I stole divine power in Daxia

Chapter 575: Conscience

When Wang Mingyi in the Golden Palace began to expound the principles he had gained from the "Nong Dian", and when the sound of reading from the "Nong Dian" came from the bamboo forest that he had evolved to be close to the real thing, the Minister of Agriculture seemed to have suddenly discovered something. He squatted down, and with his palms pushed aside the bamboo forest formed by the righteous energy to reveal the truth within.

This righteous bamboo is truly rooted in the Golden Throne Hall!

Under each gold brick, the dark yellow earth veins are like surging little dragons, carrying the earth's energy upwards and combining with the great righteous energy, allowing the white of the great righteous energy and the dark black of the earth's energy to merge with each other, eventually forming the seemingly real bamboo forest before one's eyes!

Seeing this scene, the practitioners of the Hundred Sects said in disbelief, "How is it possible?"

"He actually did it?"

"If he can really accommodate farmers, then can he also accommodate other families?"

While others were doubtful, the Confucianists who saw this scene had already come out of the haze of anger and shock at Zhou Tieyi's doctrine. Even people like Zhang Shizhong had tears in their eyes.

"God help my Confucianism! God help my Confucianism!"

Except for the Minister of Works Kong Zixing, most of the others were from the Mohist and Gongshu School. At this time, they looked at Zhou Tieyi with slightly uneasy eyes.

Zhou Tieyi also watched this scene carefully. He understood why the Confucians were so ecstatic.

Among the seven Confucian qualities of "self-cultivation", one can also practice the teachings of one or more other schools to improve oneself.

However, there has always been an iron rule in Confucian practice, that is, no matter how good you are at practicing other principles, your concurrent practice of law enforcement will always be one level lower than your own.

This leads to the situation that, unless there is no hope for advancement, Confucian practitioners, when cultivating themselves, at most learn one or two of the common arts such as music, chess, calligraphy and painting to cultivate their minds.

Most of them would not even touch the mainstream theories such as agriculture, military science, legalism, Taoism, and Buddhism.

There is no other reason, because it is difficult to tolerate.

Confucianism itself has made statistics that most of the Confucian students of the seventh level of "self-cultivation" are in their prime years. Many of them are the best among their peers. Naturally, they have also thought about studying Taoism and Buddhism. After all, these are the doctrines that have produced saints.

However, the vast majority of these Confucian practitioners who practiced Taoism and Buddhism simultaneously eventually went astray and turned directly to Taoism or Buddhism.

The so-called Taoist Confucianism and Buddhist Confucianism are just a fig leaf, because the second-class Confucianists "achieve meritorious service", but no Taoist Confucianism or Buddhist Confucianism has the ability to truly make meritorious service to save the world.

For example, Li Kegong, the lecturer at Confucius Institute, was ultimately a Taoist rather than a Confucian.

Therefore, when teaching students, Confucians often emphasize that Taoist and Buddhist scriptures can be read, but not too much, because these are worldly studies, which are different from Confucian studies of governing the world.

Now, although Wang Mingyi has not yet achieved the goal of using Confucianism to accommodate Taoism and Buddhism, he is able to nourish his own Confucian integrity with the earthy spirit of farming, which actually means he has taken a crucial step!
Confucianism's dual cultivation has always been seen as an auxiliary means, but now the dual cultivation of the Tao can nourish the main Tao of itself, which truly proves its superiority and advancement from the perspective of the overall doctrine.

From the perspective of personal actual practice, Confucianism also gets rid of the shortcoming of distracting one's attention by practicing multiple disciplines.

Moreover, today Wang Mingyi can integrate Confucianism into agriculturalism, so in the future he will naturally be able to integrate Mohism and Gongshu School. If he can really integrate the ideas of all schools of thought and create a new Confucian pattern, it will be no less than Zhou Tieyi's feat of building thirty-three heavens on Taiyi Temple. This is the true prototype of the holy way!
Wang Mingyi did not care about the fame and fortune struggles of other people in the court. He had entered a state of selflessness in explaining his own great Dao. He already had the Dao, and now he only lacked quantity.

Therefore, the great and righteous energy evolved into a bamboo forest, which blended with everything around it, constantly absorbing the power of the earth veins above the Golden Throne Hall, quickly perfecting its own fourth-level realm, and quickly touching the third-level realm of Confucianism.

The three qualities of Confucianism are to "establish one's words"!
Today in the hall, Wang Mingyi not only has to make a statement, but also has to go one step further than Mei Qingchen did at that time. His words should have the effect of educating people!
In the hall, apart from the ministers who were either surprised or worried, there were two people who had the same expression as Zhou Tieyi, both of them were silent. They were the Emperor of Great Xia and the Queen Mother.

Especially the Emperor of Daxia, the reason why Wang Mingyi could make such rapid progress at this time was because he absorbed the power of the earth veins in the Golden Throne Hall. If such a thing had happened before, he would naturally be happy to see it happen. After all, this power of the country's destiny and earth veins was used to support a third-rank Confucian scholar, which would bring more benefits than disadvantages to Daxia. Others were unable to utilize it, but it was naturally a good thing that Wang Mingyi had the ability to utilize it.

But he cannot allow it now, because the earth veins and the national destiny are closely integrated on Yujing Mountain. If Wang Mingyi is allowed to continue absorbing, he will absorb the power of national destiny, which will lead to the disclosure of some of his current secrets.

Then, on the Danchi, the Great Xia Emperor suddenly said in a loud voice, "My dear ministers, be quiet and listen to what the Lord Wang has to say!"

His powerful voice suppressed the noisy voices of the officials and directly interrupted Wang Mingyi's state of trance, bringing him back to reality from his state of communication between heaven and man.

The Confucians were not happy for long, and now they all looked at the Emperor of Daxia with incredible eyes.

It is clear that Confucianism has seen hope of competing with Zhou Tieyi for the orthodoxy. Although the Emperor of Daxia did not interrupt this path, this obstacle will at least delay Wang Mingyi for several months.

Deng Zhenquan from the Censorate was so angry that he wanted to stiffen his neck and confront the Emperor of Daxia. Their Censorate was specifically responsible for this!

At this time, Dong Xingshu changed his previous old and frail appearance. His skinny hand was like lightning and he quickly grabbed Deng Zhenquan. Then he shook his head slightly at the latter's surprised expression. His eyes under his drooping gray eyebrows were like candlelight in the darkness.

Then he used his other hand to push Wang Mingyi next to him and said, "Keep talking, we Confucians are listening!"

Dong Xingshu said this sentence loudly.

We Confucians are all listening!
We Confucians not only listen, we also watch!
Mencius said, "If the ruler treats his subjects as his own hands and feet, then the subjects will treat the ruler as their own heart and soul; if the ruler treats his subjects as dirt, then the subjects will treat the ruler as their enemy."

The behavior of the Great Xia Emperor today will naturally be punished in the future! Wang Mingyi himself was interrupted, but he did not have many regrets. Instead, he paid more attention to whether his Tao could benefit the people of the world.

"I read agricultural books and combined them with bamboo, and I also learned many truths. This is a good thing, but it also confuses me. We study things to gain knowledge, but there are so many truths in just studying bamboo. Do we need to understand the Confucian principles or the agricultural principles? If we use the methods of Mohism and Gongshu to study bamboo, there will be other truths. With so many truths, how many can a person learn in his lifetime? Will he fall into the mistake of 'following the infinite with the finite' as mentioned by the Taoist sage Zhuangzi?"

"Or are these principles ranked in order of importance? Can we study them in an orderly manner, starting from small to large, accumulating little by little?"

Hearing Wang Mingyi's remarks, Zhou Tieyi couldn't help but sigh.

This is what the saint in the previous life did not do, and why that saint ultimately limited his teachings to personal moral cultivation and was unable to guide social change.

Because that saint had not truly experienced a cross-era social change. Although there were turmoil and peace in his time, the overall social structure remained rigid.

But Wang Mingyi is different. He went deep into the Railway Chamber of Commerce to learn and witnessed with his own eyes how the technological revolution made ordinary people's lives better.

So the problem he faced was one more layer than the saint at that time.

That is, moral cultivation can make ordinary people's lives better, and technological revolution can also make ordinary people's lives better. Which is more important?
Although he was unable to put this point clearly, he contrasted the principles of Confucianism with those of the Agriculturalists, Mohists, and Gongshuists.

If this relationship can be explained clearly, then Wang Mingyi not only opened the way for Confucianism to integrate the teachings of all schools of thought, but also clarified a difficult problem that Confucianism has not been able to solve for a long time.

That is why morality is above practical interests!
Why do people sacrifice their lives for justice!

When Wang Mingyi raised this question, the Confucian officials resumed their thinking after being interrupted by the emperor. They certainly knew that there was a sequence of events.

For example, one of the most core principles of Confucianism is to sacrifice one's life for righteousness.

Since "righteousness" comes before "life", it means that Confucian morality is above the right to survival. Since it is above the right to survival, it can naturally surpass many theories based on the right to survival, such as the theories of farmers.

Therefore, Confucians can shout loudly, "I would rather eat without meat than live without bamboo!"
You can shout like this behind closed doors, but you cannot convince others to agree with this, especially the "human desire theory" headed by Zhou Tieyi. It has indeed made people's lives better. So how do you convince people to give up a better life and believe in your morality?
If we reflect on reality, we will return to the starting point of the problem.

The petty officials can obviously live a better life through corruption, so why should they give up corruption and believe in your Confucian morality?

Apart from punishment, how can we start from the perspective of education?
"So I kept thinking about the differences between different principles, and it happened that the article about Zhou Shangshu's "Theory of Human Desire" in the New Journal gave me a new idea."

"What idea?"

Dong Xingshu glanced at Zhou Tieyi, then at Wang Mingyi and asked.

Zhou Tieyi curled his lips. He wanted to say that what I said was "On Wealth and Goods", not "On Human Desires", and that when I discussed with Tian's father that day, I clearly stated that this was only the first stage. What we discussed was how to liberate and develop productivity, and we did not talk about how to deal with distribution relations. Why do you Confucians always think of me as a boss who can pass the level? It is obvious that I am the warrior who defeated the Confucian dragon!

But Zhou Tieyi thought about it and decided not to interrupt. A new trend of thought does not necessarily have to be centered around himself. He knew what Wang Mingyi was going to say, but he was willing to fulfill his idea.

The world is all white, so it’s actually fine if I’m the only one who’s black.

"The core of the dispute between my Confucianism and Zhou Shangshu's doctrine lies in the standard of judging the good and evil of human desires. My Confucianism used to want to use 'self-control and restoration of propriety' to suppress human desires, because we believe that desires are evil, while Zhou Shangshu believes that human desires are good and can inspire people to work and make their lives better."

"But I think this question should be split into two parts. Desires are neither good nor evil, but people are good and evil."

"What is desire? Wolves eat meat, babies drink milk, this is their nature. Can we say this is good or evil? This is just like the principle of farming. No matter if you are a good person or an evil person, as long as you farm according to this principle, you will get food. This is determined by the nature of rice and wheat, and it does not change because of our good or evil."

"But once wolves and babies are full, they won't ask for more food. But our reality is different. Even if an adult man has thousands of acres of good land, he will still want more land. This is also considered to be his nature."

"What changes do we go through from being a baby to being an adult man? Can we really exist in the world as a baby, as the Taoists say?"

Wang Mingyi then explicitly rejected the Taoist conclusion, "I believe that adults cannot continue to exist in the world like infants, because this is no different from wild animals. As for the change from infant to adult, I call it human socialization based on the statement of Zhou Shangshu in Celun and my own practice."

"In the process of socialization, people have developed standards of good and evil, so people are not just individuals, but also the entire race. According to the conclusion just made by Minister Zhou, people themselves are contradictory, so there are saints among humans, but there are no saints among beasts."

“Therefore, we advocate that if one earns money through hard work, even if one owns a thousand acres of land, it is not evil, but if one does not earn money through hard work, even if one earns only a few needles and threads, it is evil.”

Wang Mingyi then asked Zhou Tieyi, "May I ask Minister Zhou, what is the standard for judging this person's goodness or evil?"

Zhou Tieyi understood that this was a trap set by Wang Mingyi, but he still stepped in. "Of course, the standard is whether it is beneficial to the development of human society. This has always been the case."

Seeing that Zhou Tieyi agreed with this view, Wang Mingyi smiled and said, "Yes, throughout the ages, our human society has been developing in a spiral manner under the joint efforts of mankind. Therefore, we can conclude that our human society as a whole has more good than evil. It is not unreasonable to teach people to do good and let those who have extra land to share their land with those who have no land to cultivate. From the perspective of human society as a whole, this also has practical significance. It can feed more people, produce more food, and continue to promote the development of human society."

"So society is good, so we should require 'conscience' when learning principles. When children are being enlightened, they should not only learn how to farm, how to do business and other principles that satisfy their personal desires, but also learn principles such as 'respecting the elderly and loving the young' and 'sacrificing one's life for justice'."

"When different principles conflict with each other, we must ask our consciences: In addition to satisfying your own personal desires, have you violated the development of the entire tribe? If you only take personal desires as everything, then you are not worthy of being called a complete person, and are no different from a beast. Then we can naturally treat you the same way we treat beasts!"

(End of this chapter)