Zhang Shou admired those who could go back to ancient times and be well-versed in classics and history, be knowledgeable about both ancient and modern times, and then establish a school of thought and become immortal.
With the knowledge he had accumulated in the later generations, he could barely understand ancient Chinese. After all, he was an excellent student who could get high scores in ancient Chinese reading questions. Because of his memory, he could also recite many poems and articles. After coming to this world, his memory was even strengthened. However, this was far from enough for him to cope with the academic environment of the time, which was full of talented people and great scholars.
The most important thing is that at the best time for his body to grow and develop, there was no corresponding teacher to teach him these things! If there is anyone who can easily learn the Four Books and Five Classics by himself, and then discuss the principles with some famous scholars, it is definitely not him.
After all, his teacher Ge Yong was indeed a great scholar, but his relationship with Ge Yong was really hard to describe. To be honest, he only started to read Teacher Ge's works after returning to Beijing, and the mathematics books that Ge Yong left in the bamboo house in Cuiyun had long turned to ashes due to poor preservation.
But thanks to this beautiful misunderstanding, he became Ge Yong's student, and then was able to cheat like he is now... But precisely because Teacher Ge didn't have the time to teach him things like classics and history, so in terms of quoting classics, of course he can't keep up with those old scholars who are truly well-read and like to quote from a wide range of books when they speak.
So, at this time, Zhang Shou stayed in the main hall of the Ge Mansion, facing the celebrities and masters introduced to him by Ge Yong who were said to be highly respected and famous. He seemed to be well-mannered, humble and polite, and talked and laughed at ease, but he was really bored and helpless in his heart.
He also knew that the recognition of scholars in this era was the basis for establishing oneself in the officialdom. Otherwise, even though you were powerful in the past, when the final judgment came after your death, a group of people who held the pens of the Spring and Autumn Annals would throw a lot of dirty water on you. So, even though you were obviously quite talented in writing and had many works, you might be said to be unlearned and vulgar. As for your works...
Haha, if no one prints books, no one buys books, and those works are lost, can you still jump out of the grave and argue with others? After all, the guys who are judged in this way usually have no successors. If there are people who inherit the mantle and still hold power, then the backlash, or counterattack, of the literati will be constantly pushed back.
Therefore, he certainly understood that Ge Yong had good intentions and really wanted to recommend him as his last disciple to others. Lu Wan and Liu Zhiyuan also had good intentions, because they followed his original idea and hoped to make the public school bigger and stronger, which would inevitably bring in many scholars who had been excluded from the core power circle of the court.
However, it was not a good feeling for people who had no common language and even had very different basic values to sit together and talk about everything. In Zhang Shou's opinion, these people were completely different from his teacher Ge Yong.
Ge Yong is old, but he has a childlike heart. This childlike heart does not mean that Old Master Ge has not lost his childishness and is disrespectful to his elders, but that Ge Yong never thinks that he has reached the top in academics, so he refuses to accept new things. Even the Arabic numerals, which he was unwilling to accept before, he now uses them skillfully under the influence of his student.