A thousand-year-old family that began with the Battle of Makino

Chapter 896: Chang'an Baifu is very different, arbitrary and respectful of Neo-Confucianism

Chang'an Baifu
Although it was located in Chang'an and suffered looting many times along with the imperial palace, it was preserved through all the turmoil because of its high specifications and intact buildings and was often used as private residences or military headquarters by senior rebel generals.

Now, three years ago, the Saint recaptured Chang'an, and the Bai family sent people here to take back the house and repaired it roughly.

Although it is not as good as the Bai Mansion in Songxi, it is also a rare large mansion in the world. It covers a very large area, with staggered buildings and well-planned, just like a small royal palace.

Unlike Songxi Baifu which is divided into three parts, Chang'an Baifu is divided into five parts.

That is, the front yard, east yard, west yard, back yard and the central training ground.

The Bai Mansion is surrounded by a two-person-high wall, with many scaffoldings on the inner walls and many corner towers, so guards can be temporarily dispatched to climb the walls and towers for defense.

The front yard is used for meeting guests and doing business, and has a main gate, which was designed by the Duke and was used by wealthy families to welcome imperial edicts and distinguished guests.

The main street is crossed by dozens of bluestone archways with inscriptions of different styles, such as "Loyalty to the Country", which is extremely glorious and extends all the way to the gate of Changlefang, almost treating the square as a private place.

Behind the front yard is a courtyard with a training ground, which is used as a place for the family soldiers to guard the house and practice martial arts.

With the parade ground as the center, the east side is the East Courtyard, the west side is the West Courtyard, and opposite the front yard is the back yard, which is the private residence of the Bai family, where the female family members live. No one is allowed to enter without the invitation of the host.

There are several single-family back doors in the backyard, two of which are very secretive and are used for servants to enter and exit the mansion, or as retreat routes in emergencies.

The East Courtyard houses a school, a library, etc. It is also the residence of the Bai Mansion's guests, guards, and servants. Most of the guests who visit the mansion also stay the night here.

There is an east gate in the east courtyard, which is more regulated than that of ordinary officials' homes, but far less than the main gates of wealthy families. It is used for daily entry and exit of the mansion.

Most of the West Courtyard is open to the public. It has a large area and houses for people in the mansion to live in.

There is also a west gate in the west courtyard, with the same regulations as the east gate, for entry and exit.

At this time, unlike the West Courtyard of the Bai Mansion which was bustling with people because of Bai Bing's preaching, the East Courtyard was silent, but one could still hear the noise coming from the west.

In a room in the East Courtyard, Bai Xin, the young master of the Bai family and the head of the court, rarely left the Bai Mansion in Songxi and arrived at the Bai Mansion in Chang'an to preside over important matters.

Also in the room were various large families located in the vicinity of Chang'an, including the Five Surnames and Seven Families, all of whom were invited by Bai Xin to come for the meeting.

Because Taizong wrote the "Clan Records" and Gaozong continued to write the "Surname Records", all the aristocratic families in the world, except the Bai family, were included in them.

The official-based system based on Li Tang that was formed in this way greatly changed the pattern of aristocratic families.

In order to seize higher official positions, most of the Five Surnames and Seven Families who were originally scattered across the country moved to the capital.

The Five Surnames and Seven Aristocrats became many noble families, but the old noble families represented by the Five Surnames and Seven Aristocrats, such as Li, Cui, Lu, Pei, Wang, Zheng, etc., were still at the top of the pyramid. Therefore, most prime ministers in history came from a few families.

The children of the big families who were always arrogant in front of outsiders and spoke with the glory of their family, now bowed their heads in front of Bai Xin.

Because the family background that they were so proud of seemed so ridiculous in front of the Bai family.

When they often talk about their ancestors in the early Tang Dynasty, or even boast about the achievements of their ancestors in the pre-Han Dynasty.

The descendants of the Bai family would smile slightly, and then say nonchalantly that their ancestors had been the right-hand man of the King of Zhou, sat on the same level with the overlords of the Spring and Autumn Period, and even debated with Confucius, Mencius and Xunzi.

Everyone in the room looked at Bai Xin, a man with silver hair and the standard Bai family mark on his forehead. He sat firmly in the host's seat, facing south, and kept blowing and pecking at the steaming teacup in his hand.

Behind him, one on the left and one on the right, stood two disciples of the Bai family. They paid no attention to the looks of the disciples of the other wealthy families in the room and just drank their top-quality tea.

The tea of ​​the other people in the room was not bad either, the same as the tea in Bai Xin's hand, but they were obviously not in the mood to taste it at this time. Feeling the extremely depressing atmosphere in the room, someone finally couldn't help it, and the head of the Lu family, Lu Min, spoke up:

"Master Xin, do the nobles really want to let go of the academy, destroy their own foundation, abandon the study of classics, and turn to the so-called rationalism?"

"nature."

"Please forgive me for being blunt, but the prosperity of Confucian classics today is because our noble ancestors felt sorry for the classics and kept them in one family, so they tried their best to promote them. This is why we have the cultural prosperity of the Tang Dynasty today. Their contribution is great."

Bai Xin didn't say anything, Lu Min continued:

"You are a top-notch noble family in the world, and we have always admired you. What you did today is probably not what a noble family should do. Please take back your order, sir."

Seeing Lu Min taking the lead in the charge, the other family heads were unwilling to lag behind.

"That's right. This is a political disorder. If a young and humble man can discuss serious matters with us, it would be a disgrace to the culture. The Wang family will never do that."

"Yes, this philosophy is clearly a method to dig up the foundation of our family, and it must not be promoted."

"Sir, the Bai family is a model of aristocratic families, so you must not act capriciously."

All the people present were from high-ranking families, including some from the Bai family's side branches, who spoke out to stop the move and requested the patriarch to revoke his decision.

Seeing that even the people from the Bai family's side branches disagreed with promoting Neo-Confucianism, Lu Min felt a little relieved, but was still very worried and stared at Bai Xin.

It's just because the Bai family is so powerful that it covers the entire world. If the head of the Bai family insists on pushing forward the policy without caring about anything, they will have no choice but to try their best to stop it, but the effect will definitely not be good.

If the head of the Bai family could take the initiative to revoke his order and put this useless science aside.

Just like in the Western Han Dynasty, Bai's ancestors advocated abandoning all schools of thought and promoting Confucianism.

He also took the lead in shelving the theories of all schools of thought, and kept the scholars of all schools of thought in Bai's Academy, not allowing them to roam around and spread their own theories. This led to the dominance of Confucianism.

Listening to the noise in the place, almost everyone was persuading him, Bai Xin slowly put down the teacup, his expression did not change at all.

Seeing this, everyone gradually fell silent and stared at Bai Xin like Lu Min, hoping that he would say what they wanted.

"Abolishing Confucian classics and respecting rationalism is something that the head of the family and the elders have jointly decided. There is absolutely no reason to change it."

In order to let everyone in the family know the benefits of Neo-Confucianism and its benefits to the family's future, Bai Jing has worked tirelessly in the past two years and has summoned the nine elders of the family many times to debate with them.

He finally won over the five elders and persuaded the other two elders to remain neutral, but two elders refused to obey.

But the minority obeys the majority. At the end of last year, the nine-member meeting of the clan elders passed the family's highest decision to "abolish Confucian classics and respect rationalism". After being stamped by the head of the family, it became the final method and was notified to the whole clan.

There were obstacles in the process, but since this was a decision made by the highest authorities of the two families, the other members of the clan had no choice but to follow it.

But Bai Jing knew that if he wanted to accomplish this task across the entire clan, it would be unrealistic without decades of time.

Now we can only start from Songxi Academy and the newly established Jinbai Academy.

Bai Bing and Bai Wensheng, who were deeply influenced by Bai Tong's Neo-Confucianism, were appointed as the principals of Jinbai Academy and Songxi Academy respectively. Bai Pu, a clan elder who supported the promotion of Neo-Confucianism, was appointed to be in charge of education within the clan.

Bai Jing plans to change people's concepts step by step through education, further reduce people's prejudices, and give birth to a large number of science students.

(End of this chapter)