I am not Yuan Shu

Chapter 42: Yi Xin Hui
Of course Yuan understood this principle.

As top wealthy families, they certainly understood the rules of the political game and were adept at it, so they thought of asking the emperor to help them become famous.

As expected, the emperor ordered to praise the child prodigy Yuan Shu. When the news spread, Luoyang was shocked. Yuan Shu, who was far away in Maoling, Youfufeng, became the headline of the Luoyang news. Also, the things he did and some of the theories and ideas he put forward were spread.

People who understand know that this is a game, so they clapped and cheered together, giving enough face to the Yuan family so that the game of carrying people in a fancy sedan can continue.

People who don’t understand think it is fun, and they become fun people to join in the fun, adding a touch of color to their boring lives.

Only a very small number of people really paid attention to the matter itself, paid attention to Yuan Shu's ideas such as appealing to conscience, and keenly discovered the interesting aspects of it.

But no matter what, Yuan Shu's original and most widely known title - child prodigy - has been completely confirmed.

Even if Yuan Shu knew about these things in the court and officialdom, he would not be very interested.

He just felt that this kind of thing of carrying people in fancy sedan chairs was boring and disgusting. Instead of spending this time on it, he would be better off focusing more on agricultural production and preventing insect pests, droughts and the like during summer and autumn.

Although the famine in Sili and Yuzhou was largely caused by human factors, natural causes cannot be ignored.

Yuan Shu vaguely remembered that during the late Eastern Han Dynasty, the Central Plains began to enter a small ice age, the climate gradually turned colder, and the further north one went, the lower the grain production became.

This phenomenon has already begun to emerge.

The number of cold days is increasing year by year, while the number of warm and hot days is decreasing year by year. Many experienced farmers have said that in the past decade, they have felt that spring is coming later and later, while autumn is coming earlier and earlier.

More than a decade ago, peach blossoms bloomed in mid-February, but now they only bloom in early March. The entire flowering season has been delayed and shortened by more than ten days.

This further highlights the importance of water conservancy projects and fertilizers.

If the weather is not good, we have to rely on human efforts. Without warm climate and abundant rain, we have to rely on water conservancy projects and fertilizers to harvest more food in a limited time.

In places where there are water conservancy projects, whether it is drought or flood, they can be relied upon to resist and reduce the impact of disasters to a certain extent. In places where there are no water conservancy projects, people can only face the power of nature.

Therefore, in mid-June after the food crisis was over, Yuan Shu convened an internal meeting on the farmer-assistance campaign, summarized and reported on the farmer-assistance campaign over the past six months, and further elaborated on the necessity of the farmer-assistance campaign for conscience.

It is precisely because of a series of events in the past six months that Yuan Shu’s followers have left the books and entered the real world, becoming aware of many of the difficulties and hardships of survival in the real world, and thereby gaining a strong sense of spiritual satisfaction and accomplishment.

They understand the cruelty of the real world, but they also understand the good results that can be achieved when everyone works together and strives for progress.

The positive emotional feedback made the members of the Farmers' Assistance Association recognize the correctness of the conscience-seeking theory from the bottom of their hearts, and they felt a great spiritual fulfillment from the bottom of their hearts. The feeling was different from all the times in the past.

People now have pursuits, expectations, hopes, things they want to do, and they have received positive feedback. Their mental outlook is obviously different from that of other scholars who did not participate in the agricultural assistance campaign.

Their eyes became brighter, their postures became straighter, they walked faster, their voices became louder, and they were more confident, gradually distancing themselves from the other fellow disciples.

As a result, Yuan Shu came up with the idea of reorganizing the Farmers' Assistance Association and further restructuring the organization.

He wanted to make it an entity, not a concept.

Originally, Yuan Shu wanted to establish a school through the study of conscience, but practical factors made it difficult for him to do so.

Although many people have followed Yuan Shu to learn the knowledge of conscience, and many people listen carefully whenever he lectures, in the final analysis, this knowledge, like all ancient Chinese classics, cannot help people become officials.

Fundamentally speaking, the study of awakening conscience proposed by Yuan Shu was derived from the book "Mencius", which was regarded as a "commentary" to support Confucian classics in the Han Dynasty, rather than a "classic". Its status was the same as that of the commentary texts such as Zuo Zhuan.

What's more important is that "Mencius" is not even considered as a text that can be used to interpret the scriptures. At present, only Zhao Qi, a famous scholar implicated in the Party Factions, has a book "Mencius Chapter and Sentences" to interpret Mencius, but Yuan Shu has only heard about it and has not seen the book in person.

Even though this book has been published, it has only been a short time and without famous scholars to comment on it, it is difficult to promote it, let alone raise its status.

Therefore, at this stage, there is no theoretical system based on Mencius. Without a theoretical system, it cannot become a school. A school must have "learning" and then there can be a school.

At present, in the academic circles of the Eastern Han Dynasty, "Mencius" is regarded by many schools as an excellent extracurricular book that can be studied outside of class, and there is no school that specializes in the study of "Mencius".

The study of conscience is also an emerging theory proposed by Yuan Shu himself, and there is no famous scholar or Confucian scholar to endorse it.

So after Yuan Shu and Lu Zhi discussed it, Lu Zhi believed that if they really wanted the study of conscience to gain a foothold and take root in the academic circles of the Eastern Han Dynasty, they must first make "Mencius" gain a foothold.

The study of awakening the conscience that Yuan Shu wanted to promote originated from "Mencius". If "Mencius" cannot become a prominent school of thought, it will be difficult to promote the study of awakening the conscience.

So Lu Zhi suggested that Yuan Shu make good use of his talent and spend some time to write chapters and sentences for Mencius and interpret Mencius. Yuan Shu was a little embarrassed about this.

"Mr. Zhao has already written Mencius's chapters and sentences. Do you still need me to annotate them?"

Lu Zhi laughed.

"The Gongyang Commentary already has Yan's teachings, so why is there also Yan's teachings?"

Yuan Shu suddenly realized the truth, thanked Lu Zhi, and then began to prepare to annotate "Mencius".

Later, when consulting Ma Rong, Ma Rong also told Yuan Shu that if he wanted to improve his status in the academic world and truly become a great scholar, he must be able to write books on his own.

Simply giving a lecture or helping farmers can only enhance one's local reputation, but cannot make one a scholar.

If he wanted to realize his ideal and carry forward the study of conscience, he had to give "Mencius" a higher status. Yuan Shu could have fully integrated his own study of conscience into the annotated "Mencius" and carried forward "Mencius" as well.

"Mencius's teachings are also exquisite and unique, and Mencius's words are more sharp. Compared with what you said about awakening conscience, they are also similar in effect. If you can promote Mencius's teachings, the teaching of awakening conscience will inevitably be promoted. You can be a master of the generation!"

Ma Rong widened his eyes and excitedly urged Yuan Shu to do this.

In his opinion, Yuan Shu was still a long way from being a sage, and the fastest and best way to get closer was to write books.

Relying on Mencius's teachings, carrying forward his own knowledge, and taking a sixth path beyond the Five Classics of Confucianism, for Yuan Shu, who came from a superior family and had abundant political resources, this was a path that he could try.

Ma Rong's approval made Yuan Shu completely determined, so next, he reorganized the Farmers' Assistance Association while working on annotating "Mencius".

In terms of reorganization, he reorganized the Farmers' Assistance Association under the name of "Yixinhui" according to his own expectations.

He declared to the public that the so-called one-heart not only refers to conscience in the heart, implying the meaning of the study of conscience, but also means "one heart for the country, one heart for the people, one heart for the public, and one heart for the Tao", so it was named "Yi Xin Hui".

In terms of organizational structure, he served as the president and Lu Zhi as the vice president. The two were the top and second in command of the Yi Xin Society.

In addition, Yuan Shu also set up four major departments for Yi Xin Hui, including the General Affairs Department, Logistics Department, Personnel Department, and Audit Department.

The Thirteen Guardians who followed him at first were given leadership positions respectively. Later, some outstanding scholars who stood out in the agricultural assistance campaign were also identified by Yuan Shu as outstanding talents who could be relied on and were assigned positions. In this way, a core leadership team of more than 30 people was established.

Yuan Shu also arranged a meeting for the leadership and asked them to find the scholars in the Farmers' Assistance Association and ask them if they were willing to join the Yi Xin Society and continue the Conscience Action.

If they are willing, they will become members of Yi Xin Hui and thus become Yuan Shu's "comrades in arms". In the future, Yi Xin Hui will not leave out any of their activities, and Yi Xin Hui will help them deal with any difficulties they have, and will never let them feel lonely and helpless.

If you don't want to, that's okay, we can just part ways amicably and remain friends in the future.

In fact, at this stage, Yuan Shu did not have the academic qualifications to attract scholars to form a school. The core competitiveness of the so-called Yi Xin Hui was Yuan Shu's identity as the legitimate son of three generations of officials and the Yuan family's huge political resources.

If more people are willing to follow Yuan Shu, it is not just because Yuan Shu's personal charm and conscience-enhancing learning bring them spiritual satisfaction, because human beings are living beings who need food to survive, and cannot survive with only spiritual food.

So material things are also important.

Although Yuan Shu could not bring them any obvious paths in academic or official career, by following him, at least they would not be lacking in material life and would not starve to death.

Under this premise, it is entirely possible to rebuild one's spiritual pillar with the help of spiritual practice so as not to become a treacherous person.

Even from the most fundamental point of view, these scholars who studied under the ancient text classics teachers could not enter the officialdom through the ancient text classics. This path was not feasible.

They could only take the difficult path to officialdom by acquiring knowledge and entering the Imperial College.

Or maybe he was just lucky and gained the appreciation of a teacher of ancient Chinese classics, and was able to get a career in officialdom through the teacher's personal political connections.

But the possibility is too low and most people cannot get it.

Therefore, even if joining the Yi Xin Society was equivalent to betraying Ma Rong, in the eyes of the scholars, especially Ma's disciples, there was nothing wrong with it.

What's more, Yuan Shu himself was Ma Rong's top disciple, and his teaching and agricultural assistance all received Ma Rong's approval and help. So in everyone's opinion, Yuan Shu's establishment of the Yi Xin Society was also approved by Ma Rong.

In this case, in addition to the identity of Ma's disciple, you can also obtain the identity of a "member of the Yi Xin Hui", and you can get help from the Yi Xin Hui organization in the future. Why not do it?
(End of this chapter)