The third year of Renshou was a year of great changes for the Sui Dynasty and the surrounding foreign tribes. The Battle of Liangzhou was an unexpected change for the Sui Dynasty and the surrounding tribes. The sudden war and the unexpected result caused the Sui Dynasty to lose more than 300,000 strong enemies. This real war and achievements also made the Sui Dynasty more famous and majestic than before; and for the East and West As for the Turks, they lost more than 300,000 people. Neither side could inherit the "legacy" of Bujia Khan, and their strength was naturally far weaker than that of the Eastern and Western Turks in history.
However, what really worries Tuyuhun and Goguryeo, foreign tribes with bad relations with the Sui Dynasty, is not the completion of the northern strategy by the Sui Dynasty. If the Sui Dynasty becomes aggressive and actively prepares for war, Tuyuhun and Goguryeo will not be too worried. Too strong is easy to break, and if the Sui Dynasty is too strong, it will be easy to break. If the Sui Dynasty continues to fight, firstly, it will attract the surrounding foreign races to join forces, and secondly, it will also put a huge pressure on the Sui Dynasty.
If the Sui Dynasty continues to actively prepare for war, prepares to fight another war next year, and hopes to conquer the four fortresses, Tuyuhun and Goguryeo, which have geographical advantages, will be very happy, because not only will they put themselves on the opposite side of the surrounding ethnic groups, but even from within It can destroy itself. If the Great Sui Dynasty is over, the biggest beneficiaries will naturally be these powerful countries. With the strength of Goguryeo, it can easily take over Liaodong. In the same way, Tuyuhun can also take over with its current strength. Hexi Corridor.
However, things went against expectations. After the Sui Dynasty defeated Bujia Khan, they just ordered Yang Ji to confront Tuyuhun at the border. This situation of being unable to go up or down made Tuyuhunzhi very angry and passive.
As for Liangzhou, after a year of turmoil and twists and turns, it has slowly returned to calm. As the New Year is about to pass, in addition to the frequent attacks on Shanshan by Mai Tiezhang, the general manager of Guazhou; in the heart of the heart, as the Sui army occupied a favorable commanding height, The Sui Dynasty and Tuyuhun had a tacit understanding of confrontation at the forward position, and no unfriendly actions occurred.
However, the large influx of disaster victims, refugees, and lost people has prevented Liangzhou from enjoying any war dividends. Instead, it has made Liangzhou, which is so poor that it does not even have hatchets or sickles, more serious. However, everything has two sides, and these disaster victims It is only a temporary worry for Liangzhou. It only takes a few years of hard work to unleash huge productivity.
What made Yang Ji even more excited was that at his request, Liu Fang, who was in command in Jiaozhou, bought ten-stone rice seeds from Linyi State in the south at a high price and sent them to Ganzhou not long ago.
Champa rice, also called Zaohe or Zhanhe, is an early indica rice with the characteristics of high yield, early maturity and drought tolerance. It is not only highly adaptable and grows in any place, but also has a short growth cycle. In hot areas, it can even grow three times a year. Before the discovery of high-yield food crops such as corn, potatoes, and sweet potatoes, Champa rice was definitely the highest-yielding food crop in the world.
What did the Sui Dynasty need to rely on for development, military expansion, and territorial control?
Natural population!
And what does the population rely on for development and support?
It's food!
Therefore, throughout the ages, population has been one of the important indicators to measure the strength of a country, and population and food have been the top priorities for the imperial court in assessing political performance.
It is not yet possible to cross the Pacific to the Americas, so Champa rice is the only weapon to increase food production.
As long as Champa rice is planted in Hehuang area, Hexi Corridor, Tingzhou and other places, Yang Ji is confident that the people of Liangzhou will be self-sufficient within three years, and that Liangzhou, which has no worries about food and clothing, will see a surge in population in the future. . When the plains with fertile land and convenient irrigation in Northeast China, North China, Huanghuai, Jianghuai, Hanjiang, Chengdu, etc. are developed and planted with Champa rice, the Sui Dynasty will basically have no worries about food.
It should be noted that Jiangnan at this time was not fully developed, especially the Lianghu and Lingnan areas were primitive areas where smog was raging and wild beasts were rampant. Yunmengze is also shrinking year by year, and the land exposed after the lake recedes is extremely fertile.
If Jiangnan, Lianghu and Lingnan are developed again, as long as the weather is not too bad, there will basically be no worries about food shortages.
Yang Ji was a little idle during this time. He was well-informed, but officials were bound by their thoughts and had a narrow vision. The problems they thought could be solved by Yang Ji in a few words. In addition to spending two hours a day in the military camp, he spends most of his time running around the newly built Liangzhou University and Yinshuyuan in Fuzhong.
Liangzhou University is a school established by Yang Ji and his subordinates based on the actual situation in Liangzhou. Originally, in the education plan, Liangzhou would set up four schools, a county school, and a state school. However, Liangzhou is not only There are not enough teachers, and there are not many students. Four schools and county schools are okay, but if state schools are opened in each state, I am afraid that there will not be dozens of students in each state. Faced with this reality, if each state Opening a state school in every state is purely a waste of resources, so after everyone’s discussion, it was decided that before the first batch of county school students have graduated, the state school will not be run for the time being, and students who are qualified to enter the state school will be unified into the state school in Ganzhou. Reading, as a result, Liangzhou University came into being, and now Yang Ji is in charge of Liangzhou University, Liu Xuan and Liu Zhuo, who are famous all over the world.
Of course, the most important thing is not this, but on the day Liangzhou University opened its doors, representatives from the Liangzhou Governor’s Office, representatives of the people who admired the rule of law, and Liu Xuan and Liu Zhuo, representatives of Confucianism, had a huge debate on whether to rule the country by law or by virtue. debate.
That happened on the second day of the second lunar month of the following year. Because the imperial court cooperated in advance to post a briefing of the debate on the bulletin walls of every square in Daxing City, many celebrities and scribes rushed from Guanzhong to Ganzhou to participate in the debate. this great debate.
Although Yang Jian has convened great scholars from all over the world to hold great debates in the past, the content of the debates was all about the classics of Confucianism in preparation for the "unification of all laws". However, this time it has risen to the level of rule of law and rule of virtue, not only with Confucianism and law. The two factions are related and related to the policy of governing the country. Therefore, this debate attracted worldwide attention and can be called the most exciting debate in a century.
Er Liu's side advocated the rule of virtue, introduced Dong Zhongshu's thoughts and views of "exclusively respecting Confucianism", and elaborated on the contribution of Confucianism to the past dynasties with extensive quotations; while the side of the subordinate officials, the general manager of law enforcement and governance, was based on Shang Yang's reform in the pre-Qin period was used as an example to illustrate the benefits brought by the rule of law to the Qin State. At the same time, the Sui Dynasty, which respected the rule of law, was used as an example to illustrate the benefits brought by the rule of law to the prosperous Sui Dynasty.
In fact, the debate between ruling the country by virtue and ruling the country by law has been going on for a long time, and no one can convince anyone. Masters in academia actually know that no one can do without the other, but often they oppose for the sake of opposition out of consideration for personal, family, and profit-making forces. In the end, no one accepts or agrees with anyone. Even if I can't argue with you, but I just don't accept you, what about you?
But the debate in the square of Liangzhou University was very rational. Although no one could win, in the end, the result was that morality governs the heart and the law governs the behavior.
Everyone believes that the idea of moral governance is paranoid about the education of personal morality, making people in the world become self-disciplined, using persuasion, moral values, personal values of honor and disgrace, and the concept of fame and fortune to influence and improve the moral consciousness of the people, and using the public opinion of neighbors to influence and improve people's moral consciousness. Constrain the behavior of the people, enhance their sense of moral responsibility, and make them realize that if they fail to fulfill their moral obligations or violate moral requirements, they will be condemned by public opinion and criticized by the world. This can subtly change people's temperament and behavior, improve the atmosphere, and eventually form a good social atmosphere. However, it is too idealistic. After all, there are not so many moral saints. If there are no rules to restrain the people of the world, how can it be achieved?
The rule of law is to set up a warning line for everyone in the way of business, so that people know what can and cannot be done. As long as it does not exceed the limit, then the law is fair to everyone, but the prerequisite of the rule of law is that The second is to ensure the integrity of the official team and the fairness of the supervision agencies. Compared with the rule of virtue, the investment in the rule of law is staggering, but equally, the results achieved will be equally staggering.
The rule of virtue is internal restraint, and the rule of law is external control; the rule of virtue is the rule of high behavioral advocacy, and the rule of law is the rule of low behavioral norms; the rule of virtue is the rule of enlightenment, and the rule of law is the rule of state coercion...
The rule of virtue makes people more shameless and reduces the occurrence of crime cases, while the rule of law uses violence to forcefully drag back those who want to commit crimes. Only the combination of morality and law and the mutual aid of morality and law can make people feel good and sincere from the bottom of their hearts. In terms of behavior, do not want to commit a crime.
Such a non-result is nothing more than clarifying "Internal Confucianism and External Legalism". It has no practical significance for the Sui Dynasty, but it has made Liangzhou University and the university library with a large number of books famous. Young celebrities flocked to Ganzhou to teach and educate people in universities.
At the same time, because there were two Liu Daru in charge, many poor scholars who had difficulty in studying came to Ganzhou to study and read books.
Poor families are not really poor people. Poor families are local tycoons, landlords and veteran talents with assets, or they are newly minted nouveau riche. The worst are rich peasants and wealthy businessmen. These people are not without money, but without books.
Scholars from poor families have a very rough road to study. In order to be able to study, they have to endure the disdainful looks of children from aristocratic families and so-called celebrities. However, poor scholars can only beg the superior aristocratic families to have books to read and teachers to answer their questions. When these people become successful in the future, they will often want to integrate into the circle of aristocratic families and use the power of the aristocratic families to advance rather than stand. On the opposite side of the aristocratic family. As a result, the aristocratic families have developed huge interest groups, which are so powerful that they can destroy one dynasty and then another, kill one emperor and then support another.
For Yang Ji, who is a descendant of the royal family, this kind of interest group that controls social resources, educational resources, official resources, and promotion resources is not only the most unstable factor in the Sui Dynasty, but also a stumbling block to social progress. Because They have taken control of education, so that many talents who should be able to promote social progress through learning will die with the grass and trees.
Movable type printing and the new paper developed not only reduced the cost of learning, but also made many books that poor people had never heard of appear in front of the public at a low price. With cheap books that are rich in content, poor people will one day be able to compare the aristocratic families with each other. The monopoly of books has been broken.
It is impossible for the family members to fail to see this. Once this kind of book appears, the promoters will be mercilessly attacked, and the emperor will not be able to protect it! This is the reason why Yang Jian repeatedly warned Yang Ji that even if he developed cheap new paper, he would not be able to achieve this extraordinary feat.
To this day, Yang Ji does not dare to promote it. He can only print some ordinary books and put them in the library of Liangzhou University for students to read. After all, this is a government-run school. It is normal to be able to produce such books. They would blame Yang Jian for the origin of these books, but would not think that Yang Ji had solved the problem of expensive paper and expensive books.
When the reputation of the library spreads further and further, Liangzhou University, with two famous scholars at its head, will surely become a holy place for poor scholars to study, causing a large number of talents to gather in Liangzhou.
"What do you think of movable type printing?" In the Yang Mansion, Yang Ji looked at the four confidants Song Zhengben, Hao Yuan, Xue Ju, and Li Daliang with a smile.
"If this thing is announced to the world, it will win the hearts of poor people in the world." Song Zhengben sighed and said with a wry smile: "I know that the road to study for poor people is bumpy. Sometimes it's not that poor people have poor talent, but that they have no ability to study. Door. People with good luck will meet great Confucians like Mr. Er Liu who are of high moral character and can teach without distinction. As long as there are people who are willing to learn, they are willing to teach. But how many such great Confucians are there? How many people can they teach? Most of the more famous Confucian scholars are those who are seeking fame and reputation, such Confucian scholars who come from aristocratic families, but these Confucian scholars are deeply wary of poor scholars and will not teach advanced knowledge at all."
"But for poor scholars who have learned basic knowledge, the difficulty is not the master, but the books. Cai Lun has been making paper for many years, but after so many years, there are still very few books. Why? First, there is no such convenience as movable type printing Printing, and secondly, books were all in the hands of aristocratic families. Even if aristocratic families were willing to lend books to poor scholars to copy, it would take several days to copy the Analects. If other classics and commentaries were also copied, a lifetime would pass, so although paper was There are more and more humble scholars, but they are also limited. Now that the movable type printing technology has come out, people all over the world are not eager to learn it? But I don’t think the young master can take this greedy merit, otherwise he will become the enemy of all the famous families in the world. "
Yang Ji nodded and frowned: "I know I can't be greedy for this skill, but if I keep it secret and keep it to myself, it won't be of any benefit to the world."
"To put it bluntly, movable type printing is to use seals to form articles and sentences, and then print out books. To put it bluntly, there is nothing surprising." Song Zhengben said with a smile: "Young Master can spread this method widely. , let the people of the world jointly bear the pressure of the aristocratic families. When this method spreads throughout the world, I don’t believe that the aristocratic families dare to be enemies of the people of the world."
"The Master of the Song Dynasty is good at this." Hao Yuan said with a smile: "Once the movable type printing technology is announced, the profitable big merchants will print books and sell them one after another. This move seems to be advantageous to these big merchants, but the young master has control The low-priced new papermaking technology also has the upper hand in terms of price, making those booksellers unable to sell many books. With the cover of these booksellers, the young master can confidently and boldly put a large number of cheap books into the market, as long as Don’t make the price difference too outrageous, the family members will not notice the young master at all, and after three to five years, countless poor people will become useful talents."
"Good idea, just do it like this." Yang Ji praised. If he did not promote movable type printing due to pressure from aristocratic families, it would be tantamount to abandoning poor families and even a large number of people who are eager to learn from the door of learning. However, if it is announced, Yang Ji will not print a large number of books. A different kind of person.
Although there are more books, many people can buy books to read at home instead of coming to Ganzhou to study; but the Imperial Palace Secretariat has a collection of more than 300,000 volumes and 70,000 categories of books. If copies of these books are printed and moved A visit to the Liangzhou University Library can also attract talents with its rich collection of books.
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