Xiangcheng County Prince's Mansion.

"I admired Wen Yuan's method of handling auxiliary machines last time, and it was very generous." Fang Xuanling fell a piece on the chessboard.

"The Changsun Prime Minister is also dedicated to the country, and I can understand him. We are all for the Tang Dynasty and the world. If we don't even have such a tolerance, we are not worthy of sitting in this central position." Zhang Chao also lost his son.

"I think Wenyuan's actions over the years seem to have been doing something that has promoted the growth of the nobles and the business class?"

"Yes." Zhang Chao did not hide it. Fang Xuanling was a very experienced person. Although he was usually gentle, this person had a ignorant eye. He was a serious strategist in the Xuanwu Sect two times. Zhang Chao never dared to underestimate such a person.

"If the Tang Dynasty had not changed its history like the Northern Zhou and Sui Dynasty, then Fang Xiang thought that there would be any changes in the Zhenguan period of the 14th year and the 6th year of martial virtues? No matter how powerful the Northern Zhou Dynasty unified the north, no matter how powerful the Sui Dynasty unified the world. In fact, neither Zhou nor Sui had broken out of the historical ruling and could only go around the Central Plains. Even if there was the prosperous era of the Sui Dynasty, it would be difficult to last."

"At most, one or two hundred years, it will be cycled again. I hope the Tang Dynasty can break out of this crotch and create a new era. To put it, although the Sui Dynasty was strong for a while, its territory did not exceed that of the Qin and Han dynasties. Looking at history in detail, in fact, from the Zhou Dynasty to the Qin Dynasty's unification of the world, the Central Plains have become conservative. We have been circulating in the circle of the Central Plains. The Hu tribe in the northern grasslands have been intimately enforced by generations, and they will never be destroyed. Every hundred years or so, the grassland will invade the Central Plains south, and the country will change color."

"The south of the Central Plains and the barbarians are also difficult to explore. Even Jiaozhou and other places during the Qin and Han Dynasties are still lost."

"Why is all this?"

Zhang Chao did not look back, "Since the Qin Dynasty, centralization has allowed the Central Plains dynasty to be strong for a while after one or two hundred years. But it is this centralization that has made it difficult for the Central Plains to last forever."

Fang Xuanling was stunned for a moment, smiled and shook her head, and then another son.

"You can always speak a set of self-consistent theories, such as the statement of the sun, earth and moon, and the gravity that you mentioned, which makes people unable to refute."

Zhang Chao said, "What I said is not fallacy, but arguments. Zhou divided the world into ceremonies, and promoted the ceremonies and patriarchal system. This is the foundation that maintained the world for eight hundred years. In fact, since Qin returned to the world, more than a thousand years of history, it can be reduced to one day. You see, since Qin Shihuang unified the world, then changed dynasties, or invasion of foreign tribes, it was basically just a change in the surnames of the dynasty. How many substantial changes have been made on the surface of the national rules and regulations and the inner patriarchal system?"

"What is the more source of all this? It is the master of Zhou Gong's rituals and Confucius's eternal teacher."

The Zhou people were different from Shang, one was to establish the system of legitimate rule, and then they gave birth to the system of patriarchal law and mourning clothes. There was also the system of feudal children, the system of monarchs, the system of ministers and princes. The second was the system of temple numbers, and the third was the system of unmarried families in the same surname. These numbers were the system of Zhou's rule of the world.

The purpose is to embrace the upper and lower levels of morality, and to combine the emperor, princes, ministers, officials, scholars, and common people to form a moral group, which is the original intention of Duke Zhou to make rituals.

The Zhou Li is a basic system that the Chinese dynasty has been following for thousands of years.

The feudal system and the patriarchal system are the fundamentals of the Zhou rituals.

But in the Sui and Tang Dynasties, the patriarchal system was still there, and the feudal system was actually gone.

The people of Yin admired ghosts and worshiped ghosts and gods. The power of the Shang Dynasty changed, and brothers ended up with brothers and brothers, and there was no distinction between fathers and sons, and there was no distinction between legitimate and illegitimate children. This was actually like the tribes on the grassland. A father had many sons. After being passed to the youngest younger brother, would the younger son succeed to the throne or the elder brother succeed to the throne, so it was easy to have disputes.

Starting from the Zhou Dynasty's rituals, it was clearly stipulated that father and son passed on to one another, first legitimate and later illegitimate. The patriarchal system was established to unify the inheritance of power with moral and cultural thoughts. The emperor, princes, ministers, officials, scholars, and common people all acted according to this set of standards, and it was consistent from folk customs to the state system.

Since then, China has gone through thousands of years and dynasties have changed, but this patriarchal system has not changed because everyone has accepted this idea since childhood.

Since then, the Confucianism of the Kong family has become the only academic thought since the Han Dynasty.

Confucian thought has influenced generations of scholars over the past thousands of years, those elite classes and those ruling classes.

The king, the king, the minister, the father, the son, the son, and the general human relations are tools to unify the Han people's thoughts.

It can be said that this set of ideas also has its own effect. The biggest function is to unify the thoughts of the people of the world and form the concept of unity. Even if we experience wars and divisions, everyone will eventually think that they are all Han people and they all aim to unify.

In Zhang Chao's opinion, this is also a great contribution. Without this unified idea, perhaps people from Hebei would call themselves Yan people, people from Shandong to Qi people, people from Guanzhong to Qin people, people from Jiangnan to Wuyue, people from Jianghan to Chu people, people from Shu to Shu, and so on.

Without such a unified idea, the vast Central Plains would have been divided long ago.

Why is Europe not much bigger than the Central Plains? First of all, it is still thought.

Of course, Confucianism also has its shortcomings, but it is of course worthy to be adopted by the ruling classes of various dynasties.

"The patriarchal system and the feudal system." Fang Xuanling left another son, "The patriarchal system has been used to this day and has not changed. Instead, the feudal system was divided into feudal systems, and the Han Dynasty implemented the county and state system. Later, the feudal system was constantly changing. The Sui Dynasty was appointed as the chief executive for the local government but did not divide the feudal state. This was the case after the founding of the Tang Dynasty. Only after Zhenguan did the feudal system come to the beginning. Now, the feudal system was promoted by you, Zhang Wenyuan."

"It seems that your real purpose is to rebuild the feudal system."

Zhang Chao thought about it, "The Central Plains is vast, and the imperial court is developing abroad. If the central government still has direct jurisdiction, then such a vast place is beyond reach. It is better to divide the feudal system. The Central Plains is directly under the jurisdiction of the court, and the surrounding areas are divided into royal families and heroes, forming a power to protect the imperial court. In this way, the court can also support the princes to continue to expand abroad, which not only gives the princes the power to expand, but also enjoys the expansion benefits of the Tang Dynasty."

"But Zhou's sanctions of the world were not peaceful. King Ping moved eastward, and then the five hundred years of Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period. The princes competed for hegemony, and finally the Warring States Period competed for power."

Zhang Chao smiled, "But at least, the princes respected the Emperor of Zhou for eight hundred years. Moreover, when Zhou was established, how big was China? Even the Central Plains were everywhere, not to mention the surrounding barbarians and barbarians. Hundreds of years later, the princes had already made a great world for China. Although the dialects of different places were different, China never changed."

"Everyone in the world regards the Zhou emperor as the common ruler, and regards himself as China, respects the king and expels the barbarians, so that this civilization can be passed down from generation to generation."

After the Qin and Han Dynasties, the Central Plains dynasties were in chaos. Even if the dynasty was unified, it was difficult to achieve any achievements in foreign development. On the contrary, Jiaozhou, Liaodong, Western Regions and other places were constantly lost during the Qin and Han Dynasties.

"Wen Yuan, you want to practice feudalism again, but you are not worried about the melee of the princes of the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period of Zhou, are you not worried about the rebellion of the seven kings of the Han Dynasty and the rebellion of the eight kings of Jin?"

"The central court and local princes will definitely have a game, but it is not that there is no solution. The court has enfeoffed the princes, and at the same time there are also enfeoffments. The vassal states continue to enfeoff the favor and the vassal states have become smaller, and there are many vassal states, and they check and balance each other. If all the vassal states, or most of the vassal states, rebellion, it can only be said that the court must have done something wrong."

"Fang Xiang, now it is the era of great navigation. Our merchant ships can sail to America, Australia, Africa and Europe, and even the Arctic Ocean. The world is so big that the world is not just the Central Plains. With such a vast world, why do we still have to restrict our pace?"

Fang Xuanling could feel the sincerity of Zhang Chao's words.

"What will Wenyuan do next?"

"Overseas colonization. Linyi, Funan, Zhenla, Boguo, Langya Xiu, Jietu, Lion Kingdom, Jieji···The world is very big, and the seeds of Chinese civilization can be scattered all over the world with the warships of the Tang Dynasty."

Fang Xuanling smiled, "I feel like I'm old after chatting with you for a while. My eyes are still staring at the small area under my nose, but your eyes are already thousands of miles away."

"The stability of the imperial court is also very important. Only when the Central Plains are stable and prosperous can they cultivate more talents."

"Wen Yuan, what do you need me to do?" Fang Xuanling asked.

"Led the cabinet with me and assist His Majesty in governing the world."

A chess piece was settled, Fang Xuanling nodded, "This is my responsibility."

·······

weekend.

Zhang Chao changed into casual clothes and rested today. He was not idle at home. He only took Ke Qing to the streets and walked around for a while before going to a nearby school.

On weekends, the school is on holiday today, but there are teachers giving lectures. They teach the residents nearby, and they are still teaching the classics of Confucius and Mencius.

Today I will give a lecture on the principal of this school, an old Confucian scholar.

He spoke a mandarin with a Hedong accent. As early as more than ten years ago, Zhang Chao and the teachers and students of the Imperial College compiled the Wude Dictionary, and later compiled the Zhenguan Dictionary.

The most important thing about the Wude Dictionary is not a book of characters. It also has a set of pinyin notes, which annotate all standard Chinese characters. The pronunciation is not the reading pronunciation of scholars in the past. Instead, the standard pronunciation used by everyone, also called Mandarin.

Since then, the court has stipulated that scholars who participated in the imperial examination must master Mandarin. Even officials and officials of the court must receive training and study of Mandarin and require them to master fluent Mandarin.

Schools in various places have been promoting this set of official language over the years. Even in many places, literacy classes and literacy classes, they also teach pinyin titles and official languages.

More than ten years have passed, and now the promotion and popularization of Mandarin is quite successful. At least officials, scholars and even merchants can almost speak Mandarin. Although many people have some local accents, they can at least understand it. Unlike in the past, some officials cannot understand local dialects, and local people cannot understand the officials' words.

Some emperors even couldn't understand the officials' words when summoned them.

A very ordinary article excerpted from the Confucian classics, but the old principal gave it very well, and it was easy to understand. Even some examples were given. The ordinary people who were listening to the lectures also understood it.

"Sanlang, what's there to hear about this."

Zhang Chao finished the class carefully and did not leave until he started preparing for routine discussions in the school district.

"Subtly, the peddlers who were listening to the words of the sages today will have many changes. Do you know what is the most terrible thing in this world? It is not war or poverty, but ignorance. Ignorance makes people blind, become fools, or even just walking corpses. To make a nation and a country strong, the most important thing is not to eat and drink enough, but to enlighten the wisdom of the people. Fooling the people is always the stupidest strategy to govern the country and the people."

Of course, the cost of governing a country is the lowest, but such a court will never be strong, and the people are ignorant, so how can they be strong?

Fortunately, the Tang Dynasty has done a good job over the years.
Chapter completed!