Prime Minister

Chapter 1311 Games and Principles

Chapter 1311 Games and Principles

The scholars were in panic and wanted to scatter, but Zhang Yue said to them, "Wait."

The scholars were unable to advance or retreat.

"I have long admired the great names of Duke Jing and Duke Jianguo. I am honored that you have condescended to come to this remote place. As locals, we are honored."

"Please listen to my teachings!"

A scholar said boldly.

Zhang Yue and Wang Anshi smiled, and the scholars felt relieved to see that they were easy-going.

Everyone returned to the shade of the tree and sat on the ground.

Wang Anshi and Zhang Yue asked, "What Mr. Jian just said about the principle of investigating things is different from the way of clarifying the truth. Why is that?"

Zhang Yue said: "It's because the methods of essence and function are different."

Starting from Hu Yuan, scholars in the Song Dynasty pursued the way to understand the essence and apply it.

Zhang Yue smiled.

Absolute truth exists. Yes, there must be absolute truth behind the phenomena of natural science. For example, mathematics will never lie.

For example, one plus one equals two, and there is no such thing as three. This is the absolute truth.

But the humanities are questionable. Even if there is absolute truth, in practice it is in a dynamic process.

Zhang Yue smiled and said, "Mr. Jing, if you want to know this, just play a game and you will know."

The scholars were stunned when they heard this.

Wang Anshi was also surprised.

Zhang Yue immediately said to the scholars present: "Pick a number from 0 to 100, and then I will find the average of your numbers and divide it by two. The one whose number is closest to this number will win."

The scholars were surprised.

However, I remained silent as Zhang Yue said. There is a pen but no paper here.

Fortunately, the leaves of the big tree that covered everyone were very thick, so the scholars picked leaves from the ground, borrowed pens, and wrote numbers and their names on the leaves one by one.

Then they were handed over to Wang Anshi's followers one by one.

During this time, Zhang Yue asked Wang Anshi, "Mr. Jing, guess what the average of the people is divided by two?"

Wang Anshi paused for a moment and said, "I am not familiar with arithmetic, but I think it should be at least less than 25. No, it should be 12 and 5."

Zhang Yue laughed and said, "It's not easy for Jing Gong. The first thing that comes to mind is fifty, but then you think that unless everyone fills in one hundred, you are right."

"Then you think of twenty-five, and you realize that everyone else has filled in fifty. Then you think a little deeper and realize that what everyone else has filled in is twelve and a half."

"Why don't we try and see for ourselves?"

Finally, everyone collected the leaves and divided them equally, and the answer was thirty-three.

Wang Anshi was stunned for a moment, then burst into laughter.

Zhang Yue almost covered his face. He could only say that these scholars were so poor at math that they didn't even understand half of the average.

Zhang Yue looked at the leaves page by page. Indeed, many scholars had written fifty pages. This level can be said to have a lot of room for improvement.

Those who wrote twenty-five are the 'smart people' who think that everyone else is stupid.

The answer is thirty-three, which means there are many people in between.

Zhang Yue said to Wang Anshi, "Mr. Jing, I once played this game in private, and the answer is six."

Wang Anshi nodded and said, "There are many smart people in Zhang Gong's staff."

Zhang Yue said: "He is just a smart person who thinks that 'other smart people are fools'."

Wang Anshi asked: "If they are all smart people, how should we choose?"

Zhang Yue said, "It should be filled with zero. Duke Jing, do you understand?"

The game that Zhang Yue and Wang Anshi played is called the Average Game.

The lowest level is fifty, the next is twenty-five, the next is twelve and a half, and the next... until it converges to zero.

This game has another name called "Keynesian Beauty Game". The principle is that when you choose a beauty, you should not choose the one who you think is the most beautiful, but the one who is considered the most beautiful by the public.

Wang Anshi was indeed a smart man. After a little thought, he understood what Zhang Yue meant.

Wang Anshi said: "What Mr. Jian meant is that in governing and educating people, we should first enlighten the people, so as to be in line with political opinion!"

Zhang Yue said: "Jing Gong, you have established customs and laws, which is ahead of the reform of laws, but what I said is not only that."

Zhang Yue immediately said to all the scholars, "Everyone, find a leaf and write it again. See how many numbers you get this time to win."

The scholars did as they were told.

Zhang Yue said to Wang Anshi, "Mr. Jing, please give me some more ideas this time."

Wang Anshi said: "I will not guess any more. Lord Jian, you may as well speak frankly. I am not a child. I do not need to use these little tricks to explain the truth."

Zhang Yue said: "I am being presumptuous."

"Why can't I say that the way to investigate things is the way to seek a righteous mind and sincere intentions?"

“Because the subjective is different from the objective.”

"Because behind every way of investigating things there is a single principle, for example, one plus one equals two. But in the way of rectifying the mind and being sincere, the object of your reform and governance is the people. As long as they are human, their hearts will change."

"It's like when you fill in the numbers on the leaves, it's hard to guess what other people will fill in. You can't expect all the people to act according to your ideas."

Wang Anshi was silent.

Zhang Yue said: "Take the Qingmiao Law as an example. Jing Gong's intention is that the court will provide low interest to replace private lending, so as to alleviate the plight of the people who are in a period of shortage of food."

"This is the principle of Jing Gong. However, when it comes to local governments, officials force people to pay taxes in order to achieve political achievements. The people are unwilling to pay taxes, but the officials force them to do so, and finally people are full of resentment."

"The New Party argued that 'three deficiencies' were the problem, while the Old Party argued that 'the laws of our ancestors cannot be changed.' Each side held its own banner, making it impossible for them to compromise, and the situation turned into a party struggle."

Wang Anshi remained silent after hearing this.

In fact, he had thought about it during these years in Jiangning. The Qingmiao Law was not caused by the obstruction of the old party, but was a deviation in the implementation of his intention by local officials. Wang Anshi always advocated that "the people cannot be consulted at the beginning, but can be happy with the completion", but did this proposition lose the opportunity to improve the shortcomings of the Qingmiao Law?

Is all this due to his stubbornness?

As he got older, he began to doubt himself in many aspects and wondered whether he was right in the beginning.

Wang Anshi sighed slowly, closed his eyes and said, "I think my right and wrong, merits and demerits in the Xining incident cannot be judged in one moment or one lifetime. Did you come here today just to criticize me?"

"I know you have captured Liangzhou and won a victory in Pingxia City, so are you here to tell me that I am not as good as you?"

Zhang Yue said frankly: "Mr. Jing has misunderstood me. Without the reforms of Xining, how could there be the achievements of Yuanfeng?"

"I came here today to thank you, Lord Jing, and to tell you, Prime Minister, that everything I have done during my five years as Prime Minister was to preserve the hard work of the Xining Reform."

Wang Anshi's eyes suddenly turned stern and he asked, "You?"

Zhang Yue met Wang Anshi's gaze calmly.

Science and engineering are all inclined to single-phase feedback. Just like mathematics, it is beautiful. I proved that one plus one equals two, and it will not change.

But humanities is a two-phase feedback system. The subjective affects the objective, and the objective feeds back to the subjective, causing the subjective to change again.

However, under Wang Anshi's reform, serious deviations occurred in the implementation of the Qingmiao Law, for example.

Wang Anshi did not try to solve or intervene in the issues or to repair the theoretical deficiencies, but instead interpreted all problems as a lack of execution, that is, opposition from the old party, and suppressed them with a tough attitude. This resulted in the negative feedback not being eliminated, but being piled up there and constantly amplified.

It's like predicting that there will be a stock market crash in a year, once everyone reaches a consensus.

Then this stock market crash will never happen a year later, but will happen immediately. People will immediately sell in panic, and people's hearts will add fuel to the fire.

Now both the old and new parties have fallen into a state of self-proving trap, where everyone is trying their best to explain and refute, but then they are constantly misinterpreted, leading to the extremism of each other's positions.

In the future there will inevitably be no rational discussion of political differences, only political struggle.

This negative feedback will eventually accumulate, causing officials and the people to dislike the new law even more, and will inevitably lead to the abolition of the Qingmiao Law and even the new law.

This means that if you don’t take the initiative to change, you can only change passively.

However, Zhang Yue's theory was difficult for Wang Anshi to accept, and even the same was true for Cheng Yi's Neo-Confucianism.

Wang Anshi and Cheng Yi's approach to theory and practice both uses theory to guide practice.

There is no way to revise theory through practice.

Cheng Yi's Neo-Confucianism believes that there is an absolute truth. For example, there are no husband and wife in the world, but the husband-wife relationship already exists in the theoretical system.

Since it is truth, it cannot be changed.

Wang Anshi said: "Reform requires authority, just like Shang Yang's carrying wood to establish credibility, and Lü Buwei's words are worth a thousand gold. If the court's laws can be changed, how can the people below be willing to follow them!"

Zhang Yue thought to himself that this was not wrong. Cheng Yi was different from Wang Anshi.

Politics is about authority, especially Wang Anshi’s reforms, which particularly advocated authority and laws, which cannot be challenged.