The Ming Dynasty's Five Hundred Years

Chapter 223 The Iron Curtain Opens!

How could Li Xianmu allow someone to rise to a high position by stepping on his father?

When the argument began to stray from reason, Li Xianmu stepped out of the ranks, and the dispute gradually subsided.

Now he is a highly influential minister in the court, and everyone must listen carefully to his words.

Even Zhu Di slowly sat up straight. "Xianmu, do you have something to say?"

Li Xianmu didn't say much to the Hanlin scholars, but instead asked everyone directly: "Before the re-election of the Confucian Temple, we jointly set the criteria for being selected for the Confucian Temple. If you can be selected, you can be selected; if you can't be selected, you can't be selected."

Whether Zhu Xi was qualified to be enshrined in the Temple of Literature depended on whether he met the standards; no further comment was made.

Li Xianmu seemed to be talking nonsense, but everyone understood his meaning: were Zhu Xi's two standards sufficient?
If we look at it from the perspective of the Three Immortals, it is certainly not enough. Those Hanlin scholars did not expect that Li Xianmu would not discuss specific examples of Zhu Xi, but instead emphasized the rules and standards again.

This was clearly a trap set from the beginning, just waiting for them to fall in. Everyone's faces were pale; no one expected this. Li Xianmu was truly composed, managing to endure until now.

Those scholars who had spent their lives studying the classics were speechless. The more they thought about it, the more a chill ran through them, from the soles of their feet to the top of their heads. If they were to overturn the previous standards now, it would not be a simple matter.

Moreover, this would be extremely detrimental to Zhu Xi's reputation. After all, the rules were specially modified for Zhu Xi before he was enshrined in the Confucian Temple, which would imply that Zhu Xi was a person who benefited from connections.

Not to mention being criticized in modern times, it was a major taboo in ancient times, and would be highly criticized, even limiting one's future prospects.

Zhu Di hadn't expected that Li Xianmu hadn't even exerted any effort; it was just a simple trap that had ensnared them, leaving them unable to escape.

Seeing this, Jian Yi shook his head speechlessly. No wonder these people could only spend their whole lives compiling history in the Hanlin Academy.

What great things can one accomplish by being confined by rules?
He could not accept that Zhu Xi was not among the Ten Philosophers. Seeing that the Neo-Confucian scholars had been so easily cornered by Li Xianmu, he stepped out of the queue.

“Vice-Host Li, I have something to say.”

"Heavenly Official, please speak. Your Majesty, listen attentively."

Li Xianmu remained calm. He didn't think this small trap could really prevent Zhu Xi from becoming one of the Ten Philosophers. It might be able to deal with those old Hanlin scholars, but someone like Jian Yi, who had been in officialdom for more than ten years, was not easy to deal with.

Jian Yi spoke very calmly, without any sign of anxiety. He solemnly said, "What Vice-Prefect Li just mentioned about the three immortalities is indeed the standard of a sage."

But it's also too extreme.

Moreover, Mencius is already enshrined in the Temple of Literature.

As to how Neo-Confucianism compares to the principles of benevolence and righteousness, opinions will vary, and I will not elaborate further here.

It is said that Li Zhongwen once entered the Daoist path through Zhu Xi's teachings, and even Vice-Prefect Li took the imperial examinations based on Zhu Xi's teachings, making him a disciple of Zhu Xi in later generations.

Zhu Xi's establishment of his teachings alone is enough to earn him a place among the Ten Philosophers. If the sages and teachers of countless scholars in our Great Ming Dynasty cannot be included among the Ten Philosophers, wouldn't the Confucian scholars of our Great Ming Dynasty become a joke?

What does Vice-Prefect Li think? Jian Yi's words immediately invigorated the group of old scholars who admired Neo-Confucianism, as well as the elderly people who came to watch. They abandoned the trap of the so-called "three immortalities" and directly pointed out the two most advantageous aspects of Zhu Xi.

He was the greatest synthesizer of Confucianism during the Song Dynasty and the teacher of millions of Confucian scholars during the Ming Dynasty.

The latter's identity, in particular, caused Zheng Huan and the others to change their expressions.

Thirty-one years during the Hongwu reign, three years during the Jianwen reign, and seventeen years during the Yongle reign, Neo-Confucianism had dominated Confucianism in the Ming Dynasty for fifty years. This spanned two generations, and all Confucian scholars grew up studying Zhu Xi's commentaries on the Four Books and Five Classics from a young age.

This is the greatest trump card of the Neo-Confucianists.

Jian Yi believed there was nothing to hesitate about and that they should just reveal this card directly. Even the emperor could not remove Zhu Xi from the list of the Ten Philosophers, since the decision to make Zhu Xi's Neo-Confucianism the official textbook was made by the late emperor, and the current emperor had taken twelve years to make it.

Li Xianmu, however, discerned something deeper: Jian Yi was killing two birds with one stone by claiming that the School of Mind was derived from the School of Principle, which meant he was directly acknowledging himself as the ancestor, elevating Zhu Xi to the Ten Philosophers while simultaneously allowing Zhu Xi to surpass his father, Li Qi.

Li Xianmu couldn't help but smile slightly, but there was no warmth in the smile. Instead, it was like a glacier that had stood for millennia. Looking at Li Xianmu's stern expression, Jianyi couldn't help but shiver, and a sense of unease rose in his heart.

"Just now, Minister Jian said that my late father entered the Dao through the teachings of Zhu Xi, and can be considered a disciple of Zhu Xi. This means that the philosophy of mind is a grand-disciple of the philosophy of principle."

Li Xianmu smiled slightly and looked around at the expressions of the crowd, "I see that many people seem to agree with this statement, it's really..."

How absurd!

Li Xianmu's voice rose, tinged with sarcasm, "Back then, Mozi studied under the Confucian school, and Han Fei and Li Si also studied under Xunzi. Presumably, all three of them considered themselves disciples of the Confucian school."

Once the words were spoken, all was silent!
It was a truly devastating blow. The Mohist school was specifically opposed to the Confucian school, and it thoroughly defeated the Confucianists. The Legalists were even more outrageous, especially Li Si, who was responsible for the burning of books and burying of scholars alive. As a disciple, Li Si really ruined his teacher's life. Xunzi's later status was far inferior to Mencius's, which was inseparable from Li Si's influence.

Li Xianmu's words were too obvious. To say that the School of Mind is a descendant of the School of Principle is really just flattering himself.

Grand Secretary Yang Rong stepped forward from the ranks and spoke with great conviction:

"Zhu Xi talked about investigating things to extend knowledge, but he could not investigate things, nor could he make Confucian scholars understand the truth of knowledge. He said a lot of empty words that he could not do. Li Zhongwen's philosophy of mind answered these questions one by one, and had a new theory that could perfectly explain these. The philosophy of mind was born from the philosophy of reason."
Big mistake!

This is clearly a field of study that developed from the critique of Neo-Confucianism!

Minister Jian, you'd better not utter such mocking remarks; you'll only become a laughingstock to the world!

The philosophy of mind arose from a critique of Neo-Confucianism!

Yang Rong's words stirred up a huge controversy. His statement was almost as powerful as Winston Churchill's Iron Curtain speech, which created a rift between two opposing camps. Yang Rong's words, however, set the School of Mind and the School of Principle firmly in opposition.

Li Xianmu did not intend to stop Yang Rong. Emperor Yongle, Zhu Di, still had about six years left to live, after which he would usher in his golden age. After these years of development, the School of Mind had grown much stronger and was no longer as vulnerable as it once was. Now it was almost time to completely wage war against the School of Neo-Confucianism.

(End of this chapter)