Chapter 97 Should Cheng Zhu be deposed?

Author: Potato Sweet Potato Pie

Chapter 97 Should Cheng Zhu be deposed?

From the moment they met until now, Xia Yuan can only say that the records of Emperor Hongzhi in history books are very reliable. Zhu Youtang may not have been a very accomplished emperor, but he was a kind and kind-hearted emperor.

In fact, this is indeed the case. Xia Yuan's current impression of him is that he is a very friendly uncle. As a generation of emperors, he does not seem to have the aura that makes people dare not look directly at the king.

What he has in him is just approachable and easy-going. In comparison, the majesty of the emperor has faded a lot, or maybe he has deliberately restrained himself.

But now faced with the multiple-choice question thrown by this friendly uncle, Xia Yuan hesitated for a moment and boldly suggested: "Your Majesty, do you think the student should abolish Cheng Zhu?"

Zhu Youtang was not surprised by this, but asked warmly: "Can you tell me the reason?"

"."

Xia Yuan was a little confused by the question. In fact, since the Zhengde period of the Ming Dynasty, Xinxue has successfully entered the mainstream ideology and can compete with Neo-Confucianism. It even developed to the Longqing Wanli period and had the potential to overwhelm Neo-Confucianism.

Many officials have become believers in Xinxue. Candidates also incorporate Xinxue thoughts into their Eight-gut essays and policy discussions when they write eight-part essays. Xinxue is flourishing, while Neo-Confucianism has suffered a heavy blow.

This happened even though the official government did not depose Cheng Zhu and nominally regarded Cheng Zhu as the sect.

But this is something that will happen decades later. It cannot be said that, Your Majesty, students can actually tell fortunes. I calculated with my fingers that Neo-Confucianism will be defeated by psychology in the future, so we might as well let this happen in advance.

After thinking about it for a long time, Xia Yuan finally asked: "I wonder what your Majesty's views are on the existence of natural principles and the destruction of human desires advocated by Neo-Confucianism?"

"I" Zhu Youtang opened his mouth to speak, but suddenly paused. This question involves the fundamentals of Neo-Confucianism. Although he also studied Confucian classics and read the words of Confucius and Mencius, he also followed Cheng and Zhu's annotations during those Hanlin Classic banquets.

He interprets the words of the sages.

But like most scholars of this era who studied Confucius and Mencius, Cheng and Zhu, he only knew how to study step by step, but never analyzed the essence of Neo-Confucianism, so he did not know how to answer this question for a while.

Seeing this, Xia Yuan asked again: "Student, if you dare to ask again, does your Majesty think there is anyone in the world who can uphold the principles of nature and destroy human desires?"

"There are so many people in the world, I guess there must be some."

"No." Xia Yuan shook his head and said resolutely: "Students dare to assert that no one can do it. This sentence has been a false proposition from the beginning."

"False proposition?"

"Yes, people themselves have desires, such as drinking water when they are thirsty and eating when they are hungry. Of course, the human desires mentioned by Cheng Zhu do not include these legitimate desires, but refer to selfish desires.

But selfish desires are human nature, and human nature is unavoidable. It has nothing to do with how much knowledge we learn or how many principles we acquire. To destroy human desires is to suppress or even eliminate human nature, but how can human nature be eliminated? In other words, if people lose their humanity,

Are you still human?"

Speaking of this, Xia Yuan glanced at the emperor and whispered: "Since the founding of the Ming Dynasty, for more than a hundred years, there have been many corrupt officials. These corrupt officials were all passed the imperial examination and studied Neo-Confucianism.

They all respect the principles of nature and suppress human desires, but they still cannot suppress their selfish desires. They should be corrupt anyway.

From this it can be seen that preserving the principles of nature and destroying human desires is just a slogan, it is just a beautiful yearning that can be shouted out, but no one can achieve it."

After hearing this, Zhu Youtang couldn't help but fell into deep thought. He had to admit that what Xia Yuan said was reasonable. It might be just a beautiful yearning to preserve the natural principles and eliminate human desires. It was indeed difficult to achieve, at least he asked himself that he couldn't do it.

but

He opened his mouth and asked: "But what you have said so much, what does it have to do with the question I asked you about why you want to abolish Cheng Zhu?"

"."

Xia Yuan was silent. Although he talked a lot, it didn't really seem to matter.

"Your Majesty, can you give students another chance to choose?"

Zhu Youtang smiled a little when he heard this, and said with a smile: "What do you want to choose this time, abandon the new school?"

"No, the student won't say which one will be abolished this time. I just want to say that there is no need for your Majesty to worry about this matter."

"No need to worry?"

Zhu Youtang somewhat disagreed with this, but still waited quietly for him to continue.

"Your Majesty, the student's intention is not to waste any of them, but to let it develop naturally. People all over the world learn from Cheng Zhu and regard Cheng Zhu as their model. This is because the state stipulates that Cheng and Zhu's commentaries on Neo-Confucianism should be used as the criterion when answering questions in the imperial examination. This is

This is why scholars all over the world studied Cheng and Zhu and regarded Cheng and Zhu as orthodox."

"The student said something treasonous. If it hadn't been for the imperial examination, no one might have taken Cheng Zhu so seriously."

"And it would be easy for Your Majesty to depose Cheng Zhu. He just needs to issue an edict saying that from now on, answers to imperial examination questions are not allowed to be based on Cheng Zhu's annotations. No one in the world will read Cheng Zhu again."

Xia Yuan talked a lot, and finally asked: "But has your Majesty ever thought about the consequences of doing this?"

"Of course I have thought about it. If I do this, I am afraid that the scholars in the world will be outraged and gather people to write letters, openly accusing me of being a coward and a tyrant."

Zhu Youtang was obviously an emperor who cared about reputation. No, it should be said that there were very few emperors who didn't care about reputation.

It is indeed easy to promulgate an edict, but it is easy to promulgate, but extremely difficult to implement, not to mention that this matter is a change of course and a change of national policy that has been in place for more than a hundred years.

At that time, the whole world was still in chaos.

"That's why I thought about abolishing the new school."

Zhu Youtang was very troubled by this, and abolishing the new learning was definitely the best solution. He was the emperor, and he didn't care about the quality of any learning. He only cared about the stability of the country and the country, and not to cause any trouble.

But what made him worried was that the person who created the new learning was teaching the prince to read, which helped him solve his most troublesome problem.

If you give up on your new learning, you will always feel guilty.

What's more, even if he is deposed now, it is very possible that the prince will ascend the throne in the future, rectify the name of the new school, and then depose Cheng Zhu.

So when he summoned Xia Yuan to the palace this time, to put it bluntly, he wanted to have a discussion.

So Emperor Hongzhi said in a consultative tone: "In my opinion, what if you don't study that new study? Don't teach the prince anything new, and let the world be stable. What do you think?

?”

Xia Yuan's cheek twitched.

It's useless for you to tell me this. You have to talk to Wang Shouren.

He was the one who created Xin Xue, and teaching the prince was what he was doing.
Chapter completed!