My life is like walking on thin ice

Chapter 417 The Reason
"The emperor wants to use the imperial examination as an excuse to stir up conflicts among the various schools of thought..."

"But this fight doesn't seem to be anything wrong?"

Changle Palace, Changxin Palace.

Sitting upright on the imperial couch at the head, listening to her nephew, the Grand Censor Dou Ying, telling her about the contents of today's court meeting, Empress Dowager Dou gave her own conclusion almost without thinking.

In the eyes of Empress Dowager Dou, Liu Rong's intention was obvious - healthy competition.

The word "imperial examination" was used as a link, or channel, between the literati and the bureaucrats;
Then, by keeping the imperial examination firmly in his own hands, he forced various schools of thought to accept academic reforms that were more in line with the interests of the Han family and more in line with the current era in order to achieve better results in the imperial examinations.

This is easy to understand.

It is like you are living in the Han Dynasty today, and you are a farmer who has been poor for three generations. Your father and grandfather only left you a hundred acres of farmland.

——That’s all because your father and you are both the eldest sons.

Your uncles and brothers were only given some food, cloth, money and the like, and were then driven out of the house to fend for themselves.

Those who were doing well rented farmland from a big landlord. Although life was hard, they finally got married and had children.

Those who were less well off - like your second uncle and fourth brother - all went out to hang out on the streets as thugs and were killed in armed fights.

By your generation, your family's ancestral graves finally had some smoke coming out: one of your distant relatives had no descendants, and thought that you were a good and kind person, so he left his inheritance to you and asked you to take care of his elderly wife.

You took the old lady home and took good care of her;
It was that inheritance that gave you some thoughts that a common people should not have.

With this inheritance of hundreds of thousands of coins, in the land-scarce Chang'an area, you can only buy three to five acres of land, which cannot significantly change your family's economic situation.

——The difference between one hundred acres and one hundred and five acres for a farmer family is really the difference between having and not having.

But if this money is used to educate the next generation, it will be different.

A few hundred thousand dollars is at least enough wealth to reach the level of a "middle-class family".

Although it is impossible to cultivate a warrior who has to eat and drink well since childhood and also needs to hire someone to teach and strengthen his body, it is not a problem to cultivate a scholar or intellectual.

The reason you have this idea is because your eldest son was praised by an old man at the village head: If this son studies literature, he will no longer be a peasant...

At this point, the situation is very clear.

——Inheriting an inheritance is a gift package that falls from the sky. It is almost impossible for your ancestors, including eighteen generations, to be lucky enough to encounter it a second time.

How you use these hundreds of thousands of dollars and whether you use them wisely will directly determine whether your family will complete the class transition or waste this gift package from heaven.

So, what choice will you make?
There is no need to consider at all that - which old gentleman has trained more officials, and which old gentleman's students have become higher-ranking officials, you will take your son to find this "civil service examination expert" to become his apprentice.

The imperial examination system provided a clear system of judgment criteria for the originally vague question of "whether this old gentleman can train officials", which was difficult for ordinary people to judge clearly.

How to judge an old gentleman's ability to train officials, the proportion and success rate of his disciples who pass the civil service exam?

It’s simple, just look at the results of the last imperial examination.

In a small sense, the imperial examination can let the general public know more intuitively: which old master has higher level and his disciples have a higher probability of passing the imperial examination and becoming officials;

In a broader sense, it is also through the imperial examination that people all over the world can see more clearly which school's doctrine is more likely to be favored by the Han Dynasty, and which school's teachings will make it easier to pass the imperial examination and become an official.

For those powerful people who even look down upon the imperial examination, choosing a teacher for their son is a matter that requires careful consideration, but it is just a matter of finding a famous scholar at random.

But for you who accidentally inherited a fortune and regarded it as the hope for your family to complete the class transition, this choice will directly affect the fate of your family for thousands of years to come.

——For the world, who passed the imperial examination and who did not may just be a topic of conversation after dinner;

But for this "you", once it's over, it will last for this life, and even for your descendants.

Every time it passed, it was like a windfall that went down the drain, and the family had no hope of reviving, let alone being farmers for generations and digging for food from the soil - within three to five generations, it was already a remarkable thing for the family to slide down the social ladder and become a tenant farmer or even a slave.

Liu Rong's imperial examination grasped this key.

Perhaps the case of the 'unexpected farmer's inheritance' was too extreme.

However, rich peasants and small landlords have spare money to cultivate their offspring, but are unable to cultivate military men, so they can only cultivate intellectuals. This is also a common situation in the Han Dynasty today.

——During this timeline, the thirty-three years of the reign of Emperor Wen and Emperor Jing, in addition to the dozens of families with tens of millions of wealth, hundreds of multi-millionaires, and thousands of millionaires, it also nurtured a fairly skilled "middle class".

What is the 'middle class'?
Take the so-called "middle-class home" of this era as an example: if you remove the value of the land as a means of production and the value of the housing that is just needed, it does not count;
If the total value of the remaining property, such as deposits, grain, poultry, livestock, utensils and other "personal belongings", can reach more than 100,000 coins, then the family is considered to be a middle-class family.

Such a middle-class family obviously cannot support a child who has to eat fine grains since childhood and have meat every now and then, as well as make weapons, buy medicine, and then ask old soldiers for guidance and teaching, so that he can follow the path of a fierce military general.

However, such a family could still afford to equip an outstanding young man with the four treasures of the study, a decent set of clothes, a decorative sword, and then bring a gift of tuition - a piece of bacon - to find an old scholar to learn literature from him.

Such a family was regarded by Emperor Taizong Xiaowen as the most staunch supporter of the Han Dynasty and the most important contributor to taxes, levies, labor and service.

It’s almost as if the middle-class families are the pillars of the country, which are related to the Han ancestral temple and the country.

Such an important group actually has similar significance to various schools and theories.

——For farmers who are poorer than these people, not to mention whether they can afford to study or whether they can learn, the pressure of survival alone makes them lack the objective conditions to study full-time.

As for those who are richer than these people, businessmen are naturally despised by this era, and it is useless to teach them;
There are only so many powerful and wealthy people, and they have already been reserved by the world-famous masters and giants of various schools.

The only ones left are middle-class families who can afford to study and are numerous enough to provide a steady supply of students for each school.

If the school of thought can obtain the support of the vast majority of people in this group, it will be difficult for it not to flourish.
The opposite is also true - if the school loses the support of the majority of the group, it will be impossible for it to continue its inheritance.

This is the situation with Confucianism.

There are so many visible ideological, philosophical, and academic flaws, as well as a dark history, and it is internally divided into so many diametrically opposed schools, which makes one feel at first glance that this school is so chaotic and doomed.

But the natural affinity of Confucianism to the landlord class is that they have gained the general recognition of the middle class, that is, the "middle-class families" of this era.

Thus, in this examination, there were more than 13,000 candidates, of whom nearly 9,000 were Confucian scholars;
There are less than 100,000 scholars in the world, and Confucians may account for 70% of them!
With such a huge talent pool, even if you were to pick a general from among the dwarfs, it would be difficult to find the final winner.

On the contrary, those schools of thought that are almost extinct, such as the School of Diplomacy and the School of Yin-Yang, only have about a hundred people left in the Communist Party.

Even if we choose the best one, it's only one in a hundred.

Confucianism can pick out hundreds of such "one in a hundred".

Just like the famous saying in later generations that made the lower classes of Chinese people feel lost: Among the 1.4 billion Chinese compatriots, even if you pick one out of ten thousand, you can still pick out 140,000 people...

"Since the emperor has no intention of suppressing it, then Confucianism will probably flourish from now on?"

Having said this, the old empress raised her head with a smile. Although she couldn't see Dou Ying's expression clearly at this moment, she knew that Dou Ying must be smiling so hard that he couldn't suppress the corners of his mouth.

But the old queen's attention at this moment was not on the upcoming 'good times' for Confucianism.

——The old empress dowager believed that she had a thorough understanding of her grandson Liu Rong.

According to the old empress dowager's understanding, although this emperor's grandson rarely brings personal emotions into work, he always looks at problems from a selfless "God's perspective";

But there was one thing that the Han emperor, who was in his prime, never forgot and was always vigilant about.

Checks and balances. The old empress dowager didn't know how the late Emperor Xiaojing had imprinted these two words so deeply into Liu Rong's mind.

But the old empress dowager was very sure: the emperor's grandson would never allow Confucianism to gain power and become the only dominant school.

There are only two possible final results.

Either Confucianism takes off, and another equally important doctrine takes off together with the declining Huang-Lao school, forming a "three-legged tripod" situation.

In the old empress dowager's impression, Liu Rong liked to play this kind of three-party checks and balances.

But from a realistic perspective, this possibility does not have the objective conditions.

That leaves only the second possibility.

——Confucianism took off ‘falsely’ and then fell heavily.

Just like today's court meeting, the Legalists were banned from taking the imperial examinations, the Confucians were explicitly criticized by Liu Rong, and even the Huang-Lao school did not escape the weirdness - this is probably the future academic landscape of the Han Dynasty.

The Legalists will become the iron-clad imperial school that always follows the emperor's footsteps and only regards the emperor's will as the golden rule;

Confucianism, on the other hand, will, based on its "ancestral rebellious nature", naturally represent the landlords and powerful people and stand in opposition to the imperial power. It will step by step look for the balance point between the financial backers behind the scenes: the landlords and powerful people, and the powerful force above their heads: the imperial power.

As for Mr. Huang, he is the person the empress dowager cares about the most, and at the same time, the person she worries about the most.

——Whether from the attitude shown by Liu Rong today, or the old empress dowager's inference based on objective reality, there is only one future outcome for Huang-Lao school of thought.

It will slowly fade away and gradually give up the transcendent status of the Correction School, but it will not completely withdraw from the center of power.

Again, what Liu Rong values ​​most is always the word "checks and balances".

Confucianism cannot dominate alone;
The Legalists cannot become wild horses that break free from their reins.

Therefore, before a third school of thought that is useful, weighty, and comprehensive is found, Huang-Lao school of thought must become one of the three parties in the balance of power.

What does it mean to be highly comprehensive?

The "universities" such as Confucianism, Legalism, Huangdi, and Mohism are all like this.

On the contrary, farmers, doctors, military strategists, novelists and the like are "primary schools" and "specialized schools" that are more professional but obviously lack comprehensiveness.

Obviously, this is inconsistent with Empress Dowager Dou's expectation, or "vision", of the future development of Huang-Lao philosophy.

But at the moment, even if the old empress wanted to promote Huang-Lao school of thought, she somewhat didn't know where to start.

Just like a person.

He extends his hand, and you can take his hand;

He was completely unconscious, and you were good enough to try to lift him up from under his armpits.

But Huang-Lao school of thought now seems to have turned into a puddle of mud - and it's a very watery one at that.

Not to mention giving it a hand, even if I used both hands to hold it up, I couldn't really lift it up...

"The emperor held the imperial examination in order to control the opinions of all the schools of thought."

"The Legalists were dealt a heavy blow first. Afterwards, they should be able to remember what they learned and naturally serve the emperor and the king like slaves."

"Confucianism has suffered a blow, and the Lu Confucian school has suffered an even greater blow - there should be some lessons to be learned from within Confucianism."

"It's this Mr. Huang..."

As she said this, the old empress dowager couldn't help but let out a long sigh. She was secretly annoyed that the emperor's grandson was so disrespectful to her, and she also hated him for not fighting for her favorite Huang-Lao school of thought.

But no matter what, the East and West Palaces of the Han Dynasty already had a complete and tacit joint governance model.

——Liu Rong was in the West Palace, after he finished his white-faced role, he was beaten with a stick;

Next, Empress Dowager Dou, the "Eastern Emperor", will be needed to play the good guy and give sweet treats in Changle Palace.

"Draft an imperial decree."

"——Zhang Hui of Zichuan, who taught and taught, had many outstanding students who served the Han Dynasty and made contributions to the country."

"Give me ten gold coins, a piece of cloth, a pound of meat, and a cup of wine."

"All the scholars under Zhang Sheng's tutelage were appointed as clerks when they left the school, and were selected as officials when they came back."

...

"Qiancheng Ouyang Hebo taught and educated people, and his virtue spread far and wide. Many of his outstanding students served the Han Dynasty and made contributions to the country."

"Give me ten gold coins, a piece of cloth, a pound of meat, and a cup of wine."

"He was summoned to Chang'an with a carriage and four horses to have an audience in Changle."

After appeasing the Legalists and Confucians respectively, when it came to the Huang-Lao school, the old empress dowager could not help but sigh again.

——The tacit understanding between the East and West Palaces is probably that the Emperor is wielding a big stick in the West Palace, Weiyang, while the Empress Dowager is gently comforting the East Palace, Changle.

Both the Legalists and Confucians were hit hard by Liu Rong, so it was natural for the Empress Dowager to appease them.

But Mr. Huang and Liu Rong never wielded the big stick. They just expressed their dissatisfaction and disappointment vaguely.

This made it impossible for the old empress dowager to appease the emperor. Instead, she had to follow Liu Rong's wishes and criticize Huang-Lao school internally as the greatest contemporary supporter of Huang-Lao school.

"Marquis Nanpi, nothing has happened recently."

"Then go to the Internal History Department and apply for the imperial examination."

"——Don't talk about the respectability of relatives by marriage;"

"If he can really pass three rounds of the test, I, a blind old woman, will really look up to him, the Marquis of Nanpi."

"Even if he is the emperor, maybe he will stop being resentful towards Nanpi Marquis..."

...

"That's it~"

"Marquis Wei Qi, please leave."

"——Don't forget the emperor's instructions;"

"Tell those corrupt scholars in Lu: Emperor Taizu Gao showed leniency to Xiang Ji out of respect for his hero."

"If you still bring up that old man Zhongni, even if the emperor has a kind temper, I, a blind old woman, can still swing a knife and stab with a sword..."

(End of this chapter)