New Shun 1730

As Lin Min and his staff wondered, this humiliation of Yangzhou students seemed to have no meaning in terms of governance.

In fact, with the abolition of the canal and the rise of sea transportation, the decline of Yangzhou's urban status and the change of the focus of the salt industry in the future are inevitable.

Such issues involving the whole country and the central government's policies such as the abolition of the canal and the replacement of salt fields are not something that a few hundred Confucian scholars can stop.

When Liu Yu carried out a more turbulent land tax reform in southern Jiangsu, facing more than 10,000 students and gentry, wasn't it easy to solve it by beating them with sticks and then giving them sweet dates?

If even such a policy promoted by the central government of the court can be blocked by a state or a prefecture, it can only prove that the centralization of Dashun has completely collapsed.

However, the reality is not so. On the contrary, the imperial power and centralization have been strengthened in recent years.

So, the real meaning of this humiliation, or making such a big deal, is to use this incident to start a big discussion on economy and Confucianism.

Perhaps, maybe, maybe, probably, probably, it can solve the problem that Dashun destroyed Neo-Confucianism, but the new knowledge has not been established.

Although Liu Yu's ideology is basically not in the same pot as Confucianism.

But out of theoretical confidence, Liu Yu still hopes to give Confucianism many opportunities to see whether it can lead Dashun to modernization through spontaneous changes and magic reforms.

Since it is said that the economic base determines the superstructure, then I spent twenty years changing, at least changing part of the economic base of southern Jiangsu. So, can the new superstructure be established?

So this time, it is just to take advantage of the opposition of Yangzhou students to the abolition of salt and reclamation, set up a stage and sing a big drama. These people are at most the gong before the opening of the drama.

Therefore, the development of this matter can be regarded as a standard light head and heavy feet. As Lin Min's staff said, even if those students got the support of public opinion and made sense, did the Duke of Xingguo really give up the reform of abolishing salt and reclaiming wasteland?

Since it is impossible, how much significance can this form itself have?

The development of the matter was basically like this.

On the day of the final trial, Liu Yu saw a farce of "waving the people's begging bags as flags in order to win over the people. However, every time the people followed them, they found that their buttocks were covered with old feudal emblems, so they laughed and dispersed."

The army entered the city to maintain order.

Set up a big stage and conduct a public trial.

Lin Min used the banner of benevolence and righteousness to oppose benevolence and righteousness, and his voice was higher than those of the Yangzhou Confucian scholars. He believed that what the Yangzhou Confucian scholars said made a lot of sense and wanted to fully restore the status hierarchy system, the artisan inheritance system, and the official artisan system in Jiangsu Province.

The Yangzhou students were in a dilemma and could only follow Lin Min's high-profile move.

But on this side, the market merchants and the grass holders had reached a compromise with Liu Yu.

At the same time, under the coercion of Liu Yu, who held seven or eight charges in his hand, such as "private salt frying", "stealing and selling official land", "forcibly taking the benefits of mountains and swamps", and "illegal land transactions", any one of which was enough to confiscate the property, he also reached a compromise with the salt households.

The market merchants and grass-drift merchants obtained the admission tickets to the large-scale salt-drying fields.

And they also divided a part of the profits and gave them to the salt households who had mortgaged their grass-drifts.

The root cause of most salt households' opposition was not opposition to "demolition", but opposition to demolition, when their state-owned land was mortgaged to others, and the right to use and ownership were not in their hands, and there was no compensation.

So a very funny scene appeared.

Lin Minxian raised the banner of benevolence and righteousness, and went straight to the point of fully restoring the system of the early Ming Dynasty.

The Yangzhou students had no choice but to follow up, shouting "We are not for our own interests, and it has nothing to do with our own interests. It's all for the people, for the salt households, and for the people."

But the result was that the "common people", "salt households" and "people" they mentioned were frightened by Lin Min's banner of benevolence and righteousness, and they objected in court: No, you are not for us, we don't think so at all.

Not long ago, they were still opposing the cover of land reclamation and enclosure, but after receiving compensation, they all defected.

Some "salt households" even publicly ridiculed that these students shouted about the interests of the people, but in fact they were all for their own leftovers. Obviously, those who would say the word leftovers are unlikely to be real salt households.

So, the scene was very embarrassing for a time.

The Yangzhou students could only end with self-pity and self-pity, mumbling "laborers are stupid, and the people are extremely stupid. They don't know what is good and what is bad."

After the farce ended, the compensation for enclosure this time was finally used as a standard case to formulate subsequent compensation standards and a model for how to deal with the problem of unclear property rights in Caodangdi.

After the farce ended, the real highlight came.

The famous scholars from all over the country were invited to hold a "Rugao Conference" to discuss issues such as economy, politics, taxation, system, industry and commerce.

And a deeper attempt to "break the Neo-Confucianism and not establish new knowledge".

This "Rugao Conference" is very special.

In microcosm, it specifically refers to a seminar held by Jiangnan scholars in Rugao for more than ten days on the issue of abolishing salt and reclaiming wasteland in the first year of Dashun Weixin, after the farce of Yangzhou students.

From a macro perspective, it starts here and lasts until the fifth year of Weixin. Dashun finally completed the economic restructuring of Jiangsu Province, quelled the sequelae of the abandoned canal, and the subsequent golden age of Western trade and smuggling in Dashun. During the wild development of industry and commerce, the great Confucians thought and interpreted reality.

In the longer term, the Confucian scholars who realized that the times have changed, and under the changes in the economic foundation created by Liu Yu, tried to use a new interpretation to completely solve the orthodox ideological problem of Dashun and solve the problem of Neo-Confucianism being criticized but the new learning being late. The dilemma of being unable to stand up.

This great controversy, which has lasted for five years, has made Liu Yu gain a lot from the first day.

Liu Yu knew his two brushes well.

He knew that he was not qualified to get involved in the discussion of Confucianism, and he had never understood why Dashun tried to establish the Yongkang school of learning in Yongjia but could not do so; why the spontaneous ideological reaction that began in the late Ming Dynasty still seemed to be unable to bypass Neo-Confucianism Moral hurdles.

Why has the official culture of Dashun been unable to be established for a long time, but it does not hinder the operation of society.

And why many policies and practices of Dashun are considered by Confucian scholars to be basically the knowledge of Yongjia Yongkang School, but in fact this set of knowledge has not been established and is not systematic at all.

In fact, he has been ignorant of these things.

It wasn't until this meeting in Rugao that he figured it out.

Of course it is very complicated, but from a simple starting point, you can see the whole thing at a glance. Why is it said that Dashun actually followed the Yongjia Yongkang school of learning, but it just did not establish a system.

At the meeting in Rugao, it was natural to talk about orthodoxy.

If we want to talk about orthodoxy, we have to talk about the issue of Neo-Confucianism, the issue of Song Confucianism, the blind interpretation of Confucianism by Song Confucianism, the reactionary return to the true nature of Confucianism, the reactionary return to the Six Classics or the return to the Three Dynasties.

A very small and inconspicuous issue here is the issue of "orthodoxy" arising from the issue of the Great Shun ban on Catholicism.

Neo-Confucianism was born because of the strength of Buddhism, which had to carry out self-reform in an attempt to theoretically contain opposition to Buddhism.

Zhu Xi evaluated the utilitarianism of Ye Shi, Chen Liang and others.

It is said that Jiangxi learning was influenced by Zen, and the influence was too profound. Of course, we have gone astray, but Zen cannot explore the truth of heaven and earth. Therefore, when we continue to move forward and find that there is no way to go, Jiangxi studies will naturally retreat to true Confucianism. Therefore, Jiangxi studies are not a big problem.

However, the knowledge of Ye Shi, Chen Liang and others is utilitarian, and this thing can really be used. Moreover, once you learn it, you can use it, and it seems to be effective once you use it, but this has deviated from the true meaning of Confucianism. Therefore, "this meaning is very worrying."

As for Ye Shi's point of view... In fact, Ye Shi didn't even recognize that Mencius inherited Confucian orthodoxy.

Ye Shi believes that people like Zhu Xi engage in orthodox learning, engage in New Confucianism, and elevate the views of Mencius, Zisi and others, which actually deviates from the orthodoxy of Confucianism.

Just like in the time of Mencius, the learning of Yang Zhu and Mo Zhai became a prominent school. When Confucianism was in danger, Mencius had to come up with some knowledge that went against the original teachings of Confucianism in order to fight against them. But in fact, orthodox Confucianism has been quietly tainted by the knowledge of Yang Zhu, Mo Zhai and other scholars.

At that time, Er Cheng, Zhang, Zhou and others, because of the great influence of Buddhism, created Tai Chi Wuji, movement and stillness men and women, Taihe Shenliang, shape and energy gathering and dispersion, etc., all came from "Ten Wings", that is, "Yi Zhuan", however, this thing was written by Confucius. It is obviously a lot of Yin-Yang stuff. It is obviously something that Confucianism was tainted by various scholars after Confucius died and is no longer pure.

Although the Tai Chi derived from these things can resist Buddhism, it is not enough to inherit the Taoism of Yao, Shun and Yu.

"The new theories and theories of Zisi and Mencius were all specially invented, probably to suppress the sharpness of the pagoda...the origin of Tao is still obscure."

Ye Shi's original teachings were such that he didn't even recognize Mencius's orthodoxy, so where was his orthodoxy?

Taoism was ruled by the Three Dynasties, and Taoism was not even included in the Six Classics.

The Six Classics were Confucius' exposition of Taoism, not the invention of Taoism. But now in the Song Dynasty, this group of people actually annotated the Six Classics to create Taoism. Isn't it obvious that this is not true Confucianism?

Therefore, when it comes to Buddhist issues, Ye Shi believes that this matter is actually simple.

"The learning of Yi and Di is originally different from that of China. According to Buddhism, tens of thousands of miles away in the southwest...their customs have no monarchs, ministers, fathers and sons, how can they be governed by human ethics? Especially in China, those who like to be different will follow the other side, and the ban will not be established. …”

In a nutshell.

What are you arguing with them for?

Wouldn't it be enough to just follow the administrative order and ban it?

Mencius wrote books to oppose the knowledge of Yang, Zhu, Mo and Zhai, but ended up using these heretical ways of thinking in some ideas.

In order to fight against Buddhism, Zhou Zhang and Ercheng came up with a lot of things about mind nature. Isn’t it true that he was using Buddhist thinking to fight against Buddhism?

Ye Shi believes that this is wrong in itself: using concepts invented by others to fight other people's ideas and say that others are wrong, but the core of the debate is still other people's things. This is purely a wrong way.

Is the nature of mind mentioned by Mencius and Zisi the same thing as the nature of mind in Buddhism? Are the annihilation and awareness in the tradition the same thing as the annihilation and awakening in Buddhism? They are not the same thing at all. In order to fight, you change your own things to someone else's. Is this a win or a loss?