I open a history tutorial class in Daming

Chapter 114 The streets are full of nobles!
Li Shimin's face was almost green enough to reflect light.

He didn't expect that not only Zhu Biao, a good squad leader, but even Mr. Song Shen believed that the aristocratic families would not stop until the Tang Dynasty was destroyed.

What is this thing called?
After we go back today and have a discussion, will the final national policy just require us to write down a few big words - the fall of the Tang Dynasty?

"If you really want to talk about this, let me see..."

At the podium, Song Shen glanced at the clock on the wall and found that there was still some time, so he planned to take this opportunity to say more.

He held the thermos cup and sorted out his thoughts, then said:

"It was a very long process for the aristocratic families to completely withdraw from the historical stage, and their final disappearance can be seen from two aspects: disintegration and physical annihilation."

"The following are my personal opinions. Of course, you need to look at the specific content in light of the actual situation at the time."

"First, successive emperors of the Tang Dynasty tried to weaken the power of the aristocratic families in various ways, including Emperor Taizong of Tang, Li Shimin."

"Li Shimin ordered the revision of the clan records, ranking the Li family first, the Changsun family second, and the rest in order. But this is useless. The world is so big, and the people have their own conclusions. The emperor cannot change the reputation of the Five Surnames and Seven Families for hundreds of years with just one decree."

"So when it came to Emperor Gaozong of Tang, Li Zhi, he issued an order to ban intermarriage among the seven surnames and ten families, but this was also of little use. Instead, it raised the status of the aristocratic families in disguise. Privately, everyone called these seven surnames and ten families the 'forbidden marriage families' and they were even more popular. There were even countermeasures for the policy. They really did not intermarry. They did not even hold the ceremony in public, but secretly sent the bride to the in-laws' homes."

"This is the most ridiculous thing. You don't have to have a name, but your bloodline must be pure!"

"From the results of these two methods, you should have heard that the emperor's ordinary methods are ineffective against the aristocratic families. They have accumulated so many years of reputation and resources that it is impossible for them to be replaced by a dynasty that has only been in power for a few years or decades."

Li Shimin listened quietly.

Hearing the pause, he sighed deeply.

Yes.

The empire was just beginning to settle, and development was booming everywhere. The success of Li Tang in the past was inseparable from the help of the powerful families behind the scenes. If he wanted to take action against the powerful families now, he couldn't take too tough an approach and could only test them little by little.

But now it seems that Zhinu, who ascended the throne in history, also did the same thing as him, but unfortunately the results were not satisfactory, they were simply of no use at all, and even brought trouble to his own family.

At this time, Liu Che suddenly spoke:
"Although they all failed, but from what you said, sir, there are other measures to follow?"

"I am a little curious as to when this clan started to rise. Why have I never heard of it?"

I get angry when I talk about Li Shimin!
His Majesty Li II glared at Liu Che, holding back his anger, and said:
"The aristocratic families began in the Western Han Dynasty, flourished in the Eastern Han Dynasty and the Wei and Jin Dynasties, and reached their peak in the Sui Dynasty and the Tang Dynasty!"

"Because of your strategy of abolishing all schools of thought and respecting only Confucianism, and using the recommendation system, the status of the aristocratic families gradually grew, which left a huge hidden danger. Later, Wang Mang usurped the throne and touched the pockets of many people, including the aristocratic families. Under the push of many of them, Wang Mang's new dynasty was overthrown by Liu Xiu fifteen years later."

"Tell me yourself, is it because of your problems that the clan appeared?!"

Liu Che was stunned.

He never thought that this matter was actually related to him, and for a moment he didn't know how to defend himself.

But soon, Song Shen on the podium knocked on the table, drawing everyone's attention back.

Song Shen said calmly:
"Mr. Li Shimin is not wrong. The aristocratic families did indeed sprout in the Western Han Dynasty, or the Former Han Dynasty. However, we don't need to discuss how the aristocratic families emerged. We only need a solution."

"I just said that the disappearance of the aristocratic families should be viewed from two perspectives: disintegration and physical annihilation."

"In addition to the clan records and the marriage ban, the Tang Dynasty has been continuously working to disintegrate the aristocratic families through the imperial examination system."

"The imperial examination system was first established in the Sui Dynasty and grew stronger during the Tang and Song dynasties. But in fact, in the early, middle and even late Tang Dynasty, the imperial examination system was just a sand in the cracks, eroding a little bit, and had not yet reached the level of shaking the power of the aristocratic families."

"The Li Tang Dynasty was able to hold on to the throne with the help of aristocratic families, so it was difficult for the Li family to take action. The imperial examination was not mainstream in the early Tang Dynasty. But in the middle of that, there was Wu Zetian. Empress Wu had nothing to do with the aristocratic families. She even had a big grudge against them because of Li Zhi's decision to depose the king and establish Wu. After she came to power, she naturally focused on attacking the aristocratic families. Therefore, during her reign, the importance of the imperial examination was magnified, precisely because she wanted to support the poor to fight against the aristocratic families."

"Of course, the imperial examination system provides a direction to solve the official monopoly, but one thing to note is that the aristocratic families have been passed down for hundreds of years. No matter how many wars they have experienced, the educational resources they have accumulated are far more than ordinary people, perhaps even better than the royal family. It is also because of this resource monopoly that the Five Surnames and Seven Families or the Seven Surnames and Ten Families are absolutely unwilling to intermarry with outsiders."

"The emperor knows it, and so do the noble families. Their biggest reliance is talent, a steady supply of talent, and educational resources, which means books, excellent teachers, a grasp of current political trends, and enough financial resources to support a person's education from childhood to adulthood. If the noble families intermarry with other races, it means that they need to share these resources. It may not be a problem for a few years or decades, but if the timeline is extended, those resources will not only be exclusive to their own family."

"Although the imperial examination system seems to equally select a group of talented people from all over the world to serve as officials, think about it carefully, who in the world has better resources than aristocratic families?"

"Although papermaking technology has been around for a long time, paper was a luxury for a long time. Ordinary people simply could not afford to buy it for a long time, not to mention the four treasures of the study, such as brushes, inkstones, and paper. If the family was not wealthy, they could not even think about learning to read and write. At the same time, books were also luxury items. Many books were rare and only available in the homes of the rich and powerful. It was extremely difficult for outsiders to borrow them."

"During the Tang Dynasty, only a few dozen people were admitted to the imperial examination each time, but more than a hundred people from the Fanyang Lu family passed the imperial examination during the Tang Dynasty."

"The Zheng family of Xingyang produced more than ten prime ministers in the middle Tang Dynasty, while the Cui family of Qinghe produced two prime ministers in the prosperous Tang Dynasty and eight in the middle and late Tang Dynasty."

"Based on this data, tell me, what kind of genius is it that can surpass the hundreds of years of accumulation of ancestors' foundation with pure talent and hard work? There are some, but they are too few!"

"Zhu Biao, I have told you my opinion. You are from the future and your previous thoughts were similar to mine. You stand up and tell me your opinion. I will take a rest."

Song Shen was really tired of talking at this point, so he randomly picked a good student to take his place in teaching.

Anyway, when it comes to the Tang Dynasty, whether it is Zhu Biao or Zhu Di, both of them should be able to tell something about it, it’s just that they have different perspectives.

Zhu Biao was a little flustered when his name was suddenly called, and he stood up quickly.

He went over the draft in his mind several times before he spoke after pondering:

"Since you mentioned the aristocratic families and the imperial examination system, I would also like to express my own views."

"Student Li Shimin, I agree with your analysis. There is nothing wrong with the imperial examination system. In a sense, it is relatively fair. But if we ignore the fairness of the teaching stage, it is extremely unfair." "The Five Surnames and Seven Families did not really disappear at the end of the Tang Dynasty. If it was just the war of the Huang Chao Uprising at the end of the Tang Dynasty, it was only a serious injury to the aristocratic families, not to the point of killing them. After all, there were the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties before the Sui and Tang Dynasties, but talents are the most difficult to find in troubled times. Wars can seize gold, silver, treasures, and farmland, but they cannot take away the knowledge and skills accumulated by the aristocratic families."

"What you said about the annihilation of the flesh can actually be summarized by a line from a poem by the late Tang poet Wei Zhuang -"

"The streets of heaven are trampled with the bones of nobles!"

"When Huang Chao's rebel army invaded the capital, they killed people from the south to the north and from the east to the west. The aristocratic families who served in the court at that time were like fish on a chopping block, at the mercy of others. They had no time to react. Then the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms came quickly. It was an era when anyone with a gun could be a king. No one cared about the ability of your aristocratic family. Human life was worthless and all beings were equal."

"But they were very tenacious. Even at this time, they did not all disappear. Many noble families lay dormant and waited for the unification of the world. In the end, they waited for the Song Dynasty."

"The imperial examination system of the Song Dynasty was much more advanced than that of the Tang Dynasty, and there was a serious problem of redundant officials. When Zhao Guangyi first opened the imperial examination, he asked for 500 Jinshi candidates and rewarded each of them with tens of thousands of yuan. Officials were cheap, and knowledge was naturally cheap as well."

"The other is movable type printing, which appeared in the Northern Song Dynasty. Before that, books could only be printed by woodblock printing or hand-copied, and paper was expensive, which led to a very high price for classes. But after movable type printing, reading and literacy became less difficult, and paper became cheaper. The resources that the aristocratic families were proud of were completely useless."

"This is the real way to remove the firewood from the bottom of the pot."

"It was not until this moment that the aristocratic families lost the soil on which they depended for survival and completely withdrew from the history books."

Li Shimin's eyes widened when he heard this.

Although Song Shen and Zhu Biao only talked about the rise and fall of the aristocratic families, it seemed to him that he had listened to the entire process of the Tang Dynasty's step-by-step rise to prosperity and then fall into decline. By the way, he also heard about the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms after the fall of the Tang Dynasty and that damn Song Dynasty.

Song Shen's focus is on the Tang emperor's measures regarding the imperial examinations, while Zhu Biao's supplementary part is why the aristocratic families completely declined afterwards.

Logically speaking, Li Shimin cared more about what Zhu Biao said.

He understood that Mr. Song wanted them to know the facts and the reasons behind them, but for Li Shimin, he knew best how deeply rooted the power of the aristocratic families was. If it was really so easy to eradicate, there would be no need to worry so much.

But now Zhu Biao is talking about removing the fuel from under the cauldron...

"Squad leader, can you tell me more about the movable type printing?"

Li Shimin looked at Zhu Biao eagerly.

Zhu Biao scratched his head.

All craftsmen and crafts are unique and ingenious. As a prince, he only needs to know a little bit, but not too much. He had to find someone to find out the process of papermaking before he knew how paper was made. But if he were to ask him about printing now, he would be at a loss!
But Song Shen on the podium smiled.

Before crossing over, there were several types of sleep-inducing videos he liked to watch the most:

Repairing donkey hooves, building in the wilderness, and replicating ancient Chinese technology.

In the last type of video, not to mention the timeless themes like pens, ink, paper and inkstones, printing, batik, soap making, cotton fluffing and so on, have all been filmed to perfection.

"You have all used the seal, right?"

Song Shen took the initiative to speak:
"Movable type printing was invented by Bi Sheng in the Northern Song Dynasty. You can think of it as a large number of seals made from clay blocks. Each block is of the same size and can be placed in a frame. You just need to apply ink on it, put paper on it and press it, and you can mass produce all the pages you want."

"After clay movable type, there are tin, wood, copper, lead and other movable types."

"The principle is actually very simple, just like a seal, but the fact that someone was able to apply it to books was a huge step forward in the dissemination of ancient Chinese culture. Therefore, printing, like papermaking, is considered one of the four great inventions."

Among all the people present, Ying Zheng, Zhang Liang and Liu Che had slightly helpless expressions, because in their time they had not even invented paper that could be written on, so there was no way around printing for the time being.

The people from the Li Tang Dynasty were all very surprised.

This sounds like a totally easy thing. All you need to do is threaten your nine clans, and the craftsmen below will find a way to make movable type that is effective!
Li Shimin bowed repeatedly:
"Thank you sir, thank you sir for clearing up my confusion!"

Song Shen waved his hand casually, not caring too much.

He was just talking casually to satisfy his desire to show off. He couldn't say anything else. Aren't the Four Great Inventions enough?

Those are the basic qualities for Internet surfers!
But just as he glanced at the wall clock and was about to go back to the office to rest, a mechanical sound reached his ears.

[Congratulations to the host for successfully completing the extracurricular knowledge expansion, which greatly increased the students' enthusiasm for learning and helped them complete their homework. Hereby reward: 6 points! ]

【Go to the system mall and buy your favorite products! 】

Song Shen:!!!
What the hell!

His eyes widened; he never expected things to turn out this way.

This came too suddenly!
Song Shen turned his back to the students in the classroom and asked in a low voice:

"I've talked about steam engines and stuff before, so why weren't they there then?"

[Answer the host, only items that can be manufactured today can inspire students' learning motivation. They cannot understand technologies that are too far away.]

Song Shen finally understood.

After all the efforts, they found that the steam engine was too advanced to be developed, so these emperors and generals just listened to it and did not want to make any big moves. On the contrary, they were more interested in things like the Four Great Inventions which could be developed in ancient times!
"Classmates."

Song Shen turned around, smiling more kindly than ever before:
"Are there any other techniques you want to know about or try? I can tell you more about them. It wouldn't be too much to delay the class once or twice."

(End of this chapter)