Ang Lee's approach was a little deceitful, but since ancient times, which big shot didn't deceive the people? More or less, there would be some deception! There was no leader who didn't deceive the people at all, or it could be said that only a fool would completely believe that a promise would always be better than the truth. All leaders were good at painting a pie in the sky.
In the past, there were so many founding emperors who promised to give enough titles and fiefs to their subordinates, but once the dynasty was stable, they would find unwarranted charges and execute these once capable subordinates to protect their own country. Or they would weaken the rewards for these subordinates as much as possible, completely forgetting the original promise.
There were too many such examples, otherwise, there wouldn't be the saying of burning the bridge after crossing the river. If one wanted to cite examples, one could cite a lot of them in one breath.
For example, the founding emperor of the Song Dynasty, with a meal, he made a cup of wine to give away the military power, taking back all the power of his subordinates, making these subordinates helpless and unable to say a word. They could only suffer in silence, unable to say anything.
The founding emperor of the Song Dynasty could at least save the lives of his subordinates, but the Ming Dynasty's Old Zhu was even more ruthless. This guy was extremely cruel and merciless, directly killing more than half of his old subordinates who had followed him for many years. His methods were not ordinary ruthless, it was simply crazy. To be able to follow such a person to conquer the world, it could be considered as eight lifetimes of bad luck.
Later, the Qing Dynasty was in the same situation. When it was just established, because it needed Wu Sangui and the other surrendered generals to fight for them, they were given the title of king, given a lot of power and great wealth. But after the Qing Dynasty was stable, Wu Sangui and the other surrendered generals were useless, and not only were they useless, their existence was a huge hidden danger to the Qing Dynasty's imperial court, so the removal of vassals was put on a daily basis.
The so-called removal of vassals, it seemed that the power of the vassal king was reduced by a lot, but as long as the vassal king was recognized, then the vassal king would continue to be removed, step by step, and finally all the land would be taken over by the state, and then completely eliminate the vassal king's power. In order to save the imperial court's expenses, they directly found a reason to rebel and directly executed the vassal king who had no ability to resist.
Therefore, since ancient times, the thing that the vassal kings were most afraid of was removal of vassals. As long as they encountered such a situation, the vassal kings would basically choose to rebel. For example, the removal of vassals in the Han Dynasty caused the Rebellion of the Seven Kings, although it was finally quelled, the loss of the entire empire was not small.
After that, the power of the Tang Dynasty's Jiedushi was too great. They often had tens of thousands of soldiers, or even hundreds of thousands of soldiers, and governed at least a few provinces, and at most a dozen provinces. Although their official positions were not as high as that of kings, their actual power and status were not much different from that of kings, and they were almost like semi-independent kingdoms.
Obviously, these semi-independent vassals seriously affected the stability of the Tang Empire, so Tang Dezong and the several emperors after him had been working on removing vassals, but the difficulty of removing vassals was imaginable. Vassals would often declare independence and oppose the imperial court of the Tang Dynasty, which was very troublesome for the imperial court.
Next was the removal of vassals by Jianwen Emperor of the Ming Dynasty. This emperor directly inherited the throne from his cruel and merciless grandfather. After he took the throne, he began to solve the problem of vassals. Perhaps he was too eager for quick success and instant benefits. Not only did he fail to remove vassals, but it also led to internal strife that he could not control. In the end, the young emperor's whereabouts were unknown, and it became a historical unsolved case.
The last time was the removal of vassals by Kangxi, which led to the rebellion of Wu Sangui, but finally, he won through eight years of war.
In short, there were four times of removal of vassals, and each time there was a very serious rebellion. Among them, the rebellions of the Han Dynasty and the Qing Dynasty were suppressed, but the removal of vassals by the Tang Dynasty and the Ming Dynasty failed. But in any case, each removal of vassals caused a rebellion.
Since vassals were a great danger to the empire, why did they confer titles to these vassals in the first place? Why did they have to bury this hidden danger? Wasn't it superfluous?
This was naturally because when the empire was first established, the founding emperor needed a lot of people to help him fight for the empire, and since he needed a lot of people to help him fight for the empire, he naturally had to give these people enough benefits and promises. Otherwise, why would others fight for the empire desperately?
In this way, it was reasonable to confer titles to kings and vassals. This was a stage that the founding of the empire had to go through, and it was also something that could not be helped.
Once the later generations of emperors found that the threat of these vassals was too great, they must be eliminated as soon as possible, otherwise, it would be a great threat to the entire empire.
As a result, a very regular phenomenon appeared. The founding emperor was forced to confer titles, and the succeeding emperors had no choice but to deal with those with titles and kill them all. Only then would they be able to sit on the throne.
In other words, the emperor's promise should not be taken seriously, it was just a pie in the sky. Don't think that your descendants can enjoy the treatment of vassals for generations after the emperor conferred you the title of king. That was absolutely impossible. It was just that the emperor needed talents like you to fight for the empire, so he gave you a pie in the sky. It was a pie with a time limit. After the empire was conquered, in order to stabilize the people's hearts, he would temporarily honor the original promise to show that the emperor did not deceive the subordinates and really conferred the title of king.
But these were just expedient measures of the founding emperor. He could confer you the title of king, and similarly, he could also take your throne down. Some emperors were more impatient. When they were still alive, they would confer titles first and then remove them later, step by step, they would eliminate the kings that they conferred. There were also some founding emperors who found that the time was not ripe, and the empire was not stable enough. They still needed these vassals, so they temporarily raised them and left them for their descendants to deal with. In short, they would never allow vassals to exist in the empire.
This was the case in ancient times, and it was also the case in later generations. Many entrepreneurs did not have funds at the beginning, so they gathered a large group of people to invest in them and encouraged these shareholders to fight with them. The effect was indeed good.
However, once the business was successful, because these early shareholders received too much dividends every year, this made the entrepreneurs quite painful. Therefore, they began to play dirty tricks and carried out the so-called shareholding reform. Through various overt and covert means, they took back all the shares of the early shareholders, thus cutting off the interests of these early shareholders.
This kind of thing continued to happen in various places, and it was extremely frequent. Although many shareholders would make a fuss through various means, the arms could not resist the thighs. In the absolute majority of cases, nothing was done, and the shares were eventually forcibly taken back.
For example, when the imperial court wanted to remove the vassals, the vassals would also argue that the land here was conferred to them by the late emperor. Every blade of grass and every tree here belonged to them. The current emperor had no right to take back these lands with just a word. What kind of logic was this? Naturally, they would rebel.
In a very common phrase, it was very easy to anger others if one did not keep his words. No matter who this person was, an ordinary person or the emperor of the empire, it was the same.
The idea proposed by Ang Lee was a bit too ideal, so there was a little deception. Even if education was universal, it could not completely eliminate all kinds of crimes. But overall, after education, the quality of the people would improve a lot, and all kinds of violations would definitely be greatly reduced. This was for sure.
Of course, education alone was definitely not enough. In addition to education, the imperial court also needed to have enough supervision and deterrence, so that the ordinary people could set their minds at ease and not choose to engage in dangerous criminal activities.
"Ladies and gentlemen, this official will emphasize once more. The so-called push to popularize schools throughout the country is not to nurture the people of the world into scholars who can pass the imperial examinations. It is to educate the common people and raise their quality, to allow them to understand the basic laws and understand the most basic words, so that they will not become unreasonable and unruly people. As for those extremely talented individuals, they will be discovered in time, so that the imperial court will not have any regrets. In recent years, not only has the imperial court's treasury become more and more abundant, but the merchants of the common people have also become more and more prosperous. There are more and more people studying and studying, and private schools have already sprung up everywhere. In the capital, at least thirty percent of the children already have schools to attend. Thus, what reason is there not to push for popularizing schools? Don't all of you think this makes sense? "
Ang Lee looked at the crowd and said.
The nation's chancellor's brows were tightly knitted together. Clearly, he was deep in thought. Many professors felt that Li An's words seemed to make some sense. Even the students in the academy felt that Li An's words seemed to make some sense.
At this moment, as the economy of the Tang Empire became more and more prosperous, there were more and more rich people. First of all, they had the innate conditions to cultivate children. As long as they had money in hand, they would be able to hire poor scholars to teach their children. This led to the proliferation of scholars in the Tang Empire. Even many ordinary people would try their best to let their children go to school to learn some of the most basic cultural knowledge.
However, there were always some particularly poor people who could not afford the tuition of their children at all. There were also some families with many children who only supported one of their children and let the other children do the housework. There were all kinds of situations, but overall, the number of school children was increasing, and the sound of children reading could be heard everywhere.
Some merchant families would even invite teachers to teach their daughters to read and study, which was very precious. In this way, these women would become talented people after they learned something.
Judging from the situation in Chang 'an, the capital, the number of children who could study had indeed accounted for 30%, which was a very high proportion. The other areas of the Tang Empire certainly could not reach such a high proportion, but even if there was a high proportion of 30%, it was only a minority. Most children still did not have the opportunity to be educated. This was the main reason why Ang Lee proposed universal education.
For these nobles, there were already so many people participating in the competition, so there was no need to care about more people joining in. Moreover, getting a better opportunity for development was not entirely dependent on whether one could learn something, but also on one's family background. If one's family did not have something to rely on, then even if one was very knowledgeable, it would be difficult for him to progress. Therefore, these nobles did not have to worry too much.
"I think that Assistant Minister Li's words are reasonable. Universal schools can not only educate the people, but also solve the livelihood problems of many scholars who have not been able to pass the imperial examinations. It can be said to be killing two birds with one stone!"
A doctor opened his mouth and said.
Nowadays, there were many scholars who had not been able to pass the imperial examinations. These people did not have the strength, so it was difficult for them to make a living. Apart from continuing to pass the imperial examinations, their remaining path was very narrow. Therefore, becoming a teacher was a good choice. As long as the Tang Empire made education universal, many scholars would have jobs to make a living. This was very beneficial to stabilizing the society and improving the ability of scholars to make a living. It was also an important measure to stabilize the society. Therefore, these guys had no reason to not support it.
"If you can't pass the imperial examinations, you can become a teacher. This is a good idea. In the future, real scholars will no longer have to worry about not being able to support themselves."
An assistant professor stroked his beard and said with satisfaction.
According to Li An's plan to promote universal education throughout the country, there was bound to be a great demand for teachers and it would satisfy the needs of many people to make a living. In the past, many scholars had never given up on taking the imperial examinations because they had read too much. Other than taking the imperial examinations, they could not find any other way to make a living. If there was a job to teach and educate people to support themselves, many scholars would choose this job. After all, this job could be considered respectable and not very tiring. It was a very noble job. To use a phrase from later generations, it was the most glorious career under the sun. It was a great career that was most envied by others.
In short, it was very urgent and necessary for the Tang Empire to promote universal education throughout the country. This could not only solve the problem of children's education, but also solve the livelihood problems of many scholars.
As for whether more scholars would cause more unemployment, this was not something that should be considered at this time. Moreover, Ang Lee had made it very clear before that the premise of promoting universal education throughout the country was to break the previous education philosophy and let students focus on learning knowledge and principles instead of passing the imperial examinations. Only the particularly excellent students could have such an idea.
This work was handed over to the teachers in various places. They would decide whether to encourage the students to take the imperial examinations according to their ability. If the students had a particularly good aptitude, they would naturally cultivate them. If the students had a dull aptitude, they would not be encouraged to take the imperial examinations, which was equivalent to harming them.
You've already exceeded your reading limit for today. If you want to read more, please log in.
Login
Select text and click 'Report' to let us know about any bad translation.
