Chapter 11 Section IX

From October 26th to November 26th, for a whole month, it was mainly dictated by Shi Yue, compiled by Tang Di, Li Dunmin, and Sang Chongguo, and finally written by the Chai brothers. To finalize the draft, the six people were busy non-stop, and finally wrote the first draft of "Arguing Justice" within the planned time.Shi Yue lost a lot of weight because of exhausting his mind. This "Analects of Confucius" is based on Qian Mu's "Analects of Confucius" and Cheng Shude's "Analects of Confucius", written by Shi Yue.Although the whole book is mainly based on the interpretations of the two schools, there are also some Shi Yue's own understanding and explanations. The embodiment of Shi Yue's own wisdom.At that time, Zhu Xi was not yet born. Because this "Analects of Confucius" was based on the theories of Qian and Cheng, it naturally included the insights of many scholars since Zhu Xi. At that time, it was completely regarded as a very original academic work. .

When writing the first half of this book, Tang Di and others would occasionally ask questions, but in the second half, Shi Yue became more and more familiar with it, and the five of them almost regarded him as the reincarnation of a sage they knew from birth. The stone version of "The Analects of Confucius" contains more than 200,000 words. It is written in the vernacular similar to Zhu Zi's quotations, and its style is modeled after the previous book.The most unique feature of his book is that Shi Yue used a whole set of punctuation marks in this book! Shi Yue and Sang Chongguo wrote two prefaces together, one introducing the style of the book and the author's intentions, and the other advocating the use of punctuation marks and explaining in detail the usage of various punctuation marks.Although the modal particles such as "Zhe Ye" in ancient times actually have the function of punctuation marks, and there are also simple punctuation marks, but they are not widely used, and they are even resisted by some scholars, so the ambiguity caused by inconsistent sentences is always exist.It is in this "The Analects of Confucius" that Shi Yue's punctuation of some words later even sparked a great debate among scholars. It is "the people can be made to know it, but not to be made to know it", and Shi Yue used Qian Mu's judgment method to read it as "the people can be made to do so, but not to be made to know it; the meaning of the whole sentence is immediately opposite!Relying on the great academic reputation of "The Analects of Confucius" and the shocking influence of similar debates, punctuation marks were soon officially recognized and became popular in the world.

This book also has a small incidental effect, that is, Shi Yue has completely established his position in the minds of Tang Di and the other five. There is also a dramatic statement about this book. Before "The Analects of Confucius" was officially finalized, the reputation of this book had already spread quietly.Tang Di and others suddenly disappeared into the gathering of the disciples, which attracted the disciples to inquire about each other. The only one who knew the inside story, Chen Yuanfeng, replied in a teasing tone: "Tang Yifu and others helped Shi Yue write "The Analects of Confucius" in Sang Mansion, To replace He's "Jijie" as a must-read book for scholars all over the world."

This rumor then spread quietly in the capital. All the judges were puzzled by these people's "do not do business properly". Although they knew Shi Yue's talent, but they heard that he was thinking about writing books when he was in his twenties, so he couldn't help laughing at his overestimation .Six people writing "The Analects of Confucius" behind closed doors became a joke at the banquet in November of the second year of Xining, and almost everyone was waiting for the release of this "masterpiece", hoping to see a bigger joke , only a very small number of people cautiously believe that Shi Yue may really have extraordinary talent.

The authenticity of this incident is unknown, because no one admitted afterwards that they had laughed at "The Analects of Confucius". At that time, Tang Di and others were completely obsessed with editing, and they knew that by virtue of their participation in the creation of this book, they were already famous in history—this kind of honor was a great reward for the scholars at that time .On the one hand, Sang Yuchu and Tang Gannan were preparing for the production of cotton spinning equipment. On the other hand, they simply spent money to buy an engraving and printing workshop. They only waited for the final version of the book to be published and published immediately.

But after the draft was drafted, Shi Yue was still unsure about the draft. In this "The Analects of Confucius", through the interpretation of the quotations of Confucius and his disciples, not only clearly put forward the concept of "people-oriented principle" for the first time, but also put forward the ideas of "seeking truth from facts" and "obtaining knowledge from things" , and Shi Yue also emphasized the significance of .With regard to the political system, Shi Yue clearly put forward the check and balance of power and the equality of everyone below the emperor; with the help of the discussion on Guanzi, he even proposed cultural chauvinism, pointing out that the biggest goal of "benevolence" is to let the four barbarians be moralized and accepted Chinese thought and culture; and emphasized several times the role of the country and the ambition of the scholar-bureaucrats, it should be to let all the people live an equal and prosperous life!He emphasized in the book that Confucius believes that the people have the right and duty to receive education, and that it is one of the goals that Confucius pursued throughout his life to allow all people to receive education equally and understand etiquette and righteousness...

It can be said that although Shi Yue’s expression is limited due to the content of this book, he almost expresses all modern political thoughts either implicitly or clearly, and even hints that the establishment of the Son of Heaven is to serve the people of the world. Serve, not to rule the people of the world. The content of this book, on the one hand, catered to the academic mainstream thought that the scholar-bureaucrats at that time took the world as their own responsibility, ruled the world together with the emperor, emphasized personal moral integrity, and emphasized the distinction between Hua and Barbarians; but on the other hand, it also proposed Many new concepts, and pay special attention to the status and role of the people.Although this was mentioned by Mencius a long time ago, since Wang Anshi and below—especially the "Classic School" represented by Wang Anshi, they all respected Mencius very much, and Wang Anshi used Mencius as his own metaphor, but after all, Shi Yue's The formulation is clearer, so it is also extraordinarily conspicuous.And when it comes to certain things, such as the three-year funeral, Shi Yue put forward the idea that "the most important thing is the sorrow, not the form", which will probably cause a big discussion.

With a cautious personality, Shi Yue didn't dare to throw out this book easily before he could accurately judge the situation.He needed the book to bring him huge fame, not huge controversy.New ideas can only be put forward slowly. First of all, they must be accepted by the outstanding generation among the scholar-bureaucrats. This is one of Shi Yue's purposes. At the beginning of December, Shi Yue invited more than a dozen old gentlemen to review whether there were any taboos in this book, and then he discussed with Tang Di and others repeatedly, hoping to grasp the understanding that people of the time can understand some things. Accepting the emotional bottom line, I finally made a revision to delete the critical part of the content such as the three-year mourning.

It is almost incomprehensible for Tang Di and others to be so serious about Shi Yue. They live in a relatively relaxed environment. It came from Confucian scholars who were officials, so they couldn't understand why they needed to be so careful.Li Dunmin exaggeratedly said: "As soon as this book is published, there must be a copy of "The Analects of Confucius" on the records of scholars all over the world, and all literate people in the world must read "The Analects of Justice". It's just the great prestige they will enjoy. Although this book is the work of Shi Yue, they are also very proud of their hard work for the publication of this book.

Only Tang Gannan and Sang Yuchu secretly admire Shi Yue's maturity and stability, and they trust Shi Yue even more because of this.Relying on the experience of the two of them for half a lifetime, they absolutely believed that this Shi Yue could bring their Tang and Sang families to an unprecedented height.The essence of a businessman is investment and return. After preliminarily ruling out the possibility that they may fall into a conspiracy of rebellion, they have decided to make a political investment. The Tang family will become a family of famous eunuchs and a family of scholars.In Tang Gannan's letter to Tang Di's father, he said: "Our Tang family now has a once-in-a-century opportunity. With this person, not only Yifu's nephew can easily become a high-ranking official, but the two of us will be able to win the imperial court." It is also very easy to grant a gift. There is absolutely no reason not to do this business..."

Based on this judgment, the Sang and Tang families spared no effort in supporting Shi Yue.At that time, the industry and commerce were quite prosperous, and businessmen with net worth of hundreds of millions were not uncommon. Among the businessmen, Sang and Tang could only be regarded as middle-of-the-road, but their financial resources were already considerable. In mid-December of the second year of Xining, the complete set of cotton spinning technology and equipment was basically successfully trial-produced. At the same time, Shi Yue began to finalize "The Analects of Confucius".Every time a volume is agreed upon, the engraving workers immediately start engraving. In order to ensure the best printing effect for this set of books, Sang Yuchu and Tang Gannan did not consider the cost at all. Dozens of the best workers in Beijing are the best choice for rigidity and paper.But despite this, it is not easy to carve out a book with more than 200,000 characters.If a word is accidentally engraved wrong, the entire page will have to be redone. Book pages are piled up in more than a dozen houses of the printing workshop, and hundreds of workers are working day and night. A quarter of it is done! Shi Yue was very confused about this progress. He asked the workers: "I heard that a man named Bi Sheng invented movable type printing. Both the cost and the speed of typesetting are better than engraving. Why do you still use engraving?" But the workers didn't know who Bi Sheng was. They only told him that some people do use clay movable type printing, but it is mainly in Hangzhou area, and it is not common, and it is rarely used in Bianjing.Because the printing quality of movable type is not as good as engraving, and clay movable type cannot be used too many times, the improvement in efficiency is not significant, and the cost reduction is also very small. Shi Yue listened silently. Of course he knew that there must be movable type printing in the world at this time, and Shen Kuo, who recorded this incident, was in his prime. If he hadn't seen it, he wouldn't have scribbled it.He pondered: "Movable type printing is definitely stronger than woodblock printing, at least suitable for large-scale production. However, the Gutenberg printing machine and typecasting machine cannot be created at once, not to mention the grease ink used for metal movable type. It is also a difficult problem. If the wooden movable type printing technique invented by Wang Zhen is used, the rotary typesetting frame is used, and a more modern production process is used for management, the efficiency will definitely be improved many times, and it will not be difficult to gradually develop to lead-tin alloy movable type in the future. Late." Because Tang Gannan mainly focused on those cotton spinning machines these days, Shi Yue went to Sang Yuchu to discuss, asking him to buy a movable type printing workshop to improve printing techniques.Sang Yuchu immediately agreed. Although he knew that the profit of the movable type printing workshop was not high—its hardware cost was lower than that of engraving printing, but in terms of software cost, because engraving workers did not need to be literate, but movable type workers did. The cost of movable type printing is much higher.But this matter can no longer be viewed purely from a business point of view, because it is something Shi Yue fancyes, and the profit may exceed imagination. Sang Yuchu is an efficient person. Before New Year's Eve, he bought a movable type printing workshop with 500 coins, and changed the sign to "Sang's Printing Workshop".

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