"What if... I saw it?"
"… Um?"
A merchant returning home passed them by. Probably not expecting such an answer, Watermelon turned to look at Ning Yi, feeling slightly puzzled.
Ning Yi still walked slowly, took her hand and looked at it: "Twenty years ago, on the day of marrying Tan'er, someone threw a stone on the head, passed out, and when I woke up, Forget everything. This matter, you said it earlier, right?"
"Yeah." Watermelon said, "I remember a man named Xue Jin. When I first heard about it, I thought of taking you to seek revenge in the future."
"Forget it, Ning Liheng was a stupid nerd before he was beaten. After he was beaten, he finally got the hang of it. Remember others."
Watermelon looked at him and smiled: "Tan'er also said in private, it's really strange, I went to see you twice before marrying you, and it would be a bit of a joke. After getting married, I found out that you have so many crazy ideas, and I'm bored in my heart. This is called Stupid..." Seeing Ning Yi giving her a blank look, he said, "Well, you are serious, where have you seen it?"
Ning Yi retracted his white eyes and smiled: "You may not believe it, when I was knocked out, I was in a trance and saw... Another world in a trance, as if I had seen a hundred years of history. ... Don't pinch me, you may not believe it, but listen first, okay? I'm a stupid bookworm, and I suddenly got enlightened, so you don't think it's strange. There are so many stories from ancient times to the present, Zhuang Shengxiao dreamed of butterflies, I see another possibility in this world, what is strange."
Watermelon's expression was a little helpless, and she smiled angrily: "Then you go on to say, what happened to that world?"
"It's said that after a thousand years, we still haven't developed a systematic study of objects..."
"Then all the people in the past thousand years are dead?"
"It can't be said that the Confucian metaphysics system has come to an absolute dominant position after passing our dynasty, and they have exerted the spirit of 'minke' more deeply. There is a whole set of identity rules. When there is no foreign enemy, they are self-consistent internally, and when there is a foreign enemy, they assimilate the foreign enemy, so in the next thousand years, the dynasties will be replaced, the divisions will be merged, and the study of physical sciences does not need to appear, and everyone can live well. Then... As I told you about Europa, where it is now very miserable, the poor can be changed, and the study of objects has been developed first..."
"...It's like the beginning of Zhuji's storytelling." Watermelon pouted, "Why don't we develop the study of physics in another thousand years?"
"Uh..." Ning Yi thought for a while, "Let's just think that our life here is too good, although the people are also suffering, but half of the time, we can still provide a large group of pampered meat eaters, and there is no survival. After the pressure, these meat eaters prefer to study metaphysics and philosophy, care more about right and wrong, and be more particular about being a human being. But the situation in Europe is worse than us, and people will die at every turn, so they are relatively more pragmatic, picking up a little rule We have to take advantage of this rule. So we care more about the fantasy of the whole and they can focus on the details relatively much... Not necessarily true, let's just think so."
"Speaking of business." Ning Yi spread his hands, "Anyway, they invented the science of physics now. A thousand years later, a foreign regime, Manchurians, will be in power in our land, boasting to others. It is the descendant of today's golden man... don't laugh, it's just a coincidence... "
"Okay, after a thousand years, these golden people will finally have the world." Xigua resisted the accusation of his uncreative behavior, "Go on."
"The Manchus are closed to the country. Although they don't have the knowledge of physics, the art of Confucian rule is flourishing. They feel that they are the kingdom of heaven and live well. But the Europeans are here, with strong boats and guns and muskets. They want to come and grab them. Things, want to do business, and force the Qing Dynasty to open ports and protect their interests. At first, everyone was curious about each other, and they didn't say they would fight, but when they did business slowly, there was friction... "
"This book can't be written. After you write it, they will know what you are going to do next... How can you write yourself as a villain... "
Ning Yi glanced at her and decided to ignore her interruption: "The Europeans are powerful with firearms, and the Manchu Qing also felt that he was the upper kingdom of the Celestial Dynasty. At that time, the ruler of the Qing Dynasty was an empress dowager, called Cixi - it has nothing to do with Zhou Pei - said that he was fighting. Just fight, we Manchu declared war on the whole world. Then, after this fight, everyone finally found that the kingdom of heaven is already a piece of meat on the chopping block, with tens of thousands of troops, hundreds of thousands of troops, and even the troops of several thousand people. Can't beat it."
"In the international community, if you fall behind, you will be beaten. If you can't beat it, the good things in the country will be divided up by the enemy under such pretexts. Since then, the whole of China has been caught in the... In the situation of dividing up by turns, gold and silver were plundered, the population was slaughtered, cultural relics were robbed, and houses were burned, and it continued...for dozens of hundreds of years..."
Ning Yi said here, the words have become slow. At first, Xigua thought that her husband was joking, but when she heard this, she couldn't help but threw herself in and frowned: "Nonsense... Wu Chao was also beaten like this by Jin Guo. It’s not that many people have been beaten all the time, how can you not learn from others? Even if you build this gunpowder cannon from scratch, it will only take you more than ten years, Liheng!”
Ning Yi smiled slightly: "The backwardness of the Manchu Qing Dynasty is, of course, the backwardness of the study of physics, but this is only a superficial problem. The more in-depth problem is already the backwardness of people and culture at that time - Confucianism has developed a thousand more from now on. In 2010, it formed a stronger network internally, suppressed people's thinking, and held people's hands and feet from all aspects of life, work, and social interaction. To defeat the Europeans, you just need to develop better than them, but your thinking The structure is not suitable for checking things, you can do it as others, you will never catch up with your enemies... Agua, I sold things to all of them today, which is also the reason. If I don't change my thinking, they will always be one step behind me. …”
He took a breath and said, "Go back to the Manchu Qing Dynasty. If you get beaten up, you won't be able to catch up. The Manchu Qing Dynasty also knows that it will change, but how much will it change? Agua, a general trend in human society is that any inherent system will try to maintain it as much as possible. Although it needs to be adjusted after being beaten, people will always be inclined to make enough changes. So at the beginning, the emperor divided a department in the cabinet. Well, let's learn from the West, learn about things, and learn from them to make muskets Cannons, use this department to protect themselves. This behavior is called the 'Westernization Movement'."
Watermelon squeezed his palm: "You still have such a disgusting name..."
"What's so disgusting about the 'Westernization Movement'... Forget it, the Westernization Movement is a division of the imperial court to make changes. Either learn artificial muskets and cannons, or spend money to buy muskets and cannons from others, and also hold muskets and cannons to train so-called recruits. But then they discovered that it was no good. There were problems with the soldiers and officials. The country continued to be beaten, ceded land with 17 or 8 small European countries, paid indemnities, and knelt underground for decades. Everyone found out, hey, the Westernization Movement No, then it needs to be more changeable, and the entire court needs to change…”
"At that time, the Manchu Qing Dynasty was a country for nearly three hundred years, and the system was bloated and corrupt. If the reform of one department was not enough, a reform and reform from the top to the bottom had to be carried out. Everyone thinks that the Confucian system has been used to castrate people in the past three hundred years. Bloody nature is not good either, the people must wake up, give more benefits and status to the suffering below, and make officials more cordial and the system clearer, so the next step is to reform the reforms.”
"But no matter what it looks like, the three-hundred-year-old feudal country is hard to come back. Those who used to take advantage of it were unwilling to back down, internal conflicts intensified, and those who called for and presided over the reform were eventually defeated. Since they were defeated, then If you can't solve the problem, if you are still kneeling outside and being beaten, then the reform will not work, and you will have to take a more drastic path... Everyone began to learn to say that if there is equality, there can be no Manchu Qing, no court, no emperor. now…”
"In this way, civil strife began, rebels began to appear, warlords began to appear, everyone wanted to overthrow the emperor, called for equality, opened up people's wisdom, granted people's rights, and paid attention to people's livelihood... Step by step, it became more and more intense, and the distance It's been decades since they were beaten for the first time, and they overthrew the emperor, hoping that things would get better."
Watermelon took a breath: "You killed the emperor in this book, it's getting better soon..."
Ning Yi smiled: "Yeah, it looks like... a great feat, the social situation has improved to a certain extent, and then there is a powerful warlord, and he wants to be the emperor again. After this kind of warlord is overthrown, the next talent will give up. With this idea, old warlords become new warlords, the call for equality in society has been going on, and people have begun to realize that the human problem is the fundamental problem, the cultural problem is the fundamental problem, so in the kind of Under these circumstances, many people have proposed to completely abandon the old Confucian thinking and establish a new way of thinking that can be matched with the study of physic..."
"During the whole process, they were still beaten constantly, the new warlords could not solve the problem, and the abandonment of the past culture was not thorough enough to solve the problem. A new pattern has been brewing, and thoughtful leaders slowly formed advanced parties. , In order to defend against foreign enemies, a large number of elites formed a government and formed an army to abandon their previous hatred as much as possible and fight together. At this time, the Dongying people on the other side of the sea have become powerful in the constant wars and divisions, and even want to rule the entire China. …”
"Hey, Japanese dwarf, your story..."
The watermelon made a sound, and then Ning Yi reached out and knocked on the head.
“…The government formed by the elites will still be unable to change China’s thousands of years of hard work, because a large part of their thinking is old. After becoming officials and having power, they are accustomed to thinking about themselves. When the country is getting weaker and the pie is getting smaller and smaller, everyone inevitably wants to earn a little for themselves, the senior officials earn more, and the officials less earn less. At first, they may just want to compare The people who died of starvation lived better, but gradually, they found that people around them were doing this, and when other companions thought this kind of thing was justifiable, everyone scrambled to start fishing..."
"...The army's salaries were divided up, half of the men who were sent to the army would starve to death on the way, the enemy invaded from the outside, the bureaucracy was hollowed out from the inside, and the people who were poor in materials were struggling to live... At this time, the entire China had been kneeling in front of the world for a hundred years. Getting stronger again and again is not enough, and innovating again and again is not enough... Then maybe a more decisive and thorough innovation is needed!"
"...The Westernization Movement was a step forward for the Manchu Qing Dynasty, which had been accumulating and difficult to return to. The Reform and Reform was a step forward for the Westernization Movement. The old warlord replaced the emperor, and went further. The new warlord replaced the old warlord, and took another step forward. To have ideals and ambitions However, it is inevitable that some selfish elites have replaced the new warlords, and here is a step forward. But what is going forward? Agua, you have ideals and ambitions, Chen Shanjun has ideals and ambitions, but your subordinates can find them. How many people like this come out? A little bit of selfishness is worthy of forgiveness, we can use strict military regulations to restrain it... If we go further, how do we go?"
"At that time, maybe it was the era that said that this is no longer the case. Therefore, the system that really shouted that everyone is equal and that everything is for the people finally appeared. Those who joined that system would truly give up part of their selfishness, and would truly They believe in impartiality—not the belief that high officials act for the people, but they really believe that they are equal to all people in the world, that they are officials, but the division of labor is different, as if someone wants Dig out the dung, it's like someone wants to be an official..."
"Is there really such a thing?" Watermelon said.
"Of course not 100%, but the level of equality is unbelievable. Because after a hundred years of humiliation and failure, seeing the complete lack of dignity in the entire country, most of them finally realized... Otherwise, there is no way out. In fact, many of these people are elites, and they could have entered the political system composed of elites. They thought more about themselves, and everyone could understand it. But they all saw it, but that No amount of effort can save this world."
"They are constantly urging and transforming themselves, and they will serve the people with the heartfelt belief of the entire army and the entire government. At that time, China has been up and down for thousands of years, and it can even be said that the most clean army in the history of human society. , was born there... It can also be said that they were forced out."
There was longing and admiration in Ning Yi's words, and Watermelon looked at him. For the whole story, she naturally didn't have a deep sense of substitution, but for the man around her, she could see that the other party was not talking about it in a storytelling mood. This made her slightly puzzled, and she couldn't help but think a lot.
"Then... what's next?"