Chapter 12 The dispute between modern and ancient literature
The dispute between modern and ancient literature is an interesting thing. Around the dispute between modern and ancient literature, Confucian scholars in the world are generally divided into the modern literature school and the ancient literature school, and they are constantly fighting with each other.
For Liu Bei, it doesn't matter what the modern and ancient literature are arguing about. What's important is that they are "fighting".
Where there are competitors, there will be concessions. The dispute between modern and ancient literature injected inexplicable vitality into the stagnant academic environment of the Eastern Han Dynasty, and thus provided a glimmer of hope for some people with low social status who were trying to climb up.
From the time he started studying with Lu Zhi, Liu Bei focused on the dispute between modern and ancient literature, trying to better understand the nature of this academic struggle that ran through the two Han Dynasties.
To put it simply, the origin of the dispute between modern and ancient literature can be traced back to Qin Shihuang.
The eldest brother Ying Zheng was a survivor of the sixth generation. He relied on Legalist reforms to abolish the six kingdoms and unify the whole country. He was the most hard-core ruthless man in the world at that time. He was a peerless macho man and was very staunch, so he was not interested in the chatter of Confucianism.
Moreover, the era at that time was when the system of prefectures and counties was first established and the feudal system still had its remaining power. People all over the world had many opinions on whether the Qin State should be enfeoffed or prefectures and counties after unifying the world.
At that time, a group of Confucian scholars opposed the system of counties and counties, advocated the feudal system, pursued the ideals of Confucius, and demanded restoration. This was not tolerated by the elder brother Ying Zheng and Prime Minister Li Si, which triggered the book burning incident.
In essence, the burning of books this time is no different from the deposing of hundreds of schools of thought by Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty. They were both for the purpose of unifying ideas. As for the later "confucianism" and the book burning incident, there is no direct relationship.
But no matter what, the eldest brother dug a hole, lit a fire, burned a batch of bamboo slips, and disrupted the inheritance of Confucianism.
It is impossible to break. There are many disciples of the Confucian school, and the bamboo slips are gone. Some old Confucian scholars have tried their best to recite the saint's articles and carried them on their shoulders, waiting for Ying Zheng to be finished.
When Ying Zheng became a traitor, the Han Dynasty was established, and the restricted areas of Confucian thought and speech were loosened, so a group of surviving old Confucians became partisan.
They dictated the articles from memory to their disciples, who then recorded them on bamboo slips, restoring the physical inheritance of Confucianism and returning to the stage of history.
This is the origin of Jinwen Jing and Jinwen School.
The origin of the ancient literature school is more interesting.
According to them, the origin of the Ancient Classics was discovered by Liu Bang's son, King Lu, in the wall of the Kong family's old house in Qufu when he was repairing his palace.
It is said that when King Lu tried to tear down the old house of Confucius, he heard a pleasant melody for no reason. He immediately did not dare to invade the old house of the Confucius family again, and instead treated the old house of the Confucius family with great respect.
The ancient Chinese classics had been hidden in the inner treasury of the Han Palace since they were discovered in the wall. From the beginning of the Han Dynasty to the end of the Han Dynasty, there was no news at all, until they were discovered by Liu Xin, a member of the royal family who was responsible for editing the books.
Because the texts used to write the scriptures date from the Warring States Period, Liu Xin inferred that these scriptures were preserved by a group of courageous and wise Confucian scholars who risked their lives during the Qin Dynasty.
Isn't this more classic and more authentic than the scriptures dictated by old Confucian scholars?
I, Liu Xin, have reason to suspect that what you guys are selling are second-hand fake and shoddy products!
Who is orthodox?
This is orthodox!
After Emperor Ai of the Han Dynasty ascended the throne, Liu Xin wrote to Emperor Ai of the Han Dynasty, requesting the appointment of additional academic officials for the Ancient Classics, and further seeking to replace the Modern Classics.
Of course, he didn't succeed.
Since Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, Jinwen Jingxue has always been official and orthodox scholarship. Now a bunch of inexplicable books of unknown origin have come out of nowhere, and you dare to claim to be articles by saints?
Don’t you ask what kind of situation we will face after we lose our orthodox academic status and rely on the advancement and inheritance of Jinwen classics?
What you have lost is the ancient scriptures and the infinite possibilities of the future, but what we have lost is real benefits!
Of course, those who have vested interests in academic and political achievements are strongly opposed to the ancient classics being presented in the hall of elegance.
However, non-vested interests who cannot obtain higher interests under the system dominated by the Modern Literature School naturally surround the ancient Chinese classics with ulterior motives, treating the ancient Chinese classics as their life-saving straw, trying to achieve overtaking in a corner.
The struggle between the two sides began.
Although both parties claim that the scriptures they have learned are the true articles of saints, fundamentally, the Jinwen school is the official orthodox school.
Even since Liu Bang established the Han Dynasty, a series of policies formulated by the imperial court were all based on the content of the Jinwen Jing as theoretical guidance.
Many things that modern people take for granted were unknown in that era. This was mainly because the period of history from the end of the Warring States to the end of the Qin Dynasty was too short, so that the Qin Dynasty had many things that should be done that were not completed or were not done at all.
Just didn't do it.
Said to be the first feudal dynasty in Chinese history, the Qin Dynasty also did a lot of things, but they failed to do even more things. They left a mess to the final winner Liu Bang, which made Liu Bang extremely troubled.
For example, because the eldest brother Ying Zheng did not have a queen, after Liu Bang made Lu Pheasant the queen, no one knew what the queen's responsibilities and authority were. In addition, the Lu family's transcendent status, so Lu Pheasant was the queen at that time.
His power is boundless.
She could have said - my power as the queen is unlimited.
Because there are no pioneers, no one knows what the outcome will be, so everyone can only cross the river by feeling the stones, taking one step at a time, keeping the good ones, and finding ways to eliminate the bad ones.
Some things that seem unbelievable now were uncorrectable at the time, because no matter how smart people were, they had no vision of the future.
Most of the founders of the Han Dynasty came from humble backgrounds and lacked etiquette. They also had little respect for Liu Bang after he became emperor. They thought Liu Bang was just the same dog-eating bastard as before.
Liu Bang was very troubled and didn't know what to do. At this time, the earliest masters of Jinwen Jingxue sensed an opportunity.
A Confucian scholar named Shusun Tong came to Liu Bang and told Liu Bang that although Confucian scholars could not help you conquer the world, they could help you with management and were management talents.
Liu Bang asked Shusun Tong to try it.
Shusun Tong made a set of etiquette plans, including how to eat, how to drink, how to walk, and how to pay homage to the emperor. If the ministers did not comply, they would be punished by law.
So the ministers did not dare to be rude to Liu Bang anymore, and Liu Bang said happily, "Only today do I know how satisfying it is to be an emperor."
At that time, Shusun Tong's method only related to Liu Bang's personal troubles, but when it is magnified to the entire Han Empire, it can be seen that the Han Empire was in urgent need of a set of mature theoretical guidance that could govern the country.
Before Liu Bang, the people who governed the country were all nobles who had been running for generations. Everyone had their own ancestral methods to govern the country. But where did Liu Bang and his comrades have this kind of background?
Now the literary school came into being at this time, catering to the needs of the Han Empire and providing the Han Empire with a set of theories.
Although they were not fully adopted at that time, they established a firm foothold in the Han Dynasty.
After Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, Jinwen Jingxue officially became the official development guiding theory at the national level of the Western Han Empire.
From then on, no matter how unbelievable and bizarre the court decisions were, such as the trend of passing on the country and changing surnames in the late Western Han Dynasty, at their root, they were all backed by the classics and meanings, and were made by Confucius, who had been dead for hundreds of years.
endorsed.
Master Kong was also miserable.
Logically speaking, after the Western Han Empire had a mature set of national governance theoretical guidance, there should be no setbacks. But the problem is that Jinwen Jingxue really did not fully comply with the needs of the imperial rulers and provide them with what they needed.
thing.
Theorists of Jinwen Jingxue have never completed the design of a set of "Han Rites" similar to Zhou Rites for the Han Empire.
Among the Confucian classics, the most important for the country and the emperor are the two classics "Li" and "Spring and Autumn". The former is theory and the latter is practice.
What the rulers of the Han Empire needed was a set of "Emperor's Rites" to govern the four poles. However, the "Rites" in Jinwen Jingxue theory were actually the Rites of Scholars. What they could do according to this theory was
[The ceremony of recommending a scholar to the emperor].
This also means that in the ritual theory of Jinwen Jingxue, there is no essential difference between the emperor and the scholars. What the emperor can enjoy can also be enjoyed by the scholars. The difference between the two parties lies in the quantity, not in whether they have it or whether they can.
.
Not to mention the Gongyang Spring and Autumn School that flourished during the period of Emperor Wu. This school was more direct. It said that "the emperor arrogated heaven, the princes tyrannized the emperor, and the officials tyrannized the princes". The cause of all problems was that the emperor did something wrong that led to the following.
People do wrong, so the emperor must set an example.
The core idea is that if the emperor makes a mistake, he has no right to blame the people below him for making a mistake.
If this set of thoughts were extended a little, it would be the theory of heavenly prisoners... Hey, I don't dare to think about it.
Can this satisfy the needs of the rulers of the Han Empire?
Qin has changed the emperor into an emperor, and the status of the emperor is completely different from that of the emperor of Zhou.
Sir, times have changed.
The rulers' dissatisfaction with Jinwen Jingxue and Jinwen School originated from this.
It was under this background that the Classical Classics and the Classical Classics School came into being.
Compared with the Jinwen School and Jinwen Jing, the Ancient Literature School and the Ancient Literature School are more inclined to cooperate with the rulers, actively adapt to the needs of the rulers, and create theories that meet the needs of the rulers.
They also have their own set of theoretical guidance methods, using "Zhou Guanli" to compete with the "Li" of Jinwen school, claiming that "Zhou Guanli" was written by Zhou Gong.
In terms of practice, they used "Zuo Shi Chun Qiu" to compete with "Gong Yang Chun Qiu" which was highly praised by Jinwen school, and also claimed that all the rules and regulations recorded in "Zuo Zhuan" were also written by Zhou Gong.
In any case, it was to use the title of Duke of Zhou to suppress Confucius, in an attempt to win the battle between modern and ancient literature.
Of course, they did not succeed, because Jinwen Jingxue developed earlier and had a deeper foundation, and could not compete with pure hard power.
Hard power failed, so the ancient literature school tried to find another way, conforming to the trend of thought of passing on the country and changing surnames created by the modern literature school in the late Western Han Dynasty, and supported Wang Mang in his restoration, which for a time made the ancient literature school flourish.
As a result, Wang Mang lost his temper while playing retro.
The ancient literature school also failed because of this.
Therefore, politically, the Modern Literature School has always had the upper hand, and the academic officials appointed by the imperial court - Ph.D.s - have always been monopolized by the Confucian scholars of the Modern Literature School. The Five Classics and Fourteen Schools of Law recognized by the government are all Modern Classics.
During the period of Emperor Guangwu of the Eastern Han Dynasty, out of political needs, he established "Zuo Shi Chun Qiu", which was considered an ancient literary classic, as an official school and established a doctorate. The ancient literary school seemed to have seen the light of day.
As a result, after the Baihuguan Conference during the period of Emperor Zhang of the Han Dynasty, in order to unify academic cognition and unify thoughts, the official academic status of "Zuo Shi Chun Qiu" was deposed, the ancient literature school was severely hit, and the semi-official process that had just begun was also interrupted.
Since then, the ancient literature school can only continue to develop among the people.
However, as the so-called blessings and misfortunes depend on each other, it is not without benefits that the ancient literature school was forced to become an opposition school. At least inheritance is no longer a problem.
In order to attack the seemingly unbreakable fortress of the Modern Literature School, and at the same time to prevent being completely crushed to death by the Modern Literature School, they chose to take the path of academic downward movement.
Starting from the early Eastern Han Dynasty, the ancient literature school gradually opened up some academic knowledge to the middle class of society, and widely absorbed the fresh blood of the middle class of society. At the same time, it also cherished the hope that ants would kill the elephant.
The academic inheritance of Jinwen School, which dominates the academic circles of the Han Dynasty, is only for its own internal affairs. It uses blood and in-laws as the main means of contact. It is rarely open to the outside world. It does not let outsiders have access to its wealth. It is becoming more and more conservative.
Although they maintained their official academic status, they became increasingly rigid, cumbersome, and lost their ability to innovate. They also combined with the prophecy theory and became confusing and unpredictable.
So much so that some of the more enlightened scholars of the modern literature school even felt that the modern classics were inferior to the ancient classics, and instead began to actively contact and study the ancient classics, which promoted a certain degree of integration of modern and ancient classics in the Eastern Han Dynasty.
As the central political stability of the Eastern Han Dynasty was destroyed and the official Imperial Academy gradually declined, the academic circle of the Eastern Han Dynasty also began to change.
After the Han Dynasty and Emperor Han Dynasty in the Eastern Han Dynasty, emperors were generally young, and their relatives came to the political stage to dominate politics. When the emperor became an adult, he would find ways to regain power. As a result, the political stability of the Eastern Han Dynasty began to face serious challenges.
As political stability no longer exists, academic stability, which is highly bound to political stability, has also been challenged and destroyed.
Taixue was gradually abandoned, doctors no longer gave lectures, and students all over the world gradually no longer regarded Taixue as an academic authority. The academic world of the Eastern Han Dynasty began to move from unity to disintegration, and the academic dissemination shifted from Luoyang Taixue as the core to the family as the core dissemination of academics.
Losing the strong support of the central government and becoming increasingly closed and conservative, the decline of the Modern Literature School was inevitable. The family inheritance of the Five Classics and Fourteen Family Laws was more like a political inheritance than an academic inheritance.
In contrast, in order to survive and transcend, the ancient literature school chose to teach ancient classics to a wider social group and unite the vast landowners and powerful classes.
A group of big guys from the Ancient Literature School are opening classes to recruit students. Not only is the threshold for recruiting disciples very low, at least it is visible, and there are no hidden conditions such as bloodline or marriage relationship.
Therefore, there is an endless stream of scholars. The ancient literature school has a much wider foundation in society than the modern literature school. Talents within the school are also emerging in an endless stream. They are constantly introducing the old and bringing forth the new, and they are becoming more and more prosperous.
What a coincidence, the world-famous scholar Lu Zhi was born in the study of ancient scriptures.
No matter how coincidental it was, he was also from Zhuo County, Zhuo County, and Liu Bei was his fellow countryman. In this era when the county was the country, the relationship between the two naturally had an advantage.