Late Yuan Dynasty: I am the true emperor

Chapter 432: Split into Six Divisions (Part )

Hearing Wang Guangyang's question, Lu Jin immediately explained.

“The simplification of the text is, of course, to make it easier to write, but don’t worry, I won’t make too many changes.

"In fact, Chinese characters have been simplifying since ancient times, from the ancient oracle bone script to the inscriptions on gold vessels in the Xia and Shang dynasties, and then to the seal script in the Zhou dynasty. After Qin Shihuang unified the six kingdoms, he introduced the official script, which was easier to write than the seal script, in order to make the writing uniform. The official script later evolved into the running script, the cursive script, and the regular script.

"As regular script has been passed down to the present day, people have also developed a lot of so-called vernacular characters in pursuit of writing speed. Some of these characters have evolved to be more concise, but some have become more complex than the ancient characters.

"For example, the three characters 人, 从, 众 were more concise during the Shang Dynasty. The left and right strokes form 人, two 人 form 从, and three 众 form 众. Later generations have made 从 and 众 more and more difficult to write, and they have lost their original meaning.

"Similarly, there is the character 'electricity'. In Shuowen Jiezi, it was originally 'electricity', but I don't know who added the radical 'rain', saying that thunder and lightning come from rain. Isn't this redundant?

"Similar to electricity, there is also cloud. The cloud in oracle bone script was originally a shorthand for cloud, but later it was added with the character for rain to become cloud, which is a simplification.

"Other characters are simplified, such as the character '無' in seal script, which became '無' in clerical script during the Han Dynasty, but it has never been established as an orthodox character.

"Similarly, there are "国" and "国", "嘴中含玉", which already existed in the Song Dynasty, and "与" and "与", which already existed in the Han Dynasty. What we need to do is to find the simplest one among the existing fonts, establish it as the orthodox one, and use simplified characters in all future publications, including new books and school teaching.

"Oh, by the way, you can use colloquial characters and abbreviations for common words, but you still have to use traditional characters for accounting in the future. The numbers '壹贰叁肆伍六７捌９拾佰仟萬' will be written in uppercase from now on and will be used exclusively for accounting purposes to prevent tampering.

"The Arab numerals I brought are used for mathematical writing. When writing Chinese characters normally, I also use the abbreviated notation of one, two, three, four when not keeping accounts."

Everyone nodded when they heard this. This time, no one stood up to object, because some of the simplified characters that Lu Jin mentioned had long become a consensus among people. Even many of the people present usually wrote them that way. It was just that no official court official had taken the initiative to establish it as the standard font.

After seeing the examples Lu Jin mentioned, Qin Conglong thought for a moment and said, "Your Highness, now that I remember, the Yuan court seems to have compiled a book called "Common Characters". Should we use it directly?"

Lu Jin was stunned when he heard this. He didn't expect that the Yuan Dynasty had compiled this thing, so he said, "Then let's find it first and use it if it's suitable. If it's not suitable, don't use it."

Wang Guangyang also said, "Your Highness, do you mean that the official characters of the new dynasty should all be in regular script?"

"Not really." Lu Jin shook his head. "Don't be too rigid about the font. Whether it's seal script, official script, regular script, or cursive script, we'll choose whichever is simpler. If seal script is easier to write than regular script, we'll choose seal script. If cursive script is easier to write than regular script, we'll use cursive script. But when the final standardized font is promulgated throughout the country, regular script must be used as the standard font.

“If none of the four fonts are easy to write, you can also simplify them appropriately.

"For example, the character for horse can be written in regular cursive script to become '马', and the character for '鷄' can be written in regular cursive script to become 鸟, and the character on the left can be directly changed to 又, so it will be written as '鸡'."

Everyone frowned immediately. Wang Guangyang said, "Isn't this too simplistic? The bird on the right can be written as bird, but the "Xi" is originally derived from the sound of chicken, and it is pronounced as "Xi". If it is changed to "you", won't the original meaning of the word be lost?"

Lu Jin said, "But this simplified method of replacing radicals has existed since the Northern and Southern Dynasties. For example, the character '亂' was changed to '乱' with the tongue radical during the Northern and Southern Dynasties. So which one do you use to write characters now? Aren't you still using the simple one?"

"."Everyone was speechless. Who has nothing better to do than use simple characters instead of traditional characters? Isn't that just asking for trouble?

The key point is that Lu Jin actually found a precedent for changing radicals, which seems to be well prepared.
Everyone nodded, and Li Shanchang said, "This doesn't seem difficult. At least it's easier than compiling textbooks. We just need to find a few calligraphy masters to do it. Your Highness, which department do you want to hand this over to?"

"It can be any department, the Ministry of Rites or the Ministry of Education, or even the Hanlin Academy." Lu Jin said indifferently. Compared with compiling textbooks, standardizing and simplifying fonts is indeed just a small matter.

"Then let's put it in the Hanlin Academy. The Ministry of Education already has a heavy workload in editing books."

"Okay." Lu Jin nodded immediately.

At this time, Li Shanchang asked again, "Your Highness, what instructions do you have for the compilation of the rhyme book and the pinyin?"

Lu Jin immediately said, "This is not a compilation, I have already written it, I mean to promote it."

Lu Jin stood up and lifted the blackboard curtain next to him. On it were dozens of modern pinyin letters written in chalk, and they were completely copied from modern pinyin. Under each English letter there was a Chinese character for the corresponding pronunciation. Everyone could understand it at a glance, but they immediately frowned.

"The new dynasty will incorporate this system of pinyin into elementary education, and all children will be taught pinyin first when they start learning to read."

Tao An frowned and said, "Your Highness, China already has rhyme books and Qieyun, and children have Three Character Classic, Hundred Family Surnames, Thousand Character Classic, etc. Why do we still need to learn this foreign language?"

Lu Jin said immediately, "This is not a foreign language. This is a set of phonetic letters modified by Gongshu based on Western characters. It can also be called pinyin."

Lu Jin thought, even Britain still uses Latin now, Britain itself does not have English, who dares to say that this is not Gongshu's original creation? Even if Britain uses it in the future, it is Britain copying Chinese pinyin.
“As for why we need to promote pinyin even though we already have the Three Character Classic and the Thousand Character Classic, it is because the logic of these two sets of enlightenment methods are essentially different.

"Although China already has Qieyun, for example, the Qieyun of the word 'Qian' is 'Qian', but the essence of this Qieyun is that you still have to learn how to write and pronounce the two words 'Qian' first, right?"

Everyone nodded, but Tao An continued, "It's true that you need to learn characters first, but the Three Character Classic and Thousand Character Classic are specifically used to teach these basic characters."

Lu Jin said immediately, "But you don't need to use pinyin. You only need to learn these few pinyin first, and then you can spell all the characters. Therefore, children who are first taught pinyin learn much faster than those who are first taught Thousand Character Classic or Three Character Classic.

"I used this set of pinyin to teach my children, so I have the most say. If you don't believe me, we can compare them. Even if you are not a teacher, you must have been a child, right? Tell me, how long does it take for you or the children you know to learn the Thousand Character Classic?"

Tao An immediately said, "It depends on whether the child is smart and whether he likes to learn. A smart child can recite the Three Character Classic (1145 characters) in ten months, while a naughty child may need one or two years."

Lu Jin immediately said, "Using Pinyin to teach children, it only takes 60 days to learn the Three Character Classic, which is five times faster than if you just memorize it by rote. Even a slow learner can learn more than a thousand characters in three to six months. If you just teach them the Thousand Character Classic and the Three Character Classic, how many characters can they learn in half a year? Even a child prodigy can only learn characters at most."

Everyone was skeptical. Qin Conglong also looked at the pinyin and asked curiously, "Is it really that magical?"

"If you don't believe me, you can do an experiment. Go to the street and find 10 schoolchildren of the same age who have not yet started learning. Divide them into two groups for a controlled experiment. Five of them will be taught Pinyin, and five will be taught Thousand Character Classic and Three Character Classic. They will study for the same amount of time every day, and no one is allowed to study more secretly. The experiment will last for six months. See who learns faster. Anyway, the results can be verified in half a year at most. Who among you is willing to try?"

Everyone looked at each other in bewilderment. Try? What the hell, since Lu Jin was so confident, he must be very sure. Besides, this was a serious meeting to discuss the new dynasty's national system. Lu Jin would not fool them about this. So Chen Yu said, "No need to try. Since Your Highness is so sure, he must have tried it. Since Pinyin Enlightenment is so much faster than Three Character Classic Enlightenment, why not try it?"

Lu Jin nodded and said, "That's right. So in order to promote the Pinyin enlightenment method, Pinyin should also be included in the first-grade textbooks."

"Wait a moment, Your Highness, I have another question." Tao An immediately raised his hand and said.

"You said."

"I just tried to pronounce it using your Highness's pinyin, and found that it is not only much simpler than the existing rhyme books, but even the entering tone is missing.

"Since Pinyin is easy to learn, then Jin Dou Chen has no objection, but isn't the phonetic notation of Pinyin too simplified?"

However, Lu Jin was well prepared and directly took out a book called "Zhongyuan Yinyun" compiled in the Yuan Dynasty.

"You can see for yourself that this is a rhyme book compiled by Yuan Ting. Traditional rhyme is divided into four tones: ping, shang, qu and ru. However, Yuan Ting's book 'Zhongyuan Yinyun' already has the usage of 'ru assigned three tones', which assigns the words with ru tone to the three tones of ping, shang, qu and ru. I did not cancel the ru tone, but Yuan Ting did so a long time ago.

"Moreover, this set of 'Zhongyuan Yinyun' has long become the standard for contemporary opera creation. Although the spoken language of the common people still retains some entering tones, all opera troupes in the world use Zhongyuan Yinyun and have eliminated entering tones.

"If you don't believe me, ask Mr. Zhao Rui (Shi Naian), what tone does the military propaganda art troupe use?"

Shi Naian said immediately, "The opera troupe of the cultural troupe does use the Central Plains pronunciation, and there is no entering tone in the opera. Moreover, those opera troupes were all found by me in Jiangnan, and many of them are local opera troupes in Jiankang."

Because the entering tone is pronounced shortly, and the ending tone of opera is prolonged, for example, the kind of humming lyrics, the entering tone is inherently unsuitable for singing opera, so the ancient opera troupes were the first to cancel the entering tone.

The Yuan Dynasty happened to be a time when folk art developed greatly. Therefore, when the Yuan Dynasty compiled rhyme books, they directly divided the entering tone characters into three tones, namely, level, shang and qu, according to the differences between clear and voiced sounds. They were called "three entering tones". Then the entering tone disappeared directly, which was a step closer to modern Mandarin. It was not forcibly cancelled by Lu Jin.

Let me tell you something more interesting. In the original history, Zhu Yuanzhang thought that the Central Plains pronunciation of the Yuan Dynasty was not pleasant to the ear, and wanted to establish the Jianghuai Mandarin of his hometown as the orthodox accent, so he asked someone to compile "Hongwu Zhengyun". However, the people who compiled Hongwu Zhengyun for him were a group of Zhejiang people headed by Song Lian.
Influenced by the Wu dialect accent of these Zhejiang people, Zhu's Hongwu Zhengyun still retains a lot of entering tones. It is neither as simple and refreshing as the Central Plains pronunciation of the Yuan Dynasty, nor like the Jianghuai Mandarin. The Jianghuai flavor is also mixed with a lot of Wu dialect accents, making it a weird mixture.

Therefore, after the Hongwu Zhengyun was compiled, it was never promoted at all. People still spoke the same way. Of course, some people said that the Hongwu Zhengyun compiled by Lao Zhu was a "reading pronunciation", but that didn't matter, because language, like writing, would eventually and irreversibly move towards simplification and there would be no turning back.

The evolution of Chinese into Mandarin was not influenced by the Qing dynasty alone. To be precise, it started from the Jin and Yuan dynasties, when it was based on the northern Mandarin spoken in the Central Plains, and then was simplified all the way until it became the current Mandarin.

Tao An still frowned and said, "But even if we don't keep the entering tone, the first and the rhyme are omitted too much, right?"

This is indeed true. There were 36 voices and more than 31 rhymes in the Central Plains phonetics of the Yuan Dynasty. Although Zhu Yuanzhang's Hongwu Zhengyun was simplified, voices were still retained. In fact, some modern experts have studied it and believe that Hongwu Zhengyun is too conservative and can be further simplified.

Lu Jin directly took out the modern pinyin set of bpmfdtnl, in which the initial consonants were directly reduced from 36 in the Yuan Dynasty to 21, and the finals were also simplified from more than in the Yuan Dynasty to less than .

However, as I said before, whether it is writing or language, the direction of evolution is becoming more and more simple, so Lu Jin still insisted.

"This set of pinyin is indeed much simpler than the traditional rhyme book, but language, like writing, is also becoming more and more simplified. This is not changed by human will. Just like the emergence of vernacular characters, it was born naturally for the sake of writing, and the same is true for language.

“Pinyin has indeed been simplified, but are you saying it can’t be used? Don’t you understand what I’m saying?

"What I talked about today is the promotion of vernacular Chinese, pinyin, and simplified characters. These three reforms are certainly for the purpose of promoting education and improving learning speed, but they are also for the purpose of achieving national expansion and the naturalization of the surrounding natives."

Everyone looked at each other when they heard this.

"For a long time, the barbarians around China have been difficult to naturalize as Chinese citizens. The court has been unable to register them as citizens. The difficulty of writing and learning Chinese characters, and the complexity of their accents make them difficult to understand, are the biggest reasons for this.

"Qin Shi Huang unified the writing system and the wheel gauge in order to assimilate the people of the six kingdoms into one country. Although the six kingdoms are gone now, we still have Goryeo, Mongolia, U-Tsang, Annan, and even the Miao and Yao people in our country. If we want to assimilate these people into our country, we must take the initiative to simplify Chinese characters and Chinese, as well as the vernacular. Only when they can learn more easily and everyone has the same writing system and the same language, will they feel a sense of belonging to this country.

"If the natives don't understand your words, then you should speak to them in vernacular Chinese. If the natives don't understand rhyme books, then you should teach them pinyin. If the natives think Chinese characters have too many strokes and are difficult to write, then you should teach them to write simplified characters.

"To be honest, if they can quickly learn Chinese and Chinese characters, it will be easier for the court to manage them.

"So Pinyin must be simplified. Although my Pinyin is a bit simplified, you can't deny that it is still usable, right? All of this is just to make it easier to learn to write Chinese characters and speak Chinese!"

Everyone nodded, and Li Shanchang also took the lead and said, "Since Your Highness has such deep intentions, then let's do it this way. Promote vernacular Chinese and Pinyin for enlightenment. The Hanlin Academy will be responsible for standardizing simplified characters. The Ministry of Education will set up a Teaching and Research Department to compile new textbooks. Is there anything else to be arranged for the split of the Ministry of Rites?"

Lu Jin flipped through his meeting minutes and said, "No, the Ministry of Rites after the split only retains the duties of presiding over sacrifices, ceremonies, and recommending merits and rewards. Oh, and religious management, the Daolu Division and the Senglu Division are also placed in the Ministry of Rites.

“The Ministry of Education has a Teaching and Research Department that is responsible for compiling textbooks and making changes to them based on national needs;
“It has a Primary Education Department, which is responsible for the construction and management of primary and secondary schools across the country.

“It has a Higher Education Department, which is responsible for the construction and management of universities and key high schools across the country.

"It has an Adult Education Department, which is responsible for the construction and management of vocational colleges and adult education across the country. This is mainly to educate non-school-age people who have already become adults, such as schools for training craftsmen and adult literacy, etc.

“It has an inspection department responsible for inspecting the quality of school operation and teaching in various places, and whether they are teaching in the way prescribed by the state.

“The Ministry of Education headquarters is responsible for the overall management of the above five departments.

“That’s it. Then let’s talk about the Ministry of Industry. In addition to splitting out a Ministry of Transport, Posts and Telecommunications as mentioned earlier, we will also split out a Ministry of Water Resources to be responsible for the construction and maintenance of water conservancy projects across the country.

"A Ministry of Construction will be established to be responsible for the construction tasks originally assigned to the Ministry of Industry. For example, if the court asks the Ministry of Industry to build a temple or something, these tasks will be assigned to the Ministry of Construction. In the future, the construction of state-owned factory buildings or some key buildings designated by the court, such as universities, hospitals, railway stations, or government offices, will all be assigned to the Ministry of Construction.

“In addition to the three ministries split from the Ministry of Industry, a new Ministry of Industry and Commerce will also be established.”

Everyone frowned upon hearing this. Li Shanchang asked in confusion, "Your Highness, the Ministry of Industry has already been split into three. Besides, isn't the Ministry of Construction the original Ministry of Industry? Why do we need to add a new Ministry of Industry and Commerce? What is this Ministry for?"
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This chapter counts as yesterday's, today's counts separately
(End of this chapter)