Chapter 118 Ying Zheng: A million books, even if I sold myself I wouldn’t have that many books!
In a restaurant in the city, a group of people were gathered in the best private room on the second floor. They all had worried expressions on their faces and looked out the window from time to time.
"Are you here yet?"
“No.”
"Will His Excellency really come? He always follows Your Majesty's lead. This matter goes against Your Majesty's wishes, so I'm afraid he won't participate."
"No matter how much he follows His Majesty, he can't just abandon the Legalists. We are the top pillars of the Legalists."
"The immortals want to promote universal education, which contradicts the principles of our Legalists, but coincides with the Confucian ideal of teaching everyone. I'm afraid they'll take advantage of this opportunity and trample on our Legalists!"
When several people thought of that scene, their faces turned ugly.
Since Shang Yang's reforms, the Qin State has always respected the Legalists. It was the Legalists who accompanied the Qin State in diligently building its foundation and conquering the world. The Confucianists were just one of the hundreds of schools of thought that had to enter the court after the Qin State conquered the six states. Now they want to climb over their heads and shit and piss. How can this be tolerated!
"I think we shouldn't scare ourselves. Your Majesty has never said that Confucianism will replace Legalism. There are many Legalists holding important positions. If we were to make a big move, we would be shaking the very foundations of the Qin Empire. Your Majesty would never be so foolish."
Several people kept talking to convince themselves, but the worry on their faces did not decrease at all, and the frequency of people standing by the window and looking out did not decrease at all.
“Here it comes!”
…
Li Si got off the carriage, walked up to the second floor as if he was familiar with the place, walked through the corridor of the private rooms, came to the innermost room, and pushed the door open and went in.
As expected, the most important representatives of the Legalist forces in the court are all here, and they rush up to him as soon as they see him.
They poured out compliments one after another, rambling on without getting to the point, as if they were really just here for a party and a chat, but the anxiety in their eyes revealed their true thoughts.
"Okay." Li Si finished a cup of tea, put the teacup on the table, and stopped listening to their beating around the bush.
As the most handy tool of His Majesty the Emperor, he was very busy. Before he finished his original official duties, a new task came down. If he hadn't seen that these were all his family members, he would have wanted to get up and leave.
"You should prepare first. Soon, His Majesty will construct a library within the city and order the palace's collection of books to be copied and placed there. The library will be open to the public, and anyone who meets the requirements can borrow books there."
When this was said, most people's first reaction was: There is such a good thing?!
What are the requirements and have I met them?
Many of them were born into aristocratic families, but they still had a deep understanding of the difficulties of reading books. If they were even poorer, the entire family might only have one or two books passed down from their ancestors, which they had to read over and over again. If they wanted to read more books, they could only exchange or borrow them from other people's homes.
Everyone here, who hasn't been turned away when trying to borrow a book?
Now that there is suddenly a library that allows unlimited borrowing, everyone’s first thought is to borrow books.
But then they realized, "The admission standards for this library must be very low. Your Majesty's visit must be to lower the threshold for learning for more people."
Those people coming up would squeeze their living space. Several people looked at each other and said, "Prime Minister, this cannot be done."
"This kind of thinking can be integrated with both Mohism and Confucianism, but it is contrary to Legalism. Once they come to power, I'm afraid there will be no place for us Legalists in the court."
"Yes, Prime Minister, you are the face of our Legalists. How can you fall behind the Confucians?"
Li Si listened to their chattering and clamoring, wondering: Was this how they acted when they opposed His Majesty a few days ago? Like clowns, their shortsightedness was laughable.
Click.
The sound of someone putting down a cup was heard. It was a very light sound, but it instantly quieted the people around him.
They consciously took two steps back and waited for Li Si to speak.
"This matter cannot be reversed, and you should not expect others to object."
"It will not only be a library open to the public, but will also promote universal education and enlighten the people."
Enlighten the people?
Enlighten the people!
"This is absolutely unacceptable!"
If the previous library was just their concern about their interests being squeezed, then this one was digging for the foundation of the Dharma family!
Everyone knows that the Legalists took root in the Qin State starting with Shang Yang. The policy of keeping the people ignorant established by Shang Yang lasted for hundreds of years and had long been integrated into the blood of the Qin State. And all of them, the Legalists, grew up drawing nutrients from this big tree.
If they lose the big tree, how will the Legalists survive?!
What they said makes sense, but can Shang Jun make people live forever?
Li Si's breathing became hot when he thought of what the emperor said at that time.
Longevity!
This delusion that only an emperor could pursue would actually come true one day.
The immortal had previously mentioned cultivating immortality, and he had even witnessed the effects of national fortune twice before. However, this was something everyone possessed, and it didn't make him special. Furthermore, while the effects of national fortune were indeed long-lasting, they were subtle and insidious, making them less intuitive than the word "immortality."
"How about comparing it to immortality?"
Li Si looked up at them, smiled and said this, then lowered his head to sip his tea, as if he didn't care at all about the storm it would bring.
"Nothing can compare to the foundation of the Legalists, not even immortality... Hmm? Immortality? Immortality!!"
"Did the Prime Minister just talk about immortality?" Someone looked at others as if seeking confirmation, his voice light and fluttering, as if afraid of waking others from a sweet dream.
"Yeah, I think I did hear those two words just now."
They verified with each other, tested each other, and finally confirmed that they had not heard wrongly.
“Eternal life! Eternal life!!”
Someone jumped up and down a few times on the spot, his face flushed with excitement like a glowing sunset.
"That's not right!" someone questioned, "What does opening a library have to do with enlightening the people, or with immortality?"
"To achieve immortality, one must be free from the mundane world and detached from the mundane world..." He spoke word by word, and the words and thoughts in this passage were a mixture, not at all like those spoken by an outstanding disciple of the Legalists. Instead, it seemed as if a mixture of Taoist terms and his own hearsay imagination.
"How can the naive fantasies of ordinary people be compared with the methods of the fairyland brought by the immortals?" Li Si skillfully praised one thing and praised the other, bragging about the extraordinary abilities of the immortals.
"The immortals said that there are no spiritual veins in the mortal world. If we want everyone to become immortal, we can only cultivate the national destiny." Li Si took a sip of tea and continued, "Simply put, it means making the Qin Dynasty stronger and thus enhancing the national destiny. Once the national destiny reaches a certain level, we can start to govern the dynasty. By then, we can all ascend to heaven in broad daylight and achieve immortality."
If Wei Shengxue heard his severely distorted retelling here, he would definitely deny and refute it frantically: I am not, I did not, I never said that!
Ascending to heaven in broad daylight, achieving immortality... She herself is still pursuing these things!
However, she was not present at the scene, and did not know that Li Si had first fooled her and then brainwashed other members of the Fa family, convincing them and causing their attitude to make a 180-degree turn, from firmly opposing brainwashing to scolding anyone who did not support the Library and enlightening the people.
"For immortality!"
"To become an immortal!"
Enlightening the people is the only way forward, and they cannot fight against the wheel of history.
Then they discussed how the Legalists could adapt to the new era after broadening people's knowledge.
"Many of the strategies in the Book of Lord Shang will have to be discarded, and the Qin laws will have to be revised. Oh, and once everyone can practice cultivation, we'll have to fly in the sky. Too many people flying will easily cause collisions, so the laws governing flying in the sky will have to be written into the new Qin laws..."
"Although I've never seen an immortal kill someone, it must be extraordinary. I'm afraid that even the most powerful army of the Qin Dynasty would be torn apart in an instant. Such dangerous behavior must not occur in Xianyang City. The new Qin law must include a strict prohibition on flying over Xianyang City. As for the punishment, we are powerless to imagine it now, so it's better to leave it alone for now..."
A group of Fa family members gathered together and began to sincerely discuss how to manage the entire population after they became immortals.
I can only say, you are worthy of being the Legalists!
-------------
"...It's that simple." Ying Zheng's reason was so simple that even Wei Shengxue was stunned.
ah?
Just for that illusory hope of immortality, you gave up the huge benefits you have right in front of you?!
Wei Shengxue couldn't understand it. This was different from what she had seen and learned in Interstellar.
The information she was exposed to since childhood told her that she should have long-term goals and plans, but she should not ignore the realities in front of her for the sake of unrealistic goals.
This kind of behavior of almost giving up the reality in front of her and pursuing fantasies that she didn't know whether they were true or false was simply challenging her cognition.
"No matter what, the matter has been resolved. Why should we be so obsessed with the process?"
Ying Zheng's comforting words made Wei Shengxue, who was about to get stuck in a dead end, suddenly enlightened.
Yes, does it matter what they think?
It doesn’t matter!
What is important is the massive merits brought about by building public libraries and promoting universal education. Once this huge investment in education is successful, it can directly increase her strength to the late Nascent Soul stage.
After realizing this, Wei Shengxue immediately put all those worries behind him and asked enthusiastically about matters related to the construction of the library.
"Xianyang City is the political center of the Qin Dynasty. Judging from the policies you have issued, you also intend to build it into a cultural center. In that case, you want the 90 acres of land for the public library."
She calculated in her mind that the total population of Daqin was close to the population of the city where she lived in the interstellar space. However, given the people's love of having children, the population would grow rapidly after the war, so building a library of similar size would be the minimum requirement.
"How much?!" Ying Zheng was so shocked by her lion-like mouth that he shouted out.
"You also think ninety acres is a bit too little, right?" Wei Shengxue sketched on the table. "With Daqin's current infrastructure capabilities, we can only build a two-story building at most. Those two floors combined would cover less than two hundred acres. Excluding the reading area, there's indeed not enough space for books. But after the Yun Dynasty opens and various immortal cultivation methods are mastered, we can expand and improve it."
Well, in just a few words, the number doubled again.
Meng Yi, who was standing by, widened his eyes and counted on his fingers how many books could be placed on the two hundred acres of land.
Even if it were replaced with bamboo slips, it would be much better, but according to the habits of immortals, they must be talking about paper books. Hundreds of words can be written on one page. The books of historians, which are famous for their large number of words, are only tens of thousands of words, which are only as thick as a palm when written on paper books.
How many books would it take to fill the library?
"Probably several million books. Excluding the duplicates, there are probably about a million. But we have to leave some empty shelves for future books." Wei Shengxue recalled the library she was most familiar with and casually said some data.
Meng Yi was so shocked that he was speechless, with one sentence hanging in his mind:
All the books in the world combined cannot fill up this library!
Is this the life of an immortal?
It is indeed completely different from ordinary people.
As Ying Zheng listened to the conversation between the two, his back, which was originally half leaning on the chair, straightened up and leaned forward slightly, his eyes fixed on Wei Shengxue, trying to find "evidence" of his nonsense from her face.
Wei Shengxue didn't notice their shock. She pulled out a piece of white paper and started writing. "I wonder if we can select people who are good at learning and teaching this time. Promoting basic education will require a large number of teachers. For now, the curriculum should consist of a few simple and basic courses, and then we can branch out later. What do you think?"
She looked at Ying Zheng with a questioning look.
Ying Zheng hadn't recovered from the shock of the vast amount of books, so he subconsciously nodded and said, "Let it be as the immortal said."
However, he was quite dedicated to his work. Even in this situation, he did not forget the Great Qin State. "Since the great changes in the world, the inheritance was cut off. It has been a long time since the world has gathered so many books. I am afraid that the Great Qin State will not be able to fill these one million empty volumes for a while."
Ying Zheng: A million copies! Even if I were to sell myself, I still wouldn’t be able to buy so many books!
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