Daming Yuanfu

Why is Gao pragmatic so happy? Because this idea was almost groundbreaking in China during the agricultural era!

As early as when Gao Jingshi 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? I feel that economic development, in the eyes of ancient officials and emperors, was nothing more than stepping on the rind of a watermelon - no matter where it slipped.

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 was really not 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 and there is no problem in putting it here. The problem is the sacrifice.

If you want to say that an activity like sacrifice is not important at all, then you are definitely not right. After all, it seems to involve the inheritance of culture and spirit. If you have to be serious, it is still a bit important. However, when placed on the same level as "war", something feels a little 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, and even sacrifice is placed before war, because the sacrifice here is actually what Confucius called "ritual".

So, what is etiquette? Putting aside the Confucian classics that can give you a million-word explanation, in fact, the etiquette mentioned by Confucius has never been etiquette or politeness at its root. These are just details that appear on the surface, just like the foam that comes out when making tea - what you want to drink is the tea soup, not the layer of foam.

The so-called etiquette of Confucius, 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 destroy them. So you see, this sentence is essentially the "primary matter standard" given from the two perspectives of "internal" and "external".

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 "domestic affairs" - I arrange for you to do these tasks, and if you all do it well, this country As long as you can keep it, it's not your turn to worry about the other things that are there but are 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 benefit little, and there may be some people who do not benefit or even suffer. This causes injustice and easily creates 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 A hired hand with 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.

That's true, but as the saying goes, "To talk about toxicity without talking about dosage is just a hooligan." 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 throughout the process, even among people in the same class or ecological niche, some will earn more and some will earn less. This will create a new class change - for example, you and I are both local businessmen with little wealth, each with a capital of 10,000 taels of silver, and we are all doing business.

The results of it? In the end, I lost all my capital, and I could not repay the additional debt of another 10,000 taels. I was forced to sell my son and daughter, and I was trapped in a trap that would never get over again. You used 10,000 taels of capital to make a hundred thousand taels. He became a local rich man, and because of this, he trained his son to become a Jinshi at Chunwei High School. From now on, he became a member of an 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 What about the newly wealthy people who have emerged? 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 kind of change, so they don't think it's anything strange or a big deal. But for the "ancient people", especially in a farming-based society like China, this kind of change would 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, so I can ensure that my family will always be able to live well with this wealth. If this is the case, then why should I risk losing money and going bankrupt to do business?

Taking 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, the venture is successful and you earn back ten thousand hectares of fertile land. From "my eleven" to "my ten times". From a human perspective, do you hate me when I look at you at this time? I'm afraid it's "jealousy that has changed me beyond recognition", right?

This is just between two people. If it scales up to a huge country like the Ming Dynasty, the class conflicts that this change may cause will only become larger and more uncontrollable. Therefore, this is in direct conflict with the "sacrifice" of "Sacrifice and Rong", that is, "everything must be in order".

Why did Zhu Yuanzhang regulate civilian households, military households, and craftsman households, and did not allow changes in household registration? Was it just because he was stupid? Obviously not. He can transform from a beggar to an emperor. How stupid can he be like this?

He just wants to "rule", and wants everything in the country to be within his "rules", and never to exceed them - 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 trumps 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. The ancient times were different, such as the Ming Dynasty, which insisted on "stability overriding everything" because it did not require you to develop, it only wanted you to abide by the rules. Because you abide by the rules, 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 trouble and pursue economic development under the huge pressure of maintaining stability? I'm very developed now, okay? 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 take risks at this time to pursue something that I don’t know if it will succeed. If it fails, it is likely to 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 immediately introduce the Franco machine gun as soon as it was discovered that it was better than its own cannon, and then successfully imitate it in a short period of time, and then start producing it for its own use. Daming's so-called "self-contained" is mostly because the self-enclosed part of it is really better than others.

Of course, part of it is because it hasn't recognized the strengths of others yet.

Because of the above reasons, Gao Jingshi's previous 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 deal with if the power of the Ministry of Revenue is not in place, so we should be pragmatic in "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 said was a joke that all the scholars in the capital were so full that they farted one after another?

However, the problem of the imperial examination has always existed, but it has never seemed very urgent or necessary to change. At this time, Gao Pragmatic jumped out to reform the imperial examination. The first reaction of the scholars, the government and the public was not "Gao Yuanfu is really in a hurry", but "Who is Gao Rixin trying to get rid of this time?" ? Minister of Rites?"

No one will immediately elevate your move 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 fame?

Vulgar? vulgar. Is it realistic? Reality.

Gao Pragmatic knows this very well and has always been good at taking advantage of people's vulgarity. However, it is precisely because of this that he waited for thirty years to reform the imperial examination - there was 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 the aristocracy! [Note: As I write this, I suddenly think of the British House of Lords. It’s so funny that in the 21st century, you still need a title to be admitted to the House of Lords. What a mummy. ]

Why not wait now? Because he figured something out: If he waits any longer, he won't get the chance to show up on his own initiative, so he might as well 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 forward, you can't do it without any social foundation. You must have a starting point before you can use it. Now the starting point has appeared, and unlike what the first three shopkeepers mentioned, this time the readers of the "Economic Ten Minutes" are actually questioning the current imperial examination system's inability to select suitable talents, which is incompatible with Gao's pragmatic purpose. It coincides with each other, how can he not be excited?

But he immediately thought of another question, what group of people would have such an idea? The thinking is a bit advanced!

Gao pragmatically asked the question to Shi Yang, and shopkeeper Shi smiled and said: "It's a coincidence that 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 Pingshi was stunned for a moment: "How do you say this?"

"My boss is busy with everything, so he may not be very clear about some of the details. In fact, the Craftsman School has really cultivated a lot of talents over the years since it opened its doors to full enrollment."

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. Over time, the number of scholars among the scholars in the capital who have studied at the Craftsman School, no matter how small we count, is definitely more than a thousand."

"So that's it!" Gao Pingshi suddenly realized that the reason why this wave of public opinion emerged was because I had accumulated my own savings 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 Objects" 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 searched for all the mathematics and physics knowledge he could remember - except for some things that were inconvenient to appear in this era.

However, Gao Pragmatic does not just teach knowledge. He mixes a lot of private thinking into the teaching materials to "enlighten students." Especially in mathematics teaching, Gao pragmatically mentions some anecdotes in the textbook from time to time, such as "the magistrate of a certain county" was financially manipulated by the county chief secretary, and then asked students to calculate the relevant factors mentioned in the story. Math question.

Not only will this approach not offend people, it will even make students feel "very happy" - is this the level of your county magistrate? That'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 when selecting scholars in the imperial examination? They can't even defeat their chief bookkeeper. Can these losers really manage a county? Wouldn't it be worse if this guy still had a prosperous official career? This is a non-human being entrusted by the imperial court... No, this is a non-human being 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 one side to govern in the future, let alone rule the world in the future.

If the Craftsman Academy had not relaxed its enrollment restrictions and all the students were from the Gao family's servants, then forget it. After all, its influence would be limited. However, Gao Shishi relaxed admissions restrictions very early. Some scholars with average family conditions and who felt that they had no hope of getting into the college wanted to get a good job in Beijing through the school (after all, they are scholars, and usually they are really good jobs), so they began to enter continuously. Attend school.

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.

If you persist in this way for a long time, you will form the group of people that shopkeeper Shi mentioned. Thinking of this, Gao Pragmatic suddenly reacted - no wonder they are readers of "Economic Ten Discussions"! As the name suggests, the "Economic Ten Discussions" usually publish content that mainly discusses economic topics, which is very consistent with the knowledge system of this group of people...

Good, very good, very good. Now that we are not afraid that public opinion will not be hyped up, we will take the political opinions of the "Economic Ten-Year Conference" group as the core, and then add the opinions of the previous groups to make the reform of the imperial examination seem 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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