The Sage of Confucianism and Taoism

Chapter 915 The dispute over rituals and punishment

"A bunch of bastards!" Ao Huang slowly fell down and cursed softly.

Yu Bachi whispered: "Fang Xusheng answered so quickly, maybe he is right."

"I still don't know about you half-saints of the human race? If it were so easy to get a first-class answer from the Holy Word, it wouldn't take several years for the ten countries to produce an first-class one. The key is not whether the test paper is difficult or not, but the speed is too fast. Thirty pages The test paper takes half an hour to complete, who can get a perfect A, as long as they don’t have a perfect A, they will definitely have an excuse to attack Fang Yun!”

"However, with Fang Xusheng's temper, he shouldn't agree to their little tricks so easily. Either he is confident or he has a back-up plan."

"Backup?" Ao Huang thought thoughtfully. Could it be that Fang Yun had something to rely on?

Every twenty breaths, the test paper turns a page. When the last page is turned, the chief bookkeeper Shen Ming smiled and said: "Everyone, there is still one hundred breaths left, so don't be anxious."

Shen Ming looked at Fang Yun with a smile in his eyes. The further he went, the more time Fang Yun spent answering questions. In the end, he almost never stopped. Because there are several questions at the end that require dictation of an entire article, often with thousands of words. Even if Fang Yun writes hard, he will not be able to answer one page in twenty breaths.

Although he has turned to page 30, Fang Yun has not yet started to raise his head and is still answering the questions on page 29.

After more than ten breaths, Fang Yun raised his head, glanced at the thirtieth test paper, and concentrated on answering the questions.

Time passed slowly, Shen Ming just stared at Fang Yun and used his official seal to mark the time.

When the time came, Shen Ming asked the yamen servant to put down the test paper and said loudly: "The time has come, please put down the writing brush! If you write again, you will be considered a failure!"

As soon as he finished speaking, Fang Yun put away his pen and breathed a sigh of relief.

The government officials immediately removed the screen.

Several candidates looked at each other and whispered: "It's too fast, there is no time to think about some questions."

"Even if I had time to think, I couldn't answer it all. I only answered about two and a half percent."

"I'm better than you, maybe 30%."

"I'm close to 30%. I don't know what the adults are like. Mr. Wen Yuan, how many percent did you answer?"

Wen Gu shook his head and said regretfully: "I answered almost everything in the first part, but I only answered about half of the last ten pages. Where is Lu Baotou?"

"It's almost the same as Brother Wen."

Deng Xuezheng said: "I am not much different from Brother Wen. It's not that I can't answer the last questions, but I just don't have enough time."

Shen Ming smiled and said: "The county test is not over yet, and the final answer has not yet been obtained. It can only be obtained by entering the marking room. How about we use County Magistrate Fang's test paper as a reference for comparison?"

"I think it's good! Fang Xusheng probably has the most answers!"

"Okay, everyone will exchange test papers with each other and cross-check them. I will read County Magistrate Fang's answers." Shen Ming said with a smile.

Fang Yun handed the test paper to Shen Ming and stood with a smile.

Shen Ming glanced at the crowd, coughed lightly, put the test paper on the left and Fang Yun's answer on the right, and read: "This first question is about how many years the Spring and Autumn Period lasted. Everyone knows this You know, it’s two hundred and forty-two years. If anyone answers incorrectly, he will immediately go to the temple and resign his position.”

Everyone laughed, and all thirteen people except Fang Yun drew a circle after the answer in front of them to indicate that they were correct.

Shen Ming continued: "Regarding the 'dispute between rituals and punishment', the Rite Palace and the Punishment Palace have the final say. Do we need to say this?"

Everyone laughed and continued to answer questions. But a few people's expressions changed slightly, and Fang Yun's eyes also moved.

The dispute over rituals and punishments was a battle for the holy way that swept hundreds of schools during the Han Dynasty. It lasted for nearly fifty years, and finally ended with the death of Jia Yi, the palace of punishments, and the beginning of the coexistence of punishments and rituals in the human race. .

The dispute over etiquette and punishment, just because of the sentence "Etiquette cannot be extended to common people, and punishment cannot be extended to officials", led to the early death of the semi-sage Jia Yi, the shattering of the courage of seven great scholars, and the collapse of thousands of scholars. It can be called a catastrophe for the human race. .

The Lidian's explanation of this sentence is: Common people are poor, they do not have time to master complicated etiquette, and they cannot afford expensive gifts, so they cannot use etiquette to restrain the common people. When a high-ranking official commits a serious crime, he should use obscure words to cover it up. Instead of using dishonorable punishment, the high-ranking official should be allowed to commit dignified suicide.

Xingdian's explanation of this sentence is completely different from that of Lidian.

Xingdian believes that "upper" and "lower" correspond to "respect" and "lowness" respectively, and the whole sentence becomes "Ritual does not debase common people, and punishment does not respect officials."

Xingdian’s explanation is: Just because civilians are inferior to scholars and officials, they cannot be excluded from etiquette and civilization; punishment cannot be treated differently just because the criminal is a high-ranking official.

When Fang Yun came to Shengyuan Continent and read "The Controversy of Rites and Punishments" for the first time, his first thought was that later generations deliberately misinterpreted this sentence in order to frame Confucianism. What this meant was that civilians were not qualified to enjoy etiquette, but high-ranking officials and nobles were not. punish.

Fang Yun later read many books. Whether it was Jia Yi, Zheng Xuan or Kong Yingda, these great scholars' annotations on this sentence were similar to those of Shengyuan Continent's Hall of Ceremony. They were all considerate of the common people and believed that high-ranking officials could be sentenced to death, but they should be more dignified. , do not use corporal punishment that harms the body, but it does not mean that high-ranking officials will not be punished in any way.

For Fang Yun, who lives in the ancient country of China, the "punishment that cannot be punished for officials" has long been implemented, because not to mention high-ranking officials, even ordinary people who commit crimes will not have their legs and feet broken, either imprisoned or executed. , it can be said that "the punishment cannot serve the criminal".

There is no dispute about the first half of the sentence between "Li Dian" and "Xing Dian". If you don't look carefully, there is not much difference in the second half of the sentence. However, one is to give decent punishment, and the other is to treat everyone equally.

However, the essence of the dispute between the two palaces was the right to convict "doctors".

Before the dispute between rituals and punishments, the Criminal Palace had no right to judge all scholars. Only after the Li Palace deprived the criminals of their scholar status, the Criminal Palace was qualified to judge. Otherwise, even if the scholars were rebellious, the Criminal Palace had no right to intervene without the permission of the Li Palace, and could only arrest them at most.

For the Criminal Palace and the Legalist scholars who believed in Shang Yang's "Princes who break the law are guilty of the same crime as the people", the behavior of the Li Palace was simply contempt for the law. If the Li Palace's right to judge scholars was not overturned, the Criminal Palace and the Legalists would never have a chance to succeed.

So, after years of preparation, the Criminal Palace brazenly launched the dispute between rituals and punishments.

Those who had seen the dispute between the two holy ways hundreds of years ago had long since died, and all the complete records had been erased by the Li Palace. Fang Yun could only understand the collision of the two great holy ways through a few words.

"Red clouds rise from the Daofeng Mountain, like blood, like cloaks, like pennants, like flags, and they last for ten years."

"Above Kongcheng, thunder rumbles for months, and within a radius of thousands of miles, no insects or beasts can make sounds."

"A strange light spreads, and then condenses in an instant, heading straight for the Moyao Mountain. The thousands of miles of mountains and monsters all evaporate like water vapor."

"Before the great struggle, the men in Kongcheng counted the time between sex; during the great struggle, they counted the time by the breath, and resentment was overwhelming."