Rebirth of Zhu Di's son

Chapter 267 Discussion on Going to the Mountains and Going to the Countryside
"The third thing is that I decided to send students from regular academies from all over the country to the mountains and countryside for half a year to teach farmers how to read, learn the laws of the Ming Dynasty, and know how to deal with natural disasters such as flash floods, droughts, and floods. At the same time, Abandon all obscene worship of wild gods and promote the orthodox teachings of Chinese sages."

Seeing that the emotions of the ministers had been aroused, Zhu Gaoxu knew that the preparation was almost done, so he began to elaborate and tell the most important thing that he wanted to promote this morning.

"Your Majesty, I believe that if the people can read, it will be easier for them to read, and if they can read, it will be easier for them to understand. With understanding, they can analyze the pros and cons, know the law and abide by the law. In this way, they will use the laws of the Ming Dynasty as weapons to fight against local bullies, corrupt officials, and Bad government and bad government will no longer be used as human flesh! The policy of sending common scholars from all over the world to the mountains and villages is really good government and benevolent government!"

Yu Yanzhao, the Minister of Rites, bowed out of the queue, bowed and saluted, and then spoke slowly.

"Your Majesty, no! The Analects of Confucius - Taibo says: 'The people can follow it, but they cannot know it'! The more literate people there are, the more cunning people will increase, which may become the source of trouble!"

Wu Na, the minister of Dali Temple, quickly bowed and came out of the queue, and continued what Yu Yanzhao said: "The Tao Te Ching also said: 'Those who were good in ancient times would not enlighten the people, but they would be foolish. The people are difficult to govern. By its wisdom!'"

Yu Yanzhao was a Jinshi who was born after the New Policy of the Imperial Examination. He had a unique view on "the people can make things happen, but not make them know it." At this time, he couldn't help but retorted: "Yan Shenggong is the first gentleman in Chinese history to establish a private school." , has been teaching and educating people all his life, and has three thousand disciples and 72 sages. He can say such things as "I have learned more than self-cultivation" and "I am never tired of learning and tireless in teaching". How can he advocate the foolishness of the people? Policy?"

"Furthermore, Chengzi of the Song Dynasty once said: 'The sage teaches not to make it known to everyone, but he cannot make it known, but he can make it easy to follow. If the sage does not make it known to the people, then it will be a disaster for later generations. Mu San’s technique, how can it be the heart of a saint?’ I deeply agree with this!”

Zhu Gaoxu knew that what Cheng Yi meant was that it was not that the saint did not want the people to know what was happening and why, but that he could not do it.

This is actually the difference between what should be and what is. It is also a pessimistic statement made by Confucius after his enlightenment. It is a lament about the difficulty of educating and enlightening the people.

Cheng Zi's understanding is most in line with the reality. After all, no matter what stage the era develops, it is impossible for everyone to reach the level of mental maturity.

"You two, stop arguing."

Zhu Gaoxu raised his hand to stop the argument between Yu Yanzhao and Wu Na, and said loudly: "I don't want to educate the common people into moral gentlemen and let ordinary people go to the mountains and countryside. The purpose is to teach ordinary people how to read. Only in this way can the common people be good. Understand court laws and decrees, and learn how to deal with natural disasters such as flash floods, floods, and droughts.”

Having said this, he stood up and walked towards the main hall of His Majesty Dan's palace, while saying: "Can the common people who are illiterate understand the notices and decrees of the imperial court? Why don't we just let the local scholars deceive us!"

"What's more, as I just said, sending students to the mountains and countryside has another purpose, which is to eliminate all obscene worship of wild gods, clear up the source, and promote the teachings of sages."

At this time, Zhu Gaoxu came to the front of the civil service class, glanced sharply at the civil servants, and asked loudly: "Don't you know the harm of obscene worship of wild gods? Why did Emperor Taizu ban the White Lotus Sect? The momentum in the 22nd year of Yongle's reign Why did the huge Shandong Tang Saier Rebellion start?"

Emperor Qianxi of the Ming Dynasty asked three questions in a row, leaving some civil servants who still wanted to refute speechless.

Seeing that his goal was achieved, Zhu Gaoxu turned around and looked at the order of the military ministers. He stood with his hands behind his back and said: "Since the fifth year of Yongle, Jinshis from the martial arts department (martial arts examination) have successively entered the army to serve the imperial court. So far, there have been more than [-] Jinshi. Yu Ming is a Jinshi in martial arts."

"Except for a very small number of generals with military attainments who have been promoted to high positions, most of the others are still serving as lecturers in various military posts, and they also have the responsibility of teaching reading and literacy to ordinary soldiers."

"Even though there are so many preachers teaching ordinary soldiers how to read and write, among the millions of guardsmen of the Ming Dynasty, there are no more than [-] officers and soldiers who can truly read "The Art of War" without any difficulty!"

He cast his gaze on Wei Guogong Xu Huizu and continued: "Wei Guogong, please tell me, why is it difficult for ordinary soldiers to learn literacy?"

"Your Majesty, at present, teachers in various schools and lecturers in the military use "Hongwu Zhengyun" as the textbook for teaching the beginning of literacy."

Xu Huizu walked out of the class, bowed and said: "Learning the pronunciation of Chinese characters is the basic level of literacy, but the commonly used method of fanqie today makes many beginners confused. They can only memorize by rote. But the sergeants in the army often learn what they just learned today. A word will be forgotten tomorrow, and there are many people who even remember it incorrectly or confusedly."

"Yun Shu" is actually a standardized textbook for Mandarin and written pronunciation of Chinese characters.

Fanqie is a phonetic notation method that is different from "Zhiyin" and "Duruo". It is also called "fan", "qie", "fan", "irony", etc. Its basic rule is to use two Chinese characters to spell it out. To phoneticize a word, cut the upper part of the word to get the initial consonants, and cut the lower part of the word to get the finals and tones.For the same word, two different characters can be used to mark the pronunciation. The fanqie method is very flexible to use. As long as a person knows enough characters, he can use as many methods as he wants to cut the pronunciation of a new word.

However, this method is very unfriendly to novices who are novices in word recognition. They will use these two characters to mark the pronunciation, and then use the other two characters to mark the pronunciation. It is difficult to remember accurately.

For people who are already in the beginning stages of literacy, it will only become more confusing.

Zhu Gaoxu nodded, turned around and looked at the civil servants again, and said: "You all have been learning to read since childhood, and you all know how difficult it is to read. I have looked at the characters of all countries in the world, and found that Chinese characters may be the most common characters in the world today. The most difficult one. When I send students from the Tianxia Normal Academy to the mountains and countryside this time, I will also try to explore a new method of learning the pronunciation of Chinese characters - that is, the letter cut-yin (pinyin) method."

He glanced sideways at the eunuch Changsheng at the west corner gate. The latter understood and immediately led several young eunuchs to bow and walk quickly to the emperor.

"Send things down."

Zhu Gaoxu gave an order, and Changsheng and his servants began to distribute papers with the "Alphabet Cutting Method" plan to the civil and military officials of the Manchu Dynasty.

"The phonetic alphabet in the alphabetic phonetic method is only used to notate Chinese characters and is not used in parallel with Chinese characters. It can be regarded as serving Chinese characters and leaning against them."

All the officials in the main hall of Fengtian Hall received a piece of yellow paper the size of an official document.

On the paper is the content of the alphabet syntax method, that is, using Latin letters and their variants to syntax (pinyin), spelling out the phonetic rhymes, writing horizontally on the left and right, with the initial consonant on the right, the final on the left, and additional tone marks.

The reason why Zhu Gaoxu did not directly copy all the Chinese pinyin of later generations is mainly because the current common language accent of the Ming Dynasty is different from that of later generations.

For example, the sentence "Qing Qing Zi Jin" would be pronounced as "cing cing zi gin" by Ming people today.

Therefore, he needed to borrow the power of Ming students to perfect his "Ming version of Chinese Pinyin".

"After learning the alphabet and cutting methods, you can read all the characters on your own without a teacher. In this way, you can save more than ten years of time and devote this time to arithmetic, geophysics, and various practical studies. Isn't it wonderful?"

Seeing that the ministers were fascinated, Zhu Gaoxu said loudly.

"Your Majesty, our Ming Dynasty is a kingdom in heaven. How can we use the letters of foreign countries to notate Chinese characters?"

Wu Na, the minister of Dali Temple, was a simple and honest person. After reading the alphabetic pronunciation method, he felt that it was very inappropriate to use foreign letters to phoneticize Chinese characters, so he said bluntly.

Zhu Gaoxu didn't feel dissatisfied, smiled slightly, and asked, "Has Wu Qing ever eaten roasted sweet potatoes?"

"Your Majesty, I have eaten it and it tastes great."

Wu Na replied respectfully.

Zhu Gaoxu nodded and said: "Sweet potatoes are originally from overseas and are not native to China, but they can save hundreds of millions of people in the Ming Dynasty from famine, so the imperial court vigorously promotes the cultivation of this plant. In the same way, if the alphabet syncopation method It makes it easier for our people in the Ming Dynasty to learn to read and write, so why can’t we promote it?”

PS: The Mandarin accent of the Ming Dynasty is different from that of later generations.

(End of this chapter)