Chapter 984 Things to note about extra saints

Li Su didn't expect that after not seeing each other for several years, he had a big drink with Liu Bei.

It can arouse so much emotion and deep self-reflection in Liu Bei, and be vigilant at night.

It is indeed not unreasonable to call the emperor a lonely man. With absolute military power and administrative ability, he will still be afraid of history and worry about the direction of development in a hundred years.

Fortunately, Liu Bei didn't expect to solve the problem after drinking a few times. He knew very well that today we would just talk to Li Su about his experience in the past few years and their respective progress. The big problem must be solved slowly in the long years in the future.

Li Su was also very clear about this, so he just helped Liu Bei sort out the problem and pointed out the directions he could work hard.

As for how to solve the problem, Li Su didn't expect to give the answer directly.

After drinking for a long time at night, Li Su finally concluded that there were only these aspects:

First of all, no one can control what will happen a hundred years later, so the easiest thing to do now is to lay a solid foundation for future generations and set a good example. The reforms and military expansion that can be solved by this generation should be done well in the time of this generation, and do not delay them for future generations.

Because as long as it is left to future generations, future generations will definitely introduce new problems in order to solve the problems left over from history. For example, in order to solve the Huns, Emperor Wu of Han wanted to change the laws of his ancestors and abolish the marriage kin, he had to use all kinds of people. Many of these people had problems, and Emperor Wu of Han himself also had problems, which were all detrimental to the orthodoxy of the court.

Secondly, after you do your own things, you can appropriately strengthen the "ancestor's method", but you cannot decide too much, otherwise it will be easy to become rigid - in this regard, Li Su learned from the lessons of the Ming Dynasty in later generations.

The rigid ancestral law of the Ming Dynasty led to its adaptability in the face of changes and evolution of internal contradictions, and its life was relatively short.

Although there have been many internal problems in the Han and Song dynasties, they have long life, and they just drag down the problem when they encounter problems and solve problems. In contrast, the Ming Dynasty's system lacks elasticity and cannot bear the yield strength, they will break it directly.

Therefore, Li Su definitely cannot persuade Liu Bei to develop a set of ancestral methods that cannot be changed at all.

After noting both aspects above, if a country is to stabilize for a longer time, the third direction of effort is to sort out the right to explain the ruling theory—

Note that Li Su mentioned "right of interpretation" here, not the dominant theory itself.

The dominant theory itself and the ideological part were handled by Li Su himself during his lifetime. These things are not as rigid as actual policies, so it doesn’t matter if they are left with future generations. At most, some repairs are left for Zhuge Liang to improve them in the future.

Because policies are pragmatic, the dominant theory is empty. The more pragmatic the things are, the more realistic they must be, and they must be flexible. The more empty things can be transformed into a big way, and that will be relatively unchanging.

Li Su still remembers this basic principle of jurisprudence that he read when he was studying in his previous life, thanks to his academic master and solid basic skills.

The management of interpretation power of dominance theory and orthodox theory is, in the final analysis, a question of "sacrificial saint". Whoever you call a saint, will be based on the theoretical basis of the saint.

How should I enfeoff the saint be enfeoffed? How should I enfeoff? Who can enfeoff?

In fact, Li Su should not have talked about this problem in person, nor should Liu Bei issue an edict. Liu Bei should have left it to his sons or even grandchildren.

Wang Mang's coming to power actually had a bit of negotiation and sharing the spoils with Confucian families. Of course, there were more complex interests compromises, and Li Su and Liu Bei would not discuss them in detail.

No matter what, Wang Mang's actions made Duke Zhou a little stinking. Any rebel can compare with Duke Zhou.

At this time, the disadvantages of "the perfect ancients who made achievements in politics and academic achievements" emerged: because in the future, if there are ambitious people, they can also compare themselves with Duke Zhou and such "sages of dual abilities of real politics and academics".

Therefore, at this time, the benefits of establishing Confucius were revealed. Confucius was a loser in actual political implementation. He was unsuccessful in politics throughout his life, and only the doctrine was successful. But it was precisely because of his political failure that it was easier to use him.

From then on, if there is an ambitious man with strong academic, reputation and real politics, he will not be able to compare himself with Confucius, because if you want to compare yourself with Confucius, you must first give up your power, write books and keep away from politics and engage in academics, otherwise how similar are you to Confucius?

The emperor can also criticize those academic officials who are unworthy of comparing Confucius and dismissing themselves from office.

Of course, the process of respecting Confucius as a saint was still a little uncomfortable at the beginning of the process, and he did not agree immediately.

Therefore, during the reign of Emperor Ming and Emperor Zhang of Han, the emperor "took to the Taixue to give lectures" many times. In fact, this is to portray the emperor as the new Confucian saint of the world, so as to avoid being conferred Confucius and to downplay the historical memory that Wang Mang was once admired by Confucianism.

But the result is already obvious: these tricks require too high quality for the emperor himself. The emperor must be studious and cannot be the young master, otherwise the young master will not be able to go to the Taixue to teach the Tai students.

Therefore, after Emperor Ming of Han and Emperor Zhang of Han ended, the Eastern Han Dynasty completely gave up its struggle on this issue. It was at that time that Confucius finally became the "first-tier Confucian saint" under the official ideology, and could be ranked alongside Duke Zhou.

In terms of evolution of this point, the Eastern and Western worlds are surprisingly similar: the founders of various ideologies who were pursued by saints did not leave behind male descendants who inherited secular regimes, or were simply the failed sacrificial victims of the secular power struggle during their lifetime.

This is actually not a coincidence, but because you did not inherit the son of the secular regime, the ambitious people later used you with confidence. If you have descendants who have been kings and emperors, and have the opportunity to cheer up in the future, wouldn’t others become saints?

Therefore, there may not be no more people who created their own sects in Western history, but other founders have not lost their descendants, so there are not many people following them.

Just like if the metaverse does not have blockchain technology to ensure that "the founder does not retain administrator rights, and the founder himself cannot cheat after the system is launched, because the ledger is all stored in distributed decentralized storage." Then who will add bricks to your ecosystem?

Are players not afraid that after he has invested a lot of effort, the administrator will directly use the results to re-record and delete them? (Of course, I don’t admire the meta-universe, and I hate Bitcoin even more. This is just a technical discussion example)

The philosophical significance of "using blockchain self-destruction and centralized management authority to win trust from others".

In contrast, it was really a bit inappropriate to Huaxia later insisted on being named "Yansheng Gong".

Regarding this issue, Li Su always insisted that academics belong to academics and secular rights belong to secular rights. Even if he was holy in this life, he was granted a duke, but what he left for his descendants to inherit was the duke, and his sons were not worthy of claiming to be "descendants of saints".

They are just descendants of Kuaiji County Duke and Prime Minister Li Su, not descendants of saints!

...

After listening to Li Su's analysis, Liu Bei was also a little dizzy, but he at least seized some clues and thought for a while before asking Li Su to give a specific solution.

Li Su then stretched out a few fingers and took a look at them one by one:

"I have some suggestions on these issues. First, any saints must be finalized in the future. The reason why Wang Mang was in chaos was because he was flattered during his lifetime.

Emperor Guangwu, Mingzhang and other emperors were afraid of the lessons of Wang Mang's disaster, blocked the road to the new saint who had practical administrative contributions, and changed it to only respecting those who failed to do political in practice like Confucius, and eventually gained lessons of overcorrection.

In the future, the Han Dynasty would allow those who have made great contributions in the real government to be sages, but they must be enfeoffed after death. Anyone who praises the sacred practices during his lifetime should be treated as flattery and lucky to be a villain - this article can be written into the ancestors of the Han Dynasty.

In this way, after the Han Dynasty, we can still enjoy the benefits of being a sage for great rulers, and we no longer have to blindly pursue those who fail to do practical governance like Confucius. At the same time, we can also avoid the influence of Wang Mang's bad deeds."

Li Su's idea was actually quite inspired by some later Japanese people. Perhaps he was also from his travels to the east and conducts comparative research on historical politics in recent years, so it is easy to think of the historical materials of his past lives that he has read in this regard.

On the issue of "finding the coffin", the Japanese were actually more cautious than the Han people in the early days, and their strengths were indeed worth learning from by the Han people.

As early as around 800 AD, when Japan was still in the era of the King Zheng, before the shogunate abolished the Emperor, many Japanese ministers had been named "superior" during their lifetime. The requirement of this rank was to "flawless life", that is, they were perfect people and saints.

However, in the 1970s, Fujiwara Nakamaro, who was alive and was granted the title of Masaru, rebelled, leaving stains on the symbol of "Masaru", the perfect personality. Although Fujiwara Nakamaro's title was revoked after his "Masaru" was conquered, it also left sequelae. From then on, the Japanese had almost never given a living person until after the Meiji Restoration.

Fujiwara Nakamaro's influence on Japanese history can almost be compared with Wang Mang, the Han people.

The Japanese began to reflect: As long as a minister is not dead, who knows whether he will rebel in his later years? Will he lose his moral integrity in his later years? Will there be a situation where "Duke Zhou is afraid of rumors and Wang Mang has not usurped the times"?

Therefore, no matter how great the merits are or how good the virtues are, you must wait until you die, and you will never do bad things again and you will be posthumously named.

Of course, in the more than a thousand years of Japan's history since then, there were no exceptions, but they all had very complete insurance restrictions.

For example, there are two exceptions in total,

The first time was to Queen Mother Genbatsu, who was the grandmother of the Emperor at that time. The Emperor was appointed by her. She had no other male descendants alive. It was impossible to abolish the Emperor's establishment and exempt the possibility of treason. This was why she was named a single official when she was alive.

The second exception was that after the Meiji Restoration, Emperor Meiji granted the death of Taizheng Sanjo Shimi. Although Sanjo Shimi was not dead at that time, he was seriously ill in bed. The doctor said that he would never be able to recover again. The emperor gave him kindness before he died, out of trust in modern medicine.

This is also a reward for Sanjo Mimi to help achieve "repayment of great power", and let the emperor re-manager re-management after more than 800 years of shogunate. After all, no one has made such a contribution in the past 800 years, and it is reasonable to break the individual example.

The Han people in the Central Plains later realized this. After all, the idiom "final conclusion" is a Chinese idiom, but the reaction was not so fast. Basically, it was not until the late Tang Dynasty that the rulers gradually noticed it.

In the middle, the Northern and Southern Dynasties were so chaotic that the orthodox sacred nature collapsed, and there were many living people who called them saints, and everyone was arrogant and arrogant.

The emperor gave himself a title. It was not enough to be the Supreme Emperor. He would even pass the throne to his grandson before he died, so that he would become the Supreme Emperor and become the "Supreme Emperor".

After the warlords and generals successfully usurped the king, some people were fooled by themselves as "the general of the universe".

The reversal of the history of the Southern and Northern Dynasties and the devaluation of sacredness all caused the Han people to pay little attention to orthodoxism and "how to maintain sacredness" until the Sui and Tang Dynasties, and often they were mixed with it.

In contrast, Japan did not have a chaotic world where dynasties changed, but they instead summarized better experiences in this regard. If Li Su wanted to establish a long-term dynasty, of course, he had to learn from the strengths of others. Regardless of whether the barbarians had summarized it first in history, he would use it as long as it could be used by him.

...

In addition to the "final conclusion", the second precaution for the enthronement of saints emphasized by Li Su is what was mentioned earlier, "The enthronement of saints cannot be as good as descendants and cannot be beneficial to descendants."

The truth has been mentioned before, and Liu Bei can understand it, so this one will be passed quickly.

Fortunately, Kong Rong had already died in Cao Cao's purge in this life, and Liu Bei did not posthumously confess that there was another scholar named Kong in the world who was a sure descendant of Confucius. Therefore, in this life, not only did Li Su's descendants not benefit from the saints, but even Yansheng Gong could not appear.

In the future, anyone who claims to be descendants of Confucius will definitely not be able to produce a family tree. If you still have to brag, you will be arrested as a witch. Anyway, the official attitude of recognition is that "Confucius's direct descendants are no longer proven and the rest are all descendants of the other branches and are not worthy of worship."

The third item Li Su said to Liu Bei, that is, the last patch, is a correction to the disadvantages of Emperor Ming of Han and Emperor Zhang of Han trying to "learn at the Taixue School" by "learning to teach" by "being both a secular monarch and a new Confucian saint".

Li Su also admitted that it is indeed beneficial for the emperor to become a dual leader of faith and real politics, but Emperor Zhang of Ming has played it and overestimated the risk resistance of future generations.

Since you have failed experience, you must not copy it.

Li Su's method of reform is also very simple: hasn't it been changed from the imperial examination system to the imperial examination system now? The Imperial Academy in Luoyang can gradually adjust its functions, and in the future it will definitely gradually transition to the "Imperial College" in history.

In this case, the nature of the Imperial Academy/Government College under the imperial examination gradually changed from teaching to assessment. What else can the emperor teach?

Later, in the imperial examination session, a palace examination was added at the end. The emperor personally asked a few questions and checked one. Isn’t that just a method that later generations can easily understand to replace Emperor Ming of Han, who was thankless and demanding too high on the emperor’s Confucian literacy?

To put it bluntly, Li Su has not proposed the system of palace examinations in the early prototype reform of the imperial examinations before. It is not a general system. At most, the emperor occasionally asked for some particularly awesome talents based on "only talent".

Li Su did not dare to change it too much at that time, as it was too damaging. He also wanted to be minimalist at the beginning, and minimized the opposition of scholars from all over the world to the imperial examination system.

Now that the world has been peaceful for several years, I will start another enrollment exam this year. It is not too late to form a fixed system for the palace examination.

After hearing this suggestion, Liu Bei was very happy and praised him. At the same time, after thinking about it carefully, he couldn't help but smile bitterly - the reason was that the imperial examination system was mainly established by the Han Dynasty. Compared with the early imperial examinations in time and space, the admission scale was much larger. The emperor wanted to personally inquire and encourage each admission personnel, so the workload would be much greater.

After all, the imperial examinations in history were all county-level officials admitted. But now, even the officials of the "county branch" were admitted by Liu Bei and Li Su.

There are more than a thousand counties in the world, and there are tens of thousands of grassroots officials. Even if they take turns to change their blood every ten or twenty years, the emperor has to personally summon as few as five hundred people, and as many as thousands of people come to talk and give them banquets.

Even if each new official says three sentences, that is three thousand sentences, the emperor will be tired. Even if he only has his brain, saying three thousand sentences, "Thank you for your hard work," he will be dry.

Liu Bei has begun to worry whether his descendants will have the energy to work so diligently in the future, and every year in the exam, they will be mentally prepared to chat with the people below for three thousand days.
Chapter completed!