Guide to traveling through the Northern Song Dynasty

The West has social contract theory, and Xunzi also has a contract theory.

He summarized everything that the country, society, and individuals need to follow, including systems, etiquette, morals, laws, and customs, into "names."

The "name" is not imposed, it must be established by convention.

To put it bluntly, all legal and moral systems need to be recognized by the public.

It is equivalent to entering into a social contract!

If everyone abides by the contract, society will develop stably.

After the social contract is established, power should be used to rule the people, positive energy should be used to guide the people, orders should be used to command the people, words should be used to educate the people, and criminal laws should be used to punish the people.

If someone breaks the promise, it must be stopped and corrected, and the monarch must not break the promise.

Otherwise, this contract will gradually become invalid, and the country and society will fall into chaos.

Trust and dominate!

If you win the trust of the people internally and other countries externally, you can enrich your country, strengthen your military, and dominate your country. This is also abiding by the contract.

If you only know how to win the trust of other countries but break the trust of the people, your hegemony will surely fail.

If it breaks trust not only to its people but also to other countries, this country will be doomed sooner or later.

The advanced version is: Stand upright and become king!

From this advanced version, we can see that there are really essential differences between Xunzi and Legalism.

He said that the etiquette and laws enacted by the state should be righteous etiquette and righteous laws.

If etiquette and laws are enacted that violate morality and human nature, even if it can enrich the country and strengthen the army in the short term, it will certainly not last long.

In fact, it is discussing the legitimacy and adaptability of the social contract.

If the current social contract loses its legitimacy and adaptability, it will lead to "if there is a king, he will follow the old name and make new names."

Xunzi's words are very beneficial to Ju Ming.

That is to say, the previous monarch died due to breach of contract, and a new wise monarch established the country. This new king will inevitably follow some old systems and at the same time establish a new system to make the country and society function again.

It is equivalent to renewing the contract between the new king and the people.

Xunzi also emphasized that on the basis of "faxian kings", "fa queen kings", that is, follow the basic moral norms of the ancient sage kings, and then learn from the successful experiences of subsequent monarchs.

Don’t just imitate the ancient times, but evolve with the times and formulate a set of rules suitable for today!

Moreover, Xunzi also advocated the simultaneous promotion of kings and hegemons, the simultaneous promotion of justice and benefit, and the simultaneous promotion of etiquette and law.

Ju Ming likes these things so much.

…

Liu Yannian tried his best to straighten his back and leave the palace. Although he was completely disappointed, he was also vaguely complacent.

He knew very well that as long as the matter of dismantling the clan was done well, the emperor might really give him a promotion.

The next day, Liu Yanqian went to a bookstore to buy a copy of "Xunzi" and study it carefully.

He had read Xunzi before, but only superficially. Because his uncle was very disgusted with Xunzi, Liu Yannian also preconceived the idea that Xunzi was a man who used law to rebel against Confucianism.

"Don't crowd, don't crowd, everyone line up!"

Liu Yannian was dumbfounded as soon as he arrived at the bookstore. There were so many scholars crowded there.

Do Luoyang scholars love learning so much?

Liu Yannian walked over curiously and saw that everyone was buying "Xunzi's Justice".

The Ministry of Rites printed three thousand copies. In addition to distributing them to official schools across the country, half of them were sold and half given to booksellers everywhere.

Since it was a textbook for the imperial examination, booksellers were naturally very enthusiastic. I didn’t even bother to print it with movable type. Anyway, there weren’t many words in this thing, so it could be printed and sold directly on the engraving plate.

For booksellers, as long as it is imperial examination books, engraving is more cost-effective than movable type.

Every scholar bought a new book and left together happily.

Liu Yannian felt a little outrageous. Why do so many people like "Xunzi"?

But then I thought about it, I also came to buy "Xunzi".

He turned to look at the majestic imperial city in the distance.

Alas, imperial power!

Xunzi has always been disliked, and few people comment on it.

At present, there is only one "Xunzi Annotation", which was reorganized and annotated by Yang Liang in the Tang Dynasty on the basis of Liu Xiang.

This book is full of errors and omissions. It doesn’t even mention the meaning of the article, but even the annotations on word meanings are full of problems.

For example, "It's not about water, it's about crossing rivers." The "Jue" here should be interpreted as "crossing", which is clearly written in "Shuowen Jiezi". However, Yang Liang did not study it carefully and directly annotated it as "guo" meaning "crossing the river".

In the "Encouragement to Learning" alone, there are several similar errors.

Ju Ming ordered the Ministry of Rites to re-annotate it and named it "Xunzi's Justice".

The imperial scholars annotated it, and Ju Ming personally made corrections. In some places, I use my own understanding to annotate it, which perfectly reflects what "Six Classics Annotated Me" means.

Holding the freshly released "Xunzi's Justice", Liu Yannian read it carefully in the inn.

Liu Yannian still likes the first chapter "Encouragement to Learn".

Liu Yannian read the second chapter "Cultivation of the Self" carefully and found that every sentence made sense. Why hadn't he noticed it before?

In the third chapter "Not Strict", Liu Yannian suddenly sat upright and saw something different.

Xunzi said: A gentleman governs an orderly country and does not govern a chaotic country, because a chaotic country violates etiquette and justice. If the country is in chaos, then we won’t govern it? The answer is: Don’t govern on the basis of chaos, but directly eradicate the source of chaos and let the country become civilized and orderly again.

Liu Yannian recalled that in the late Song Dynasty, the chaos was indeed difficult to manage.

From Fan Zhongyan, to Wang Anshi, to Cai Jing, they all manage chaos on the basis of chaos. They could not eradicate the source of the chaos, so they were bound to fail, but the Great Tomorrow had to overthrow it and start over.

As he read, Liu Yannian frowned again.

Confucians all say that "the king of law is the first", but Xunzi said "the king of law is the queen". Liu Yannian believed that abandoning the basic and chasing the last.

"The Queen of France" is understood to mean King Wen of Zhou and King Wu of Zhou, which was something far-fetched only in the Qing Dynasty. Zhang Taiyan even thought that the Queen was talking about Confucius.

From Sima Qian to the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, "the Queen of France" was understood to mean learning from modern kings.

What can we learn from the kings of modern times?

After reading the annotation carefully, Liu Yannian began to nod in approval again.

Because he discovered that the annotations here, as well as the annotations in the previous two paragraphs, were all written by Ju Ming himself, directly marked with the prefix "The Emperor of Heaven said"!

Ju Ming's special annotation emphasized that the original text of "Xunzi" "examines" the way of the queen, not the "law" of the way of the queen mentioned by Sima Qian.

The understanding of this paragraph is to examine and explore the gains and losses of kings in the past, especially the kings of modern times, and then compare them with the practices of the ancient kings. Summarize what is right and what is wrong, promote the right approach and abandon the wrong approach.

"Wonderful!"

Liu Yannian couldn't help but clapped his hands and praised: "Your Majesty is indeed a great Confucian of the world. Such annotation coincides with the meaning of Mencius. It turns out that although Mencius and Xunzi have different views, they have the same purpose."

It was getting dark, so Liu Yannian turned on the light and read at night.

At first he still couldn't stand the evil nature and hypocrisy of etiquette, but he found that other than that, the other principles of "Xunzi" made sense.

And, very well said!

Damn it, why didn’t I notice this before?

Is it true that human nature is inherently evil, and etiquette is really done by saints rather than innate?

A few days later, Liu Yannian, as a traveler of the emperor, or an imperial envoy, took several officials to Jiangxi to dismantle the clan.

In the past few months, Wei Liangchen had only been holding land. After a thorough inventory of the land was completed, he would gradually break up the clan and relocate. The migration date must wait until after the autumn harvest, otherwise there will be disputes over the ownership of the grain in the fields.

Along the way, Liu Yannian stayed in the cabin reading "Xunzi's Justice".

When your mentality changes, your ideological tendencies will also change.

He is about to go to Jiangxi to work as a cruel official, and his academic thinking must be consistent with this status.

When the official ship arrived at the Yangtze River, Liu Yannian had completed the change in his thinking. He felt that "Xunzi" made sense.

Human nature is evil, and etiquette is designed to restrain human nature.

Otherwise, why did Confucius say "make an appointment with courtesy"?

If nature is inherently good and propriety comes from heaven, then a gentleman can pursue his nature, and there is no need for Confucius to use the word "covenant".

A binding agreement!

Qingjiang Liu's main classic is "Spring and Autumn", which does not conflict with "Xunzi".

Liu Yannian planned to be a great Confucian who studied "Xunzi".

This was a new Confucian track that the emperor seemed to like very much, and Liu Yannian thought he could stand out.

Because most of the Confucian scholars at the same level as him strongly rejected Xunzi.

As long as he goes out to study and promote "Xunzi", there will definitely be no one at the same level who can compete with him.

If you study it well, you can win the favor of the emperor!

After arriving in Nanchang, Liu Yannian hosted a banquet for several old friends. As soon as the wine was poured, he sighed: "In the past, I wrongly blamed Xunzi. Xunzi is a real sage. His Majesty personally annotated "Xunzi". I read it for many days and finally got the hang of it. It contains the principles of heaven and earth. , the way of governing the country!”

The old friends were shocked when they heard this, and they all looked like they had seen a ghost.

A friend said: "I heard that my dear brother was ordered by His Majesty to come back to Jiangxi to preside over the clan relocation?"

"Of course," Liu Yannian said, "each tribe has quite a lot of illegal things, so the court wants to split up the tribes and move them. This coincides with Xunzi's idea of ​​'the king of judges'. It is not the king of law, but the king of judges. Judgement is review. To explore the gains and losses of kings in the past dynasties, this migration of clans has been around since ancient times, and it has been done in the Han Dynasty..."

Next, Liu Yannian talked a lot about "the king after trial" and made several old friends look as black as coal.

"boom!"

A friend put down his wine glass and yelled angrily: "You are shameless and treacherous. I will cut off your robe and seat with you today. Bring me the knife!"

The servant brought a knife, and the man cut off his robe and left.

Several other friends also shook their heads and sighed, and left the wine table one after another.

Liu Yannian shouted: "You don't know Xunzi's great way. I will explain it to you in detail another day."

The hard work of dismantling and relocating the tribe completely destroyed Liu Yannian's character, and he was already a little mentally disturbed.

Perhaps, he did this on purpose.

Liu Yannian ran to see Wei Liangchen who was in Zhangtian again: "Governor Wei, please be polite in front of me. I wonder if Governor Wei has ever read Xunzi?"

Wei Liangchen was confused: "I have read it."

Liu Yannian said: "I have recently read "Xunzi's Justice" annotated by officials and learned a lot. I would like to discuss it with Governor Wei."

Wei Liangchen said: "Didn't Liu always criticize Xunzi for what he learned?"

"That's me, the Liu family of Qingjiang. I have always misunderstood Xunzi." Liu Yannian sighed.

Wei Liangchen murmured in his heart: Has your Majesty driven this person crazy?