New Shun 1730

The emergence of Liu Yu caused the emperor to issue an order to separate "Western learning" and "practical learning", completely separating culture and religion from science and mathematics.

The basis for this division is that there is a person who is not a Catholic and can solve equations, do geometry, and introduce Newton's theory. He angrily denounces the Copernican theory passed down by missionaries as outdated. He can at least talk about Kepler. system.

The basis for this kind of cutting was that there was a person who was not a Catholic, but could tell the emperor about the general situation of the Orthodox Holy Roman Empire, France and England in the Rakshasa Kingdom.

This kind of separation also led to subsequent differences between Cheng Tingzuo and Wu Jingzi.

Before, both of them were the same: they felt that it was over, that this era was terminally ill, and they had to criticize the Song Confucians of the past and the era, otherwise the world would be ruined!

If the times do not change, there will be no salvation and the world will be destroyed.

But what to do after criticism?

When opposing and criticizing, the two have a common language and are traveling together.

However, when it comes to "what to do", differences arise.

Some people took this step due to the factors of the times and found a direction that they felt could at least be done.

Some people waste their time in criticism and cannot find direction, so they rely on moral changes.

Just like when capitalism appeared, everyone complained. Priests, nobles, emperors, kings, guild masters, and farmers all complained and cursed. The path chosen is different for everyone. Some go back, some have daydreaming, and some continue to move forward.

Seven or eight years after Cheng Tingzuo believed that "Western missionaries used knowledge as bait and harbored evil intentions," the emperor issued an order to distinguish between practical learning and Western learning.

Ten years after Cheng Tingzuo worried that "missionaries might be the forerunners of Western encroachment," Dashun ordered a ban on Christianity, but practical learning was still introduced. Only religious books were banned and the Catholic Church was destroyed.

More than ten years after Cheng Tingzuo worried about "what year will he attack Luzon and cut it off as a vassal state?", the Dashun navy went to the South China Sea and seized the vast ocean from Ceylon to Japan in one fell swoop.

It can be said that Liu Yu solved a doubt in Cheng Tingzuo's heart: Is science bound to Westerners?

In fact, everyone knows that it is not bound.

But if someone knows geometry, he is a Jesuit missionary; if someone knows algebra, he is a Jesuit missionary; if someone knows Kepler's system, he is the vice-president of the Diocese of Greater China...

How do you say this? What do you think? If you want to fight against Catholicism, should you fight against these?

Once unbound, this person who was keen on Yan Li Shixue immediately felt that he had a direction after accepting the saying that "the knowledge that is applicable to both the East and the West does not distinguish between the East and the West, but this thing is not applicable to the East and the West."

Songjiang Prefecture became increasingly prosperous. Cheng Tingzuo and Wu Jingzi met to visit Songjiang Prefecture after their voyage to Nanyang from Dashun.

This trip was also the beginning of their differences in the future.

The Songjiang Mansion that Cheng Tingzuo saw was a place where everything was flourishing, everyone spoke truthfully, and hundreds of schools of agriculture, industry, and commerce were all brilliant and useful. Human desires, human relations, daily necessities, eating and drinking, seeking benefits and avoiding harm, enjoying life and hating death, cannot be changed by anyone. They can only be used according to the trend and controlled. But if a person has been hungry for a long time and eats violently, it is meaningless to talk about moderation...Everywhere you look, there is a lot of vitality.

The Songjiang Mansion that Wu Jingzi saw was one in which everyone was profit-seeking, restless, money-oriented, profit-oriented, and the smell of money covered up morality. People speculate, hoard goods, and take pride in reaping the dividends without working. People of all kinds move around in a hurry, all coming and going for money. In order to fight for family property and equity, yamen lawsuits and judgments are endless all day long; what everyone is talking about, or what is the price of soybeans and futures today, or how much interest was gained from yesterday's trade... Everywhere you hear, there are demons dancing wildly.

The two men, both in their forties, have had different ideas since then.

Cheng Tingzuo wanted to start from scratch, start from the new school, learn those new knowledge, be proficient in geography, astronomy, arithmetic, geometry, physics and chemistry, know the great ways of the world, and integrate the learning of Zhou Gong, Confucius and Mencius, and create a world of universal love.

Wu Jingzi wanted to write a "History of Merchants" to satirize the many magics of the new era.

If this is just the beginning of the difference between the two, then at most it is the difference in what they see. What really caused the two to break off their friendship was the dispute between "big righteousness" and "small righteousness", which is the so-called "Same Tao? Different Tao?"

The cause is precisely the salt policy reform.

Both men supported reform, but they had differences on the issue of salt merchants.

Wu Jingzi said that when he was poor, the salt merchant gave him two hundred taels of silver without saying a word, without waiting for him to say anything, so as not to embarrass himself.

Think again about when I was young, my relatives fought for the family property, and after it was ruined, I was looked down upon and shunned by my relatives. Comparing the attitude of the salt merchants, I am really filled with emotion.

The meaning of the Spring and Autumn Period is that a man will die if he knows himself well, and a woman will look good if she pleases herself. Treat me with kindness, and I will repay you with kindness!

It was a coincidence that he was in time at that time. When he was in Japan, Liu Yu persuaded Shi Shiyong to find a gunman to write some of his experiences in Japan into a story book after he came back, so that the world would know about Eastern stories.

In order to avoid writing a "Complete Biography of Shuo Yue", in those foreign countries, the entire Central Plains was given a layer of weird names, and Jin Wushu was almost a Confucian general. Or write a Nanyang novel. The countries in Nanyang cannot be seen to be any different from the Central Plains.

Because of the books used in history, the other is the exchanges between Japanese Confucian scholars and Dashun Confucian scholars, the disputes between Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism and the ancient Confucian school, and so on.

Here, an old incident has triggered a lot of discussions.

That old incident is the "Ako Incident".

In fact, it was a story about a scholar avenging his master during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period.

Some people say that this is the true legacy of the Spring and Autumn Period, and that scholars of the Warring States Period still exist in Fusang. The ancient morality has long been lost in this dynasty.

The emperor is disrespectful, and he seeks justice in the wild.

Some people use Liu Yu's theory to give a comprehensive criticism.

Of course, it is not a moral criticism, but a criticism of "the economic base determines the superstructure" - the style of supporting scholars in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period lies in the feudal system and the comprehensive control of land. Without the master, these scholars cannot survive and can only rely on the master to survive.

Nowadays, the most similar to the feudal system is the salt administration.

Xinling Jun Mengchang Jun and others all have their own fiefs and land, and those scholars have to rely on them to survive.

And the salt merchants hold salt permits in their hands, which are inherited from father to son, and newcomers cannot enter the industry. The salt permits will never change. What is the difference between this and the fief?

Only the feudal system can support scholars and have the so-called warrior spirit.

Salt merchants now have a bunch of staff, retainers, and retainers, and Confucian scholars to advocate for them. What is the difference between this and retaining retainers? It's just that those Confucian scholars have other ways to go, they can take the imperial examinations and do other things, unlike those samurai masters who will never have a good life again after their demise.

So when Mengchangjun lost power, all the retainers ran away, which just shows that the Celestial Empire is moving forward - it drowned the sacred outbursts of the righteousness of the scholars and other emotions in the icy water of selfishness. It replaced the set covered by fantasy and morality with the open, direct, and explicit set.

If you want to have the scholars of Ako, you must abolish the counties and restore the fiefdoms, guarantee that people cannot move around at will, and guarantee that the scholars live under the fiefdoms of the masters and cannot change jobs, then the so-called spirit of the scholars will appear.

This is what Zhengxing Gong said that the economic base determines the superstructure.

Let me ask the world, who wants to abolish the counties and return to feudalism?

After reading it, Cheng Tingzuo felt that he had seen a new world, and immediately used this set of things to confront his good friend Wu Jingzi.

Then they argued about what is great righteousness and what is small righteousness.

What should we do if great righteousness and small righteousness conflict?

What is great benevolence and what is small benevolence?

What should we do if great benevolence and small benevolence conflict?

There is a saying that goes, "Don't persuade others to be good if you haven't experienced their suffering."

The life experienced by the two people can be regarded as a foreshadowing of their differences early on.

Cheng Tingzuo's family was poor when he was a child, and his father made a living by selling calligraphy. Of course, it was definitely not the kind of calligraphy that poor people wrote, but the kind of calligraphy that was mid-to-high-end, to support him to study. After he came into contact with the learning of Yan and Li, he was appreciated by his father-in-law because his father-in-law also believed that "the saints are more valuable than practical! What's the use of empty talk about life and death, and exhausting the chapters and sentences?" Not only did he get a wife, but his father-in-law's family never thought he was poor and supported him wholeheartedly. Many neighbors also liked him, so he developed the idea of ​​"universal love, not just love for one's own relatives" since he was a child.

Wu Jingzi's family was rich when he was a child, and his father adopted him to the eldest son's house in order to inherit more of the family property. The environment he grew up in was "brothers are friendly and younger brothers are respectful", "fathers are kind and sons are filial", and they wanted to kill each other for the family property. His wife was forced to death by his family, and his brothers and sisters from the same clan wanted to get rid of her as soon as possible. The family fell into decline and was looked down upon by others. It should be said that it was difficult to have ideas like "universal love" and "universal love" in this family. Even his father and brothers did not make people feel loved, so how could he love others?

Cheng Tingzuo is as good as his name. He was very good. Since he came into contact with Yan Li's school, he has been blasting various theories. But because he likes practical learning, he "examines the origins of agriculture, history, military, rivers and canals, astronomy, and geography", so that although he is extremely arrogant, many famous scholars in Jiangnan also make friends with him.

Wu Jingzi's family fell into poverty, and he suffered from the ups and downs of life. He began to be obsessed with novels. When he had money, he would read novels and watch dramas, and indulge in the fantasy world. The more love he lacked since childhood, the more he had to be generous, make friends, and be hospitable to compensate for the missing love. Although he wrote well based on his foundation in the imperial examinations and his own talent, his interest was not there after all, and he was more thinking about how to write novels.

Cheng Tingzuo was already very famous, and as a result, the poem "Worrying about the Western Barbarians" written 20 years ago, accompanied by the Dashun's voyage to Southeast Asia, the attack on Japan, and the prohibition of the Catholic Church, was praised by the world as "a foresight of 20 years, and the Jiangnan Confucian scholars were impressed" - if the original history, this was called a foresight of 120 years. He said he didn't want to take the imperial examination, and his father-in-law said, okay, what's the point of the imperial examination? Do whatever you like, learn some useful practical knowledge, or annotate books at home.

Wu Jingzi, on the other hand, was once so poor that "there was rain for three days in Baimen, the stove was cold and there was no money" after experiencing the change of his family property. His own father gave him to others for adoption since he was a child in order to get more family property; his brothers and sisters fought for the family property and forced his wife to death. All the friends he made friends with when he was rich were gone at this time.

In this case, how heavy was the two hundred taels of silver from the salt merchant, the two hundred taels that he did not ask for and the salt merchant gave him to save his face?

It is really hard to explain clearly.

Cheng Tingzuo asked him: Do you support the salt reform?

Wu Jingzi said he supported it.

Then do you still want to help the salt merchant?

Wu Jingzi said he would help.

Because that is the "righteousness" I have learned since I was a child.

That is what I pursue by satirizing the world. I don't want to become the kind of person I satirize.

So Cheng Tingzuo cut off his robe and walked into the Xinxue School in Songjiang Prefecture; Wu Jingzi turned around and left, going to Yangzhou Prefecture alone.