Zeng Yuan smiled bitterly and said, "I am convinced by you. Even if we don't promote vernacular characters, the human race can still make progress, but if we use vernacular characters, we will make progress faster, so it is better to choose to promote vernacular characters. I will never advise you to use less vernacular characters in the Min Bao in the future. On the contrary, I will advise you to use more, because this will allow more people to read the Min Bao. At the same time, I admit a mistake to you."
"Oh?" Fang Yun looked at Zeng Yuan.
Zeng Yuan's face turned slightly red. He coughed lightly and said, "I didn't realize it at first, but after listening to your words, I realized that my support for the complicated traditional characters was actually using traditional characters as a roadblock to obstruct others. Characters are a tool, and the information they carry can continuously improve oneself. People's mastery of the tool of characters is divided into strong and weak. The more complicated the tool is, the more people have weaker mastery and the fewer people have strong mastery. There are more difficult traditional characters to learn, and there are more troublesome traditional characters to read. The gap between those people and me will become larger and larger. Only those very few geniuses can achieve the same or even better results as me in the imperial examinations when their physical condition, time, family background and other aspects are far inferior to mine. Traditional characters may not hinder those geniuses, but they can make most ordinary people more mediocre. In fact, I am not deliberately obstructing others, but... I do it instinctively."
Fang Yun said: "So Confucius once said, restrain yourself and return to propriety. A saint must restrain himself and follow propriety to achieve the realm of benevolence. You and I are not saints, so naturally we cannot restrain ourselves and return to propriety. Your and my instinct is naturally to reduce competitors and make it easier to satisfy our desires. This is due to our nature. Unless you become a saint, whoever dares to say that our instinct is bad, whoever dares to say that we are evil, whoever dares to say that our human nature is ugly, that person must be a very treacherous and evil person."
Zeng Yuan nodded repeatedly at first, but at the end he coughed and said, "Fortunately, Xunzi is the second sage."
Fang Yun smiled. Although there are many interpretations of Xunzi's theory of human nature being evil, none of them essentially regards human instincts as neutral.
Fang Yun continued, "Before the first battle of Liangjie Mountain, that is, sixty years ago, a shocking news appeared in the Wen Bao. A private school teacher used a stick to teach students, and finally beat one student to death and disabled three. Afterwards, all countries reflected on it, and many places started to relax education, reducing the school time of children, reducing the number of scriptures in textbooks, and learning more poetry, riding, archery, swordsmanship, and Cuju. But after the first battle of Liangjie Mountain, the saints suddenly came forward to stop this relaxed education. Do you know why?"
Zeng Yuan frowned and thought for a moment, then he showed a look of shame and said, "Back then, I couldn't understand why local governments implemented lenient education for civilians, but our aristocratic families still forced their children to study frantically. After listening to your words, I finally understood. To put it nicely, this is the method of the saintly families to strengthen the trunk with weak branches. To put it bluntly, people in high positions obviously benefit from a good education environment, but in order to allow their descendants to continue to be in high positions and to prevent their descendants from being replaced by lower-level people, they use the most vicious means to cut off the path for the lower-level people to advance. And the best way for the lower-level people to rise is to study, study hard, and do everything they can to study!"
Fang Yun smiled and said, "There is nothing new under the sun. Speaking of this kind of deception, you have done many similar things in the past."
Zeng was stunned at first, then he showed a look of shame again and said, "Indeed. Whenever we want to acquire some government workshops that have the potential to make money, we will spread a lot of news that seems true and false, or even nine true and one false, before the acquisition, so that all the people will think that there is a big problem with those government workshops. If they keep them in our hands, all the people will suffer. Only by selling them can the people be better off. Three years ago, when we acquired the freight and passenger chamber of commerce run by the Yuzhou government, we spread the news everywhere about how greedy the leaders of those chambers of commerce were and how expensive they charged for transporting goods and passengers. This is a trial by fire. If the people discover our intentions and oppose someone acquiring the government chamber of commerce, we will stop and wait for the next opportunity; if the people do not discover it and successfully form public resentment and think that the government should sell the chamber of commerce, we will take over immediately and then find an opportunity to raise the price. What can those people do to us except complain? However, since I followed you, I will never do such a thing again."
"No, we will definitely do this. Maybe not to embezzle the workshop or to make money, but for our own interests, we will definitely do something similar." Fang Yun said.
Zeng Yuan was speechless.
Fang Yun said, "Let's not talk about anything else, let's continue with Min Bao. What you said at the beginning is very important, so Min Bao will make targeted changes. Starting from the next Min Bao, the content related to people's livelihood, society and current affairs will be written in plain and easy-to-understand vernacular, and a large number of popular characters will be used, not only to make ordinary people understand, but also to make them like reading, without setting any obstacles for them. As for the imperial examinations and culture, the traditional characters will still be strictly maintained, and popular characters will not be allowed to appear, reflecting the seriousness and authority."
Zeng Yuan immediately said, "Then I will promote vernacular characters in the Fang family library and academy on a limited basis. Of course, it will not involve children at present, only those who are over sixteen years old or have a literary title. Let more people communicate in vernacular characters, such as some official documents and paperwork, which can not only increase efficiency, but also pave the way for you in the future."
Fang Yun smiled slightly and said, "No wonder you became the number one businessman in the Zeng family. No wonder you are compared with Ge Baiwan when you are over 30. Indeed, I will gradually promote the vernacular characters in Xiangzhou until the whole human race uses the vernacular characters I formulated, and let my vernacular characters become the standard characters!"
Shock and admiration flashed across Zeng Yuan's face. He only vaguely knew that Fang Yun wanted to promote vernacular characters, but now he understood that Fang Yun's ambitions were far greater than he had previously imagined. It seemed as if he was following the path of the Semi-Saint Li Si.
The reason why Li Si was canonized as a saint was not only because of his profound knowledge of the Legalists, but the main reason was the great reforms he implemented during the Qin Dynasty. Everyone praised the contributions of Qin Shihuang, but in fact Li Si's contributions in "standardizing the writing system, the wheel gauge, the currency, and the weights and measures" were no less than those of Qin Shihuang, because he was the first to propose many of the innovations and he personally carried them out, which was the fundamental reason for Li Si's canonization.
So even Lu Buwei had to admit that when it came to governing the country, Li Si was better than him.
Zeng Yuan stood up and bowed, saying, "Sir, your talent and aspirations are unmatched. If you can become the only creator of the next traditional Chinese character for the human race, your foundation in the path of sainthood will be extremely solid, far surpassing that of an ordinary semi-saint. From today on, I swear to follow you till death, to clear all obstacles on your path to sainthood!"
"Good!" Fang Yun nodded slightly.
"I have a suggestion. You can simply open a special edition in the Min Bao to compare the colloquial and traditional Chinese characters for the content of the Min Bao that day, almost like teaching."
"That's great!" Fang Yun said with a smile.
.(To be continued.)