Chapter 144 Diplomatic Talents, Enlightening the People When Qin Zhen mentioned Jiang Gan's name, Liu Bei thought about it carefully and did have some impression of him. Jiang Gan was a local scholar from Shouchun. He was young but had a good appearance. Since they had entered Huainan and had many noble families attached to them, Jiang Gan took the opportunity to join their army. However, this person was good at talking big and had no apparent talent, so he was taken in by Qin Zhen as a clerk in the army. Seeing Qin Zhen recommend this young man, Liu Bei was surprised: "Is Jiang Ziyi really capable of taking on this responsibility?" It was because Taishi Ci was too important that he had to pay more attention to him. In response to Liu Bei's question, Qin Zhen nodded and said: "This boy has extraordinary appearance and unparalleled eloquence. He will definitely succeed if he goes there!" Speaking of Jiang Gan, he is a talented person who was blackmailed a lot in the novel.

He was a man of extraordinary appearance, famous for his eloquence, unrivalled between the Yangtze and Huai River regions, and no one could rival him. It is recorded in "Jiang Biao Zhuan" that Jiang Gan did go south on Cao Cao's orders to persuade Zhou Yu, but after meeting Zhou Yu, he returned to Cao Cao's army, making it clear that Zhou Yu was a man of high character and no words could influence him. As a result, in the novel, he was portrayed as a clown who stole books and was laughed at. In fact, he had seen this young man before. He was handsome and eloquent. The key is that he has a very high emotional intelligence and knows what to say and what not to say. He is an excellent diplomatic talent! In the past, most of the diplomatic missions in the army were concurrently undertaken by people like Sun Qian. Now that their management system is becoming more and more formal, they should train some diplomatic talents. Liu Yan was originally considered one, but unfortunately he was narrow-minded and lived a luxurious life, so he could not be used for important tasks. Relatively speaking, it is more in their interest to cultivate a more humble Jiang Gan. Since he recommended it so strongly, Liu Bei naturally stopped asking any more questions and simply called Jiang Gan over, explained everything to him, and asked Jiang Gan if he could do it. Jiang Gan was a man of more than seven feet in height, with a delicate face, rouge-like lips and some powder, which made him look quite handsome. This was also a trend that gradually formed in the late Han Dynasty. Some young people liked to put on some powder to appear romantic. When he heard that Liu Bei wanted him to go south to persuade Taishi Ci, he smiled and said: "If you want me to go on a diplomatic mission, you must have a seal, which our army does not have." "It is like privately forging the imperial seal. It is a serious crime and cannot be done!" Seeing this, Liu Bei frowned and said: "According to what you said, you don't want to go south?" Jiang Gan saw this, but shook his head and smiled: "No, in my opinion, our army does not need to make a seal privately, and we can also persuade Taishi Ziyi!"

"As long as you write me a letter in your own handwriting, I will set off to the south. It must be what you said that Taishi Ziyi will return to his heart." When he said this, Liu Bei was shocked and couldn't help but look at Qin Zhen. His eyes seemed to say that this young man was so arrogant and asked whether he could be trusted or not. Seeing this, Qin Zhen looked at Jiang Gan and said in a deep voice: "You must know that this matter is of great importance. If it succeeds, it will be a great achievement. If it fails, it will be a sin. Don't joke about it!" After all, they are his subordinates, so the pressure must be adequate. When Jiang Gan saw this, he naturally knew what Qin Zhen meant, and immediately bowed and said: "If I can't do it, I am willing to be punished by military law!" Upon hearing this, Qin Zhen nodded, then looked at Liu Bei and nodded again. Seeing this, Lao Liu agreed: "Well, I'll do as you say, but this Taishi Ziyi is an old friend of mine, so I can't neglect him, or else we won't be able to accomplish our mission. But I can't speak ill of him either." He immediately wrote another letter and gave it to Jiang Gan, and then sent someone to escort Jiang Gan south. With Jiang Gan's departure, Qin Zhen naturally returned to his farming career. As mentioned earlier, he currently wants to do three main things: develop Lujiang, make money, and engage in education. Among them, planning for Lujiang is the short-term goal, while making money and developing education are the long-term goals. Regarding reform, he actually thought about to what extent he could promote progress within the institutional framework of the late Han Dynasty. Based on his understanding of history, the history of the flower-growing family can be roughly divided into four stages. There are three large-scale chaotic periods, including the ignorant period before the Qin and Han Dynasties and the Spring and Autumn Period, the brief awakening during the Sui and Tang Dynasties, the high feudalism during the Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties, and the final revival. These four historical stages each have their own characteristics and pain points. But in the final analysis, it can be simply seen as a process of continuous evolution of national culture. First, during the Spring and Autumn Period, there were hundreds of schools of thought and various cultural ideas emerged one after another. Although the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period were chaotic, the overall strength was constantly increasing. But in the end, Confucianism successfully dominated the society, which led to the gradual solidification of social classes and then their disintegration, resulting in the tragedy of the Five Barbarians' Invasion of China. After several hundred years of chaos, people's minds opened up again, which led to the rise of the Sui and Tang dynasties and turned them into a superpower empire. However, due to the lack of a strong enough spiritual core to support it, the Tang Dynasty eventually collapsed again and entered the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period. With the rise of the Song Dynasty, Confucian culture once again became dominant, which led to the feudal dynasty reaching its peak and then gradually falling behind the times. It can be said that the rise and fall of a dynasty is closely related to the development of Confucian culture. However, this does not mean that Confucian culture is bad. In fact, Confucian culture has been playing a positive role for quite a long time. Governing the country with Confucianism has a positive effect on national stability and the construction of social order. Otherwise, the East would probably have fallen into the same state of collapse of rituals and music as the West before entering the modern era. The real problem with Confucian culture is that it is not inclusive enough and is exclusive.

Especially Dong Zhongshu's idea of ​​abolishing all schools of thought and respecting Confucianism alone is the root of all evil. Originally, in the era of Confucius and Mencius, Confucian culture was an extremely inclusive culture, which is why there are such famous sayings as "When three people walk together, there must be one who can be my teacher." But with the beginning of Confucianism as the only official doctrine, Confucianism began to change. Gradually, they began to be self-centered and exclusive, rejecting all academic ideas that would harm Confucianism. As a result, new ideas not only failed to integrate into the Han cultural circle, but were also suppressed in various ways. Without ideological compatibility, Confucianism would naturally fall into stagnation. Generation after generation of talented geniuses had to devote their energy to the vast amount of Confucian classics, making Confucianism increasingly rigid. It was not until the Ming and Qing dynasties that Confucianism reached its peak and became a zombie school. It seems that there are a large number of Confucian scholars who are constantly innovating, but in fact they are standing still. Therefore, we can simply draw a conclusion that if the thinking is active, the nation will prosper, but if the thinking is rigid, the nation will decline. Qin Zhen thought about this situation and concluded that the only solution was to introduce the idea of ​​seeking truth from facts. Because Confucianism has now grown to an unshakable level. A considerable number of people have begun to advocate rigid thinking and spend their entire lives studying classics. If he dared to advocate the idea of ​​allowing a hundred schools of thought to contend and suppress Confucianism. I'm afraid there's no need for external enemies, as you'll be assassinated by the moralists if you go out. In this situation, if we want to enlighten the people and allow all kinds of thoughts to flourish, we need to introduce a new idea into Confucianism. Only by constantly cultivating a group of people in power with vested interests through new ideas can we continue to promote the liberation of thought. Putting this kind of thinking into practice means establishing a number of new schools with practical benefits. Therefore, Qin Zhen's first reform measure regarding education was to gather these children of refugees and set up a new type of school, which mainly taught three subjects: language, agriculture, and arithmetic. Naturally, he decided on these three subjects after careful consideration. Because education is not something that can be accomplished overnight. At this stage, it is of no use to offer courses on physics and chemistry. To put it bluntly, physics and chemistry are two empirical sciences. Before the corresponding industries and knowledge systems are formed, these two disciplines are castles in the air. It doesn’t mean that students can make fertilizers and gunpowder tomorrow after learning physics and chemistry today. Academic creation must be promoted through the experience summary of generations. All he could do was make a start. You can't always claim to advocate seeking truth from facts and then teach some empty and useless knowledge. However, although it is just three basic educations, it is naturally possible to add some personal ideas. So after the school was opened, Qin Zhen was responsible for compiling teaching materials. For the Chinese language subject, in addition to basic literacy passages, he also selected passages from various famous writers, focusing on selecting parts with opposing ideas. For example, the debate between Mencius and Xunzi on whether human nature is evil or good.

For example, the comparison between Legalism and Confucianism discusses whether to control people by law or by reason. He didn't expect these illiterate farm boys to understand these things, but at least they had to have the knowledge first. Only after he has these things can he slowly change his ideological system. For example, in the subject of arithmetic, he directly quoted Arabic numerals. Because arithmetic was extremely inconvenient at that time, capital numbers inherently had no basis for calculation. Only after the Arabic numerals were invented could symbolic arithmetic be introduced to simplify the arithmetic process and increase efficiency. As for agriculture, it covers everything, from seasonal climate changes to intercropping, soil and fertilizer production, grafting and hybridization, and breeding of improved varieties. The main focus is scientific planting. The talents obtained through this kind of education may not be very good at writing. They can be used to manage the grassroots, and they are far more useful than the children of aristocratic families today. After the grassroots schools are built, he will be able to introduce some advanced subjects to cultivate some creative talents. So, after compiling the teaching materials, Qin Zhen selected some literate clerks to serve as teachers. Sometimes, he would even go into the school to teach in person. Such behavior naturally aroused Liu Bei's suspicion. Because in Lao Liu's opinion, Qin Zhen's planning of Lujiang and building of the workshop are both beneficial to the army. But setting up schools and carrying out education is indeed a bit of a distraction. After all, Liu Fu himself was a person who attached great importance to education. With Liu Fu taking the lead, there was no need for Qin Zhen to take any action at all in developing education. What's more, the objects of Qin Zhen's education were not the children of the gentry, but the children of farmers. This will not only waste your energy, but also make it difficult to achieve results. In response, Qin Zhen naturally talked to Liu Bei about the theory of rejuvenating the country through education, and also quoted Confucius' famous saying, "If the people can be led, let them be led; if they cannot be led, let them know." Although Liu Bei spent half his life in the military, he was actually an excellent student and studied under the great scholar Lu Zhi for several years. When I heard this, I thought to myself that when I first learned this sentence, I didn't punctuate it like this. Wasn't it 'The people can be made to follow it, but they cannot be made to understand it'? Although it is just a matter of two extra commas, the two meanings are actually completely different. One is to enlighten the people, the other is to fool them. Therefore, Liu Bei used a sentence from Lao Tzu's "Tao Te Ching" "The people are difficult to govern because they are too smart. Therefore, to govern the country with wisdom is a disaster for the country, and not to govern the country with wisdom is a blessing for the country" as a basis to ask Qin Zhen whether he remembered it wrong. Qin Zhen saw this and said with a smile: “The words of the saints and sages, when they come out of their mouths and are recorded by their disciples, cannot be guaranteed to be distorted.” "You must know that Confucius had 72 sages and 3,000 disciples. He advocated teaching everyone and wanted to educate all people. How could he not want to share their wisdom?" "In today's chaotic times, we should seek out talents to employ. I have only heard of rulers seeking talents, but never heard of rulers who disliked talents!"

"If we don't enlighten the people, where will all the talented people come from?" When it comes to fighting, Liu Bei might be able to compete with Qin Zhen, but when it comes to talking, Liu Bei can't compare with Qin Zhen. Qin Zhen's words made sense, so he said with a smile: "I know you are talented, and my words are not enough, but just do it yourself!" He thought that the more talents the better, and if Qin Zhen was willing to train them, then he would do so. However, after taking a look at the textbook, he felt that Arabic numerals were interesting, so he called Liu Fu to promote them. After that, Liu Bei no longer interfered in school affairs. Qin Zhen was naturally given full authority and began to teach these farm boys some ideas from his own perspective. Let them understand who feeds them and what caused the current chaos. A youth self-governing organization was also formed, called the Young Pioneers, which was specifically responsible for supervising each other and urging everyone to study. This also made Qin Zhen become more friendly in the eyes of these refugees. Anyone who met him on the road would call him Mr. Qin and show him great respect. At the same time, Jiang Gan, who was ordered to persuade Taishi Ci, also arrived in the southern part of Jing County, Danyang. (End of this chapter)