I, the Ming Dynasty, can still save me

Chapter 571 Chess Players and Pieces

So I was under the expectation of everyone in psychology and Neo-Confucianism.

On May [-]st, under the auspices of Ye Xianggao and others, Liu Zongzhou, a representative of Neo-Confucianism, and others, and Li Zhizao, a representative of Xinxue, and others started a debate.

Zhu Youxiao sent last year's second-place finisher Enke, and Hanlin Academy editor Zhen Meng watched and recorded the situation. It was Diou's first debate and he knew everything about it.

Therefore, after hearing Ye Xianggao's words, Zhu Youxiao was not surprised, but nodded to Zhang Chang.

Upon seeing this, Zhang Chang immediately stepped forward, skillfully took a thick question book from Master Ye Xiang, and handed it to Zhu Youxiao respectfully.

"Your Majesty, this debate lasted for fifteen days, five times in total. The theme was the "investigation of things to achieve knowledge" and "managing the world to apply" as you mentioned. But regarding these two sentences, Neo-Confucianism and Psychology Everyone had different opinions, and then the three of me and the six cabinet ministers and others commented on the content of the debate.

Now that all the contents and comments have been collected, they have been included in the title book. Your Majesty, please take a look at it and ask for more information. We will tell you everything you know. "

Seeing the emperor opening the question book and reading it attentively, Ye Xianggao quickly introduced it to the side.

Ye Xianggao attached great importance to this debate. After all, he was under huge pressure to support the emperor in the debate. He did not support it out of "loyalty" to the emperor. In addition, he had his own selfish motives. After all, in such a critical matter, Supporting the emperor might allow him to go further.

Zhu Youxiao naturally knew what Ye Xianggao was thinking, but he didn't have time to talk to him yet, so he just nodded slowly.

For him, whether Ye Xianggao can be completely reused does not depend on what Ye Xianggao has done, but on whether what he does is completely in line with his wishes.

There was silence in Nuange of Qianqing Palace. Ye Xianggao and others did not disturb Zhu Youxiao who was concentrating on reading the question book, but they could not help but look at Zhu Youxiao from time to time, hoping to know his attitude from his expression.Time passed little by little, and after a while, Zhu Youxiao covered the thick question book with a look of joy on his face.

"Were the three of you jointly writing the review for this question book?"

"What your Majesty said is true. The comments on the debate were the result of joint deliberations between the three of us, but we also followed the opinions of many ministers in the six ministries."

Ye Xianggao couldn't help but feel reassured when he saw the emperor's face showing joy.

However, he also understood that there was no need to rush now, so he gave the credit for writing the comment book to Sun Shenxing and Xu Guangqi.But Sun Shenxing didn't appreciate Ye Xianggao very much when he arrived. When he saw what Ye Xianggao said, he immediately held up his hands and said:
"Your Majesty, I don't dare to be greedy for credit. Xu Shangshu and I have analyzed a lot about the contents of this title book. Therefore, the comments in it are mainly written by Ye Ge Lao, and we did not contribute much."

Xu Guangqi glanced at Sun Shenxing angrily, and then stepped out to say yes.

Although Sun Shenxing was unpleasant to speak and very stubborn, Zhu Youxiao knew that he was still a good character.Now that he has said so, it seems that the comments in this question book were indeed made by Ye Xianggao.

Thinking of this, Zhu Youxiao suddenly looked at Ye Xiang.

Because the contents of Ye Xianggao's comments are very close to his own liking, and many of them even coincide with the contents of the "new learning" that he wants to create.

Originally, according to Zhu Youxiao's intention, the Neo-Confucian Psychology debate was first conducted, followed by comments from Ye Xianggao and others, and then to the Sixth Department for supplements. Ye Xianggao and others selected suitable ones to supplement, and finally it was handed over to Zhu Youxiao for review, questioning, and Revise.

In this process, the opinions of Ye Xianggao and others are very important. How they comment and whose comments are recorded directly determine what Zhu Youxiao can see and their attitude towards the debate.

Zhu Youxiao originally thought that for the sake of fairness, Ye Xianggao and the others would balance the opinions of Neo-Confucianism and Psychology and others, come up with an indifferent review, and then leave it to him in the end, which would increase his workload. a lot of.

But he didn't expect that Ye Xianggao took advantage of the conflict between Sun Shenxing and Xu Guangqi to preside over the comments, secretly figured out his own attitude, and added many comments that were in line with his own wishes.

It's like commenting on the debate on practical matters.

This point of view was proposed by Zhu Youxiao for the first time, but the two concepts of "managing the world" and "zhiyong" still have their origins. The word "jingshi" comes from "Zhuangzi", which means to manage world affairs, and "zhiyong" The word comes from "Book of Changes" and means to make the best use of it.

The two schools of Confucian scholars who were proficient in classics quickly understood the meaning of this word. Isn't this a requirement that knowledge must be beneficial to national affairs?

Thinking of this, they couldn't help but feel that they had found a weapon to attack each other.

So Liu Zongzhou, a great Confucian scholar, immediately stated that Confucianism is based on regulating the family, governing the country, and bringing peace to the world, but the philosophy of mind goes against this.Today's mind studies are only dedicated to "mind studies" themselves. They think that they have nothing to do and talk about the nature of the mind. On weekdays, they just ignore books and talk without roots.Writing articles and debating is also to break away from the literature and interpret the scriptures at will according to your own likes and dislikes.As a result, today's scholars are indulged in speculation about principles and principles, sitting around talking about Taoism, and are indifferent to governing world affairs.This goes against the sage's way of managing the world and saving people. From this point of view, Xinxue is pseudo-study and is of no benefit to the country and society.

But this is not the case with Neo-Confucianism. Its view of "preserving natural principles and destroying human desires" is to change the empty talk. The purpose is to change the world and save the country.

But as soon as these words came out, Li Zhizao and others immediately refuted it, thinking that Liu Zongzhou was really full of nonsense.

Neo-Confucianism's statement of "preserving natural principles and destroying human desires" is contrary to human nature. How can ordinary people do it?Even scholar-bureaucrats could do very little.And because of this sentence of Neo-Confucianism, many scholar-bureaucrats directly emphasized "cultivation" as the most important position.

Therefore, when it comes to action, it often comes down to trying your best to improve your own moral cultivation. But the problem is that the purpose of cultivating your moral character is not for yourself, but for the sake of the people of the world, and for the sake of governing the country and bringing peace to the world.But now Neo-Confucianism has not seen this at all, resulting in it becoming more and more rigid, embarking on the path of "exhausting theory", and rigidizing the idea of ​​"reason", which violates Zhu Xi's original intention of "managing the world" and loses its understanding of reality. Guiding significance.

When Zhu Youxiao saw this content, he couldn't help but smile.

Sure enough, as he expected, the two sides are very different from each other. They have completely different views on the same point of view. They cannot convince each other during the debate. Therefore, in the end of the debate, they will only criticize each other and expose each other's shortcomings.

It's just that the more they do this, the more their own problems will be exposed, and the more suitable they are for Zhu Youxiao to criticize.

Ye Xianggao is also very aware of this, so when he commented, he said that managing the world and applying it has been around since ancient times, and its meaning is similar to the idea of ​​​​ruling a country, harmonizing a family, and bringing peace to the world.

But the problem now is that even though many scholar-officials understand the truth and are proficient in the classics, when they actually become officials, when they practice their ideals and doctrines, they run counter to their own beliefs and ideals.Or even completely forget about it, this is true for both Neo-Confucianism and Psychology.

He then began to give examples, saying that since Longwan, corruption among officials has become more and more serious.Especially during the Wanli period, due to the lax supervision of the imperial court, the problem of selling off officials and conniving at corruption became more and more serious. Officials regarded promotion and wealth as their top priority, so their abilities and conduct plummeted.

Officials who are self-sufficient, want to do something good, and truly practice the world are regarded as aliens. If this continues, the atmosphere in the officialdom will become increasingly corrupt, which is extremely detrimental to both the court and the Ming Dynasty. of.

Zhu Youxiao nodded repeatedly when he saw this. He knew these situations well.

Ye Xianggao said that this was the case during the Longwan years, but it is even less so now.Even if he repeatedly launches major anti-corruption cases, he cannot fundamentally reverse the situation.

"Ye Xianggao, your comment goes straight to the point and is very pertinent. This is not only a problem faced by the current officialdom, but also a problem that makes me sad every time I think about it."

"Your Majesty, this is not only my comment, but also the consensus of everyone in the court after the debate. It's just that the world's current trend needs to be slowly reversed."

"What Mr. Xu Ge said is that the more I think about it, the more I think about it, the more I think about it. The more I think about it, the more I feel that this word implies the way of a saint. Therefore, although Neo-Confucianism and Psychology cannot explain it clearly, they all practice it with the same reason. This is what I said."

Sun and Xu behind him nodded secretly upon hearing this, thinking that this was indeed what everyone was thinking.

After all, they are bystanders. Although they hold different opinions and take each other's sides at the beginning of the debate, in the final stage of deliberation and review, under Ye Xianggao's intentional guidance, they will also be brought into the court to think about the application of statecraft. current situation.

The result of the final discussion is that the officialdom is now overstaffed, and there are really few people who are actually doing things.

Moreover, when taking the imperial examination, many officials only read the Thirteen Classics in order to be able to study the imperial examination. For other historical subsets, poems and songs, they had no time or energy to do it.Just like Fan Jin, retaliatory corruption after becoming an official will not do any good to the people.

Zhu Youxiao couldn't help but nod when he heard this. It was the best if they had such a view.

"It's good that you can understand. Before I came to the throne, I thought that I could govern the country by just reading the books of sages. But after I came to the throne, I found that it was not the case to deal with government affairs. There are many things involved in governing the country, including geography, people's sentiments, astronomy, arithmetic, and military affairs. It is complicated and requires a lot of study. Therefore, the saint's books are for people to read and reason with, but they do not give solutions to specific problems in the court. This is why I am determined to open a new chapter in the Imperial College Reasons for arithmetic, astronomy, geography and other subjects.”

Zhu Youxiao's explanation also solved the confusion of Sun Shenxing and others.They now also understand that the emperor had a comprehensive plan from the time of the restructuring of the Imperial College, setting up Western subjects, so that Neo-Confucianism and psychological debate were not the same.

It can be said that they are just chess pieces, and the emperor is the chess player.

　Sorry for yesterday, I won’t be a eunuch, I will update it steadily later.The next chapter will probably be around eleven o'clock. I will write it immediately after class in the evening.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)