Chapter 287 Assistant Secretary (Thirty-three) Everything happens for a reason
Why is Gao Pragmatic so happy? Because this idea was almost groundbreaking in China during the agricultural era!
As early as when Gao Pragmatic was studying in his previous life, he once had a question: Why did the ancient Chinese court seem not to care about social and economic development at all? It felt that economic development was completely ignored in the eyes of ancient officials and emperors.
Watermelon rind—it slides wherever it goes.
Why, isn't economic development the most fundamental issue for a country? Later he learned that only modern society considers economic development to be so important, but it really wasn't the case in ancient times.
There is a famous saying that everyone knows: "The most important affairs of the country lie in sacrifice and war." The most important affairs of the country lie in sacrifice and war.
War is very important. This is easy to understand. There is no problem in putting it here. The problem is sacrifice.
If you want to say that activities like sacrifice are not important at all, that is definitely wrong. After all, it seems to involve the inheritance of culture, spirit, etc. If you have to be serious, it is still a bit important. However, put it on the same level as "war"
The height makes me feel like something is wrong.
There is indeed something wrong, because what people want to express is not just the sacrifice itself. In this sentence, "sacrifice and Rong" are placed on the same level, or even sacrifice is placed before the war, because the sacrifice here is actually what Confucius said "
present".
So, what is etiquette? Put aside the Confucian classics that can give you a million-word explanation. In fact, the etiquette mentioned by Confucius is never etiquette or politeness at its root. These are just superficial details, like making tea.
The foam that emerges when brewing - what you want to drink is the tea soup, not the layer of foam.
What Confucius calls etiquette, in modern vernacular, is: "rules." Gao Pragmatic believes that what Confucius wants to express is actually very simple: as a human being, you must follow the rules in everything, otherwise everything will be chaos.
If we simplify this sentence and go back to "Sacrifice and Rong", the meaning is easy to understand: "rules" for domestic and "war" for enemy countries.
The former is to stabilize the country, and the latter is to prevent enemy countries from invading or even destroying them. Then you see, this sentence is essentially given from the two perspectives of "internal" and "external"
"Primary Matters Standard".
Why do you say this? Because it is precisely because of this kind of thinking that the ancient rulers have always focused on "rules" when it comes to "internal affairs" - I will arrange for you to do these tasks, and you will all
If you do this well, this country will be saved, and it won't be your turn to worry about other things that are there or not.
In other words, any imperial court in ancient times was always concerned with maintaining stability and nothing else.
Of course, you may say that although maintaining stability is important, won't the country become more stable after you develop the economy? Well... not necessarily.
On this issue, there is great uncertainty: for example, if you develop the economy, there will always be some people who benefit greatly, some people who will benefit little, and there may be some people who do not benefit or even suffer. This causes
Injustice can easily lead to internal conflicts within society.
For example, after Gao Pragmatic traveled through time, he guided the Ming Dynasty to develop its economy. It seems that many people benefited - first the nobles, then the enlightened gentry (including some officials and their families), then the enlightened businessmen, and finally those who relied on these economic production to drive
There are hired workers who have work to do. Of course, you can also say that when the hired workers make money, they will buy grain, wine, cloth, build houses, etc., and it will also benefit ordinary farmers.
This situation was called the "trickle-down effect" in later generations. The general idea is that when the rich make money, other people will follow suit, and everyone will benefit.
The words are correct, but as the saying goes, "To talk about toxicity without talking about dose is just a hooliganism." The fact is that the rich earn most of the benefits, and if the "trickle-down" falls into the hands of ordinary people, it is really just a "trickle-down."
And in the whole process, even among people in the same class or ecological niche, some will definitely earn more and some will earn less. This will create new class changes - just like you and I are both in the local poor.
Businessmen with family capital each had a capital of ten thousand taels of silver, and everyone went to do business.
What was the result? In the end, I lost all my capital, and I couldn't even repay the debt of another ten thousand taels. I was forced to sell my son and daughter, and I was stuck forever. You made ten thousand taels with your capital.
With ten thousand liang, he became a rich man in the local area, and because of this, he trained his son to become a Jinshi at Chunwei High School. From now on, he became a member of the official family.
Such class mobility is very easy to occur in an era of great commercial development. Let’s not talk about anything else. Many famous companies during World War II were already dead when Gao pragmatism traveled through time. However, in the past twenty or thirty years, there have been many
Where are the newly wealthy people coming out? There are as many as crucian carp crossing the river.
This is the change in social class brought about by changes in wealth. Modern people have long been accustomed to this change, so they don’t think it’s anything strange or a big deal. But to the “ancients”, especially in a farming-based society like China,
It is said that this kind of change will make almost everyone wary and even cause serious resistance.
Why? My family has thousands of hectares of fertile land, and the wealth generated over thousands of years is relatively fixed. Therefore, I can ensure that my family will always live well with this wealth. If this is the case, why should I take the risk?
Going into business at the risk of losing money or going bankrupt?
To take it a step further, your family only has a hundred hectares of fertile land, and you sell all these fields to start a business. In the end, you succeed in taking the risk and earn back thousands of hectares of fertile land. From "my eleven" to "my ten times". Could you please tell me from the perspective of human nature?
From a perspective, do I hate you when I look at you at this moment? Is it because "jealousy has changed me beyond recognition"?
This is just between two people. If it is scaled up to a huge country like the Ming Dynasty, the class conflicts that this change may lead to will only become bigger and more uncontrollable. Therefore, this is the same as the "si and Rong" of "Sisi and Rong".
”, which is directly in conflict with “Everything must be done according to rules”.
This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading! Why did Zhu Yuanzhang regulate civilian households, military households, and craftsman households, and did not allow household registration changes? Is it just because he was stupid? Obviously not. He could become an emperor from a beggar, and then
How can one be so stupid?
He just wants "rules" and wants everything in the country to be within his "rules" and never to be exceeded - because exceeding them may lead to instability!
This is the true "stability trumps all else", which is completely different from the same saying in later generations.
Later generations said that "stability is paramount to everything" because stability is the prerequisite for development. You must have stability first, and then the country can develop. Only when the country develops can you have a better platform to perform. But ancient times were different, such as the Ming Dynasty, which insisted on "
"Stability trumps all else" is because it does not require you to develop, it only requires you to abide by the rules. Because you abide by the rules, then the emperor will always be the emperor, and the nobles will always be the nobles!
In addition, there is another problem: from the God's perspective of Gao Pragmatic, a time traveler, China, an agricultural society, has almost surpassed the world in various indicators, and even without the God's perspective, in the known world of the Chinese,
No one develops better than myself.
So, why should I look for work and pursue economic development under the huge pressure of maintaining stability? I am very prosperous now!
Therefore, from the perspective of the ancients, this matter is like this: It’s not that I don’t understand the benefits of advanced technology, but that I am very advanced now, and there is no need for me to risk pursuing something that I don’t know if it will succeed at this time.
If it fails, it may end the calf's future.
Don't think the ancients are too stupid. The Ming Dynasty was not closed off. If it were closed, it would not have introduced the Franco machine gun as soon as it was discovered that it was better than its own cannon, and then successfully imitated it in a short period of time, and then started to produce and use it for its own use.
Ming's so-called "self-contained" is mostly because the self-enclosed part of it is really better than others.
Of course, the other part is because it has not yet recognized the strengths of others.
Because of the above reasons, Gao Jingshi's past reforms directly solved a specific problem - the post station couldn't afford to lose money, so Gao Jingshi went to "Relieve the Post Road";
"Please open the vassal and ban the ban"; things are difficult to handle if the power of the Ministry of Revenue is not in place, so the high pragmatism of "Acquisition and Use"... In short, it is all about discussing the matter, one plan for each matter, and the premise is "the problem is here, come quickly"
Please help me personally."
However, this time is different. This time there is no specific problem that needs to be solved urgently.
You want to ask if there are any problems with the imperial examination? Of course there is, otherwise what the four shopkeepers just reported is a joke that all the scholars in the capital are full and full, and they are all competing to fart?
However, the problem of the imperial examination has always existed, but it has never seemed very urgent and must be reformed. At this time, Gao Pragmatic jumped out to reform the imperial examination. The first reaction of the scholars, the government and the public was definitely not "Gao Pragmatic"
Yuan Fu is really in a hurry", but "Who is Gao Rixin trying to get rid of this time? The Minister of Rites?"
No one will immediately elevate your action to an ideal level. Everyone's first reaction will definitely be based on interests - what benefits do you want to gain from this matter? Is it power, money, or reputation?
Vulgar? Vulgar. Realistic? Realistic.
Gao Pragmatic knew this very well, and had always been good at taking advantage of people's vulgarity. However, it was precisely because of this that he waited for thirty years to reform the imperial examination - no chance!
In today's world, the imperial examination system is the most advanced talent selection mechanism in the world - look at Europe in this era, people are still playing the hereditary politics of aristocrats! [Note: As I write this, I suddenly think of the British House of Lords. Laughing to death, 2
It's the eleventh century and you still need to have a title to be admitted to the House of Lords. What a mummy dish.]
Why don't you wait now? Because he figured something out: If he waits any longer, he won't have the chance to show up on his own initiative, so why not take advantage of the window period when he has great power and unparalleled prestige to push for it.
However, even if you want to push, you can't have no social foundation at all. There must be a starting point before you can use it. Now the starting point has appeared, and it is different from what the previous three shopkeepers mentioned. This time, the "Economic Ten-day Meeting"
The readers are actually questioning whether the current imperial examination system can select suitable talents. This coincides with Gao Pragmatic's purpose. Can he not be excited?
But he immediately thought of another question, what kind of group would have such an idea? The thinking is a bit advanced!
Gao pragmatically asked the question to Shi Yang, shopkeeper Shi smiled and said: "It's a coincidence, a large part of the readers of our "Economic Ten Discussions" are related to Jinghua... To be precise, they are related to Jinghua Craftsman School.
.”
"Ah?" Gao Pragmatic was stunned for a moment: "How do you say this?"
"My boss is busy with everything, so he may not be aware of some of the details. In fact, the Craftsman School has really cultivated a lot of talents in the past few years since the enrollment was fully opened."
Shopkeeper Shi sighed with emotion: "Especially the Department of Mathematics and the Department of Physics, have attracted many students (here refers to scholars) to come to study, and there are even some well-off and idle people... well, they also like this profession.
As time goes by, the number of scholars among the scholars in the capital who have studied at the Craftsman School, no matter how small we count, must be more than a thousand."
"So that's it!" Gao Pragmatic suddenly realized that the reason why this wave of public opinion emerged was because I had saved up my savings slowly by persisting in running a school for twenty years!
Although Gao Pragmatic has not had much control over the school's affairs in recent years, this is mainly because the school has already been on the right track and it is not easy to further stimulate the conservatives for the time being.
In fact, when the Craftsman Academy first compiled teaching materials, especially the "Mathematics Department and the Department of Physics" mentioned by Shopkeeper Shi just now, the teaching materials were highly pragmatic and deeply involved. In order to compile the teaching materials well, he, a liberal arts student, really put all the effort into returning the textbooks.
I have cleared up all the mathematics and physics knowledge that I can think of - except for some things that are inconvenient in this era.
However, Gao Pragmatic does not just teach knowledge. He mixes a lot of private ideas into the teaching materials to "enlighten students." Especially in mathematics teaching, Gao Pragmatically mentions things in the teaching materials from time to time, such as "The magistrate of a certain county."
"An anecdote about being manipulated financially by the county clerk, and then asking students to calculate related mathematical problems mentioned in the story.
Not only will this approach not offend people, it will even make students feel "very happy" - Is your county master at this level? He's not as good as me!
After a while, I calmed down and thought about this matter, and I started to think again: Why do we always take these rubbish in the imperial examination? They can't even compete with their chief clerks. How can these rubbish really manage a county? What if?
Wouldn't it be worse if this guy still had a prosperous official career? This was an unfair person entrusted by the imperial court... No, it was an unfair person entrusted by the imperial court!
Through this subtle influence, most of the students who graduated from the Jinghua Craftsman School will feel that there is a problem in the imperial court's recruitment of scholars. I am afraid that just taking the Four Books will not help the party to govern in the future, let alone rule the world in the future.
If the Artisan School had not relaxed its admissions restrictions and the students were all servants of the Gao family, then that would be fine. After all, its influence would be limited. However, Gao Pragmatic had relaxed its admissions restrictions very early. Some families have average conditions and feel that they have no hope of admission.
Many scholars wanted to get a good job in Beijing through the academy (after all, they are scholars, and they usually have really good jobs), so they began to enter the academy one after another.
Of course, there are also those curious babies who are extremely bored and join in the fun. Anyway, Gao Pragmatic doesn't care about his background. He can come to study if he wants to, as long as he can pass the entrance exam.
After persisting in this way for a long time, the group of people that shopkeeper Shi mentioned was formed. Thinking of this, Gao Pragmatic suddenly reacted - no wonder they are readers of "Economic Ten Discussions"! As the name suggests, "Economic Ten Discussions" is usually published
The content mainly discusses economic topics, which is very consistent with the knowledge system of this group of people...
Good, very good, very good. Now I am not afraid that the public opinion will not be hyped up. I will take the political opinions of the "Economic Ten Year Discussions" as the core, and then add the opinions of the previous groups to make the imperial examination reform appear more important.
Imminent!
"Your errands have been done very well, and I am very satisfied. But now is not the time to discuss merits. I have a few things that I want to ask you to do immediately..."
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