"Sit," Li Hongzhang said, gesturing to chairs across from his desk. "Now tell me—who gave you the courage to so accurately guess what I was thinking, and the nerve to take advantage of my political weakness to push such an ambitious vision?"
His tone wasn't threatening. It carried amusement—the appreciation of skillful timing mixed with genuine curiosity.
Fu and Morrison exchanged glances. The question seemed rhetorical, a gracious opening to deeper discussion. They moved to sit.
"Your Excellency, we simply—" Morrison began.
"No." Li raised his hand, his voice still light but firm. "Don't deflect. I'm not asking out of idle curiosity. That question requires an answer."
The amusement remained, but steel underneath it. Fu felt the shift immediately—this wasn't social banter. Li Hongzhang genuinely wanted to understand their calculation.
Morrison tried again. "Your Excellency, the situation spoke for itself. After the proposals presented today—"
"Captain Morrison." Li's voice remained pleasant, but his eyes sharpened. "I've spent fifty years in imperial politics. I recognize evasion when I see it. You didn't just happen to have a comprehensive seventy-five million tael proposal ready the moment I needed it. And I'm not asking about your timing today—presenting after others failed."
He leaned forward slightly. "I'm asking about your timing these past two weeks. A comprehensive naval program appears immediately after I sign the most humiliating treaty of my career? After I lose the Beiyang Fleet I spent decades building? When I'm facing political crisis, financial crisis from two hundred million taels of indemnity, strategic crisis from undefended coasts?" His eyes narrowed. "That's not coincidence. That's calculation. Someone understood my position precisely and positioned this proposal at the exact moment I'd be most receptive to radical solutions."
He leaned back. "So I ask again: who taught you to read political situations this precisely? Who showed you how to approach a man standing at the edge of a cliff?"
Fu and Morrison were silent, caught between the genuine friendliness of Li's tone and the unmistakable demand for truth.
Li Jingfang, standing by the door, spoke quietly. "Father is right. You need to understand that he's not just evaluating your proposal. He's evaluating who he's partnering with. If you can't be honest about your motives and methods now, how can he trust you with seventy-five million taels and the future of Chinese naval power?"
The logic was irrefutable. Morrison looked at Fu. This was Fu's question to answer.
Fu was caught. He didn't want to expose Zhao—the boy was only sixteen, still trying to find his footing, support his family. Too young to bear the scrutiny and pressure that came with political intrigue. But he had no choice. Li Hongzhang was pressing, and the entire plan hung on his answer. He hardened his heart.
"Your Excellency, the strategic positioning—understanding what and why to present, when, and how to frame it—that came from someone else in our group. The youngest member, actually."
Li's expression shifted to interest. "Continue."
"His name is Zhao Yunsheng. Sixteen years old. A month ago he was a dock laborer. Now he's a clerk at CMSNC—lowest level of administration."
Li Hongzhang went very still. "A dock worker turned clerk is the architect of this plan?" He gestured at the documents.
"The technical strategies and naval details came from me, Your Excellency," Fu said, gathering his courage. "But Zhao provided the strategic framework. When we first assembled—seven people with different expertise—we had no unified direction. We were arguing, competing, pulling in different directions. Zhao introduced us to something he called the Theory of Contradiction."
"Explain."
Fu moved to the edge of his chair, his voice gaining confidence as he described what had changed everything four days ago.
"The Theory of Contradiction holds that every complex situation contains multiple conflicts—competing interests, opposing forces, contradictory pressures. But among all these contradictions, only one is primary. This is the Principal Contradiction—the conflict that governs all others. Solve the principal contradiction, and subordinate contradictions either resolve themselves or become manageable. But waste energy on minor contradictions while ignoring the principal one, and you accomplish nothing."
Li was listening with absolute focus now.
"Zhao applied this to Your Excellency's situation," Fu continued. "He identified that the Principal Contradiction wasn't CMSNC's finances or the Beiyang Fleet's destruction or any single issue. It was Your Excellency's convergent crises—political, financial, strategic. The threat to your position, your legacy, your life's work."
Fu's voice grew more forceful. "If there's another war in six or seven years, it will be you who will be forced to sign another humiliating treaty. Your name will be forever attached to defeat after defeat, treaty after treaty. Everything you've built—your entire career—reduced to that legacy. Zhao said we needed to resolve that main contradiction if we wanted to solve anything else. We needed to prepare a weapon for the most powerful official in China to defend his legacy."
Fu gestured toward the documents on Li's desk. "So we designed the proposal to address your political crisis directly. The franchise plan provides immediate visible results—revenue recovery, operational improvement, demonstrable success. The naval program offers long-term strategic redemption—proof that you can still build something that works, that your vision of Chinese modernization remains viable despite the defeat."
"A sixteen-year-old dock clerk predicted my predicament this accurately?"
"Yes, Your Excellency. I don't fully understand how. But he read the situation with a precision that..." Fu trailed off, unsure how to finish.
Morrison spoke up. "Your Excellency, I've worked in Chinese waters for fifteen years. I've observed political maneuvering, strategic positioning, bureaucratic warfare. What Zhao did in four days—organizing seven contentious people, creating unified vision, timing this proposal perfectly—that's the work of someone with decades of experience. Except he's sixteen."
The room was quiet. Li Hongzhang's fingers drummed once against his desk, then stilled.
Then, unexpectedly, Li Hongzhang began to laugh.
It started as a chuckle, then built into genuine, full-throated laughter that shook his shoulders. The bandage on his face shifted slightly as he threw his head back, the sound filling the study.
Fu and Morrison exchanged bewildered glances. Li Jingfang looked equally surprised—his father wasn't given to spontaneous displays of amusement.
Li's laughter finally subsided into occasional chuckles. He wiped his eyes, his expression transformed from exhausted statesman into something lighter, almost delighted.
"What an extraordinary fellow," Li said, still smiling broadly. "A sixteen-year-old dock worker who proposes theories of contradiction. Who reads political crises accurately enough to position proposals with perfect timing. Who coordinates professionals twice his age into producing this—" he gestured at the documents "—in four days."
He stood, walking to the window, his voice carrying genuine warmth. "Do you know how rare that is? To find someone who actually understands you? Not your position, not your titles, not your reputation—but actually understands your thinking, your situation, your needs?"
He turned back to face them. "Your group is fortunate to have a leader who doesn't force his leadership but supports without being noticed. Who helps others use their expertise to achieve their ideals—or creates ideals if they have none. Leaders like that are rare anywhere, even in China's long history."
His expression grew reflective. "I had a superior like that once, when I was starting my career. He saw potential in people, gave them room to excel, coordinated without constraining. Under his guidance, ordinary men accomplished extraordinary things."
Li Jingfang's eyes widened slightly—his father was comparing a dock worker to Zeng Guofan, the man who'd built the Hunan Army and saved the Qing from the Taiping Rebellion.
Fu Weihong's breath caught for a moment. Li Hangzhong wasn't just offering praise — he was drawing a line straight back through history. Zeng Guofan — scholar, strategist, and the architect of the Qing dynasty's survival. To compare Zhao Yunsheng to him was no small thing.
Fu Weihong felt a flicker of recognition. Zhao's speech the week before came back to him — "Every era has its heroes, forged when the country stands on the edge of peril." At the time, it had sounded like rhetoric, a bit of idealism to rally the group. But now… maybe it hadn't been just words and if Li Hangzhong was right, maybe Zhao wasn't just talking about heroes. Maybe he was becoming one.
Li returned to his desk. "I've spent fifty years surrounded by officials who claim to serve my vision. Most are either sycophants who agree with everything I say, or political opportunists who use my name while pursuing their own interests. Genuine understanding—someone who grasps what I'm actually trying to accomplish and helps rather than hinders—that's vanishingly rare."
He sat, fixing Fu and Morrison with intense but friendly focus. "I need to meet this young man. Not eventually, not when convenient—today. Because if he understands me this well without ever meeting me, I'm very curious what he'll be capable of once we actually speak."
Li tapped the naval program document. "You said he coordinated seven people with different expertise. Made a tailor, an accountant, a lawyer, a Manchu official, a company clerk, and two ship captains work together productively in a short period. That alone is remarkable—most officials can't achieve that coordination with people who already work for them."
"Your Excellency," Fu said carefully, "Zhao is genuinely sixteen. He's brilliant, yes, but he's also... young. Raw. He makes mistakes, gets emotional about certain topics, carries an urgency I don't always understand. He's not polished."
"Good," Li said firmly. "Polished officials have learned to say what sounds good rather than what's true. If this boy is rough around the edges but thinks clearly—I'll take that over smooth-talking bureaucrats any day."
He pulled out a sheet of paper and began writing. "Jingfang, have this delivered to CMSNC immediately. I want Yang Jirong, Tan Wei, Xu Mingzhe, Tatara Jinliang, Chen Weiming, and Zhao Yunsheng brought here now. All of them. The entire team that built this proposal."
"Father, that's—" Li Jingfang paused. "That's very irregular. To summon clerks and junior staff directly to the Viceroy's residence—"
"Is exactly what I'm doing. They built something worth seventy-five million taels of consideration. They've earned the irregularity." Li finished writing and handed the note to his son. "Send it now. Tell them attendance is not optional."
After Li Jingfang left, Li returned his attention to Fu and Morrison. His expression had sobered somewhat, though the earlier amusement still lingered.
"Now," he said. "We'll discuss the actual content after everyone arrives. But first, I want you to understand something."
He gestured at the documents. "This is good work. Comprehensive, innovative, politically astute. But also dangerous in many ways. And it's built on assumptions about my authority and resources that may not be accurate anymore. I lost a war. I signed a humiliating treaty. My political position is weaker than it's been in decades."
"We understand that, Your Excellency," Morrison said. "That's why—"
"No, I don't think you do," Li interrupted gently. "You've designed this proposal as if I can still command resources the way I did five years ago. As if my word still moves the imperial bureaucracy the way it once did. That's not entirely true anymore."
He leaned back. "Implementing this will require me to spend every bit of remaining influence I have. I'll make enemies. I'll trigger resistance from officials who benefit from the current system, from Confucian scholars who see Western learning as a threat to their position. I'll risk my remaining status on a gamble that you—a collection of junior staff coordinated by a dock clerk—have designed something that actually works."
Fu felt the weight of that settling over him. "Your Excellency, we don't take that lightly—"
"I know you don't. But I need you to understand why I'm willing to make that gamble." Li's expression grew intense. "Because this Theory of Contradiction your young friend articulated? He's right. My Principal Contradiction right now is political survival versus meaningful legacy. I can play it safe, protect my remaining position, and watch China continue declining while I die knowing I failed. Or I can bet everything on something that might work, risk complete failure, but give myself a chance at redemption."
His voice carried quiet intensity. "People in foreign countries call me the Bismarck of China. I know something about the real Bismarck—he took a country that was the weakest of the European powers and made it the second strongest. He unified Germany, something that impossible for five hundred years. Sanched meat from the mouth of France and Austrian Empire .Against such feats, what am I?" He paused. "I'm not jealous of his achievements. But I don't want people to remember me a hundred years from now as the man who sold the country's interests piece by piece."
He tapped the desk. "Your proposal offers that chance. Not certainty—just possibility. But that's more than anyone else has given me."
The room was silent. Morrison and Fu both understood what Li was really saying: they weren't just presenting a naval program. They were asking a seventy-three-year-old statesman to stake his entire legacy on their judgment.
"So," Li said, his voice shifting back to business. "When the others arrive, I'll need to understand everything. Not just what's in the documents—the thinking behind it. The assumptions you made. The risks you identified but didn't write down. I need to understand this completely before I commit."
Fu took a deep breath. "Your Excellency, should I meet the others in advance to prepare them?"
"No, you stay here. Tell me about your insights now—start with how Zhao Yunsheng's Theory of Contradiction shaped the entire structure of your naval plan. I'll ask my questions after they arrive," Li replied. "Because if I'm going to bet my legacy on this, I need to understand the thinking framework it's built on. Not just the what—the why."
Fu nodded and began explaining, while Li Hongzhang listened with the focused intensity of someone who'd finally found what he'd been searching for: people who understood not just what he needed, but why he needed it.
Outside the study, the sun still hung over Tianjin's sky. Throughout the city, the others who'd contributed to the proposal were going about their daily routines, unaware that today they would be summoned before one of the most powerful men in China.
And in his small rented room, Zhao Yunsheng was reviewing shipping manifests for the day's work, completely unaware that Li Hongzhang had just compared him to Zeng Guofan—and was laughing with genuine delight at the audacity of a sixteen-year-old dock clerk who'd somehow read a political crisis more accurately than officials with decades of experience.
The Theory of Contradiction had done its work. Now the people who'd built the proposal would have to defend it directly to the man who could make it reality.
The afternoon was going to be very interesting indeed. And life-changing.