Kong Zheng smiled bitterly to himself, clearly realizing that he and his colleagues were powerless in this matter.
He had no power at all to stop Su Yonglin from promoting the reform of the imperial examination. Su Yonglin's willingness to talk to him about this matter beforehand was regarded as respecting their right to know. Otherwise, it would not be impossible to adopt a more domineering approach.
Who can stop Su Yonglin from doing whatever he wants?
God?
No, he is not an emperor, he is a human emperor, and there is no need to honor God.
Su Yonglin, who holds an army and is invincible, is the most powerful person in the world.
After thinking about this, Kong Zheng didn't want to say anything more, so the reform plan was pushed forward.
The Ministry of Rites formally accepted this plan and decided to conduct a study on this reform plan and discuss the admission method for engineering, science, and law proposed by the emperor.
And this requires a large number of professionals to provide help - the existing staff of the Ministry of Rites can only agree on the standards for liberal arts examinations, because this is their expertise, and they have absolutely no idea about things like engineering, science, and law. Know what to do.
Only rely on professionals.
Who are the professionals?
Su Yonglin will provide them with professionals——
Due to the reform of selecting scholars by subject, the original Scientific Examination Department of the Ministry of Rites was short of manpower and needed to be expanded. Su Yonglin planned to reorganize the Scientific Examination Department according to the direction of the four working groups of Arts, Science, and Law.
So Su Yonglin instructed Liu Yongzhen, the newly appointed Minister of the Ministry of Personnel and deputy director of the Central Organization Department of the Renaissance Society, to start arranging personnel for the Science and Technology Department of the Ministry of Rites.
In addition to the professionals who originally worked in the Ministry of Industry, the Three Laws Department and other departments, some newly developed young Fuxing members were also placed in the Scientific Examination Department of the Ministry of Rites under various names, responsible for preparing for the imperial examination. , As a result, for a time, the Scientific Examination Department of the Ministry of Rites was "full of talents."
Regarding this situation, Kong Zheng and Zhou Jiang could only stare blankly, watching helplessly as the Ministry of Personnel deployed people to the Ministry of Rites and expanded the staffing of the Science and Technology Department bit by bit, and none of them were from their faction.
They originally thought of introducing a large number of relevant people from their side through the imperial examination to increase the voice of Shandong officials. Now it seems that they may not even be able to maintain their only voice.
When Zhou Jiang was discussing the matter with Kong Zheng in private, he repeatedly lamented that Su Yonglin's excessive strength was unprecedented. He had never thought that the emperor could be so domineering.
But Kong Zheng saw it clearly.
"Zizhang, we haven't seen him before. It doesn't mean that such a person doesn't exist. Perhaps, this is the founding emperor who conquered the world and became emperor. Now I understand why the ancients admired the Holy Emperor who ruled from the top down. A founding emperor It means so much to the world.”
Zhou Jiang was speechless after hearing this.
Afterwards, both Kong Zheng and Zhou Jiang seemed helpless. They could only help Su Yonglin as Su Yonglin's assistants, but could not raise any objections.
While Su Yonglin was promoting the reform of subject-based selection of scholars in the imperial examination, he also wanted to take action on education.
According to him, since it has been decided to select scholars by subject, education must keep up. We cannot leave education alone and only conduct imperial examinations. Sooner or later something will happen.
So Su Yonglin also decided to reform the current education model, starting from the Central Imperial College, based on the reform of the imperial examination to select scholars by subject, and also to cultivate talents from the four directions of liberal arts, science, law, and engineering in accordance with the direction of the imperial examination.
Then, at the education reform meeting on October 9th, Su Yonglin put forward a request for changes in teaching materials.
Of course, he did not completely throw away the old gentry, but still made some concessions.
The liberal arts textbooks can maintain the old textbooks to the greatest extent, such as the old Five Classics, and temporarily add "Xunzi" as the scope of the questions, so that the existing scholars can take the liberal arts examinations to the greatest extent, without Both eyes were blinded.
Of course, Su Yonglin proposed that no less than 30% of the questions in the liberal arts examination in the imperial examination in the second year of Hongwu's reign should come from "Xunzi".
Kong Zheng knew that this was the emperor's greatest concession. If he didn't accept this, the emperor could increase the number of questions in "Xunzi" to 50% in minutes. By that time, everyone would be really confused.
So when he saw that there were still people who wanted to make comments, Kong Zheng immediately stood up and shouted His Majesty's wisdom, and turned over the page.
Then Su Yonglin also asked liberal arts scholars not only to study the Five Classics, but also to understand agriculture, because agriculture is the foundation of the country, and liberal arts scholars must have an understanding of agriculture.
So he added agricultural monographs such as "Essentials of Qi Min" for liberal arts scholars, requiring liberal arts scholars to learn something about agriculture while studying Confucian classics. Such examination regulations will be implemented in the imperial examination in the fifth year of Hongwu. Officially implemented during the exam.
Next is the science exam.
Su Yonglin delineated the "Nine Chapters", "Zhang Qiujian", "Xia Houyang", "Zhou Bi", "Five Classics Suan" and other examination materials for the Tang Dynasty imperial examinations for science examinations.
Then geography textbooks such as "Guan Zi Di Yuan" and "Shui Jing Zhu" were added, and finally the examination textbook "Mo Jing" was added.
Any book that is designated as a textbook for the imperial examination will inevitably be published and circulated on a large scale, so some officials in the Ministry of Rites reacted fiercely to this.
Su Yonglin had long known that they would react violently, so he proposed a plan to revise the "Mo Jing".
"The Department of Scientific Examination of the Ministry of Etiquette arranged for special personnel to revise the "Mo Jing", delete the content related to political affairs in the "Mo Jing", and use the revised "Mo Jing" as a science textbook for the imperial examination."
Su Yonglin's statement calmed the excitement of some officials of the Ministry of Rites.
But to be honest, Su Yonglin himself was not very interested in Mohist political thought.
He admired Mozi for his contributions to natural science. Taking the Mo Jing as a breakthrough point, Su Yonglin was confident that he could bring the subject of physics up and help technological development from a theoretical level.
As for other aspects, forget it.
Mohism is a school with leaders, doctrines and organization. They have a strong spirit of social practice. Mohists are hard-working and self-disciplined. They regard the maintenance of justice and morality as an unshirkable responsibility. Most of Mohists have Knowledge workers——
Isn’t this his revival meeting?
Regardless of the depth of thought, level of organization, or concept, his revival meeting far surpassed the Mohist organization, so he did not need the Mohist political organization.
After science comes engineering textbooks. There have always been very few professional books on engineering. The main reason is that no ruler has ever taken science and technology as a national matter like Su Yonglin.
Therefore, the only relevant engineering books that can be found at present are "Kao Gong Ji", "Construction Method" and other books related to industry, handicrafts and construction.
In this regard, Su Yonglin proposed that this type of books should be included in the examination scope. At the same time, new teaching materials should be compiled to record all the industrial technology crystallization of the ancients as teaching materials.
The legal examination is relatively more convenient. Although hundreds of schools of thought have been deposed since the Han Dynasty, no one will deny the importance of law, so there were not many legal monographs in ancient times.
Su Yonglin designated representative legal works and legal articles such as "Fa Jing", "Taishi Lv", "Tang Lv Shu Yi", etc. for law scholars to study and inherit.
This meeting preliminarily determined the scope of questions for the second imperial examination in the fifth year of Hongwu, which was approved by Su Yonglin and recognized by most court officials.
As for the first session in the second year of Hongwu, some flexible changes still have to be made.
There is no way, the division of power in the Ming Dynasty at this moment is not advantageous for Shandong officials who are experts in the old imperial examination.
Officials from the three major factions, Yuancong, Yanyun and Waizhu, are very clear about the possible consequences of the old imperial examination. At this time when they still have enough say, they cannot allow the old imperial examination to continue whenever possible. Carry it out.
Su Yonglin's plan to reform the imperial examination just scratched their itch, which was of great significance to them, so they collectively got excited and strongly supported Su Yonglin's reform plan in the court.
The Shandong civil servants were willing to oppose it, but their power was not strong enough.
They were really powerless and could only watch as the emperor Su Yonglin, who had a strong base and political alliances, forcibly pushed forward the reform plan of the imperial examination.
