On July 4, 1904, the Qing Empire held the last imperial examination in Chinese history, and Liu Chunlin, a young examinee from an ordinary family in Suning County, Hebei Province, wrote down an answer sheet and then won the title.
Today, Lao Feng took Liu Chunlin, the last champion in Chinese history, out to open everyone's eyes, the original answer sheet is Wen Yanwen, Lao Feng spent 8 hours translating it for you into a modern Chinese, writing my hands are sour, well, nonsense do not say, directly on the dish:
Liu Chunlin in his youth
"Liu Chunlin Answer Sheet"
Date: July 4, 1904
Translation: Feng Xuerong
The courtier replied to the Emperor:
I have heard that when the emperor's people, once they find that they have made mistakes, they will take the initiative to correct them, so in ancient China, there was such a subject as "direct speech", which specially examined and admitted talents who dared to speak out to the emperor, and we who read books took saving the country and saving the people as our duty, so the real loyal subjects were full of the idea of being loyal to the emperor and the country, and there was only a brute force in their chests, serving the country and the emperor.
Before Emperor Wen of Han, the state had a law strictly prohibiting slander and prohibiting everyone from talking indiscriminately, but Emperor Wendi of Han abolished this law, and then, like Jia Shan and Jia Yi, these loyal subjects had no worries about speaking, so they dared to scramble to make suggestions and suggestions for the construction of the country, and they were extremely loyal.
Emperor Wu of han promoted Confucianism, issued edicts, and recruited talents, so he could recruit powerful subjects such as Dong Zhongshu, Yan An, and Xu Le.
During the Song Renzong period, various subjects such as "system and action" were restored, and it was previously forbidden for everyone to comment on things outside the scope of their own duties, but in Song Renzong's generation, this ban was lifted, and the road of speech was widely opened, so that everyone could speak freely, know everything, and say everything, so later in China, there were good courtiers such as Su Dongpo and Su Rui, who dared to pinpoint the shortcomings of the times, speak bluntly about the country's problems, and seek reform and innovation.
These good courtiers appointed officials, governed the national defense forces, enriched the state finances, and corrected the social atmosphere... For colleagues, the suggestions of other parties can directly point out the advantages and disadvantages of state affairs, for the emperor, they can help the emperor broaden his horizons, and for the people, they can make the world peaceful and stable.
Liu Chunlin in middle age
Therefore, the ancients said that people with a sense of distress can achieve the realm of saints by thinking carefully and carefully planning in everything, and it is not necessarily a bad thing for a country to have many disasters and difficulties, because it can actually promote our country to rise up and thus become stronger.
Emperor, since you ascended the throne, you have been diligent and earnest, governing the country, and breaking your heart every day, and now, it has been more than thirty years, but how effective have you governed the country? Frankly, the results are not bad!
Looking at our country today, the great powers are all eyeing the tiger, why did our country fall to this point today? I wonder, is it because we don't know how to adapt to the times? Or do we understand it, but we haven't carried it through?
Liu Chunlin's answer sheet is very beautiful
A few days ago, the emperor opened a large examination to test the learning of the world's readers, hoping to get a good recipe for saving the country and the people, governing the country and the world, and managing officials, governing the troops, managing the state finances, and motivating the official team... And other major policies, gather the world's readers, including me, together, and everyone offers suggestions.
However, I have limited talent, how can He De be able to participate in such a major national event, but looking back at the fact that I have been studying since I was a child, I have indeed indulged in the study of "national chaos" and the study of ancient and modern Chinese and foreign lessons.
Today, thanks to the emperor's appreciation of the face, he issued a holy decree, telling me to have something to say, although there is no taboo, and I will never settle the account after the autumn, so I will respect it rather than obey the fate, so I will not shoot you today, I will be bold, and some of the fur I know, without reservation, will say to the emperor you.
The "Policy" said: To be an emperor and govern the people, the first step is to educate the people, and how the education of the country is, the people's hearts will be how it will be, so the method of governing the people at the grass-roots level should be simple and direct, and this is the first priority to make people's hearts stable.
So, who knows the people at the grassroots level the best? As far as I know, the county commanders at the grassroots level in our country know the people best, why? Because they are at the grassroots level all day and have the most contact with the people, if they want to achieve political stability in the country, we must first start with officials at the grassroots level.
In the previous Han Dynasty, it used six laws to strictly control local high-ranking officials, but for the county orders at the grass-roots level, the central government generally ignored them, but handed them over to the local Taishou, to take care of and supervise, which shows that the system of the Han Dynasty is actually the same as that of China today.
However, during the Han Dynasty, good officials were everywhere, and everyone rushed to learn well, but compared with the Han Dynasty today, we are not as good as the Han Dynasty, and the reason for today's current situation is not because in our bureaucratic system, everyone is whitewashing the peace, reporting good news but not worrying, and deceiving the situation?
So, how to eliminate the official vices of everyone whitewashing the peace and deceiving the secret?
In fact, the key point is to advocate in the official field: transparency from top to bottom, communication, everything must be issued from top to bottom, and everything should be delivered from top to bottom.
Those who are chiefs must put down their own shelves, go among the common people from time to time, and ask the common people what difficulties they have, what kind of difficulties they have, and who is bullying you, and as long as the chief officers do this, then those grass-roots petty officials below him will naturally be honest, naturally dare not do evil, and naturally dare not deceive and conceal.
Moreover, compared with the grass-roots officials in the past, our grass-roots officials in China today have a lot more workload and work tasks, and they are even more numerous than the grass-roots officials in ancient times. If you look at today's situation, every day is changing, and the country has a large number of major events, all waiting to be handled, such as running schools, managing police, running transportation, managing industry and commerce, and introducing technology... Wait, these things, if you don't have a little knowledge foundation, you can't understand them at all.
If we want our grassroots officials to manage so many affairs, the first thing is to re-educate them and increase their insights. The key lies in the fact that when the chief officers consciously train the officials at the grass-roots level and let them have the corresponding knowledge, then, give them the task of grass-roots governance, they can be competent, and when they make mistakes, the chief criticizes them, so that they will not be dazed, so that those who are the chiefs only need to set the rules, and then, even if the chiefs do not worry, the grass-roots level can also be properly governed.
Today, although various provinces in our country have already opened training courses for grass-roots officials, in fact, they are all paper kung fu and are all for example. After a long time, they are all exposed, and the result is that they will not lie with us.
During the Han Dynasty, grassroots officials were locals, locals, and the situation of locals was the most understood, so it was easy to use locals to govern locals, and it was easy to produce good political achievements, which was also the product of the official system of the Zhou Dynasty.
If we can listen to the voices of the common people extensively, select credible and capable people from the grassroots squires and others, and appoint them to replace the imperial court to govern the grassroots, it will certainly be helpful to the stability of the country.
If the emperor wants to renew the official field in our country, then you must first do a good job in the two things of "issuing from the upper situation and reaching the lower situation", and we say that according to the conditions of the times, this must be done.
The "Policy" also says that the military policy of our country in the Xia and Shang Dynasties is to "feed the soldiers in the peasants", that is to say, there are no full-time officers and soldiers, they are peasants in peacetime, they only give them a certain amount of military training, and when they are about to fight, they are temporarily convened.
In ancient times, after the abolition of the well field system in China, it was changed to a system of recruiting officers and soldiers. During the Han Gaozu period, China's national defense army was divided into four branches: light vehicles (vehicle soldiers), timber officers (infantry), knights (cavalry), and building ships (sailors), often in the autumn to teach martial arts and review the troops.
In the early years of the Tang Dynasty, the "prefectural military system" was implemented, farming in peacetime, regular training, and wartime battles, and later in the middle of the Tang Dynasty, it was found that it was not feasible, and it was changed to a system of recruiting officers and soldiers.
During the Northern Song Dynasty, minister Han Qi suggested that all the strong men in various places who were not afraid of death should be raised to fight for our imperial court, which was called "raising soldiers" at that time. Later, Su Shi also said that it is necessary to fix the country's military system and to organize and train a perennial national defense force, and today I think that the views of these two people are really very correct.
Today, we look around the world, all countries in the world, all of them are founded in the spirit of martial arts, all are based on a strong army, the ministers of various countries are full of talents who understand the military, and the children of various countries have paid attention to physical exercise since they were young.
It should be known that since ancient times, the troops are not easy to manage, and wars are also dangerous, which is why when Wei Linggong wanted to hire Confucius, Confucius said: I don't understand military affairs. Later, sure enough, Wei Linggong was belligerent, which led to great chaos in the world.
"Zuo Biao" also said: Military troops are a dangerous goods, a double-edged sword, once poorly managed, appointed indiscriminately, if you are not careful, you will hurt yourself.
However, since mankind has had a country, without a national defense force, it is not possible for a day, and the army is not only as important as the wings and claws of birds, but more important.
A country with flesh and blood is far from enough, it also needs strength, strength, in order to have spirit, in order to survive in today's jungle world, and strength is as important to the body as the national defense army is to the country.
Once the human body is insufficient in strength, the flesh and blood do not move, and become a vegetative person, the body collapses, the body collapses, and the spirit does not exist, which is why, since Yao Shunyu in our country, all the way to the Song Dynasty and the Ming Dynasty, for thousands of years, there has not been a dynasty that has not attached importance to army building.
Qing Dynasty Bureaucrats (Oil Painting)
Today's social critics always like to say that everything was good in ancient times and bad now, and they say at every turn that the common people spend tens of millions of taels of silver every year to raise such a nested and useless army, and it is better to learn from ancient times, let the officers and soldiers go home to cultivate the fields, and then temporarily gather them when there is a battle to be fought.
This criticism is unjustified.
Why? Because they don't know, today's world, the changes are getting faster and faster, we look at the changeable way of fighting wars between the great powers today, as well as the high-precision weapons of the great powers, to cope with today's war, even if we raise professional troops, every day of training, may not be able to beat others, let alone disband the troops, let the officers and men go home to farm, and then when war breaks out, then temporarily conscripted? Will that work? Absolutely not.
Therefore, we say, there must be a special army, the number must be sufficient, and the quality should be high, and moreover, more important coaches must be added in peacetime, and then our country can survive on an equal footing with the great powers, just like the human body, we must have strength and spirit, so I think that the emperor should reorganize the army, strengthen the armament, and the officers and men should strengthen the study of modern military technology, which is the second major thing that we are in accordance with the conditions of the times.
In addition, the "Policy" also said that during the Zhou Dynasty, the state strictly stipulated the rituals and costs of various activities to save the state financial expenditure, I checked it, at that time, there were two positions in ancient times, "within the office" and "in the service age", one in charge of tax collection, one in charge of spending, recently we looked at the countries of the world, they said "budget, final accounts should be separated", that is, a department can raise the budget, but in the end, how much to spend for you, is another department to decide.
In the past, when Su Dongpo was in charge of the state's finances, he said that some of the various budgets reported by local officials were actually very easy to veto, and after vetoing them, there was no harm to the state. It is difficult to veto some funding applications, but after approving it, this money is spent, in fact, it is not of substantial help to the people's livelihood.
Therefore, when Zeng Gong, a minister of the Song Dynasty, was in charge of the state finances, he said something like this: I will try my best to find out the reason why it is not spent whenever I apply for funds submitted by grass-roots units, and I will not approve it. On the contrary, for the application for funds reported by the grass-roots level, if it says that it wants to save a certain cost, I must examine the reasons for its savings, and once it is found that the savings are not correct, then I will definitely approve it. I think, ah, this is simply the truth.
However, if I were to manage the country's finances, I see that in today's situation, "open source" is much more important than "throttling"!
This means that today's Chinese finances, saving money, is not the most important thing, what is important is to find a way to make more money, why? Because, since our country signed unequal treaties with the great powers and established so-called trade relations, our money has been earned by these powers, so no matter how much we save, the country will inevitably fall into poverty, and the root cause lies in this.
So, how can China's finances be "open source" and make more money? I think ah, the key is to revitalize China's industry, moreover, we in China, a vast territory, fertile land, and geographically belong to the temperate zone, sunshine and rainfall, the conditions are very good, so we China is rich in products, so we should also pay attention to the development of agriculture, we China's four hundred million people, each one bears hardships and stands hard work, and is smart, afraid of what?
Since china and the great powers opened up trade, the people in Fujian, Guangdong and other coastal areas have imitated those foreign products, but if our country can encourage this kind of imitation behavior, soon, our people will be able to make innovations in manufacturing, so we should focus on the development of industry and commerce in the coastal areas.
Europeans regard the victory or defeat of industry and commerce as the source of their country's strength and weakness, so they encourage so many merchant ships, and the whole world runs around, why? They just want to grab business and profits in the whole world.
However, China's local industry and commerce are not developed, foreign goods are everywhere, and the country's silver flows out every day, how to save this situation? The most urgent task at the moment is to vigorously develop our country's industry and commerce, once our industry and commerce develop, then no inch of our country's land is deserted, none of our people are unemployed, and then some of our excellent enterprises and excellent products will emerge, then our country will be able to save the embarrassment of the outflow of commercial interests, emperor, you advocate economy, that is right, but more important than it is, is to broaden the source of profits, to make more money, we say to adapt to the conditions of the times, this is the third major thing.
The "Guidelines" also say that we judge the success or failure of education in our country by the fact that the knowledge learned by the readers is evil, so we must give the readers of the world the scope of reading, so that the heresies of the world cannot flourish.
In ancient times, we had the position of "Situ", responsible for formulating textbooks and bibliographies, educating the people of the world, and in the Xia, Shang, and Zhou Dynasties, we selected people from the three types of people: elected scholars, handsome soldiers, and craftsmen, to become officials.
During the Han Dynasty, the imperial court paid attention to the "Ming Classic" section, and then set up filial piety, honesty, xian, liang and other disciplines, widely recommended talents, at that time Jia Yi, Dong Zhongshu and others, the most famous, the most learned.
In the Eastern Han Dynasty, it changed slightly, and people at that time were more moral and not too focused on learning, so there were many Qing schools, and everyone shouted slogans, not very practical, not normal.
In the early years of the Tang Dynasty, literature was the most prosperous, and after the middle of the Tang Dynasty, there was a crooked wind in the official field, that is, to choose people to be officials, not to see whether you had the ability to be an official, but to see whether the books you read and the poems you liked were similar to my tastes, which was very absurd, so the atmosphere began to deteriorate.
In the Song Dynasty, there were a lot of Confucian scholars, all of whom were famous teachers, they talked about honesty and shame, talked about integrity, this atmosphere, ah, continued until the Ming Dynasty, even if the people were adults, they were also very good at learning, the atmosphere of the Ming Dynasty, respect for teachers and re-teaching, out of a lot of good people, people at that time, advocating "poetry", "books", "rites", "Easy", "Music", "Spring and Autumn" Six classic teachings, no matter what they do, they must first ask: Is it ethical to do this?
However, in china today, readers can be impetuous, and many readers have not yet come into contact with Western learning, so they have first denied our traditional Chinese learning, so if we want to correct the atmosphere, we must reaffirm the importance of our traditional ethics.
How do you reaffirm ethics? We must respect our classics, "Poetry", "Book", "Ritual", "Yi", "Music", "Spring and Autumn", are all our national essences, these national essences, we must protect and inherit well, if the emperor wants to correct the national study style, we must re-take out our Confucian classics to correct the hearts of the people, we say that according to the conditions of the times, this is the fourth major event.
The four major things I am talking about today are the best way for us to save the situation now, and they are the most important task for saving the country and the people.
Xun Zi said that we should learn from him about which emperors in the contemporary era have done a good job, and Dong Zhongshu said that if we do not think about reform and do not adapt to the conditions of the times, then the bad situation will become worse. These words all make sense.
The times have changed, but we still take the old way of governing the country to govern today's country, this kind of behavior, "Lü's Spring and Autumn" has long been ridiculed, it said: the disease has changed, but the medication has not changed, it is really confused!
Since ancient times, there has been no fixed way of governing the country, only an emperor who is willing to use his brain and adapt to changes, so Confucius said that the key to governing the country lies in the emperor himself, and whether the emperor can appoint a wise courtier ultimately depends on whether the emperor has enough vision and wisdom.
What I especially want to say is that I hope that the emperor will read more and study more, because the country is not good, the root lies in you, as long as you are reliable, the selection of people is reliable, the selection of people is reliable, you can not bother, the country can be stable.
Therefore, we say that there will be good emperors like Shang Tang and King Wu of Zhou first, and then there will be good courtiers like Yi Yin and Jiang Ziya. There were two good emperors, Yao and Shun, and only then did they have the beautiful era of their two dynasties.
We proceed from this fundamental point of view, appoint officials, then, no official is incompetent, govern the army, no officers and soldiers can not fight, manage the state finances, there is no such thing as a financial crisis, govern the academic circles, then there is no dishonest and disloyal people who read books, then we have a solid foundation for China's prosperity for hundreds of millions of years.
My knowledge and talent are limited, I am a newcomer, I don't know what taboos there are to talk about major national events, I took the exam today, I boldly wrote this answer sheet, and presented it to the emperor, at this time, I am overwhelmed with trepidation, if there is offense, please ask the emperor to forgive the crime.
Your courtier, Liu Chunlin, salutes.
Epilogue: After handing over this answer sheet, Liu Chunlin was appreciated by the imperial court because of his quick thinking, extraordinary insight, and beautiful font, and won the title of that year. Then, it was incorporated into the Hanlin Academy (the Central Talent Reserve Center of the Great Qing Dynasty). Later, however, somehow, Liu Chunlin went to study at Hosei University in Tokyo, Japan, and after returning to Japan, he served as a member of the Council of Ministers. After the death of the Qing Dynasty, Liu Chunlin served as a secretary in the Beiyang government, and then served as the director of the Department of Education, and later resigned from the government to retire, and died of a heart attack in 1942. Although he was a champion, in that era, he did not highlight his achievements.
Note: Lao Feng's literary cultivation is limited, this translation can only guarantee basic accuracy, can not guarantee 100% accuracy, in addition, considering the length of the article, did not paste the original text, please understand. Well, Old Feng will tell you interesting history tomorrow.