Guide to traveling through the Northern Song Dynasty

In the early morning, by the river, Xue Daoguang had been meditating all night.

There are burnt wormwood beside it, which is used to smoke mosquitoes. If Ju Ming hadn't asked Bai Sheng to smoke, Daoist Xue would have been carried away by mosquitoes while looking inside.

"Taoist Master, let's set off!" Zhu Ming shouted.

Xue Daoguang slowly opened his eyes, stood up and said, "Let's go."

Ju Ming asked: "Have you ever figured it out?"

"It's obvious that my friend is just messing with me," Xue Daoguang glanced at him, "I don't want to argue with you, but I can go for a walk with you. When can I really let go? Only then can I be considered successful in cultivation. My little friend, what you said yesterday ruined my twenty years of practice!"

"Hahaha!"

Ju Ming laughed: "How can it be so scary? The Taoist priest just has some more ideas. Your Qi training is not in vain."

At this time, Xue Daoguang was still trying to annotate Ziyang Zhenren's "Wu Zhen Chapter", and he had not even begun to summarize and compile his own Taoist scriptures.

The Taoist heart is not very firm, but now it is mixed with some benevolence and righteousness by Ju Ming.

"Brother Zhu, we've got eighty pancakes!" Bai Sheng came over with his pocket in hand.

The village is small, but the people live a pretty good life.

Just because this is the last stop of the Hanzhong boat trip, you have to walk further. Regardless of whether it is an official delivery shop or a tea delivery shop, official soldiers will not attack the people of the village.

If the force is too strong and all the farmers flee, it will be difficult to supply supplies here. Will they go to drink the northwest wind in the future?

The eighty pancakes Bai Sheng brought at this time were made from the wheat he carried with him and he paid the people in the village to bake them this morning.

Other scholars and officials were also asking the villagers to bake pancakes, and they didn’t know how long they would have to go next.

Zhu Ming held the cornucopia, the horses carried clothes and food, Bai Sheng and Shi Biao carried dried mushrooms on their backs, and set off towards the north in the middle of the morning.

There were more than two hundred people traveling with us.

In addition to official servants, scholars, soldiers, and civilians, there are also some small businessmen and ordinary tourists. Some people have stayed here for two or three days. They dare not go alone for fear of meeting bandits in the mountains.

After walking for a long time, everyone stopped to rest.

Ju Ming pointed to the Baoshui River and asked the official accompanying him: "These rivers look quite wide. Why can't boats be used on them?"

The official came from Yangzhou to deliver an official document to Tokyo. He replied: "There are reefs under the water, and the current is very fast. If you are not careful, the boat will be destroyed and people will die. And there are some places where the trackers can't go, so let's go." Don’t even think about pulling the boat.”

The water transport of Baoxie Road has always been the flower in the mirror.

The Han Dynasty also wanted to carry out water transportation through Baoshui River, and recruited more than 50,000 civilians to dig hundreds of miles of plank roads. However, the water transportation plan was ultimately scrapped for four reasons: the water is turbulent and the rocks are big.

Ju Ming turned around and looked back at the official tea team. All the peasants were carrying tea leaves and packed in tea sacks, which were piled up far above their heads. The tea leaves were tied on wooden shelves. During a short break, they bent their knees and squatted, so that their feet could rest on the ground to save effort.

In addition to tea, some civilians also carried grain on their backs, and even the rural soldiers who escorted the tea carried a small amount of grain.

Ju Ming actually wanted to ask why mountain horses or wheelbarrows were not used to transport tea.

It didn't take long for Ju Ming to understand.

After walking a long stretch of plank road, we suddenly have to climb a steep slope, which is not easy to push a wheelbarrow up.

Mountain horses should be fine, but raising horses requires money and food, and killing a horse from exhaustion is a huge loss. The peasants didn't care, they only gave them some food rations, no wages, and no compensation if they died of exhaustion.

For tea horses, horses are more valuable than human lives!

There is free manpower, why use horses?

"I'm so exhausted, let's take a rest!"

After climbing up a hillside, some students rushing to take exams would lie down directly, regardless of whether the ground was dirty or not.

Officials, traders, scholars, and travelers delivering official documents all decided to stop and take a rest.

Only the rural soldiers and civilians who were transporting tea continued to rush on their way desperately under the urging of the tea escorts. Anyone who moves a little slowly will be scolded, and anyone who is too lazy to move will be whipped.

Ju Ming sat on the hillside and watched the peasants one after another struggling to pass in front of him. Their expressions were numb again, like machines without thoughts. Apart from the mountain road in front of them, they could see nothing else.

"People's livelihood is so difficult!" Ling Guxu couldn't help but sigh.

Min Zishun said: "This is due to the corruption of officialdom. The officials of the Tea Horse Department have deducted money at every level and put all the burden on the people. They can definitely raise Sichuan horses to transport goods, but they are not willing to pay even that little money."

Yangzhou is among the places in Sichuan and Shaanxi that are most harassed by tea servants.

From the officials and gentry to the merchants and common people, everyone hated this. All profits belong to the Tea Horse Company, and even half a dime is given to the local government, but it still disrupts local order.

But what can be done?

Behind Chama Si stood Cai Jing, who was deeply involved with the Northwest Frontier Army and was able to make countless amounts of money every year. A small official in the Tea Horse Division dared to talk to the local magistrate.

On the first day of abandoning the ship and walking, the tea transport team disappeared without a trace.

After walking for another half day, Ju Ming looked at the river surface. It was no longer a reef. The scattered rocks were visible to the naked eye. A larger boat could not even hope to pass.

Ju Ming observed the mountains and rivers along the way and asked Li Hanzhang: "Sanlang, when Zhuge Wuhou left the Xie Valley with his troops, how did he use stray horses to transport grain from here?"

"It may just be a rumor, and "Three Kingdoms" may not be accurate." Li Hanzhang said.

Ju Ming guessed: "Is it possible that the Liuma is a kind of boat and cart that can travel on both land and water? When the plank road or the road is smooth, the cart is pushed forward on the wheels. When going over mountains and ridges, the wheels are removed and the cart is converted into a boat. The trackers To pull it forward, we only need to build fiberglass plank roads in some sections of the road. Large ships cannot pass here, but small boats can easily pass."

Li Hanzhang thought for a while: "It's also possible."

In the evening, we rested in the mountains.

Chen Yuan sat cross-legged next to Ju Ming, and other scholars who were taking the examination also gathered around.

Chen Yuan asked: "What Dalang said yesterday is the unity of knowledge and action, which is also good. But if all this person's thoughts are evil thoughts, wouldn't the unity of knowledge and action be harmful to others and himself?"

"So we must first treat our conscience." Ju Ming said.

Chen Yuan shook his head: "Mencius said: What a person can do without learning is his good ability; what he knows without thinking about it is his good knowledge. In this way, good knowledge can know without thinking. It is innate, not acquired. Seek it. This statement conflicts with the knowledge gained by studying things. The knowledge gained by studying things is not the conscience mentioned by Mencius."

Zhu Ming paid homage to Wang Yangming in his heart: "There is no good or disgusting body, there are good and evil actions, knowing good and evil is conscience, and doing good and eliminating evil is observing things."

Chen Yuan was silent and thinking, and the scholars were also thinking.

Suddenly, Chen Yuan clapped his hands suddenly: "These four sentences coincide with the Doctrine of the Mean: destiny is called nature, spontaneity is called Tao, and cultivating the Tao is called teaching! Can it also come from your father's mouth?"

Ju Ming nodded: "Yes."

Chen Yuan sighed: "Brother Yuan Zhang is a true Confucian!"

The same four sentences, spoken by different people, can mean exactly the opposite. Ju Ming directly turned Wang Yangming's idealism into materialism.

Others can understand it however they want, but for Ju Ming, "doing good and eliminating evil is the pursuit of things." You must first understand the truth of things, and then do good and eliminate evil. It can be at the physical level, understanding and applying physical knowledge to seek advantages and avoiding disadvantages; it can also be at the social moral level, understanding social laws and ethical orders, so as to punish evil and promote good.

Those four sentences, when read directly, are epistemology, and when read backward, they are methodology.

So, Chen Yuan and Zhu Ming began to discuss, and the scholars listened quietly, leaving Gu Xu to lie on the ground and record.

Even Tu Rukui, who came from Jiangxi, sat nearby and listened intently. Although they are second-rate goods in Jiangxi, they are first-rate in Hanzhong.

It was getting dark and the bonfire was lit.

After Zhu Ming and Chen Yuan finished their exchange, the scholars began to ask questions.

Tu Rukui first asked: "How to make the knowledge derived from studying things conform to Mencius' natural conscience?"

Chen Yuan replied: "Destiny is called nature, and one has to understand the destiny and return to one's original heart. This is easy to say but difficult to do. It is about the Confucian theory of mind and nature. How many sages and great Confucians have been studying it all their lives. This. Confucius said that when you are fifty, you know the destiny of heaven. You are so young that it may be difficult to understand its true meaning. You need to see more, learn more, understand more, and work hard day and night before you can touch even one scale and a half of it."

Chen Yuan's understanding of conscience is more suitable for ordinary people.

Wang Yangming's kind of conscientiousness requires too much talent. It can indeed educate many strong people, but it also turns countless people with mediocre qualifications into delinquents.

Ju Ming put it more directly and clearly: "First set a great ambition, and then use it as a goal to be a human being, to learn, and to do things. This ambition is not necessarily your destiny. We are still young, sitting in a well and looking at the sky, we can only look at that area. Seek great ambitions in the sky. Maybe your ambitions will change when you climb out of the well. You can also have great ambitions from a young age, such as helping the world and saving people, but you have to slowly explore how to do it. If one day, for your own ambitions, If you can sacrifice your life for righteousness and go to death calmly, if you can resolutely abandon glory and wealth, then you have truly found your destiny."

Chen Yuan frowned. He didn't quite agree with Ju Ming's point of view, but it seemed that the general direction was correct, so he didn't bother to correct it.

After answering many questions of the scholars, Chen Yuan suddenly stood up and began the first public lecture of the new school.

The first thing he talked about was the three theories of Wo Ben, Dao Yong, and Fang Ju. He tried his best to explain it in a simple and easy-to-understand way. Even the officials and merchants came closer and just thought they were listening to the story told by the great Confucian.

After talking for a while, a small businessman asked: "Mr. Chen, you said that if everyone follows the rules, the country will be rich and the world will be peaceful. But why do I abide by the law and do business, and I can only make some miserable money? Those big businessmen who do evil things, But can I make a lot of money? My ruler is straight, but I have to suffer. The ruler of the big businessmen is crooked, but they can enjoy happiness. They are all trying to draw a square for their family, country and world, but my ruler is too short. Can draw a few straight lines. Big merchants have longer rulers, and they can draw a lot of crooked lines."

Chen Yuan said: "You are not wrong, it is not your problem. It is the lack of governance, which makes good people suffer and bad people enjoy happiness. I hope you can continue to be a good person. If you have the ability, punish the bad people. If you are not able, just do it. Mind your own business. We scholars will try our best to help you. We will drive away traitors and rectify the government, so that good people can enjoy happiness even if they abide by the law, and bad people will be punished if they break the law."

The small businessman didn't believe it, and said in a sarcastic tone: "I'm just waiting for that day."

Chen Yuan pointed at the small businessman and said to the scholars who were rushing to take the exam: "This man doesn't believe it. Can you blame him? He can't win the trust of the people. This is really a shame for us scholars!"

Most of the scholars bowed their heads in shame, while some were disdainful.