New Shun 1730

In addition to these more general things, Zhao Liben's second brother was also quite dissatisfied with the issue of "children going to school".

The Yanli School held the administrative power of the township and resolutely implemented the concept of entering primary school at the age of eight.

But schooling also means that there needs to be educational expenses.

The money for educational expenses is not something that falls from the sky, but still depends on the people of the township to pay for it to maintain the operation of the township school.

Originally, studying, imperial examinations, being an official, and glorifying the ancestors are also the general cognition of Chinese families.

But the problem lies in the fact that it is the people of the Yanli School who are in charge of administrative power and implement educational concepts in the village.

According to their philosophy, what they get is that the people of the township generally feel that studying is useless.

What is the purpose of studying?

What is the purpose of learning?

This is closely related to the educational philosophy of "true Confucianism" of the Yanli School.

This group of people in the Yanli School, a few of whom are at the bottom, are really good at the level of imperial examinations.

For example, Li Xian, whose family was too poor to continue full-time study at the age of 20, went to study medicine and sell medicine. While working as a doctor, he read books and studied, wrote articles to criticize the Confucian scholars of the Song Dynasty, and when he was 30, he took the provincial examination and passed the imperial examination.

When Yan Yuan was carrying out the reform of the separate-chamber education in Zhangnan Academy, he also thought that if the whole education was carried out in separate-chamber education, the number of students would definitely drop sharply. It was useless to take the imperial examination, so why go to an academy? So even if the separate-chamber education was carried out, a special Tiekua Zhai was set up, which was a compromise with reality.

Tiekua Zhai was to teach things like "writing skills for eight-part essays with full marks" and "three years to become a scholar, five years to pass the imperial examination".

There were actually quite a few people in their school who had test-taking skills. In the rural school, it was not that no one could teach this kind of professional test education.

Apart from anything else, for those who studied medicine, sold medicine, and passed the imperial examination, it would definitely be no problem for them to come up with a set of similar "three years to become a scholar, five years to pass the imperial examination" and other civil service examination skills.

However, Li Xian’s thoughts, in the words of later generations, were still a bit “middle school” even though he was over 30 years old.

He took the exam to prove “I can, but I don’t care”.

After the exam, because he opposed the imperial examination, he refused to continue to take the exam.

Moreover, the ideas of his school were really a bit… too idealistic.

Either the court carried out a comprehensive education reform, popularized primary education, and used the three-house method similar to Wang Anshi to carry out school education to cultivate qualified scholars who could fight on horseback and farm on foot.

Or, refuse to participate in the imperial examination.

To a certain extent, although their school did have some strange customs of “too hardworking, similar to Mohists, and taking hardship as pleasure” that led to the annihilation of the school; and although their school’s own philosophical construction could not be closed; it was also closely related to their school’s attitude towards the imperial examination and the irreconcilable contradiction between the education of the separate hall and the imperial examination.

What is the purpose of studying?

If it is not for becoming an official, who the hell would suffer for ten years?

As a result, you have set up some separate education.

You should preserve Confucius's spirit, encourage practice, get rid of hypocrisy, Zen, exegesis, and post-classification; respect the will of heaven, learn economics, and mediate between talents, politics, orthodoxy, and destiny.

Even subjects such as horse riding, archery, martial arts, and swordsmanship took up one day within ten days. There is no imperial examination, and people are busy reading scriptures during this time. You go to exercise your body and build a strong body. Isn't this nonsense?

How can you compete with people who study scriptures professionally?

For this matter, if Liu Yu hadn't suddenly appeared, in fact, with the environment of Dashun, the teaching philosophy of the Yanli School could still attract some people.

When Li Zhen was 30 years old, he saw the "Dragon Tail Car", that is, the "Archimedes Screw Pump", and spent three or four years learning this thing and astronomy.

Including Liu Xiangkui, who had caused a big disaster in history because of his private collection of banned books, he also began to try to add practical learning from the West to the "Fenzhai Knowledge".

With the rise of Liu Yu's new practical school, their school became particularly embarrassed.

Liu Yu actually helped them "realize their dreams" for many of their ideas.

For example, in the matter of grain transport, their school, led by Li Xian and others, was a resolute "abolish grain transport, promote sea transport, and then control the Yellow River".

It also includes Li Xian, Wang Yuan and others' ideas of "digging a channel for the Huaihe River to enter the sea, stopping grain transport, canceling the sand flushing of Shushui, excavating Hongze and the same way of seven points entering the sea and three points entering the river".

Even, including Wang Yuan, Li Xian and others' ideas of developing the Northeast and building the Northeast into a commercial grain base - their ideas on this issue originated from their belief that the capital really needs a lot of commercial grain. And as long as the capital needs commercial grain, then grain transport is a big deal. If the Northeast could provide the commercial grain needed by the capital, then it would be a very simple process to stop the grain transport and abandon the canal - and the idea of ​​setting up special villages and communities for good families to collect blood tax soldiers around the development of the Northeast.

Basically, almost everything has been achieved. Dashun itself has achieved part of it, such as collecting blood tax soldiers from good families and improving the status of good families.

Wang Yuan, who was quite radical and had his mind full of thoughts about killing all those under the age of 60 who did not return to secular life and killing all the religious people in the Northwest who did not change their customs, raised the status of soldiers to an extremely high level in the system design. He wanted to list the blood tax register as a separate civilian register, second only to farmers and one level higher than merchants and workers, which was almost the same as the idea of ​​good families. He wanted to set up professional blood tax soldiers in the Northeast, Northwest, Western Regions and other sparsely populated areas.

After Liu Yu appeared, a series of reforms also realized many of the remaining things.

Even the ideas were similar. Although some policies were utopian, they really saw the problem in some policies, and actually realized the relationship between water transport, governance, and commercial grain, and used this as a problem analysis to solve.

Although their school had a small number of members, their ideas were very unique, so they still had a great influence in the academic world.

Originally in history, when compiling the "History of Ming Dynasty" and the Four Treasures, Fang Bao relied on information monopoly to prevent their school from participating in the compilation of the History of Ming Dynasty and the compilation of books, saying that Li Zhen was seriously ill and could not participate, in order to prevent their school from further expanding its influence.

Therefore, this school with a small number of members, non-mainstream ideas, philosophical loopholes, but indeed many meaningful ideas in some practical matters, is itself a very embarrassing existence.

Their advantages were all taken away by others, leaving only disadvantages.

Along with a series of reforms by Dashun and Liu Yu, it also led to a major split in the Yanli School.

Basically, it was divided into three factions: left, center, and right.

On the left, they continued the radical idea of ​​"when you have achieved success, you are virtuous" started by Chen Liang, and all of them joined Liu Yu's practical school.

Either join the army, or study astronomy and mathematics, or study agriculture and physics.

They basically abandoned the idea of ​​inner sage and outer king.

On the right, they basically followed the idea of ​​"achievement must be restored to ritual" proposed by Ye Shi, linking doing things with restoring rituals, and taking the path of inside and outside.

The middle school is the orthodox school of the Yanli School.

They opposed the imperial examination system, but also opposed Liu Yu's subject-based education, because Liu Yu's subject-based education suppressed the status of the Book of Rites and Music too low.

They opposed the idea of ​​"achievement must be restored to rituals", but they also sharply criticized a series of problems in Liu Yu's reform process - including the abolition of the canal and the sea transport, which is the water management concept of their school, but they find it difficult to accept many problems in the process of abolishing the canal. They believe that the result of Liu Yu's work is right, but the pain in the process should not appear.

They opposed land annexation and believed that equal distribution of land was the most benevolent policy in the world; but they also opposed uprisings and believed that their idea of ​​"only farmers have land" could be realized through reform.

They supported the development of industry and commerce, but they expressed great dissatisfaction with Liu Yu's reforms in Jiangsu, which caused a severe impact on the countryside, and believed that Liu Yu was not solving the problem, but was eliminating tenants.

They supported Confucianism and believed that Confucianism was the right way and the holy way; but they firmly opposed reading only the classics, saying that reading only the classics would make people stupid.

They believed that reading the classics was "useless", and they should not spend so much time reading the classics. It would be better to read practical books such as "Western Water Law"; but they firmly opposed Liu Yu's practical education, which completely squeezed out the time for rituals and classics, and the music learning was not correct enough, and the classics were only regarded as learning Chinese texts.

They supported many of Liu Yu's reforms, and were very pleased with the abolition of corvée labor after the reform in Jiangsu; but they firmly opposed Liu Yu's comprehensive currency reform, especially the refusal to collect in-kind taxes, believing that this led to the exploitation of farmers by the merchant class, because the pricing power was not in the hands of farmers, merchants could lower grain prices, and farmers had to sell grain at low prices in order to pay taxes.

They supported the large-scale development of Nanyang and Guandong, laying a solid material foundation for the comprehensive abolition of the Grand Canal by Dashun; but they also opposed Liu Yu's tariff policy for grain tax exemption, believing that this would hurt the lower-class people under the reality of the abolition of in-kind taxes and the full implementation of silver taxes.

The radicals on the left all ran to Liu Yu's practical school; the ritual restoration faction on the right basically returned to the exegetical learning that Yan Yuan opposed the most, trying to read the Bible, break the pseudo-learning of Song Confucianism, and restore rituals through practical achievements, from the outside to the inside.

The remaining middle faction was quite embarrassed.

The right faction devoted themselves to philology, textual research, and Han classics. The level of Confucianism continued to be maintained, and the imperial examinations were never a big problem.

The left faction completely abandoned the inner sage and outer king, and concentrated on practical learning. Previously, they worked on the lunar distance method and longitude table. The group of people on the left side of the Yanli School were also the main Confucianists. They themselves were firmly opposed to the current imperial examination system, and insisted that as long as the imperial examination system was not reformed, they would never participate in the imperial examination.

The middle faction was uncomfortable all over.

The imperial examination, for the sake of educational philosophy, did not study full-mark essays all day long, and the imperial examination did not have an advantage.

Practical learning, for the sake of Confucian belief, could not compete with those who had received a new type of practical education since childhood.

They could not be officials.

They could not win as clerks and new practical professions.

Just like many people ridiculed some practical examinations for selecting talents, saying that they used palace examination questions to select talents. To be an artillery company commander, you only need to be able to look up tables, but now that practical studies are popular, you have to know solid geometry and mechanical calculations. When your family fires artillery, don't you look up tables and do calculations on the spot?

People like Zhao Liben's second brother don't have such high ideals. They want to improve the overall quality of the people for the country and the world, and it is right to popularize education.

They grow crops themselves, and part of the income from the land is used as the funds for the township school; children start living in school at the age of ten, cultivate friendships with classmates, and can't help with housework.

Every year after the grain is harvested, the people in the gathering and association will take away the grain from the township school first, just like a landlord collecting rent.

In addition, there are heavy infrastructure construction in recent years.

It would be strange if there is no resentment in my heart.

Another thing is that farming requires labor. Those enclosed areas do not need so much labor because those enclosed areas have already completed primitive accumulation and can invest capital to buy cattle, horses, plowshares, ear cutters and other things; they can hire idle people seasonally when picking cotton.

Here, take the simplest "laying grass to prevent salt counterattack" as an example. If the children who go to school can work in the fields, can they lay more grass and cultivate more land?

If the children are not allowed to go to school and the money for "village school" is not taken out from the land income, can they buy cattle and horses after accumulating for a few years?

The idea of ​​Zhao Liben's second brother actually represents the ideas of most people in the village: cancel the village school, cancel the village school education fee, and let the children work as labor to farm.

Since studying cannot change fate, neither the imperial examination nor the practical examination can be taken, what is the point of studying? Go home and help farm.

In their view, the religious temple is much more important than the village school.