The literary giants of the late Ming Dynasty began by copying books

Cao Xuequan is only 26 years old this year but he is already a big figure in the Fujianese literary world.

He passed the Jinshi examination at the age of twenty-one. However, because he was Zhang Wei's disciple, Zhang Wei was dismissed from office a few years after high school. At that time, Cao Xuequan carried dry food alone to see him off, so he attracted the attention of all officials and was appointed by Zhang Wei. This was ostracized by the courtiers.

Now Cao Xuequan has been transferred to Nanjing to serve as a casual post for four years, and there is no sign of returning to the capital.

Cao Xuequan's father passed away last year. It was not interesting for Cao Xuequan to be an official in Nanjing, so he simply returned to his hometown to maintain the system.

During the three years of observing the system, Cao Xuequan made friends with famous people in his hometown, entertained himself with poems and books, and also began to write operas in dialect to pass the time. Historically, it was during this period that Cao Xuequan enriched the style of Fujian opera and became the ancestor of Fujian opera.

However, at this time and space, the newspaper industry in Fuzhou was booming. Cao Xuequan was very interested in newspapers. He was a main member of the Cangshan Poetry Society. With his free time, he naturally became the editor of "Cangshan Poetry Collection" member.

As the reputation of "Cangshan Poems" became more and more famous, Cao Xuequan's initially leisurely work became more and more busy.

He now has to save a lot of manuscripts every day. In the past, he often had to carefully read the manuscripts sent by some famous people. If he didn't use them, he would have to write letters to reply to them. But now Cao Xuequan has no time to write letters anymore, and only writes each manuscript to He only has a few words to say, but if he can't catch people's attention, he will reject it immediately.

At this time, Cao Xuequan was reading Cheng Jiuyan's manuscript describing Shouning's lectures carefully.

Cheng Jiuyan's writing level was very average. After Cao Xuequan took a look at it twice, he almost threw it into the basket of scrap manuscripts. Finally, Cheng Jiuyan finished writing 468 sentences. Cao Xuequan saw the introduction of female clan society in the article. Then it was a bright spot.

"interesting!"

This novel point of view made Cao Xuequan a little interested, and he continued to read until he read the exegetical discussion on the issue of virgins later. Cao Xuequan went from novelty to surprise, and finally stood up suddenly.

"This is a masterpiece of eloquence!"

Cao Xuequan was a Jinshi scholar, and his understanding of the Four Books and Five Classics exceeded that of a famous scholar like Cheng Jiuyan who had not even been awarded the title of Juren. He read Wang Wenlong's arguments over and over again, and then he couldn't bear to add his own after the original manuscript. Comments:

"Wang Jianyang, in addition to ethical ethics, also developed a different method of discussion. Confucian classics issues can be discussed based on the original meanings of the Four Books and Five Classics. This argument has been proposed before, but it is not widely used... Wang Jianyang's quotation from "Book of Rites" is accurate and more powerful than eloquent and perfunctory words. This kind of discussion may become a powerful method for future writing!"

When the latest issue of "Cangshan Poems" was published, Wang Wenlong had just left Shouning County and was traveling north along the official road to promote his Xiangfei yarn.

He had no idea that a lecture he gave in Shouning County would be turned into an article and published within two days.

The full text of "Cangshan Poetry Collection" quoted Cheng Jiuyan's article and attached Cao Xuequan's comments. Once it was published, it caused a great discussion in Fuzhou Confucianism.

Wang Wenlong's arguments and arguments in his lectures are refreshing enough. What is even more novel to Fuzhou Confucian scholars is the research method of the textual criticism school used by Wang Wenlong.

The thoughts of ancient society also continued to change with the productivity. The Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism of the Song Dynasty did not need to reach the industrial age at all, but many of its contents were actually out of date by the Ming Dynasty.

At this time, many people wanted to overthrow Neo-Confucianism, or at least find a new path within it. The popularity of Yangming's Xinxue was broadly speaking part of this attempt.

However, Yangming's Psychology did not have enough ability to challenge the orthodox status of Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism, and it was gradually marginalized less than a century after its launch.

It was not until the textual research style of the Qing Dynasty emerged in later generations that talented people in Confucianism found a real way to challenge the dominance of Neo-Confucianism.

Neo-Confucianism uses the slogan of perfecting morality, and it is simply impossible to fight against it from a moral perspective.

The way textual scholars have found to combat Neo-Confucianism is through archeology.

Neo-Confucianism claims to be perfect, but Zhu Xi is not an all-rounder after all. He misunderstood many of his interpretations of Confucian classics. The deeper the textual scholars study ancient thoughts, they will soon discover many problems that arise when Zhu Xi and others interpret Confucian classics. ——Your own interpretation of the classics is full of errors, so how can you educate the world?

This weapon was so powerful that it only took more than a hundred years for later generations of textual criticism schools and other schools to almost knock Neo-Confucianism to the ground after their ideas matured.

At this time, in the late Ming Dynasty, due to the prosperity of the ideological world, many Confucian schools were already dissatisfied with Neo-Confucianism, but they were suffering from the lack of tools to use. The textual criticism method used by Wang Wenlong to demonstrate the virginity issue is naturally eye-catching.

Many scholars then realized that there was still a way to challenge those moralists, and some people began to try to immerse themselves in the classics, hoping to find evidence for their own views in the classics. Originally, the textual textual criticism school in history would not become popular until the Qianlong and Jiaqing years of the Qing Dynasty, hence the name Qianjia School. However, in this time and space, it unexpectedly appeared one hundred and fifty or sixty years earlier because of Wang Wenlong's voice.

Wang Wenlong was later called the "originator of the textual criticism school".

Jianning is located at the junction of Fujian and Zhejiang. It is very convenient to go to Zhejiang by sea and land. Wang Wenlong's discussion on women's issues also spread to Sanwu.

Wang Wenlong's original lecture was intended to address the issue of whether women can work, but his criticism of virgins was too shocking. After the content was spread to Sanwu, other issues were ignored, and everyone was discussing Wang Wenlong's criticism of virgins. View.

At this time, there were many celebrities in the Sanwu area who were against chastity, but their theoretical basis was too weak compared to the Taoists who had many Neo-Confucian works to back them up. They could not defeat their opponents even if they argued with each other, and often fell behind. It is to be denounced as morally corrupt.

Now that this group of people saw Wang Wenlong's argument, they seemed to have obtained a magic weapon.

Ma Zhide, who had previously written an article saying that "Confucius was also born from a wild union" put down his letter, his eyes lit up, and then called the boy: "Hurry up and sharpen the ink for me, I want to fight with those Taoists San Baili!"

Now that there was a newspaper in Suzhou, Ma Zhide was so excited that he lit a lamp and boiled oil to write a long article. He directly used Wang Wenlong's arguments as cannonballs and used them to attack the moralists who had previously criticized him. It was published within a few days. Caused a stir.

There are also many people who oppose Wang Wenlong's views.

Many high-ranking families in Sanwu had virgins. Some officials and famous officials' elders and even their own adoptive mothers were virgins.

Imagine that an old lady has been chaste for decades, and the chastity memorial arch is ready to be built. Then Wang Wenlong suddenly points out that these virgins have violated etiquette and are not only unworthy of praise, but even need to be criticized for committing the "non-double cut". Who is this? Can you bear it?

The wealthy people were furious, but Wang Wenlong's arguments were all drawn from the Four Books and Five Classics. No matter how high the status of the tomes of Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism was, they could not compare with the works of Confucius. They could not break Wang Wenlong's defense at all. .

Some people felt resentful towards Wang Wenlong because of this, and other conservatives also began to join the ranks of textual research, trying to find arguments in support of virgins in ancient books - they did not realize at this time that the more textual research they did, the more Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism would The sooner you die.

In any case, Wang Wenlong has become popular again. Not only men's public opinion field, but also women in the boudoir are also vying to spread Wang Wenlong's arguments.

From the Shen family in Suzhou, Shen Yixiu is thirteen years old this year and will get married in two years. When he heard his sister talk about what Shouning would say, Shen Yixiu was immediately fascinated.

She is a talented woman who can write poems and scripts. She wants to go out and do things from the bottom of her heart. She is extremely attracted by Shouning Society's views on women being able to work, the existence of female clan societies in ancient times, and opposition to virginity. .

After listening for a while, Shen Yixiu couldn't help but ask: "Which gentleman said this? It's so good!"

The two sisters looked at each other after hearing this, and then burst into laughter, which made Shen Yixiu puzzled.

"That's Wang Jianyang who asked for Sister Xiu!"

"Is it him?" Shen Yixiu was stunned for a moment. It was really difficult to connect the wanderer in his mind with the great Confucian who made this argument and was proficient in classics and history.

The two sisters didn't know Shen Yixiu's surprise. Her sister couldn't help but praise her when she spoke, even a little envious.

"Mr. Jianyang is really talented, and he can express such eloquent truths!"

Not only the ladies of the Shen family, but also many women with a little knowledge at this time had a very good impression of Wang Wenlong after hearing Wang Wenlong's eloquence. Who wants to stay in the boudoir all his life and not be able to work?

Many women became aware of Wang Wenlong and even secretly bought Wang Wenlong's works to read carefully. Some people also secretly fantasized about Wang Wenlong's majestic image and believed that he was a truly good man.

(End of this chapter)