Chapter 714: The Great Confucians All Wept

Saving the Great Ming, Main Text, Chapter 707 — Does Logical Thinking Matter? The influence of Confucianism on the people of ancient China was by no means limited to examinations and official careers. For Confucianism was not merely a set of political ideals; it also contained reflections on and understandings of the cosmos, nature, and all things.

The reason the Cheng-Zhu school of principle, which later generations condemned utterly, was able to flourish in the Song dynasty was, in the final analysis, that it perfected China's traditional idea of the "unity of Heaven and man." After absorbing nourishment from Buddhism and Daoism, it filled in the cosmological and worldview gaps that Confucianism had lacked. It formed a system of thought that took Heavenly Principle as the source of all things in the cosmos and as the source of ethical norms and social bonds, draped a sacred mantle of Heavenly Principle over Confucian political philosophy, and turned "preserve Heavenly Principle, extinguish human desire" into a method of achieving sagehood through the unity of Heaven and man.

In the Song dynasty, this practice of sanctifying political philosophy and turning Confucianism into a doctrine of names, all on the foundation of the unity of Heaven and man, gave Confucianism the upper hand in its struggle against Buddhism and Daoism.

But in the course of its development, because it could never reach the goal of further understanding truth by investigating the principles of things, the school of principle was unable to develop its own natural philosophy. It gradually sank into rigidity and conservatism, becoming a "learning of rites and law" that shackled thought and constrained the conduct of rulers and scholar-officials.

And those constrained by this "learning of rites and law" were not only rulers and scholar-officials, but also the broad laboring masses. The laboring people, bound by feudal ritual teachings, were bent solely on extinguishing human desire, and naturally no longer possessed any spirit of innovation. Even copying the West's clever tricks and ingenious devices seemed too full of human desire.

Of course, even if the laboring people had possessed a spirit of innovation, it would not have been of much use, because the school of principle had no way of forming its own system of natural philosophy. Although the goal of "investigating things to extend knowledge" had been proposed very early on, it remained perpetually stuck in the predicament of "unable to investigate, unable to know." Proposing "investigating things to extend knowledge" was easy, but proposing a method for "investigating things to extend knowledge" was hard... In any case, from the Song dynasty until now, more than five hundred years of investigation had produced no breakthrough.

That is what it means to have never truly entered the gate!

And while the school of principle was stuck in a dead end, the Yangming school of mind arose in response to the times. The Yangming school of mind actually did not know how to "investigate things" either. Precisely because it did not know how to "investigate things," it discovered a point of entry for criticizing Master Zhu's learning. So the Yangming school of mind grew and flourished by dismantling the system into which the school of principle had sunk through conservatism and rigidity. But after the dismantling, all it could offer were things like "extending innate moral knowledge," "the mind is principle," "mind as the root," and "unity of knowledge and mind." In the final analysis, these were still about how to become a sage, not about how to establish a system for pursuing truth.

If the "school of mind" represented any advance over the "school of principle," it was that there were fewer rules and restrictions, making it easier for people who "possessed innate moral knowledge in their hearts" to copy the West's natural philosophy.

But the influence of the "school of principle" always remained, while the "school of mind" easily fell into nihilism, discoursing on emptiness and expounding the abstruse, drawing Confucianism into Chan Buddhism. After smashing the framework of the "school of principle," there was no controlling what the school of mind copied! The mind is principle, after all — whatever came to mind, that was what got copied.

So by the late Ming, the school of mind had in fact already declined. Some people entered Chan or the abstruse; some studied the West and entered Christianity; still others proposed something called "vigilance in solitude," which was also a path of moral cultivation... One can only say it was utter chaos. Under these circumstances, the school of principle began to show signs of revival!

If Zhu Cilang wanted to open up a golden finger and build steam engines and the like, would he not need to use logical thinking, empirical trial and error, the scientific method — these rigorous Western ideas of natural philosophy?

If he did not use them, could he succeed by relying on the unity of Heaven and man, Heavenly Principle and human desire, the extension of innate moral knowledge, and the formula of a person becoming a complete man of Heaven and earth through vigilance in solitude?

Or, simply set aside philosophy and science altogether and force development through manual craftsmen alone? And how exactly would one go about forcing it?

Zhu Cilang did possess a fair amount of knowledge in mathematics, physics, chemistry, and biology, but most of this knowledge was theoretical, and because it had gone unused for many years, much of it had already grown vague. Even if he brought it out, it would be fragmentary. With no system of natural philosophy whatsoever, how were a bunch of illiterate craftsmen supposed to digest it? How absorb it? How force it?

Give them the principle of the steam engine, throw tens of thousands of taels of silver at it, give the craftsmen below a deadline on pain of beheading — oh, right, and they would also have to be locked up, to keep them from going to Western missionaries for help... Could such brute force succeed? Or, instead of beheading, beat them with the plank if they failed to finish?

In any case, Zhu Cilang did not believe it would. So his method of opening a golden finger and climbing the tech tree was a clumsy one: start from the foundations, introduce logic, dialectics, positivism, the scientific method — that sort of thing — and bring them into Confucianism as the tools and methods for Confucian investigation of things and extension of knowledge. In his view, step-by-step development was the true shortcut, while those who tried to take shortcuts and cut corners often ended up unwittingly taking the long way around!

But perfectly integrating this set of things into Confucian thought was no easy matter. On the one hand, Zhu Cilang's own grounding in Confucian learning was not deep enough; on the other, there was no perfect point of entry... until Dorgon's "tomb-robbing at Qufu" gave Zhu Cilang an opportunity to reform the old under the guise of antiquity.

Reforming Confucianism under the borrowed name of Confucius was far easier than Zhu Cilang stepping out himself to debate doctrine with all manner of great Confucian scholars!

So for the past two years, apart from busying himself with military and government affairs, Zhu Cilang had been tinkering with this natural philosophy business. Part of it he had produced from memory; part of it was translated from Western scholarly classics and copied from them.

Merely copying was not enough. He also had to imitate Confucius's tone and carve these principles onto bamboo slips, and then age the slips to look old — this matter gave Zhu Chunjie no end of headaches! Confucius had been dead for two thousand years; what should bamboo slips buried underground for two thousand years look like? And by what method could the slips have been preserved for so long?

Zhu Chunjie had no expertise in this at all!

Fortunately, he found two people who did. One was Feng Sizhong — the Feng Sizhong who had once served as Zhu Cilang's lead bodyguard and later switched to studying artillery, a product of the Tianshou Mountain system. His family had managed imperial tomb construction for generations, so he was extremely knowledgeable about burial goods and also knew how to forge antiques.

The other was named Li Shaoyou, courtesy name Wanghu, a nephew of Li Ruolian. In Beijing he had been a dandy, and his family for generations had loved dealing in antiques. After falling on hard times and arriving in Nanjing, he first joined the Embroidered Uniform Guard, and later worked his way into the Imperial Academy of Investigating Things. At first he was responsible for keeping watch on the Academy, but later he developed an interest in Western learning, studied it rather well, and was now a teacher at the Academy.

After Zhu Chunjie approached these two, through their introductions he also found several experts in the Nanjing antiques trade, and at last assembled a full team capable of forging goods for Zhu Cilang.

And Zhu Cilang also pulled Hanlin Academicians Bi Jiucheng and Su Ziwen into the gang — both were jinshi and trusted close ministers of Zhu Cilang, fully capable of writing the "posthumous texts" on Confucius's behalf.

Now the aged "Posthumous Texts of the Supreme Sage" had been laid out one slip at a time before Zhu Cilang. They looked quite like unearthed relics, but whether they truly had two thousand years on them was hard to say.

After all, no one had ever seen bamboo slips of two-thousand-year vintage!

"Will it work?" Zhu Cilang asked.

"It should... be all right!" The one who answered was Li Shaoyou, twenty-four or twenty-five years old, with a somewhat oily, powdered look about him — he did not appear reliable at all!

Zhu Cilang glanced at Feng Sizhong. Feng Sizhong, who had already been appointed Artillery Commissioner of the Grand Marshal's Office, shook his head: "My Emperor, a true expert cannot be fooled!"

"Then what is to be done?" the Emperor asked.

"There is a way," Zhu Chunjie said. "This subject has learned that Qian Qianyi is preparing to bring Ji Kun north. Ji Kun is an expert, and he also knows several masters in the Yangzhou antiques trade."

"Oh," Zhu Cilang nodded. "You have a plan?"

Zhu Chunjie said: "My Emperor, this subject can send someone to speak with the people in the Yangzhou antiques trade, but Ji Kun... he is not an easy man to talk to."

"He is Qian Qianyi's student. If he were willing to help us, the deception would be easy..." Zhu Cilang paused. "We know what he wants. We will speak with him Ourself, and it is certain to succeed!"