On the fourth day of the fifth month of the fourth year of Tiansheng, the imperial court issued an edict to hold the imperial examination this year. Anyone who actually received the three or five examinations of Jinshi in previous years was exempted from the explanation and directly participated in the provincial examination. Although Lin Wensi was only 35 years old, he had actually participated in the provincial examination five times and obtained the qualification to be exempted from the explanation.

Xu Ping realized that he had achieved success in his studies in the past two years and was determined to take the exam. While actively preparing for the exam, he also went around to find a guarantor and hired his relationships to obtain the qualification to participate in the IPO.

There is a word in the imperial examination, which refers to its ancient meaning. The system of recommendation since the Han Dynasty. Unlike the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the imperial examinations in the Song Dynasty still paid equal attention to the examination and examination. Local governments have the obligation to review the qualifications of candidates. Although they have literary talent, if they do not cultivate their moral character, they cannot take the imperial examination. Otherwise, even if they are successful in high school, if they are found to have committed any moral imperfections, such as having a criminal record or being unfilial to their parents, they will still be deprived of their origins and local officials are also implicated. Therefore, this review is not a formality and needs to be taken seriously.

Fortunately, Xu Ping has been successful in his farm management over the years and has helped several places to organize his land. He has gained a good reputation and easily overcome this level. As a merchant, there were restrictions on participating in the imperial examination, but it was not completely relaxed at this time, but Xu Zheng has already become an official, and the Xu family has become an official household, and this restriction is gone.

In early June, after finishing the farm work in the village, Xu Ping devoted himself to the intense preparation for the exam.

The day was sunny and cloudless. Xu Ping sat in the shade of a tree under the big willow tree outside the village, holding a collection of fu in his hand and studying it carefully.

Not far away, Lin Suniang sat on a big rock by the water, reached into the water with barefoots, watching a group of fish in the water swim around her delicate feet, quietly enjoying the early summer sun.

Xu Ping had told her that she should not wear her feet, but she was rolled by Lin Suniang. Fortunately, after a while, Lin Suniang felt that it was too uncomfortable to wrap her feet, so she let go again. Moreover, the most popular thing for little girls at this time was that the socks with five toes separated. They could not wear them after wrapping their feet, which also made Lin Suniang distressed. After playing with Suer for a month or two, they threw the matter of foot binding to Java.

Not far away, Xiuxiu and Suer were sitting face to face, each of whom was playing with flowers and plants. They were two years older, but they still hadn't had enough fun.

Since I learned that I started this year, Xu Ping's life has mostly been spent like this. I will get married to Lin Su Niang next year. The two have become much closer and can say almost anything. Without the concerns of the previous two years. Lin Su Niang is fine anyway, so she accompanied Xu Ping to study.

After reading two essays from predecessors, Xu Ping rubbed his eyes, put the book under his head, hid on the grass, and looked at the few white clouds in the sky in a daze.

What is the most troublesome thing about preparing for the imperial examination? If Xu Ping first came to this world, he would definitely say that he was memorizing the scriptures. After reading the books, he realized that it was not the case at all. The scriptures are dead, and the most difficult thing is the change of thoughts.

Every era has its mainstream thoughts in each era, which will affect all aspects of society. In particular, the content of the imperial examination directly reflects the ruler's mind and governance, and is closely related to the mainstream thoughts in society.

The era where Xu Ping was located was a period of great ideological changes. If you could not grasp the pulse of the times, it would be a joke to pass the imperial examination. Taizu Zhao Kuangyin immediately conquered the world, but although he admired literature, he had no specific ideological direction. Taizong respected Buddhism and Laozi. Although the imperial examination was mainly based on Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoist thoughts still had a great influence. It was not until Emperor Zhenzong that he established the basis for scientific examinations based on Confucian classics, but the trend of doubting the classics had already emerged, and the entire society was brewing a storm of ideological changes.

This is a big ideological background, and it took Xu Ping more than two years to understand this background.

In his previous life, due to the influence of class struggle ideas in historical research, and modern historical research originated from the destruction of the country and the destruction of the family and being bullied by outsiders everywhere, the study of Song history was particularly rough, which directly affected the historical education received by Xu Ping. In textbooks, the Song Dynasty was the beginning of the decline of ancient Chinese society, and the saying that poverty and weakness were unified was very low. When Xu Ping grew up, he evaluated the Song Dynasty as the peak of Chinese feudal society from the perspective of social development. In summary, it was nothing more than swaying with production relations or productivity as the focus, and it was impossible to form a convincing conclusion.

Overseas Song history is a prominent study in the study of Chinese history, especially Japan is the best, and the Song Dynasty was regarded as the beginning of modern Chinese history, namely the theory of reform in Tang and Song dynasties. Its origin was nothing more than to draw East Asian history into the Western historical syllogism, and to invade China for theoretical construction. Its theory seems exquisite but is actually absurd. Europe and the United States are heading another way, viewing the literati-official class formed in the Song Dynasty as a social elite class, and using Western elite theories to explain Chinese society after the Song Dynasty, it seems reasonable, but in fact it is completely inconsistent.

Xu Ping's education in his previous life was like this, studying Chinese history from a Western perspective, first setting up a European template there, stuffing the long Chinese history into it, and twisting it into something out of shape.

Putting aside the influence of the West, looking at history from a purely Chinese perspective will naturally be another way. In this era, if Xu Ping used his education in his previous life to talk about history with others, he would definitely be regarded as a crazy person.

Chinese people do not believe in God and will not naturally believe that history has a fixed template there, and as long as it is inserted into the template, it is a winner. There is nothing wrong with productivity determining production relations, but the wrong thing is that production relations are only the templates that happened in Europe in history.

Xu Ping's politics is still qualified, so he naturally knows that the so-called capitalism that replaces feudalism is capitalism of free competition. This system can only have successful examples in countries dominated by Christianity. All transplants in other parts of the world have failed. For hundreds of years, without exception. In other words, each civilization can only succeed if it finds a system that fits itself. Whether in his previous life or in this era, transplanting the capitalist system can only be a disaster and will not have good results. If you want to contribute to this world, you can only combine some basic principles learned in your previous life with this era.

Xu Ping, a scholar of this era, Chinese historical installment is very different from the Western template. Xia, Shang and Zhou were ancient times, and it was the most prosperous. In order to solve the crisis that occurred in the late Zhou Dynasty, the cultural grandeur of various schools of thought emerged.

In the next one or two thousand years, they were experimental reforms in the ideological framework of various schools of thought. The world-governing and exaggerated learning among various schools of thought were nothing more than the four schools of Confucianism, law, Taoism and Mohism, and the others were not systematic.

The first one to enter the historical stage was the Legalists. From the Warring States Period to the Qin Dynasty, they completed the unification of the world for hundreds of years. The Legalists were a theory tailored for the rulers. The world was the emperor. To the extreme, except for the emperor, all people and things in the world were the tools of the emperor. Everything in the world was decided by the emperor. This is a more extreme theory than the fascist militarism in later generations. Militarism still serves a class, and the Legalist theory completely serves a person. Of course, the Legalists have nothing to do with the legal society, and this set of theories was based on a class society with distinct hierarchical levels. Since the end of the Qin Dynasty, Chen Sheng called out: "Why would a king, prince, general, and minister!" The Legalists were completely eliminated, and this theory was a disaster to govern the country.

In the Han Dynasty, Qin Dynasty, the one who replaced the Legalists and came to the forefront was Taoism. The so-called Huang-Lao arts were governed by inaction. After decades, Emperor Wu came to Emperor Wu, with local tyrants and powerful forces, weak central strength, humiliated the Huns outside and controlled the local area. Emperor Wu ended the dominance of Taoism, and Confucianism came to the forefront. At this time, Confucianism was different from later generations. He talked about the resonance of heaven and man and the study of prophecies and divination, which was a mystical school in Confucianism. At this time, Confucianism was still obviously characterized by serving the rulers, but lacked the ideal of governing the world. Finally, in the war with Taoism that turned into the folk, the Han Dynasty finally perished, and the theoretical experiments of various schools of thought came to an end.

After that, the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, mainstream thoughts fluctuated and swung in the Confucian and Taoist thoughts and Buddhist thoughts that were passed down from outside. The Han people themselves faced a survival crisis and their thoughts did not make great achievements.

The Sui Dynasty and Qin Dynasty died in the second generation, and until the middle of the Tang Dynasty, a period of peace came. The Tang Dynasty was a very special dynasty. It had great martial arts in the early stages, but it collapsed thousands of miles away in the middle and late stages, and it was uncontrollable. The cultural thoughts of the Tang Dynasty, especially in the early stages, mainly accepted foreign cultures, and its independent development basically stagnated. It seemed to be prosperous and lively, but it laid a crisis for the Han people. The Tang Dynasty was a rare dynasty in Chinese history that continued to occur in the Han people. By the end of the Tang Dynasty, some traditional Han areas in the north, such as

The Yellow River in the northeast was the core area of ​​the Han people from the Warring States Period. At this time, it was dominated by the Hu people, mainly the Bohai people and the Xi people. The northwest from the west of Guanzhong, Hexi and Jiuyuan were also dominated by the Han people from the Han Dynasty, and it was completely Hu Hua. Xu Ping did not understand why the territory of the Northern Song Dynasty was so small in his previous life. Only when he came to this era did he realize that this was the largest area for the Han people to live. In terms of dynasties, the territory of the Tang Dynasty was vast, and in terms of ethnicity, the survival place of the Han people in the Tang Dynasty continued to shrink, and it was expanded again after the Song Dynasty.

It is precisely this background that Confucianism, which insists on the distinction between China and the barbarians, has once again entered the historical stage. At this time, Confucianism was different from Han Confucianism. It originated from Han Yu, and brought out the teachings of Confucius and Mencius, especially Mencius, and eventually formed Confucianism in Song. The theory of this school is the least favorite of rulers. The idea of ​​the people being noble and the king being lighter has many constraints on imperial power. However, since Emperor Taizong of Song began to defeat foreign wars and repeatedly, the imperial power could only be compromised.

The era in which Xu Ping lived was when Confucianism was about to officially enter the historical stage, and it was full of vitality. In decades, a storm of thought would form, second only to the various schools of thought in history. Confucianism at this time was not the later corrupt scholars, but was actively and enterprising in thought.

If the thoughts of various schools of thought bloomed as flowers blooming on the body of the Zhou Dynasty, then the corpse of the Zhou Dynasty continued China's two thousand years of history. In the end, no flowers bloomed on the corpse of the Song Dynasty, and only the rotten corpse was left. This rotten corpse lasted for nearly a thousand years.

During the Zhou Dynasty, Shang Dynasty conferred descendants of Shang people to the State of Song to succeed Shang Dynasty. More than two thousand years later, Zhao Kuangyin put himself in the yellow robe of the governor of Guide, Guide was the military quota of Songzhou, and the country was named Song. Song Dynasty and Zhou Dynasty, and history completed a cycle of reincarnation. This cycle of reincarnation ended, and the classical era of China ended. Since then, China's history has basically struggled with the bodies of the Song Dynasty and no longer flourished in thought, until the arrival of the major changes that have not been seen in three thousand years.

It took Xu Ping more than two years to grasp this point, and be able to re-examine history from the perspective of a classical Chinese, and understand the positioning of this era. Even if he participated in the imperial examination, Xu Ping would not become a scholar-official in the traditional sense, but he would eventually become a classical Chinese with knowledge of later generations, rather than a deranged person who came to classical China to make a fool of himself and turned China into a Western civilization in another sense.

China should have its own path. This path was ended by the nomadic cavalry and was completely smashed by the strong ships and cannons coming from overseas. He struggled to find a new life in hell. This path should be the Chinese people's own path after all, not the learning to walk in Handan. Even in Xu Ping's previous life, he might not have found it. When he came to this era, he could only try to continue searching.
Chapter completed!