I open a history tutorial class in Daming

Chapter 93 Today, let’s talk about Qin!
Seeing that the matter had been almost resolved, Song Shen coughed lightly.

The classroom then became quiet, and everyone returned to their seats. Li Shimin no longer looked at Li Longji and went back to his seat and sat down.

Song Shen glanced at Emperor Xuanzong who was still writhing in pain, his mouth twitching. He wanted to laugh but felt that it was not appropriate for him to gloat over other people's misfortune.

No matter how antisocial Li Longji was, he probably wouldn't dare to overturn the table in front of his ancestor who was so full of martial virtue, so he felt much more at ease.

In Song Shen's opinion, no matter how great the achievements of emperors and generals were, they were all empty talk in the tutoring class.

Look at Zhang Liang and Zhu Biao, neither of them was an emperor, but they were the most popular in the class. Is it because of their achievements?

No, it was because they were helpful and had good grades. Zhu Biao was not only willing to teach the emperors some history, but he could also remember it and had a good brain, so everyone wanted to hold on to these two big thick legs and ask questions.

In addition to being smart and having good character, they also have great abilities and achievements.

As a strategist, Zhang Liang, who was known as one of the Three Heroes of the Early Han Dynasty, was worthy of being elected as one of the Ten Sages of the Temple of Martial Arts; as a crown prince, Zhu Biao was the most stable crown prince in history. After the death of Empress Ma, he also took on the responsibility of persuading the old Zhu to kill fewer people, and even handled government affairs for many years, and he even went to inspect and relocate people in person.

The most important thing is that they either retire early or die early.

As for Li Longji, a half-emperor who lived too long and was difficult to judge...

People are like this. An evil person can lay down his butcher knife and become a Buddha instantly, but if Fahai breaks his vow and falls in love with White Snake, the criticism he receives will be a hundred times greater.

The point is not whether this person is a good emperor, but that Li Longji clearly had the ability, but in the end he caused the prosperous Tang Dynasty to fall because he was greedy for pleasure and ignored state affairs. In the eyes of the emperor who only values ​​merit, the sins of his second half of life completely offset the merits of his first half. He was neither a good emperor nor a good person, so as a student, Song Shen definitely did not like him.

If the one who came in was Li Longji who was in his thirties, he could still be saved, but this Li Sanlang who was in his fifties was really disgusting to look at. Just now, Song Shen wanted to go down and step on him.

"Okay, everyone be quiet, let's start the class."

Song Shen looked at the lesson plan he had prepared and said:
"Today, let's talk about Qin."

As soon as these words were spoken, disappointment appeared on everyone's faces except Ying Zheng and Meng Tian.

They had thought that Song Shen would continue talking about the Industrial Revolution and the steam engine today, but they didn't expect the time span to be so long, and they were suddenly dragged back to the days of Qin Shi Huang.

On the seat below.

Meng Tian whispered to Ying Zheng:

"Your Majesty, is this the class you mentioned earlier? Didn't you say that this gentleman talked about things that would happen a thousand or two thousand years later last time? How come he suddenly started talking about the Qin Dynasty again?"

Early this morning, Ying Zheng summoned Meng Tian into the palace and explained the situation to him roughly.

Meng Tian has been guarding the border for the Qin Dynasty for many years, but he always has to go back to Xianyang to report on his work and take a break every year. Now is a good time, and he just happened to encounter this tutoring class. At first, he thought that the emperor was possessed, but the eldest son Fusu also helped him. Meng Tian sat down in the Zhangtai Palace half-believing and half-doubting, quietly waiting for the reminder sound of the so-called tutoring class to come.

Ying Zheng also hummed softly and warned:
"They are all emperors and generals of later generations, and many of them have made great achievements. There are many things I don't have time to tell you. In the first few classes, you should listen more, watch more, and talk less. Otherwise, you will inevitably make more mistakes if you talk too much. Do you understand?"

Meng Tian agreed respectfully, but he felt in his heart that His Majesty had indeed changed a lot recently.

If it were in the past, His Majesty would not personally instruct on such matters, and would he say so much? Just give a look and let yourself experience it. If you misunderstand, you are just a fool and will not be used again in the future.

He looked intently at the young man on the podium, the immortal master Song Shen mentioned by His Majesty.

Song Shen smiled and said to all the students:

"I know you must be wondering why I was talking about steam engines, rubber trees, or the Industrial Revolution before, but today I suddenly started talking about the Qin Dynasty."

"But everyone should pay attention to one thing. The Qin Dynasty was the first unified dynasty in my country. Its rise and fall are of great reference value to future generations. You are all emperors and generals with titles in history books. I don't need to emphasize how long the Qin system has been in use, right?"

"The simplest influence—"

"Before the First Emperor unified the country, the princes were fighting each other to the point of losing their minds, but no one was willing to stand up and annex all the other princely states. The most outrageous thing they did was to ask you to cede land and cities after winning the battle."

"After him, whether it was the Chu-Han Contention, the Eastern Han Dynasty and the Three Kingdoms, the Five Barbarians' Invasion, or the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, China experienced many years of division and separatism. However, the ultimate goal of every monarch who fought for the throne was to restore the territory to its pre-division state, or even to expand it."

"Why is one of the most important contributions of the Qin Dynasty the standardization of wheel gauges, writing system, and weights and measures?"

"On the surface, this seems to be just one of the countless decrees of the Qin Dynasty." "However, this means that the economy, politics and culture within China began to unify. All the people on this land gradually changed their thinking from 'I am from Qi, Chu, Yan, Han, Zhao, Wei and Qin' to 'We are all people of the same country'. They use the same language and writing, the same wheels and tracks, the same currency and weight, and this cultural identity started from the Qin Dynasty and was finally fully established in the Han Dynasty."

“Don’t underestimate this.”

"Remember the globe I showed you before? The continent next to Asia is called Europe. Its area is not much different from ours, but there are more than 40 countries distributed on this piece of land, and the languages ​​used are also different. Some countries are not even as big as a county or a province in the Central Plains."

"It can be said that if Qin Shihuang had not unified the six kingdoms, our land would have been very likely to be divided into various states of varying sizes, like Europe, with each local dialect being its own official language. People would not consider themselves Chinese, but at most would think of each other as close relatives of the same origin but different branches."

"All the great unified dynasties that followed were built on the foundation laid by the First Emperor Ying Zheng."

"As a founder, the Qin Dynasty was innovative and there are many things worth analyzing. So don't think it's useless to talk about the Qin Dynasty. Starting from the Qin Dynasty, we can talk about the entire 5,000 years of Chinese history!"

Song Shen is not a Qin fan.

To be precise, he believed that all feudal dynasties were decadent, outdated, and meaningless to restore. However, after reading so many materials and data while preparing for teaching plans recently, Song Shen also realized that each period had its own particularity, and the Qin Dynasty was undoubtedly the most special of all the great unified dynasties.

Now that he has attended so many classes, Song Shen has gradually begun to want to take the classes seriously, apart from the nonsense content of getting system information.

Originally, when he chose Li Shimin, Zhangsun Wuji and Fang Xuanling, it was because his current situation was not very good and he wanted to find some inspiration from these political elites. However, Song Shen had only been thinking about how to gather information and develop productivity. It was only after being reminded by the milestone of [偃苗助长] that he realized that he might have taken too big a step and was going a bit ridiculous.

If he wants to change his current situation, the most important thing is to strengthen his understanding of the political structure. Otherwise, if he continues to look at the Hongwu Dynasty of the Ming Dynasty from a modern person's perspective, Song Shen feels that he will most likely not be able to change his fate, and may instead die a more miserable death.

He is the teacher of these people, and these people who have been at the top of the food chain in every dynasty can also teach him something.

After sorting out his thoughts, Song Shen stretched out his hand to everyone in the classroom:
"If you have any questions you want to ask, you can ask them first."

As the emperor of the Qin Dynasty, Ying Zheng naturally raised his hand first.

After Song Shen nodded, he stood up and said slowly:
"Sir, I want to ask, if I can gather all the talents in the world, no matter where they come from, what country they are from, whether they are nobles or common people, can the Qin Dynasty last forever?"

A little unexpected, but not very surprising.

Song Shen smiled, pressed his hand to indicate that he could sit down first, and then said:

"In my personal opinion, no."

"It's not that this approach is wrong, but I think that no matter how you improve the system, no matter how long-term your vision is, no feudal dynasty can last forever."

"Next, I will present my views."

"First of all, the Qin Dynasty after Shang Yang's reforms is a huge bug in the entire history of civilization in ancient and modern times, both in China and abroad - I mean, a miracle."

"In an era when iron tools were not yet popular, the Qin Dynasty achieved the organizational and mobilization capabilities that were only available after the Industrial Revolution. The Qin Dynasty fully demonstrated this strength in the war to unify the six kingdoms, and maintained this vitality for more than a hundred years. This in itself can be called a miracle."

"In terms of organizational and mobilization capabilities, among all the dynasties in later generations, only Zhu Yuanzhang's Hongwu period reached this level. Other dynasties were not weak, but the Han Dynasty had counties and kingdoms, the Tang Dynasty had aristocratic families, and the Song Dynasty had foreign enemies. I will not comment on these for now."

"But - Mr. Ying Zheng, I think you should also be aware of the flaws of this system, right?"

Ying Zheng looked serious.

After a while, he nodded slightly and said:
"The Qin Dynasty encouraged its soldiers to fight bravely by rewarding them with titles for military merit, and clearly defined rewards and punishments. If they fought bravely on the battlefield and were promoted to a title, they could escape poverty; even if they died in battle, as long as they had military merit, their wives, children and parents at home would still benefit."

"That is why the Qin cavalry was able to march across the six kingdoms. The soldiers of other countries did not have the military merits of the Qin as their goal, so naturally they could not fight as hard as the Qin soldiers."

"But this also has a big disadvantage, that is, if the world is unified, so many soldiers will have nowhere to go. Without war, the military merits that the Qin Dynasty is so proud of will become empty talk. With so many people, even I can't guarantee that they can stay at home and farm peacefully."

Song Shen nodded.

"That's right. The Qin Dynasty's military merit system is like a chariot that runs endlessly and cannot be stopped. Once you rein it in, the chariot will be destroyed and everyone will die."

"Student Ying Zheng, you want to ask how to stop this carriage, right?"

(End of this chapter)