Daming Yuanfu

Chapter 240 The Crown Prince Leaves the Court (Part [-])
In the fourth year of Longqing, the year of Gengwu Horse.

This year, the world has not changed much.

In the east, the Battle of Anegawa broke out in Japan. Asai and Asakura were defeated, and they were no longer able to fight against Oda Nobunaga, and were finally destroyed by Oda Nobunaga.

In the west, Denmark and Sweden ended the Seven Years War in the North, and the two sides concluded the "Szczecin Peace Treaty". Sweden paid huge compensation to Denmark to redeem Elfsberg, its expansion to the North Sea and its attempt to compete for hegemony in the Baltic Sea is also contained.However, although the war ended with Denmark gaining an advantage, it has been unable to restore its hegemony in the Baltic Sea.

In the south, because the Ming Dynasty began to try to relax the sea ban, the first port of Fujian Yuegang began to form a "sea eye" effect, and the Spanish Philippines began a net outflow of silver that lasted nearly 200 years in its original history. The place of outflow: China .

In the mainland of Ming Dynasty, on March [-]th, according to the calculation of Qin Tianjian, it is advisable to go to school and avoid marriage.

On that day, Prince Zhu Yijun officially left the cabinet to study.

Gao Gong, a scholar of the Jianji Hall, and Zhu Xizhong, the Duke of Cheng, who were ordered by the imperial court to have a feast of knowledge of the scriptures, were both literate and military, and also dressed in python robes, standing at the top of the left and right in front of the Wenhua Hall.Shen Shixing, the right servant of the Ministry of Rites who was ordered by the imperial court to attend the banquet with Zhijing, led the six lecturers Chen Jingbang, Shen Li, Xu Guo, Gu Yangqian, Zhang Wei, and Chen Yubi, who were the lecturers of the Prince Jingyan, to wear official uniforms. stand still.

A few hours passed by, and now it was the second quarter of Mao, the sky was dawning, and the eastern sky was turning white.

The crown prince's guard of honor was fully unfurled and he entered the area of ​​the Wenhua Palace. The crown prince Zhu Yijun was wearing a crown suit, and Gao Yushi in a blue official uniform stood slightly behind on the left side of his side.The two went forward together one after another, and met with the teachers together.

The difference is that the prince saluted, while Gao Wu saluted.

The prince saluted once, and Gao Wu practiced saluting three times and kowtowed.

Then, under the leadership of Gao Gong and Zhu Xizhong, the teachers bowed three times.

In the world, the ruler, relatives and teachers, the division between monarch and minister is still greater than the division between master and apprentice.

And the time of this ceremony is not set at will. Maoshi is also known as the beginning of the day and dawn, and around the second quarter of Maoshi in March in the capital, it is the time when the sky is bright, and the ceremony for the prince to go out of the pavilion to study is set at this time Dot, has the profound meaning of "the rising sun".

Later generations of Westerners like to pay attention to the sense of ritual, and some domestic "petty bourgeoisie" always feel that the sense of ritual of Westerners is particularly compelling, but they don't know that these things have been mastered and mastered as early as their ancestors.

For example, in the Ming Dynasty, it was said that it was a grand ceremony such as the prince leaving the pavilion to study. Even if the tea ceremony was a daily life, there were "thirteen props" and "seven taboos" in the Ming Dynasty. Which Western country's daily rituals can catch up?

But in fact, Gao Yushi thinks that Daming's "sense of ritual" is a bit too much - since the founding of the country, Daming has had a major feature, that is, there are many rules.Starting from the royal family, there are rules for eating, dressing and housing. If you are not careful, you will break the law, and the rules of court education are extremely strict.

Zhu Yuanzhang was born poor, and he didn't read many books, but he obviously understood the truth of "no matter how poor you are, you can't be poor in education". The rules of court education in the Ming Dynasty were basically established by him.This is divided into two links: one is the daily education of the emperor himself, and the other is the education and training of the prince.

There is no need to go into details about the education of the emperor himself. Anyway, the emperor in the late Ming Dynasty was more slack in his own studies. It was still hard work to fish for three days and spend two days on the net. Here we only talk about the education of the crown prince.

Different from the emperor's own slack in learning, the emperor, as the prince's father, also has the same heart of "hoping for his son to become a dragon" like an ordinary father. ...), rarely relax.

The education and training system for the crown prince of the Ming Dynasty was first formulated by Zhu Yuanzhang.The early education of the prince has been introduced in the previous article of this book, so I don’t need to say it here. It is the prince’s education system established by Zhu Yuanzhang that has a greater impact on later generations. Fu Zhan Shi, Shao Zhan Shi, Chunfang University Bachelor, Bastard, Yu De, Zhong Yun, Zan Shan, Xima, School Book and other official positions.These together constitute the embryonic form of the education system for the crown prince of the Ming Dynasty.

Before the Zhengtong period of the Ming Dynasty, there was actually no clear etiquette for the prince to study. In the Zhengtong period, the etiquette for the prince to study outside the pavilion was formally established: on the morning when the prince left the pavilion for the first time to study, the deacon of the Ministry of Rites and the Honglu Temple would first write a letter in the morning. After the four worships in the back hall of the Huadian, the temple officials of Honglu Temple saluted the prince and invited the prince to study in the Wenhua Hall.On this day, the emperor had to attend in person. The three masters, the three young masters and all the officials kowtowed to the emperor in order, and then all the officials withdrew.

From then on, the prince's study and life began. Today's etiquette has inherited the previous system, and there is no difference.But the etiquette of the prince going out of the pavilion to study today is still slightly improved or...increased from before.

That's the scene just now - the prince sees the teacher.

Although the prince just saluted once, the teacher had to return the salute three times, but you must know that there was no such thing before.This new system was not decided by Gao Gong, but was proposed by Emperor Longqing himself.But Gao Gong didn't say why the emperor wanted to make such a change in his communication with Gao Yushi. Gao Yushi privately estimated that probably Long Qing felt that Gao Gong himself was his teacher, and now he worked tirelessly to shoulder the heavy responsibility of educating the prince. He is really the "teacher of the emperors of the two dynasties", so he deserves such honor.

But speaking of it, among the prince's teachers, the one who worked the hardest was the lecturer.When they lecture, they must speak clearly; if the prince makes mistakes, he must boldly correct them; if the prince does not study, he must dare to criticize.Failure to do any of the above is considered unqualified.

However, Gao Wushi knew that this seemingly reasonable principle became more and more obvious in the middle and late Ming Dynasty. When they were princes, many emperors in the middle and late Ming Dynasty were full of behaviors such as skipping classes, playing and having fun, etc. The carefully selected teachers seem to be more and more helpless about this.One of the important reasons is that the prince who left the court to study was still a child after all.

According to the pedagogy of later generations, there is often a generation gap between children and adults. The greater the gap between teachers and students, the deeper the generation gap between them may be.Putting it on the education of the prince, most of the teachers who focus on the prince's study are above middle age, and some are even elderly, and the early education is mostly based on old scholars with profound knowledge and strict scholarship. It is basically impossible to have any common language with the prince. If there is a mischievous prince, rebellion will definitely appear.

In addition, in the middle and late Ming Dynasty, the power of eunuchs increased day by day, and those who accompanied the prince to study were mainly eunuchs who served the prince.When it comes to things like skipping classes, he is even more complicit with the prince.The most typical example is that when Zhu Houzhao, Emperor Wuzong of the Ming Dynasty, was the prince, because he didn’t like to study, the eunuchs who served him often set up excuses to cancel the lectures of the day. Just making trouble in get out of class, normal education is basically not guaranteed.The eunuch who helped Prince Zhu Houzhao skip class the most was Liu Jin who was once in power during the Zhengde Dynasty...

In fact, people of insight among the civil servants have long seen this problem, but they have not been able to find a good solution to it. However, this time unexpectedly, the emperor "actively" asked to find a civil servant who was about the same age as the prince to serve as his son. Accompanying the prince to study with the prince, although everyone envied the high pragmatism who finally got this position, but the reason why they didn't object much before was that apart from the stimulation of the "Prince's playmate" incident, it was because they themselves I feel that having a young civil servant by his side can have a positive influence on the prince.

(End of this chapter)