"Childe, sir, please have refreshments!"

In the guest room, Wang Yuan and Master Shen sat opposite each other, and A Cai brought afternoon tea.

Shen Fuxuan took a bite of the pastry, tasted another sip of tea, and said with a smile: "This Guizhou is slow to learn, and enjoyment is the land of chasing the south of the Yangtze River." ”

The emperor of the Ming Dynasty and the poor people at the bottom were both on a two-meal system, but the emperor was able to eat all kinds of snacks and supper.

As for the princes, bureaucrats, wealthy businessmen, and military officers, they have long had three meals a day. With the development of social economy, in the middle of the Ming Dynasty, morning tea and afternoon tea became popular in Jiangnan, which was hundreds of years earlier than the British tea culture.

Wang Yuan did not drink tea and eat cakes, and continued to concentrate on practicing calligraphy.

Master Shen tasted the tea and asked, "This tea is very good, what kind of tea is it?" ”

Ah Cai replied, "It's all even." ”

"Alright, you can step aside." Master Shen nodded, the shelf was quite large.

Acai bowed and exited the room.

Master Shen asked, "Are you used to studying in the Song clan?" ”

Wang Yuan smiled: "Like a fish in water." I fought a few battles with the children of the Song family, and they all won. It's a pity that Mr. Liao's lectures are not as thorough as Mr., and I hope that Mr. can come here as a teacher as soon as possible. ”

Master Shen held the teacup, lay crooked on the chair, and said proudly: "I have been playing with Lord Xi for the past few days, and by the way, I am assisting him in running social studies. Lord Xi has just taken up his post, the shogunate has not yet opened, and he has no henchmen, and he still wants to invite me to be a guest of the shogun. ”

The officialdom of the Ming Dynasty had a curtain system.

The adjutant was recognized by the imperial court and had a certain rank, which was equivalent to a regular worker. However, if the adjutant is often not used well, the chief officer will open the business by himself and recruit staff for his own use, which is equivalent to a temporary worker.

If the governor opens, he can even recruit people as his staff.

Master Shen is too good at mixing, and in just a few days, he actually won the trust of the deputy student official Xi Shu.

Shen Fuxuan said with a smile: "I also followed Master Xi to the south of the city to inspect Weixue. Do you know which one is the most exploitative in this hundreds of miles of Guizhou City? ”

"Isn't it the Song family and the An family?" Wang Yuan asked.

"It's the town guard eunuch!"

Although Master Shen has never been a big official, he is conceited of Confucianism and authenticity, and naturally has a resistance to eunuchs. He sneered disdainfully: "The eunuchs guarding Guizhou are the real fish and meat people, not only did they kill the military households of the guard, but even the local people of the Zhongcao chief lawsuit were forced by him to rebel. ”

"Imagine." Wang Yuan said.

Don't talk about the corruption of the civil official group in the Ming Dynasty, in the matter of corruption, even the horses can't catch up with the eunuchs.

Because civil officials are corrupt and pay a little attention to rules, eunuchs are unscrupulous when they are greedy.

The Tusi side of Guizhou is powerful, and the eunuchs who guard the town do not dare to stretch their hands too long, and the Yunnan side is breathtaking.

During the Hongzhi period, the officials ruled the Qingming Dynasty and the world was peaceful.

Even in these years, the eunuchs in Yunnan dared to come to China, appointing gangsters and shabby military households, occupying fields, mountains and ponds, and wantonly exploiting the local Tusi and the people.

In twenty or thirty years, all the toasts near Fengxi were harmed, and only a few toasts were willing to inherit the position, and the other toasts were all unbearable and fled. The population of the people around the city has decreased by more than eighty percent; Two or three hundred miles around the city, the local population has decreased by more than sixty percent. In the last years of Zhengde, the local eunuchs made it like the end of the world, and the Tusi and the local people were all opposed, and even attracted the invasion of the barbarians.

Master Shen said: "I heard that Ling Zun fled from the avant-garde in Guizhou, and your family's land may have also been encroached upon by the eunuchs. ”

"Ugh." Wang Yuan sighed helplessly.

This Guizhou has rotted to the roots, the Tusi exploited the people, the generals exploited the military households, and the eunuchs exploited the Tusi, the generals, the people and the military households.

Speaking of which, it is still the eunuch who is the most awesome.

"Don't talk about that," Master Shen said, "I won't see you for a few days, I'll test your homework." ”

Wang Yuan said: "I took a casual look at "Hundred Family Names", and I have completely mastered "Thousand Character Text", and I also consulted Liao Fuzi about the allusions in the text. ”

"Then let's learn the Little Four Books," Master Shen asked, "Do you know why it's called Little Four Books?" ”

Wang Yuan said: "Is it because it is very important? ”

Master Shen said: "All the contents of the imperial examination, most of the Confucian classics, are based on the "Little Four Books" as the outline. If you can learn the "Little Four Books" well, you will get twice the result with half the effort in the future, and you must not despise it because it is a Mongolian book. ”

"The student understood." Wang Yuan actually didn't understand.

But if he really opened the "Little Four Books" and quickly browsed its contents, combined with modern educational theories, Wang Yuan instantly understood it more thoroughly than Master Shen. "Little Four Books" is the collective name of the four books -

"The Quest for Famous Things" introduces natural knowledge, social conditions and ethical knowledge, and mainly cultivates children's cosmology, world view and ethical outlook.

The "Character Training" is based on theoretical knowledge, and mainly cultivates children's cosmology, values and moral values.

The two books, "Summary of Historiography" and "Mengqiu in the Past Dynasties", which you can understand as "Five Thousand Years Up and Down (Ming Dynasty Edition)", mainly cultivate children's historical outlook and values.

As long as you honestly finish studying the "Little Four Books", you will already have the basic literacy of ancient readers, and it will be easier to understand and master the Four Books and Five Classics. This thing has a role in the outline of Confucianism's entire learning career.

It's a pity that most of the Confucian scholars in the Ming Dynasty failed to really master the "Little Four Books", and only held the "Zhu Ziji Annotations" and reference materials by rote memorization!

Putting down the "Little Four Books", Wang Yuan said: "Sir, I have been practicing calligraphy for the past few days, and I have a doubt in my heart. ”

"What doubts?" Master Shen said.

"In addition to Ouyang Xun's copybook, I also borrowed a copy of Song Huizong's copybook from Song Gongzi's study. Why did Song Huizong use 'nothing' when he wrote the word 'nothing'? Wang Yuan wrote these two words on the paper.

Master Shen immediately laughed: "It's just the difference between the normal body and the vulgar body, you don't have to care too much, you can write whatever you want." But during the scientific examination, you had better be able to write in orthographic characters, for fear of encountering that kind of pedantic grader. ”

"Isn't there a rule on orthodoxy and vulgarity in the imperial examination?" Wang Yuan asked.

"Of course not." Master Shen said.

The simplification of Chinese characters began in the pre-Qin era and reached a peak in the Song Dynasty.

Take the word "nothing" as an example, in the Liao and Song dynasties, whether it was the emperor and the hundred officials, or the peddlers and pawns, they were more accustomed to using the trouble-free writing method of "nothing".

There are all kinds of "nothing" in Song Huizong's hand-me-down works, and it is rare to have a "nothing" once in a while.

In the Buddhist scriptures of the Liao Dynasty, there is "the Buddha of the South without Pollution", and the body and the secular body are mixed together and used continuously, only because the name of the Buddha must be used in the body to appear pious and solemn.

In the Ming Dynasty, due to the reason of the eight-strand text, it was difficult for Confucianism to write articles to play tricks, so he pursued retro in the use of words. He began to abandon a large number of commonly used vulgar characters in favor of complex orthographic characters to show that he was knowledgeable.

This is a regressive phenomenon in the evolution of Chinese characters!

Even if it went backwards, the Ming Dynasty did not make it mandatory.

The use of orthographic characters in the imperial examination is a metaphysical plus, but in fact, the examiner doesn't care at all. And if you use vulgar characters, it is a potential minus, and you will be unhappy when you encounter pedantic examiners.

One day, Wang Yuan's brain suddenly twitched, and he accidentally used the word "none" in the examination room, generally speaking, there was no problem.

There are hard requirements for orthographic characters, so you have to wait until the Kangxi Dynasty. At that time, you can write any article, once you use vulgar words, it is equivalent to handing in a blank volume.

The content of the Mongolian textbook is very simple for Wang Yuan, but he still studies it very seriously, mainly to figure out this common sense problem.

Especially the correct use of traditional and simplified characters!

For example, in modern Chinese characters, the traditional characters for "li" are "裏" and "里". In ancient times, traditional Chinese characters (裏面,那裡) were used only to express the relationship between directions, and "li" (鄉里, ten miles of land) was used directly at other times.

Once Wang Yuan wrote the wrong combination of "鄉裏", it was worse than using vulgar characters.

"Hey, Wang Yuan, come out to fight!"

Wang Yuan and Master Shen were discussing and studying, and Song Ling'er suddenly shouted outside.