A live-streamed Chinese language lesson under the sky—the ancients were taken aback.

Two days later, the sky lit up again, and during those two days, earth-shattering changes had taken place.

Chang'an City, Taiji Hall.

Emperor Taizong of Tang, Li Shimin, announced at a court assembly that two new subjects, "arithmetic" and "policy essays," would be added to the Imperial Academy, and that women would also be allowed to enroll, with Empress Zhangsun personally supervising their studies.

The female students were temporarily unable to participate in the imperial examinations, but he said to his ministers, "Not taking the exams today does not mean we will never take them. If my descendants can advance further, I will smile in the afterlife."

In Weiyang Palace, Emperor Wu of Han, Liu Che, finished reviewing the last memorial concerning women's education.

Princess Pingyang's girls' school has already enrolled its first batch of students.

He wrote four words on the memorial: "I understand."

Outside Xianyang Palace, Ying Zheng was still standing there.

The Qin Dynasty had a history of appointing women to official positions; anyone whose talent he recognized could be given important responsibilities in the Qin Dynasty.

All he wanted to know was how that thin writing implement was made.

"Pass down the order: whoever can create this item will be rewarded with ten thousand gold pieces."

This decree later sparked a minor technological revolution.

Shen Moyan, on the sky screen, began her class. She glanced around the classroom; it was the first class of the morning, and the students were all a little drowsy.

"Class, we were supposed to be learning a new lesson today, but several of you asked me the same question privately. I'll answer it in class now, and we can also review the two lessons we just learned."

"Xiaoling, repeat your question again."

"Well... when we studied 'The New Year's Sacrifice,' the teacher said that Xianglin's wife was devoured by feudal ethics, with things like chastity arches and clan and husband power. When we studied 'Kong Yiji,' you said he was devoured by the imperial examination system. These two things seem unrelated, but they both focus on the Ming and Qing dynasties. Why the Ming and Qing dynasties? Why wasn't it this serious before?"

Shen Moyan looked at the whole class.

"What you're actually asking is why Chinese society seemed to suddenly change during the Ming and Qing dynasties, with women being controlled extremely strictly and examinations being incredibly rigorous? These two things have a common root."

She picked up the chalk, turned around, and wrote a word on the blackboard: rules.

"Let me tell you a story first, not from the textbook, but from history."

You all learned about Zhu Yuanzhang, the founding emperor of the Ming Dynasty, in your history class.

What did he do? He deposed the prime minister.

Before him, every emperor in Chinese history had a prime minister, who was the head of the government.

The emperor manages major affairs, while the prime minister manages daily affairs.

The prime minister has his own team and institutionalized power, and to a certain extent, he can say no to the emperor.

But Zhu Yuanzhang removed him from that position.

From the thirteenth year of the Hongwu reign onwards, China no longer had a prime minister.

The Six Ministries were directly under the Emperor's control, and the Emperor himself became the Prime Minister.

She turned around.

"What does this mean? It means that no one can check the emperor anymore."

In the past, the prime minister could offer some advice, but now no one can.

The entire empire was kept running by the emperor alone.

Zhu Yuanzhang himself was an iron man; he could handle two hundred memorials a day.

But what about his descendants? Those princes and grandsons who grew up in the deep palace had neither the ability nor the energy of Zhu Yuanzhang.

Since there was no prime minister to share the burden with them, they had to find others to help them, which led to the creation of Grand Secretaries of the Inner Cabinet and eunuchs of the Directorate of Ceremonial.

However, these people were not institutionalized prime ministers; their power depended entirely on whether the emperor trusted them.

"Today they trust you, you're the prime minister; tomorrow they turn their backs, you'll be back home farming."

What are the consequences of this power structure?

The emperor became increasingly lonely and fearful.

Without institutional allies, everyone can be an enemy.

In his later years, Zhu Yuanzhang ruthlessly killed his meritorious officials, not because those officials actually wanted to rebel, but because he could not tolerate the existence of anyone who was not under his complete control.

This fear was passed down to his descendants, becoming the underlying characteristic of the imperial power of the Ming and Qing dynasties.

She walked to the blackboard, drew an arrow under the rules, and wrote: "Be obedient."

"When an emperor doesn't need anyone to check and balance him, his core requirement for his subordinates is no longer that they are capable, but that they are obedient."

The principle is very simple. Think about it: if you were someone that no one dared to control, what kind of person would you hire?

Should you choose the most capable person or the most obedient one? The most capable person has ideas, a temper, and may sometimes argue with you; the most obedient person won't.

"The emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties increasingly favored those who were obedient, which became part of the political DNA of the Ming dynasty."

Obedience was considered a matter of integrity among scholar-officials; a loyal minister did not serve two masters, which was a matter of political loyalty to the emperor.

In women, this is called chastity; a virtuous woman does not serve two husbands, which is sexual fidelity to her husband.

Have you noticed that these two things are actually the same thing?

She wrote two lines on the blackboard:

A subject's loyalty = absolute loyalty to the emperor

A woman's virtue = absolute loyalty to her husband

"The emperor needs his subjects to be as loyal to him as virtuous women who remain chaste."

Commending martyrs is setting an example for the whole world: look, this is what loyalty is all about.

If you protect it, we'll erect a stone for you, so that your name will be remembered for eternity.

If you can't hold on, you'll become like Xianglin's wife.

After the Qing Dynasty entered the Central Plains, the situation became even more unique.

The Qing emperors were Manchus, and they ruled over tens of millions of Han Chinese.

What is the greatest fear of a foreign emperor sitting on the dragon throne?

It wasn't a corrupt official, nor a mediocre minister; it was the distinction between the civilized and the barbarian in the hearts of Han Chinese scholars.

You are a foreigner, what right do you have to rule us?

Therefore, he needs his subjects to prove his loyalty even more.

He praised virtuous and chaste women even more enthusiastically than the Ming emperors, because women who remained chaste served as living examples of loyalty for their subjects.

He stipulated even more strictly than the Ming Dynasty that the imperial examinations could only test knowledge of Zhu Xi's philosophy, because Zhu Xi's philosophy emphasized the fundamental principles of loyalty between ruler and subject.

She paused for a moment to let the students process the information.

"Okay, that's the political reason, but there's another reason, which you might not expect, that's the technical reason."

She turned around and wrote two words on the blackboard: Printing.

"The Song Dynasty invented movable type printing, but it was the Ming Dynasty that truly popularized printing technology."

By the mid-to-late Ming Dynasty, the printing cost of books had dropped significantly, and officially printed copies of the "Complete Collection of the Four Books" and "Complete Collection of Human Nature and Principle" could be distributed to every county school across the country.

The "Biographies of Exemplary Women" that the imperial court commended could be printed into booklets and circulated among rural women.

Why did Cheng Yi of the Song Dynasty say that starving to death is a small matter but losing one's integrity is a big matter, yet this did not have a widespread impact in the Song Dynasty?

Because books were too expensive back then, it would take decades for the old master's words to reach the countryside.

But by the Ming Dynasty, his words were printed out, distributed, and carved into a stone tablet erected at the village entrance.

A village woman may be illiterate, but when she passes the chastity archway at the village entrance, she knows what it means.

"Therefore, the stagnation of the Ming and Qing dynasties was a result of both political and technological factors."

Politically, the imperial power is becoming increasingly autocratic, requiring increasingly obedient people.

Technically, the widespread use of printing made unified thought control possible.

These two factors combined squeeze the entire society into a pre-set mold.

For women, the mold is called chastity.

For scholars, the template is called the "eight-legged essay".

"Anything that can't be stuffed in is waste."

She turned around and looked at the whole class.

"Now let's answer your question: why are these two things concentrated in the Ming and Qing dynasties? Because they are essentially the same thing."

They are all creating standardized people.

Standardized men are manufactured through the eight-legged essay; your thoughts cannot deviate from Zhu Xi's annotations, and your writings cannot deviate from the fixed format.

Standardized women are created through the concept of chastity: your body cannot exceed the husband's ownership, and your desires cannot exceed the boundaries of the family.

Kong Yiji and Xianglin's Wife are both defective products rejected from the standardized assembly line.

She paused for a second.

"Kong Yiji did not meet the standards for the imperial examination. He failed the exam and was therefore deprived of his right to be a human being."

Xianglin's wife did not meet the standard of chastity because she had been married to two men, so she was disqualified from participating in the blessing ceremony.

Their tragedy was not caused by a whim of some emperor.

This is the natural result of this standardized logic operating for five or six hundred years.