Yunxi didn't know whether Jian Yi had guessed what he was thinking, or whether he really thought so. Yunxi really wanted to increase the assessment of the Five Classics and reduce the weight of the Four Books.
The Four Books are the collective name for the two books "The Analects" and "Mencius" and the two articles "The Great Learning" and "The Doctrine of the Mean". They were compiled and published by Zhu Xi, a great scholar in the Southern Song Dynasty. They have been widely circulated and famous since then.
The Five Classics is the collective name for the five Chinese classics handed down from the pre-Qin Dynasty and even the Western Zhou Dynasty: the Book of Changes, the Book of Songs, the Book of Songs, the Book of Rites, and the Spring and Autumn Annals.
Most people have studied "The Analects of Confucius" and it is not long; "The Great Learning" and "The Doctrine of the Mean" are themselves articles excerpted from the "Book of Rites"; Mencius has slightly more words, more than 30,000 words, but compared with the Five Classics
It's still much less.
Most of what the Four Books talk about is about the principles of life, basically teaching people how to behave. Theoretically, if a person can meet the standards in the Four Books, he can be called a saint. If everyone passes the imperial examination
Those who serve as officials are all saints, and Yunxi can lead the people of the Ming Dynasty towards perfection.
The problem is that only a small number of people can become gentlemen, and those who can reach the standard of saints only happen once in a hundred years. At the same time, the Four Books do not teach practical problem solving except for the principles of life, so they have little effect on improving officials' ability to do things. What can really be done
There are only a handful of people who rule the world with half of the Analects of Confucius, and most of them are just bragging.
The Five Classics are different. The Five Classics cover a wide range of topics. The Book of Songs is poetry, the Book of Records records the announcements of ancient emperors and the conversations between emperors and ministers, and the Book of Rites is an article written by Confucian scholars from the Warring States Period to the Qin and Han Dynasties to explain the Book of Rites.
Anthology, "Book of Changes" is a philosophical book that can be used to tell fortunes, and "Spring and Autumn" is the history of the Spring and Autumn Period compiled by historians from various countries during the Warring States Period based on historical records.
It can be said that in the feudal era, everything a ruler should know could be obtained from the Five Classics. Even in wars, examples could be found in the Spring and Autumn Annals.
So Yunxi has decided to increase the importance of the Five Classics.
Moreover, the increased importance of the Five Classics will also help popularize the new Confucian thought that Yunxi has decided to officially start promoting.
Although later generations of Confucians counted the Five Classics as Confucian classics, in fact, except for the "Book of Rites" which is a true Confucian classic, the others have little to do with Confucianism and are just "counted" as Confucian classics.
Except for the "Book of Rites", the other Four Classics are the national culture inherited by the Chinese nation from the Western Zhou Dynasty and even the Shang Dynasty. They are all-encompassing and are the true root of the Chinese national culture. How can they be represented by just Confucianism!
By the Song Dynasty, Confucian culture had reached a dead end. Although Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism had developed in some aspects and played a positive role in maintaining social stability and promoting historical progress in the late Song Dynasty, one of its core views was
"Preserving natural principles and destroying human desires" soon became a thing that constrained social development and seriously hindered the process of historical development.
Therefore, Yunxi decided to advocate the New Confucian Thought. Although he himself has not yet figured out what the New Confucian Thought should be like and what content it contains, but if he puts the banner out first, real Confucian scholars will naturally join him. According to his
to establish what this new Confucian thought includes.
Orientals never talk directly about innovation, but rely on ancient reforms. When Fuso came to the Meiji Restoration, the slogan was still "restore the imperial government, respect the emperor and reject foreigners." This shows that ancient reforms are traditional in the East.
Since Confucianism is based on ancient times, it is natural to put out books such as the Five Classics that are 'counted' as Confucian classics and seek evidence from them. Even those stubborn Neo-Confucianists have nothing to say: Confucius and the sage all believed that these five books
It’s very important, what do they dare to say?
Yunxi has decided that the questions in this year's examination of classics and meanings will be mostly from the Five Classics and less from the Four Books. Anyway, they are required to know the Five Classics.
Of course, it is not good to completely cancel the Four Books. It is also reasonable why the emperor and Zhu Yuanzhang in the late Yuan Dynasty selected the Four Books as the standard examination books.
The Four Books have a small number of words and are easy to understand. More importantly, because the Four Books have a small number of words, children from poor families can also afford them, making the imperial examination more popular and giving hope to more people from ordinary families.
Therefore, Yunxi made the final decision: starting from next time on Classics and Yi, the rural examination, general examination, and palace examination will cancel the Four Books assessment, and only examine the Five Classics; the county examination, government examination, and college examination that examine scholars will remain unchanged.
As for the criticized eight-legged essay, it is just a format for writing articles, just like the syllogism of the current college entrance examination argumentative essay. It is actually not very important. What is more important is the examination content.
Another thing about the imperial examination that has been criticized by later generations is that it does not pay attention to policy theory. But there is a reason for this.
The evaluation of the quality of an article is subjective. There is no certain standard. It all depends on the consideration of the examiner. And there are so many provinces, prefectures, prefectures, and counties in the country. No matter how awesome the emperor is, it may not necessarily be the thinking of the examiner of every exam.
They are all similar to emperors.
Of course, officials who think differently from the emperor will not admit people who think differently from themselves. In other words, people who think like the emperor will not be admitted.
However, emperors of all dynasties had no way to solve this problem. The final decision was: to only pay attention to the classics and meanings, not to policy theory, to prevent examiners at all levels from recruiting a group of ministers who opposed themselves.
Yunxi has no way to solve this problem now, and he can't do anything about the provincial examination. But the examination is held every three years, and in the capital, Yunxi still has a way to solve it.
Therefore, Yunxi decided to increase the weight of policy discussions in this year’s examination.
Yunxi, who had already made up his mind, immediately said to the fourth auxiliary officer: "Dear sirs, I have decided to make some changes regarding this year's examination."
"In this year's examination, the three exams remain unchanged, but the content has changed."
"The number of questions from the four books in the first classics and meanings test has been reduced. There is only one question in the four books. There are three questions in each of the five classics. Counting the questions in the four books, there are a total of 16 questions. Candidates choose four questions to write their essays."
“The marking officers of the four articles must treat them equally and cannot be partial to any one article.”
"The content remains unchanged for the second scene."
"In the third policy review, this year the policy review and classics will be given the same status as those in the examination. In the admission of tributes, the classics and policy articles will be equally important."
"Also, I remember that I issued an imperial edict the year before last to add a math question to the provincial examination, and it was added to the Shiwen test. This year's general examination also added a math question, and this math question cannot be solved.