Nanming: I can build wonders

However, the attractiveness of land rolls is relatively poor. On the contrary, the combination of government and gentry paying food and errands has a relatively large impact across the country.

"Officials and gentry need to pay food as one errand?! I am afraid that there will be no civilian husbands in the world. Shouldn't the collection of money and food be divided into Confucian households and eunuchs? How can we let the common people pay food and do errands together?"

Yangzhou Prefecture.

When Wang Xinjing, the magistrate of Xi'an, announced to the gentry in Xi'an that the imperial court would implement the decree that officials and gentry should pay food and errands together in Xi'an, it caused a great commotion at that time.

The local old literati who had resigned from office asked about Wang Xinjing at this time.

Facing their questions, Wang Xinjing didn't know how to answer them.

But his teacher Li Yong spoke for him: "The court's decree is so, why do you bother to ask, it is a national policy for officials and gentry to pay food and errands together, and I hope you will respond positively!"

Li Yong was a great Confucianist in the late Ming and early Qing Dynasties. He was known as a famous Confucianist in Guanzhong. He was one of the "Three Great Confucianists" together with Sun Qifeng and Huang Zongxi.

In the 12th year of Emperor Kangxi of the Qing Dynasty, Eshan, governor of Shaanxi, restored the Guanzhong Academy that was abolished in the late Ming Dynasty, and invited Li Yong, who was already very famous at that time, to preside over the academy.

Li Yong was originally unwilling to serve the Qing court, but the lesson of the demise of the Ming Dynasty made Li Yong think that the work of cultivating talents and imparting knowledge such as lectures in the academy should not be given up, so he began to take over Guanzhong Academy to give lectures after many resignations.

Li Yong deeply reflected on the lessons learned from the fall of the Ming Dynasty. Most of the Confucian disciples paid more attention to the plain talk than to the practice. As a result, the Confucian scholars talked about the truth with rhetoric, but they actually governed the local area.

Therefore, Li Yong asked the students to learn how to govern the place, specify weapons and equipment, understand agricultural management, and learn water conservancy knowledge from the West...

As Li Yong became more and more famous, E Shan, the governor of Shaanxi, recommended him to the court as a "recluse in the mountains and forests". Li Yong wrote eight times to resign.

Later, there was an edict to "learn great Confucianism", and the Ministry of Rites recommended it as "True Confucianism in China". At that time, Taishi went to Li Yong's house in person and repeatedly urged him to get up and go to Beijing.

Li Yong was very disgusted with this, and refused to give up on the grounds of being ill.

At that time, the officials of the Qing court carried Li Yong and his bed to the provincial capital, and went to the Yanta in the southern suburbs.

After the rise of the new Ming Dynasty, Zhu Kezang's practical and true Confucianism was very to Li Yong's taste. He also stayed in the Senate for several years.

Now 65 years old, he resigned from office the year before last and went back to Xi'an Mansion to rest.

He is highly respected in Xi'an, and he has many disciples.

As the saying goes, a famous teacher produces a talented student, and many of his disciples are officials in the court, such as Wang Chenglie and Liu Zeng, and Wang Xinjing is right in front of him.

Li Yong said so, and other gentry did not dare to openly object.

But one person dared to object.

"Since this is the case, when the time comes when I need to wait for the gentry to be on duty, I will ask the magistrate to send someone to order. I have no money to do the mission, so I have to go to serve in person at that time! There is also this year's tax, and I can't afford the corvee Yin, why don't you just go to serve the corvee yourself, anyway, it's not the old man who loses face!"

Li Nianci, who also cultivated in Xi'an Mansion, said to other Xi'an gentry at this time.

Li Nianci was only one year younger than Li Yong. After the new Daming moved to the Central Plains, his official position was gone, and he was getting old. Daming didn't like him, and he couldn't pass the imperial examination of Daming. He could only be a poet and painter, so Great resentment towards the country.

"You are all local celebrities, please don't be so good, otherwise, wouldn't it leave a reputation for the imperial court to be disrespectful to scholars? The Li family is a local rich family, with tens of thousands of mu of fertile land, so it is unlikely that even this little corvee money can't afford it. , why do you want to trap the court in injustice?"

"What's more, you don't have to serve corvee at the age of 60. Li Gong thinks twice before acting!"

The prefect Wang Xinjing persuaded him.

"Hmph! Not only Mr. Li will go to serve in person, but all the other gentry in our Xi'an Prefecture will also go to serve at that time! At that time, the scholars in the entire Xi'an Prefecture will be invited to do some hard work like Bai Ding to see who lost it Face!"

"That's right, that's what we're going to do. We call on the children of the clan. We don't take exams or read books. Isn't the court working on the first five-year plan? We'll go to post stations, dams, rivers, railways Go to corvée, or send taxes and food! Let the court lose face, and if you look at the annals of history, there is no one who makes scholars do hard work!"

So, the gentry in Xi'an Mansion really did this.

They knew that the current emperor, Zhu Kezang, was extremely tough. Thousands of students from the Guozijian were directly blacklisted, and officials were directly exiled.

Some gentry really began to carry dry food, wear coarse shorts, and carry poles and so on, and went to serve corvée on the railway that is currently under construction.

According to the current corvee system of the new Ming Dynasty, it is possible to pay corvee silver to offset the corvee, so that the Ming government can use this money to hire workers.

But if you really don’t want to pay and want to sell your labor for service, you only need to report to the Yamen, and the government will arrange the construction period for the corvée that needs to be mortgaged according to the monthly salary standard of some projects.

For this reason, the magistrate Wang Xinjing had no choice but to arrange for these gentry to build the railway according to the corvee silver they had to pay.

The main reason is that these people are old and weak, and if one accidentally falls on the railway, won't his reputation as the magistrate be stinky?
"Come and see! The Great Confucian Mr. Li is here to serve!"

And when Li Nianci and others came to serve the corvee, the scholars who still had good deeds shouted out, deliberately wanting to let everyone know.

"The old man is over seventy years old, and now he is here to serve. Please take care of me from all the neighbors."

Li Nianci also smiled and said a few words because of this.

Seeing Li Nianci's slapstick operation made Wang Xinjing's scalp tingle, and he couldn't take Li Nianci home forcibly in the name of disrupting official duties.

Because Li Nianci was considered a good official in the past, he had a good reputation in all parts of Shaanxi.

This was not the only thing that gave Wang Xinjing a headache, but also the fact that the scholars were dismissed from the examination because the officials and the gentry paid food and went on errands.

"The great master calmed down. It's not that the lower officials were greedy for money to promote learning. It's really that the gentry in Xi'an Prefecture are dissatisfied because the officials and gentry pay for food as errands!"

"The current situation is that the scholars in the Xi'an Prefecture do not come to take the exam in the name of needing to serve corvee, so that the government examination and the government academic examination have not been successfully held until now."

When officials from Shaanxi province came to Guide to hold the college examination, they also saw no students taking the exam, so they questioned the local prefect Wang Xinjing, asking if there was anything wrong with the government, and ordered the students to stop taking the exam. Therefore, the prefect Wang Xinjing Then explain it truthfully.

After listening to the envoy of Shaanxi Province, he also felt troubled. What kind of thing is this?
After hesitating for a long time, he said: "Prefect Wang, you should report the facts to the court, but you must make it clear that the scholars did not stop taking the exam because they were dissatisfied with the new policy of the court, but because they actively implemented the government-gentry integration of food and errands so that they had no time to take the exam. So as not to make Long Yan furious!"

The Shaanxi envoy for promoting education also heard about the Guozijian, and he was worried that the scholars in Shaanxi would also be listed as illegal scholars.

"The lower official has reported to the imperial court!" (End of this chapter)