Wanli Xinming

Chapter 428 Southern Tour (XII)

Since Liang Menglong became the Prime Minister and was attacked for the "Post-Disclosure Case", Shen Shixing has been very aggressive in various audiences with the emperor. All the ministers believed that in order to consolidate his power, he made full use of every opportunity to meet the emperor and regain the emperor's favor.

As the saying goes, "a trapped beast will still fight." The weak political forces in the court are facing the possibility of being eliminated at any time, and they are likely to do anything. At this time, Shen Shixing is in danger, and others don't need to add insult to injury - it's not worth it to be bitten back by him.

But today at the imperial lecture, Shen Shixing mindlessly licked the crown prince, attempting to overturn the interpretation of Confucianism by thousands of scholars over the past thousands of years. This was the most direct attack on Neo-Confucianism by a court official since the emperor presided over the Southern Palace Conference.

After the ministers looked at each other in bewilderment, Zhao Zhigao stepped out and said, "Prime Minister Shen is wrong! This is what is meant by 'using the common mind to measure the wisdom of the sage'. Archery and charioteering are the six arts of a gentleman. Zhu Zi said that the people of Daxiang praised the sage's erudition, but regretted that he did not become famous for one art. From the Analects, we can see that the sage was proficient in all six arts. Zheng Xuan also interpreted that the sage was proficient in all six arts, not just one art."

"According to this theory, if you want to be a driver, you should not drive an ox cart, but drive the world's morals. How can you ridicule yourself?"

Shen Shixing listened patiently and smiled, "Zheng Xuan and Zhu Xi had different opinions on the words of the Daxiang Party. Lanxi Gong used the same commentary of the two people, which is contradictory."

Zhao Zhigao was speechless. Shen Shixing sneered and said, "If we talk about self-mockery, 'Great Confucius' is probably also meant to be ironic." As soon as these words came out, the Confucius Mansion Poetry Hall was like a hornet's nest that had been poked open, and a buzzing sound broke out.

"What do I do? Chariot driving? Archery? I do chariot driving." The previous text of this sentence is that the Daxiang party commented on Confucius: "Great is Confucius! He is knowledgeable but has no fame." Zheng Xuan believed that this sentence was a compliment to Confucius, and interpreted it as the Daxiang party thinking that Confucius was a hexagonal warrior with no outstanding points and no weaknesses; Zhu Xi believed that the Daxiang party regretted that although Confucius was knowledgeable, he did not have any outstanding points in the six arts, which was a pity. Combined with the context, Zhu Xi's interpretation makes more sense, but it contradicts the sentence "Great is Confucius" praising Confucius.

Today, Shen Shixing proposed a new argument: the Daxiang Party members have been making sarcastic remarks from the beginning to the end, which can be interpreted as the Daxiang Party members believing that Confucius is "all-rounder and all-rounder". This behavior of making a big fuss about Zheng Xuan and Zhu Xi directly hit the pain points of everyone.

Shen Li, the Minister of Agriculture and Commerce, stepped out and said loudly, "'Nature is the natural law that people receive; the Way of Heaven is the essence of the natural law of Heaven, and in fact, it is one principle.' This is the general outline of Zhu Xi's commentary on the Analects. Anyone who interprets it outside of this outline has gone astray. In this sense, the Master's words about nature and temperament are the natural law of personality. How can you be self-deprecating?"

The ministers in the hall nodded in agreement. The emperor sat on the throne with a serious face, without making any comments. The prince could not understand what was going on, so he quit the group chat and looked around.

Shen Shixing still sneered and said, "Then I wonder how Shen Longjiang interprets it?"

Shen Li replied: "I think this is because the saints heard people praise it and accepted it with humility."

Shen Shixing laughed and continued, "That's right! Since 'Cheng Yiqian' says it in a self-deprecating tone, why not?" Shen Li didn't expect Shen Shixing's angle to be so tricky and was speechless for a moment.

Shen Shixing faced the ministers and scholars of Confucius Mansion with pride. When they saw a blush on his gaunt face, they could tell that he was very excited. There was a sudden silence and no one stood up to challenge him.

Shen Shixing let out a long breath, bowed to the emperor, then turned around and said, "Everyone, you must read the Analects together with the Zuo Zhuan and the Guoyu, so that you can understand that the thoughts and ideas of the Master and the sage have their own origins. For example, 'There are four ways of a gentleman: he is respectful in his conduct, respectful in his service to his superiors, benevolent in his care for the people, and righteous in his use of the people.' The sage was talking about Zichan. When Zichan was in charge of Zheng, he cultivated fields, wrote hill levies, cast criminal codes, selected talented people, and opened up channels for people to speak freely. The sage praised him for this." "However, if we look closely at Zichan's policies, we can see that the land of the nobles was limited by the land digging system; the hill tax was only to recognize private land; the criminal code was only to promulgate grammar; and other policies such as selecting talented people and opening up channels for people to express their opinions were considered simple compared to the policies of later dynasties. If a sage had lived in the Han Dynasty, the Tang Dynasty, or even our own dynasty with the knowledge of the Spring and Autumn Period, what would he say? I'm afraid he would be "far behind"."

Here, Shen Shixing quoted from Zhuangzi: Tian Zifang: "The Master ran away and left the dust behind, and turned back and seemed to be lagging behind." Zhu Yijun smiled knowingly on the throne. When the people present heard him comment on Confucius in this way, their ears and bodies were numb, but no one said a word to resist. Because everything Shen Shixing said was reasonable.

After a pause, Shen Shixing looked at everyone and continued in a loud voice: "So modern people are not necessarily inferior to ancient people. The sages set examples for us, which are also universal principles of human nature. If we forcefully assume that the sages knew everything by nature, and that every word and action of theirs has a deep meaning, then are we following the teachings of the sages and restoring the Zhou ritual of well-fields?!"

Finally, he concluded in a resounding way: "Chinese people follow the teachings of Confucius and Mencius, which is the result of the times and the situation. Before Dong Zhongshu, various schools of thought contended with each other, and the civilization was brilliant. If the Qin Dynasty had not perished in the second generation, the Chinese people today might respect the Legalists, and their temperaments would be very different. However, the ways of the world, Legalism, Confucianism, Buddhism, Taoism, etc., may not be different but lead to the same destination. The Holy Son of Heaven is in power now, and he has written "On Practice", "On Contradiction", and "On Movement" to explain the principles of the operation of heaven, earth, and human hearts. The principles are profound and the purpose is far-reaching, the words are concise and the meaning is comprehensive, which can be said to be exploring the mysteries and exploring the profound. You, why do you have to expound on the subtle words of the ancient sages and despise the insights of the modern sages?"

As soon as these words came out, the whole room fell silent. Liang Menglong's heart was filled with alarm bells, and the look he gave Shen Shixing changed - this was not "a trapped beast still fighting", this was a move made by a master, an antelope hanging on a horn, the so-called words are finite but the meaning is infinite.

However, Shen Shixing discovered and used the brilliant point that none of the ministers present had noticed, and he came with great fanfare, carrying the high prestige brought by the emperor's efforts over the past decade, like a dimensionality reduction attack. How could Liang Menglong and others break it in such a short time? Besides, how could they dare to break it?

  Among the people present, there are ministers and civilians. Ministers are the officials of the imperial court. Civilians are the scholars in Confucius's mansion. Although Shen Shixing's interpretation completely subverts the current interpretation of the Analects, it is so shocking that it gives goose bumps on the back. But compared with his last two earth-shattering sentences, who still cares about how he interprets the Analects?

Zhu Yijun, who was sitting on the throne, also sat up straight. He did not expect that after the two major cases of "looting case" and "revealing letter case", Shen Shixing would become more and more courageous and find a new way out. It goes without saying that any emperor with a little political wisdom would give him strong support and encouragement after this theory was put forward.

More importantly, from the perspective of the interaction between the emperor and his ministers, Shen Shixing had already made clear to the emperor his future positioning and development direction - and this direction was exactly what Zhu Yijun had been thinking about, as the court had been lacking someone to preside over the direction since Feng Bao committed suicide.

In an instant, Zhu Yijun was filled with thoughts.

Since traveling through time, Zhu Yijun felt that the difficulty was not in gaining civil and military achievements - traveling through time was the biggest problem. The biggest problem was that his own ideas could not become the consensus of the world, and he needed to change his own thinking conclusions into policies that people of the time could understand before he could spread them.

Today, an "ancient man" finally found the biggest pain point of Zhu Yijun, the time traveler, after careful observation, in-depth thinking, and painful self-defense, and hinted that he could become the person the emperor needed most.

What Shen Shixing subverted was not only the understanding of Confucianism by those present, but what he really subverted was his own "world view" and "methodology".

Unlike others who mentioned the "Three Treatises" simply as "the emperor's holy teachings", he did not show the emperor that he had become a "believer" in Zhu Yijun's philosophical thoughts by attacking Zheng Xuan and Zhu Xi's annotations.

  Zhu Yijun could not imagine how much Shen Shixing had racked his brains when thinking about these issues. What kind of "struggle" did he experience in the depths of his soul?

And now, as the emperor, how should he repay his first true "believer"?

(End of this chapter)