As soon as Wang went to school, he listened to the teacher in history class all the time saying that learning from the middle school is the body and learning from the West is for use. At that time, it was a bit inexplicable, and I couldn't figure out what the relationship between the two was. In his understanding, the two are completely incompatible.

The so-called middle school is of course easy to understand, and in the Qing Dynasty, it is naturally the classic theory of Confucianism that cultivates oneself and cultivates one's family, governing the country and leveling the world. If you exclude the achievements in poetry and poetry...... In fact, from Wang Yi's own point of view, literature really has little to do with Confucianism itself. It's more about the benefits of reading and literacy. It is only in all dynasties that scholars are Confucian scholars, so people have the illusion that poets are all Confucian disciples. Otherwise, where there is no Confucianism in the West, there should be no literature, which is obviously a very ridiculous thing. So what is Confucianism?

The answer is a bit hurtful, that is, the method of life established by the feudal ruling class under the conditions of an agrarian society, which is used to maintain the stability of the imperial rule and society, that is, the philosophy of autocracy.

And what is Western Studies?

Wang didn't understand it when he was in school. However, when he returned to the Qing Dynasty, he had a general understanding of Zhang Zhidong's nonsense. To put it simply, in the eyes of Lao Zhang, or the enlightened officials of the Qing Dynasty, Western learning is the industrial development of making foreign guns, foreign guns, foreign ships, and foreign fires. In a certain sense, it is the development of the strange * obscene tricks that are despised by Confucian officials.

Historically, the two have been mutually exclusive. Pulling these two together is a joke in itself. What a strange spectacle it would be for a traditional Chinese bureaucrat to build a factory and lead a modern army.

Zhang Zhidong's group of Confucian elm heads obviously looked down on Confucianism and underestimated Western studies.

Compared with Confucianism, Western studies are fundamentally a whole world, from capitalism to Marxism, from heliocentrism to geographical discoveries, from macro physics to micro physics, from individual traders to multinational corporations. Systematization of mathematics, geometry, physics, chemistry, medicine, history, geography, art, music, philosophy, these are the most important characteristics of Western education that are completely different from Eastern Confucianism.

The emancipation of the West from religious conservative forces has led to the flourishing of various doctrines, which is reflected in the continuous improvement of the government, legal system, medical system, and social security system. Compared with the repressive environment of Confucianism, which has a solipsistic momentum, Western society has more of the color of emancipating human nature, limited freedom and democracy, so that the people have the right to choose their jobs, talents can be circulated, and wealth can be circulated. Leaders led the way to new industries, and the rise of a new working class changed the face of the countryside and towns. While the land of China was suppressed by Confucianism, the West made slow but solid progress in agriculture, industry, finance, and services. Our backwardness began when the Europeans bravely broke into the sea, and until Wang Yi crossed back, he only returned to the slightly awkward position of being the second in the world.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, only one country in East Asia succeeded in its emergence, and that was Japan. And their national policy is very simple, that is, to break away from Asia and join Europe, and completely Westernize. And when the time turned to the establishment of the New Celestial Empire, we actually followed the same path as the Japanese. The difference is that we were communist first, and then became a mixture of socialism and capitalism, while neon is the capitalist road. Of course, it's not quite right to say that we are completely Westernized, but compared to our ancestors, we are actually serious bananas.

The sheer complexity of Western studies pale in the shadow of Confucianism, which pale in the wake of the tragedy of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Limited to the times, arrogant, and the special situation of the Qing Dynasty, no one in Confucianism can turn the tide and clean up the rivers and mountains, which is a very normal thing.

Keeping pace with the times is not a characteristic of Confucianism, getting pregnant at a glance, playing with the copycat of life, taking other people's paths, and making others have no way out, that is the ability of TG in later generations. Confucianism emphasizes the imitation of the first king to the saint, in Wang Yi's view, the fundamental ideological investigation is to say that the weasel is a bean animal...... One generation is not as good as the other. In the next generation, the son is not as good as the father, that is the biggest failure of education! However, over the past thousand years, this has become the most normal phenomenon. Even after Han Yu's "Shi Shuo", this is true. Confucianism, which was gradually perfected by the kings, was like a prison, shackling the lifeblood, vitality and blood of China more and more tightly until there was nothing left.

The reason why later generations complained that their ancestors completely abandoned Confucianism was that they were full and did not know that hungry men were hungry. We were not born in that era of weakness and sorrow, we did not experience the ups and downs of the day, although we are not numb, we cannot empathize. The Celestial Empire of later generations made the people of Wang Yi's era forget the pain of the era when they were bullied, and they could not forgive the groveling of their ancestors, wandering and helpless, confused, and looking at the country in disarray, but unable to return to the heart.

In later generations, some people were proud to say that whoever conquered our China would end up being assimilated by us, and this is the power of Confucianism. Whenever Wang Yi saw this, he would always say something shameless in his heart, when those who were conquered by nomads in the past, the dead people did not count. Look at the current Celestial Empire, whether it is Western studies that have assimilated us, or whether we have assimilated others. Are we more like the ancients, or are we more like the Westerners?

Wang Yi's own theory is right or not, regardless of whether it is right or not, but it makes Xu Shichang dizzy, and his heart is more mixed, he has heard many things for the first time, and there is a danger of crashing when he thinks about it. Fortunately, Lao Xu is not an ordinary person, and finally thought of a conclusion, and whispered: "Mr. said so, that is, it is necessary to overthrow the Qing Dynasty?" ”

"Oh? Why? Wang Yi neither affirmed nor denied.

"Although I heard from my sir that Britain and France, which fought with us a few years ago, are countries with completely different political systems from ours. The latter does not have a king for the time being, and the former alone, their practice of a constitutional monarchy seems to be more worthy of our reference. However, when I think about the joints, I find that it is not feasible. ”

"Why?" Wang Yi asked with a smile.

Xu Shichang sighed and said, "Because I practiced Confucianism in the Qing Dynasty, Confucian officials were not allowed to learn from the West. This is not the case in the UK, so even if we have a constitutional monarchy, we have emulated the Western system of government. But if science does not flourish, the country will not be rich and strong, and this political reform will become meaningless. ”

The king nodded, and said, "Not necessarily, isn't that Japan in the east also a constitutional monarchy now?" ”

"Japan is different from us, and the emperor is what they call the Yamato clan, which is the absolute mainstream of Japan. But our emperor is a Manchu, an extreme minority, and even if the Han people do not destroy the Manchus, they will never continue to feed the children of the Eight Banners who are not engaged in production. Xu Shichang saw it thoroughly, in fact, he only said half of what he said, and the more thoughts in his heart were: "The Northeast already has your Wang Yi, there are no two days in the sky, and there are no two masters, can you tolerate the Qing royal family?" ”