My younger brother Zhuge Liang

Chapter 813 Zhuge Situ Asks Wang Situ to Ask a Question
"Brother is really far-sighted. The setting of these subjects for recruiting officials seems to be a compromise to the wealthy families, but in fact, it tries to incorporate as much content as possible so that scholars from poor families can study hard and win with their talents.

What's more, these contents are all the real skills and knowledge needed for being an official, and there is no useless knowledge that is simply compromised for the sake of compromise.

Your Majesty advised me to preside over the imperial examinations that day, but I insisted that my vision in this regard was far inferior to that of my elder brother. Now it seems that my words that day were indeed prescient. "

One day in mid-February, Zhuge Liang came to the residence of Situ and sat with his elder brother.

While they were playing chess, they chatted about the recent events and experiences in preparing for the imperial examinations. Zhuge Liang couldn't help but express his feelings. He lamented that he was indeed not as good as his elder brother in terms of top-level system design.

His strengths lie more in his ability to adapt to circumstances and act according to circumstances. After a policy is implemented, he finds loopholes as quickly as possible, then fills in the gaps and iterates quickly.

But when it comes to conceiving a new system out of thin air, Zhuge Liang is not a god after all, and he has no historical answers to copy, so it is no surprise that he is not as good as his elder brother.

One of the brothers was in charge of the underlying architecture, and he had already thought about what kind of project he wanted to do from the beginning.

The other one is responsible for writing code and implementing it, and is also responsible for fixing bugs as soon as they are discovered.

The two brothers have been working together for nearly twenty years, so they are naturally familiar with the process.

Zhuge Jin did not feel proud at all about his second brother's flattery. It was obvious that he had gotten used to it over the years.

He took advantage of Zhuge Liang's distraction and used a combination of horse moves to pull out the chariot, taking out one of Zhuge Liang's pieces. Then he said calmly:

"Why are we talking about all this? Let's first look at how to better implement this exam, which will start in a dozen days. The questions for other subjects have been prepared, and I have personally reviewed and revised them. However, I still need my second brother's help in considering the Confucian classics. I dare not ask outsiders for help, for fear of leaking the questions."

Zhuge Liang was suddenly hit by a move and was confused for a few seconds. He was really distracted because he was busy chatting just now.

Over the years, he has figured it out. Every time he plays chess with his elder brother, his elder brother was willing to play Go in the early years, but gradually he found that he could not beat him in Go, so he had to switch to chess.

Xiangqi existed during the Han Dynasty, but it did not have 32 pieces like later generations, and the rules were also different. Later generations of Xiangqi went through many evolutions and it was not until the Northern Song Dynasty that it was finally finalized.

However, since Zhuge Jin is Situ, he can completely improve chess and adjust the rules. Therefore, everyone who plays chess in the Han Dynasty now uses the version improved by Zhuge Situ.

Of course, there are people in remote areas who are not well-informed and still download older versions, which is also normal.

When Zhuge Jin first improved chess, he relied on his greater familiarity with the rules and tactics to defeat his second brother.

Unfortunately, after a few years, Zhuge Liang made rapid progress, and Zhuge Jin gradually lost more than he won. But no matter what, the winning rate of chess is higher than that of go, and it is more competitive and entertaining. When the second brother is distracted, he can often steal one.

Zhuge Liang calmed down and spent more than a dozen moves to slowly turn the disadvantage around before continuing with the topic:

"Classics is also the most tested subject. When Yangjia was reformed, there were established exam papers to refer to. It has been held for more than ten years. How difficult can the questions be?"

Zhuge Jin: "It is not difficult to come up with test questions. But this is the first time that the country has held an imperial examination. What exactly is the content of the classics test? Is it unprecedented? Is it thought-provoking enough to set an example for future generations? That will require a lot of skill.

This exam will be recorded in history and will be cited again and again by future generations. It cannot fall into the trap of textual research and debate. "

Zhuge Liang: "Brother, you must have already thought about what to test? You also thought about what ideas you want to promote to the world, but you don't know how to forcibly combine the things you want to test with the saints' views?"

Zhuge Liang guessed his elder brother's intention almost at the first word.

He knew his elder brother too well and knew that the thing that could make him so distressed must be that his elder brother wanted to promote his political ideas, especially his orthodoxy that he had been talking about for a long time, and other things related to "the prosperity of the palace" or something else.

Unfortunately, the theories that my brother has been talking about for so many years can be used for academic debates, but there are problems when using them for exams, because many of the arguments are not from Confucius, nor from the core classics of Confucianism.

Zhuge Jin didn't find it strange that his intention was guessed.

It’s no big deal if my second brother guessed it right. I had originally asked him to discuss this final step with me.

"The one who knows me best is my dear brother," Zhuge Jin admitted openly, and then changed the subject, "In fact, I just want this first imperial examination in the world to focus on the passage in Mencius: King Hui of Liang, 'How can the world be unified? If it is unified by one, who can unify it? Only those who do not like to kill can unify it.'

In the first year of the Jian'an reign of the late emperor, I went to Xudu on behalf of my lord to meet the emperor. I made a private speech in the Shiqu Pavilion and expressed that truth.

The purpose of a ruler gaining the world is not to gain the world itself, nor to unify it, but to make it so that people no longer have to fight civil wars and to reduce the burden of corvée and military service. Unification is only a means, and the goal is to free people from the additional burden of civil war.

Unfortunately, this logic is ultimately only related to this one sentence in Mencius. I can't find any other evidence after searching the entire book. It can be said that I am completely borrowing Mencius for my own use, and I only took one sentence, and the rest don't matter.

But the exam cannot be conducted like this. If the questions are so far-fetched, firstly, it will not convince the public. Secondly, I have been a prime minister for many years, and my ideas have actually been thoroughly understood by scholars all over the world. I am afraid that they will guess the questions to please their superiors.

There is another difficulty, that is, the status of Mencius is not high enough nowadays. After all, it is not a "classic". If you want to directly use Mencius' words to make test questions, but not test other classics at all, I am afraid it will be difficult to convince the public. "

Zhuge Jin told him everything about his difficulties. During the whole process, because he was distracted, he was inevitably defeated by Zhuge Liang.

During the Han Dynasty, the status of "Mencius" was still relatively low within the Confucian circle, and nowadays there is not even the concept of the Four Books.

Not to mention "Mencius", even "The Analects of Confucius" does not have a high status.

After all, even what Confucius himself said is not that valuable. What is more valuable than Confucius’ words is “Confucius’ quoting and elaborating on Zhou Gong’s words.”

It’s like before Jack Ma became the richest man, what he said was not valuable enough, so he had to pretend that what he said was said by Bill Gates.

Before Confucius was canonized as a saint, he often attributed his own words to the Duke of Zhou, saying that he was only "narrating but not writing."

Coincidentally, in the West at the same time, Socrates only spoke and debated throughout his life and left no written works. As a result, when Plato recorded Socrates' words and deeds, he included a lot of his own personal opinions. He did not say that they were said by himself, but insisted that they were said by Socrates.

Throughout history, both in China and abroad, before becoming famous, people have always relied on predecessors who were more famous. This is an old routine that has been used everywhere.

Top-notch people like the Zhuge Jin and Zhuge Liang brothers certainly know the ins and outs of this.

Zhuge Liang then put himself in his elder brother's shoes and thought for a while, then said after careful consideration: "Well, although I haven't thought of any good ideas at the moment, I will take care of this matter for you. It's just a matter of finding some passages from the Thirteen Classics, which should reflect your consistent views and be as authoritative as possible.

But in my opinion, these are just stopgap measures. To solve the problem in the long run, reshape the orthodox theory in the future, and completely replace Dong Zhongshu's theory of the interaction between heaven and man with a new and more applicable theory, the key is to systematically enhance the status of "The Analects" and "Mencius". The era of studying "The Book of History" and "The Spring and Autumn Annals" and looking for historical basis in them is over. "Zhuge Liang said this, on the one hand, to take over the current task first, and he would help to figure out the specific Confucian classics questions. Even if he is not good at this, Zhuge Liang at least knows how to split and coordinate better than Zhuge Jin.

He had plenty of ways to find "substitute readers" and subcontract the content he wanted to the contemporary great scholars in his own camp to "debate for me". He could also ensure that the questions would not be leaked and no single great scholar would be able to guess his complete test questions.

Wang Lang, Chen Lin, Xu Jing, these people can all be used.

Even though Wang Lang was scolded to death by Zhuge Liang in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, when he studied official history, he still had a very in-depth study on the idea that "the destiny of heaven changes, the magical weapons are replaced, and they are returned to the people with virtue."

Wang Lang had been immersed in the concept of "a virtuous person" for many years.

In this life, Wang Lang was considered a loyal minister of the Han Dynasty. When Liu Bei attacked and destroyed Sun Ce, Wang Lang refused to surrender to Sun Ce and would rather flee to central Fujian to continue resisting. He held out until Liu Bei attacked and avenged him.

After Sun Ce was defeated, Wang Lang was invited by Liu Bei as a guest official, and his status was so high that he was just a mascot. If it weren't for the Zhuge brothers and other meritorious officials who took up all the high positions, Wang Lang would have been able to get a level like a minister.

Although Wang Lang could no longer be Prime Minister Wang, he had the opportunity to participate in Zhuge Prime Minister's "first imperial examination question setter" circle, which could be considered a kind of compensation.

Seeing that his second brother had an idea, Zhuge Jin put his worries to rest and left it to Zhuge Liang to worry about.

What made Zhuge Jin even more concerned was that his second brother actually shared his thoughts and felt that it was time to elevate Mencius' status, rather than just respecting the oldest Five Classics as before.

Historically, it was not until the Song Dynasty that Mencius' status was elevated.

First, Sima Guang in the Northern Song Dynasty elevated Mencius in his "Zizhi Tongjian". Then, Zhu Xi in the Southern Song Dynasty read Sima Guang's works and wrote "Zizhi Tongjian Gangmu", which elevated Mencius again.

Later, Zhu Xi's status in Confucianism was very high, and he wrote a collection of annotations on the Four Books, in which Mencius was completely included.

The benefits of elevating Mencius are, of course, very obvious, because it would systematically introduce the concept of good governance that "the people are more important than the king."

Before, Dong Zhongshu relied on the interaction between heaven and man, and only quoted Zhou Gong and Confucius. To put it bluntly, he hoped that "heaven" would scare "the king". If the king did not do well, heaven would be sensitive and send down disasters to tell the king that the destiny had changed. If he did not correct it, the magic weapon would have to be replaced.

Whether the destiny of heaven is on the side of the ruler, in theory, depends on whether the people are willing to obey and live and work in peace and contentment. Heaven represents the will of the people. However, this representation is ultimately separated by a layer, and it requires the help of many supernatural things, which is not only inefficient, but also easy to be exploited by others.

People like Zhang Jiao made great use of the so-called destiny.

Today, it has been more than ten years since the Zhuge brothers invented woodblock printing, and the cost of reading for people all over the world is also decreasing.

Science and engineering subjects, especially mathematics, which is relatively easy to popularize, are also being studied by more and more people, and are now included in the catalogue of imperial examinations.

As long as mathematics progresses and people have a little more common sense in natural sciences, it will be natural for the idea to gradually shift from "the people need representatives of heaven to judge whether the monarch is virtuous" to "whether the people can directly judge whether the monarch is virtuous."

Originally in history, this concept gradually took shape in the Song Dynasty because the Song Dynasty popularized the imperial examination system and woodblock printing.

Including Wang Anshi, Sima Guang and others, when they saw reports of disasters such as comets and solar eclipses, their attitude was "Today, anyone with a little common sense knows that these are just the laws of nature. However, if we can use the opportunity to make those in power fearful and make everyone reflect on themselves, then there is nothing wrong with continuing to pretend that these things are God's will."

It can be seen that Wang Anshi and Sima Guang both understood the natural laws behind celestial phenomena and disasters.

Today, the Zhuge brothers have reached this step nearly a thousand years ahead of schedule.

Then we should take advantage of this opportunity of the imperial examination to vigorously promote the status of "Mencius", gradually replace the theory of the correspondence between heaven and man, and directly state that "whether the emperor is virtuous and worthy of the world depends on whether his unification and his accession to the throne have freed the people from the burden of civil war and reduced the total burden on the people."

This further concretizes the idea that "people are the most important, the country is second, and the emperor is the least important", and also combines this idea with "how can the world be stable?" to verify each other.

Liu Bei's unification this time was certainly a virtuous act, because before he unified the country, the people under the rule of the various princes in the world would have to perform heavier corvee labor, military service, and pay more taxes and grain.

Zhuge Jin planned to take advantage of the idea promoted by the imperial examination to privately advise Liu Bei and establish an agreement between the emperor and the people of the world.

When the world is unified in the future, we must count how heavy the taxes were and how long the corvee labor was for the people under the rule of each prince before unification.

In the future, even if we do not consider military service, and only consider corvée and taxes, the burden on the people must be lighter than this - unless there is an active invasion of the Han Dynasty by foreign enemies, and the Han Dynasty is threatened with extinction by foreign races, such as the great disaster similar to the Xiongnu and Xianbei in the past.

Then the burden of military service can be increased again, but there must still be a fixed amount for money and grain taxes. If the emperor wants to spend more money on the military, he has to save it from royal expenses or other aspects.

Of course, these are still very preliminary ideas, but in general, Zhuge Jin's guiding ideology is Mencius' series of views.

If the burden after unification is heavier than before unification, then wouldn’t all the expectations of the people be in vain?

……

Zhuge Liang discussed this matter with his elder brother for a long time, and he also felt that with the emperor's benevolence, this matter should be approved.

“It is also thanks to the fact that Your Majesty is in power now and has such trust in us, even if your and my proposals may slightly restrict the power of the monarch in the long run, and be more severe than Dong Zhongshu’s restrictions back then, Your Majesty will probably still agree.

After all, according to this theory, the Han Dynasty did not gain the world because of the decline of Qin's virtue, but because Qin Shihuang was immoral. After unifying the world, the burden was heavier than before unification, because he levied so much corvee labor, so he deserved to perish from the beginning.

In the future, the emperors of the Han Dynasty must also know that as long as there are too many corvées, they will die. Virtue comes from reducing corvées.

If it can allow the Han Dynasty to obtain the "Yuan De" from the beginning, even if it limits some of the imperial power, Your Majesty will probably agree to it. "

Zhuge Jin was also very pleased to see that his second brother finally understood his design. He also added:

"In fact, at the beginning, I also thought of another possibility. After all, your majesty is more than twenty years older than you and more than fifteen years older than me. In addition, your majesty has been in battle for many years and has old injuries from his early years. In the future, a hundred years later, you and I will definitely be able to assist in the government for many more years.

If we implement this kind of orthodox reform at the national level at that time, perhaps there will be less resistance. However, I don’t want future history books to describe you and me as regents who monopolize power.

If I implement these things again when I assist the young master in the future, people in later generations will say, "We are not sure that we can win these rights in the hands of the master of revival and reconstruction, so we can only trust the wisdom of future generations."

Fortunately, your majesty is kind and trusts us, so we should have done these things from the beginning."

(End of this chapter)