Chapter 305

"Truly! His Majesty told me so himself."

Hearing this, Tang Ruowang looked excitedly toward the west, crossing himself repeatedly on his chest as he whispered,

"I never thought I would truly wait for this day. Lord, did you hear? We are about to spread the Gospel to the Far East!"

Su Qiao frowned and sighed,

"But this matter is not so simple!"

Tang Ruowang's voice of prayer stopped abruptly.

He turned around in confusion, looking at Su Qiao and asking,

"My brother, did you not say His Majesty has already permitted us to preach in the Far East?"

Su Qiao sighed,

"His Majesty has permitted it, but you also know that court affairs are not something His Majesty can decide alone. There are also the hundred officials of the entire court; we now need to persuade them!"

Hearing this, Tang Ruowang

felt his heart, which had just been boiling with blood, instantly cool by half.

The power these Great Ming officials held over this land

he knew well.

Without their approval, the matter of preaching could absolutely never come true!

"Then did His Majesty say how to persuade these hundred officials?"

After a moment of hesitation, Su Qiao

looked at the two before him and said in a low voice,

"Unless we can prove that the great Father and Lord can make the people of Great Ming live better!"

"Like those decrees regarding the treasure notes I issued in the Grand Secretariat earlier, I told His Majesty that these were all taught to me by the Lord in a dream."

"What we need now is to quickly inform the Pope and send a large batch of professional talents over."

"People in fields such as astronomy, calendar science, physics, chemistry, and mathematics must all be sent over in batches."

Listening to Su Qiao list these items like counting family treasures,

Tang Ruowang nodded repeatedly, even casually pulling out paper and pen to lean against the wall and start writing.

"Hmm? Why are they all these scholars? Do we not need bishops and priests?"

Su Qiao immediately coughed twice awkwardly and said,

"Ahem, ahem, of course there will be; this is just a part. Just send some bishops and the like as well."

Tang Ruowang nodded firmly and said,

"Rest assured, my brother, I will immediately find someone to carry a message back."

"With so many dioceses, we can surely gather the talents the Son of Heaven of Great Ming desires!"

Su Qiao nodded slightly.

He immediately sent Tang Ruowang and Nan Nan Huairen away from the Weapon Bureau.

Just after these two Westerners left,

Zhu Youjian, who had been hiding nearby, quietly appeared and looked at Su Qiao with a puzzled expression, asking,

"Mr. Su, why are you doing this?"

Su Qiao clasped his hands behind his back, gazing at the backs of Tang Ruowang and Nan Nan Huairen, and said leisurely,

"Your Majesty, we cannot rely on Westerners to cast cannons forever."

"Rather than waiting for Westerners to come, we might as well be shameless and ask them to send a batch of professional talents over, so that later the students of the Jiao Sect's Imperial Academy can learn truly useful things."

Hearing this,

Zhu Youjian immediately said with a hint of displeasure,

"Mr. Su, I cannot agree with your words."

"Does Great Ming not have the words and deeds of sages, and is there anything Great Ming lacks?"

Su Qiao helplessly shook his head and said bitterly,

"During the Two Song dynasties, because Champa rice drifted across the ocean, there was the prosperity of the Two Song dynasties. To this day, potatoes and corn have drifted across the seas to save Great Ming from crisis."

"How can Your Majesty be certain that the Franks have nothing Great Ming wants?"

Hearing this,

Zhu Youjian also fell silent for a moment.

After all, what Su Qiao said was the truth.

The root of the Celestial Empire in his own heart still could not be broken.

Finally,

Su Qiao sighed leisurely and said,

"So many scholars reading only The Four Books and Five Classics every day is truly a waste."

During the late Ming period,

although grain production in all of Great Ming dropped drastically,

another thing saw almost explosive growth.

That was—the academies.

Since Confucius wrote books and established teachings, even counting the Qing dynasty before the cannon fire at Humen,

the sum of all academies across all generations

was not as many as the academies of the late Ming period.

During the Chongzhen reign, the two capitals and thirteen provinces had a total of over two thousand academies.

This number was actually already terrifying.

After all, even in a county town, there were only over ten thousand people.

Especially in a corner of Jiangnan.

In every county town, there were almost five or six academies.

The specific literacy rate is already untraceable.

But there is a number that can serve as a reference.

In the thirty-ninth year of Wanli, the Ministry of Rites issued the "Imperial Decreed Teaching Directives," strictly forbidding private carving and printing of "Jin Ping Mei" across all regions, and then began a massive search for the book.

In Jiangnan province alone, over 1.2 million copies of the book were collected; behind this cold number, there were at least nearly a million literate scholars!

Hearing Su Qiao's words,

Zhu Youjian could not help but smile bitterly and said,

"Not reading The Four Books and Five Classics? Mr. Su, you make it sound easy."

"Even if I, the Son of Heaven, wished to abolish The Four Books and Five Classics, do you think the scholars of the world would agree?"

Some always believe that the Confucian hierarchy of Heaven, Earth, Ruler, Parent, and Teacher catered to a system of control, which gave rise to the eight-legged essay.

But Zhu Youjian knew.

The eight-legged essay was not chosen by the Son of Heaven.

Nor was it something the Son of Heaven could decide.

The eight-legged essay was merely a genre, a form.

For instance, when Old Zhu selected officials through the imperial examination,

no such regulations were made.

Instead, it spontaneously formed during the process of imperial examinations conducted by successive generations of scholar-officials.

During the Yongle, Xuande, and even Zhengtong and Tianshun eras, eight-legged essays were never seen.

It was not until the Chenghua era.

That this genre and form gradually solidified into a fixed pattern.

After the Qing army entered the pass, the eight-legged essay was never included in the examination syllabus.

Even in the first year of Shunzhi, Dorgon issued an edict abolishing the eight-legged essay, up to the tenth year of Shunzhi.

In the second year of Kangxi, the eight-legged essay was abolished again; in the fourth year of Kangxi, all officials submitted memorials again, and it was restored in the seventh year of Kangxi.

In the third year of Qianlong, the abolition of the eight-legged essay was discussed once more.

The useless old man summoned all officials to discuss methods to replace the imperial examination system, but the officials played dead.

Once again, it came to nothing.

Even the most powerful Emperor is ultimately just a part of the ruling group.