There is no such thing as the Kangxi and Qianlong eras

Chapter 417 Promoting Pinyin
Several days later, Yuan Shu, the former prefect who had been living a leisurely life in Nanjing, came to the Nanjing Imperial Palace to pay homage to the emperor.

"Yuan Shu, a traitorous subject of the puppet Qing dynasty, pays respects to His Majesty the Emperor of the Great Han! Long live the Emperor! Long live the Emperor! Long live the Emperor!"

Yuan Shu knew that kneeling was not customary in the Han Dynasty, but he still prostrated himself in a deep bow as soon as he saw Nie Yu.

Nanjing had just been captured by the Han army. Although Yuan Shu surrendered with all the officials and people in the city, he still had some political fastidiousness and was unwilling to kneel down and beg for surrender to the Han.

There's no need to be too harsh on them. After all, the Ming Dynasty has been gone for over 150 years, and the Central Plains had been occupied by the puppet Qing Dynasty for a long time. Many people couldn't even tell who was the legitimate ruler and who was a foreigner.

Now, Yuan Shu has clearly come to terms with it. The Han Dynasty does indeed have the potential to conquer the world, and it cares for and loves its people, making it completely different from ordinary rebels and bandits.

If Yuan Shu hadn't been so old, he definitely would have gotten involved. This is a once-in-a-century golden age of change!
Throughout history, no barbarian regime has ever lasted long. The Qing dynasty, which usurped power for 150 years, will eventually have to return the throne.

Nie Yu smiled and said, "No need for formalities, Lord Yuan. Someone, quickly bring a chair over for Lord Yuan."

Nie Yu didn't care that Yuan Shu had been a surrendered official of the Qing Dynasty. It was already the Jiaqing era, and scholars could only be divided into those who served the Qing Dynasty and those who were not qualified to serve the Qing Dynasty.

So what if you can be an honest and upright official and do practical things for the people?

After Yuan Shu finished performing the grand ceremony, he finally relaxed and waited for the female official to bring him a chair before slowly sitting down.

As soon as Yuan Shu sat down, Nie Yu said, "Lord Yuan, you must already know what I want you to do..."

Yuan Shu said, "I already know. I am willing to serve as the vice editor of the Xinghua Zhengyun of the new Han Dynasty."

Of course he was willing. He had previously thought he would live a muddled life, retire in Nanjing, and be a spectator of the new dynasty's rise and fall, thus ending the rest of his life.

Unexpectedly, the emperor still remembered him and appointed him as the chief editor of the new dynasty's official rhyme, even if he was only a deputy, he was still the chief editor.

The new dynasty's standard rhyme scheme, which standardized the accents of all regions, was compiled into a work that would be remembered in history.

Yuan Shu is already seventy-two years old this year and won't live for many more years. If he were still serving as an official in the new Han Dynasty, even if he were reinstated, he might not be able to rise to prominence in the new dynasty until he dies.

The compilation of this new dynasty's official annals was his shortcut to ascending to power, leaving his name in the new dynasty's history books, and participating in this momentous event of political upheaval.

Nie Yu asked with a smile, "Isn't Lord Yuan afraid of the scorn of scholars all over the world?"

He had someone tell Yuan Shu that the new dynasty's standard pronunciation should be based on the Jianghuai dialect, abandoning the traditional reading pronunciation and unifying the local dialects.

Ordinary people might be more forgiving, just grumbling, but scholars would definitely react strongly, as this would be tantamount to taking away their monopoly on knowledge.

Yuan Shu suddenly laughed and replied, "What's there to be afraid of? I'm already seventy-two this year. Once I finish compiling the new dynasty's official rhyme scheme, surely the scholars of the world won't come to dig up my grave! Haha!"

You see it so clearly?

That's true. He's in his seventies or eighties now, and Yuan Shu is fearless. You wouldn't come to his house and dig up his grave, would you?
Yuan Shu's meaning was clear: he wanted posthumous fame, not fame during his lifetime. He was indeed very old and wouldn't live many more years; completing the compilation of the Xinchao Zhengyun was enough.

Nie Yu nodded: "In that case, we'll leave everything to Yuan Qing and Luo Qing."

"The minister obeys the order."

Yuan Shu stood up and replied.

This means he has officially taken over the responsibility. The other president, Luo Dian, is still in Hunan and hasn't come to Nanjing yet. The old man is getting on in years, and although he is still in good health, he won't be able to get to Nanjing so soon.

After discussing the compilation of the Xinghua Zhengyun, Nie Yu then took out a booklet, which he had compiled and spent several days completing: "Minister Luo will have to wait a while before he can arrive in Nanjing, so the compilation of the Xinghua Zhengyun is not urgent for now. However, I have a booklet here that Minister Yuan can take a look at first!"

Upon hearing that the booklet was from the emperor, Yuan Shu immediately and carefully took it from the female official.

Upon opening it, my first impression was that the handwriting was rather poor, suggesting that the official who wrote this memorial had neglected his calligraphy practice.

Turn the page and see what's written here.
What do these strangely shaped characters mean?
"Ah...woo...goose?"

Yuan Shu subconsciously read aloud the phonetic symbols below the characters, becoming increasingly puzzled as he read. What were these characters for?
As you continue reading, you discover that the first part contains twenty-six strange characters, along with their corresponding phonetic symbols. Later on, you find a selection from the "Three Character Classic."

There's nothing strange about the Three Character Classic, but what's unusual is that above each character in the Three Character Classic are symbols made up of strange characters.

Is this... phonetic transcription using characters?

Although Yuan Shu is quite old, his memory is still pretty good, and he remembers the phonetic symbols of the characters clearly.

He had a vague guess in his mind, and surprisingly, he began to read it carefully, following the phonetic symbols: "At the beginning of life, man, the sun shines on the benefactor..."

Snapped!
Yuan Shu reacted quickly, closing the booklet almost instantly, his eyes filled with utter shock.

Yuan Shu trembled, "Your Majesty, this..."

Nie Yu smiled and said, "I will name it the Pinyin Method, which may be a substitute for the existing method of phonetic transcription."

Hearing the emperor's nonchalant words, Yuan Shu felt as if struck by lightning. This was more than just a supplement to the existing phonetic system; it could practically replace it entirely. As a scholar who relied on the traditional phonetic system, Yuan Shu was familiar with it. He had only needed to spell out the character "人" (ren, meaning person) to discern the significant differences between the phonetic system the emperor had given him and the original phonetic system.

To give a simple example, this method of phonetic transcription is equivalent to a primitive computer in later times. Not only is it huge in size, but it also has very little memory, is very expensive to manufacture, and is so complicated to operate that it is impossible for the average person to learn it.

The Pinyin method is different. It's like the latest laptop. Although it still costs money, it's much cheaper, and its functions and ease of use are many times better than the original computer.

Seeing the shock in Yuan Shu's eyes, Nie Yu knew that he had achieved about half of his goal.

The Pinyin method was his idea, a killer move to counter the ancient standard rhyme and phonetic transcription methods, and also the most important step in popularizing and promoting education for all.

If we only standardize standard pronunciation, the cost of education for ordinary people will still be frighteningly high, making a complete literacy campaign virtually impossible.

But the Pinyin method is different. As long as the Pinyin method can be promoted, the cost of literacy for ordinary people can be reduced by more than half.

Don't find it unbelievable, because this is where the true brilliance of ancient scholars lies. This method of phonetic notation for literacy has gone through roughly four stages since ancient times: the analogy method, the reading method, the direct pronunciation method, and the fanqie method (phonetic notation method).

The analogy method is the earliest form of literacy, and it was already widely used among nobles during the Warring States period. Its literacy principle is to use simple language to describe the pronunciation of Chinese characters. It is generally divided into analogy based on mouth posture, tongue position, aspiration speed, and tone length.

This method of analogy is also recorded in a short story in the book "Guanzi". Duke Huan of Qi and Guan Zhong secretly discussed attacking the State of Ju, but the news was leaked after only a few days. Upon investigation, it was found that the minister Dong Guo Ya had leaked the information. Duke Huan asked Dong Guo Ya how he knew, and Dong Guo Ya replied that he judged from the mouth movements and gestures of Duke Huan and Guan Zhong that they were saying the word "Ju", and thus deduced that they were going to attack the State of Ju.

Although the analogy method is vivid and easy to use, its approach to literacy is too general, making it difficult for ordinary people to grasp accurately.

The analogy method was quickly phased out, and the reading method of the next stage was adopted. The reading method felt a bit like taking off your pants to fart.

Its phonetic notation rule is to use homophones or similar-sounding characters to annotate the pronunciation of the character being annotated.

The advantage is that it is simple and easy to understand, but the disadvantage is that it is not accurate enough. Moreover, many of the characters with phonetic symbols are polyphonic or even have changed pronunciations. Over time, the phonetic symbols will become incorrect.

The reading method was also eliminated and improved into the direct pronunciation method.

The direct pronunciation method no longer uses similar-sounding characters for phonetic notation, but instead uses characters with exactly the same pronunciation, which greatly increases the accuracy of phonetic notation, but the disadvantages become more obvious.

Because the direct pronunciation method cannot find homophones for every character. Either there are no homophones (e.g., 暖, 水, 牛), or the character being annotated is very simple, but the annotated character is extremely rare.

The Cihai dictionary states: "(The direct pronunciation method) is exhausted if there are no homophones, or if there are homophones but they are obscure and difficult to recognize, then the method is exhausted again."

Two words: a total rip-off!

The current pseudo-Qing dynasty belongs to the fourth stage of the fanqie method, which can also be called the qieyin method. Its phonetic annotation rule is to use two characters to annotate the pronunciation of a character, without requiring homophones or rare characters.

To put it simply, it involves using the initial consonant of the previous character and the final vowel of the next character to spell out the pronunciation of the new character.

how about it?
Doesn't it sound a lot like the Pinyin system?
The Pinyin method also uses initials and finals to indicate pronunciation.

This gives the reverse cutting method a lot of room for promotion, and it no longer has the problems that prevented its continued promotion, unlike the previous three methods.

However, the fanqie method is not perfect. It has a fatal flaw: the characters used for pronunciation are often not completely fixed. For example, the standard pronunciation of the character "武" is "文甫切", but it can also be "闻斧切", "温鲁切", etc.

Moreover, to prevent conflicts with phonetic symbols, the two characters used for each phonetic character are more complex than the character used for phonetic annotation.

To put it simply, if you want to learn one word, you have to learn two other words first.

This resulted in an infinitely high cost of literacy, which is why it was so difficult for ordinary people in ancient times to learn knowledge; just the ability to read could bankrupt them.

Nie Yu currently cannot afford to implement compulsory education; this is the biggest financial burden. The method of phonetic transcription is like taking off your pants to fart—a pure waste of financial and material resources.

Therefore, the phonetic method must be reformed. Although the pinyin method also requires learning pinyin first, pinyin only has 26 fixed initials and finals.

Once you learn it, you can read all Chinese characters, which is much simpler than the phonetic spelling method.

Forget about the Latin alphabet issue. What Nie Yu wants now is to promote education. Who the hell cares about these trivial details?
The only problem is the accent. Modern Mandarin accents, including the increasingly Beijing-style Northern accent, all retain the entering tone.

Therefore, the pinyin method cannot be applied wholesale and must be appropriately modified.

Nie Yu solemnly said, "My system of Chinese character pinyin is not perfect. I need Minister Yuan to find a way to revise and improve it. Minister Yuan can go to the Ministry of Rites to ask for help. This is not only for my family and country, but also for the sake of the people of the Han Dynasty."

Upon hearing this, Yuan Shu's initial shock subsided, replaced by unparalleled exhilaration, as if he had been given a second spring in his life.

His Majesty has given him the opportunity, and he has made up his mind that even if it costs him his life, he will perfect the Pinyin system and promote it throughout the world.

This will inevitably draw attacks from scholars all over the world, but he doesn't care. So what if scholars criticize him?
We can't exactly fight with that old man, especially since he's carrying out the imperial decree of the new dynasty.

Once the pinyin method is widely adopted, a century will pass in the blink of an eye, and all the talented young people will turn to dust, but Yuan Shu will be remembered by future generations.

Infamous in life, but remembered for generations to come—that's it!

(End of this chapter)