frightfiction Chapter 616: Court Debate
Chapter 616: Court Debate
What enabled Confucianism to dominate the world?
Need I ask? It's naturally about the right to interpret education. After Emperor Wu of Han made Confucianism the sole state ideology, the academic world transitioned from a period of diverse schools of thought to one where Confucianism reigned supreme. All students in the country came from Confucian schools, and even the emperor was no exception.
For centuries, academia has been the Confucian homeland, untouched by any outsiders. But today, that damned Guan Anguo has openly established an academy, and even set up a plethora of messy disciplines such as mathematics, medicine, and engineering. What is he trying to do?
Do we want to break the current situation of Confucianism's dominance and return to a state of intellectual ferment where a hundred schools of thought contend?
If that's the case, the Confucian school would absolutely disagree and must fight that little bastard Guan Xing to the end, because this is the root of their Confucian school, and it must not be uprooted by Guan Xing.
As for the education of Crown Prince Liu Shan, although Zhuge Liang and Shi Xie did not become Liu Shan's teachers, having Zhuge Liang and Shi Xie teach and restrain Liu Shan, preventing him from endlessly fooling around with Guan Xing, was enough to achieve their goal, and there was no need to continue to dwell on it.
Therefore, Yuan Hui decisively turned his guns around, rolled up his sleeves, and prepared to fight Guan Xing. He was determined to dissuade Guan Xing from running the school today.
It's not that schools can't be built, but only Confucian scholars can build them. That dead soldier, Marquis Shence, doesn't have the qualifications.
As a military officer, instead of going to the front lines to fight the enemy, you're meddling in their education sector. Aren't you overstepping your bounds?
Yuan Huiyi said righteously, “Your Majesty, as the sage said, ‘Without learning, one cannot establish oneself; without education, one cannot establish a country.’ Education is the foundation of a nation. We cannot tolerate the Marquis of Shence’s reckless behavior. Please, Your Majesty, consider this carefully.”
Guan Xing didn't like hearing this and immediately retorted, "What do you mean by acting recklessly? How is my running a school any of your business?"
Yuan Hui retorted sharply, "Thanks to His Majesty's trust, I am currently serving as the Director of the Imperial Academy. What does this have to do with me?"
Guan Xing: "..."
The Imperial Academy, formerly known as the Imperial University, was the highest institution in charge of education, equivalent to the Ministry of Education in later times. Yuan Hui was appointed as the Director of the Imperial Academy, so it seems that he couldn't really get around the fact that he established his own school.
Feeling guilty, Guan Xing rubbed his nose and chuckled awkwardly, "It was indeed my fault for not informing Supervisor Yuan. I'll just complete the formalities later, won't that solve the problem?"
Seeing that he was speechless, Yuan Hui continued, "Is this a matter of completing the formalities? Marquis Shence, you can't just do things first and then report later. What's the point of having me if you do that? You might as well be the one to supervise this."
"Let's put aside the matter of completing the formalities for now. Let me ask you this: what is the meaning of you setting up all these messy colleges like the School of Mathematics, the School of Medicine, and the School of Miscellaneous Studies?"
Guan Xing retorted, "What do you mean by 'a bunch of messy academies'? What have these academies done to you?"
“What do you think?” Yuan Hui continued to question: “As early as three hundred years ago, Emperor Xiaowu (Emperor Wu of Han) publicly issued an edict to abolish all other schools of thought and exclusively honor Confucianism. Since then, Confucianism has become the only school of thought in the Han Dynasty. What are you trying to do by openly defying Emperor Xiaowu’s edict and establishing colleges of mathematics, medicine and other miscellaneous studies? Do you want to overthrow the tradition of exclusively honoring Confucianism and restore the pattern of a hundred schools of thought contending?”
Guan Xing was so frustrated upon hearing this that he wanted to bang his head against the wall. How could he have forgotten about this?
Emperor Wu of Han did issue an edict to dismiss all other schools of thought and exclusively honor Confucianism, but that was merely a political necessity, a slogan used to unify thought. After it was announced, it was shelved and never used again.
Emperor Wu of Han proclaimed that Confucianism was the sole state ideology, but in reality, he still used Legalist methods, making him a typical example of saying one thing and doing another.
The problem is that although Emperor Wu of Han only regarded Confucianism as a slogan and a tool to be used and discarded, the Confucians did not think so. When they received the decree to exclusively promote Confucianism, they treated it as if they had obtained an imperial sword. They used Emperor Wu's name to suppress other schools of thought, forcing the various schools of thought to put on the cloak of Confucianism.
Over the past three hundred years, the concept of Confucianism as the sole state ideology has been deeply ingrained in people's minds, and anyone who dares to oppose it is considered to be making an enemy of the entire world.
More importantly, since Liu Bei raised his army, he had always fought under the banner of restoring the Han Dynasty and considered himself the successor of the Han Dynasty. As such, he could not oppose the decree of Emperor Wu of Han, at least not openly. What he did in private was a private matter.
In other words, the exclusive veneration of Confucianism was politically correct in the Han Dynasty and absolutely could not be openly opposed.
Guan Xing keenly realized that this was a trap and he absolutely could not fall into it. He decisively raised his hands and shouted, "Let me state in advance that I have no intention of disobeying Emperor Xiaowu's decree to abolish the tradition of exclusively respecting Confucianism and to restore the contention of a hundred schools of thought. Yuan Jianzheng, you can't just label me like that. At most, I am just a branch of the Confucian school. Let's call it the Confucian pragmatist school."
Confucianism is not a monolithic entity; it has many schools of thought. In the pre-Qin period, there were the Confucianism of Zizhang, the Confucianism of Zisi, the Gongyang School, and so on. Later, there were the Cheng-Zhu School of Neo-Confucianism, the Yangming School of Mind, and so on. To put it bluntly, they were all doing their own thing while wearing the Confucian shell.
As things stand, if Guan Xing wants to run an educational institution, he has to adopt a Confucian approach; otherwise, he'll be ganged up on and killed by the world.
Upon hearing this, Liu Bei breathed a sigh of relief. He had been worried that Guan Xing would fall into Yuan Hui's trap by talking nonsense, but now it seemed that Guan Xing could distinguish between what was important and what was not. This put his mind at ease, and he sat back on the dragon throne to watch Guan Xing argue with Yuan Hui.
Liu Bei was relieved, but Yuan Hui was speechless. His greatest reliance was Emperor Wu of Han's decree to exclusively promote Confucianism. With this decree in place, Guan Xing would be doomed if he debated with him on academic matters. Unexpectedly, Guan Xing was so cunning that he took the initiative to admit defeat and put himself under the guise of Confucianism. This made things difficult, since there were too many branches of Confucianism. As a result, no matter what school of thought it was, as long as one claimed to be a branch of Confucianism, no one could argue with that.
To put it bluntly, Confucianism is fragmented and not unified.
Nevertheless, Yuan Hui refused to admit defeat and continued to argue: "When did Confucianism have this school of thought? How come I don't know? Is the so-called practicality of the Marquis of Shence just a hodgepodge of lowly professions like medicine and engineering?"
Guan Xing sneered, "What do you mean by 'low-class, despicable profession'? As a great Confucian scholar of our time, shouldn't Elder Yuan at least show basic respect to opinions he doesn't agree with?"
Yuan Hui's lips twitched violently with anger. He wanted to argue but didn't know how to refute it, so he simply crossed his arms and said calmly, "Go on, I'm listening."
This arrogant attitude of someone who, despite having no answer, puts on a show of superiority listening to subordinates, infuriated Guan Xing, who wanted nothing more than to punch him.
Guan Xing suppressed the urge to punch someone and said, "Besides, am I doing this for myself? Isn't it for everyone?"
"Take medicine for example. Everyone knows that Minister Cheng Li and Physician Dong Feng recently conducted experiments on childbirth and successfully increased the birth rate by several times. With such results, who among you dares to say that you don't need it, who dares to say that your family will never have children, or who dares to say that you will not encounter any dangers when having children? Step forward and let me see."