Guide to Traveling through the Northern Song Dynasty.

Chapter 1260 Epilogue : Literature and History Awards are of High Value
The little emperor has changed a lot. After not seeing him for a while, he seems to have become much calmer.

Of course, it could also be fake.

After all, he is thirteen and a half years old, half an adult. If he were in the countryside, he would be able to plant rice instead of just doing some auxiliary farm work.

Empress Dowager Ye always had a smile on her face and was kind to the scholars.

Who could have guessed that she had just approved the use of troops against the Tian family of Sizhou yesterday?

In the southwest region today, there are still many vassal governments similar to Tusi. The big ones are called states, the medium ones are called counties, and the small ones are called villages.

Over the past hundred years, some vassal regimes were completely transformed into local officials, some were governed jointly by local officials and local officials, and only a few remote areas were left with only local officials.

Sizhou was a city where both local officials and irregular officials governed together. The degree of sinicization of the city was such that the local officials could have been converted to regular officials long ago.

However, the Tian family of Sizhou has always been cautious and never gave the court any opportunity to take action.

Just this year, the local official of the Tian family died of illness.

His eldest son first sent a telegram, and then sent someone to Beijing to ask for a title, intending to inherit the position of Sizhou local official.

At the same time, the former native official's concubine fled to the residence of the governor of Sizhou (an official on the run) for refuge. She claimed that the eldest son had killed his father and brother, and asked the court to punish him severely!

The story goes something like this: A local official doted on his concubine and wanted to pass the throne to his youngest son. The eldest son took the initiative and poisoned the local official to death, and also killed his younger brother.

After the matter was exposed, the guy who killed his father and brother knew that he could not escape the punishment of the court, so he directly started a rebellion in Sizhou and killed the prefect appointed by the court.

He was so bold because he had no choice, because patricide is an unforgivable crime.

Rebellion or not, you're dead.

The local imperial garrison was prepared and responded quickly, killing the rebel soldiers and forcing them to flee into the mountains.

At this point, things have basically come to an end.

However, the officials sent by the court to govern Sizhou were not good people either. They usually exploited the people of all ethnic groups crazily. The defeated rebels spread the word that the court was unjust, deliberately provoking ethnic hatred and causing riots in various villages in Sizhou.

Within a few months, the number of rebels increased to 50,000 to 60,000, and even many Han people joined them.

Yesterday, Empress Dowager Ye officially approved the request to send troops: 3,000 field troops, 10,000 garrison troops, and 40,000 civilians to transport grain. After the rebels were defeated, Sizhou would be completely transformed into a state of Han people. Among them, 20,000 civilians would stay in the local area to settle down and farm, enriching the Han population there.

There were many similar chieftains, especially in southern Sichuan, northern Yunnan, and western Guizhou. The imperial court was hoping that someone would make trouble, and then take the opportunity to send troops to convert the chieftains into officials.

The proportion of Han people is not enough? The conditions for the transformation of natives into officials are not mature?
Haha, what the Ming Dynasty lacks the least now is people, and it can easily attract hundreds of thousands of immigrants.

Queen Mother Ye took her son's hand and sat him down. She always had a smile on her face and looked very amiable.

Power can corrode people's minds, and Empress Dowager Ye is no exception.

However, she was extremely intelligent and always behaved very restrainedly. She was familiar with history books and knew the deeds of Lü Zhi, Deng Sui, Wu Zhao, and Liu E, and knew how to avoid crossing the line.

But within this boundary, Empress Dowager Ye still wanted to do something, both to pave the way for her son and to leave a name for herself in history.

Destroying the Tian family of Sizhou is one of them, and she will definitely be recorded in history books.

Next is the Yang family of Bozhou.

Next are the Luo clan tribes in Qianxi.

Finally, there are the Shimen tribes in southern Sichuan and northern Yunnan.

She wanted to destroy all these vassal regimes and make them all independent.

After his son took power, he could focus on dealing with southern Yunnan, especially those newly occupied territories (in later generations' Thailand, Myanmar, and Laos), and gradually consolidate them through immigration.

On the rostrum of the auditorium, officials from the Ministry of Rites and leaders of the Royal Society spoke one after another.

Then came the opening ceremony.

The opening song and dance is naturally the Ming Taizong Breaking Formation Dance.

Prince Laszlo was sitting in the last row and was immediately shocked by this large-scale song and dance performance. He had never seen it in Europe!

The Eastern Roman Empire actually existed.

About four hundred years ago, a Renaissance occurred in the Eastern Roman Empire, and a large number of religious satirical plays were produced.

A few decades ago, the Eastern Roman Empire experienced its second Renaissance. At that time, the Eastern Roman Empire lost a lot of territory, which led to constant reflection by writers and artists, and the development of humanities and arts reached a peak.

Then came the Reconquista, when national sentiment ran high and this was introduced into Ming art, and now a large number of “humanistic dramas” are being created.

It is not the case further west, which is still in the "religious drama" period.

Take France for example. A few hundred years ago, they could only perform plays such as the Passion of Christ, but now they have developed to mainly focus on the Virgin Mary and devout believers.

With the development of cities, some urban comedies have finally emerged in France in the past two or three decades.

One type is called "carnival drama", which is based on folk legends, but more or less has something to do with religion. There are many dirty jokes, Jesus appears at the critical moment, and finally a happy ending.

One type is called "interlude", which is performed when the religious drama changes scenes. It is full of humorous short plays, with two or three comedians making jokes. This is similar to the farce in the Tang and Song dynasties, which is also performed when the main drama changes scenes.

In addition, real comedies, monologues, and fool shows also began to appear in France.

But only "religious drama" is the largest in scale, and all other types of drama are just supporting roles.

If the Black Death had not ravaged Europe, Europe would probably not have fallen into the Dark Ages. The development of drama can give us a clue: only when the city is prosperous enough will a large number of urban dramas emerge.

"This is a dance that depicts how Emperor Taizong of the Ming Dynasty, the second emperor of the Ming Dynasty, personally led his army to defeat powerful barbarians," said an official from the Honglu Temple.

Laszlo exclaimed: "I have never seen so many people dancing together, and they were dressed like a military unit."

"You guys are still not civilized enough," said an official from the Honglu Temple.

Laszlo was speechless and felt inferior again.

At this time, Hungary's systems, etiquette, and living habits were all moving closer to the Holy Roman Empire.

As for culture and art, they are more French, which was brought by the French princess when she married into Hungary.

While the two were talking, the second program came on stage: a Guqin solo.

The third program was a variety show, which was about Emperor Taizu leading villagers in Daming Village to resist the taxation by corrupt officials. When the scene changed, there was a comedy show, and the actors were also dressed as corrupt officials.

If Zhu Guoxiang were sitting down there right now, he would probably be very confused. I have never done these things.

Laszlo watched each show with great interest.

Although he didn't understand the lines.

Finally, a piano was pushed out.

Yang Linzhi bowed to the audience, turned around and sat down in front of the piano.

The sound of the piano, like the sound of gurgling spring water, flew out from his fingertips. Most scholars listened in ecstasy, and only a few musicians frowned.

The smile on Zhu Tangxi's face became more and more intense. The song was called "To Tangxi".

The couple planned to partner with Yang Linzhi to open a piano shop in Luoyang, specializing in making pianos for sale, and also teaching piano.

At this stage, piano music, except for "To Tangxi", mainly consists of traditional pieces adapted for piano performance.

Of course, Yang Linzhi also composes his own piano music.

Around noon, the performance finally ended and everyone went to the Imperial College cafeteria for lunch.

After a short break in the afternoon, we returned to the auditorium for the award ceremony.

Awards were presented separately for arts and science, with one gold medal, three silver medals and ten bronze medals for each.

Looking back, the first award ceremony of the Royal Society of the Ming Dynasty was presided over by the retired emperor Zhu Guoxiang himself.

The process was also designed by Zhu Guoxiang.

The Minister of Rites opened a letter: "The winner of the Bronze Award in Literature and History is: Tang Shouyi. Three years ago, Tang Xueshi compiled the Chronological Table of Pre-Qin Philosophers on his own. Although some of the contents of this book are questionable, it is of great literary and historical value..."

An elderly scholar walked onto the stage.

"Xu Feiqing. Two years ago, Xu Xueshi wrote "A Brief Discussion on Food and Goods of Pre-Qin Countries, and a Discussion on the Economics of Guan and Xun"..."

Another elderly scholar came up to the stage, but he didn't look very happy. He felt that his research, at the very least, would have been a silver medal, but he only got a bronze medal.

Shady!

The Royal Society's Grand Prize selection is divided into preliminary and final selections.

The first round of nominations is for all scholars to send letters of nomination, and each scholar can nominate 20 people. The Royal Society registers the nominations and selects the 100 people with the most nominations.

The re-election will be conducted by a 19-member jury consisting of Emerald Bachelor and Rose Bachelor, who will conduct a secret ballot to select the 100 people selected in the preliminary round.

The members of the jury must be replaced every term and cannot be re-elected for more than two terms.

The winners of the bronze medal in literature and history came on stage one by one, collectively accepted the trophies, and gave their acceptance speeches one by one.

Then came the Silver Award.

Wen Li was one of the silver medal winners. The main reason for his winning this time was that he deciphered all the inscriptions on the Jin Jiang Ding.

This has been a difficult problem in the field of epigraphy since Ouyang Xiu and Lu Dalin in the Song Dynasty until today. About 90% of the text has been deciphered in the past two hundred years, and Wen Li completed it until only one character remained, which is still controversial.

This is of great significance to the study of oracle bone inscriptions and bronze inscriptions.

"Shang Pei. Bachelor Shang's "Tears of an Orphan"..."

Many scholars were surprised when the silver medal winner was announced.

In the more than 100 years since the founding of the Ming Dynasty, this is the first time that someone has won a society award for writing a novel. And it’s a silver award in the literature and history category!
You know, this novel was a banned book a few years ago, and no one even knew who the author was.

It was not until four years ago when the ban on "Tears of an Orphan" was lifted that Shang Pei's friend revealed it and signed the author's real name when it was printed for the second time.

The Minister of Rites said: "Mr. Shang is a master of Confucian classics and a scholar of Furong. He is now serving as the Education Commissioner in Guangxi. He really cannot spare the time to accept the award, so he asked a good friend to accept it on his behalf."

Even Xie Yan was surprised. The author of "Tears of an Orphan" was actually an educational commissioner?
The third silver medal winner in literature and history is a painter.

He visited architectural murals all over the country, searched for famous paintings from past dynasties, and even followed archaeologists to study murals and clothing patterns in tombs. He spent thirty years sorting out the characteristics and development of paintings from past dynasties and compiled a large-scale monograph on painting.

These are just silver medals.

What is the origin of the gold medal?

The Minister of Rites said: "With the consent of His Majesty, the Queen Mother, and the Cabinet, no nominations or voting were used for the gold medal in the literature and history category this time. This is because the results were only released a few days ago, and there was no time for preliminary selection and nomination. But this achievement is so great that the gold medal must be awarded now."

"The two scholars Zhang Yang and Wen Mengyan, along with their students, discovered a large tomb in Yinxu. The tomb owner is Fu Hao, the queen of King Wu Ding of Shang. Fu Hao is the only Shang royal family member whose identity can be confirmed in Yinxu. Moreover, Fu Hao was also a general..."

Many historians and archaeologists present had already received the news from their small circle, and they seemed relatively calm.

But the rest of the scholars, even the scientists, were all exclaiming in surprise at this moment.

Xie Yan also had an exaggerated expression. The damn Fu Hao’s tomb was even dug out!

The two award winners are still conducting archaeological work at Yinxu, and their son came on stage to receive the award on their behalf.

Xie Yan said to the princess, "Sister, let's go to Fu Hao's tomb someday."

Zhu Tangxi smiled and said, "Okay. The imperial court will definitely hold a sacrifice ceremony for such an important tomb. I will then ask for mercy and let Liu Lang go to Yinxu to preside over it."

Xie Yan planned to apply to the court to build an archaeological museum in Yinxu.

I don't know if the tickets can be recovered.

Estimation difficult.

Now that the awards for literature and history are judged, it’s time to judge the awards for science.

Many science scholars looked at Xie Yan and could basically guess who the gold medal winner would be.

(End of this chapter)