The sun is setting, and the sunset is like fire. 》

The moment he walked out of Weiyang Palace, facing the cool wind at the end of summer, Dong Zhong let out a long breath, only to realize that his clothes were wet with sweat.

Lecturing to the emperor every day was like punishing himself, and the eyes of the Son of Heaven were so powerful that they seemed to pierce his heart and see every inch of thought in his mind.

Not to be the smartest and most promising emperor since the founding of Taizu, the Son of Heaven's interpretation of the Confucian classics is completely out of the academic category, but from a higher level of rulers to look at, Confucianism is a kind of statecraft, it can be called Legalism, Taoism or so-and-so, for the emperor this is meaningless, what really arouses interest is the service effect of the imperial rule.

Fortunately, the effect of Confucianism is not bad, and it has been initially recognized through the emperor's multiple scrutiny, and before stepping into Weiyang Palace today, he would never have thought that it would take two years to obtain only the simplest recognition after a thousand words.

That is to say, before today, the emperor did not recognize Confucianism at all, and even in today's court questioning process, it is full of all kinds of accusations and scrutiny, which contains a slow distrust.

"General Che Cai, Pingyang Hou Cao Shi is really powerful!"

Yuan Gusheng's carriage waited for a long time, and when he stepped into the carriage, he found that his friend was uneasy, and said strangely: "What is Your Majesty's evaluation of the Book of Rites?" ”

"Oh, Your Majesty said yes, keep up the good work."

Yuan Gusheng was disappointed: "Didn't you say anything else?" ”

"Recognize me, and also recognize our new Confucian learning."

"I probably know what you mean, it seems that what we are doing is not meaningless."

Yuan Gusheng sighed that since Kong Wu, the son of the Confucian family, put forward the initiative of new Confucian learning a few years ago. The fate of several of them was quietly bent, and Kong Wu returned to his hometown in Lu to persuade the Kong family. I don't know how many skills he used to convince the old stubbornness of the Kong family one by one, including Kong Zang, the Marquis of Tate, who once spared no effort to support Kong Anguo.

The makeover of the Kong family has brought great impact. The banner family of the most famous Confucian dogmatists turned their caliber to support Xinxue, and the Yan family and Zeng family, who were close to the Confucian family, also changed their caliber and supported it with one voice, and the Meng family has always been excluded from the circle, but this time they also expressed their support, and the remaining Confucian scholars did not understand the situation before they found out that the great Confucians of Qilu and Qi donated books and slips through various channels, handed them over to Kong Wu and sent them to the Marquis of Wei Qihou Mansion in Chang'an City.

"The Book of Rites is the first step we have taken, and it is too undignified to revise the Book of Rites and gather the commands of our predecessors, and it is too undignified to call it "Rites" or "Book of Rites".

Yuan Gusheng was influenced by Dong Zhongshu. In recent years, I also like to talk about the beauty of micro-words, the new Confucian school does not advocate dogmatism, which is very in line with the preferences of Confucian students in today's era, and Confucian students who have the ability are compiling books in the name of pretending to be sages, and it is easy to be falsified by peers if they are not good, but it is better to be honest and honest to admit that the books they have written, as long as they maintain the correct expression of Confucianism, they are not afraid of being falsified.

"In fact, what I am most concerned about is the process of recompiling the Analects, the original Analects has long been shattered because of the war at the end of the Qin Dynasty, and it was compiled by adopting the fragments of the Analects of Confucius, Zeng, Yan and Meng, and I don't know if the people of the world can accept this new Analects."

The Analects mentioned by Dong Zhongshu are not his editor-in-chief. The Analects matured into the early Warring States period, and after the influence of the great turmoil at the end of the Qin Dynasty, few historical classics have been handed down, and Kong Wu proposed that the important content of the new Confucian study is the interpretation and collation of the classics of the sages, although the new Analects will not increase the content of personal understanding. However, the integration of first-hand information also has great academic value, and its content is as broad and profound as smoke, and ordinary people need to specialize in at least a few years before they can be considered to have mastered the foundation. It takes decades of careful study to fully understand the book.

Originally, the Analects was an amazing ancient book, and the research value of the recompilation was also very great. The Confucian scholars of the Qilu and Qi factions had very high expectations for the new Analects, and the big families who had originally cherished the broom and did not plan to cooperate in writing the book immediately also voluntarily put down their bodies. Let the Analects come out two generations earlier.

"But we're still a step late."

Dong Zhongshu said distressedly: "General Che Cai's new book "Guanzi Collection Explanation" came out, explaining the important connotation of "Guanzi" in vernacular, the text is very simple and has no beauty at all, but you will understand that there is a feeling after reading that book......

"The power contained in the unaesthetic text allows more people to understand the content of "Guanzi", but it is more difficult to master it than classical Chinese."

"Well, I can't imagine a vernacular text without aesthetic sense, but it can be said that the words are cut down to the letter, and each sentence is concise and to the topic, although it lacks beauty, it is very shocking."

In a few words of classical Chinese, the whole paragraph is summarized, in order to save space, all the explanations before and after are ignored, and even some of the common sense issues of the book era are not repeated, resulting in many books that seem to be covered by clouds and mountains and fog to see the face clearly, Confucian classics are the culmination of this kind of problem, the Confucian Six Classics are known as the top 100 schools, whether it is Confucius completed independently with superhuman strength, or Confucius and the seventy-two sages collectively created, in short, Confucianism is very obscure.

In other words, even Confucian scholars themselves cannot understand Confucianism, and it is impossible to expect people who have no foundation to understand the esoteric and obscure Confucian classics, just like it is impossible to fish for the moon in water.

"Huang Laoxin has learned this "Pipe Collection Solution", it is not clear when we will be able to publish this "Spring and Autumn Collection Solution", we are too far behind Huang Laoxin to learn, if we don't catch up, there will be no more chance."

Yuan Gusheng glanced at him, his eyes flashing with worry: "I will find a way to start relevant research, and hope that we can promote the new Confucian school as soon as possible." ”

The wheels are rolling, and it is getting farther and farther away from the solemn Weiyang Palace.

Dong Zhongshu fell into deep thought: "Maybe it's my delusion, Pingyang Hou Cao Shi is an invincible opponent......"

Mesopotamia.

It is the first place where the fire of human civilization was nurtured.

The ancient cities dotted along the Tigris, Isin, Eshnuna, Lagash, Larsa, Uruk, and Akkadian, each of which has a history of 3,000 years. Then there was the younger Babylon, and Seleucia, the summer capital of the Parthian Empire.

Seleucia is a Hellenistic name. The Parthians loved this beautiful city, but hated purely Hellenistic names. So Seleucia was given a name that was more in line with the Persian civilization, Ctesiphon.

One of the twin capitals of the Parthian Empire, Ctesiphon was the epitome of the splendid civilization of the Two Rivers Valley, the beloved of the Greek conqueror Alexander of Macedon, and the economic center of the Parthian Empire, the self-proclaimed successor to the Achaemenid dynasty.

Zhang Qian raised his head, pulled down the veil to shield the strong wind and looked up at the ancient city, and dragged his tired steps to Ctesiphon.

"Please, please help us, this child hasn't eaten for two days, if only you will help my poor child. I'm willing to give everything. ”

At the gates of the city, the helpless woman cries bitterly with her poor skinny child, her man does not know whether he is alive or dead on the battlefield, and the woman who has lost the protection of the man is unable to support the burden of the family, and they need to find a more profitable life outside the farming, fishing, hunting, pottery, weaving, serving as a doctor for the army, and selling ** in exchange for a chance to survive.

The war continues, and there is no end to it, ever since Alexander died suddenly. This was followed by the outbreak of the Diadochi War, which was fought on and off for 150 years as a follow-up to the Diadochi War.

The people of this land have long forgotten the original purpose of the war, perhaps for justice or for whatever reason. The poor Parthians would often say, "it! It's good to live. ”

The greatness of Sumer, the splendor of Akkad, the splendor of Medes and Babylon. The indispensable lives of the Hittites and Assyria are in the past, in troubled times. Only living is the truth.

"I've heard it's worse in the west."

Sima Tan whispered in Chinese, and the Lianghe Valley was a shining pearl in the crown of human civilization in the past. After the collapse of the Seleucid Empire, the Parthian Emperor, a barbarian conqueror from the East, conquered large swathes of the Seleucid Empire with swords and bows, and even the Seleucid Emperor Demetrius II was taken prisoner.

The collapse of Seleucus was rapid, Parthia swallowed ten times the territory in twenty years, and there was serious indigestion within the Parthian Empire in the last ten years, and the rebellions and rebels in various places were in full swing.

After staying there for less than half a month, due to the impact of the war, he had to set off with a caravan to Ctesiphon, the newest capital of the Parthian Empire in the valley of the two rivers, because Ecbatana was on the edge of the Persian Gulf, and the nearby barbarians, domestic rebels, and Seleucid warlords who were caught in the civil war could lead the war there at any time.

In order to guard against unnecessary trouble, Zhang Qian divided the team into pieces and scattered them to various areas, and then quietly entered Ctesiphon through several city gates.

Zhang Qian stopped, turned his head and said, "Let's help him." ”

"You like this woman?" Sima Tan turned his head in confusion.

Zhang Qian nodded and shook his head, he was originally a very clumsy man, Lang Guan's colleagues basically have wives, even if they are not old enough to get married, they have fiancées, only he is always alone and has no worries.

Most of the women are willing to sacrifice themselves as long as they find a man who can feed them well, regardless of whether the man is over seventy years old or injured and disabled and inhumane.

They are very young and immature, but he doesn't like those dedicated women, because he knows that those women are just to survive, in order to live better, when he gives everything is not love, but just an invisible contract of interest exchange, he doesn't like this kind of contract to trade with the body, especially those women who are healthy and able-bodied, in order to climb stronger men stand in the most crowded places and scramble forward, like fireworks women soliciting business.

The woman in front of her is different.

She is very beautiful, her temperament is very special, her eyes contain maternal love and grief, she is wearing a simple linen robe, her beautiful face looks particularly haggard, tears are rolling in her beautiful brown eyes, she is holding a thin baby who has just been weaned for more than a year in her arms, the child's body is glowing with unhealthy red, and the fire of his life is dying, as if it may be extinguished at any time.

When she lowered her head and tears were pouring down her eyes and were about to despair, she found a pair of feet in sight: "Woman, are you willing to pay any price, as long as you save this child?" ”

"Yes, I am willing to serve you as your slave, as long as you save my child." The woman knelt down and looked over with tears in her eyes full of hope, and she was shocked to find that the man in front of her looked very special, with a flat face, black hair and black eyes, and looked at him quietly with a smile.

"There is a Zoroastrian church just around the corner, and let's witness the oath in front of Ahuramazda!"

The woman looked up in a panic and saw the man turn away, hundreds of burly men in different shapes in the distance carried long knives at their waists, and there seemed to be invisible weapons hidden under the cloaks, and the eyes were cold like knives piercing people's whole body, and the eyes seemed to be targeted by a hungry male lion, the lion was the most ferocious beast in the two river valleys.

She was scared, but the child in her arms let out a slight whimper, and she was even more afraid that her child would not see the sun tomorrow, so she gritted her teeth again and again and decided to follow.

The man smiled at her as if he had expected it, and stepped into the Zoroastrian church, where the ancient, mottled walls told of the city's suffering, and there were only a few small windows in the dark church, and the red flames lit every corner of the church, which was a makeshift shelter for the hungry and homeless, and there were sleeping or struggling people lying on the corner of the aisle, and two rough men carrying the stinking corpses out of the church, I don't know if they were starving or sick.

Hungry beggars rushed in with wide eyes and screaming with excitement, each corpse carried out meant that there was another empty seat waiting for them, and in the horrors of war, the safe refuge of survival was more important than gold.

"Ctesiphon, a hungry city."

The old priest was dressed in a linen robe, his emaciated cheeks sunken under his bald head, his snow-white stubble was like a mess of grass, and his cloudy eyes swept over the visitor: "Stranger from the east, what can I do to help you?" ”

"Witness the oath that this woman trades her body for the life of her child, that a fair deal is never against her will, and that Ahura Mazda will bless the good."

Zhang Qian respectfully handed over the softest lamb parchment, and wrote down the oath of both parties in a dozen lines of Persian on the dark blue ink toned by natural ore, and the old priest stared at him and then swept the parchment with only a few breaths: "Ahura Mazda protects the good Orientals, your oath is not deceitful and false, you are an honest and trustworthy person, I need 20 minna." ”

"So expensive?"

A trace of embarrassment appeared on the old priest's face: "I'm sorry Orientals, the church is running out of food, our faculty members can go around hungry and pray for food, but the poor people in the church have no ability to beg for food, most of them have not eaten for three days, and in two days they will die of hunger and cold, I must help them." (To be continued, please search, the novel is better and faster!)

ps: 4000 words in a chapter, there will be a big chapter in the evening, to compensate for the late one yesterday.