Guide to traveling through the Northern Song Dynasty

Chapter 115 Confucianism can also be Brahmanized

The wall is quite high, and it is not enough to just put up a stool, so we have to move a ladder.

Just as the ladder was moved and set up, mother Wang Yitong appeared silently.

The maid who brought medicine to Xie Yan before was now hiding behind Wang Yitong, lowering her head and not daring to look at him. It was obvious that she was the informer.

"Where are you going?" Wang Yitong asked.

Wang Sheng was scared like a quail, and he shrank his head and answered: "Madam, please allow me to report, my husband and I..."

"I didn't ask you!" Wang Yitong interrupted directly.

Xie Yan could only say: "I want to go to the prefectural library to check the chemical journals of the past few years."

Wang Yitong sneered: "Do you think your own mother has never been to school? You said you want to switch to science, and you haven't even started formal classes yet, so why do you need to check chemical journals? The articles in those academic journals are not tested in the imperial examinations at all, and only well-educated people can understand them. Do you-can you understand them?"

"I understand. If mother doesn't believe me, we can go to the library together." Xie Yan said.

Wang Yitong stared at her son again and again, and did not deny it on the spot, but said: "Okay, I'll go to the library with you."

Calling a few strong servants, the mother and son went out in a carriage.

When leaving the inner courtyard, the younger sister followed to the corridor, hid behind the pillars, and quietly made faces at Xie Yan. An expression that said, "Sixth brother, you are dead."

The city is not chaotic, but the real chaos is outside the city.

The carriage went straight to the southeast city area. The Confucian Temple, the Imperial Examination Hall, the Prefectural School, the County School, the Primary School, and the Library are all in this area, and most of the shops on the surrounding streets also sell cultural supplies.

This layout is the same across the country, including the capital. Official cultural and educational institutions must be located in the southeast of the city.

Today the weather is cool, and many people are out shopping.

They are all suffocated by the sultry weather of the past few days.

From seven or eight years old to twenty-seven or twenty-eight years old, scholars of different ages gathered in the shops in this area.

There are even many female students, accompanied by their families or invited by their besties, holding various fans and walking along the street, forming a beautiful landscape.

Xie Yan pulled up a corner of the curtain and secretly admired those ancient beauties.

Wang Yitong thought that it was time to find a match for her son. But we have to wait until next year's imperial examination. If he can pass the examination, he will be more confident when marrying someone.

However, his son hit his head and forgot everything he learned before. He also wanted to switch from liberal arts to science.

Alas, how can he pass the exam?

The carriage stopped in front of the prefectural library, and Wang Yitong led his son in.

The first floor was full of people, mostly students, but there were also quite a few ordinary citizens.

The common people actually had the leisure to read, it seemed that the Ming Dynasty was not bad. Putting aside the poorest people at the bottom and the fierce fighting among the bureaucrats, the Ming Dynasty was thriving from a macro perspective.

The Ming Dynasty, after Emperor Dingtai took control of the army, really entered its heyday!

The reason why it looked so chaotic was that, first, the development gap between the coastal areas and the inland areas was huge, which brewed very fierce regional conflicts; second, Emperor Dingtai's imperial power was threatened, and he had very low tolerance for the various behaviors of officials, and in his later years he deliberately made arrangements to intensify the conflicts.

In fact, if Emperor Dingtai had not been so tough, the civil and military officials in the later period would have been all virtuous officials, all good officials promoted by him.

It was okay to be tough, but Emperor Dingtai was old and sick at the time.

The emperor himself did not have enough energy, and he asked the prince to thoroughly investigate the major case, which naturally made the civil and military officials panic. Until the prince died of natural causes, the emperor became even more old and unbearable, and the ministers who had deep conflicts with the emperor must have had more thoughts.

At this time, King Yong also saw an opportunity and secretly colluded with those civil and military officials.

The eunuchs saw that the emperor would not live long, the prince had died of illness, and the grandson was too young to be taken over by King Yong and the ministers.

So, King Yong, eunuchs, civil officials, and military generals, the four forces joined forces to control the inside and outside, forming a big network just waiting for the old emperor to die.

The old emperor was unable to resist, so he simply went with the flow and retreated to advance. The truly virtuous civil officials were demoted, the military generals who could still be trusted were transferred to Chang'an and Kaifeng, and a few absolute confidants were left in Luoyang to protect the grandson to escape.

Those absolute confidants, especially the military generals who led troops, secretly accepted the emperor's orders and pretended to be corrupt, creating an illusion that they had controlled the overall situation for the treacherous ministers.

The commander of the imperial guards who was responsible for escorting the grandson to escape from Luoyang was originally only a viscount due to his ancestors' influence, but was directly conferred the title of county duke after the new emperor ascended the throne!

Xie Yan even suspected that it was because of his experience in middle age that Emperor Dingtai became extremely easily irritated, resulting in too radical governance methods in the second half of his life, and he turned himself into a lonely man.

To put it bluntly: There are always people who want to harm me!

On the first floor of the library, several students recognized the mother and son. No loud noises were allowed here, so they stood up and bowed, but did not speak or make any sound.

Xie Yan saw his mother bowing in return, and he also bowed like her.

Wang Yitong whispered to his son: "Go upstairs. I won't embarrass the officials here, I'll wait for you on the first floor reading books."

Xie Yan took out his student badge, showed it to the librarian, and then climbed the stairs to the second floor quietly.

Wang Yitong didn't think his son could understand the academic journal, but it didn't matter.

Anyway, since her son was on the second floor, he couldn't run around anymore, and she could just read a book on the first floor.

She was bored at home and had always wanted to go out for a walk. Today, she finally got her wish.

Wang Yitong walked to the bookshelves where novels were placed and took out a realistic novel.

She moved dignifiedly and calmly, and continued to walk forward. Suddenly, with lightning speed, she pulled out a novel about a scholar and a beauty, and used the previous novel to cover it.

Wang Yitong began to look for a seat.

A student stood up and whispered, "Zheng Dan, a student from the prefectural school, greets the madam."

Wang Yitong replied, "Greetings, young master."

The student gave up his seat and said, "Madam, please sit down."

"Thank you."

The student left his name in front of the magistrate's wife, and happily returned the book and left.

Wang Yitong changed seats with another person in the corner, and finally began to read the novel about a scholar and a beauty without any scruples.

The several strong servants who went out with her scattered around and pretended to stand and read books, secretly preventing anyone from coming to disturb them.

It was just a novel about a scholar and a beauty, and no one would laugh at her if they knew about it.

But Wang Yitong had to maintain her image. When she was young, her family education was very strict, and she was not allowed to read such novels. Although she is married now, and even her eldest son has married, there is no one to restrain her, but she still demands strictness from herself.

Reading a novel is like being a thief!

When she read about the young lady in the book having a secret meeting with the down-and-out scholar, Wang Yitong's mouth curled up. She quickly looked up and saw that no one was paying attention to this side, so she continued to read.

However, she then raised her sleeve to cover her mouth to prevent anyone from seeing her giggling like a fangirl while reading.

Oh, this novel has a lot of words, I'm afraid I can't finish it today.

Wang Yitong wanted to ask someone to borrow the book, but she couldn't find a suitable person after thinking about it, and it seemed that the books on the first floor could not be taken out.

After thinking carefully, Wang Yitong waved and called her personal maid: "Let Yu Da accompany you to buy books. Don't let him see what you buy. Wrap the novel with parchment and bring it back."

Then, she asked the maid to look at the cover.

The maid took the order seriously and left. She covered her mouth and smiled secretly after leaving the library.

You know, this lady is known as a tigress!

But Xie Yan went up to the second floor, and after careful inquiry, he found out that academic journals were all on the third floor.

He continued to go up and browsed various books along the bookshelf.

The third floor stored a large number of classics, history, and collections that were not tested in the imperial examinations, as well as a complete set of large official revised histories.

This kind of official history has a small print run due to its low sales. It is often collected in the library of wealthy families. Ordinary scholars can either borrow books from rich people's homes or go to public libraries to search.

There was no change in the history books before the Five Dynasties.

It changed in the Song Dynasty.

There are a long list of "History of Song", "History of Liao", "Book of Western Xia", "Book of Jin", "Book of Annan", "Book of Goryeo", "Book of Dali", "Book of Gaochang", etc.

There are also "Records of the Nanyang Countries", "Records of the Southwest Barbarians", "Records of the Western Regions", "Records of the Indian Countries", "Records of the Arabian Countries", "Records of the Western Countries"...

Xie Yan didn't know what Arabian was, but he had heard of Arabian Nights.

I took a copy of "A Brief History of the Kingdoms of the Mesopotamia" and found a bunch of "Da Shi" when I looked through the catalog. There were "White-clothed Da Shi", "Black-clothed Da Shi", "Green-clothed Da Shi" and so on.

I read the preface again and finally figured out what Da Shi was.

Da Shi: From Persian, it was originally the name of a tribe, and was also translated as "Duo Shi", "Duo Shi", and "Da Shi". Countries named after Da Shi all believed in desert religion.

Xie Yan was not familiar with ancient Chinese history, let alone Persia, Egypt, and Arabia.

He felt dizzy after reading it, so he put the book back.

Then he took out "A Brief History of the Kingdoms of the West", and this time he was a little more familiar with it, such as Rome, France, and the Crusades.

"A Brief History of the Kingdoms of the Western Regions" is more like a record of the fall of the Western Regions.

The son of Zhu Ming and Princess Li Qinglu of the Western Xia Dynasty went to Central Asia to establish the Kingdom of Dayuan, with its capital in Hezhong Prefecture (Samarkand).

Due to the implementation of the policy of religious freedom, partial support for Buddhism, and the development of Confucianism, Dayuan's territory was not large in the first few decades of its founding, and it was busy suppressing religious rebellions again and again.

During this period, the King of Dayuan also repeatedly requested the Ming Dynasty to relocate Han people there, and 70,000 to 80,000 people immigrated in succession over the past 30 years.

Only so many immigrants could be immigrated, firstly because the journey was too long, and secondly because Anxi and Qihe also needed immigrants.

The founding monarch of Dayuan conquered the revived Ghur Dynasty in his later years. The westernmost territory even reached Khorasan (northeastern Iran), and the southernmost territory included half of Afghanistan.

Soon, the King of Dayuan died, and the war of succession broke out. Border troops returned to Beijing to participate in the war.

The Emperor of the Ming Dynasty issued an edict to denounce this behavior and dispatched the troops of the Qihe Protectorate to the south to mediate.

When the civil strife was quelled, all the newly occupied territories that had not been digested rebelled, and the next ten years were busy fighting the rebellion war.

The main reason was that the mountainous areas of Afghanistan were too difficult to fight.

The army of Dayuan could only control key cities and surrounding areas, and then order those mountain tribes to pay tribute.

Mountain tribes always surrendered and rebelled again. It was very costly to suppress the rebellion. If they were killed too hard, no one would pay taxes. In the end, Dayuan's finances collapsed, and it had to support a puppet king, and the Dayuan army withdrew from Afghanistan.

In addition to financial difficulties, another reason for Dayuan's withdrawal from Afghanistan was that it was fighting with the Gojining Dynasty.

After a series of wars, Gojining lost its northern and western territories, huddled back to the south of the Khyber Pass and dared not move, and quickly surrendered to the king of Dayuan.

After twenty years of peace, Dayuan mainly expanded westward, trying to open up the Silk Road and control the eastern coast of the Caspian Sea.

Just when Dayuan was on an expedition to the Caspian Sea, the new king of Gejining brazenly sent troops, not only wanting to break away from Dayuan and become independent, but also intending to recover the territory lost 20 years ago. Moreover, they also dragged in the puppet king of Afghanistan.

The third monarch of Dayuan was furious and pulled the army that had been on an expedition to the Caspian Sea back to Afghanistan to quell the rebellion. He also ordered the eastern legion of Dayuan to fight all the way from the Khyber Pass to the Indus River Basin.

The king of Dayuan asked his younger brother to stay there and appointed his younger brother as the King of Tianzhu.

Tianzhu is India, just a different transliteration.

Well, he founded a country in the Indus River Basin, so he can be called the King of Tianzhu.

Today, this Tianzhu Kingdom still exists, with its main territory in the Indus River Basin, and then expanded to the east of Punjab, and besieged Delhi several times with heavy troops.

However, Tianzhu has been Brahmanized.

The army brought when the country was founded was too small, and after the destruction of Gejining, it had to compromise with the local nobles.

The nobles in the Indus River Basin were willing to give up the desert religion and convert the people to Buddhism, and they also readily accepted Confucianism.

Gradually, Confucianism changed in the Indus River Basin, and the Buddhism brought over also began to have a caste system...

Now, the princes of the Indian state always talk about Confucius, Mencius, and Xunzi. They even claim that these three Confucian sages are the reincarnations of the three main gods of Hinduism, but they accidentally reincarnated in China.