People in the Song Dynasty were lawless

Chapter 310 Vernacular Movement

On the morning of June 10th, when the political decree of the Constitutional Yuan was issued to the Jinzouyuan yesterday afternoon, requiring the Jinzouyuan to immediately distribute it to various ministries for implementation in accordance with the decree, it immediately caused an uproar.

In the morning, ministers and ministers from various departments crowded around hundreds of people.

It was originally supposed to report daily work to the emperor and the Constitutional Yuan, but today it turned into a court meeting.

In the Chui Gong Palace, at three o'clock in the morning, when the sky was just gray and bright, all the officials entered the palace one by one to start today's morning court.

In the past, the morning meeting was mainly for everyone to discuss things together, but after Jingyou's restructuring, the morning meeting became a work report. In essence, it was a time for Zhao Zhen to grasp the power of the Constitutional Yuan and various departments.

Through daily morning meetings, Zhao Zhen can give instructions when each department reports on its work. They also put forward their own opinions on political affairs through the regular meeting of the Constitutional Yuan in the afternoon.

In addition, he holds the big card of the Privy Council and has the power to deploy the national army. Centralization has even reached its peak.

It seems that the emperor of the Qing Dynasty controlled the military and political affairs of the country through the Military Aircraft Department.

The only difference from the emperors of the Qing Dynasty is that except for Yongzheng who set up the Military Aircraft Department and did a lot of practical things, the other emperors of the Qing Dynasty were both naive and fun-loving. Their governance level was not high, but they liked to point fingers. Although the central power was highly concentrated and had little control over the country, Not much use.

And Zhao Zhen knows what he is good at, so the government affairs are usually implemented by the Constitutional Yuan, as long as he has control. It is somewhat similar to Thailand in later generations. He rarely intervened in government affairs, but he still had real power.

Therefore, in essence, the early dynasty became one of Zhao Zhen's means of centralizing power.

It's just that after the morning court meeting is no longer about discussing matters but simply reporting work, it is a bit inhumane to go to court at three or four o'clock in the morning.

After all, reporting work doesn’t take that long, just about an hour or two. So now it has been postponed by one hour, from three quarters of Yin hour to Chen hour, which is six o'clock in the morning.

In this way, the morning is almost over, and it’s time to go to work at 8 or 9 in the morning. I will take a two-hour lunch break at 12 noon, and continue working in the afternoon until 5 or 6 in the evening. This is about ten hours of work a day. Compared with the previous four o’clock in the morning Zhong started working and felt much more comfortable.

Another advantage of going to court early in the morning is that you don’t need to light so many candles, which solves the problem of redundancy from another perspective. After all, in the past, Zhao Zhen had more than just crabs worth a thousand cents each, and candles worth several hundred cents each, which was quite outrageous.

"His Majesty is here!"

Following Wang Shouzhong's shout, Zhao Zhen walked out from behind and sat on the high dragon chair.

"See Your Majesty!"

All the officials bowed their hands below and saluted.

"Be flat!"

Zhao Zhen raised his hands in vain.

"Thank you, Your Majesty!"

"If you have something to do, report it early; if nothing happens, leave the court!"

Wang Shouzhong shouted again.

According to usual practice, each department will come out and report on the recently arranged government work.

For example, the progress of some projects recently being repaired by the Ministry of Industry, where the Ministry of Finance has previously allocated funds, how many cases Dali Temple has judged in the past few days, etc.

But that didn't happen immediately today. Instead, first of all, Hu Su, the Minister of Taxation, stood up and said, "Your Majesty, the Constitutional Yuan's latest decree on promoting education and popularizing culture is inappropriate."

"I also think it is inappropriate. How can such spoken language be written in writing? In addition to this one, there are also rural slogans written everywhere and painted with lime. It is really unsightly."

"Folk slang and colloquialisms are too vulgar. Official documents and decrees from the imperial court must be taken seriously. I feel that it is best not to implement these decrees at all."

"Moreover, the decree says that the people must be informed in words they can understand. Will it be a disgrace to let dignified scholars go around shouting things?"

Many officials have expressed dissatisfaction.

In fact, although the policies formulated by the Constitutional Yuan cover more than ten or hundreds of items, their implementation must be implemented in sequence and cannot be achieved overnight.

Therefore, the first decree launched this year is the vernacular movement.

note.

This vernacular movement is still different from that of later generations.

It can be understood as the vernacular movement of the Song Dynasty, but the vernacular of the Song Dynasty is still very different from the vernacular of the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China.

The most intuitive thing is that the vernacular of the Song Dynasty was closer to a simplified version of classical Chinese, while the vernacular of the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China was actually very close to the Mandarin of later generations.

The edict stipulates that in the future, written language should be as colloquial as possible. Instead of writing in obscure traditional Chinese as in the past, it should be written in simplified spoken Chinese, especially if it is written for the common people.

Therefore, the vernacular movement you think, "I didn't kill you, why did you capture me? Don't accuse me." should be translated as "I didn't kill you, why did you arrest me? You can't accuse me at will."

The actual vernacular movement says, "I didn't kill you, how could you capture me? Don't accuse me falsely." That is, "Sajia didn't kill you, so how can you capture Sajia? Don't make false accusations against me."

It is very similar to the dialogue lines in "Water Margin" and "A Dream of Red Mansions". This process is not translating classical Chinese into vernacular, but folk vernacular, expressed in the language commonly used by the people, so the situation is different and the resistance is also different.

"Do you know why you do this?"

Zhao Jun stood up and asked.

The officials looked at each other, and some people shook their heads and said, "Please ask the Supreme Court to clear up the confusion."

"It's very simple. The purpose is to efficiently convey the decree from above, level by level, so that the people know what the court means."

Zhao Jun put his hands behind his back, looked at the officials and said: "The vernacular we speak in daily life has been popular since the Sui and Tang Dynasties. From the princes and nobles to the traffickers and footmen, everyone speaks vernacular, so that it is easier to understand the other party's thoughts. the meaning of the expression.”

He continued: "But among the written language, the court still mainly uses classical Chinese, which seriously hinders the issuance of government orders. If it is changed to vernacular, the court can better convey government orders to the grassroots and explain things better, and It’s not like now, when a government order goes down, the people don’t understand what’s happening.” “But.”

Someone questioned: "Can this really achieve the effect we want? Why would we spend hundreds or even hundreds of words to solve a problem that only required a few dozen words in the past?"

"Because the text needs to be simplified and the meaning needs to be made transparent. Otherwise, one word has multiple meanings, and the people's cultural level is not high, so how can they understand it?"

"Local counties have their own magistrates, all of whom are Jinshi. When the government's decrees are passed on, local county magistrates and prefects will explain it to the people."

"Thinking too much, are there still few local officials who distort the decrees from above and act recklessly? Last year alone, more than a hundred incompetent county magistrates were demoted or dismissed from office. Many of them were because the people could not understand Government orders, plundering and plundering, and mistreating the people.”

Zhao Jun shook his head and said: "In the final analysis, this is a question of the right of interpretation. You want to keep the power of interpretation of the imperial court's decrees in your own hands, but the imperial court wants everyone in the world to understand it, so that it will no longer be arbitrarily manipulated by the government, landlords, and powerful people. Bully them and let them understand that the court is full of goodwill towards them."

For a while, there was quite a commotion in the venue.

Everyone listened to Zhao Jun's words, and many people fell into deep thought.

Because Zhao Jun stated the issue of the right of interpretation very straightforwardly, no matter whether anyone thought of this issue or not, everyone suddenly understood that this seemed to be the case.

If written in classical Chinese, one word has several meanings, and sometimes the difference between one word and one word is huge.

Therefore, if the court wanted to convert written language into spoken language, everyone would understand it much faster.

For example, "teacher, he is the person who teaches, teaches and solves doubts." If replaced by "teacher, he is the person who teaches you knowledge", wouldn't it be much easier to understand?

In fact, many people had not thought about this problem before. The reason why they objected was that it was too troublesome to write. After all, if it were written in classical Chinese, it could be solved with a few words in the past. But now I have to write a few more words, and some people will definitely be unhappy.

But if you think about it carefully, if you look at it from an easy-to-understand perspective, it does seem to make sense. Moreover, the vernacular of the Song Dynasty was not Mandarin, so writing only had a few more words, so it was not too troublesome.

"I know that for the scholar-bureaucrats, this is something they don't want to see. Because the right to interpret words is in your hands. For example, if you are the magistrate of a county and a government order is issued, you can interpret it however you want. By explaining, you can control the power of life and death of the people."

Zhao Jun changed the topic and said: "But you are all members of the imperial court. Even if you are frivolous and want to seek benefits by chewing words, it is difficult to do it with the supervision of the Constitutional Yuan and His Majesty, so why bother? How about sticking to this?"

"What the magistrate said makes us look like corrupt officials."

Li Ruogu, the official secretary, was slightly dissatisfied, but after a moment he said: "But what the magistrate said is indeed reasonable. Changing it to vernacular will indeed make the people below understand the truth more clearly."

After all, this vernacular is just a simplified version of classical Chinese. It just adds a few more words to clarify the meaning of some difficult words, which is not bad.

But someone else said: "Zhiyuan, painting slogans everywhere among the people is really unsightly."

"The imperial court promotes pragmatism."

Zhao Jun pointed to the sky with his right hand and said: "In our Song Dynasty, whether officials or common people, we should focus on practicality."

"Yes, whether it is a white cat or a black cat, if it catches mice, it is a good cat."

Zhao Zhen also agreed: "The purpose of whitewashing slogans among the people is to let the people know the meaning of the court and prevent the government orders from being distorted and corrupted by people with ulterior motives below."

"Yes, in recent years, laws have been passed to rectify the administration of officials, which has achieved some results. However, there are still many treacherous officials who bully the people who do not understand the government's decrees. They exploit the people and steal their private property by deceiving, concealing, and deceiving them. They are really innocent. Can be forgiven."

"What's annoying is that many people are forced to have their families destroyed by such officials. Many people don't even know to go to the local Yushi Department and the Imperial City Department to report. A large number of innocent people have suffered disasters. This shows the harm caused by the poor delivery of government orders. .”

"That is to say, the Kao Cheng Law has been quite effective and has restrained many officials. Otherwise, we don't know how many people have been subjected to this kind of power-for-money transactions in which officials colluded with local big families and became their slaves. Therefore, we, the Constitutional Yuan, The prime ministers all believe that it is imperative to popularize it among the people."

Several Prime Ministers of the Constitutional Yuan also stood up to support. With the forces behind them, seeing that the situation was developing in the direction that the decree should be issued, they also stood up to support. For a time, the whole court was filled with the voice of Zantong. .

Seeing this, the few opposing voices had no choice but to retreat, and the decree was passed naturally.

This is also the normal state of the current imperial decree.

Basically, as long as the Constitutional Yuan can pass it, it will be useless no matter how loud the opposition is from below.

Because the more than ten prime ministers of the Constitutional Yuan represented more than ten forces, the main ruling officials of the Manchu Dynasty were the ministers and ministers of more than fifty departments. These hundreds of people became the high-level executors of the Song Dynasty.

As high-level decision-makers, prime ministers basically have a certain degree of influence and power among these executors, which will inevitably allow a small number of courtiers to unite the front.

If the other courtiers' fronts cannot be unified, and with Zhao Zhen's support, the final result will be that the Constitutional Yuan's decrees are passed down smoothly.

In addition to the fact that these decrees were carefully considered by Zhao Jun and Fan Zhongyan, they were not implemented until the discussions were mature and the Constitutional Yuan unified deliberation before issuing them, and it was determined that they would not cause large-scale opposition.

There is another important reason, which is that Zhao Jun has unified the thoughts of the Constitutional Yuan and brought together a camp with different parties, opinions, and thoughts, which is naturally much better.

Therefore, under the official promotion, the vernacular movement of the Song Dynasty version spread smoothly. Afterwards, the form of official documents will be changed from the original classical Chinese form to a simplified version of classical Chinese, which is easier to understand.

In addition, there are some other policies. For example, we should open up the development of private newspapers and allow private businessmen to participate in the news industry. In this way, there will be new newspapers and publications all over the country, and the imperial decree will naturally be spread quickly.

Moreover, opening up the newspaper industry would make it easier for the court to control public opinion.

Because in the past, there were private Hangzhou businessmen who saw the popularity of the Bianliang Weekly on Gyeonggi Road. After returning to Hangzhou, they went to Bi Sheng to get a set of movable type printing technology and printed their own newspapers. As a result, the water meter was quickly checked and the printing factory was raided.

Now that it is open to the outside world, the imperial court will naturally set up a press and publication department to exert a certain degree of influence and control over the news to prevent rumors and troublemakers and those who learn journalism from happening.

So in general, the first step of this year's new policy is very simple, which is to open up public opinion and emphasize vernacular language. I dare not say that the decree will be issued to the grassroots level at the village level. At least the people in various counties, prefectures and cities must begin to understand the policy and understand what the court wants to do this year.

This is already an extremely rare thing for a feudal dynasty to do.

But as long as we persist, it may not be long before one-tenth of the Song Dynasty's population of nearly 100 million can read newspapers and the new policies of the court. That is already a great victory!

(End of this chapter)