Emperor Ming Dynasty

Chapter 1015 Qin Xue
A feast, the guests and the host enjoyed themselves.

After Sun Shining left, the magistrate was relieved.

The staff at the side wondered: "Dong Weng, although this grandson is from a foreign relative, but my dynasty has always banned foreign relatives, why do you associate with him like this?"

"Once you make Qingliu unhappy, your official career will be in jeopardy..."

Zhixian wiped off his sweat, and sat slumped on the chair, already exhausted.

The maid at the side quickly delivered the ice shavings, and took several mouthfuls before recovering.

His face was slightly relaxed, and he said: "You only know one thing, but you don't know the other thing."

"Your Majesty's repeated orders, the lessons from the previous dynasty are not far away, so the emphasis on business will benefit, the people will be relieved of their difficulties, and the most important thing is to ban the party and secure the court."

"Nowadays, the imperial examination does not select high-ranking ministers to be the main examiner, and the rural and general examinations are reduced in complexity, just to prevent party disputes."

Having said that, the staff on the side nodded repeatedly.

This is the proclamation of the Ming Gongpao for many years, and it is also the main point of the examinations over the years. Scholars have always taken it as a warning and kept it in their hearts.

Party disputes, tired farmers, and lack of silver.

These are the three major disadvantages of the former Ming Dynasty.

The folks also summed up the other two items of Zonglu and corruption, totaling five items.

"Now Yan Shoufu has great prestige in the cabinet, and the court is still stable, but the party struggle has been hidden in the dark."

Zhixian shook his head, full of emotion.

The staff frowned. He was also a scholar, and he didn't know a little about the officialdom, but he knew a lot, but these words still made him puzzled.

"Is it the nobles of Shaanxi? Or the dispute between the South and the North?"

"No."

The magistrate stood up, with a melancholy expression on his face: "The foundation of honor lies in the army, but each province has a governor, and now there is a governor. Your Majesty's right-handedness is known to all the people."

"I remember that in the early years of Shaowu, there was still the rule of governing several provinces, but it has been abolished long ago."

As he spoke, he took a sip of tea, and seeing the latter's puzzled face and his eyes full of inquiry, he continued:
"Huguang is divided into two, and Nanzhili is divided into three. How can there be any Chu Party or Donglin Party now?"

The staff was stunned, but the doubts on their faces were indeed even worse.

"What's the partisanship?"

"The current battle is a battle of ideas."

Zhixian said softly.

"In the past, the science of mind and the science of Neo-Confucianism quarreled endlessly, but as long as the stereotyped essays are in place for a day, Neo-Confucianism will not tend to be inferior, and it is easy to handle."

"But nowadays, stereotyped writing only applies to children's examinations, and new methods are used in the rural examinations and general examinations. Over the years, new ideas will naturally emerge."

"No way?" The staff was shocked: "My Neo Confucianism has not fallen for hundreds of years, how can the mind study gain the upper hand?"

Hearing the words, the magistrate was silent for a while, with a melancholy expression on his face: "It's not Xinxue, but Qinxue."

"Qin Xue?"

The staff were dumbfounded.

In his understanding, this is the school of Song Dynasty, and the famous Zhang Zai's four sentences have been passed down through the ages.

But hadn’t he long since disappeared under the pressure of Neo-Confucianism?How did you die and revive?

"It's not Neo-Confucianism in the Song Dynasty, but Gu Yanwu, a native of Kunshan, Jiangsu, honored as Mr. Tinglin. He lectured in Huayin, Shaanxi, and heard about it for several years. Later, he was recruited to Beijing and participated in "History of the Former Ming Dynasty."

It was him...

As for Gu Yanwu, the staff knew his name in Shaanxi, and they never imagined that he would create a school and become more and more famous.

But to talk about suppressing Neo-Confucianism is a bit of a fantasy.

"It pays attention to the practicality of the world, business and industry are the foundation, benefits the country and enriches the people, and empty talk harms the country, etc., has already made a name for Nuo University in Beijing. Many meritorious children and Guozijian students listen to his lectures. It can be said that It is famous all over the world."

The magistrate said enviously.

"I heard that there are Zheng Sen, Huang Zongxi, Wang Fuzhi, Zhu Zhiyu, Fang Yizhi, Shaanxi Li Yong, Zhili Rongcheng Sun Qifeng, etc. as friends in the court..."

"The Chief Assistant Yan Chongxin is very pleased with it, and especially loves his theory of emphasizing business, and the court has benefited greatly from it."

When the staff heard this, they were stunned.

"Then, what about His Majesty?"

"Your Majesty is indifferent." Zhixian sighed: "But sometimes acquiescing is also a kind of certainty!"

Gu Yanwu's advocacy of Qin studies has won a lot of recognition from the court over the past ten years, and even won the love of many nobles.

Especially when the word Qin was named, a group of warriors only knew that their hometown was famous for it, so they didn't know what it was about. In addition, the court and the emperor didn't object, so they immediately scrambled to make their children worship him as their teacher.

This is a top-down model with extremely low difficulty, and then quickly spreads.

But Xinxue is bottom-up, coupled with the danger of being absorbed and annexed by Qinxue, it has already become weak.

Neo Confucianism, as an official school for hundreds of years, is rooted in the imperial examinations. Naturally, it is not easy to see, and it has been secretly wrestling with it.

Therefore, the current party struggles in the imperial court are all attached to the two factions.

The cabinet, eight ministries, the Metropolitan Procuratorate, and local civil and military officials, their attitudes are not something a magistrate can find out clearly. At this time, it is like looking at flowers in a fog and walking blind.

Let him understand that he has no choice.

It's just that the emperor has been in Yuyu for many years, and his power is extremely powerful. No one dares to mess around.

"That is to say, the Sun family is Qin Xue?"

The staff was shocked: "Dong Weng?"

"I don't know." The county magistrate shook his head and smiled wryly, "Although the Sun family is only an earl, behind him is the crown prince. He has been reticent all these years, and no one knows his position."

"During the banquet just now, I have been hinting and expressing clearly, to find out, this Mr. Sun is watertight, so I can't see clearly."

Hearing this, the staff turned pale.

If the Sun family's heart is for Qin Xue, then the crown prince is likely to be Qin Xue, which means that in the next few decades, Qin Xue will even defeat Neo Confucianism in one fell swoop and become orthodox.

Therefore, by understanding his status, he can better understand the prince's thoughts.

But, can the prince think the same as the emperor?

The same is best, the most afraid of being different...

The son is not like the father, this is the harbinger of how many emperors depose the prince.

There are not many like Taizu.

If the investigation is clear and the prince is shaken, then there will be no major earthquake for the court.

But for the magistrate, he is just a pawn. Once such an attitude is found out, it will become a fire starter, and it will easily provoke thunder.

"Dong Weng—"

"Fortunately, Mr. Sun does not leak water. This is the best."

Zhixian finally showed a smile: "It's best to be safe."

The staff also nodded heavily.

What civil servants hate most is disorder, and they are used to stability.

Because when it comes to standing in line, although it is the fast lane, the chances are too small and the danger is too great.

If the order remains unchanged, step-by-step promotion is the first choice.

After leaving the county office, Sun Shining got into the carriage and frowned.

"Has this party struggle spread all over the place?"

In the early years of Shaowu, the nobles from Shaanxi and Chu were dominant in the court, and then the dispute between Shaanxi and the South, and then the nobles were completely reduced to spectators.

After Zhao Shu became an official, although Yan Chongxin had a high prestige, he could not reach the level of Zhao Shu's decisiveness towards the cabinet, and could only control the cabinet to a limited extent.

In this way, because of the distribution of power, Yan Chongxin and Zhu Mou secretly fought.

It was precisely because the two belonged to the nobles that they tore up the noble system in one fell swoop, and each fought for himself.

Zhu Mou was more inclined to the clan officials in Shaanxi and other places, while Yan Chongxin was more inclined to the south.

This cannot be generalized, it depends on the person.

But Sun Shining found that in the past two years, ideas have become a weapon, and officials have unconsciously started to stand in line.

He stands tallest and can see clearly.

On the surface, Yan Chongxin supports Qin Xue, but he is from Hanzhong. He studied Neo Confucianism from childhood to university, and he has always been Confucianism in his heart.

But Zhu Mou didn't mention it. He only studied Zongxue for a few years, and later practiced in the officialdom for many years. He was promoted continuously by the emperor. His knowledge is just an ordinary boy.

Therefore, although he tends to Neo-Confucianism, he only regards it as a tool. Once he takes the position of chief assistant, he will definitely leave it alone.

Sun Shining murmured: "Qin Xue tends to be beneficial, while Neo Confucianism is pragmatic, so difficult!"

As the saying goes, you can't have both.

Scholars hate Neo-Confucianism, but they only hate it, and they respect and love Zhu Zi.

Similarly, it is undeniably true that Qin Xue applied to the world and valued business and people, but it ignored the importance of moral cultivation.

Both have disadvantages and advantages, and it is really difficult to choose.

Sun Shining's heart is naturally inclined to Neo-Confucianism, but due to the identity of the Sun family, he dare not reveal the slightest.

His trip this time was just to go home to pay respects to his ancestors, and to take part in the provincial examination.

Sun's family lives in Zhenwuwei in Daizhou. Their family was born in a military household in the Weisuo. Now Zhenwuwei has been merged into Daizhou and has become Zhenwu Township.

In the Ming Dynasty, although military households were miserable and suffered from slavery and oppression, they achieved a lot of success in the imperial examinations, accounting for [-]-[-]% of the list of Jinshi all the year round.

For example, Zhang Juzheng, Sun Chuanting, etc., all came from military households.

In the Sun family, Sun Chuanting's ninth ancestor, Sun Cheng, was appointed as one of the hundred households of Zhenwuwei during the Hongwu period. He moved from Gushuli Village, Guangshan County, Runing Prefecture, Henan Province to Daizhou, Shanxi Province, and then settled here.

Grandfather Sun Feng of the sixth generation began to encourage his descendants to learn writing. Grandfather Sun Qi of the fifth generation, great-grandfather Sun Zongpai, grandfather Sun Siyue, and father Sun Yuanzhen all won the Juren.

It can be said that the Sun family is a scholarly family in Daizhou, and there have been scholars for generations, making it a leading wealthy family.

Along the way, the three elders of the village and the gentry went thirty miles from the countryside to meet them, and they piled up almost to the gate of the city.

Sun Shining was ashamed, so he could only sit in the carriage modestly and returned to his hometown.

It is a five-entry mansion with two big lions at the door, which can be described as majestic.

Although it is not comparable to the Earl's Mansion in the capital, it is also a large courtyard locally.

Not to mention the ancestor worship in the ancestral hall, his father's grave has long been moved to the ancestral tomb, and the old relatives and friends of the family are full of tears.

Everything goes without saying.

Of course, Sun Shining understood that as the saying goes, one person attains the Tao, the chicken and dog ascend to heaven, the Sun family becomes an earl, and the woman becomes a queen, so it is natural to take care of these relatives.

It's a pity that Earl Sun Shirui has been an official outside the country all year round, and he hasn't come back a few times. It's hard to take care of him.

Sun Shining finally came back, so naturally he wanted to curry favor.

However, Sun Shining was only willing to give up some money, and donated all the more than a thousand mu of the Sun family's ancestral land in Dai County to the ancestors as a sacrificial field.

The practice of offering sacrifices to fields originated in the pre-Qin period, and became an important component of the clan system in the Song Dynasty.

Under the requirements of the patriarchal system of "death is like life", ancestor sacrifices are solemn, very grand, and costly. This requires the clan to have a certain economic capacity to support the continuation of the sacrificial ritual system. The fields used for the source of sacrifice expenses appeared.

Among the people, the land for sacrifice is public property, and it is not allowed to resell it for inheritance, so the easiest way to resell the land for sacrifice is to be exiled.

Family relatives go to school, build canals, and build ancestral halls, and they all go out in the sacrifice field.

At the same time, if the clan relatives really can't get rid of the pot, they can also borrow money from the clan, which is also the function of offering sacrifices to the land.

Therefore, since ancient times, the larger the clan, the larger the scale of its sacrificial fields, and the more it can benefit the clan relatives.

Then the tribe becomes an official, and then feeds back to donate land, thus forming a virtuous circle.

The well-known Fan Chongyan's family donated hundreds of acres at one time, which made the Fan family often produce talents.

According to statistics, when New China was founded, [-]% to [-]% of the land owned by the people was communal, and the scale was extremely large.

However, Sun's land for sacrifice has only been more than [-] mu over the years. Sun Shining donated more than [-] mu at once, and was immediately loved by his family members.

Poor people can rent land for offering sacrifices at low rents, and borrow money at low interest rates when they are suffering from hunger and cold, so that their children can hire famous teachers and have a promising future.

Some widowed and lonely elderly people almost offer sacrifices to the fields.

This benefits everyone in the Sun family.

A few clan elders who wanted to ask for peace for their family could only open their mouths and couldn't say anything.

For ordinary people, the clan not only provides protection, but also borrows money to overcome difficulties, while the imperial court has no benefit at all except paying the royal rations, so it is natural to be close to the clan and stay away from the imperial court.

If the imperial power really wants to go to the countryside, it can only equalize the land and return the sacrificial land to the court, but this is too much resistance.

Once the land is lost, the imperial court will inevitably be unable to undertake the functions of offering sacrifices to the land for the elderly, schools, loans, and savings.

Sun Shining climbed up the hillside and looked at the settlements of the Sun family. There were [-] households and [-] to [-] mu of land, [-]% of which was dry land and [-]% was irrigated land. This is considered a wealthy place in Shanxi.

He stepped on the loess and looked at the crops: "What is the family growing now?"

"Corn bracts, wheat, and sweet potatoes."

Who is beside him is Sun Shimao, a scholar in the clan, in his thirties, and he is going to take the provincial examination in this subject.

Like ordinary scholars, he is thinner, wearing a square scarf, and wearing a half-worn robe, revealing the normality of his family.

He sighed: "The season is good. Although the sweet potato is heartburning, it is better than the hunger in those days when the sweet potato was not harvested."

"Can't sweet potatoes be used as sweet potato flour?"

Sun Shining was puzzled and said, "The stuff is made into vermicelli and boiled with a half-sized rooster. It tastes really good."

"Poor people don't want to part with the mill money, so they eat at will." Sun Shimao said softly:
"The branches can be fed to pigs, and chickens and ducks can also be eaten, so those poor people like to grow sweet potatoes, and they have a lot of them."

Sun Shining sighed, since he was a child, he was well-clothed and well-fed. He didn't know what it was like to be hungry, but he could also understand that poor people really have a hard time.

In this countryside, there is no Qinology or Confucianism. The common people only know to bury their heads in the land and worry about food and clothing for a year.

"Beets, you know what?"

"I don't know."

"It is something that can be made into sugar. It is most suitable for planting in our Shanxi area. Sugar is very expensive, and it is a good opportunity to make money."

Sun Shining recalled the emperor's words, and couldn't help suggesting: "Plant beets in some corners at the foot of the mountain and boil them into sugar, which can make more money than growing grain."

"After a while, I'll find some seeds."

(End of this chapter)