"Zhang Zongshi?" Fang Yun immediately remembered that when he was on a secret visit, he met a student named Zhang Zongshi in a restaurant. This person was very insightful and if nothing unexpected happened, he would achieve something in the future.
"Hand over his documents." Fang Yun said.
"I have already got the letter from you in the official seal. I will pass it to you right away." Dong Wencong said as he held the official seal and passed the letter to Fang Yun.
Fang Yun took out the official seal and carefully examined Zhang Zongshi's documents.
At the beginning of the document, Zhang Zongshi first listed the books he had read when he was a child, most of which were classics of the saints of mankind and works of some famous people.
Afterwards, Zhang Zongshi singled out some books and pointed out that these books were listed as selected books by the state academy after Xiangzhou was seized by the Qing Kingdom. In normal academy teaching, academy teachers not only teach the required books set by the government, but also occasionally give lectures on some selected books to broaden students' horizons.
The required reading books designated within a state need to be reviewed by the Holy Senate, but the optional reading books do not need to be reviewed and are decided by the state academy of literature.
Starting several decades ago, the selected books in all academies in Xiangzhou have become newly compiled books.
Zhang Zongshi wrote in the article that the most terrifying thing is not that these so-called selected reading books were born decades ago, but that Xiangzhou has clearly separated from Qing State, but these books are still being used to teach students in academies.
Zhang Zongshi took the "Celebrity Records" of the current Xiangzhou Academy as an example. In a normal country, the "Celebrity Records" mostly record the deeds of outstanding scholars or ancient people in the country, and occasionally select celebrities from other countries who are recognized in human history, and use their deeds to educate students.
The Xiangzhou version of "Celebrity Records" is very different, because the deeds of Jing people account for only 40% of the current Xiangzhou "Celebrity Records", and most of them are Jing's semi-saints, celebrities before the establishment of Jing, and founding heroes. There are very few celebrities in the nearly two hundred years after the founding of the country. Even Fang Yun and Li Wenying, who must be included in the "Celebrity Records", did not appear in it. Instead, the left prime minister Liu Shan was recorded in the "Celebrity Records" with a very positive image.
Forty percent of the people in the "Records of Famous Scholars" are from Jing country, but except for the semi-saints, the deeds of the others will more or less contain some seemingly neutral but actually shameful events, which will damage the image of those celebrities.
The deeds of the other 60% of people in Xiangzhou's "Records of Famous Scholars" were completely the opposite. They were not only perfect and great, but also without the slightest flaw. What Zhang Zongshi found most difficult to understand was that in the deeds of famous scholars from other countries, whenever a Jing countryman appeared, he must have been extremely despicable.
Zhang Zongshi also took some elementary school reading materials such as "The Book of Encouragement to Study" and "The Affairs of the World" as examples. These books were surprisingly consistent in some aspects. All the people of Qing were portrayed as positive people, while there was not a single good person among the people of Jing. Even for famous figures who were famous in the Ten Kingdoms, some derogatory content would be deliberately added to the books.
Zhang Zongshi believed that if these books were unofficial histories, it would be natural to record the stigma of the famous people of Jing. However, these were books for educating children to enlighten their minds. In these books, all the people of Qing were perfect good people, and half of the people of Jing were bad, and the other half had done bad things, which made people doubt the intentions of the compilers and promoters of the books.
Zhang Zongshi asked Dong Wencong to thoroughly investigate the matter, otherwise if this continued, future scholars in Xiangzhou would admire people from other countries and despise people from Jingguo.
What surprised Fang Yun the most was that Zhang Zongshi clearly had deep feelings for Xiangzhou and was clearly working hard to revitalize Xiangzhou, but in the end he said some seemingly contradictory words.
Zhang Zongshi wrote that the people of Xiangzhou were like all the people in the world, shrewd but not smart, because they knew only a limited amount of things, and even if they were in a normal state of mind, they would often make wrong judgments, either being deceived by the government, by those who opposed the government, or by people from other countries. In other words, it was not that the people were stupid, but that there were smarter people who could influence the people's perception of everything, so that they made wrong judgments without knowing it, and over time, they would take mistakes as truth.
Afterwards, Zhang Zongshi gave the simplest example. Any normal person would know that the king, officials and aristocratic families of Qing Kingdom were not selfless saints, and they must understand that those who are not of our race must have different hearts. Yet, there are people from Xiangzhou who foolishly believe that as long as they join Qing Kingdom, they will get the same privileges as the royal children, officials' children and aristocratic families. In fact, the status of people from Xiangzhou in Qing Kingdom is not as good as that of the lowest class of people in Qing Kingdom.
Fang Yun put down the official seal, looked at Dong Wencong and said, "It takes ten years to grow a tree, and a hundred years to educate a person. Educating the students of a state is the top priority. I failed to deal with this matter in the first place, which is really a dereliction of duty. Zhang Zongshi is a good guy, very insightful, and even more rare is that he knows who is a friend and who is an enemy. Have you investigated the matter he reported?"
Dong Wencong immediately said, "I have teamed up with Governor Fang and mobilized personnel to secretly investigate this matter. We have obtained preliminary results and will send a letter to you now."
Dong Wencong said this and sent another letter to Fang Yun.
Fang Yun took the official and read it carefully. After reading it, Fang Yun sighed lightly.
There is good news and bad news in the letter.
Before coming to Xiangzhou, Fang Yun suspected that the State Academy of Literature, which was responsible for Xiangzhou's education, had long been infiltrated by spies from the Qing Kingdom. The good news was that the Qing Kingdom did not arrange any spies in the State Academy of Literature. The bad news was that some Xiangzhou scholars had experienced the most incompetent times in Xiangzhou and Jing Kingdom, and their beliefs had completely collapsed, as if their spines and legs had been broken by the people of Qing. After kneeling down, they never stood up again. They were like dragons in front of the people of Jing, but like slaves in front of the people of Qing.
Even today when Jing State is thriving, the word "slave" is still deeply imprinted in the minds of these people.
These Xiangzhou scholars could have achieved greater success, but, in a special era, they were dragged down by the government, abandoned by Jing State, suppressed by Qing State, and finally vented their anger on Jing State without mentioning a word about the disaster in Qing State.
They are not spies, but like loyal dogs, they cooperate with the people of Qing to contain and even destroy Jing.
Their goal is the same as that of Qing, to make Jing a backward country forever, imprisoned in a cage by powerful countries like Qing for fun. If Jing wants to struggle out of the cage and make progress and become stronger, they will do their best to stop it.
One of their goals is to destroy the confidence of the Jing people.
They even believed that the people of Jing were the lowest class of people among the ten nations, and that they would only truly change if they were enslaved by Qing and became Qing citizens.
Fang Yun shook his head slightly. Those people didn’t understand that the greatness of a truly great man does not lie in his high spirits when he stands at the top of the world, but in his attitude, words and deeds when he is at the lowest point in his life; the greatness of a great nation does not lie in suppressing the world during its heyday, but in how it rises after being knocked down.
The harm caused by these people and the profound impact they caused were far greater than the massacre of millions of Xiangzhou people.
.(To be continued.)