Guide to Traveling through the Northern Song Dynasty.

Chapter 1154 Postscript : What are those officials fighting about?
Nowadays, newspapers of a slightly larger scale are basically weekly, biweekly or monthly newspapers.

They set up a headquarters in one city and branches in other cities. They first designed a fixed layout structure, edited the content of the manuscript by the newspaper headquarters, and then transmitted the manuscript to the branch office via telegram, and agreed on a time to print and sell it together.

Although the cost of transmitting manuscripts by telegraph is high, it is not a problem as long as sales volume increases, and there are benefits in long-term cooperation with the telegraph office.

The real drawback is that telegrams cannot transmit pictures.

Therefore, any news with illustrations is either from newspapers printed at the newspaper headquarters or manually delivered to the branch offices!
The news report on child coal workers in Shanxi by Yibao was clearly well-planned and prepared. Even before the relevant inspection team went to Shanxi, the cartoons and illustrations had already been sent to the provincial branches, otherwise it would have been too late.

Twenty years after the article was published, the war of public opinion finally broke out, with many newspapers fighting back.

But the counterattack was not strong enough, and even had a bit of a seek-for-peace flavor.

Because the articles in Yi Bao embody the Confucian righteousness, occupy the moral high ground, and have the support of the imperial court.

How to fight back against this?
One angle is to gain sympathy through child laborers themselves, claiming that if mines and factories do not employ child laborers, the family's income will drop sharply, and eventually the whole family will fall into hunger and poverty.

One angle is to complain from a technical perspective. For example, in a mine, the underground tunnels for deep mining are very narrow, and only child workers can enter and exit quickly, which gives them a natural advantage over adult miners.

Even the counterattack article, while seeking peace, also has a hint of threat.

They pointed out that if child labor was not used, the costs of major coal mines across the country would inevitably soar and would also lead to a large reduction in production.

At that time, the price of coal will also rise. Even if the coal mines suddenly reduce production, you may not be able to buy coal at a high price. People in big cities will lack coal, and countless factories will also lack coal. Not only will it be more expensive for people to buy coal, but it will also be more expensive to buy cloth and iron, and so on.

There are many counter-attack articles of this type, and just as many supporting articles.

The supporting articles, like the one in Yibao, were basically based on Confucian righteousness and morality. Only a few newspapers said that child labor took away jobs from adult workers and caused a large number of children to die, become disabled, and become sick.

"Isn't the quarrel exciting?" The second brother Xie Kan is a fun-loving person who often watches the fun without minding any trouble.

Xie Yan asked, "Why are they quarreling?"

Xie Kan said: "It's about arguing about whether to abolish child labor."

"I mean the deeper reasons." Xie Yan said.

Xie Kan replied: "The underlying reason is naturally the war of public opinion for the reform."

Xie Yan asked again: "Why do we need to reform? I mean, why do so many officials want to reform? What is the fundamental conflict of interest between those officials who support reform and those who prevent reform?"

Xie Kan was speechless and stood there thinking.

In Europe, the conflicts and contradictions between the feudal landlord class and the emerging bourgeoisie were very obvious.

First, the bourgeoisie needed to hire workers for production, but due to insufficient population in the early stages, the peasants had to be driven into the city, which deprived the feudal landlord class of their population resources.

Second, when the bourgeoisie no longer lacks population resources, they need to gain greater political and economic power, which is often in the hands of feudal landlords (nobles).

But these two contradictions do not seem to be prominent in the Ming Dynasty today.

The population of the Ming Dynasty exploded, and the landlords had no shortage of tenants, and the capitalists had no shortage of workers.

The capitalists of the Ming Dynasty had long since joined forces with some bureaucrats, and they seemed to have no shortage of political and economic power.

So, what is the current contradiction?
Why are the two factions fighting each other?

Was the struggle even so fierce that the first three rows of the court were emptied out?
Xie Yan really couldn't understand.

Another day passed, and my father did not come home for dinner. He was too busy and could only fill his stomach in the yamen.

Xie Yan took advantage of the drop in temperature at night to read by lamplight in the study room shared by his two siblings.

He had already familiarized himself with all the mathematical symbols that would be tested in the provincial examination, and had made a comparison table of the two mathematical symbols of time and space.

At present, the physical symbols have been sorted out.

Xie Yan discovered that the chemistry of this space-time was seriously backward compared to mathematics and physics.

In his later years, Emperor Taizu proposed that everything is made up of particles, and these particles can be combined and subdivided.

But Taizu's theory was just a guess at the time. Many people believed it, but more people did not.

After more than a hundred years of development, Taizu's particle theory was gradually widely accepted. Some members of the royal family even took out a periodic table of elements, claiming that it was a relic passed down by Taizu - this periodic table was considered a forgery by many chemists.

In addition, chemists who accepted the particle theory formed more than a dozen factions of varying sizes.

One of the mainstream factions believes that the yin and yang energies evolve into various homogeneous particles, and the combination of homogeneous particles forms certain elements and substances.

They firmly believed that compounds were also certain elements composed of simple particles. For example, purified salt was a salt element composed of salt particles. Apart from the salt element and salt particles, the original particles and elements no longer existed. Moreover, whether it was the yin and yang qi that evolved into homogeneous particles, or the homogeneous particles that combined to form elements, they all relied on the power of static electricity.

Another mainstream faction always believed that Taizu was right, that particles can be freely combined or separated. Elements composed of the same particles can also react with other elements, but the reaction is not a new element. For example, purified salt cannot be called salt element, but a complex substance composed of different elements.

Over the past two decades, the latter has gradually gained the upper hand.

They conducted repeated experiments and compared the suspected forged periodic table with it, carefully verifying and sorting it out.

Of course, there are many points of consensus between the two groups.

For example, they all believed that particles were combined and changed by static electricity. They all believed that ionic compounds (this concept did not exist yet) were a kind of substance combined by static electricity (the former believed that it was an unstable new element that only existed in solution, and the latter believed that it was some kind of composite particle). After electricity was applied, the static electricity force was dissipated and separated into positive and negative particle states.

Due to the endless debate in the chemical community, the textbooks don’t know how to be compiled. They can only list the consensus of the two factions as compulsory content, and the divergent parts are attached to the textbooks for reference.

Tonight, Xie Yan also finished sorting out the physical symbols of the two time and space by making a comparison table.

He glanced through the chemistry textbook, spread out the manuscript paper and wrote the title of the paper: "Molecular Theory".

I have only written the title, and I won’t write the main text for now.

Because he has only read the imperial examination chemistry textbooks and does not know what the most cutting-edge academic achievements are at the moment, he must carefully read the chemistry journals of recent years.

He heard footsteps outside and the door to his father's study next door was soon opened.

Xie Yan went over and knocked on the door.

Xie Yiqin was writing a letter to a friend. While grinding ink, he said, "Come in."

"Father." Xie Yan pushed the door open and walked in.

Xie Yiqin warned: "It's very late now. Studying by lamplight will hurt your eyes. Try to study during the day in the future."

"Yes." Xie Yan replied.

Xie Yiqin asked: "Is there anything else?"

Xie Yan asked the same question he had asked during the day: why did those people in the court fight each other?

Xie Yiqin did not answer immediately.

After a long silence, Xie Yiqin said, "In the first ten years after the late emperor ascended the throne, his administration was actually very gentle, and he was praised for having the style of Taizu. It was not until a major case in Guangdong that the late emperor became tough."

"What case?" Xie Yan asked curiously.

Xie Yiqin said:

"Several private banks in Guangdong illegally obtained a large amount of loans from the Guangdong Baoquan Bureau. This behavior existed before the late emperor ascended the throne. I don't know much about the banking industry, so I don't know how they deceived people for nearly 20 years."

"Later, there was a big storm at sea, and nearly 100 merchant ships sank, disappeared, or were damaged. I don't know who spread the rumor, but one of the banks was run. As one of the best private banks in Guangdong, it couldn't pay out the money in less than two days."

"It was a big fuss at the time, and the late emperor asked the Guangdong Baoquan Bureau to calm the situation. As a result, as soon as the Guangdong Baoquan Bureau took action, it caused a larger-scale run on the bank, and even many merchants were in a hurry to withdraw their money. Even other banks in Guangdong were run as well."

"The first batch of imperial envoys sent by the late emperor to investigate the case reported that the incident was caused by rumors spread by unscrupulous businessmen and evil people. The officials and banks in Guangdong did not commit any crimes, but only had a few violations."

"At that time, there was a young official from the Guangzhou Maritime Customs, who, perhaps out of selflessness or for other reasons, secretly sent a secret telegram to the late emperor. This person was of too low a rank to be qualified to send a secret telegram. But he asked a scholar from the Royal Society to send a secret telegram to the late emperor through the scholar's privileges."

"This secret message was actually withheld!"

Xie Yan was extremely surprised: "Even the secret message sent to the emperor could be withheld?"

Xie Yiqin nodded and said, "The emperor has his own telegraph room, half of which is staffed by art officials and the other half by eunuchs. The art officials and eunuchs should have supervised each other, but they teamed up to deceive the emperor."

"Discovered by the emperor?" Xie Yan asked.

Xie Yiqin said: "One of the art officers was so frightened by the huge case that he revealed the secret telegrams from the emperor. The late emperor was furious. Except for the one who exposed the case, all the other people in the telegraph room were tortured. Then he sent people to arrest the first batch of imperial envoys to investigate the case, and sent the second batch of imperial envoys to Guangdong."

Xie Yan asked: "And then?"

Xie Yiqin sighed, "Alas, the case is too big and involves too many people. We must fight to the end. The minor official of the Maritime Customs who sent the secret telegram to the emperor through the scholar suddenly caught a cold and died. The weather in Guangdong was hot, so the body was quickly burned. The second group of imperial envoys went there, but they only found some minor problems. It took a full six months, and they reported to the late emperor that there was no major case. Those officials in the telegraph room who were tortured and forced to confess were all beaten to death, but they didn't confess anyone."

"The late emperor was not a fool." Xie Yan said happily.

Xie Yiqin said: "The late emperor must have been shocked and angry at the time, and was so frightened that he pretended not to investigate further. Then, through the imperial secret telegram, 2,000 soldiers were transferred from the Yanran Protectorate and the Andong Protectorate to the capital. The commanders were all acquaintances of the late emperor when he was young. These 4,000 soldiers were all turned into palace guards. The late emperor didn't even trust the palace guards!"

(End of this chapter)