He continued, "But in written language, the court still primarily uses classical Chinese, which seriously hinders the dissemination of government orders. If it were to switch to vernacular Chinese, the court would be able to better convey government orders to the grassroots and explain things more clearly, unlike the current situation where once a decree is issued, the people still don't understand what is happening."

"But."

Some people questioned: "Can this really achieve the desired effect? ​​Why spend hundreds or even tens of words to solve a problem that used to only need dozens of words?"

"Because the text needs to be simplified, the meaning needs to be transparent. Otherwise, one word will have multiple meanings, and how can ordinary people, whose cultural level is already low, understand it?"

"Local governments have their own county magistrates, all of whom are Jinshi graduates. When the imperial court's decrees are passed down, the local county magistrates and prefects will explain them to the people."

"You're overthinking it. Aren't there enough local officials who distort government orders from above and act recklessly? Last year alone, over a hundred incompetent county magistrates were demoted or dismissed, many of whom took advantage of the people's inability to understand government orders to seize power and abuse them."

Zhao Jun shook his head and said, "Ultimately, this is a question of interpretation. You want to seize the power to interpret the court's decrees, but the court wants the people of the world to understand, so that they will no longer be oppressed by officials, landlords, and powerful people. They must understand that the court has good intentions for them."

For a moment, there was quite a commotion in the venue.

Everyone listened to Zhao Jun's words, and many people fell into deep thought.

Because Zhao Jun spoke very directly about the issue of the right of interpretation, regardless of whether anyone had thought about this issue or not, everyone suddenly understood that it seemed to be the case.

If written in classical Chinese, one word can have multiple meanings, and sometimes a difference of just one word can make a world of difference.

Therefore, if the imperial court wanted to make written language colloquial, people would understand it much faster.

For example, "A teacher is someone who imparts knowledge to students and resolves their doubts." If we change it to "A teacher is someone who teaches you knowledge," wouldn't it be much easier to understand?

In fact, many people had never thought about this issue before. The reason they opposed it was that it was too troublesome to write. After all, if it was changed to classical Chinese, it could be solved with just a few words before, but now it requires writing a few more words, and some people will definitely be unhappy.

But if you think about it carefully, from the perspective of being easy to understand, it seems that this does make sense. Moreover, the vernacular of the Song Dynasty is not Mandarin, so writing it would only add a few more characters, which is not too troublesome.

"I know that this is something the literati don't want to see. Because the power to interpret texts lies in your hands. For example, if you were the magistrate of a county, you could interpret a decree however you wanted, and you could even control the life and death of the people."

Zhao Jun changed the subject and continued, "But each of you is a high-ranking official in the imperial court. Even if you were to indulge in literary philosophies and seek personal gain through nitpicking, it would be difficult to do so under the supervision of the Constitutional Council and Your Majesty. So why bother with such obsession?"

"What the prefect said actually makes us look like corrupt officials."

Minister of Personnel Li Ruogu was slightly dissatisfied, but after a moment he said, "But what the prefect said does make sense. Changing it to vernacular Chinese will indeed help the people below understand things better."

After all, this vernacular is just a simplified version of classical Chinese. It just adds a few more words to clarify the meaning of some difficult words, which is not bad.

But someone else pointed out: "Minister, painting slogans everywhere among the people is really unsightly."

"The court advocates pragmatism."

Zhao Jun pointed his right hand toward the sky and said, "Whether officials or common people in the Song Dynasty, practicality should be the priority."

"Yes, no matter if it's a white cat or a black cat, as long as it catches mice, it's a good cat."

Zhao Zhen also agreed: "Painting slogans among the people is to let the people know the intentions of the court and prevent the government orders from being distorted and corrupted by those with ulterior motives."

"Yes, the performance evaluation system has been implemented to rectify officialdom in recent years, and it has had some effect. However, there are still many treacherous officials who take advantage of the people's ignorance of the imperial decrees and exploit them through deception, concealment, and deception, stealing their private property. Their crimes are truly unforgivable."

"What's infuriating is that many people have been driven to ruin by officials like this. Many people don't even know to report to the local censors and the Imperial City Office. Countless innocent people have suffered, which shows the harm caused by the poor implementation of government orders."

"The performance evaluation system is quite effective and has restrained many officials. Otherwise, who knows how many ordinary people would have been victimized by the collusion between officials and local tycoons, becoming their slaves. Therefore, we, the Prime Minister of the Constitutional Council, believe that it is imperative to extend it to the people."

Several prime ministers of the Constitutional Council also came out to express their support. Together with the forces behind them, seeing that the situation was developing in the direction where government orders should be issued, they also came out to support. For a time, the entire court was filled with voices of approval.

Seeing this, the few dissenting voices had no choice but to back off, and the decree was passed naturally.

This is also the current norm of the court's policies.

Basically, as long as the Constitutional Yuan can pass it, no matter how loud the opposition voices from below are, it will be useless.

Because the more than ten prime ministers in the Constitutional Council represented more than ten forces, the main ruling officials in the court were the ministers and vice ministers of more than fifty departments. These hundreds of people became the high-level executors of the Song Dynasty.

As high-level decision-makers, the prime ministers basically have a certain influence and power among these executors, which will inevitably allow a small number of court officials to form a united front.

The rest of the court officials could not unite their fronts, and with Zhao Zhen's support, the final result was that the orders of the Constitutional Council were passed down smoothly.

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