When it was first established, it was only a school for learning English, French, and Russian foreign languages. However www.biquge.info with the advancement of the self-improvement movement, Prince Gong, Wen Xiang, Zeng Guofan, Li Hongzhang and others began to realize that if they want to effectively achieve the "master of the long skills" and create foreign guns and cannons, they must learn the principles of manufacturing, and to learn the principles of manufacturing, China's traditional education with economic and historical education as the main body is obviously unable to meet the needs of talents.

At that time, Feng Guifen, a famous Western-style thinker, believed that "all Western learning is learned from arithmetic." This view may seem inaccurate, but it makes the point -- in order to learn Western science and technology, it is necessary to first train intellectuals with basic knowledge of natural sciences such as arithmetic, physics, and chemistry, and it is not enough to learn foreign languages.

In this context, Prince Gong, Zeng Guofan, Li Hongzhang, Zuo Zongtang and others formally requested the imperial court to set up an astronomical and arithmetic hall in the Jingshi Tongwen Museum at the end of 1866, for a very clear reason - "foreigners make machines, firearms and other parts, as well as ships and marches, all of which come from astronomical arithmetic."

It should be said that Prince Gong Wenxiang and others had been mentally prepared in advance for the possible resistance to this move. In the recital, Prince Gong gave the court a preventive shot in advance: "If the commentators do not pay attention, there must be those who regard the actions of ministers and others as a matter of urgency, there must be those who abandon the Chinese law and follow the Westerners as wrong, and even those who think that the Chinese people learn from the French and the Westerners are deeply shameful, all of whom do not know the current affairs." It is advisable for China to seek self-improvement, and it is urgent to do so today, and those who know the times must take Western learning and foreign ware as the way of self-improvement. ”

The petition was approved by the top leadership of the Qing court, which was controlled by Cixi. While the Astronomical Arithmetic Museum has successfully entered the preparatory stage, an undercurrent of resistance and opposition is also quietly converging. On March 5, 1867, Zhang Shengzao, who supervised the imperial history, finally detonated this great controversy.

Zhang Shengzao accused in the recital: The imperial court ordered the "righteous people" from Kejia to learn these clever things, and also tempted them with promotions and silver rewards, which is to value fame and fortune and ignore morality! In this way, the "right people" who "read the books of Confucius and Mencius and learn the way of Yao Shun" will lead astray.

Under the operation of Prince Gong and others, Zhang Shengzao's performance was sternly rejected by the emperor's edict. The edict said that astronomical arithmetic is a knowledge that Confucians should learn, and it should not be regarded as "ingenuity"!

Seeing that Zhang Shengzao was beaten down by the Westernists, the leader of the late Qing Dynasty Shilin and the university scholar Wuren couldn't wait to appear in person and launched two rounds of fierce debate with Prince Gong.

He was a well-known physicist and enjoyed high prestige among the scholars of his time. In the early years of Tongzhi, Wu Ren and Li Tangjie and Wu Tingdong were collectively called the "three sages of the sea", when the dispute with the Wenguan occurred, Li Tangjie had died, Wu Tingdong had already returned to his hometown, and Wu Ren was the emperor, independent of the capital, and his status was more respectful. On March 20th, Wu Ren played and bluntly opposed the scholars from the imperial examination to learn from the "Yi people", thinking that this would "shake the country's foundation", and finally "change the summer to Yi", and the **** glorious cultural Taoism will be replaced by the crude barbarian learning, and there is a "risk of losing the country"!

This time, the imperial court could not rebuke the matter to Wuren as it did with Zhang Shengzao. Because the influence of the two palaces could not be ignored, on the day of the performance, the empress dowager of the two palaces immediately summoned the widow, but the conversation was quite unpleasant and no consensus could be reached. Because the topic of "Yixia Change" proposed by Uren is too big. Subsequently, the question was thrown to Prince Gong and Prime Minister Yamen.

Obviously, on April 6, the Prime Minister's Yamen made a long twist and turn, reiterating the importance of opening the Astronomical Arithmetic Museum and the necessity of recruiting scholars to the Astronomical Arithmetic Museum. The most crucial technical handling in the twists and turns is to avoid talking about the "change of summer to the past" that Wu Ren has repeatedly emphasized, but to talk about the depth of the crisis and the urgency of "self-improvement." In order to put pressure on Uren, a large number of foreign ministers such as Zeng Guofan, Zuo Zongtang, and Li Hongzhang were also attached. In the end, Prince Gong also sent the first army of Wuren: since the scholar thinks that our move is not feasible and will destroy the country, I think there must be another good way to strengthen the country. If the scholar has another good plan to suppress a foreign country and prevent his own country from being bullied, the minister should follow the scholar and do his best to serve and do his business. If there is no other good policy, just talk about loyalty and etiquette, thinking that these can subdue foreigners, and the ministers really can't believe it.

On April 12, Uren played again, not only insisting on his own opinion, but also opposing the army of Prince Gong and others. Wu Ren said: "As for the matter of letting the Yi people teach arithmetic, if the minister of the king is really sure that he will be able to master arithmetic and build exquisite machines, the serious scholars of China will not be used by the Yi people; If the ugly people will be annihilated by China, then report to the king and extend the anger of the people, isn't it good! If you can't do this, but you lose people's morality first, then it is better not to open an astronomical arithmetic museum. ”

This run on Uren did touch Prince Gong's weakness. On April 23, Prince Gong admitted that he could not make the above guarantees. Prince Gong said: "The kind of certainty that the ministers did not dare to guarantee as the one said by the Wo Ren. The ministers can only try their best to do what they should do and what they can do, as for the success or failure, even if they are Hanchen Zhuge Liang, they can't predict it, let alone the ministers! ”

But as a counterattack, Prince Gong seized on a weakness in the last time and concentrated his attack. Prince Gong said: "Last time, the scholar said that the world is so big that there is no lack of talent, and if you want to learn arithmetic, you don't have to learn from Yiren. Then the university scholar will definitely be able to sponsor several talents, and the minister will choose another place to set up an arithmetic hall, and the Uren will be responsible for recruiting teachers and professors to see the results. ”

Wu Ren was indeed stumped at this time. On April 25, he had to play the truth, saying that "there is no one who is good at astronomy and arithmetic, and he does not dare to protect it." However, the imperial court was obviously a little unrelenting, and issued an edict requiring him to pay attention to the investigation anytime and anywhere, and once he found someone who was proficient in arithmetic in his country, he immediately guaranteed the performance and opened an arithmetic hall to achieve practical results. On the same day, the imperial court also gave Uren a new job: walking in the prime minister's yamen for national affairs. "Walking" is an idle official, but Wuren has always advocated "Yixia defense", and the imperial court ordered him to go to the prime minister's yamen, which specializes in razing affairs, to "walk", obviously with the intention of humiliating this Shilin leader. In the end, he deliberately fell off his horse when he went out, refusing to go to work at the Prime Minister's Yamen, citing his injury and illness. This is the end of the head-on conflict of this high-level struggle that lasted for half a year.

After the fall of the Wo Hito, the controversy was far from over. There were many supporters of the Waren lineage, and the imperial court received one after another attacks on the opening of the arithmetic hall. Some of the rhetoric was very intense, such as Zhong Peixian, a scholar in the cabinet, who used the drought of that year as an excuse to criticize this as the result of the imperial court's deliberate embarrassment; Yang Tingxi, the candidate for the governor of Zhili Prefecture, attributed the reason for the long drought and no rain to the fact that the imperial court opened an arithmetic hall, and even expanded to the criticism of the Tongwenguan, saying that the name of the Tongwenguan was the name of the prison where the traitor Cai Jing of the Song Dynasty framed Zhongliang, and suggested that the arithmetic hall should be abolished together with the Wenguan, so as to prevent the germination of disasters, correct customs and education, bridge the changes in the sky, and conform to the people's hearts.

Yang Tingxi's performance was reprimanded by the imperial court's edict. The edict also blamed the sick Woren as the mastermind behind Yang Tingxi, and demanded that Woren go to work at the Prime Minister's Yamen as soon as he recovered from his illness. When he took sick leave again, the imperial court took advantage of the situation to deprive him of the authority to be the head of the Hanlin Academy and to manage the affairs of the household department.

On the surface, in this Tongbunkan turmoil, the imperial court and Prince Gong stood together, and used administrative means to suppress the opinions of the Wajin family, won the victory, and the astronomical arithmetic hall was also established. But this kind of "victory" is actually very bleak, and it can't even be called a "victory" at all, but can be described by the word "fiasco"!

The reason for this is that due to the halfway kill of Wu Ren, there has been a serious pressure from public opinion, resulting in the astronomical arithmetic hall almost not recruiting any "righteous people" from the imperial examination. For the first enrollment, "there are very few applicants on the right path", Prince Gong and others had no choice but to compile the miscellaneous people who were not from the imperial examination, and only 98 people were obtained. At the time of the exam, another 26 people were absent. In the end, 30 students were reluctantly admitted, and half a year later, another 20 "ineffective students" were eliminated in the regular examination, and in the end, only 10 people remained, and they had to merge with the students of the Foreign Language Museum. Only half a year after its opening, the Astronomical Arithmetic Museum existed in name only. Because the most important reason for the Uren to take the lead in opposing the "righteous people" from the Kejia to learn arithmetic from the "Yi people" was that they were worried that these Kejia scholars, the mainstay of the ******** of the Qing Empire, would be lured and assimilated by the cunning "Yi people", and then damage the so-called "foundation of the state"; As a result, those "Cao Lang of the Dictionary Museum" who were born in Kejia were ashamed of learning arithmetic, and "no one was willing to enter the museum", which can be seen from the insistence of intellectuals on traditional ******** at that time.

The Tongwenguan turmoil clearly shows that in China in the sixties of the 19th century, mainstream intellectuals still stubbornly clinged to tradition and refused to change anything.

Although he was brutally suppressed by the imperial power, he was "in a state of prestige", and his prestige among the scholars was higher than before. The scholars and doctors of the Beijing Division made up all kinds of jokes and rumors to support the Woren, such as posting a "big-character poster" in front of the Tongwen Pavilion: "Messing around, teaching people to follow Catholicism"; He also ridiculed the name of the Tongwen Museum: "If you don't say the same, Sven will be mourned!"

The scholars who are far away from the capital are also strong supporters of the Japanese people. The famous historian Li Ciming was worried in his hometown, and when he read the controversy over the Tongwenguan published in the newspaper, he sighed with emotion, saying that the establishment of the Tongwenguan by the imperial court was "a Confucian scholar of China who is an ugly student", and no one who has a little will be willing to go to school. Now that some people go to learn, it shows that this world is already "full of etiquette and righteousness, and scholars are despicable", sighing that humanity is lost, and the family and country are worried!