Bringing the Railway to Daming

Chapter 113: Mengzi is the people's foundation, Chiwen avoids thunder [Subscribe]

Zhu Xiongying nodded and explained Zhu Yuanzhang's arrangements in a very organized manner.

First, Zhu Yuanzhang divided the princes and grandchildren into five groups according to their ages.

They are: under five years old, five to seven years old, eight to ten years old, eleven to thirteen years old, and fourteen years old and above.

Children under the age of five were taken care of by Empress Ma, concubines and palace maids, and Zhu Yuanzhang basically did not make any arrangements.

When the prince reaches the age of five, he must go to the Ohondo to study and live with the princes in the harem.

When the prince reaches the age of thirteen and is about to turn fourteen, he is no longer allowed to live in the prince's residence and must leave the palace and live in the prince's palace in the capital.

The above arrangements are no different from before. The changes made by Zhu Yuanzhang are mainly in the treatment of princes over five years old.

First, the number of dishes has been halved. For example, lunch now only has one meat dish, one vegetable dish, and one soup. Of course, staple foods such as rice and steamed buns are still plentiful.

Secondly, the princes' original gorgeous clothes were confiscated, and all the princes had only three sets of clothes for the season, and they were all coarse cloth clothes worn by common people.

The same rules apply to shoes, socks, and hats, and the concubines are not allowed to give them. However, daily necessities such as toothbrushes, tooth powder, and soap remain as they were.

Third, here comes the key point.

The princes had to wash and dress themselves, and were responsible for cleaning their homes.

Princes over the age of eight had to boil water, wash clothes, chop firewood, and fetch water (using a small wooden bucket to fetch water from a well near the prince's residence and bring it back to the courtyard). The amount was three times their actual daily consumption of firewood and water.

Princes over the age of eleven had to set aside one hour every day to help take care of the sacrificial fields in the imperial city.

Fourthly, Zhu Yuanzhang would no longer reward these princes during the New Year - if the princes wanted to get better clothes, more dishes or even treasure notes for daily expenses, they had to rely on their own efforts.

He would send people to check what each prince should do every day and give them scores, which could be exchanged for clothes, dishes, banknotes and other items.

If the score is too low, Lao Zhu will call you in and reprimand you, or even punish you by making you do more work.

In addition, Zhu Yuanzhang also said that the palace maids accompanying these princes were not allowed to provide any help to the princes beyond the rules. Once discovered, they would be exiled at the lightest and beaten to death at the worst.

The prince was not allowed to punish palace maids privately. If he felt that a palace maid had done something wrong, he could inform the supervising female official, eunuch, his mother, the empress dowager, or even Zhu Yuanzhang.

Fifth, princes over the age of eight can designate a Confucian teacher and will only study Confucianism with this person from then on.

Princes over the age of eleven could also use their labor points to exchange for vacations. After reporting to Zhu Yuanzhang, they could leave the palace and travel around the capital for one to several days.

The recreational area for princes over the age of fourteen was expanded to the entire Zhili.

The points can also be exchanged for one to three properties in the capital, such as farms, shops, workshops, etc., to make profits through management and improve life in the palace (the fourteen-year-old prince already lives in a separate palace outside the palace).

After listening to this, Liu Kuan compared it with the arrangements Zhu Yuanzhang had made for the princes before. According to Zhu Huilan, Zhu Yuanzhang had mainly focused on strictly restraining the princes' behavior.

From rising in the morning to going to bed at night, most of the princes' time was clearly arranged, and they had very little time to arrange freely.

Although the princes’ living conditions are now poor and they still have to do a lot of work every day, the rigid arrangements have been greatly reduced.

If the princes can finish their work and study tasks more efficiently, they will be much freer than before...
Zhu Xiongying said that the new rules came into effect yesterday and the emperor's grandson also followed the rules.

Liu Kuan could almost imagine that yesterday in the Forbidden City's harem and the East and West Palaces, there was probably a terrible scene of chaos.

These princes have been accustomed to being served since childhood. Not to mention working, they may not even be good at taking care of themselves like dressing and washing.

Liu Kuan took another look and found that many of the younger princes' clothes were a bit messy - this was probably the result of the patient guidance of the palace servants, otherwise some princes might not be able to go out.

"Then why did Li Jinglong and the other four also change into coarse cloth clothes?"

Zhu Xiongying said, "They were changed yesterday afternoon. Most likely it was ordered by the elders in the family."

Liu Kuan smiled and asked, "What do you think of His Majesty's arrangement? Are you happy with it?"

Zhu Xiongying said seriously, "I was confused at first. How much time would it take to do all the daily tasks? Wouldn't that delay my studies? So I asked my father for advice."

"Father took out the Mencius book, turned to a passage in the Lower Chapter of the Gaozi, and asked the students to recite it. After reading it, the students understood that Grandpa Huang's arrangements were all for our own good."

Liu Kuan didn't know much about Mencius, so he asked curiously, "Which passage is it?"

Zhu Xiongying immediately began to recite while shaking his head slightly -

"Shun was born in the fields, and Fu Yue was raised among the bricklayers... Therefore, when Heaven is about to confer a great responsibility on a man, it will first make his heart and mind suffer, his muscles and bones toil, his body hungry and his body empty..."

Zhu Xiongying's recitation echoed in the hall, very clear and crisp.
Originally, only a few students were paying attention to this side, while the others were reading books, either seriously or pretending, but now they all looked over.

Liu Kuan was also quite moved when listening to this passage from "Mencius" that he had recited before.

Confucianism has been a prominent Chinese academic discipline for more than a thousand years, and it is by no means all bad. In particular, the Confucian classics of the pre-Qin period are mostly the crystallization of the life wisdom of the ancient sages.

For example, many of the contents in "Mencius" are still regarded as wise sayings by later generations.

For example, "If the king treats his subjects like grass, then the subjects will treat the king like an enemy" and "The people are the most important, the country is second, and the king is the least important."

For example, "Heaven sees as the people see, Heaven hears as the people hear", "If the king makes a serious mistake, he should be advised. If he still does not listen after repeated advice, his position should be replaced", "I have heard of the execution of Jie and Zhou, but I have never heard of the regicide", etc.

When people in later generations talk about Mencius, they only know that he extended Confucius's concept of benevolence to include righteousness, as in the famous saying, "Confucius said to achieve benevolence, Mencius said to pursue righteousness." However, they don't realize that Mencius actually contains a strong people-centered philosophy, which coincides with later advanced ideas such as "people-centeredness."

However, more than ten years ago, when Zhu Yuanzhang read "Mencius", he ordered Confucian officials such as Liu Sanwu to delete all the chapters on the "people-oriented" ideas that were contrary to the idea of ​​"loyalty to the emperor".

They were even angry that Mencius was too focused on the people-oriented thinking in his book, and at one point, Mencius was removed from the Confucius Temple.

Although Zhu Yuanzhang was a feudal emperor whose head was controlled by his butt, he did this to maintain the stability of the Zhu family's regime.

However, it also shows that his knowledge, vision and even pattern are relatively limited, at least far inferior to that of Emperor Taizong of Tang.

Thinking of this, Liu Kuan couldn't help but sigh inwardly.

I wonder if the arrival of him, the railway and the cross-river bridge can change Lao Zhu's thinking in this regard...
With a light sigh, Liu Kuan walked to the desk and prepared to start today's science class.

But then a person appeared at the palace gate. Although the light was shining from behind, Liu Kuan still recognized him. He hurried forward and bowed, "Your humble servant greets Her Majesty the Queen!"

The students in the hall also stood up and bowed, "Greetings to the Queen Mother (Grandma Empress/Empress Dowager)!"

Queen Ma smiled and raised her hand, "Stand up."

Then he said to Liu Kuan, "Kuan'er, I'm here to attend the class - you don't have to care about it, just treat me as a student."

"Wei Chen dare not."

After replying politely, Liu Kuan invited Queen Ma to sit in the back.

After the class ceremony, Liu Kuan said, "Study Committee, collect the students' science class homework."

Li Jinglong was stunned for a moment before realizing that he was the study committee member. He then happily began to collect homework, which was a short essay about how people used fire.

Not counting Zhu Jian, Zhu Zhi, Zhu Yunwen and Tang He's youngest son Tang Li, who were all under eight years old, even Zhu Huilan wrote one, totaling 11 homework assignments, which were quickly collected and sent to the desk.

Liu Kuan was a little surprised. He didn't expect that even with the "huge changes" in the princes' lives, they didn't forget the homework he assigned.

I don’t know if it’s a good habit I developed in the past, or if I really like science classes, or maybe a combination of both.

"Next, we'll monitor another assignment: ancient texts about our ancestors' discovery of electrostatic reactions. Has anyone found this? Please raise your hand."

Upon hearing this, Zhu Zi, Zhu Chun, Zhu Bai, and Zhu Xiongying raised their hands.

Liu Kuan nodded and said, "Okay, write down the names of the classics you found and the relevant chapters and sentences on a piece of paper and hand it in."

The four of them had already written down what they had found on paper, and now they brought it directly to the desk.

Liu Kuan picked up the top copy and read, "Student Zhu Xiongying found the relevant record in Wang Chong's Lun Heng, a book from the Later Han Dynasty: 'A mugwort picks up a mustard seed, a magnet attracts a needle, all because of their true nature, without imitating other kinds.'"

"He also made a commentary: 'Dunmu' refers to tortoise shells, and 'jie' refers to mustard seeds, which are often used to represent dust. This means that when tortoise shells rub against each other, they attract dust."

"Well, this is indeed one of the electrostatic reaction phenomena discovered by the ancients. Unfortunately, even a genius like Wang Chong only knew the phenomenon but not the reason behind it."

"It's quite good that Zhu Xiongying was able to find this document. 3 points..."

Below, Zhu Tan saw Liu Kuan picking up the "homework" of four classmates and reading them one by one, adding 2 points at least and 5 points at most, and he couldn't help but feel envious.

With his reading speed, he could consult classics very quickly, and there was no shortage of books in the palace.

However, because of the "huge changes" yesterday, my life became a mess. I was so busy that I didn't even have time to look up the classics. I didn't even do the final thinking questions and just managed to finish the short essay.

The other students also felt regretful, and the younger ones like Zhu Yunwen could only envy them.

Queen Ma was listening with a smile in the back. Seeing that the children were paying attention, she thought to herself: Kuan'er's lectures are really unique. He can get the children to actively participate. He is really amazing.

···
After the second science class, Liu Kuan did not return home, but came to Fengxian Hall.

After the ceremony, Zhu Yuanzhang asked, "What's the matter? Is it that a child was disobedient in class?"

"Your Majesty, no," Liu Kuan said, cupping his hands. "Rather, during this class, after research and discussion with the students, I came to the conclusion that a steel flagpole could be erected near the tall buildings of the Imperial Palace to prevent lightning strikes."

Zhu Yuanzhang laughed and said, "This must be the method used by later generations to avoid lightning, right?"

Liu Kuan shook his head. "This lightning protection method is not entirely from later times. In fact, the craftsmen at that time had already inherited the method of lightning protection, which is the Chiwen installed on the roof ridge."

Zhu Yuanzhang was quite surprised to hear this and asked doubtfully, "As far as we know, the Chiwen is just an auspicious beast that symbolizes avoiding fire and exorcising evil spirits."

"You previously said there are no ghosts or gods in this world, and that legends about ferocious and auspicious beasts must have been fabricated by our ancestors. So, how can you claim that this Chiwen has the power to ward off lightning?"

Liu Kuan said, "To be precise, the Chiwen on the roof should be able to guide lightning. If your Majesty observes carefully, you will find that there is a copper wire wrapped around the tongue of the Chiwen."

"I said that day that lightning likes to strike high places, and in fact, it likes conductive objects such as metal."

"The Chiwen is located on the roof ridge, often the highest point of a building. With a copper wire in its mouth, it can easily guide lightning there."

Zhu Yuanzhang frowned upon hearing this, his expression instantly darkening. He said, "According to what you say, the craftsmen installed the Chiwen on the roof ridge intentionally to guide the lightning to strike the house."

　First update.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)