One Piece of Song Dynasty

On this day, Liu Yi and other Confucian scholars met to discuss their learning experiences.

Liu Yi asked: "You have been reading these books for a few days. What do you think of these scholars?"

A Confucian scholar named Xu Wenchang first said: "I have read it all, but I have only understood a small part of the knowledge in it, and I have not understood the rest. I have only now realized that the knowledge in this world is so vast." , many things cannot be learned before, or some knowledge is around us, we have not discovered it. Take the agronomy book in my hand as an example. I used to think that farming is just spreading seeds on the ground. Then just water it, but this book opened my eyes. It turns out that there is so much knowledge about farming, such as the cultivation of high-yielding seeds, the relationship between crops, water, sun and air, and the relationship between crops and climate. We often hear the saying "Oranges grow as tangerines in Huainan, and grow as tangerines in northern Huaibei." This sentence verifies the relationship between crops and climate. Different regions have different climates, and the growth of crops will be different. In addition, putting human excrement in the ground can increase food production and other knowledge that we could not learn before, or no one has summarized and studied these farming knowledge."

A Confucian scholar named Wang Ding interjected: "You can still understand part of it, but basically I can't understand this advanced arithmetic book. It's almost like reading the Book of Heaven, and much more difficult than Jiu Zhang arithmetic. Regarding this advanced arithmetic book, I can't understand it." You have to ask your master for advice."

A Confucian scholar named Ma Long said: "I think I can study it with Xu Langjun, who has an agronomy degree. This geography book by X has a description of the climate, and it also says that the place where we live is a sphere. In order to verify This person also went to the beach to observe the departure and arrival of ships according to the method in the book. When the ships left our sight, they always disappeared from bottom to top, but when the ships arrived, they appeared from top to bottom. This is This shows that the place we live in is not flat but curved."

The Confucian scholar named Zhao Yi nodded and said: "The certain book you mentioned also has some physics. It also said that the reason why we live on a sphere and will not fall is because there is a force on the sphere we live on. What attracts us to the ground is why the fruits on the fruit trees fall to the ground instead of flying in the sky."

A Confucian scholar named Wang Sheng said: "This history book is much easier than yours. The book mainly talks about history. From the Xia and Shang Dynasties to the present Song Dynasty, in addition to talking about history, it also talks about the change of dynasties. For example, at the end of each dynasty, the emperor was either fatuous or ousted by eunuchs or powerful ministers. There were also serious land annexations among the people. Most people had no land to plant and food to eat. Officials were corrupt and incompetent and oppressed the people. In addition, there are also other things to talk about. The harm caused by some foreign races to our Han Dynasty in the Central Plains, from the Huns of the Qin and Han Dynasties to the Turks of the Sui and Tang Dynasties, as well as the Dangxiang and Khitan of this dynasty, the history of our Han nation is a history of wars with foreign races, and wars with foreign races are indispensable in all dynasties. .Net"

The Confucian scholar named Li Ying continued: "This political economics of a certain person talks about knowledge related to governing the country. The prosperity of a country must first ensure the people's food, clothing, housing and transportation, especially food. If the people can't even eat, How can this country still be prosperous? The history book that Wang Langjun holds clearly states that land annexation is a key factor that restricts the long-term existence of a country. If people don’t have land to cultivate, they won’t have enough food to eat. If you don’t have food, you will rebel. In fact, I feel that the emperors of the past dynasties did not know the importance of land to the stability of the country. Of course, the stupid emperors are not counted, and they cannot change the status quo because most of the people who control the land are not in the court. Above all is the royal family. If the emperor wants to reform the land, it is equivalent to swinging a knife at himself or going to war with the vested interest bureaucracy in the court. And the emperor has to rely on these bureaucrats to govern the country. This is very contradictory, so this involves There is a problem of talents. There are very few talents that the emperor can rely on. For example, in the Sui and Tang Dynasties, talents were basically concentrated in the hands of aristocratic families. There are too few talents from poor families that the emperor can use, because there are not many talents in poor families. Ordinary people want to It is too difficult to get access to books. Although there were imperial examinations in the Sui and Tang Dynasties, the real role of the imperial examinations was in this dynasty. However, even in this dynasty when the imperial examinations developed greatly, there were still very few talents available. The scholars in this dynasty were more than There were a lot more in the previous dynasty, but compared to the hundreds of millions of people in the Song Dynasty, it only accounted for a small proportion. Moreover, this dynasty co-ruled the world with the scholar-bureaucrats, which is even more incredible. The scholar-bureaucrats and bureaucrats have become a privileged class, and they will not be killed if they break the law. , which makes them more emboldened, and what did we scholars study before? It was all Confucianism. After studying Confucianism and passing the exam, we became officials. But when we became officials, we discovered that Confucianism could not solve our problems when we became officials. All the problems encountered in farming, just like what Xu Langjun, who holds a degree in agriculture, said just now, farming requires a lot of knowledge, but can Confucianism solve these farming problems we encounter when we are officials? Obviously No, food is the foundation of a country. If a country cannot solve the food problem, it will have no future. Therefore, I feel that the problem of redundant officials in this dynasty is not that there are too many officials, but that there are too few officials, and they all duplicate functions. officials, because everyone studied Confucianism and lacked officials who understood special knowledge. For example, each county should have an official who understands agriculture and an official who is in charge of education."

A Confucian scholar named Ouyang Hao said: "Li Langjun, you are so right. The Song Dynasty did not need so many Confucian scholars who were proficient in Confucianism. It needed many professionals who were proficient in a certain aspect of knowledge. You mentioned farming and education before. I feel that every county needs an official who understands medicine. In addition to food, clothing, housing, transportation and education, treatment of diseases is also very important. This book by someone is called Medicine, and it talks about some medical knowledge, but I feel that it is not detailed, but It says that if you want to cure people who still have diseases, you must understand the human body in detail, which means cutting up the dead body and studying it in detail. This matter is not unheard of. It was mentioned in the earliest Huangdi Neijing, and later in the Han Dynasty Wang Mang of Wang Mang also did this. Even in this dynasty, there were also pictures of the five internal organs and diagrams of the true nature, but there were very few people who could do this. This was very detrimental to medical research, and we relied too much on the research of our ancestors. Whatever you say is what it says. If the results we get are different from those of our ancestors, then we must be wrong. This kind of thinking is wrong. Our ancestors' research also sometimes made mistakes. After all, their research conditions were not as good as ours now. I think this is also a common problem among us Confucian scholars. Just like Ma Langjun, who holds geography, he says that the place where we live is actually a sphere, but in the books we have studied before, the place where we live is considered to be flat.