Volume 3: Confrontation! The Run of Civilization Chapter 445: Duke Yansheng is dead
Is it important for overseas vassal kings to express their stance and stand on the right side?
Very important.
This is not simply a matter of showing loyalty. What is more important is that in this great discussion of core ideas, some thoughts that scholars should not have should be eliminated.
Since Emperor Yuan of the Han Dynasty, Confucianism has been the only school of thought for more than 1,600 years . Although Zhu Youdong did not intend to destroy Confucianism this time, he only wanted to reform it and add some new things to it. However, there is no doubt that his move would cause widespread dissatisfaction among the majority of Confucian scholars and a large number of officials who were basically evolved from Confucian scholars.
What are the consequences of a society's scholars being collectively dissatisfied with the ruler? For example, Dong Zhuo in the late Eastern Han Dynasty.
After Dong Zhongying took control of the central government of the Eastern Han Dynasty, he offered a lot of powerful positions to appease the aristocratic families in order to establish good relations with them and rule the world together. But what did these guys do after they took office? The 18 princes formed an anti-Dong alliance!
Of course, in the current Ming Dynasty, Zhu Youdong firmly controlled the army, and the separatist princes could forget about it. But if the local officials were collectively dissatisfied, lazy and negligent in their work, or even deliberately misinterpreted the policies and turned good things into bad things, then Zhu Youdong would be in big trouble.
In order to prevent this situation from happening, Zhu Youdong endured it for more than ten years.
In the past ten years, he gradually controlled public opinion through the propaganda of the six major newspapers day after day. He controlled the grassroots by checking the yellow book. He trained thousands of officials and bureaucrats through Fangshan School like a swallow carrying mud. He strengthened the ability of the secret agencies such as the East Factory and the Jinyiwei to do things... With these, he dared to take action against the ideological world.
But, even so, he had to prevent officials from playing resignation with him - Ming officials were used to this. Not to mention, Ming now had four vassal states with the surname Zhu overseas.
During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, there were many schools of thought. If you, the ruler, do not adopt my ideas, then I will go to other countries. Among them, people like Shang Yang and Zhang Yi are even more famous - you don't want me? I will go to other countries to get a high position and then turn around and kill you!
Therefore, it is very important for the princes to make a collective statement at this time: We, the Zhu family, are united, and we do not want officials who do not agree with the emperor’s ideas!
At all times, the number of people who want to be officials in China far exceeds the number of official positions. After the princes of various places collectively expressed their opinions, there were certainly officials who resigned from the Ming Dynasty, but they were definitely not so many that Zhu Youdong would have a headache.
After all these arrangements were made, Zhu Youdong was ready to reveal his ultimate killer move.
On August 3, 1620, after more than ten days of hard work, the team of the current Duke Yansheng, Kong Shangxian, finally arrived in Tongzhou.
As the head of the civil officials, the carriage of Duke Yansheng would certainly not encounter any obstacles along the way. But for a 78-year-old man who was already terminally ill, this long journey was really a life-threatening struggle. Finally, he still had the tenacious idea of preserving the lineage of the Kong family in his heart. Although Kong Shangxian fainted several times along the way, he finally arrived at the South Gate of Beijing with his last breath.
"Sir, are you all right? We will be on the Beijing-Tianjin Highway soon. The people who take care of the store in Beijing have prepared a four-wheeled carriage in advance. Please move and change the carriage. Sir, the road conditions will be much better on the Beijing-Tianjin Highway. You can take a nap in the carriage and we will be in Beijing."
"Well, um..." Kong Shangxian, who had difficulty speaking, slowly got out of his family's spacious but two-wheeled carriage with the help of several strong servants, and then prepared to move to the four-wheeled carriage next to it which was more spacious and more stable and comfortable.
At this time, a group of newsboys rushed in from outside Tongzhou City. "Newspapers for sale! The Yanjing Daily just came out this morning. Big news, big news. A scholar published an article, "A Study of the Bloodline of the Descendants of King Wenxuan," questioning the purity of the bloodline of the current Duke Yansheng! "
"What?"
Kong Shangxian, who was struggling to move the carriage, heard the newsboy's cry and went crazy: Such an article was actually published openly? This, this is going to wipe out the entire Kong Mansion!
"Left and right, hurry up, give it to me, give it to me..."
"Yes, sir."
A servant had already hurriedly asked a newsboy to buy that day's Yanjing Daily. Then, after Kong Shangxian got on the bus, a literate servant read the newspaper to him in a low voice.
"The descendants of the saint were granted the title of Duke of Yansheng starting with Emperor Renzong of the former Song Dynasty. After that, successive emperors of the Song Dynasty continuously granted him generous titles. Confucius' contribution to China was great. The Song Dynasty also treated the descendants of Confucius well. However, the dragon gave birth to nine sons, each of them was different. A towering tree is bound to have dead branches. During the Jingkang period, half of the country was lost, and Emperor Gaozong had no choice but to move south and build a base in Lin'an..."
This article tells the story of the Jin invasion, the fall of the Northern Song Dynasty, and Zhao Gou's migration south during the Jing Kang period.
When Zhao Gou went south, the then Duke of Yansheng Kong Duanyou took some of his clansmen, the wooden statue of Confucius, the painting of Confucius by Wu Daozi, and the red seal of the Temple of the Great Sage Wenxuan King and other items south. Then, Song Gaozong, who had settled down, arranged for the reconstruction of the Duke of Yansheng's mansion in Quzhou, which was the Southern School.
Kong Duancao, who was in charge of guarding the house in Qufu's hometown, was first named Duke Yansheng by the traitorous regime of the time, "Pseudo-Qi", and then named Duke Yansheng by the Jin people, which was the Northern Sect.
At the end of the Jin Dynasty, under the attack of the Mongols, the Jin Dynasty lost the Hebei region and moved its capital to Kaifeng to survive. As a result, the Northern Sect was divided into two branches, one in Kaifeng of the Jin Dynasty and the other in Qufu, Shandong, which was controlled by the Mongols.
In 1234, Mongolia destroyed the Jin Dynasty, and the two northern branches merged into one. In 1276, the Yuan Dynasty destroyed the Southern Song Dynasty. At that time, Kublai Khan, the founder of the Yuan Dynasty, believed that the Southern Clan had three major tokens and was the authentic lineage of the Duke of Yansheng. He wanted to appoint Kong Zhu, the patriarch of the Southern Clan, as the Duke of Yansheng. Kong Zhu accepted the various honorary positions given to him by the Yuan Dynasty government, but he resolutely refused to accept the title of Duke of Yansheng, and said that although his ancestral home was in Qufu, Shandong, he was born in Quzhou, Jiangnan, and his old mother was also in Quzhou. Therefore, he must return to Quzhou to fulfill his filial piety.
Under the prevailing situation at the time, Kong Zhu tried his best to safeguard the dignity of the Kong descendants, but he also made the Southern School completely withdraw from the inheritance of the title of Yanshenggong.
The Northern Sect was originally a small sect, and it was only after the Southern Sect withdrew that it was able to enjoy the title of Duke of Yansheng. Even so, there were many contradictions within the Northern Sect. In the short decades of the Yuan Dynasty, the struggle for the title of Duke of Yansheng was fierce, and there were many cases of internal members of the Northern Sect writing to the Yuan Dynasty emperor, accusing the current Duke of Yansheng of impure blood and demanding that he be replaced.
After reviewing the grievances of the Confucius Mansion from the Northern Song Dynasty to the founding of the Ming Dynasty, the author of this article said sarcastically: After the fall of the Northern Song Dynasty, it was fine for the remaining staff of the Yanshenggong Mansion to succumb to the canonization of the pseudo-Qi Dynasty - after all, they were still Han people. Why did they kneel down to the emperors of the Jurchens and Mongols later? It should be noted that the saints paid the most attention to whether the clothes were right-side-opened and whether there was a crown on the head!
The author also said, it is normal for people to be afraid when facing the butcher's knife. You descendants of saints cannot learn from Zilu, a gentleman who never takes off his hat. But can't you, the Northern School, learn from the Southern School and refuse politely? As a result, not only did you not learn from the Southern School, you took the initiative to get close to it and lick its face. Later, in order to compete for the title of Duke of Yansheng, your relatives started to fight, and handed over the decision-making power of the title of Duke of Yansheng to the Mongolian Khan...
Moreover, the most crucial thing here is that almost all of you who are fighting for the position of Yanshenggong have problems with your bloodline: the competition for the position of Yanshenggong made Kublai Khan look down on Chinese Confucian scholars, thinking that the descendants of the Great Sage and Teacher were all like this, and that Chinese scholars were basically shameless. Therefore, not only did the Kong family not have Yanshenggong for a long time, but even the head of the Kong family relied on the Yuan Dynasty emperor to decide who would take the position many times - and several times the Yuan Dynasty emperor deliberately arranged people with bloodline problems to serve as Yanshenggong.
In fact, most of the first half of this passage are historical facts, but the last sentence is problematic: the Yuan Dynasty emperor was very cautious about who would inherit the throne of Duke Yansheng.
However, the Yuan Dynasty has been destroyed for so many years, and the current Khan of the Golden Family, Ligdan Khan, has been chased to the north of the desert by Cao Wenzhao . So what if the blame is put on the Yuan emperor? Who can defend the Yuan emperor?
"Heh~" Listening to the servant beside him reading the newspaper softly, Kong Shangxian's whole body began to shake faster and faster, and the rhythm of his breathing and heartbeat became faster and faster. In the end, he sat up suddenly and yelled, "How ridiculous!" Then he closed his eyes and died instantly.
