The stupid son of Chongba

Chapter 76: Master Dao, I’ve realized it!
"Your Majesty, I am your old minister, your old minister..."

Song Lian's mouth trembled for a long time and he couldn't utter a word for a long time.

"Hurry up! Our patience is limited!"

Zhu Yuanzhang said impatiently,

"I have a strong opinion about Mencius now! If you can't convince me, I won't have to study any of his classic articles in the future!"

"We must kick him out of the Confucius Temple!"

Song Lian's heart trembled suddenly!
If he doesn't speak well, will Mencius suffer as well?

This is a serious sin!

"Master Song, please slow down a bit, wait a bit before you speak."

Zhu Biao quickly stepped forward, gently massaged Song Lian's back, and whispered comfortingly,
"With your ability, you will definitely be able to convince my father. I believe in you."

Zhu Biao's words seemed to have a soothing effect, and Song Lian gradually calmed down with his comfort.

"Your Majesty, I think...Mencius's statement about the goodness of human nature is actually more often about guiding the world and awakening its conscience."

Song Lian said in a deep voice,
"Why is Xunzi's theory of human nature being evil not advocated? Because such remarks will corrupt the secular atmosphere. People will think that human nature is evil anyway, so if I do evil, I am just following my nature, and so I will feel at ease doing evil."

"Your Majesty, think about it, if everyone in the world thought like this, how chaotic would this world be?"

Upon hearing this, Zhu Yuanzhang nodded slightly.

When Zhu Ju heard the word "conscience", his eyes lit up slightly and his thoughts began to diverge.

"Mencius advocated that human nature is good. In fact, the key is not human nature itself, but to educate people from the beginning - your nature is good, so you should do good things and be a good person. You must not do evil. If you do evil, you will be condemned by your conscience!"

Song Lian continued,
"In this way, the secular atmosphere will become better. If everyone agrees and abides by this, no matter what their nature is, they will just be good people."

"Then, the ideal world of great harmony will be possible."

"Isn't this the situation the monarch would like to see most?"

Zhu Biao nodded repeatedly.

"What Master Song said really makes sense, and it points out Mencius's purpose!"

He praised and concluded,
"He uses the theory of human nature to educate the world, which is beneficial to the entire world!"

This summary finally got Zhu Yuanzhang's approval.

"What you said does make some sense. After all, you are a great scholar, so you must have some knowledge."

Old Zhu raised his head and said,
"Yes, the theory of human nature is good, which is beneficial to the emperor's governance. It can be promoted."

"However, you old fellow is still avoiding the main point. Is human nature good or evil? In fact, I still want to know."

Song Lian smiled bitterly.

"Your Majesty is holy."

He cupped his hands and said,
"The reason why I was so angry just now was because of the counterexample given by His Royal Highness the King of Wu, which I could not refute. In order to maintain my dignity as a master, I drove him out of the main hall."

"As your majesty said, this is the incompetence of this old minister."

"In fact, neither Mencius' theory of human nature being good nor Xunzi's theory of human nature being evil has ever achieved an overwhelming victory. Confucian scholars of later generations have been arguing about this for a thousand years, and there is still no final conclusion."

"So, Your Majesty, this old minister is indeed incapable of answering this question."

Song Lian's honest answer calmed Zhu Yuanzhang down.

"Forget it, forget it. We can't get to the bottom of something that even the saints can't be sure of."

Zhu Yuanzhang waved his hand and said,
"Perhaps this question can only be answered if another figure like Confucius appears someday!"

"Let's go..." He was about to wave and leave, but he heard a voice:
"Master Dao, I've figured it out! I know the answer!"

Swish swish!
As soon as he finished speaking, several eyes swept over, and Zhu Yuanzhang even turned his head to look over.

I saw Zhu Ju sitting under a big tree with a confident smile on his face.

"You figured it out? You figured out a ball!"

Old Zhu glared at him, kicked him again, and cursed with a smile,
"You are playing tricks on me and claim to have attained enlightenment. Do you think you are Sakyamuni? This is not a Bodhi tree!"

Zhu Ju nimbly dodged and said dissatisfiedly:

"Don't kick me all the time. If you hurt my kidney, I'll strangle you to death!"

"Well, because you deserve a kick!" Zhu Yuanzhang coughed dryly.

He was used to kicking him. After all, he could kick his son for no reason and he would do that when he had nothing to do!

However, Zhu Ju's words still had a certain deterrent effect on Old Zhu. The girl kept talking about how she wanted to hold Zhu Ju's grandson in her arms in the future...

"Little Orange, tell me what you think."

Zhu Biao was very patient and said expectantly,
"What have you realized?"

Everyone looked at Zhu Ju, even Song Lian was looking at Zhu Ju with a scrutinizing gaze.

Although this kid is a troublemaker, troublemakers are often the ones who like to think more. In fact, when he was a child, he was also a troublemaker who liked to ask questions about everything...

Thinking of this, Song Lian began to like Zhu Ju a little.

"Actually, I've just been thinking about this question. Is human nature good or evil?"

Zhu Ju said,
"I'm in the tree, not really sleeping, but observing the bird nests above."

"I found that there were two very fierce little birds in the bird's nest. They kept squeezing the living space of other little birds, and even squeezed out their own brothers! Those skinny little birds fell down and almost died!"

"I rescued them and put them back, but the result was the same. The aggressive young birds were willing to murder their brothers in order to get more food from their mother."

When Zhu Di heard this, he couldn't help but raise his eyebrows and climbed up to the bird's nest on the tree in a few seconds.

"There are only two left inside that are still moving."

He reported,

"Two of them seem dead. They may have fallen to death just now. I see their wings are broken."

After hearing this, everyone was silent.

"No wonder people love to call them beasts. This is how beasts behave!"

Zhu Di sighed,
"If it were a human..."

Zhu Ju shook his head.

"In fact, it's the same with humans. When they were infants, brothers would fight for more milk and cry to attract their mother's attention."

He said,

"The crying child gets the milk! Of course, everyone here is a noble, and probably has their own wet nurse to take care of them, and enjoys their own milk source, so you probably haven't had such an experience before."

"But if you go and see the common people, you will find that the fighting between brothers during infancy is actually the same as the killing of young birds, except that it is not so cruel."

"This is something that people are born with before they are educated. But does this mean that human nature is evil?"

"Actually, not necessarily."

(End of this chapter)