My son, Fusu, please abdicate the first emperor!

Chapter 753 The Wings of Western Science
In the past, Fusu had always been optimistic about Confucianism. However, as he revised historical events, the current situation and even the situation in the world have changed greatly.

Since the establishment of the Qin Dynasty, it has been inevitable that the Qin State will use laws to govern the country in the future. The essence of establishing laws is to maintain fairness and maintain the moral bottom line in everyone's hearts.

Although there are various problems in the formulation and enforcement of laws, it is difficult for people to imagine how a country can operate solely on morality if it has no laws.

The development of Legalism in Qin was mainly based on the fact that the vast majority of Qin officials occupied the grassroots level of Qin.

Based on this fact, the Legalists would not allow Confucianism to become popular in the first place, because the Confucian scholars would squeeze out the Legalists and make them lose their jobs.

Even if Fusu really allowed the Qin State to promote Confucian teachings, it would most likely ruin Confucianism.

This is a discipline that allows emperors and generals to cultivate themselves and set an example for the world. If the emperors and generals cannot cultivate themselves, how can they use it to regulate and educate the people who are hungry and cold? What do the people think?

Fusu did not want to harm the people because he knew that even if the boomerang of fate did not hit him today, it would hit his descendants one day in the future.

Although the Qin Dynasty's dream of eternal existence is not to be obsessed with, if a person lives his life without pursuing anything, then what is the meaning of living?

However, Fusu also did not want to change the Confucian classics passed down by Confucius beyond recognition and make them a tool for others.

Yes, Confucianism is dead, but Fusu said that he wanted to bring it back to life!

Whether Confucianism can be revived depends entirely on what the rulers of the Qin Empire can achieve in the future.

Qin II always believed that the most important thing in governing a country is to guide the people. The king should guide the people to get rid of the unreasonable desires deep in their hearts and abide by the law by doing a good job himself.

The goal is to enable people to be content with their own position and not think about climbing up.

First of all, a country's king, prime minister, generals, ministers and officials must look down and use their power to take care of the people, instead of looking up for themselves. At that time, they will be easily driven by desires.

Once a king has desires that are difficult to satisfy, his subjects will follow suit and compete for the throne, and lower-ranking officials will also learn to curry favor with the powerful in order to achieve their goals.

Since the upper class did this, the people at the lower class had no choice but to follow this path as well.

As a result, people in the country no longer want to rely on production to satisfy their food and drink needs, but instead want to please those in power.

But the superiors are a minority after all, and the inferiors are always the majority. So everyone tries to please, but some people don’t get what they want, while others do.

Fairness can only ever be relative, not absolute.

What triggers the fire of injustice and anger in the hearts of the people is never because the lower-ranking people are vegetarians and the higher-ranking people are meat-eaters.

It is because the carnivorous superiors have eaten the meat paid by the inferiors, but they do not do what they should do, but instead bully and harm the inferiors.

Those in power should have used their prescribed salaries to take good care of the people, but they abused their power to seek benefits that did not belong to them and deceived and defrauded the people.

When this phenomenon becomes very common, corruption will spread, social order will be impacted, and the number of crimes will surge.

Therefore, Fusu insisted on integrating Confucianism and the teacher-teacher system into the Qin Dynasty's governing system in order to change this problem at the source.

However, as a ruler, Fusu had to govern such a large country, and he had to consider more than just the issue of governance at the moment.

He also had to think about what the Great Qin Empire would do in the next ten, twenty, fifty, or even a hundred years. Now it was the Qin Dynasty, and the vassal states were nominally governed by the vassal kings themselves, but in reality they were still under the management of Fusu. Fusu just painted a pie for them, making them happily serve as his agents.

Ying Zheng was an extremely wise man. He created a centralized political system that has stood the test of history and can be used for two thousand years or even longer.

But when it comes to Fusu, what he has to do is more difficult than what Ying Zheng did.

Since ancient times, it has been more difficult to maintain a business than to start one. Maintaining it is difficult, but building an empire into a country where everyone feels happy, free, at ease, and free from worries is even more difficult.

The emperor needs faith, and the princes and generals need to have their own ethics. This is a contemporary matter, but Fusu still wants to leave some practical things for the people.

Fusu realized that the reason for his father's failure was not because Ying Zheng was a bad person, but because Ying Zheng went in the wrong direction.

Ying Zheng could be considered a good emperor who could set an example for his subjects, otherwise he would not have received the support of Feng Quji, let alone made a talent like Wei Liao worship him.

Ying Zheng's mistake was that during his reign, he encountered the same problems as Fusu.

The big question is what to leave for the future people of Qin in the next ten, twenty, or fifty years.

Ying Zheng chose to connect the Great Wall to resist foreign invaders, expand territory to maintain peace, expand the highway and dig the Lingqu Canal.

The bad thing is that all these things were done by the people of an era, which not only led to serious exploitation and oppression, but also seriously damaged the prestige of Qin Shi Huang.

Having learned his lesson, Fusu was determined to leave something intangible for the people of Qin.

Whether it is Buddhism, Confucianism, or Taoist classics, in the final analysis they are all about working on people's hearts and changing people's hearts through relatively soft and gentle ways.

Confucian classics are studied by kings, princes, generals, ministers, nobles, scholars and officials, and serve as examples for the common people.

But for the lower class people, they also have the right to receive education, otherwise what is the point of them paying so much for their own labor?

But Fusu did not want to repeat the same mistakes, and Fusu did not want to establish any historical religion again.

Therefore, Fusu needed a brand new container to put all the things of Xinxue and even the gist of Wang Yangming's philosophy into. And he had to use logical empirical deduction to make those principles provable, so that no one would have the opportunity to falsify them for personal gain or harm others.

Confucianism does not have such capacity, because it emphasizes the ethics of father-father, son-son, ruler-ruler, and subject-minister, and no one likes to be the inferior. However, in the relationship between father and son, ruler-minister, and husband and wife, one party must be the inferior.

This is a real dilemma in life that everyone will encounter. Once these problems are not handled well, psychological imbalance will occur, which will either lead to the tragedy of others' fate or your own fate.

So, Fusu chose Mohism.

Because Mozi proposed a higher and grander ideal, which could make the contents of many classics submit to it at the same time.

Goals such as universal love, non-aggression, advocating unity, advocating the virtuous, Heaven's will, understanding ghosts, non-fatalism, non-music, frugal burials, and frugality seem extremely unrealistic and impossible to achieve in the eyes of outsiders. Because Mozi did not provide any theoretical support, these goals seem very empty and even absurd.

But Fusu is a time traveler after all.

No one would have thought that after two thousand years, the Chinese would once again propose to build a society that advocates universal love and equality.

After two thousand years, through the accumulation of tiny amounts of effort by countless people from generation to generation, we have finally achieved fruitful results in all fields and aspects.

Fusu was able to make Mozi's seemingly absurd ideal goal extremely fulfilling.

Ying Zheng wanted to leave endless material benefits to his people, which was related to his own pursuit. He thought that what he wanted was what others wanted.

What Fusu wanted to arm the people of the Qin Empire with was something intangible.

Something that can help people find a way out of difficult situations and keep their hearts at peace amidst changes.

Therefore, the revival of Mohism is inevitable. Only Mohism will be accepted by the people.

Because among all the schools of thought, only Mohism is the most pragmatic and its fundamental goal is to benefit the grassroots people.

Confucius was too advanced as a person, Lao Tzu's wisdom was too profound, and Sakyamuni's achievements were too high.

These people are difficult for even emperors to reach, let alone for ordinary people, as it is too difficult for them to learn from them.

It is better to be down-to-earth and benefit the people in the most basic way.

First, we should teach the people that they are the masters of the country. We should cultivate this awareness from an early age.

Secondly, the technology of Mohism is the most practical and can effectively help people improve their lives. The technology of Mohism is extremely advanced.

The Mohists were not only able to arm the people of the Qin Dynasty with ideas, but also to provide them with practical techniques to help them improve their actual lives.

The people of Qin were pragmatic. They would not be interested in anything that was not actually profitable. So the people of Qin had no reason to dislike Mohism.

Not only that, the Mohist school took universal love as the core and frugality and respect for the virtuous as the fulcrum, and created a complete set of scientific theories with outstanding achievements in geometry, physics and optics.

Only Fusu paid attention to this scientific theory, while no one else paid attention to it.

Another purpose of Fusu's decision to reopen the Mohist school was to create modern Western disciplines.

Fusu wanted to develop the logical thinking of famous scholars and cultivate modern Western microscience. Western modern mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, etc. are all worthy of vigorous development.

When the empire fell into Fusu's hands and he established a policy of resting the people, it became easier for him to do what he had always dreamed of accomplishing - to give China, a country that values ​​benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom and trustworthiness, the wings of Western science.

But when doing these things, Fusu encountered a problem.

It is still the Qin Dynasty 2,000 years ago. Not only do these disciplines have no soil to germinate, but Chinese and Western languages ​​are even two completely different language systems.

But being in a different cultural and language system is simply fatal.

At that time, China did not even have Arabic numerals, which resulted in almost no one in the country being able to understand the small number of mathematical formulas written by Fusu in a short period of time.

Moreover, because China has its own language system and its own mathematical thinking model, it is more difficult to understand the mathematical system and mathematical formulas under another language model within the inherent thinking model.

For example, the calculus mentioned earlier, the West has a clear formula, and through the refined formula, it can be applied to various aspects;

China, on the other hand, tends to focus on practical applications. Zhang Cang and some mathematical and physical giants understand this thing, but they only know how to use it. However, they really cannot extract a formula.

Not to mention asking them to start organizing and refining numbers based on Arabic numerals under the influence of old thinking patterns.

Zhang Cang, he knew it. The emperor summoned him alone today, it was definitely not because of something good to happen.

It turned out that Zhang Cang guessed right.

When they arrived at Zhangtai Palace, Zhang Cang was staring at the pages full of "little bugs" in confusion.

Fusu was in a good mood and pointed out to him personally, "It's just a symbol. It's still a number in essence. I just used a simpler symbol to replace these numbers to make it easier for me to express the formula."

In Fusu's view, there was nothing strange about Arabic numerals, and even less strange about traditional Chinese numerals.

"Zhang Cang, you are the living library of our Great Qin. In other words, how difficult can it be for someone like you who is proficient in mathematics and truly understands arithmetic to study mathematical formulas?"

Zhang Cang's jaw has never closed since he entered the hall and saw the numbers written by Fusu.

Those eyes were wide open, as if they had seen something horrifying.

Fusu was a very considerate person. He even wrote a number after each Arabic numeral.

"If I were born a scholar, you officials in the court and the country would probably have to go back home and farm."

Zhang Cang heard these confident words and just said righteously, "Your Majesty is still too idle."

"If the people of the world knew that the Emperor of our Great Qin actually drew a bunch of insects of various shapes on paper and used them as mathematical symbols, they would definitely accuse His Majesty of being absurd and ridiculous."

"Your Majesty, do you want the world to laugh at you?"

Zhang Cang was indeed angry as he spoke.

It was not just because he couldn't understand the use of the insects drawn by Fusu, but more importantly, the emperor was too young and too proud, as if he was the best in the world.

Zhang Cang was naturally unhappy and was about to walk away on the spot.

"Zhang Cang, stop right there!" Fusu shouted from behind.

But Zhang Cang was not afraid.

He slowly turned around and said to Fusu, "Your Majesty, if a man has no manners, what is the point of not dying? This is a saying from the Book of Songs. You are the emperor of a country, but you actually do things that even children would disdain to do."

"My three-year-old daughter doesn't even bother drawing bugs."

Fusu was still too comprehensive. He actually held back in such a situation.

“It’s the number, as a symbol.”

The honorable Qin II said these words to Zhang Cang for the third time.

In order to give the Qin Empire the wings of Western science, Fusu had no choice but to endure.

Because only Zhang Cang can help him accomplish this.

It is well known that Zhang Cang was compiling a mathematical classic called "Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art".

And it was clear from the time when he divided the land that this guy had a natural talent for arithmetic.

But for some reason, when facing Fusu, his mathematical instinct declined.

Zhang Cang looked at the extremely serious and persistent Qin II, and finally softened his heart: "I am afraid that I can't help with this matter. I will recommend someone to Your Majesty."

"Geng Shouchang."

(End of this chapter)