Chapter 233 Vernacular Movement
"Peach Blossom Temple in Taohuawu, Peach Blossom Fairy under Peach Blossom Temple;
The Peach Blossom Fairy planted peach trees and picked peach blossoms to sell for wine money.
When you are sober, you just sit in front of the flowers; when you are drunk, you come to sleep under the flowers;
Half awake and half drunk day after day, flowers fall and bloom year after year. ”
Tang Bohu liked this imperial poem very much, and because of this poem, he had to admit that the current emperor was a talented king. In his heart, he even regarded this king as a confidant, because he passed This poem finds that the king and himself are connected in their hearts. In fact, they are both casual and unruly people.
Although His Majesty the Emperor has always tried his best to establish rules, let the eunuchs abide by the rules, let the civil servants abide by the rules, and even made a rule for himself, such as the outline of the constitution.
Because of this, Tang Bohu resolutely determined that he would follow His Majesty the Emperor as a servant, instead of pretending to be crazy and acting stupid, like he did in history when he ran naked to avoid the recruitment of King Ning.
"How come your Majesty is so talented! Not only is this peach blossom poem good, but Linjiang Immortal is also good at writing, The Rolling Yangtze River Passes East, tsk tsk, you must have a big mind and a great fortune to get it!"
Tang Bohu sighed again, and immediately put the new newspapers and periodicals in his hands and began to review them carefully. He reviewed them very seriously, which was very different from his casual and casual manner when he was inquiring about information in the market. This was because Zhu Houzhao I once told him that he was the real number one literary figure in the Ming Dynasty, so he was the only one worthy of being the mouthpiece of the Ming Emperor.
A scholar will die for his confidant. Tang Bohu has always believed that he is the first person in the literary world. Now that His Majesty the Emperor says so, he is naturally determined to serve as Zhu Houzhao's mouthpiece.
In recent years, he has also tried his best to defend some of Zhu Houzhao's actions that were not in line with the behavior of a wise king in the traditional Confucian sense. He has also tried his best to use his understanding of the scholar-official class and the people at the bottom to expose some of the ugliness of the scholar-official class.
However, at this time, Tang Bohu saw a new article from a new publication called "The Scholars". After reading it again, he couldn't help but laugh:
"This is the style of writing of the Number One Scholar Lun Wenxu. Does this dear fellow regard the world's scholars and people as the examiners? This article is full of nonsense! It just doesn't make sense! However, since your Lun Wenxu dares to criticize Mr. Yang Ming (Wang Shouren's name is Yang) Ming, now that he is a high-ranking governor and an academic leader, he naturally deserves to be called Mr. Tang Bohu), then Tang will give you a reply on Mr. Yangming’s behalf!”
"So good!"
Wen Zhengming, who was also an attendant in Zhu Houzhao's attendant room, walked in at this time and said with a smile:
"Back then, if Brother Bohu hadn't been harmed by those hypocrites in the scholarly community, how would you have been able to reach the top of the list like Lun Wenxu? You should write quickly and let Wen see that in addition to painting and poetry, you also write Can this kind of clear-cut article be better than his literary work? ”
"Brother Zhengming will know after seeing it!"
After Tang Bohu said with a smile, he saw other attendants from the attendant room coming in one after another, so he put away the newspapers and said:
"Let's discuss things first. His Majesty said that he will not be bloody in the court, but he will become bloody in the literary world in the future, and the pens in our hands are swords and guns. What we want to fight for is the public opinion of the world!
This is a war without gunpowder, and the significance of what we have done is no less than the good governance of the court, or even more meaningful. The government of the court can only maintain its prosperity for a while, but we can make the Chinese culture last forever! ”
When Tang Bohu said this, Wen Zhengming nodded in agreement.
Zhu Houzhao also learned about the actions of Lun Wenxu, Yan Hong and others from Dongchang.
Ma Yongcheng, the admiral of Dongchang, asked directly: "Your Majesty, do you want Dongchang to copy their "The Righteous Way of Scholars"? They are slandering the imperial court!"
Zhu Houzhao glared at Ma Yongcheng: "The inspectors in Dongchang can only deal with officials, not the people! Besides, this is actually a good sign. These Confucian disciples who were born as gentry finally bowed their proud bodies and turned to what they wanted. The neglected common people began to preach and learn their karma to resolve their doubts. It can be seen that our Ming Dynasty has really changed! ”
"I will remember your teachings! However, although they did not try to influence you in the court, they were deceiving the people. They were manipulating public opinion."
Eunuchs like Ma Yongcheng and civil servants, especially those who adhere to Confucian orthodoxy, are natural enemies. In Ma Yongcheng's view, the reason why eunuchs are repeatedly disciplined now is because these civil servants are influencing the emperor. Therefore, even though Zhu Houzhao has no intention of pursuing the case, he still finds a way He persuaded Emperor Zhu Houzhao to investigate.
"Do you think they can make the people of the world understand just by relying on these poems and clouds of Confucius? I asked local officials to carry out literacy classes, and what was popularized was Chinese characters. Even the Enlightenment Studies of Social Studies also used pinyin to rectify the world. language. Nowadays, although the people are literate, how many of them can Understand this ancient Chinese text with no standard sentences and abbreviated words! These old Confucian scholars are not very good at it. When they wrote to me, their words were obscure. Now they are doing this when writing articles to the people. I'm afraid the people I only buy meat to wrap it up!”
Zhu Houzhao said and added: "Besides, this war in the world is the same as the battle in swords and guns. Whoever has the money ultimately determines the winner or loser. I am rich all over the world and can raise a battalion of literati to be my mouthpieces. His Lun Can Wen Xu and his ilk resist me? ”
"Your Majesty, Your Majesty! There is no one in the world who can be your rival..." Ma Yongcheng started to flatter you, but Zhu Houzhao just smiled slightly. In any case, he was still very willing to see these strata with different interests in the Ming Empire be able to use this kind of method. They must compromise with each other and make concessions to each other to achieve a balance, instead of relying on war and massacre to resolve each other's conflicts.
Just as Zhu Houzhao expected.
Lun Wenxu and Tang Bohu criticized each other through pen and text in newspapers and periodicals. At first, the two people only criticized Confucian Neo-Confucianism and psychology and other ideological things.
In the end, they even criticized their respective writing styles.
Lun Wenxu reprimanded Tang Bohu for his vulgar writing, lack of knowledge and skill, and excessive language.
Tang Bohu, on the other hand, criticized Lun Wen's narrative sentences for being obscure and meaningless.
Therefore, Tang Bohu finally began to openly believe that the Ming Dynasty should promote vernacular and abandon ancient literary styles, because this would be more conducive to communication and enlighten the people's wisdom.
Lun Wenxu originally fought for restoration, and naturally did not allow the Ming Dynasty to even change the literary style. It also believed that the ancient literary style should be respected only, and continued to enlighten sociology with Confucian classic textbooks, abandoning the standard sentence pronunciation and pinyin that were emerging nowadays.
"I, Tang Bohu, strongly disagree with Lun Wenxu's remarks! If there is no standard sentence reading, even the words of a saint will be misunderstood! Let me give you an example, the sentence 'The people can make it known but not make it known' will be used as ' "The people can make it happen, but they can't make it known". It can also be read as "The people can make it, let it make it, but it can't be made known". Which sentence is the true meaning of a saint? "
"It can be known from this that if there is no standard sentence reading in ancient Chinese and there is no pinyin and it does not keep pace with the times, even the words of saints and sages will often be misunderstood. This is the real harm! Therefore, I, Tang Bohu, believe that the standard sentence reading and the Pinyin is the two greatest innovations of this dynasty!”
Tang Bohu's straightforward and simple comments won the support of the lower class people who were learning about writing for the first time, and many traffickers began to become fans of Tang Bohu.
Lun Wenxu, on the other hand, was repeatedly defeated in his arguments with Tang Bohu and had fewer and fewer supporters. Even some Neo-Confucian scholars began to be affected by Tang Bohu's comments, and felt that there was no standard sentence reading that would make the words of a saint have such great influence. misunderstanding, so one by one they began to read these standard sentences of Confucian classics seriously.
However, because people have different understandings, many Neo-Confucianists also quarreled with each other. They all felt that what they read was correct and should be used as the standard.
"Tang Bohu started the vernacular movement in Ming Dynasty!"
Zhu Houzhao was not interested in the quarrels among scholars, but he was very interested in the vernacular literature movement launched by Tang Bohu, because he remembered that in history, it was also because the academic community began to commission vernacular literature as the starting point that China truly started its journey of nirvana and rebirth.
Confucianism has been imprisoned in China for too long. First of all, the obscurity and occlusion shown in the style is not conducive to the popularization of education in the empire. Now Tang Bohu’s dispute with Lun Wenxu has led to the dispute between vernacular and classical Chinese, which is undoubtedly another part of the Ming Dynasty. kind of change.
Tang Bohu's vernacular movement received support from many people. Kang Hai from the academic department, Wang Shouren from Jiangxi, and Wang Jiusi from the official department all began to express their support.
Of course, Lun Wenxu also had a large group of supporters, but as Zhu Houzhao expected, there was no emperor among Lun Wenxu's supporters. Therefore, in order to increase the printing and sales of his "The Right Way of Scholars", he repeatedly After selling his house and land to make up for the financial gap, he eventually fell into a financial crisis again.
A publication that only wanted to express its own thoughts rather than comply with public opinion and the will of the emperor was eventually bankrupted by Lunwenxu and had numerous debts.
In less than a month, Lun Wenxu could only eat porridge and wine with his family on credit.
Within half a year, Lun Wenxu had to rely on charity from his friends to survive.
But at this time, a scribe came to him: "Mr. Lun, I am the editor of Chunlou Dream Society. We have hired you as the chief writer on the order of the president. The monthly silver is one hundred taels. What do you think?"
"One hundred taels per month is already higher than my previous salary. I just don't know what your company wants Lun to write?"
When Lun Wenxu, whose edges had been worn away by poverty, heard that someone had hired him with such a high salary, he had long forgotten that he was once a proud No. 1 scholar.
"Writing about the love between children and the affairs in the boudoir can also reveal various aspects of life, such as my widowed sister-in-law and my friend's lovely wife and concubine. People nowadays like to read this. It must be written in such a detailed way that they can see it every day. The romance between the bed and the bed must be shown."
As he spoke, the scribe took out a book and handed it to Lun Wenxu: "Sir, take a look, this is the last issue of the magazine! There is a new chief writer who has just published his first legend, and the price of Luoyang paper is very high."
Lun Wenxu couldn't help but start reading. He was naturally irresistible to words, so he read in after a while. He couldn't sleep at night, and his body and kidneys were weak, but he finally got addicted to it and accepted the Spring Tower Dream Club. He was hired as the main writer, and finally embarked on the path of Tang Bohu back then, and he seemed to have forgotten that he had ridiculed Tang Bohu for this.
Since ancient times, talented people have been romantic, and Lun Wenxu is no exception. Because he spent a lot of time hanging out in brothels and restaurants, his romance stories are more vivid. He made three thousand taels from his first legend, and he was in Nandu (Nanjing) three months later. After purchasing real estate, he bought a manor five months later. A year later, he took a concubine, and a year later he took another concubine. In the third year, his soul returned to a foreign land and was buried in Nandu.
After hearing this, Zhu Houzhao couldn't help but sigh and said: "Although Lun Wenxu is conservative, he is also a great scholar in the academic world, but he didn't expect that he would leave so fast!"
It is also very suitable for Tang Bohu to be the advocate of the vernacular movement, because he had contact with the people at the bottom of the Ming Dynasty before being reused by Zhu Houzhao, and he knew the needs of the people at the bottom. With the popularization of education for all and thinkers' interest in promoting their ideas, they have become more literate among the people. The demand for support is inevitable for the vernacular movement. What's more, the Ming Dynasty was the era when popular literature began to flourish, which laid the foundation for the development of the vernacular movement, and Zhu Houzhao, a time traveler, also played a catalytic role. The emergence of the vernacular movement four hundred years in advance has to be said to be a progress and a change.
(End of chapter)