Wentang

Chapter 680 Redesigning Weights and Measures

After coming out of the palace, Yueshan wrapped himself up tightly and rode back to Sixingping to celebrate the new year.Today is the first day of the Lunar New Year, as a son, he has to go home to spend the New Year with his parents.

When he got home and had dinner with his family, he casually told them the news of Wu Chang's birth, and then he regretted it.

Yue Shanniang said with a look of surprise: "Really? The sage and the empress must be very happy." Then she said indifferently:

"The princess is only 13 years old, right? She's two or three years younger than Lizhi. It's too dangerous to have a baby at such a young age."

Yue Shan suddenly yelled in his heart that it was not good, he was not caring about Wu Chang's body, he was short of directly asking why other people's children can have children, but you can't.

Looking at Li Lizhi again, the smile on her face became stiff, and she said: "I'm full, you eat slowly." After speaking, she got up and left.

Yue Shan is also the first and the second big, so he regrets why he brought up this matter.His mother is good everywhere, but she is too rigid in her treatment of the younger generation.

When the son gets married, he can't wait to hug his grandson.Especially when they hear that a daughter-in-law is pregnant and has a baby, they can give themselves a long time.

He explained to her that giving birth at a young age is too dangerous, and she finally calmed down a little in front of the bloody facts.But still can't mention the child in front of her, or she will lose control of herself.

Normally, Yue Shan never mentioned children or anything in front of her.But it is a big event for the crown princess to give birth, and it is also a happy event for their family, so I just mentioned this.

When he thought about it, if she wanted a grandson, she also had to look at the occasion, and she couldn't make trouble on the festive reunion day on the first day of the new year.

But the fact is that he still underestimated his mother's desire for the next generation, and he was almost bewildered, and he really made a fuss on the spot that made people unable to step down.I knew why I said this earlier.

He shook his head and said, "You guys eat, I'll go and have a look." After speaking, he put down his chopsticks and chased after Li Lizhi.

"Hey, hey, what are you doing, are you still eating?" Yue Shanniang still shouted from behind.

"Crack." Yue Laosi, who had been silent all this time, slammed his chopsticks on the table and said with a calm face, "Are you satisfied now?"

Yue Shanniang shrunk her neck subconsciously, but said without admitting defeat: "How can you blame me, what did I say?"

Elder Yue said: "Don't pretend to be stupid, you don't know what to say? You think about hugging your grandson all day long, I think you are stunned."

Yue Shanniang said stubbornly: "I want a grandson, what's wrong, don't you want it? Who doesn't want children after being married for so long? The son of Chen Shisan next door is only 17 years old, and he has already given him two grandsons and a granddaughter gone."

"Your sons are in their twenties and now there is no child, why am I not in a hurry. You are not afraid that one day you will die suddenly and have no way to explain to your ancestors."

Fourth Yue Yue was trembling with anger, pointed at her and said, "You...what nonsense are you talking about. What day is it today, the first day of the new year, is there anything that can't be discussed in another day?"

"I think you have too many good days and forget who you are."

"Who does our family rely on today? Do you rely on you? It depends on the son himself. He has worked hard alone since he was a child to have a huge family business... He naturally has his own opinions in doing things. What are you messing with?" ?”

"Who is Lizhi? It's the princess, the daughter of the saint and the empress. In case... our family's good life will come to an end."

"Do you have too many good days and want to go back to the old days when you can't even eat enough? What's the matter after waiting for two years, the family is safe and sound is nothing more important than anything."

The heart-sucking hunger was recalled again, Yue Shanniang also panicked, and said: "I... I can't listen to you, what do you think should I do now?"

"What else can I do? Cold salad." After speaking, Yue Laosi got up angrily and walked out.

"Hey, why don't you leave, you're eating." Yue Shanniang shouted.

"Whatever you eat, you will be full of gas." Yue Laosi left these words and left without looking back.

Only Yue Shanniang was left looking at the large table of dishes and didn't know what to do. At this moment, she was also full of remorse, and couldn't help but slapped herself, saying: "Why can't I control this mouth."

……

Let's say that Yue Shan chased all the way to his room, and found Li Lizhi lying on the bed sobbing softly in the bedroom.

He went over and sat down beside her, put a hand on her shoulder and said, "It's all my fault for making you feel wronged."

However, Li Lizhi didn't respond, as if she didn't hear his words.Yue Shan knew in his heart that she should be really angry, otherwise she wouldn't be like this.

"Mother really went too far today, how can you say such a thing..."

However, Li Lizhi, who hadn't responded to these words, sat up from the bed at once, wiped her tears and said, "Do you think I'm angry with my mother?"

"Isn't it?" Yue Shan asked suspiciously.

"Mother's thinking is normal. If my son has been married for such a long time and has no children, I would be anxious." Li Li confronted.

"This...then...then you are..." Yue Shan was confused.

"Who do you think I'm blaming?" Li Lizhi stared at him with wide eyes and questioned.

"Uh..." Yue Shan understood, and the blame was still on him in the end.It was because he had never wanted this child that there were all kinds of subsequent conflicts.

But he also felt wronged, he was really thinking about Li Lizhi's body.It's just this era...

"This year is my Jiji year." Li Lizhi added another sentence.

Yue Shan knew what she meant, his eyes flickered and he was lost in thought, and after a while he seemed to have made a decision.Without saying anything, he got up and strode to the door, exhorting Qiu'er who was guarding the outside room:
"Someone came over and said that I was not feeling well and had already fallen asleep. Don't let anyone disturb you."

After saying 'pop', he closed the door, walked to the bed a few steps and stared at Li Lizhi 'viciously'.

"You...what do you want to do?" Li Lizhi asked in a panic.

"What do you say?"

"You...don't come here..."

"But how to have a baby in the past."

"Ah...it's not dark yet."

"Who cares if it's dark or not when you give birth to a child?"

"..."

The birth of the eldest grandson is indeed a great joyous event, because the palace, which was a little deserted after the national funeral, has become lively again, and finally there is an atmosphere of Chinese New Year.

Hundreds of officials expressed their congratulations to the sage on his eldest grandson, and congratulated the crown prince on his son... All officials in the capital who are of sufficient rank have prepared a congratulatory gift, and those who are not in the capital will definitely have to make up for it later.

The people are also sincerely happy for the court.People in a troubled world are not as good as Taiping dogs, and the common people do not want turmoil in the Tang Dynasty.

After the governance of Li Yuan and Li Shimin's father and son, the vitality of the world has been restored, and it is no problem for the people to live and work in peace and contentment.

The common people who have managed to live a good life for a few days naturally hope that the Tang Dynasty will last longer, so that they can live a peaceful life for a longer period of time.It is good news that the royal family has a suitable heir.

Many people spontaneously prayed for the emperor's grandson, praying that he would grow up healthily and become a wise king like his grandfather in the future.

For the common people, the grandson of the emperor only represents the continuation of the imperial power. For Li Shimin and the ministers of the court, this child is even more special and auspicious.

Just before Li Chengqian's operation, he happened to be diagnosed and came to this world.Then Li Chengqian's operation was successfully completed, and he recovered very well, none of the expected dangers appeared.

The whole country was saddened by Li Yuan's death, but his arrival dispelled the sorrow and brought good news.

It just so happened that Li Shimin was preparing for drastic reforms again... the date of birth was still the first day of the Lunar New Year...

For Li Shimin, he is a good omen, it is heaven's approval of his reform, and almost all officials have this idea.

So this child came at the right time, and the timing is too late to feel like the Lord of Destiny.

For Li Chengqian, this child is also his auspiciousness.No matter how capable he is, as long as he doesn't act recklessly, Li Shimin and the officials will not easily abolish the prince because of the halo of his eldest grandson.

So the appearance of this child made his position as prince stronger.

This is even more so for Wu Chang. With this child, her position as the princess is really as stable as Mount Tai.Even if Li Chengqian changed his mind as a scumbag, she would not be able to shake her position as the crown princess.

Why did the kings and queens in the Li Zhi period in the previous life fail to fight against Wu Zetian?It's all false that Wu Zetian is more ruthless and means more, the real reason is that she has no children.Even without Wu Zetian, other women would fight her down.

The entire Wu family also benefited, and Li Shimin directly ordered Ying Guogong's family to return to Beijing to visit relatives.

The reason why the warrior Xun was assigned was that he was loyal to the Supreme Emperor, and now that Li Yuan died, the knot would naturally be untied.Wu Chang also gave birth to the eldest grandson, who has made great contributions to the royal family, and he, the father, can also share the credit.

Speaking of visiting relatives, if he shows a little respect after returning to Beijing, and if someone builds a ladder for him, Li Shimin will most likely stay in Beijing for a job.

For the young samurai Xun, it can be regarded as a good beginning and a good end.

It can be said that the birth of this child was really expected by everyone, and he was born with countless auras.

The birth of the eldest grandson also made Li Shimin more daring, and several major reforms were announced one after another at the court meeting on the first day after the annual leave.

For example, resetting weights and measures.The weights and measures standards used today were formulated thousands of years ago, and there will definitely be errors when they are passed down to this day. The purpose of re-calibration is to make this standard more suitable for current needs.

The unit of length has not changed much, but it has been determined that ten centimeters are one centimeter, ten centimeters are one centimeter, and ten centimeters are one meter.

Chi and zhang are officially canceled...the reason for the cancellation is that one meter is equal to three feet, and one foot is 33...centimeters, which cannot be divided completely, and there will be disputes about errors.

In order to avoid these disputes and further refine the unit of length, chi and zhang were canceled and four units of millimeters and centimeters were adopted.

Strictly speaking, this change is almost the same as no change, except that several new units have been re-determined, and the size is the same as the original one. It was originally one meter and now it is still one meter.

What really changes the most is the unit of weight.

Jin has been changed from the original hexadecimal system to the current decimal system, that is to say, 16 taels was one catty before, but now it is changed to twelve taels is one catty.The reason is simple, decimal is easier to calculate.

This involves too much, and it fundamentally changes the "jin" amount.All the previous scales were invalidated, and re-anchoring the new scales brought a lot of trouble.

Not only troubles in life, but also troubles for historians.The records of the previous dynasty's annual income per mu and so on have to be changed accordingly, and the workload is heavy.

Therefore, many ministers stood up to oppose this change. The reasons were that it disturbed the people, was inconvenient, and harmed the interests of the people.

Li Shimin directly refuted, is the hexadecimal system convenient?The momentary trouble now is to provide convenience for thousands of generations to come.

Harm the interests of the people?This is also simple. The imperial court will ask the Ministry of Industry to make enough new scales. At that time, the common people can replace the old scales with new ones for free.

He even boldly stated that even old scales that are rotten and unusable can be replaced with new ones.The money does not need to come out of the treasury, but goes to the internal treasury for reimbursement.

Now the objectors have no reason and can only silently agree.

There is also a revision of the characters and Mandarin. Two months later, the imperial court will promulgate the Zhenguan Dictionary. All the glyphs and definitions of the characters are based on the dictionary, and the pronunciation of the Mandarin is also based on the dictionary.

Everyone knows about the Zhenguan Dictionary. It has been compiled for ten years and there is still no result. It is said that there are still endless debates about the pronunciation.

Some time ago, Li Shimin personally sent someone to take over and forcibly established the standards.Mandarin is based on the Chang'an accent and supplemented by the Luoxia accent, removing those difficult pronunciations, and can also adopt dialects from other places to distinguish difficult polyphonic characters...

According to this new standard, the editing work must be completed before the vernal equinox, otherwise the people who have opinions will be replaced and a new group of people will be found to do it.

Naturally, the dictionary that I have spent ten years compiling cannot be given away like this. When my arms cannot twist my thighs, I can only compile them according to Li Shimin's standards.

In order to catch up with time, these people have not been home for years, and work overtime day and night.Because there are not many controversial areas left with the original foundation, it is estimated that it will be officially completed in February.

Li Shimin's notice in advance is also to let everyone prepare in advance.

At the same time, in order to promote the big dictionary, the imperial examination papers will be graded according to the big dictionary after five years, and the ranking of scholars who can speak Mandarin will be raised by one class after ten years.

This decision naturally caused quite a bit of controversy.

The dispute does not come from the shape and meaning of the characters. Instead of objecting to this, most people are happy to have a unified standard.

What is controversial is the official language of the imperial examination, which is fine in big cities, but it is too difficult to learn official language in remote places.It's not fair to those remote scholars, especially poor ones, where do they go to school?

Since Li Shimin proposed this standard, he naturally considered this possibility and worked out a countermeasure.

The county test does not test Mandarin but only reads articles. After passing the test, you can enter the local county school for free as a student.Not only can you learn to speak Mandarin, but you can also learn more knowledge to lay the foundation for the state test.

In this way, the mouths of those opponents were completely blocked.

This place is actually a pit, a pit dug for the ancient schools and aristocratic families.The aristocratic family has great achievements and famous teachers, and basically they will build their own family schools to impart family knowledge.

In this way, they form a closed loop, produce by themselves, educate by themselves, and come out to work as officials after they have learned something, and it is difficult for new learning to penetrate.

Standard Mandarin is now in the hands of the academic and political system of the imperial court, that is, various government academies.If those children from aristocratic families want to become officials, they must enter the official school to study, and the official school is the world of new learning.

This is equivalent to breaking the 'closed loop' of the aristocratic family, forcing their children to learn new things, further weakening their strength.

So on the surface, the mandatory promotion of Mandarin is to unify the accent, but in fact it is a trap dug for ancient schools and aristocratic families.

There is no need to be afraid that they will not dance, as long as they want their children to become officials, they must dance.

Of course, they can also take the initiative to learn Mandarin, and then use Mandarin to teach at the school within the family.But it doesn't matter, this matter is to hug grass and beat rabbits, and it's one of them.

I cheated you once today, and I cheated you once tomorrow, and slowly I cheated you half to death.

The pit was dug very concealed, and it was not even obvious that it was a pit at all. There is no need to be afraid of them noticing it in a short period of time. After a few years, it will be too late for them to find out and oppose it.

Compared with the first two innovations, the third plan really shocked the world.

The imperial court is going to build a sage temple, and put all the sages who have contributed to Chinese civilization through the ages into it, and sacrifice in the name of the country.

(End of this chapter)