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Text Chapter 145 The quarrel caused by Confucian businessmen

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    Although Tang Jian's words seemed abrupt, all three people present could understand them.  Among them, Fang Xuanling shook his head and smiled bitterly after hearing this, while Li Min giggled because the article he published in the newspaper caused another huge disturbance.

    This incident is also strange to Li Min. In order to commend Qian Gui and those active big businessmen, and at the same time to attract more wealthy big businessmen to buy land certificates, he boldly proposed the concept of Confucian merchants.

    Don¡¯t underestimate the power of these two words. What is Confucianism?  Confucianism was the basis for the formation of the scholar class and the basis for the scholars to control the state power.  And what is business?  Business is a lowly industry. A few years ago, businessmen were at the lowest level in the political class of the Tang Dynasty. As long as you were involved with businessmen, no matter what position you could occupy in the future, you would be despised by people.

    Wu Meiniang's father, Warrior Yan, is a typical representative of this. Although he was named Ying Guogong, he was despised by everyone because he was a timber merchant. After his death, his two sons failed to live up to expectations. Ying Guogong  The government has now completely declined, and many people don't even know that there is such a Duke in the Tang Dynasty.

    Confucianism represents the highest level of the ruling class, while merchants are the lowest profession. Although the status of merchants has improved, overall, there is still a huge gap with the scholar class.  But Li Min, on the other hand, risked the disdain of the world and put two completely different words together. This made countless arrogant scholars feel angry, so they published articles in newspapers one after another, accusing Li Min of insulting the sages.  .

    Regarding the accusations from the scholars, Li Min was uncharacteristically uncharacteristic.  He began to publish articles one after another and launched a debate with the scholars who opposed him.  If this kind of thing happened in the past, he probably wouldn't have dared to think about it. After all, how could a person who couldn't even recite the Analects of Confucius compare with those scholars in terms of articles?

    But things are different now. Li Min started a debate on vernacular literature last time, and Datang Daily also opened a vernacular newspaper.  Many local newspapers even have vernacular sections. With the spread and influence of these newspapers, more and more people no longer reject vernacular.  Even many people who are new to literacy can only understand vernacular texts.

    It was because of this that Li Min boldly published his article in the newspaper.  With his own knowledge and opinions as a later generation, he started a verbal spat with those scholars.  Although there were many people on the other side, the quarrel was based on one point of view, that is, Li Min insulted the saints and disrespected the teachings of Confucius and Mencius.

    In this regard, Li Min took a different approach and used the saying of Confucius that "there is no distinction between education" as a weapon, shouting that although businessmen value profits, if they get the teachings of Confucius and Mencius, they will get rid of all kinds of illegal behaviors in the process of doing business, and at the same time, they will  A gentleman loves money and takes it in a proper way as a guideline for his conduct.  It makes the various behaviors of businessmen more in line with Confucian standards of conduct. In this way, wouldn't it show the broad mind of Confucianism and better reflect the teachings of saints to the world?

    ¡°Don¡¯t mention it, Li Min¡¯s theory is based on Confucianism.  Indeed, many poets and calligraphers were impressed, and their attitudes gradually softened, and many people even openly supported Li Min.  The reason why it was so easy for these poets and calligraphers to change their attitudes was mainly because Li Min adopted the correct strategy. He did not choose to confront the opponent head-on, and he adopted Confucian theory.  Treat it as your own weapon and use Confucianism against Confucianism. No matter where you win, Confucianism will not lose any reputation.

    Of course, in such a short period of time, there were still a small number of scholars who supported Li Min, and most of them still held old ideas. Not only did they criticize Li Min in newspapers, but also in the court, there were also imperial censors who read Li Min's books from time to time.  , even Kong Yingda's group of stubborn veterans wrote the book for several days in a row, participating in the performance of Li Min's humiliation of the royal style and so on.

    ¡° If Li Shimin hadn¡¯t been suppressing these matters, and most of the court officials remained neutral in the face of the 30 million yuan in income, I¡¯m afraid Li Min would have been punished long ago.

    However, this matter is not over yet. Confucian newspapers are still criticizing Li Min's proposal of Confucian businessmen, and those poets and calligraphers who support Li Min have also published articles in Datang Daily and Industrial and Commercial News. In addition, some businessmen have hired  With the help of unscrupulous literati, the quarrel between the two parties is getting more and more fierce, and it is very likely that it will even overshadow the last vernacular incident.  It is precisely because of this that Tang Jian kindly reminded Li Min to act with caution and not to be careless.

    Li Min was naturally very grateful for Tang Jian's kindness. After thanking him, he personally sent the two of them out of the house.  Watching Tang Jian and Fang Xuanling leave, Li Min felt a little emotional.  I met Tang Jian because they both loved food. They only spent time together eating, drinking, and discussing delicacies from all over the world. In other respects, we didn't have a close friendship. They were just fair-weather friends at most.

    In addition, Tang Jian was usually lazy and lustful, and he actually gave Li Min the impression that he was a white-haired playboy. But he didn't expect that at this time, he would think of reminding him that, in comparison, because of Fang Yiai's  relationship, oneselfThe relationship between Fang Xuanling and Tang Jian was even closer, but Fang Xuanling never reminded her from beginning to end. Instead, Tang Jian, a fair-weather friend, spoke first.

    Of course, as the head of a hundred officials, Fang Xuanling must have more worries than the heartless Tang Jian, but it was precisely this that made Li Min feel more favorable to Tang Jian.  I thought that if there was any benefit in the future, I would definitely win over the Tang family, not to mention that his son was still my brother-in-law.

    With money in hand, Li Shimin immediately became more courageous. He first praised Li Min in the court, and then used Gaochang as a vassal state to disrespect orders and send troops to attack Yanqi without authorization and block the trade routes of the Tang Dynasty.  , Hou Junji was appointed as the general manager of the Jiaohe march, and Xue Wanjun was appointed as the deputy general manager. The generals under his jurisdiction also included Zhao Yuankai, Ashina Sheer and others, leading 100,000 infantry and cavalry, as well as the attached Turks and Qibi people to conquer  Gaochang.

    However, on the day Hou Junji set off for the expedition, in addition to the army, there was also a very large team of merchants who left Chang'an. Different from the solemn-looking soldiers, all the merchants were smiling happily, commanding the hired guards with various  Such goods traveled westward with the army.

    On the battlefield of Goguryeo, the war with the participation of merchants has made everyone in the Tang army see the benefits. Therefore, as soon as the Goguryeo war ended, the Tang Dynasty immediately promulgated laws to encourage merchants to enter the battlefield. Of course, they can enter the battlefield this time.  All businessmen must be jointly confirmed by the Ministry of War and the Ministry of Industry and issued with vouchers, otherwise they are not eligible to enter the battlefield. This is mainly because they are afraid that enemies will disguise themselves as businessmen to spy on military intelligence.

    It is also worth mentioning that although the merchants accompanying them carried a variety of goods, they did not carry much copper coins with them compared to before, which greatly reduced the weight of the caravan and caused this  The reason for the result is still thanks to the intervention of Datang Bank.

    It turns out that before setting off, I don¡¯t know who came up with the idea?  These businessmen accompanying the army have deposited all the copper coins they want to bring with them into the bank, asking the bank to issue them deposit certificates of varying denominations. Then they enter the battlefield with these deposit certificates. When they want to buy trophies from the soldiers, they can  Directly use this deposit certificate to settle the bill. Anyway, the soldiers of the Tang Dynasty were the first people to recognize the bank, and they were also willing to accept this thin piece of paper. Calculating, this should be a banknote spontaneously produced by the merchants of the Tang Dynasty.

    The departure of the army to conquer Gaochang temporarily diverted the attention of many people, which reduced the quarrels about Confucian merchants in newspapers. They began to report on the itinerary of the army to conquer Gaochang, as well as some situations of the opponent, Gaochang State. In addition, about  Many so-called experts have expressed their opinions on the role played by the Western Turks in this war.  It's just that these experts have different levels of analysis, and no results have been analyzed yet. In the end, they started arguing among themselves.

    Seeing this chaotic situation, Li Min shamelessly approached Li Jing and asked him to write an article to analyze it. Unexpectedly, the old man was very happy when he heard it. He wrote an article about his views on this war without thinking.  As soon as the results were published, it immediately caused quite a stir. After all, this was the first high-level official of the Tang Dynasty to publish an article in a newspaper except Li Min, the Xian Wang. Moreover, many people could also see that Wei Gong¡¯s article  The article's analysis of the Battle of Gaochang that has not yet happened is countless times better than those in the newspapers a few days ago.

    The army that conquered Gaochang set off, and there were less quarrels about Confucian businessmen in the newspapers. Li Min finally relaxed, but he knew that now was not the time to rest. He might as well take advantage of this period of time to settle the affairs of the military academy first. After all,  Now that Li Shimin has money and people, if he builds the military academy earlier, Datang's military construction can get on the right track sooner.

    That day, Li Min entered the palace early in the morning, and first went to have breakfast with Concubine Yang. In one month, the child in Concubine Yang's belly would be born. This is the most critical moment, so Li Min went to the palace every day.  I want to go to the palace to stay with my mother for a while.

    After the morning court, Li Min went straight to Liangyi Palace to find Li Shimin. After saluting, he was about to talk about the military academy, but he heard Li Shimin suddenly say: "Liu Lang, you came just in time, let's take a look at this first!"

    Li Shimin said and handed an approved memorial to Li Min. When he took it and looked at it, he was immediately shocked. Although the content of this memorial was not much, it was extremely bloody because it was a memorial about murder.  .

    "Father, although these people are hateful, but killing a dozen at once is too much?" Li Min asked cautiously.

    "Rokuro, you are good at everything, even on the battlefield. Although you are not as good as your father, you are still somewhat courageous. But you have to remember that the court is sometimes more cruel than the battlefield. When it is time to kill,  You must not be soft-hearted!" Li Shimin looked at Li Min and said calmly.  When he was young, he killed countless people on the battlefield, but now he only killed a few people who deserved to be killed, so naturally he would not show any mercy.

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