Emperor Zhengde

Chapter 233 Vernacular Movement

“Peach Blossom Temple in Taohuawu, Peach Blossom Fairy under Peach Blossom Temple;

Peach Blossom Immortal planted peach trees, picked peach blossoms and sold them for wine.

When you are sober, you just sit in front of flowers; when you are drunk, you come to sleep under flowers;
Half awake and half drunk day after day, flowers bloom and fall 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 monarch with outstanding talents. In his heart, he even regarded this monarch as a confidant, because he discovered through this poem that this monarch and he had the same inner thoughts, and they were actually both casual and unruly people.

Although His Majesty the Emperor has always tried his best to establish rules, make eunuchs abide by the rules, make civil servants abide by the rules, and even made rules for himself, such as the Outline of the Constitution.

It was because of this that Tang Bohu resolutely determined to follow the Emperor as his attendant, instead of choosing to act crazy and stupid, like he did in history when he ran naked to avoid being recruited by Prince Ning.

"Your Majesty, how can you be so talented! Not only is this peach blossom poem good, but Lin Jiang Xian is also well written, the rolling Yangtze River flowing eastward, wow, only those with a broad mind and great fortune can achieve such a feat!"

Tang Bohu sighed again, then took the newly arrived newspapers and magazines in his hands and began to review them carefully. He reviewed them very seriously, which was very different from the casual attitude he took when he was gathering information in the market. This was because Zhu Houzhao once told him that he was the real number one in the literary world of the Ming Dynasty, so only he was 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 best in the literary world. Now that the Emperor has said so, he naturally devoted himself to acting as Zhu Houzhao's mouthpiece.

Over the years, he has been trying his best to defend some of Zhu Houzhao's actions that were not in line with the traditional Confucian sense of wise ruler behavior, and he has also been trying his best to use his understanding of the scholar-official class and the lower-class people 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 "Rulin Zhengdao". He read it and couldn't help laughing:

"This is the style of the top scholar Lun Wenxu. Does this gentleman regard the people of the world as the chief examiner of the imperial examination? The whole article is full of nonsense! However, since you, Lun Wenxu, dare to refute Mr. Yangming (Wang Shouren's name is Yangming, and now he is the governor and a leader in the academic world, so he naturally deserves the title of Mr. Tang Bohu), then I will refute you on behalf of Mr. Yangming!"

"So good!"

Wen Zhengming, who was also an attendant in Zhu Houzhao's attendant room, came in at this time and said with a smile:

"If you, Brother Bohu, had not been harmed by those hypocrites in the literati circle, how could it be possible for Lun Wenxu to be the top scholar? You should write quickly, and let me see if you can write a clear and logical article better than Lun Wenxu in addition to painting and writing poems!"

"Brother Zhengming, you will know after reading this!"

Tang Bohu smiled and said, then he saw other attendants from the attendant room come in one after another, so he put away the newspapers and said:

"Let's discuss the matter first. His Majesty said that there will be no more bloodshed in the court, but there will be bloodshed in the literary world. The pens in our hands are swords and guns. What we are fighting for is the will of the people!

This is a war without the smoke of gunpowder. The significance of what we do is no less than the good governance of the court officials, and even more meaningful. The court's governance can only maintain temporary prosperity, but we can make the Chinese culture last forever! "

After Tang Bohu said this, Wen Zhengming nodded in agreement.

Zhu Houzhao also learned about the actions of Lun Wenxu, Yan Hong and others from the East Factory.

Ma Yongcheng, the governor of the East Factory, even asked directly: "Your Majesty, should we ask the East Factory to copy their book "The Right Way of Confucianism"? They are slandering the court!"

Zhu Houzhao glared at Ma Yongcheng and said, "The inspectors of the East Factory can only inspect officials, not the people! Besides, this is actually a good phenomenon. These Confucian disciples who came from gentry families have finally bent their proud bodies and started to preach and answer questions for the common people whom they ignored. It can be seen that our Ming Dynasty has really changed!"

"I will remember your Majesty's teachings! However, although they did not try to influence you in the court, they are misleading the people. They are 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 now repeatedly disciplined is because these civil servants are influencing the emperor. Therefore, even though Zhu Houzhao had no intention of pursuing the matter, he still tried to persuade Emperor Zhu Houzhao to do so.

"Do you think they can make the people of the world understand with just these Confucius' sayings and poems? I asked local officials to hold literacy classes to popularize characters. Even the enlightenment courses in community schools have changed to pinyin to correct the language of the world. Nowadays, although the people can read, how many of them can understand this ancient text with no standard punctuation and many interpolations and shortened words! These old scholars are still very ignorant. When they submitted memorials to me, every word was obscure. Now they write articles to the people in this way. I am afraid that the people will only buy meat buns!"

Zhu Houzhao said, "Besides, the battle between pens and swords is the same. The winner of a war is ultimately determined by who has more money. I am rich enough to support a battalion of scholars to serve as my mouthpiece. How can other scholars like Lun Wenxu resist me?"

"Your Majesty is wise! No one in the world can be your opponent..." Ma Yongcheng began to flatter him, and Zhu Houzhao just smiled slightly. In any case, he was still willing to see that the classes with different interests in the Ming Empire could compromise, make concessions and reach a balance with each other in this way, rather than relying on war and massacre to resolve their conflicts.

Just as Zhu Houzhao expected.

Lun Wenxu and Tang Bohu criticized each other through their pens and writings in newspapers. At first, they only criticized Confucianism and the School of Mind.

In the end, they even started criticizing each other's writing style.

Lun Wenxu criticized Tang Bohu for his vulgar writing, lack of knowledge and overly plain language.

Tang Bohu, on the other hand, criticized Lun Wen's language for being obscure and meaningless.

Therefore, Tang Bohu finally began to openly believe that the Ming Dynasty should promote vernacular Chinese and abandon classical Chinese because it would be more conducive to communication and better for enlightening the people.

However, Lun Wenxu was fighting for the restoration of the past, so he naturally would not allow the Ming Dynasty to change its writing style. He also believed that the ancient writing style should be respected alone, and Confucian classics should continue to be used to enlighten social schools, while the standard punctuation and pinyin that were popular at the time should be abandoned.

"I, Tang Bohu, strongly disagree with Lun Wenxu's remarks! Without standard punctuation, even the remarks of a saint will be misunderstood! Let me give you an example. The sentence 'The people can be made to know, but they cannot be made to know' can be pronounced as 'The people can be made to follow it, but they cannot be made to know it', and it can also be pronounced as 'The people can be made to follow it, but they cannot be made to know it'. Which one is the true meaning of the saint?"

"From this, we can see that if ancient Chinese texts do not have standard punctuation and pinyin and do not keep pace with the times, even the words of saints and sages will often be misinterpreted, which is truly harmful! Therefore, I, Tang Bohu, believe that standard punctuation and pinyin are the two greatest innovations of this dynasty!"

Tang Bohu's straightforward and simple comments were supported by the lower-class people who were learning to read for the first time, and many peddlers and hawkers also began to become Tang Bohu's fans.

Lun Wenxu was repeatedly defeated in debates with Tang Bohu and had fewer and fewer supporters. Even some Neo-Confucian scholars began to be influenced by Tang Bohu's arguments, and felt that the lack of standard sentence reading would lead to such a big misunderstanding of the words of the sages. As a result, one by one they began to seriously standardize the sentence reading of these Confucian classics.

However, due to different understandings among people, many Neo-Confucian scholars also quarreled with each other, and they all felt that their own punctuation was correct and should be used as the standard.

"Tang Bohu started the vernacular writing movement in my Ming Dynasty!"

Zhu Houzhao was not interested in the quarrels among Confucian scholars, but he was very interested in the vernacular writing movement initiated by Tang Bohu, because he remembered that in history it was because the academic community began to promote vernacular writing as a starting point that China truly embarked on its journey of nirvana and rebirth.

Confucianism has been imprisoned in China for too long. First of all, the obscurity and backwardness in literary style is not conducive to the popularization of education in the empire. Now, Tang Bohu's argument with Lun Wenxu has brought up the dispute between vernacular and classical Chinese, which is undoubtedly another change in the Ming Dynasty.

Tang Bohu's vernacular movement received support from many people. Kang Hai from the Ministry of Education, Wang Shouren from Jiangxi, and Wang Jiusi from the Ministry of Personnel 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, after he repeatedly sold houses and land to make up for the funding gap in order to increase the printing volume and sales of his "The Right Way of Confucianism", he eventually fell into a financial crisis again.

A publication that only cared about expressing its own ideas without considering conforming to the will of the people and the emperor was eventually bankrupted by Lun Wenxu and left with countless debts.

In less than a month, Lun Wenxu and his family had to eat porridge and buy wine on credit.

In less than half a year, Lun Wenxu had to rely on friends for support.

But at this time, a scholar came to him and said, "Mr. Lun, I am the editor of Chunloumeng Society. We are here to hire you as the chief editor on the orders of the president. The monthly salary is 100 taels of silver. What do you think?"

"One hundred taels a month is already higher than my previous salary. I just don't know what your company wants me to write?"

When Lun Wenxu, whose edges had been worn down by poverty, heard that someone was offering him such a high salary, he had long forgotten that he was once a proud top scholar.

“Writing about the love between young men and women, and the affairs of the boudoir can also reveal the various aspects of life. For example, my widowed sister-in-law, and my friend’s beautiful wife and concubine. People nowadays like to read this, and the writing must be delicate, so delicate that even the romantic affairs they have in bed every day have to be shown.”

The scholar took out a copy and handed it to Lun Wenxu: "Sir, take a look. This is the last issue of the magazine! A new editor-in-chief just published his first legend and it's selling like hot cakes."

Lun Wenxu could not help but start reading. He had a natural weakness for words, and soon he was absorbed in it. He could not sleep at night and suffered from kidney deficiency. But he was eventually addicted to it and accepted the invitation from Chunloumeng Society to become its chief writer. He eventually embarked on the path of Tang Bohu and seemed to have forgotten that he had once mocked Tang Bohu for this.

Since ancient times, talented men have been romantic, and Lun Wenxu is no exception. Because he spent a long time hanging out in brothels and taverns, the romantic stories he wrote were more vivid. He earned three thousand taels of silver from his first legend. Three months later, he bought a property in Nandu (Nanjing). Five months later, he bought a manor. A year later, he took a concubine, and another concubine a year later. In the third year, he returned to his hometown and was buried in Nandu.

Zhu Houzhao couldn't help but sigh and said, "Although Lun Wenxu is conservative, he is also a great scholar in the academic world. I didn't expect him to die so quickly!"

It is also appropriate to let Tang Bohu be the advocate of the vernacular movement, because before he was reused by Zhu Houzhao, he had contact with the lower classes of the Ming Dynasty and knew their needs. With the popularization of universal education and the need for thinkers to promote their ideas and gain support from the literate people, the vernacular movement is inevitable. Moreover, the Ming Dynasty was an era when popular literature began to flourish, which provided the foundation for the vernacular movement. Zhu Houzhao, the time traveler, also played a catalytic role. The emergence of the vernacular movement four hundred years in advance cannot but be said to be an improvement and a change.

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(End of this chapter)