The big man has a living father

Chapter 23 But white paper is really good!

Li Cai immediately frowned and wanted to slap his nephew.

You haven't cleaned your ass yet. The person responsible has come and said that there is no culprit in this incident. Even if you don't agree with what he said, you have to accept it!
You object that there is no culprit, so there is one?
Since there is a culprit, then the person who spread the rumor is also guilty?

Your coachman, Li Gan, gossiped and slandered Your Majesty, and he was beheaded. Aren’t you not disciplined enough?

If a noble makes a mistake, his title will be stripped. Do you dare to have a title? Do you want to have your head chopped off?

Li Cai just moved to the side and showed it to Liu Che: I don’t know about this, I didn’t teach this fool.

In fact, Li Gan really learned from Li Cai.

Li Gan discovered that after so many years, his father Li Guang was still unpopular, while his uncle Li Cai was rising rapidly.

Does one have to strive for literary fame to rise to the top? Does one have to lick the boots of others?
Now some people are attacking elegant language. Isn't that equivalent to attacking all literati? If not now, when will we stand up?
Everyone looked at Li Gan.

Huo Hai bowed in confusion: "Which duke is this?"

Li Gan's face suddenly turned red: "I have never been... conferred a title of nobility."

Huo Hai: "What title is your father?"

Li Gan was silent for a moment: "My father was not granted a title of nobility."

Huo Hai understood that the other party had no background, yet he dared to jump, so he took advantage of it and said to Li Gan: "If you are not a noble, a prince, a Confucian scholar, or a high-ranking official in the court, which one do you occupy?"

In fact, the position of Huben Xiaowei, a two thousand stone official, is indeed a high-ranking official. If it is placed in the local area, it would be a frontier governor.

However, Li Gan subconsciously felt that his position was not high enough, so he could only accept it.

Huo Hai: "I said it was a question of elegant language. The great scholars and writers can refute me from a professional perspective, the ministers and princes can refute me from an institutional perspective, and other officials in the court can refute me from an organizational perspective. What does this have to do with you? Is it your turn to speak?"

Liu Che: "Ahem, Huo Hai, this is the court, all officials are qualified to speak, not just high officials."

Huo Hai immediately restrained his expression and smiled: "Your Majesty is right."

But the other ministers and princes were obviously convinced.

Huo Hai was a rising star in the field of poetry and prose. Even before he came of age, he already showed signs of competing with Sima Xiangru. He might well be the future Qu Yuan of the Han Dynasty.

Even if his evaluation of Yayan is wrong, that's fine.

You are just a military man, what are you against?
As for the other military men in the court, all of them were granted titles of nobility. Some were descendants of military heroes who founded the country, while others were granted titles of nobility following Wei Qing and Huo Qubing. No one could jump out to help Li Guang.

There was only one person in the audience who was very conflicted.

This person is the historian who recorded the event on the spot.

He was a disciple of the old historian Sima Tan and a junior fellow of Sima Qian.

Just yesterday, his senior brother Sima Qian married Liu, becoming the son-in-law of Li Guang's granddaughter and becoming a relative of the Li family.

I just attended a wedding banquet. Do I have to write bad things about Li Gan today?
Who doesn't know that General Li Guang's biggest pain was not being granted a title of nobility? What Huo Hai said was really filthy!
Liu Che looked at Huo Hai and said, "Tell me why this matter is blamed on Yayan and bamboo slips."

Huo Hai bowed and said, "Your Majesty, do you still know what the original text of Shanglinfu says?"

Liu Che: "The original text says that people like Qing Qin and Mi Fei are very different from the world."

Translated, it means a gentle and graceful female musician, like the goddess Qingqin Mi Fei, who has an extraordinary and beautiful appearance.

This does not cause any ambiguity at all.

Huo Hai: "But if it is written that Qingqin Mi Fei and her followers are extremely different from the world, then it will cause misunderstanding or rumors."

If it is changed to the following, it can be translated as, Mi Fei and other musicians playing the piano are very beautiful.

In other words, Concubine Mi became one of the musicians.

Liu Che: "Oh, you mean, this article is not easy to punctuate, so it is easy to cause misunderstanding?"

Huo Hai: “No!”

"Punctuation is indeed one of the problems, but the fundamental problem of the article is not punctuation, but the bamboo slips. Bamboo slips are too heavy, and it is not suitable to write long articles, so they need to be concise, which formed the elegant language commonly used in ancient times."

"If the bamboo slips were not so heavy, this sentence could be written as 'The beautiful musician plays the zither with her green jade fingers, and she is as beautiful as Concubine Mi. Such beautiful and charming musicians can be found everywhere in Shanglin Garden.'"

"How could it cause misunderstanding if it is written like this?"

After Huo Hai finished speaking, everyone else stared at him.

We have all tried to write poetry and prose, and have tried to write poetry and prose beautifully. We all speak plain language in our daily lives. But no one has ever spoken plain language so beautifully!
Is this the strength of the author of "The Goddess of Luo River"? !

After Huo Hai finished speaking, Liu Che knew what he was going to do.

Huo Hai was also very anxious.

Huo Hai didn’t know about Gongyang School and Guliang School before.

In recent days, I have been checking the archives of the Prince's Palace and chatting with Qiu Ping, and only then did I learn about the division of Confucianism into Gongyang School and Guliang School.

Gongyang School is now popular, but Guliang School is thriving.

The first principle of Guliang School is the distinction between superiors and subordinates and classes.

The second is that the will of the previous emperor cannot be changed, and the laws of the ancestors cannot be altered.

Why do so many people join Guliang School?
First of all, you joined Guliang School, you are a scholar, and you are naturally of a higher status than others.

Moreover, Guliang School also refuses to allow others to change any rules. As long as you learn, you don't mind how long it takes, because knowledge will not change. Once you have learned, you will definitely be able to make a living with what you have learned.

Isn’t this a stable job?

Wouldn’t it be possible that there weren’t many people who supported Guliang School of Thought?

After meeting Gu Liangxue, Huo Hai realized that if he didn't act quickly, once Gu Liangxue came to power, he would be invincible.

People in the court now do not have the idea that the ancestral laws cannot be changed. It is a good time to overthrow the elegant language and directly use vernacular language.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that elegant language is no longer needed. When we recite poems, compose couplets, or express romantic feelings, we can still be more subtle.

At this time, all the ministers were thinking about what Huo Hai said.

It all seems to be right.

Yes, the biggest problem with writing in elegant language nowadays is that it can easily cause ambiguity.

One is that it is difficult to punctuate sentences, and the other is that even if the punctuation is correct, many of the writings are too brief and prone to errors.

How can you make mistakes if you use vernacular?
Just like Huo Hai, he always made mistakes in the court. But if it was made clear at the beginning that it was Liu Guang, Marquis of Pinggao, how could Huo Hai mistakenly recognize this Liu Guang as the King of Lu?

Liu Che knew that Huo Hai was determined to advertise in the court: "So, how can we make bamboo slips lighter? Or invent a material that is lighter than bamboo slips, so that a book does not need dozens or hundreds of scrolls, but only one scroll?"

Huo Hai: "It has already been invented. When I wrote "The Goddess of Luo River" and visited Chang'an, didn't everyone realize that it was a blank piece of paper?"

“It’s the same paper as hemp paper, but it’s finer, more resilient, larger in size, and cheaper!”

After these words were spoken, many people who were present at the scene that day began to think about it, and suddenly realized that this seemed to be the case.

On that day, "The Goddess of Luo River" was written on a huge, complete white object. At that time, I thought it was a special kind of silk!

Huo Hai smiled and took out a stack of paper from his arms: "This kind of paper is white paper. I opened a paper shop in Xishi to sell paper. If you are interested, you can go and have a look."

We’ll talk about Yayan later, let’s put up the advertisement first!
At this time, in the court, several people had gloomy expressions, and one of them was even gritting his teeth.

This person is Kong Anguo, the eleventh generation grandson of Confucius.

When Kong Anguo saw Huo Hai, it was like seeing himself a few years ago, or to be more precise, seeing a colleague.

Kong Anguo was the second son in the family. Logically, he should not have been taken seriously, nor should he have served as an official in the court.

But, Kong Anguo did something great back then!
The previous generation of King Lu expanded his palace and occupied the original residence of Confucius.

As a result, many volumes of Shangshu were dug out from the wall!

It's written in the language of the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period!

Almost no one knows him! But Kong Anguo knows him!

Kong Anguo translated these texts into the seal script used today, and instantly became a representative figure of the study of "Shangshu" and a young great scholar!
And today, when Kong Anguo saw Huo Hai making trouble here, he clearly saw that Huo Hai wanted to abolish the elegant language, and then translate all the poems, books and classics into vernacular, and translate them into his own version!
If Huo Hai succeeds in doing this, won’t I, Kong Anguo, be unemployed?
At this time, everyone was rushing to look at the white paper. Kong Anguo said: "Although the white paper is good, there is nothing wrong with elegant words!"

Everyone turned around.

Kong Anguo continued: "If there is a mistake, it is because some people are ignorant and cannot understand the true meaning of the classics. If we change the classical language into vernacular, wouldn't that mean that the learned people are compromising with the unlearned people?"

As soon as these words were spoken, everyone was thinking about it.

Hey, that seems to make sense.

(End of this chapter)