Chapter 98 Use the First Emperor's method to do things for himself
Changing the seal script to simplified characters is easy. He can complete it alone, but he cannot implement it alone.
Others have used the text for so many years and have become accustomed to it. If you want to change it to another one, who do you think you are? Why?
Although the First Emperor could enforce it with decrees, it was difficult to appease people's dissatisfaction.
Most people have a donkey temper. If they go against the grain, they may kick you even if it is really for their own good. Only by letting them realize that this is indeed beneficial and smooth things over will things be easier to handle. .
In the Qin Dynasty, an era where the vast majority of people were illiterate and only a small group of people were literate, the first step in promoting the unification of writing was to promote it to these literate people and get them to accept it.
Although not all the people in the world who come to take the Xianyang University Examination are literate, they still make up an important part of them. With their acceptance and approval, it will be more effective to promote it to the whole people.
On the contrary, if you do not get the approval of these people and enforce it by decree, you may eventually succeed, but it will make the world resentful.
Li Nian’s original plan was to find an opportunity to state the matter to the First Emperor and ask the First Emperor to convene hundreds of schools of thought in the world. He would then personally go on stage to explain the benefits of simplified Chinese characters to the talents of the hundreds of schools of thought, so that the hundreds of schools of thought would be able to The school accepted his plan for simplified Chinese characters.
Unexpectedly, the First Emperor came up with the Xianyang Examination. Without him mentioning it, the Xianyang Examination could already summon the talented people from all over the world.
In addition to promoting simplified Chinese characters, these people also need help in annotating pinyin for each word and compiling dictionaries and teaching materials.
Otherwise, with so many words, how long would it take for Li Nian to notate them one by one and compile them into a dictionary?
As for his ideas, the hundreds of talents who came to participate in the Xianyang Examination may not agree. Li Nian also has a solution:
Since you Confucians are unwilling to participate in the compilation of dictionaries and textbooks, then I have no choice but to I went to find talented people from the Mo family.
You Confucians don’t want to see dictionary annotations and textbooks all filled with Mohist words, right?
Just say this, as long as the Confucianists of this era are not stupid, they will definitely send a large number of Confucian students over immediately.
Because anyone with a discerning eye can see that dictionaries and textbooks will inevitably become common objects in the teaching world in the future.
If they don’t leave traces on it, it will be occupied by others. Then there is still room for them to teach?
Therefore, not only will they not refuse to participate in the compilation of dictionaries and textbooks, but they will compete for the compilation rights, hoping to take on more compilation content and leave more words of their own school on it.
At the same time, the Xianyang College Entrance Examination also brought another benefit to Li Nian, the teaching staff.
There are too few literate people in this era, and he wants to promote certain changes in Da Qin, which cannot be accomplished by one person. How many aircraft carriers can he build by himself, or how many railways can he build?
It is necessary to cultivate a group of people with considerable cultural level.
How to train these people?
If he alone teaches, how many people can he teach? How long will it take and how tiring it will be?
Although the hundreds of talented people gathered for the Xianyang University Examination are not as well-informed as he, a later generation with a search engine brain, they are already the most knowledgeable people of this era.
Even if they can't teach natural knowledge, it would be great if they can teach someone how to read and write, which can reduce his burden.
It is not necessarily impossible to teach natural knowledge. Mohists, for example, have already achieved some success in natural theory. If they receive his guidance, they will definitely be able to go a step further and teach some simple physical knowledge. It will not be difficult.
Isn’t this a suitable source of teachers?
Li Nian started writing again. He wanted to write to the First Emperor, asking those talented people who did not want to be small officials or had poor academic performance to come to him.
After writing, Li Nian paused and found that one of the things required the consent of the First Emperor: these people must be given corresponding treatment and promotion paths, that is, these people working for him should be counted as With merit, you can get promoted. Without a system of rewards, punishments and promotions, it would be difficult to last long simply relying on the First Emperor's orders and enthusiasm.
Li Nian suddenly slapped his forehead. With this, wouldn’t he have created a modified version of the Hanlin Academy?
It’s just that his modified version of the Hanlin Academy was somewhat different from the Hanlin Academy established by later dynasties in terms of responsibilities. It was more inclined to be in charge of all teaching matters in the world, and even had some traces of the Academy of Sciences.
After thinking about it, Li Nian still wrote down the matter and named it "Hanlin Academy". He only hoped that those who would come to this academy in the future would not violate his original intention of proposing to establish the Hanlin Academy. Those who want to use the Hanlin Academy as a promotion step.
Li Nian thought silently in his heart.
He wanted to establish a rule: those who entered the Hanlin Academy could enjoy the treatment of officials at the same level, but they were not allowed to become officials in the court or be transferred to the place in charge.
This will end the career of all Hanlin Academy officials and allow them to devote themselves to education and science.
But if he dares to do this, the number of people willing to come to the Hanlin Academy will be greatly reduced.
Some people came here to rule the place and serve as officials in the court, but now that their thoughts have been rejected as soon as they opened their mouths, why did they come?
And these people's poor performance in the Xianyang University Examination does not mean that they cannot manage the place well. It will give them an opportunity to conduct another talent selection for Da Qin.
What's more, even if he formulates it now, those who come after him may not implement it as he thinks.
After much thought, Li Nian finally did not make this decision. That would be too ideal and not in line with the current situation of Daqin.
While writing the Hanlin Academy plan, Li Nian thought that the First Emperor could select talents through the Xianyang Examination and solve the problem of outstanding talents in the field. Would other aspects also work, such as holding a national sports meeting or setting up a football league?
This can not only select military talents, but also consume the accumulated dissatisfaction and resentment of the people, enrich the lives of the people, make Daqin society more stable, and even create new financial sources for Daqin.
Holding national sports games or football matches in Daqin seems to be a fantasy, but in fact it is possible to achieve it, but if you want to make it as modern as possible, it is impossible.
The roads are difficult to navigate and the people are undernourished. It is impossible to produce many suitable athletes, and Daqin should not invest a lot of money in this effort.
Many people don’t have enough to eat, so use Daqin’s finances to train athletes and hold national sports games?
But if the requirements are lowered just to select some outstanding talents and give people more channels to release their emotions and have fun, then it is not necessarily impossible to do it.
For example, the National Games allows recommended talents from all over the country to participate. The official will only bear a certain amount of expenses and reward those with outstanding performance in the Games. No other expenses will be considered.
Another example is football matches, which can spread the sport of football. If people like it, they will contribute money and effort to organize a team. Officials only need to set rules and be responsible for management.
That is to say, the money for these things is provided by the private sector, and the affairs are managed by the government!
If this model is difficult to activate in modern times, how can it be possible if we want the donor’s father to contribute money and help, but we don’t want the donor’s father to take care of things?
But in this era of the Qin Dynasty, the power of the king was supreme. Even with money, one had to work hard to please the king.
It’s just that whether it’s a national sports meeting or a football match, the biggest obstacle lies in the Qin Law. If the Qin Law is not changed, it is simply impossible.
After thinking for a while, Li Nian added a few points that he thought of to the bamboo slips he was writing.
The National Games and football matches were held because of a reader’s generous comment. After thinking about it, I decided that it would be impossible to hold a modern sports meeting because it would waste people and money. However, it would not be a big problem to popularize the sport of football in Daqin.
(End of this chapter)