I am not Yuan Shu

Chapter 49: Interpretation of Mencius

In order to develop the steel enterprise, the money and resources that had not been used up in the previous agricultural assistance campaign were used at this time.

To this end, Yi Xin Hui also recruited carpenters, blacksmiths and other technical talents everywhere, and obtained the support of some technical talents from the families of members who came from wealthy families such as Zhao Jun, Deng Ying, Luo Yi, and Zhang Jie, so as to expand the talent scale of "Yi Xin Steel Co., Ltd." as soon as possible.

Backed by steel production enterprises, with sufficient agricultural tool production capacity, it has indeed provided great support to the agricultural production of self-employed farmers.

As a result, Yixinhui's reputation gradually became famous in Youfufeng, Jingzhao and other places.

The reputation of an agricultural assistance organization that specializes in doing good deeds and charges only a small amount of money has gradually penetrated into the grassroots level and spread among ordinary farmers in Jingzhao and Youfufeng areas, gradually becoming the light of hope in the hearts of these grassroots people.

Of course, some people are definitely unhappy.

The interference of the Yi Xin Society caused them to sit back and watch, forcing the self-cultivating farmers to go bankrupt and then annexing the land, which was greatly hindered.

With the help of the Yi Xin Society, for several months, no self-employed farmers starved to death in Maoling County and several surrounding counties.

They obtained enough farm tools, and with the help of the Yixin Society, they produced large quantities of compost. With the help of water conservancy projects, in the ninth year of Yan Xi, the summer and autumn harvests in these areas were very good, and the output doubled compared to the previous year!
In sharp contrast, a large number of other counties still experienced poor harvests or even no harvests. Many self-cultivating farmers starved to death, much land was annexed, and the powerful landlords in those counties made a living.

Comparing the two, many people have an unbalanced mentality. Even within the Ma family, which Yuan Shu relies on, there are considerable voices of opposition, and people think that what Yuan Shu did is really unkind.

It would be fine if he was doing it himself in Runan County, but now he has come to Youfufeng to do it. Isn't that poaching other people's talents?

The Ma family was able to be so luxurious, obviously through many inhumane things.

Although Ma Rong's suppression made those people of the Ma family dare not act rashly, they were still very unhappy that they could not annex more land or obtain more slave-like tenants.

But they don’t actually have any good solutions themselves.

Because the Isshin Society itself does not occupy any land and does not run agriculture in the name of the organization, they are really just helping self-employed farmers increase food production, just as their organization claims.

They are wholeheartedly devoted to the country and the people, and just don't want to see too many people starve to death, so they sell the organization's own agricultural tools at low prices to help old farmers engage in agricultural production.

This is beneficial to both the old farmers and the national tax revenue, and it also allows me to achieve spiritual sublimation and satisfaction, and take my self-cultivation a step further.

Three birds with one stone.

Is it not good?
Of course it’s not good!

How can we expand our industry if you do this?

The powerful landlords were very dissatisfied with the Yi Xin Society, but they did not dare to act recklessly.

First of all, the Yi Xin Society has the support of Ma Rong, a big Buddha, which makes people dare not touch it. In addition, it has the support of the Yuan family, which makes them even more cautious.

Coupled with the previous experience of the Cai family, they were even more aware of Yuan Shu's brutal methods.

Faced with such a "quasi-charity organization" that is impossible to penetrate, impossible to pour water into, impossible to fry or stew, they were completely dumbfounded.

They had never imagined that one day they would be able to do good things so flawlessly that they would not be able to find a way to deal with the Isshin Society.

Then, bully those old farmers?

Male, very male, more male than male.

The General Affairs Department of Yixinhui is specifically responsible for connecting with the old farmers. Many people take turns to be stationed in various villages to guide them in farming, breeding, and composting in a more scientific way. They can be said to have gone deep into the people, integrated well with the old farmers, and are working very hard with them.

Want to take advantage of a loophole?
There is no space!

That’s right. After Yuan Shu founded the Yi Xin Society, he opened up a special project called agricultural research within the Society.

He said that Yi Xin Hui was not only a quasi-school organization, but also an organization to help farmers, so one must understand agriculture and be idle and ignorant of the five grains.

Everyone had to use their knowledge and talents to collect and learn all the agricultural knowledge they could, summarize it, and conduct research and study. So they searched everywhere for relevant agricultural and industrial books, trying to integrate all the wisdom of the ancients together.

However, Yuan Shu believes that this is not enough. In addition to knowledge from books, one should also ask questions to professionals.

Who are the professionals?

Of course, it’s those old farmers who have been working hard in the fields all their lives.

It sounds magical that scholars asked questions to farmers, but what is even more magical is that Yuan Shu took the lead in shouting out the slogans "Don't be ashamed to ask questions from those who are inferior to you" and "There must be a teacher among three people walking together", and took the lead in asking those experienced farmers about agricultural problems and seeking agricultural knowledge.

The scholars of Yi Xin Society were very moved to see that Yuan Shu, despite his status, could condescend to ask questions from an old farmer, so they followed suit.

Later, Yuan Shu further expressed his views in his lectures.

"Knowledge is the sum of experience. Knowledge comes from practice. Without practice, where does knowledge come from? Without practice, there is no knowledge. The unity of knowledge and practice is applicable everywhere!" "As a scholar, you should have an attitude of not being ashamed to ask questions. There are thousands of pieces of knowledge in the world, and no one can master them all, but those who are not ashamed to ask questions can definitely master more than others."

“When three people walk together, there must be one teacher. The teacher does not have to be stronger than the disciple, and the disciple does not have to be inferior to the teacher. Knowledge is knowledge, and it has nothing to do with identity, status, or origin. We students must not fall into the quagmire without knowing it.”

During many conversations and lectures, Yuan Shu clearly expressed his views and further improved the theoretical system of the study of conscience.

His statement was also acknowledged by the Yi Xin Society. The connection between the Yi Xin Society and the farmers became closer and closer, making it very difficult for those who wanted to interfere.

The powerful landlords in several counties held several meetings to brainstorm and contacted familiar officials, hoping to at least expel the Yi Xin Society from their territories and protect their interests.

However, considering the political power of the Yuan family, local officials did not want to intervene.

To put it bluntly, Yuan Shu is only targeting the self-cultivating farmers and has not infringed upon your interests. Why are you so anxious?

Moreover, not only does the Yuan family have unclear relations with the eunuchs, but they are also a powerful family themselves. This means they have double buffs stacked up. Why would you bother with them if you have nothing to do after having enough food and drink?

Officials are basically good at seeking benefits and avoiding harm. If they don’t even have this ability, what are they doing as officials?

Normally, it would be fine if we just do some trivial things behind closed doors, but now that a really awesome person has come, you'd better focus and take care of your own little piece of land!
The huge difference between local power and national power was vividly reflected at this moment.

Therefore, although the local tyrants in these counties struggled hard and jumped up and down, they didn't make any splash in the end. It was like the splashing water of the Carp King, after a lot of trouble, nothing happened.

It's not that Yuan Shu didn't take precautions in advance, but the messages sent back by the Yi Xin Hui branches showed that the local tycoons didn't take any action at all. Yuan Shu thought about it carefully and felt that what he said was right.

It’s great to enjoy the shade with your back against a big tree!

Time passed slowly, from the hot summer of July to the cold winter of November, Yuan Shu basically completed the annotation of "Mencius". He named his completed annotation of "Mencius" "Mencius Jie Gu" and first showed it to Ma Rong.

Ma Rong had caught a cold since the beginning of winter, and then had a cough. He had not been feeling well, and for a long time he had not gone out to give lectures to his disciples in person. It was his senior students such as Lu Zhi and Yuan Shu who taught on his behalf.

Not many people could meet Ma Rong, and Yuan Shu was one of them.

On the sixth day of November, Yuan Shu took his completed "Mencius Interpretation" to show Ma Rong. Ma Rong, lying on the hospital bed, coughed lightly from time to time, but looked in good spirits.

Seeing Yuan Shu coming, he asked the servant to bring him a cushion. He leaned back on the bed, took the bamboo slips from Yuan Shu's hand, unfolded them and began to read them with relish.

"I've waited for a long time, and finally it's here. But you're really fast, kid. It's only been half a year, and you've already finished the annotation?"

"Knowledge does not become more profound as time goes by. A truly talented person can master profound knowledge in a very short period of time."

Yuan Shu boasted naturally, then looked at Ma Rong's pale face with worry, and said slowly: "Teacher, your illness is not healed yet? Do you take the medicine on time every day?"

Ma Rong flipped through the bamboo slips and slowly shook his head.

"When people get old, their bodies naturally become weaker. Whether they take medicine or not, the feeling is almost the same. The medicine is bitter and uncomfortable to take."

"You have to take medicine even if you feel unwell. Good medicine tastes bitter but is good for the disease. Do I need to tell you this?"

Yuan Shu was dissatisfied and said, "How can I get better if I don't take medicine? If I can't get better, how can I continue to teach and educate people?"

"The Master is already eighty-eight years old."

Ma Rong raised his head, glanced at Yuan Shu, and smiled, "It is rare for a person to live to seventy, let alone eighty-eight? If you can live to this age, how many days do you have left in this world? It's enough."

Yuan Shu remained silent and did not continue speaking.

Ma Rong did not continue speaking, but began to read Yuan Shu's annotations carefully.

The full text of Mencius has more than 30,000 words, and Yuan Shu's annotations are not very long. Including the historical background explanation, which has the most words, there are only more than 80,000 words. Compared with many books that annotate classics, it is relatively short.

Having more words doesn't mean it's correct.

At the beginning, the number of words in the annotations of the Book of Documents, Book of Rites, and Book of Changes by the Modern Literature School were often 400,000 to 500,000, and some were even 600,000 to 700,000. They became more and more complicated, turning the classics into nonsense literature. In the end, even the emperor could not stand it anymore and asked them to revise them.

Therefore, the later scholars of the Modern Literature School had to delete those cumbersome and useless words and sentences. The various schools of the Five Classics and Fourteen Schools of Law generally reduced the content of their own classic annotations by more than 50%, and some categories even deleted 80% of the annotation content.

Yuan Shu never intended to make his annotations into nonsense literature, so he focused on emphasizing the important parts, or calling a horse a zebra, or confusing right and wrong. As for the unimportant parts, he just glossed over them or did not annotate them at all.

Ma Rong read very quickly and he also knew how to pick out the key points. It took him about half an hour to finish reading the seven bamboo slips. Then he put them down and rubbed his eyes.

"Shu, if Mencius were still alive and saw you annotating his article like this, he would probably be so angry that he would draw his sword and duel with you."

Ma Rong looked at Yuan Shu with a smile and said: "With your annotations, when you become a sage, the future generations' views on Mencius will probably change a lot."

(End of this chapter)