Outside the Banshan Hall, Zhou Jijiu and Luo Siye from the Imperial College stood side by side. When several doctors from the Imperial College heard Zhang Shou extolling the principles of the world, most of them showed indignation. One of the oldest finally couldn't help but roared loudly: "The era of the ancient sage kings was a time of wise rule. How can we compare it with the past? You are so arrogant and ridiculous!"
None of the students in the room had expected that someone outside would suddenly start a fight at this time. Even those who had just been distracted became excited all of a sudden. This was the Imperial College, and usually each hall was in charge of its own affairs. The Imperial College doctors only occasionally supervised the halls they were in charge of, and most matters were handed over to the hall masters.
Now someone has come forward to confront their new teacher. This is going to be a big fuss!
Zhang Shou had expected that if he worshipped the present instead of the past, he would be criticized. Recognizing that the person who angrily refuted him was Yang Yiming, a doctor in charge of the Ruxing Hall in the Imperial College, he laughed and said, "Dr. Yang said that the time of the ancient sage kings was the best. Then I dare to ask you, do you know how big the territory was during the time of the ancient sage kings? How many people were there in the world at that time? How many people could read at that time?"
Seeing that the old man was stunned by his question, he continued to speak rapidly: "In the time of the ancient sage king, Jiangnan was still a swamp, Jingchu was still a jungle, Liaodong was a world of ice and snow, and the only inhabited area was a small area in the Central Plains, which is now the area of a provincial government. Do you think it is more difficult to govern a provincial government or to govern the world today?"
Without waiting for the old man to recollect his thoughts, he spoke again calmly.
"The Book of History says that only the ancestors of the Shang Dynasty had books and classics. Even written history only gradually emerged during the Shang Dynasty. Even if there were many quotations from the ancient sages, could they have recorded even a single word of it? You must know that the Shang Dynasty valued blood sacrifices, and the Zhou Dynasty only respected rituals! We grind wheat to eat noodles now, but during the Han Dynasty, only the nobles could eat flour, and ordinary people could only eat wheat rice."
"There was no paper in the Qin Dynasty, no water-powered stone mills in the Han Dynasty, no gunpowder in the Jin Dynasty, no movable type in the Tang Dynasty, no muskets in the Song Dynasty, and the firearms of the Yuan Dynasty were far inferior to those of today... Not to mention that nowadays, the fields reclaimed by hundreds of millions of people are all over the world, and once harvested, the world will be well fed. By the way, I remember that even kapok was only planted on a large scale in this dynasty. May I ask, Dr. Yang, what did people in ancient times use to keep warm?"
Seeing that Yang Yiming's face was twitching, Zhang Shou said calmly, "Yes, there were furs back then, but since you are in the ancient times where etiquette is kingly, if you can only kill wild animals to get meat and skins to fill your stomach and keep warm, how can it compare to today when you can get everything from the fields and be full and warm?"
Seeing that Yang Yiming was completely refuted, the other doctors of the Imperial College looked at each other in bewilderment, and they could not help but feel very fortunate that they did not rashly join the ranks of refutation, so that they did not end up in such an embarrassing situation.
When Zhou Jijiu and Luo Siye looked at each other, they felt even more uncomfortable.
All dynasties have advocated restoration of the past, but this dynasty... ahem, our dynasty's Taizu hates people talking about the ancient sage kings the most. When a great scholar once brought up this topic, he immediately refuted it in a thundering voice, saying that the ancient ancestors still ate raw meat and drank blood. No matter how capable the sage king was, how could the world be more prosperous than today with his bare hands