Shi Ziming was only twenty-eight years old, yet he was in charge of both education and public opinion in the Song Dynasty.
The academic atmosphere of the Song Dynasty was the best in all dynasties, and its status is self-evident.
The emperor wanted to implement reforms, but entrusted this important task to a 28-year-old young man.
Is it simply because he wrote a treatise titled "The Great Commentary on the World"?
Although this leading Confucian scholar of the Song Dynasty quietly preached his academic knowledge, he was certainly not convinced in his heart.
The bigwigs in the court all knew that Shi Ziming lacked political experience, but they were also very clear that the emperor wanted to support him because there were powerful figures behind the scenes helping him remove obstacles.
Shi Ziming's report is bound to stir up some people's emotions and create a stir.
No one knows how big this wave will be.
Will it be like last year when the emperor swept through the Central Plains and exiled tens of thousands of Confucian scholars?
Although the emperor had exiled a group of Confucian scholars when he was pacifying the rebellion in the Central Plains, there were thousands upon thousands of Confucian scholars in the Song Dynasty. How could they be suppressed in one go?
Ultimately, those Confucian scholars held only mediocre positions in academia; they were merely sacrifices deliberately instigated by those behind the scenes to oppose the emperor.
The true Confucian scholars, the powerful faction, are still firmly rooted in this city of Bianjing (Kaifeng) and in the Song Dynasty!
During the Song Dynasty, Confucianism reached its zenith.
How could the emperor possibly quell it in one go?
It is said that the four great academies of the Song Dynasty were the most flourishing places of Confucianism in the Song Dynasty.
Each academy had contemporary Confucian scholars lecturing. Among them, Yuelu Academy, the foremost of the four great academies, had a folk song that said, "Daolin has three hundred students, and the academy has a thousand disciples." The academy was also called "Xiaoxiang Zhusi," and was compared with the place where Confucius taught at home.
The current emperor wishes to promote the learning of all schools of thought, and all Confucian scholars who oppose the court have been exiled to the frontier.
However, as all the officials in the court knew, neither the four great academies nor the great scholars in the private sector had spoken out.
So, did they tacitly agree with the emperor's actions, or was it a strategic retreat?
The prime ministers, who were also Confucian scholars, would never believe that a great Confucian scholar from the common people would tacitly approve of the emperor's actions.
Academic education should never be suppressed by force.
As the old saying goes, it is easier to stop the people from talking than to stop a river from overflowing.
Even after Qin Shi Huang burned books and buried scholars alive, there were still countless Confucian scholars.
The great Confucian scholars of the Song Dynasty also knew that if the emperor wanted to promote the various schools of thought, protesting like the young Confucian scholars before him would be useless and would only give the emperor a reason to take tough measures.
Instead, they decided to remain silent and continue teaching their own books. They believed that the young people of the Song Dynasty could distinguish between the teachings of sages and those of commoners!
Shi Xun is nothing but a clown; how could he possibly shake the path of sacred learning on his own?
In fact, the reform of education in the Song Dynasty was very slow over the past year or so; at least for now, the Song Dynasty still mainly relied on Confucianism.
Even though the Hanlin Academy's decree was delegated to the four major academies, ordering them to reorganize and establish encyclopedias, the Hanlin Academy's policies were still implemented.
But the encyclopedia is practically useless.
Even though Shi Ziming started building new academies in Tokyo, Hangzhou, Jiangling Prefecture, Chang'an and other places, and began to look for scholars from all walks of life, he could not immediately change the situation.
Currently, in terms of academic pursuits, the Song Dynasty has developed a situation of extreme polarization.
Confucianism stands in opposition to the other Hundred Schools of Thought!
Furthermore, someone at the Imperial Academy in Yingtian Prefecture published an article openly satirizing the current Hanlin scholars as the chief culprits who brought chaos to the world.
In fact, they were different from the spineless scholars of the Ming Dynasty.
Most scholars in the Song Dynasty were aloof and proud, but they still possessed the integrity that was expected of them.
Zhao Huan's suppression of Confucian scholars was not because he looked down on the scholars of the Song Dynasty, nor did he believe that Confucianism was a scourge to the world.
After the Classical Prose Movement led by Ouyang Xiu and others, Confucianism in the Song Dynasty maintained a relatively healthy, pragmatic, and application-oriented atmosphere.
In fact, many people are unaware that the flourishing of Confucian scholars in the late Tang and Song dynasties was also related to Buddhism at that time.
Buddhism, as a foreign doctrine, gained a foothold during the Northern and Southern Dynasties. However, during the Tang and Song Dynasties, Chinese intellectuals considered Buddhism to be a doctrine that bewitches people.
Therefore, whether it was Han Yu in the Tang Dynasty or Shi Jie and Ouyang Xiu in the Song Dynasty, they were all at the forefront of the anti-Buddhist movement, and they used the systematic development of Confucianism to counter Buddhism.
If Confucianism had not flourished in the Song Dynasty, it might have created an opening for Buddhism, making China at that time a semi-Buddhist country.
This is something that China's elites do not want to see.
Zhao Huan wanted to suppress Confucianism simply because it was too powerful, so powerful that it was about to hijack Chinese culture.
Chinese culture is not limited to Confucianism alone.
Shi Xun stepped forward to report on the affairs of the Hanlin Academy over the past year.
First, construct the Imperial Military Academy in Tokyo, incorporating all previous martial arts training into the Imperial Academy. Also, construct Tokyo University in Tokyo, establishing an encyclopedic curriculum; construction is expected to be completed in June of the third year of the Jingkang era.
2. Build one university in each of Hangzhou, Jiangling, Chengdu, Youzhou, and Jingzhao prefectures, and each of these prefectures will have ten primary schools and ten secondary schools.
Third, the Compulsory Education Law had been drafted and was officially promulgated by the imperial court on the sixteenth day of the first month of the third year of the Jingkang era.
Fourth, three educational institutions were built in each of the four prefectures of Tokyo, Hangzhou, Jiangling, Chengdu, Youzhou, Guangzhou, and Jingzhao to educate the people.
Fifth, reorganize all private schools in the private sector.
VI. The task of constructing the Great Song Dynasty Gazette has been issued nationwide, including the newly recovered Jinghai Road.
After hearing this report, everyone felt that the new learning in the Song Dynasty was progressing well.
But the ministers in the hall knew in their hearts that although the new school seemed good, it was actually very difficult to implement.
Although local governments were building schools, it was merely to comply with the imperial court's orders.
When a historian was compiling the events that occurred from the second to the third year of the Jingkang era, he wrote: "All government affairs were subject to this."
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