Su Yonglin attached great importance to this task, which was of great significance to the whole of China.
He personally named this task the Three Ancient Dynasties Restoration Project, and listed it as the two major tasks of the National History Department along with the formulation of the Chinese Chronicle. It does not need to be limited to time and era. As long as the Ming Dynasty is still there, as long as conditions permit, we can continue to explore it.
How did the Chinese ancestors move from ignorance to civilization step by step, from mountains and fields to urban settlements, developed small tribes into large empires, and burned cultural fires into raging fires...
These are all things worth exploring.
And in Su Yonglin's opinion, this kind of exploration is too romantic.
In order to explore and restore what happened before the first year of the Republic of China, Su Yonglin also ordered the National History Department to prepare for the establishment of the Ming Dynasty Archaeological Corps, with the purpose of verifying history and distinguishing the past from the present. The Ming Archaeological Corps was granted the authority to explore ancient sites, collect ancient books, and carry out rescue excavations throughout the Ming Dynasty. The authority of ancient tombs.
On the issue of ancient tombs, Su Yonglin especially emphasized his views.
“As long as the ancient tombs discovered are not damaged, it is best not to attempt to destroy them. Unless you are completely sure that the ancient objects inside can be protected from damage, do not excavate them. Forced excavation is tantamount to destruction and is meaningless.
Once a damaged ancient tomb is discovered, troops and horses must be immediately mobilized to seal off the area and no one is allowed to enter. Except for members of the archaeological corps, no one else, including local officials, are allowed to enter. All unearthed antiquities are sealed and no outsiders are allowed to touch them. , must be properly maintained upon delivery. "
In addition to this principle, Su Yonglin also planned to establish the National Museum of the Ming Dynasty.
In the future, he plans to place all the ancient cultural relics he owns, stored in the palace and ancient cultural relics discovered by archeology in the National Museum for storage, and make them available to people all over the world to watch and help them understand history.
In the National Museum, he will also carve the entire Chinese history into it and match it with ancient artifacts, so that all people can immersively experience the entire Chinese history and feel the weight, inheritance and existence of history.
After a series of work arrangements, the historical research project of the Ming Empire began.
This is an unprecedented large-scale historical research project. The Ministry of Finance transferred funds and professionals gathered together to explore the dusty past of three ancient generations.
And this is also the humanistic sentiment in Su Yonglin's heart.
At the very least, he wants people across the country to know the year they were born and how old they are, without having to rely on medical methods such as dental age to determine how old they are.
As a person living in this world, you should know your age, your birthday, and know that you are a human being. This is a very important personal right for a person.
If the feudal dynasty did not give them this right, the Ming Dynasty had to give it to them.
On this basis, let them know what kind of country they live in, what kind of land they live on, what happened to the land under their feet, and who are there who are fighting for the continuation of the country and the nation. interest……
In this way, the heritage of a nation can be deeply engraved into the heart, blood, and spinal cord of every descendant, and passed down forever.
When they all consciously believe that they are the descendants of this country and nation, then certain things cannot be easily transferred according to the wishes of the ruler.
When everyone's responsibility for the rise and fall of the country truly becomes a matter of course in everyone's heart, they will also have achieved the awakening of consciousness.
In addition to this general context, Su Yonglin also asked the Department of National History to change the recording method in which historians in the past focused on the results of events rather than on the process of events. In particular, they should pay attention to changing the Confucian style of "taboos for the respected, taboos for relatives," The principle of compiling history is taboo for sages.
At the internal meeting, Su Yonglin strongly criticized this principle of history revision.
"Because they are venerables, relatives, and sages, even the bad things they have done are not recorded? How can there be a pure saint in the world? Confucius himself even killed Shao Zhengmao because of an academic dispute. He was really selfless Heart?"
"Once you discover a great talent, you must imagine him as a perfect person in the world, and you are not allowed to have any flaws. Once you discover that someone has done bad things, you must consider him a heinous person and ignore his other achievements. This is the revision of history. attitude?"
"People are complex and diverse. The same person may have completely different personalities when he is young or old. He may be very naughty when he is young, but create a great career when he grows up, or he may be extremely well-behaved when he is young, but become a naughty person when he grows up. There are never many evil people who do evil things."
"There are no saints, no pure virtuous people in the world. As long as you are a human being, as long as you eat whole grains, you will have seven emotions and six desires, you will have joy, anger, sorrow and joy, and you will make mistakes. There is no one who cannot make mistakes, just like me, I have made mistakes Is it still less?”
Su Yonglin convened a meeting of all historians in the Department of National History, requiring all historians to conduct a comprehensive interpretation of ancient official history and unofficial history, and adopt an inclusive approach. They should not only write down the achievements of historical figures, but also write down the evil deeds they have done. .
Not only that, we cannot deny the brutality and intrigues of political struggles, nor the power tactics.
It is necessary to lift off the fig leaf written by Confucian historians, tear away all the fig leaves that some people say are "for the country and the people, for Confucian orthodoxy, for the morality of saints", and to start politics for power, money, wealth and other reasons. Every scene of the struggle is clearly written.
In particular, it is necessary to write down clearly the causes and consequences of their political struggle, who's interests, lives, etc. were sacrificed, especially what harm such political struggle caused to the people, and it must be written clearly.
For example, Sanyi Huihe in the Northern Song Dynasty.
The reason is that Song Taizong failed in his Northern Expedition to Yanyun and was unable to recapture Yanyun and establish a defense line to protect Hebei, which caused great strategic uneasiness in the Northern Song Dynasty.
The Sanyi Huihe River was originally a project. In order to prevent the Yellow River from flowing into Yanyun so that the Liao army could flow down the river, the Northern Song Dynasty government tried to change its course.
However, given the size of the Yellow River, changing its course would cause unimaginable risks. These risks are unbearable in some places, so officials in these places jumped to oppose it.
As the party struggle in the middle and late Northern Song Dynasty became more and more intense, the Huihe River Project finally could not escape the fate of being involved in political struggles, and thus transformed from a purely scientific water conservancy project into a political event.
The various forces in the imperial court, regardless of the life and death of the people, engaged in repeated games over the Huihe incident for their own interests, sabotaging each other's plans, and even sacrificing the lives of the people to defeat the other party and successfully take power.
In the end, Sanyi failed to return to the river, resulting in a tragedy in which millions of people died tragically and tens of millions of people were displaced, tragically becoming victims of the political struggle.
And no one cares about them.
The Northern Song Dynasty officials were extremely indifferent to them and didn't care.
This made Su Yonglin deeply resentful, which was one of the reasons why he must destroy the Southern Song Dynasty no matter what.
And when compiling history, can we not write down these things?
Of course, Confucian historians who pay attention to the taboos of the venerable will not write. They will only use various Spring and Autumn writing techniques to embellish and decorate, trying to make people forget this period of history and millions of lives.
They think beautifully.
In the complete history of China compiled in the Ming Dynasty, these must be clearly recorded, recording how those so-called "loyal and good people" who served the country and the people "served the country and the people." .
Only in this way can we reveal where the emperors, generals and ministers of the old feudal dynasty put the country and the nation and where they put the people for their own selfish desires.
This kind of history is the most authentic history, which will help Su Yonglin completely tear apart the tender veil of feudal society, expose its ugly face to the world, and make everyone alert and alert.
With this relationship involved, Su Yonglin felt that even if he died, it would not be easy for his unworthy descendants to go back.
Most of the historians in the National History Department grew up under feudal education. Most of them were the original historians of the Jin Kingdom and Xixia who were retained. There were not many historians who transferred to the Ming Dynasty.
So they were shocked by Su Yonglin's request. They never thought that an emperor would make such a request.
Is this really a good thing for him?
However, although these historians are relatively conservative in their thinking, they have one advantage: they are obedient.
Since the famous His Majesty Li Shimin, whose name cannot be disclosed, wanted to watch his daily life and succeeded, the last fig leaf of the Confucian historians was ruthlessly torn off by the imperial power.
So they gave full play to the spirit of their ancestors and became more and more obedient.
They would do whatever the emperor asked.
No matter what Su Yonglin wants to do, he is the emperor after all. If the emperor makes a request, of course they just follow the order and do it. The world is not theirs anyway.
Therefore, this order was implemented very smoothly within the Department of National History. These professional historians are naturally familiar with political struggles and are very good at embellishment. However, it is not impossible if they do not embellish and write straightly.
But this is far from what Su Yonglin needs to do.
What he needs is to form a completely new view of history, one that is completely different from the Confucian view of history.
To this end, he took time to write articles.
After spending some spare time, Su Yonglin wrote "Does Recording History Need to be Taboo for the Reverend?", "The Political Game Behind Historical Events - Starting from Sanyi Huihe River", "Our Concept of History Needs to be Reshaped", " Four articles including "The Blood and Tears of the People Behind the Genealogy of Emperors, Generals and Prime Ministers".
In these four articles, Su Yonglin initially constructed a new historical concept.
Then he used his own insights from reading history to conduct a comprehensive criticism of the Confucian view of history, describing the so-called official history of all dynasties as "the genealogy of emperors, generals and ministers".
As the emperor of the Ming Dynasty, he wanted to make the most fierce and strong criticism of the past official history books.
