"Actually, I took these words from the calligraphy of the sages of the past, and I didn't make them myself." Cheng Chubi said with a smile.

"Some great calligraphers have these words in their calligraphy, and I think it's easier to write, so I used them to write."

Many people think that simplified Chinese characters were created by later generations, but they are not.

Simplified Chinese characters are constantly evolving in ancient times, in the course of history, and are not artificially fabricated out of thin air.

Early Chinese characters were hieroglyphs developed from pictorial scripts, so the degree of detail with which objects were depicted varied, and in oracle bone inscriptions, some characters were both simplified and complex.

Since Chinese characters are composed of sideways, phonetic sides and symbols, the angle of the side is different from person to person, and the phonetic side is different from the letters in pinyin characters, so the phenomenon of polymorphism abounds in the history of Chinese characters.

Lishu is a simplification of seal script, Xingshu and cursive script are simplifications of Lishu, and simplified Chinese characters are the simplification of regular script.

Yan Yuansun's "Ganlu Character Book" contains a character book of the Tang Dynasty vulgar characters, including most of the simplified characters.

In later generations, there were more simplified characters.

During the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, in order to improve the literacy rate of the people in the ruling area, the jade seals and official documents of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom were written in simplified Chinese.

According to unofficial statistics, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom used more than 100 simplified Chinese characters in total.

Thinking of these, Cheng Chubi's eyes couldn't help but light up!

Isn't he trying to improve the literacy rate of the people of Datang? Why not promote simplified Chinese characters?

You know, writing in traditional Chinese is not only tedious, but also time-consuming, and more importantly, difficult to remember.

You know, some traditional Chinese fonts have more than a dozen or twenty strokes.

If it were simplified, it would be different, it was simpler and easier to remember!

"I'm such a genius, I'm really a genius, hahaha......" Suddenly, Cheng Chubi laughed.

Just do what you say.

Next.

Cheng Chubi invited Kong Yingda, Du Ruhui, Wei Zheng, Li Jing and other cabinet scholars and cabinet ministers to enter the palace.

The eldest grandson Wuji has resigned and left Datang, just a month ago, he left Datang and went to Taiwan.

I have to go, because the eldest grandson Chong has added a few more sons, and the eldest grandson has become a father again, and the other sons have also become fathers.

This eldest grandson Wuji suddenly has a few more grandchildren, how can he, who is a grandfather, not go?

In the end, I made up my mind to leave Datang and go to Taiwan.

I haven't seen each other for a few months, and this group of cabinets has become a lot older, and even Wei Zheng has become like an old man in his sixties and seventies.

Fortunately, they no longer have the same painstaking efforts for national affairs as before, with the existence of Cheng Chubi, they are simply like hanging up, so they have also lived a long life.

In history, most of these people died quickly because they were too tired, and for the prosperity of the Tang Dynasty, they wore the stars and the moon and worked hard.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I have invited you here today to discuss a matter with you great sages." Cheng Chubi said with a slight smile, with a hint of mystery on his face.

"Oh? I don't know what Your Highness is going to do? Kong Yingda asked with a slight smile, Kong Yingda was still very proud of his disciple.

"The teacher asked well, I invited the teacher and others to come this time, just to discuss one thing with the teachers, how to make the people of Datang able to understand words." Cheng Chubi smiled slightly and said, "Of course, it is impossible for everyone to be a scholar, everyone is a scholar, but it is still very important to know simple words and learn to write your own name." ”

"So, I thought about it and thought that if I wanted to improve the knowledge rate, in addition to building various academies, I would have to reform the writing language, so I wanted to carry out this writing reform." Cheng Chubi said.

"No, no." Wei Zheng stood up, shook his head, and said, "Your Highness, the writing of our Han people is in the same lineage, how can it be changed indiscriminately?" ”

"Yes, if it is changed indiscriminately, then our culture will become unrecognizable, it is unavoidable, this is a mess of the country, absolutely not feasible." Kong Yingda was taken aback, and quickly stood up and said.

Kong Yingda, as a great Confucian, naturally knows those simplified characters, although he doesn't know all of them, but he also knows seven, seven, eight, eight.

In the Datang dictionary, there are more or less simplified characters.

It's just not popular.

"Your Highness, you are good for the hearts of the people, but culture is the inheritance of Chinese civilization, how can it be changed indiscriminately?"

"We are Han people, the blood of the Han Dynasty, the blood of China, if there are no Chinese characters, wouldn't we become the barbarians of that state?"

“……”

The crowd hastened to oppose it.

The reason why Huaxia is Huaxia is because our writing is in the same line, even if it is another thousand years, we can understand what is written in the book.

In the whole world, only Chinese culture can be understood smoothly.

Therefore, Cheng Chubi raised this question, which was naturally blocked.

"Ladies and gentlemen, you are mistaken, I don't want to abolish the text we use now, I just want to add some text." Cheng Chubi smiled and put a comparison table of traditional and simplified Chinese characters that he had just made last night, and said, "I mean to popularize these relatively simple words in Datang." ”

"Ordinary people don't have much culture in the first place, so wouldn't it be difficult for them to memorize these complex characters? If these simplified characters can spread in Datang, then the literacy rate of our people in Datang will be greatly improved......" Cheng Chubi said endlessly.

In order to be able to convince these bigwigs, Cheng Chubi thought about it all night.

A few big guys are not easy to fool.

"This method is feasible, but what about these orthography in the future?" Kong Yingda couldn't help asking: "Do you have to use these new words in the imperial examination?" ”

"No, no, no, these new words are not used in the imperial examination." Cheng said: "In all formal occasions, it is better to use traditional characters, which are used to improve the literacy rate of ordinary people. ”

It has to be said that in this era, it is estimated that 99.999 out of 100 ordinary people are illiterate.

People who can recognize dozens of words are already within the scope of readers.

"So, yes." Kong Yingda nodded with satisfaction.

Cheng Chubi finally breathed a sigh of relief.

Is it not used now, but what about later?

Let's just let traditional Chinese and simplified Chinese characters prevail together.

A faint smile appeared at the corner of Cheng Chubi's mouth.

Next, it's time for printing.

This comparison table needs to be printed a lot.

(End of chapter)