I'm in the Red Mansion

Chapter 373 Smoothly Promoting Change
Jia Cong was quite surprised to hear what Zheng Xianfeng said.

Isn’t what Zheng Xianxian said the Chinese pinyin used by later generations?

Well, Chinese pinyin itself also borrows English letters to interpret sounds.

Jia Cong was curious about whether the Chinese Pinyin developed by Zheng Xianfeng was consistent with the Chinese Pinyin used in later generations.

So, Jia Cong curiously asked Zheng Xianfeng to explain his invention.

Zheng Xianfeng began to tell the story with great interest.

And just as Jia Cong had expected, Zheng Xianfeng took out the twenty-six letters first.

Then he reinterpreted the pronunciation of the twenty-six letters.

Coincidentally, the pronunciation is almost the same as Chinese pinyin, of course, there are still some minor differences.

Next, there are the spelling rules.

There are also slight differences between it and Chinese Pinyin, but they are probably almost the same.

After explaining the rules, Zheng Xianfeng even wrote a few Chinese characters and used these letters to mark the pronunciation.

In the court, all officials were confused by what they heard, and for a moment, they found it difficult to grasp so many pronunciations.

And Jia Cong, of course, understood it.

Moreover, Jia Cong also understood the inconsistencies in pinyin.

So Jia Cong wrote a few words and asked Zheng Xianfeng to spell them out.

Then Zheng Xianfeng discovered that the pronunciation of these words could not be pronounced according to his spelling rules.

Zheng Xianfeng couldn't help but blush, and then said awkwardly: "Your Majesty, there are still some loopholes in the students' spelling rules."

“After returning, students will definitely give more thought to solving these loopholes.”

Jia Cong nodded, and then said: "Actually, I think the pronunciation of these letters can be slightly changed!"

"In addition, there are a few spelling rules that can be slightly changed."

As he spoke, Jia Cong wrote down the rules of Chinese pinyin for later generations.

Zheng Xianfeng thought about it and found that the rules changed by the emperor did fill the loophole.

At this moment, Zheng Xianfeng couldn't help but admire Jia Cong.

He said that he invented this spelling rule himself.

In fact, it was a joint research by a group of overseas students. How can it be his credit alone?
It took them more than a month of research together to figure out the spelling rules.

As for the emperor, he only listened once, and in this short period of time, he not only remembered all their rules.

And you can also find loopholes from them, and what's more amazing is that you can even fill the loopholes.

I have to say, the emperor is really amazing!

They couldn't help but admire him!
Zheng Xianfeng was overjoyed and said, "The emperor is indeed a genius, wise and brave. He found the omission at a glance and was able to solve the problem!"

"In this way, China can completely abolish Chinese characters and fully promote this alphabet!"

"This set of letters was perfected by the Emperor. Please give it a name!"

This guy is not stupid. He knows how to flatter and please me.

At this time, all the civil and military officials were worried.

At this moment, they were really afraid that the emperor would agree to abolish Chinese characters and replace them with letters.

If this happens, they will probably become sinners for all eternity.

Jia Cong asked, "But if we use letters to replace Chinese characters, there is also a difficulty."

"That is, there are many homophones in Chinese characters. If you encounter homophones, how can you distinguish their meanings?"

Zheng Xianfeng said confidently: "This is simple. The meaning of the word can be distinguished through the context."

Jia Cong smiled and asked, "Really? If so, how about I write a few short articles and you mark them?"

Zheng Xianxian was delighted and said, "I am naturally honored."

Jia Cong nodded.

Zhou Liang immediately came over to help spread out the paper and grind the ink.

Jia Cong finished an article in one stroke.

Shishi, a poet in the stone chamber, was fond of lions and vowed to eat ten lions.Shi Shi always looks at the lion in the market.At ten o'clock, ten lions are in the market.It's time for Shi Shi to be in the market.

Shi looked at the ten lions and, relying on the power of his arrows, killed them. He picked up the corpses of the ten lions and went to the stone chamber. The stone chamber was wet, so he asked his servant to wipe it.

After the stone chamber was cleaned, Shi began to try to eat the corpses of the ten lions. While eating, he realized that the corpses of the ten lions were actually the corpses of ten stone lions. Let me explain this matter.

This article was written by Mr. Zhao Yuanren, the father of modern linguistics.

The name of the article is "The Story of Shi Shi Eating a Lion". From the name of the article to the whole article, the pronunciation is the same.

This article certainly cannot express its meaning using Chinese pinyin.

Jia Cong only wanted to promote new learning, not really to abolish Chinese characters.

Therefore, he specially took out this article.

When Jia Cong asked Zhou Liang to give the story of Shi's eating lion to Zheng Xianfeng, Zheng Xianfeng was completely dumbfounded after taking the article and reading it.

"This, this, this..."

Jia Cong looked at him with a half-smile and asked, "Why, this article cannot be annotated using your spelling method?"

Zheng Xianfeng said helplessly: "Your Majesty, this article has the same pronunciation throughout, and it is indeed impossible to express its meaning using letters."

"But it's not unsolvable. We just need to stop writing texts that have the same pronunciation throughout the text."

Jia Cong suddenly said seriously: "If the meaning of a word is not expressed clearly, its meaning will often be a thousand miles away from the truth."

"It's really hard to fully explain the meaning using spelling."

"Therefore, I think that using letters to replace Chinese characters is inappropriate!"

Hearing this, Zheng Xianfeng was dumbfounded.

Why did the emperor refuse? What happened?

Isn't it obvious that the emperor also wants to make changes, but is troubled by the fact that most of the scholars are conservative and stick to the old ways?
How come at this point, the emperor doesn't support me anymore?
All the civil and military officials present couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief.

They are really afraid that the emperor will abolish Chinese characters!

Jia Cong continued, "However, the alphabetic system you invented is not completely useless."

"It can still be promoted nationwide, and even added to the Chinese dictionary."

"This way, when beginners encounter a word they don't know, they only need to look it up in the dictionary and they can spell it out using this set of pronunciations."

"Since you invented this alphabet and spelling system, why not call this alphabet Pioneer Pinyin? What do you think?"

Pioneer Pinyin?

It was invented with my name?

I can actually be famous for generations and have my name recorded in history?
For a moment, Zheng Xianfeng was so excited that his whole body was shaking.

He quickly knelt on the ground, not realizing that he felt kneeling and kowtowing was uncivilized.

Xie En said: "I am very scared. This set of pinyin was finally perfected by the emperor. It is more appropriate to use the emperor's reign title to record the name."

Jia Cong laughed and said, "How could I steal your invention? It's settled, let's call it Pioneer Pinyin."

"Well, I will give you another task. You will be responsible for recompiling the Chinese dictionary and adding pinyin. What do you think?"

Zheng Xianfeng said loudly: "Thank you, Your Majesty, for your grace. I am willing to do so!"

Jia Cong added: "But what you said before is not entirely unreasonable." "After all, Chinese characters are just a learning tool. They are indeed too complicated."

"I think we can promote simplified characters, which will be more conducive to promoting learning."

Simplified Chinese characters have existed since ancient times and were not introduced after the founding of the People's Republic of China.

However, simplified characters are only used among the general public. It is a convenient way of reducing strokes and is not officially recognized.

Simplified Chinese characters are absolutely not allowed in official articles.

Now, Jia Cong took advantage of Zheng Xianfeng's proposal to abolish Chinese characters and promoted simplified characters.

At this point, Zheng Xianfeng gradually came to his senses.

He felt that he was being used as a knife by the emperor.

The emperor's original intention was probably to use him to introduce simplified Chinese characters.

But it’s not a loss for him.

After all, Pioneer Pinyin is named after him.

All we can say is that each takes what he needs.

Therefore, Zheng Xianfeng hurriedly flattered him, saying, "Your Majesty is wise!"

Zheng Xianfeng stood up and said, "Your Majesty, I feel that the Four Books and Five Classics are completely useless."

"Can those scholars who have read the Four Books and Five Classics for their entire lives learn how to be an official? Or can they understand the mysteries of the world?"

"Therefore, students feel that the Four Books and Five Classics are useless and it would be better to abolish them and promote the new learning throughout China."

"In the future, the imperial examination will also abolish the Four Books and Five Classics and only test new knowledge!"

After hearing these words, Jia Cong looked at Zheng Xianfeng with even softer eyes.

This kid is really good, he has a good knife!
All the civil and military officials were extremely angry.

Zheng family kid, you deserve to die!

He was going against the will of the world and affecting the interests of all the noble families!

Jia Cong said: "The Four Books and Five Classics are still useful, but they cannot keep up with the development of the times."

"There is no need to throw the baby out with the bathwater. We can vigorously promote new learning. In the future, the imperial examination will test the Four Books and Five Classics plus new learning. The proportion of the Four Books and Five Classics can be appropriately reduced."

Zheng Xianxian suddenly realized what was going on.

It turned out that he was still being treated as a knife, or rather, all of this group of returnees were being treated as knives.

It turned out that the emperor never intended to abolish the Four Books and Five Classics. He just wanted to promote new learning and include new content in the imperial examinations.

It turns out that the emperor is of this kind and is not as radical as they are.

The emperor only studied the scientific aspects of Western learning and completely rejected other parts of Western learning, such as religion, philosophy, etc.

Thinking of this, Zheng Xianfeng couldn't help feeling a little depressed.

However, he still insisted: "Your Majesty, Western civilization is much better than ours. I think we should learn Western learning in all aspects."

"After all, if you fall behind, you will be beaten. We must face up to our own shortcomings and work hard to learn from others' strengths."

Hearing this, Jia Cong said calmly: "What you said does make sense."

"However, we also need to look at the problem dialectically and not completely elevate the other party and belittle ourselves."

“We must have an objective and fair understanding of Western learning and ourselves.”

Hearing this, Zheng Xianfeng knew that the emperor was dissatisfied with him.

The emperor thought he was going too extreme.

But isn’t this true?
Zheng Xianfeng couldn't help but say, "Your Majesty, the Western Renaissance and technological development are far ahead of ours. This is an indisputable fact."

"For example, why does it thunder in summer? Why does it snow in winter? This is already common knowledge in the West, but the Chinese people are still ignorant of it."

Hearing this, Jia Cong couldn't help but laugh and said, "Actually, you are wrong about this."

"In China, almost everyone who has studied the new science understands this principle."

"Lightning is nothing more than a violent explosion caused by the work done by positive and negative charges."

"When you return to the capital, you will naturally see that the capital has electricity."

"In fact, electricity is an application of thunder and lightning. We Chinese can generate electricity, so how could we know nothing about thunder and lightning?"

"The Chinese are no worse than any other race in the world. We must have our own national confidence."

“We should learn from others’ strengths, but we should not underestimate ourselves or completely deny ourselves.”

"We must have our own sense of national pride! Of course, some of the things our ancestors left behind are dross."

"But most of them are treasures. We, the descendants, cannot discard them like worn-out shoes!"

After hearing these words, the radical returnees, including Zheng Xianfeng, fell into silence.

The emperor's words, like the morning bell and evening drum, completely woke them up.

Of course, they might not have undergone fundamental changes in their thinking just because of Jia Cong's words.

It was Jia Cong's attitude that caused a significant change in their attitude.

At this time, they all roughly understood the emperor's attitude towards them.

……

This news was published in the new issue of Daxia Monthly.

It begins with Zheng Xianfeng's petition to abolish Chinese characters, the Four Books and Five Classics, and fully promote Western learning.

Then the emperor received them and wrote the history of Shi eating lion, rejecting Zheng Xianfeng's proposal.

However, I still think what he said makes sense and I am ready to promote simplified Chinese characters and Pioneer Pinyin in China.

However, the emperor still decisively rejected Zheng Xianfeng's proposal to completely abolish the Four Books and Five Classics.

However, it was compromised that new content would be added to the imperial examinations in the future.

Similarly, the emperor's subsequent refutation of Zheng Xianfeng was also recorded in detail.

After reading these, ordinary people just treat it as a story to be told after dinner.

I just felt it was so lively and shouted "Long live the emperor" and that was it.

As for many students in the scholar circle, they were so frightened that they broke out in cold sweats.

They hated Zheng Xianfeng and other returnees very much.

At the same time, I was amazed at the emperor's wisdom and bravery.

Fortunately, the emperor was wise enough and was not bewitched by such a despicable villain as Zheng Xianfeng.

It simply promoted simplified characters and added new content to the imperial examinations.

Although simplified characters are very crude, they are at least a simplification of Chinese characters.

It's still barely acceptable.

Similarly, the imperial examination added new content.

But at least the Four Books and Five Classics were not abolished.

In the future, there will just be new exam contents.

It is barely acceptable.

(End of this chapter)