In front of the gate of Yenching University on Chengxian Street, Niu Jinxing was waiting for the emperor with a group of young students, although there were more than a dozen professors and officials of the university waiting in front of him, but Niu Jinxing did not come forward to get close to them.

Although he first entered Yenching University, he still wanted to get along well with the officials and professors who managed the university, so as to lay some foundation for his future career.

However, when he and Xia Yunyi began to form a youth society together and came into contact with the emperor, he gave up that shallow idea and focused entirely on the establishment of the youth society.

Unlike Xia Yunyi, who is full of idealism, Niu Jinxing, who experienced hardships when he was young, is more familiar with the world's human feelings. From the emperor's concern for the Youth Society, he soon realized that the Youth Society might be a more effective shortcut to the end of the country for him.

What's even more gratifying is that in the early days of the Youth Society, Xia Yunyi actually left this matter behind and went to Shaanxi to inspect the actions of the officials and soldiers in the quelling of the chaos. This gave Niu Jinxing a chance to show his ability in front of the emperor, which made him especially elated.

Although he is far less prestigious than Xia Yunyi among young scholars, with his ability to deal with people and things honed since childhood, and his histological research on professors in universities, he has gradually been recognized by the scholars who participated in the Youth Society, and has become the core figure behind Xia Yunyi in the Youth Society.

Nearly half a year after the establishment of the Youth Society, Niu Jinxing finally organized a group of young scholars into a relatively tight organization according to Chongzhen's intentions, rather than in loose literati societies such as Donglin and Fushe.

Regardless of whether it is the Donglin Party or the Fusha, although they have put forward their own political ideas, they have not formed a strict organizational group within the group, and there are no rules and regulations that bind members. If you want to join such a club, as long as the members of the club are introduced, most people do not oppose it.

Such a club is full of literati habits, everyone sits down to drink and feast, and chats happily, and then inexplicably joins the club. After two days, because of a disagreement with a member of the club, I may quit the club after a fight. There are also some opportunists, looking at the members of the club who are either rich or expensive, thinking of joining the club to pull a relationship, and sharpening their heads to enter the club. Of course, when the society was suppressed by the imperial court, these people were busy withdrawing.

Therefore, whether it is Donglin or Fushe, the founders of the society may have certain ambitions when they first formed the society, but after the expansion of the scale of the association, although the influence of the association has increased, the members of the society are mixed, and the political concept pursued when the society was founded often becomes a slogan, and the community has become a tool used by some people to fight for power and profit, or an umbrella used to shelter some people from doing wrong.

At the beginning, the emperor proposed to set up a youth society to guide the young scholars of the Ming Dynasty to embark on the right path of struggle for national construction, and not to become a tool used by some scholar groups to fight for the party.

For the readers of this era, they are in an extremely delicate time. The development of the commodity economy in the Ming Dynasty brought about the rise of citizen culture and hedonism. Therefore, even the Donglin Party doctors who keep saying that they want to ask for the people's lives are extremely dissolute in their personal lives.

For example, Yuan Hongdao said: The world has special habits, and it is not easy for life, and it is a celebrity. It is because the literati and celebrities of this era are crazy and uninhibited, and the playthings are cynical and elegant. They are good food, good women, good men, good houses, good playthings, and they don't seem to have any unusual habits, which is not enough to make them stand out.

However, in the same era, the mainstream values of society still respect Cheng Zhu Lixue, which emerged in the Song Dynasty, hoping to continue to maintain the operation of traditional society. The conservative concept of academic thought and the liberalization of pleasure in personal behavior have made the scholars of the Ming Dynasty a complex collection of contradictions.

For example, the gentlemen of the Restoration Society, who claim to respect the retro scriptures, do not mind letting the beautiful prostitutes serve them at the same time when they hold a conference to discuss how to save the fortunes of the Ming Dynasty. They complained that the court had levied on the people, which led to the separation of the people's wives, but it still did not prevent them from being picky about the food and wine at the eleven tables.

It is precisely because these young scholars grew up in such a social environment that they are all interested in participating in the Youth Society, and they want to follow a scholar leader like Xia Yunyi to do something for the country. But they were disgusted by the fact that the youth learned to restrain and assign work to their members, which made them feel that they had lost their freedom.

In the hearts of most young scholars, the opinion of the gentleman's friendship is still in: if you agree, you will come, and if you don't, you will go. Such an ideal state. They do not believe that the youth society that they have voluntarily joined has the power to restrain their behavior. Therefore, when the Youth Society was formed, most of the members of the Society were opposed to a number of issues concerning how to establish an organization and establish a constitution to bind its members.

The opposition of these members of the society was so great that even Xia Yunyi wavered for a while. However, as he left the capital, Niu Jinxing took his place to preside over the daily affairs of the Youth Society, and Niu Jinxing, who was strongly supported by the emperor, finally pulled most of the members of the Youth Society in the capital to his side through differentiation and interest lure, and forced several scholars with the most opposition to withdraw from the association, which can be regarded as truly controlling the internal situation of the Youth Society.

By the end of August, the members of the Daming Youth Society had grown to more than 1,200 people, and the number of members of the society in the capital alone had reached more than 600, and the number of members of the society north of the Yangtze River had accounted for ninety percent of all members. Moreover, most of the most outstanding young men from the northern provinces were absorbed into the society.

At a time when the reputation of the Southern Restoration Society was greatly damaged because of the Nanjing scientific research case, the Daming Youth Society has become the most prestigious literati society in the Daming Shilin. For the first time in recent decades, the prestige of the northern scholar community has surpassed that of the southern scholarly group. Although the gentry in the north did not approve of the political ideas of the Youth Society, they were quite emotionally close to the Youth Society because of their geographical connections. Out of practical political interests, it was easier for the northern gentry to get ahead in the youth society, which made many northern gentry families who were originally attached to the southern gentry begin to turn.

In addition to the continuous rise of the status of the Youth Society, Niu Jinxing, as the core figure of the Society, naturally became a little self-conscious, and was no longer willing to have a relationship with the university officials who had no future in his eyes. And what Niu Jinxing hopes most now is that Xia Yunyi simply stays in Shaanxi and doesn't come back, so that he can take the opportunity to gain Chongzhen's approval, so as to completely replace Xia Yunyi's position in the society.

Just when Niu Jinxing's mind was hot, Chongzhen's car finally appeared on Chengxian Street. Zhu Youzhen in the carriage looked at the scenery on the street through the car window, and after nearly a year of renovation, this Chengxian Street is no longer what it used to be. Not only has the width of the street been doubled, but even the ground has been hardened with cement, and there is no dust left where the wheels pass except for the sound of the wheels.

Of course, the biggest change is the houses on both sides of the street. After Guozijian was changed to Yenching University, the number of students grew from hundreds to thousands. As the number of these students increases, there are also many storefronts on both sides of the street, from food and beverage to bookstores, all of which serve the students of Yenching University, which can be regarded as bringing a lot of benefits to the residents of this street.

Chongzhen came to Yenching University today mainly to attend the inauguration ceremony of the university's new campus. Before Guozijian changed its name, although there were more than 20,000 square meters, there was still a part of the Confucian Temple, so the place seemed very cramped. Previously, there were not many inmates studying in Guozi Prison, and there was no need to arrange a sports field, which was enough for these inmates.

However, with the continuous increase in the number of students enrolled after the reform of Yenching University, the original Guozijian place is not enough. At the suggestion of some officials, the vacant land behind and east of Yenching University was enclosed for the university, and after some of the residential buildings were demolished, the area of Yenching University expanded from more than 20,000 square meters to nearly 100,000 square meters.

Today is the inauguration ceremony of the first phase of the renovation project of the new campus, and Zhu Youzhen personally came to attend it, which is also to show that he attaches great importance to Yenching University. Of course, he didn't just come to attend the inauguration ceremony.

Since Yenching University has gradually become a gathering place for the elite of scholars in the north, ensuring that Yenching teachers and students are inclined to new learning and reform is to ensure that Ming reformist officials can continue to gain new blood. Of course, Yenching University has now become a base for reform. There is no reason for college students who specialize in new studies to support the imperial examination system, which uses scriptures as the content of the examination, which undoubtedly blocks their way to progress.

What's more, because of Chongzhen's connivance, the teachers of Yenching University, except for Xu Guangqi and Sun Yuanhua, who are scholars who study new studies, most of the remaining teachers belong to the Taizhou school scholars who were suppressed by Cheng Zhu Lixue, especially Yan Shannong and He Xinyin.

Although the Taizhou School came from Wang Yangming's disciples, its theories have a fairly strong sense of industry and commerce and the concept of common people, requiring the emancipation of individuality and freedom of thought, affirming the legitimacy of selfish desires, and encouraging the management of property and prosperity.

For example, Li Zhen advocated: the strong and the weak will return, and if they do not return, they will be merged; The outnumbered are attached, and if they are not attached, they will swallow it, and this heavenly way is also, although how can a saint violate the heavens, this kind of deviant proposition will naturally not be liked by Taoists, so it has been suppressed by the mainstream of society.

But for Chongzhen, these words are quite ear-catching. If these words are translated into the vernacular, it is not as: natural selection, survival of the fittest; The way of the world will advance, and the future will be better than the present. ?

For a soul from the 21st century, Darwin's theory of evolution has long been engraved in the depths of his soul, indelible. The scholars of the Taizhou School, who had been good friends with Xu Guangqi and other scholars, immediately developed vigorously in Yenching University with the support of the emperor.

The scholars of the Taizhou School, who had been brutally suppressed, finally woke up, abandoned some of the views on the doctrine of no monarch and obedience in their own doctrine, and focused the object of struggle on Cheng Zhu Lixue.

By the third year of Chongzhen, the Taizhou school had gradually integrated with the new school and became the main academic supporter of the Ming reform policy. Zhu Youzhen, who got out of the carriage, talked a few words with the teachers and students who greeted him at the door, and then asked them to take him to the new campus for inspection.