The Imperial College's status in the Tang Dynasty was quite special.

On the one hand, it is regarded as an educational management institution and has some functions similar to those of the Ministry of Education in later generations.

On the other hand, it can be regarded as the highest institution of learning in the Tang Dynasty. After Li Shimin ordered the expansion of the Imperial College last year, there are more than 5,000 students and lecturers in it.

In terms of scale, it is not much worse than the current Guanshishan Academy.

During this period, various newspapers in Chang'an City were so popular that the Imperial College naturally opened a newspaper of its own and gave it a literary name "Ya Feng".

"Kong Jijiu, this is the sales situation of our latest issue of "Ya Feng". In addition to the more than 800 copies ordered by the students in the Imperial College, there are less than 200 copies sold outside."

Sima Caizhang was an assistant professor of the Imperial Academy and was responsible for the compilation of "Ya Feng" in the Imperial Academy.

As a great Confucian who was ordered to compile the righteous teachings of the "Five Classics" together with Kong Yingda and others, Sima Caizhang's talent was naturally extraordinary, otherwise Fang Xuanling would not have recommended him to Li Shimin.

However, no matter how talented you are, it does not mean that you can run "Ya Feng" well.

"Less than two hundred copies? If I remember correctly, then "Datang Daily" has sold nearly 30,000 copies of one issue on the market, right?"

Kong Yingda finds this gap a bit unacceptable.

He has always been a little unhappy, no, it should be said that he is very unhappy with Li Kuan.

But this guy's life is getting better and better every year. How can I bear this?

"Kong Jijiu, if we add up all the sales sold to all parts of the Tang Dynasty, their latest sales volume has exceeded 30,000 copies. Basically, his sales volume is equal to the combined sales volume of all other newspapers in the future.

"

Sima Caizhang added with a bitter look on his face.

It’s not that I don’t work hard, it’s just that my opponent is too strong.

"Even their articles written for farm slaves can sell 30,000 copies. Why does our "Ya Feng" only have this little article? The ten "Datang Daily" combined can't compare with ours."

ah."

Kong Yingda has strong opinions on the increasingly vernacular writing style of Datang Daily.

However, it is really difficult for you to find a suitable reason to attack this kind of thing.

After all, he is not a censor, so he can't just talk nonsense.

"Writing? Kong Jijiu, you may not have read the latest issue of their newspaper. How can they have any writing style? It's just how people usually speak, and they use whatever words to write it out. You can't see the elegance of the writing at all.

"

As the person in charge of "Ya Feng", Sima Caizhang was beaten to pieces by a newspaper with no writing skills at all. Naturally, his face was tarnished.

"This... this completely puts us scholar-officials into the position of farm slaves. If this continues, who will be able to understand the wonderful articles of the sages in the future? This is to break the foundation of our Confucian inheritance."

Isn't the reason why the Confucius family has been able to stand in the world for so long without falling because of the great banner of Confucius?

If everyone cannot understand Confucian classics, can his banner still stand?

The more Kong Yingda thought about it, the more worried she became, and the more she thought about it, the more angry she became.

We cannot let this phenomenon go unchecked.

…

Li Shimin looked at the pile of impeachment memorials in front of him with a headache.

Many of the people who wrote these memorials were great scholars of the time. Although their official positions were not necessarily high, their influence was considerable.

Especially as the influence of the imperial examinations in the Tang Dynasty increased, the influence of these great Confucian scholars also continued to increase.

After all, among the five subjects of the imperial examination, the status of Jinshi subject and Mingjing subject has always been far ahead.

Unfortunately, the professors of these two subjects are basically descendants of Confucianism.

When it comes to the level of doing things, Confucian heirs are not bad at all.

Unlike Mingshu, Mingyi, and Mingfa, they are not condensed into a single rope.

"Li Zhong, go and summon Li Kuan into the palace. I have something to ask him."

Li Shimin read through all these memorials and basically understood the root cause.

During this period, Li Kuan's performance satisfied Li Shimin, so he did not want to directly reprimand him because of these memorials.

Judging from Li Kuan's past actions, he should have had his reasons for launching this vernacular.

"Your Majesty has so many things to do, why do you have time to listen to the nagging of a minister?"

On the way into the palace, Li Kuan knew why Li Shimin was looking for him today, so he felt very relaxed.

When I first asked Luo Binwang to write articles in vernacular, I knew that there would definitely be some backlash.

After all, vernacular literature is not perfect, and it does have some shortcomings of its own from the perspective of inheriting traditional literature.

"Don't be so playful and smiling, you are the father of two children, and you haven't looked straight all day long."

Every time Li Shimin saw Li Kuan's expression of not taking anything seriously, he couldn't help but get angry.

"I heard that the first batch of people who immigrated to Hedong Road have arrived at their destination. If they can settle down before the heavy snow comes, the immigration process will be more than half successful."

Li Kuan deliberately did not mention the newspaper, but instead asked Li Shimin to talk about immigration.

"We will talk about this later. I ask you, why are all the articles in Datang Daily so vulgar and without any sense of elegance?"

"Your Majesty, what is vulgarity? What is elegance? "A Dream of Red Mansions" and "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms" were also written by Wei Chen in a vernacular style. Do you think they are vulgar, Your Majesty?"

Li Kuan's words blocked all the rest of Li Shimin's words.

Just look at the performance of the concubines in the harem to see how popular "A Dream of Red Mansions" is now.

As for "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms", let alone it.

Can Li Shimin call them vulgar?

"This classical Chinese is the essence of Sinology left over from the Qin and Han Dynasties, and it is an important guarantee for the inheritance of the Central Plains dynasty for thousands of years. If everyone uses vernacular, wouldn't this inheritance be broken?"

Li Shimin also approved some of the contents written in the impeachment memorial by Kong Yingda and others.

"Your Majesty asked this, and Wei Chen explained what the classical Chinese language is. According to Wei Chen's understanding, this classical Chinese language is the ancient Chinese written language based on the spoken language of the pre-Qin Dynasty and the later imitated ancient works of the Qin and Han dynasties.

Language. By defining it in this way, Your Majesty has no doubts, right?"

Li Shimin glared at Li Kuan and said nothing.

"King Luo Bin in Weichen's Mansion once raised a similar question. Weichen's explanation was that the reason why the ancients processed the pre-Qin spoken language to form the original classical Chinese was because the ancient writing tools were clumsy and the writing was very laborious. The writing was omitted and the emphasis was on

Simplicity is inevitable."

"However, writing tools are constantly evolving. Looking at Chang'an City, who else will use bamboo slips to write? However, even with the advent of paper, literati in the past dynasties have repeatedly emphasized the imitation and beautification of the inheritance of classical Chinese. As a result,

To make classical Chinese a written language that is getting further and further away from the spoken language of ordinary people, Wei Chen believes that there are many deliberate factors in this by literati."

Hearing this, Li Shimin frowned and asked: "Why do you say there are deliberate factors in this?"

As if he had guessed that Li Shimin would ask this question, Li Kuan showed a smile on his face, "Your Majesty, it is actually very simple, just for profit. Classical Chinese is the so-called orthodox way of expressing Confucianism in the imperial court and study rooms. Its elegance and obscurity

, its distance from daily spoken language has made classical Chinese the guarantee that the knowledge and culture it carries has become the patent of the scholar-bureaucrat class, making it difficult for ordinary people to achieve class leaps, and the entire society has little room for upward progress.”

"Logically speaking, writing and speaking have the same purpose, but why do these people use classical Chinese to hide the meaning and purpose when writing articles, so that ordinary literate people cannot understand them?"

Li Shimin: "Then why do you think it is?"

Li Kuan: "Because in this way, the scholar-bureaucrat class such as the aristocratic family can always be at the top. Your Majesty, promoting vernacular literature is actually a way to attack the wealthy aristocratic families."

As soon as Li Kuan said these words, Li Shimin was shocked.

Is the promotion of this vernacular literature actually related to the suppression of aristocratic families that he has been promoting?

Kuan'er, is the foreshadowing of his work already so deep?

"However, it is also true that the promotion of vernacular literature will make it difficult for the sages' articles to continue."

Li Shimin was already inclined to support Li Kuan's idea, but he still had some questions he wanted to clarify.

"Your Majesty, promoting vernacular Chinese does not mean completely abandoning classical Chinese. For ordinary people, they can't even read a few big characters now. The use of classical Chinese will greatly raise the threshold for them to escape from 'illiteracy'. As for the teaching of classical Chinese

, naturally it can still be taught normally in various elementary schools, primary schools and academies."

"illiteracy?"

This was the first time Li Shimin had heard of this word.

I only know that people who are blind are called blind people, but I have never heard of anyone being called illiterate.

"Your Majesty, Wei Chen considers adults who are illiterate and unable to write to be illiterate. If ordinary people want to change their status as illiterate, the promotion of Chinese pinyin and dictionaries is the biggest help. However, if the vernacular is not promoted simultaneously, then

The difficulty for these people to escape from their illiterate status suddenly increased countless times."

The same difficulty of learning a passage in classical Chinese and vernacular Chinese is simply the difference between addition, subtraction, multiplication, division and calculus.

"Then according to your point of view, not only is there no need to stop the promotion of vernacular writing, but the court should strongly support it?"

Li Shimin was a man of great talent and strategy, so naturally he was not afraid that the court would be unable to control the people if they became literate.

On the contrary, he has always been worried that the aristocratic family is too powerful and cannot be controlled by the court.

When Yang Guang was in power, weren't it the various aristocratic families who took the lead in the rebellion or were behind the rebellion?
To be continued...