methods.
Arsenic extracted from arsenic sulfide ores inevitably contained large amounts of sulfur. When it contacted silver, a sulfide reaction occurred, turning the silver black.
Human sweat also contains many ions. Chloride and sodium ions conduct electricity well. When silver simultaneously contacts sweat and air, a temporary electrochemical reaction can form, accelerating oxidation and producing black tarnish.
In addition, most human proteins contain sulfur. Some sulfur ions are released through sweat. When these come into contact with silver, they also produce black silver sulfide, which looks almost identical to a poison reaction.
These basic chemistry principles are not directly relevant to today's discussion and will not be elaborated further.
In short, although many imitative works appeared at the time, their quality was generally far inferior to Song Ci's original. Later scholars therefore absorbed useful elements from those works back into The Washing Away of Wrongs itself.
After generations of revision, the text actually became more complete.
As the Ming dynasty restored Chinese rule and cultural exchange with neighboring countries intensified, the name of this Southern Song judicial official gradually spread beyond China and into the wider world.]