Eagle-eyed and wolf-watching

Chapter 1669 Simplify Chinese characters!
While Su Yi was welcoming Dari Achi, in the imperial study of the palace, Ye Mingsheng, who Su Yi called a man who was busy with affairs of state, was concentrating on the memorial in his hand.

This memorial came from the Hebei-Henan Provincial Government and was presented by Zhao Wanxian, the Hebei-Henan Provincial Governor!
Although the memorial was submitted by Zhao Wanxian, the content of the memorial was proposed by a public school teacher named Zhang Tao. Zhao Wanxian presented his ideas to Ye Mingsheng!
According to what Zhao Wanxian said in his memorial, Zhang Tao was a teacher at the Hanshui County Public School under Yecheng.

There are 1,200 students in Hanshui County Public School, and Zhang Tao is responsible for teaching Chinese to 500 of them.

As a front-line worker in Daqian's basic education, Zhang Tao has discovered many problems in his actual work. The biggest problem is that due to the shortage of teachers and various teaching resources, the students in public schools cannot get adequate education. Many students cannot learn well, so they simply give up and just eat a meal in the public school every day.

As a frontline worker in education, Zhang Tao believes that these students should not be abandoned. Instead, we should follow the sage's idea of ​​educating everyone and allow these students who are not good at studying to receive an education. This is also in line with Your Majesty's goal of eliminating illiteracy throughout the world.

Although Zhang Chao had such an idea, the reality was that the Daqian court was already gritting its teeth to maintain the current investment in education. The court was unable to invest more educational resources in public schools in various places to protect the right of poor students in public schools to receive education...
Based on this reality, Zhang Tao had a sudden idea after racking his brains. Since additional investment in educational resources is no longer possible, is it possible to reduce the difficulty of education to make learning easier and simpler?

With this idea in mind, Zhang Tao came up with a bold idea, which is to simplify Chinese characters!
Zhang Tao believes that current Chinese characters are too cumbersome and complicated, with each character having more than a dozen or even dozens of strokes. Such complexity is not conducive to dissemination and learning. Therefore, if Chinese characters can be simplified, it will reduce the difficulty of learning and make teaching in public schools no longer so difficult!

Zhang Tao believes that many of those kids who are playing badly in public schools do not really want to do so in order to get a free lunch in public schools. They also want to learn, but there are too few teachers and too many students in the engineering school and the teachers simply cannot take care of them. In addition, Chinese characters are too complicated and they simply cannot understand them, so over time they give up.

Therefore, if Chinese characters can be simplified, the difficulty of learning will be reduced, and these children may be willing to continue learning. The teaching difficulty of teachers in public schools will also be reduced, so that teachers can take care of more students.

Therefore, Zhang Tao believes that simplifying Chinese characters is a great thing that benefits the country and the people, and can better help achieve His Majesty's goal of eliminating illiteracy throughout the world in the next ten to twenty years.

With such an idea in mind, Zhang Tao submitted his idea to the magistrate of Hanshui County. However, the magistrate Hu Yiping sneered at Zhang Tao's idea. He did not submit his idea of ​​simplifying Chinese characters as Zhang Tao expected. Instead, he rebuked Zhang Tao for being whimsical and meddling in other people's business. He asked Zhang Tao to just do his teaching work in the public school and not cause any more trouble...

Faced with the rejection of County Magistrate Hu Yiping, Zhang Tao became somewhat depressed and gave up the idea of ​​simplifying Chinese characters for a time.

However, seeing that more and more children in public schools gave up and chose to play hard because they could not learn, Zhang Tao's idea of ​​simplifying Chinese characters came to mind again.

Taking advantage of the opportunity when Zhao Wanxian, the governor of Hebei and Henan, inspected Hanshui County, Zhang Tao ignored the obstruction of the county magistrate Hu Yiping and found the right opportunity to tell Zhao Wanxian about his idea of ​​simplifying Chinese characters.

Zhao Wanxian was also very surprised at Zhang Tao's idea of ​​simplifying Chinese characters. He had never thought about the feasibility of this. However, after listening to Zhang Tao's story, Zhao Wanxian felt that there was some reason to simplify Chinese characters. So after careful consideration, Zhao Wanxian sorted out Zhang Tao's ideas and compiled them into a memorial and submitted it to Ye Mingsheng, waiting for Ye Mingsheng's decision.

To be honest, Ye Mingsheng was a little surprised when he saw this memorial and saw that Zhang Tao had such an idea.

After all, in such an extremely conservative era, your proposal to simplify Chinese characters may in some sense be seen by conservatives as a challenge to feudal etiquette. This is a very courageous act, and most people do not have such courage!

Let’s not talk about others, let’s talk about Ye Mingsheng himself. Before unifying the world, when Ye Mingsheng occupied the five places of Qi, Lu, Ji, Yu, You, Yan, Liaoyang, and Yun, he had thought about the possibility of simplifying Chinese characters.

For this purpose, Ye Mingsheng also convened a group of trusted ministers including Gu Sansi and Cui Shao for a full discussion...

However, during the discussion, almost everyone, including Gu Sansi and Cui Shao, opposed Ye Mingsheng's idea of ​​simplifying Chinese characters.

The reasons given by these people are, first, that it destroys the cultural significance of Chinese characters.

Second, these Chinese characters have been passed down for thousands of years, so how can they change at will?

Third, who will simplify Chinese characters? And how to simplify them? This is a question!
In addition, although Ye Mingsheng was already a powerful lord at that time, he also faced external enemies such as the Luoan court led by the Shangguan family and the Zhennan Army led by Xu Zhaojie.

In order to win the battle for the Central Plains, Ye Mingsheng wanted to get as much support and help as possible. Therefore, if Ye Mingsheng proposed the idea of ​​simplifying Chinese characters, he would most likely be criticized by Shangguan Hongyuan and Xu Zhaojie, saying that Ye Mingsheng was destroying Chinese characters and the culture of the Great Zhou!

This is a very huge hat. Although Ye Mingsheng's original intention was to better spread Chinese characters and eliminate illiteracy all over the world, under the attack of public opinion, Ye Mingsheng is likely to be regarded as a sinner who destroyed Chinese characters and lose the support of scholars all over the world.

Therefore, in the eyes of Gu Sansi, Cui Shao and others, the idea of ​​simplifying Chinese characters is absolutely a thankless task. Not only will they not be able to catch the fox, but they will also get into trouble. Therefore, despite these people's strong opposition, Ye Mingsheng also threw the idea of ​​simplifying Chinese characters out of his mind.

Originally, Ye Mingsheng himself almost forgot about this matter, but now Zhao Wanxian's memorial made Ye Mingsheng think about this matter again...

Ye Mingsheng does not deny that simplifying Chinese characters will have an impact on Chinese character culture and cause a loss of cultural significance.

However, Ye Mingsheng believes that compared with the spread and development of Chinese characters, as well as the goal of eliminating illiteracy and enabling people all over the world to read and write, simplifying Chinese characters definitely has more advantages than disadvantages. It can even be said to be a matter of benefiting the present and future generations.

For those who say that Chinese characters are a language that has been passed down for thousands of years and how can they change at will, Ye Mingsheng only wants to say that things are constantly evolving and it is necessary to make some trade-offs in order to adapt to the development of things.

As for the third point, the question is how to simplify Chinese characters and who should be responsible for simplifying them.

Ye Mingsheng also felt that this problem could be solved as he became the emperor. At that time, Ye Mingsheng was just a separatist local lord. In the eyes of many people, he was a traitor and a traitor to the Great Zhou Dynasty. The Luoan court led by Shangguan Hongyuan was the mainstream of the world.

Therefore, basically none of those great scholars were willing to stand up for Ye Mingsheng. Many of them were attached to the Luoan court and used their own political influence to continuously help the Luoan court attack the Fengwu Army.

So when faced with the question of how to simplify Chinese characters and who should simplify them, Ye Mingsheng was indeed at a loss.

After all, for such a big thing as simplifying Chinese characters, you can't just find a few people to do it. Doing so is not conducive to the promotion and development of Chinese characters at all.
Simply simplifying Chinese characters is not Ye Mingsheng's goal. His goal is to simplify Chinese characters while allowing such simplified characters to be fully promoted and developed in Daqian, thereby improving Daqian's literacy rate, eliminating illiteracy in the world, enlightening the people, cultivating talents and guiding Daqian onto the path of scientific development!
Therefore, in such a situation, if you want to simplify Chinese characters and promote them throughout Daqian, it is best to get the endorsement of influential scholars who advocate for the simplification of Chinese characters!

This was indeed a problem for Ye Mingsheng, who was just a local lord at the time!
Now that Ye Mingsheng has proclaimed himself emperor, naturally there are people who want to curry favor with him. It wouldn't be a big problem to find a few influential scholars to advocate for the simplification of Chinese characters.

But the real difficulty of this matter lies in the ideas of the court and the people. Although Ye Mingsheng has been trying hard to make the atmosphere open and inclusive this year, the conservative and traditional ideas are still deeply rooted in the hearts of the people and engraved in the bones of everyone in this era.

Ye Mingsheng could easily find a few influential scholars to take the lead, assisted by dozens of Hanlin Academy scholars, provide some project funds, and then create momentum in newspapers. In this way, the project of simplifying Chinese characters could be officially launched.

In three to five years, some common Chinese characters can basically be simplified. These are not difficult tasks and Ye Mingsheng can solve them with just one order!

The difficulty of the problem lies in how to promote it, how to make these people voluntarily use simplified characters. You have to know that this is a feudal era with a very conservative and traditional atmosphere.

Although Ye Mingsheng could use the violence in his hands like the Qing Dynasty to force the promotion of simplified Chinese characters, such as keeping the hair but losing the head, or keeping the head but losing the hair, but that was not what Ye Mingsheng wanted to do...
Compared to some people who have lofty ambitions and want to be remembered by history, Ye Mingsheng doesn't care at all whether history books will evaluate him as an emperor and a hero of the ages!
But to be realistic, Ye Mingsheng still cared a lot about whether future history books would say that he, Ye, was a tyrant and a fool!
For Ye Mingsheng, simplifying Chinese characters is something he has to do, and he believes that this is a good thing that will benefit the present and future generations!

Although the task needs to be done, Ye Ping believes that the simplification of Chinese characters should be done in a proper way and should not be done hastily. It should be done gradually and with accumulation of experience.

As for the specific operations, Ye Mingsheng believes that the role of newspapers should be fully utilized!
Ye Mingsheng hoped that these newspapers would devote large amounts of space to reporting on the kind of situation that Zhang Tao mentioned about students being in a bad mood in public schools, which would then spark public discussion and, finally, offer a solution such as simplifying Chinese characters. Eventually, public opinion would reach a consensus, and Ye Mingsheng would then take advantage of the situation and propose this project.

Ye Mingsheng thinks such a process is relatively ideal. Of course, those moralists will not let Ye Mingsheng get what he wants easily. Ye Mingsheng is mentally prepared for this.

Ye Mingsheng never expected to achieve everything in one go. He planned to use three to five years to come up with a practical plan to simplify Chinese characters, and 10 years or even longer to make people all over the world accept simplified Chinese characters. Ye Mingsheng hoped that simplified Chinese characters could become one of his legacies to the world...
After Ye Mingsheng gave instructions on simplifying Chinese characters, Ye Cheng also walked into the imperial study and reported to Ye Mingsheng:

"Your Majesty! Minister Su is here!"

Ye Mingsheng just nodded slightly without saying much, and Ye Cheng understood what he meant. A moment later, he took Su Yi into the imperial study.

After the greeting, Ye Mingsheng asked:

"Did you give him the token?"

"Yes! Dariyachi seems to be particularly interested in our Daqian firearms factory!"

Ye Mingsheng was not surprised by this. He had already thought of this when he asked Su Yi to hand over the token to him, and immediately ordered:

"Since he wants to see it, let him see it to his heart's content!"

Hearing Ye Mingsheng say this, Su Yi hesitated for a few seconds, then tentatively said:
"The Ministry of Industry seems to have some ideas about letting Dari Achi visit!"

Ye Mingsheng waved his hand and said:
"It's normal to have some thoughts! If they can't figure it out, let them think about it slowly!"

Su Yi wanted to say something, but after hearing what Ye Mingsheng said, she swallowed the words she had just prepared and continued to speak, "Your Majesty is wise."

Ye Mingsheng pondered for a moment and asked:

"What do you think of Daryaqi?"

Faced with such a question, Su Yi organized her words and said:

"This Dariyachi doesn't seem to be as ungrateful as the rumors say. However, although he tried his best to hide it, it can be seen that he seemed to feel very humiliated to come to Yijing to receive the title!"

Ye Mingsheng smiled when he heard this, then waved his hand, and Su Yi immediately bowed and left.

After Su Yi left, Ye Mingsheng continued to review the memorials. He had a meeting in the afternoon, so all the memorials had to be processed this morning. Otherwise, if they were delayed, who knows when they would be delayed...