My father is Jiajing

Chapter 105: Ming Dynasty Renaissance

"Hiccup~~"

Zhu Zaigui looked at Meng Chong, who had already burped from drinking, and asked with concern, "How does it taste?"

Meng Chong has no idea how much tea drinks he has drunk during this period. During this period, Zhu Zaigui has been adjusting the ratio of tea powder and sugar, as well as various green tea recipes.

For this purpose, Zhu Zaigui borrowed all the "Tea" books from the Yongle Encyclopedia. In these "Tea" books, Zhu Zaigui also found many different tea-brewing techniques that had been popular since the Tang and Song dynasties.

Moreover, through Zhu Zaigui's experiments, he has already figured out "Matcha".

It’s a pity that general beverages have not yet been formed, and the relationship between the Ming Dynasty and the grassland is very tense, and it is impossible to provide Zhu Zaigui with enough milk. Otherwise, Zhu Zaigui would definitely try to open a milk tea shop to see if he could earn money from the noble ladies in the capital.

Although these ladies did not often show up in the streets in public, their maids and servants often strolled around the streets and shopped on their behalf.

In addition, Zhu Zaigui had an understanding of women's purchasing power before traveling through time, and he knew that the spending power of these wealthy ladies should not be underestimated.

However, due to the increasingly strict ethics of the Song and Ming dynasties, they were not able to be as free as other women in the court.

However, according to Zhu Zaigui's understanding of the Ming Dynasty over the past year or so, except in the capital, where the ethical restrictions on women were a bit abnormal, in prosperous places such as Nanzhili, due to the development of handicrafts and the impact of Yangming's philosophy of mind on Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism, both scholars and ordinary women there were relatively "deviant" in their thoughts and behaviors.

For example, Zhu Zaigui always believed that Hai Rui, a man with thick eyebrows, big eyes and a righteous character, was actually a fan of Yangming's philosophy of mind and not a rigid and dogmatic person.

This shows that in the field of culture and ideology, the Ming Dynasty did make certain progress.

It’s just that due to some reasons that cannot be overcome for the time being, Confucian teachings, mainly based on Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism, have not been shaken by the School of Mind.

Of course, the current Yangming School of Mind is actually somewhat different from the "unity of knowledge and action" advocated by Wang Yangming.

After all, most of the scholars are just ordinary people. They can understand and comprehend the principles of the School of Mind, but it may be a bit too much to ask those who admire the School of Mind to achieve Wang Yangming's "unity of knowledge and action".

Therefore, even if many people admire Yangming's Philosophy of Mind and want to use its teachings to find ideological progress for themselves, in fact most people only achieve the superficial "metaphysics". As for the realm of "unity of knowledge and action", they are still far away.

However, this does not negate their progress. After all, they dared to abandon some of the ideas of Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism and instead study Yangming's philosophy of mind, which is more practical and valuable. This shows that these scholars still had ideas about changing the status quo.

Unfortunately, after Wang Yangming, there were too many and too chaotic schools of mind learning. Not only was it impossible to form a powerful school of thought, but in actual development, each school also tried to justify itself.

Some schools may be somewhat interesting, such as the Confucian "rebel" like Li Zhi. The reason why this school is so "heretical" and always goes against traditional Confucianism is probably that they have been suppressed by Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism for too long. When they suddenly have an opening to vent their repressed thoughts, their slogans and behaviors become "absurd".

For example, in Suzhou, the scholars here have evolved to the point of being "anti-traditional" and have started to engage in performance art, wearing all kinds of strange costumes and parading around the city to show off their individuality.

It is a pity that the times did not give them enough time to continue to boldly liberate their thoughts with the help of the east wind of Xinxue, otherwise they might have been the pioneers of the Eastern version of the "Renaissance".

But even so, in this short period of less than a hundred years, many thinkers with advanced ideas emerged in the Jiangnan region, such as Huang Zongxi, a "democratic" leader who criticized the "family-based" autocratic monarchy system in his work "Waiting for the Mingyi".

The reason why their thoughts were so radical and eccentric was also due to the influence of the School of Mind. So, looking at the Ming Dynasty from another perspective, the Ming Dynasty was also a great era of brilliant thoughts, but it was a pity that this great era was born at the wrong time. On the one hand, it missed the historical opportunity, and on the other hand, it was trampled by the barbaric Later Jin and Qing Dynasties. In the end, not only was the normal evolution of thoughts interrupted, but also because of the barbaric rule of foreign races, it became more distorted and closed, and thus completely died out, becoming a historical regret.

Of course, there is another very famous school, that is the "upright" Donglin Party!

The general idea of ​​this school of mind is to combine the "Three Bonds and Five Constant Virtues" advocated in Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism as its basis.

Then, using "morality" as a sword and "righteousness" as a foundation, they specifically engage in "metaphysical" political theories that are divorced from reality, attempting to turn everyone into moral saints, thereby achieving the result of peace and order in the world.

But is this fucking possible?

It's totally anti-human!
Human nature is inherently selfish. Although education can teach people about propriety, righteousness, integrity and shame, it is still limited. If you want to restrain a person's inner desires, it is simply unreliable to rely on "metaphysical" moral preaching.

Therefore, this school of thought has been born with a natural fighting gene, and it is eager to defeat all voices and ideas that are different from its own.

In the end, not only did he fail to win the fight, but he also destroyed the Ming Dynasty.

What a crime!

However, these two schools have not yet evolved, and the current popular psychology is still relatively pure.

At this time, many scholars were willing to accept Wang Yangming's philosophy of mind. In fact, they still wanted to learn Wang Yangming's spirit of "unity of knowledge and action" and wanted to put into practice the kind of philosophy of mind that Wang Yangming talked about.

Therefore, most of the psychology enthusiasts of this era are still people with ideals and ambitions.

For example, Hai Rui, Gao Gong, Zhang Juzheng, Xu Jie, etc.

They are all practitioners of psychology today, but their respective ideas of practice are very similar.

Judging from Hai Rui's life experience, Hai Rui should have practiced the positive aspects of Wang Yangming's philosophy of mind, namely the unity of knowledge and action, consistency between theory and action, as well as Wang Yangming's advocacy of "being honest" and opposing the hypocritical "hypocritical" style.

Judging from the life experiences of Gao Gong and Zhang Juzheng, they should have practiced the "pragmatism" of Yangming's philosophy of mind, believing that "if it is based on righteousness, then all benefits are righteousness; if it is based on benefits, then all righteousness is benefits", and as long as the relationship between justice and benefits is balanced, it is not bad to talk about benefits, and denounced the pedantic view that "a gentleman does not talk about benefits". They attach importance to financial management and advocate pragmatism.

As for people like Xu Jie, it is a bit ambiguous. On the one hand, he covets the benefits of Yangming's philosophy of mind, and on the other hand, he cannot let go of the benefits of traditional Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism. In the end, he is ambiguous and puts all his thoughts and energy on "forbearance" and so-called righteousness. In the end, he becomes a giant in morality but a dwarf in action.

This has to be said to be the tragedy of people like Xu Jie.

When fighting against the Yan Party, he could be the hope and leader of the entire Qingliu, but after the fall of the Yan Party, he might just be another Yan Party member.

So we can only say that this type of people are toxic, which doesn’t have much practical significance.

It is impossible to achieve outstanding political achievements based on reality like Hai Rui, Gao Gong, Zhang Juzheng and others!

(End of this chapter)