The Spring Comptetition: day 1

At the Spring Competition, I chose to participate in archery, mathematics, martial arts, sword-fighting, go and calligraphy, aiming to win the champion title that would be given to him or her who won in the most categories. Even winning one was a great honor, but I wanted to win the favor of the emperor so I could visit the imperial library whenever I wanted.

My spirit was aching for something new to read.

My first event was mathematics, and I very nearly laughed at the ease of the equations. A judge would pose a problem and we were to calculate the result using an abacus as our only help. Not that I needed it, since I could do most calculations mentally.

“A man has three horses; each can carry up to six sacks of grain. If the man sold each sack at two gold teals. How many gold teals would he have at the end of the day?”

He had barely finished the problem when I raised my hand.

“Yes?”

“How many sacks can the man’s farm yield, and how far is the market from his farm?”

The judge blinked owlishly at me. He then looked at another man who shook his head.

“You must answer the problem with the information given.”

I crossed my arms “then it’s 36 for each full load. But he could do more or less each day if we take into account the time needed to transport the goods, and how many sacks he could have in storage.”

The first judge frowned, and after that they would pass onto another problem, which I would solve just as quickly. At the end of the event, I was pronounced the undisputed champion since nobody had been able to answer even a single question before I told them the answer.

After the competition, one of the judges came to me with a question that took me about five minutes to answer. The question was how many moves one can perform in the game of Go. I stared blankly at him until he smiled, thinking he had won.

“The answer is an impossibly large number, are you sure you want to hear it?” He raised an eyebrow at me, clearly thinking I was joking. No man before had ever been able to number the amount of possible go plays.

I shrugged. “With its breadth of 250 possible moves each turn and a typical game depth of 150 moves, there are about 250^150, or 10^360 possible moves. If you want me to write down the number of possibilities it would take me a few days to finish writing it, but I can give you an estimate: It’s 49090 with 387 more zeroes after that”

I smiled at him and went on my way, leaving him stumped.

I had of course borrowed that answer from the future. I remembered seeing an article about an AI that had been created to play Go and that was the number of moves it had calculated before being able to defeat the world champion.

As the winner of the event, I was taken in front of the emperor, who greeted me like I was an old acquaintance. He congratulated me on my victory and said he looked forward to seeing me in action in the martial arts competition on the third day.

That same day I participated in the sword-fighting competition and won just as easily. I had been trained by master Fa since I was strong enough to stand on my own, no normal thirteen-year-old would stand a chance against me.

Again, I was summoned to the emperor, and we exchanged some small talk before he congratulated me yet again and laughed after he heard the number of competitions I would be participating in. He also said something that amazed me.

“The second prince has entered the martial arts competition. I expect you to give it your best, even if it is against my own wayward son.”

It seemed that the prince had entered the competition against the emperor’s wishes, and his father was asking me to give him a fair fight. But how fair would it be if I had already passed the second tribulation, while most of the people in this competition were still learning the forms?

I frowned and lowered my head, which the emperor took as my acceptance.

I left with a troubled mind and walked without seeing until I reached the tent my family was sitting under. They congratulated me, even Master Fa, who hadn’t known how good I was at mathematics, which had been a sore topic for him in the past.

My father caught my mood and asked me about it.

“I do not know what to do, father.” I retold them what the emperor had said, word for word. Both he and my mother appeared as troubled as I was, but Master Fa said I shouldn’t worry.

“The inhabitants of the palace are forbidden from entering these competitions” he said truthfully “If he entered himself, it was without the emperor’s permission as you have guessed. If so, then you must do as the emperor ordered. You must do your best. If the prince should lose, it would be the emperor’s wish.”

I nodded my understanding, even if I wasn’t too sure it would be so easy. Perhaps I could ask Heng Li for his opinion.