After the house banquet in the palace, the family did not disperse immediately.n∈n∈,

After the Supreme Emperor Liu Xiu entered the palace, he gradually got used to life in the palace, but now it is not as convenient as before. It is not as convenient as before if he wants to meet his children.

Now the whole family is gathering together to share the joy of family life. Looking at the young grandchildren, granddaughter and grandsons, Liu Xiu is very pleased. He was just a scholar in the past, and he didn't understand the major issues of the country and didn't want to get involved.

"Emperor, I heard that there are more than a dozen Mongolian women in your palace now that are pregnant. Is this true?"

The Empress Dowager chatted with several princesses, the Empress, the Four Concubines and several Marquises. At this time, she suddenly turned her head and asked Liu Jun who was talking to her father and brother.

Liu Jun nodded in response, "Yes."

Now there are many Mongolian women in the palace, and hundreds of concubines sent to the palace. Later, Liu Jun saw that more and more sent, he quickly issued an order with the Mongolian princes. Only the emperor would be included in the palace by the title of Count or above. This order caused many young princes such as Zi Nanxun to be very dissatisfied.

Finally, Liu Jun had to give another decree. The imperial court selected a group of Mongolian nobles such as sons and knights and warriors from their appropriate daughters every year to send them to the palace, but they were just palace maids. Each of them studied etiquette and culture in the palace for five years. Then the Emperor of Han gave them marriages and promised them to the officials and children of Han.

If someone favored by the emperor, he would naturally stay in the palace.

However, despite this change, Liu Jun has been included in the palace and has given more than 300 titles. In addition, there are more than 3,000 palace ladies who have been married to the palace by these princes, and there are also thousands of daughters sent by nobles.

The result is that there are only 3,000 eunuchs in the palace now, but there are more than 10,000 palace maids. Two-thirds of them are Mongolian women. With so many Mongolian women entering the palace, Liu Jun naturally cannot leave them alone. Even if it is just for the sake of a covenant with the princes, Liu Jun has to fulfill some obligations.

So far, there are eleven Mongolian concubines pregnant in the palace. If the empress, several noble concubines and concubines are also pregnant, the emperor will welcome no less than twenty children next year.

"One other day, you will bring them here, and I will meet them." The Empress Dowager said, "It is not easy to come from the distant grassland. Now that I am pregnant, I need to take good care of them. They are pregnant with the flesh and blood of our Liu family. Emperor, you must treat them well."

Queen Lu Xueqi was very uncomfortable listening to it. She originally mentioned this matter. She originally wanted to use the identity of the empress dowager to criticize the emperor, so as not to accept more and more. Now he has taken hundreds of Mongolian women in. If he turns around and gets hundreds of Southwest Yi in, that's all.

Who knows that the Empress Dowager didn't think the same thing as her.

The Empress Dowager did not care whether her son was a Mongolian woman or a North Korean woman, but she was all from the Liu family when she entered the door, and she gave birth to the Liu family. Liu Jun still only had two sons now, so the Empress Dowager of course hoped that the emperor would have more children.

Liu Zhao looked envious. Liu Jun wanted to laugh, so he deliberately raised his voice and said to him. "Brother, there are not many people in your room, and now there is only Hong'er. Otherwise, how about I pick a few Mongolian girls from the palace and give them to you as a concubine?"

Liu Zhao looked like a pig brother, nodded quickly, "Okay."

The sister-in-law Mei had already looked unhesitant, but she was not easy to directly object in front of the emperor, the emperor and the empress dowager. After all, now it is not as good as before. Liu Zhao has only one wife, and he has never even dared to accept a concubine, and he has no maid in the house.

The marriage between Mongolia and Han is very important in the long run.

But it cannot be just the emperor who accepts Mongolian women, so he has to fully relax. Liu Jun has already issued an order to promote a marriage between Mongolia and Han, and cannot resist marriage. At the same time, he took the lead and accepted more than 300 daughters of Mongolian princes, and now he has a national talent show. Some folk girls who are willing to marry the children of Mongolian princes are selected and sent to the capital for etiquette and other training.

Now, a large number of daughters of Mongolian nobles have been brought to Beijing, and they are also planning to betroth the civil and military officials and children of the Han Dynasty. However, ordinary civil and military officials have wives, and even if they don’t marry a wife, they will not be willing to marry a Mongolian woman. It will take a long time to change this concept.

Therefore, Liu Jun now made up his mind to let civil and military officials take Mongolian women as his concubines. He had already started and then prepared to let his brothers take the lead.

In the afternoon, the sun is warm and it is a rare good weather.

After the family dinner, Liu Jun returned to Qianqing Hall early.

Today is Laba Festival, and tomorrow is the ninth day of the twelfth lunar month, which is also the day when the Han Dynasty's first imperial examinations begin. Originally, the provincial examinations were in the autumn of the first year and the provincial examinations were in the spring of the following year. But now the provincial examinations are still in the autumn, but the provincial examinations are ahead of the end of the year and the early twelfth lunar month.

However, all those who should be prepared are ready. Now there are scholars everywhere in the capital. Some of them come to take the exam and some fail to pass the exam, but a large number of scholars who have obtained the same juren are coming to prepare for admission to the Beijing University in the spring of next year.

There are also many scholars who neither come to take the exam nor go to school. They just come to join in the fun, watch the grand occasion of the imperial examination, and communicate with their colleagues. Now that the Central Plains are peaceful, the scholars are happy to go out to study and walk around.

The influx of thousands of scholars made the capital more and more lively during this period, and the capital's economy became more prosperous.

When he arrived at the Qianqing Hall, Liu Jun was not in the mood to manage the government for a while, so he simply sent an order to ask the eunuch to lead the way. He went next to the eleven pregnant Mongolian concubines to sit.

These pregnant Mongolian women were all promoted to concubines by Liu Jun and given titles to Zhaoyi and Zhaorong and others, and had the second rank. This is also considered to be the mother being noble for her son. Although they don’t know that they gave birth to boys and girls, they are the same in the palace and in ordinary families. Concubines who have given birth to children must have a higher status than those who have not given birth to children.

Liu Jun's sudden arrival surprised these Mongolian concubines.

However, Liu Jun soon discovered that he could not recognize all the eleven women who were pregnant with his child. Among them, the Qing imperial concubine Namu Zhong and the Qing princess Makata were very familiar, but the other women always felt a little blind. If it weren't for the eunuchs from the Ministry of Internal Affairs whispering to the side, he would have been unable to name his name or confused with others.

I thought it would be difficult to communicate with them, but he unexpectedly discovered that these daughters of Mongolian princes could already speak Chinese. Although they were not fluent, at least he could understand.

At this time, he discovered something. They did not speak the emperor's hometown dialect, nor the Ming emperor's hometown dialect, nor the Luoyang reading sound, they spoke Beijing dialect.

Well. It's not the Beijing dialect of later generations, but it's almost the same.

The Beijing dialect at this time should be called Dadu dialect.

Dadu dialect is very close to later generations of Beijing dialect, and it is also the most popular discourse in Beijing for hundreds of years.

Under the continuous invasion and rule of northern grassland tribes such as Liao, Jin, and Yuan, the language of the north has gradually changed over the past thousands of years.

In the Yuan Dynasty, the official provisions of the world-wide language based on the Northern dialect as the standard.

After the Yuan people occupied China, they began to forcibly promote Dadu dialect. A large number of Mongolian vocabulary were added to Chinese, and the structure of Chinese was changed, and Chinese and Mongolian were assimilated.

Liu Jun also discovered something particularly interesting at this time. The languages ​​of people in Yunnan, Guizhou and Sichuan are very similar to those of the language north of the Huai River and Dadu.

The fundamental reason is that the Mongols took the lead in conquering these places, and then the Dadu dialect promoted in these places was the strongest.

In the early Ming Dynasty, the Hongwu Zhengyun was revised. The Jianghuai dialect was promoted as a Mandarin. However, after Yongle moved its capital to Beijing, the Dadu dialect was still widely circulated.

Historically, the Qing Dynasty later entered the Central Plains and vigorously promoted Dadu dialect. In the end, Mandarin in later generations was popularized based on Dadu dialect as the standard.

Speaking of Mandarin, China has a large territory and a large ethnic group, so it has many language families. There are also various dialects under several large language systems such as Cantonese, Fujian, Hakka, Wu, etc.

In Jiangxi and other places, there is even a phenomenon of different words in ten miles. In a county, two towns not far apart, their speech may be completely different.

The difference between Northern and Southern dialects is even bigger, just like a foreign language, I can't understand them at all.

Liu Jun once met several officials who performed well in the local area. As a result, when they reported on their work, they said for a long time, but Liu Jun didn't understand a single word.

The Qin Dynasty had the same track and the same text, unified measurement and measurement, and unified writing, and made outstanding contributions to the process of China's civilization.

Historically, the Mandarin of each dynasty is different, and each dynasty also has standard Mandarin and rhyme books are introduced. But generally speaking, the language is still difficult to unify.

Scholars have the pronunciation of reading, and the pronunciation of ancient Luoyang is the basis. The capital of Guanzhong was established in the Sui and Tang dynasties, mainly based on Guanzhong language. The emperor of the Ming Dynasty was born in Huainan and promoted it with Jianghuai dialect as the official language.

But later moved the capital to Beijing. Because Dadu dialect was most widely circulated in the north, Dadu dialect actually had the largest influence.

The northern regions north of the Huai River, as well as Yunnan, Guizhou and Sichuan, are very close to Dadu dialect. Although they are somewhat different, they can at least communicate with each other and understand them.

Even the Mongolian women in the palace now learn Dadu dialect, and they have a better foundation in learning these dialects and learn quickly. But if they learn Jianghuai dialect, it will be difficult.

Liu Jun sat there a little insanely.

I forgot to talk to the Mongolian concubine for a moment, but the concubine thought it caused the emperor to be dissatisfied and felt uneasy.

Liu Jun no longer cared about her, and he thought of an important thing.

The empire is so big that it is quite unfavorable if even a common word cannot be promoted and popularized. Common words have a great effect. Language and text are all important components of a civilization.

To put it in a big way, without a popular common term will lead to insufficient cohesion and centripetal force of the empire. To put it in a small way, this will also make communication inconvenient for the people.

Which language should the Han Dynasty use as the common language Mandarin?

Is the Mandarin of the Northern Metropolis or the Mandarin of Jianghuai and Nanjing, and the Mandarin of the Central Plains?

Or Cantonese, Fujian, Hakka, Wu, Hunan, Gan?

I remember someone once said that Cantonese is the best preserved ancient Chinese. However, the circulation and popularization of Cantonese are far less than that of Northern dialect. Among Northern dialects, Dadu dialect is definitely the most popular and circulated.

If you choose a language to promote it, the general method is to formulate rhyme books. However, rhyme books in previous dynasties used Chinese characters to reverse the penetration, and this method still has illegal shortcomings, and the rhyme is difficult to accurately.

Should we promote Chinese pinyin?

Pinyin is also a type of phonology, but it is more accurate. Especially when using letters, the effect is better. Although it is not 100% perfect, it is at least stronger than other kinds.

The biggest requirement of common words is to be simple and convenient enough so that they can be quickly promoted and popularized. This is just like Chinese characters, and it also requires simplicity.

Liu Jun even felt that when promoting common languages ​​and Chinese pinyin, simplified Chinese characters can also be implemented.

Today's traditional Chinese characters are indeed inconvenient to write, and there are too many strokes.

Now the imperial court is preparing to promote education and carry out primary popularization education. At this time, Mandarin and simplified Chinese characters will be promoted. Liu Jun believes that the promotion will be greatly enhanced.

However, simplified Chinese characters cannot be too simple, and they can be done in moderation. Just like in later generations, when simplified Chinese characters were promoted, secondary simplified Chinese characters were once produced. As a result, those characters were simple, but they had lost the basis of Chinese pictograms and could not express their meaning at all.

Those characters were not really circulated in the end, but became some abbreviated and different characters.

Simplified Chinese characters actually did not come out of thin air. It should be said that simplified Chinese characters have a long history. Most of the earliest oracle bone inscriptions, golden tripod inscriptions, and seal scripts, and then to official scripts, regular scripts, and Chinese characters have been constantly changing.

The oldest Chinese character is oracle bone inscriptions, and the simplest strokes, but the total amount is too small. During the Warring States Period and the Qin and Han Dynasties, the shape of Chinese characters changed the most, from seal script to official script to regular script, all of which were completed during this period.

The fonts of regular script that appeared in the late Eastern Han Dynasty have stabilized since then, which is why the characters were later called Chinese characters.

However, official script is a simplification of seal script, while running script and cursive script are a simplification of official script.

In addition to the current formal regular script fonts, there are many other simplified Chinese characters circulating. From calligraphy works from the Han, Tang, Song and Ming dynasties, there are many simple Chinese characters to write. There are still many abbreviations in these writing habits, as many as hundreds.

Liu Jun felt that the implementation of simplified characters can greatly reduce the difficulty of education, increase the literacy rate, and increase the writing efficiency of Chinese characters. However, simplified characters cannot be simplified indiscriminately. If they were simplified into later Korean characters and Japanese characters, they would be circled and dotted, and their cultural connotation and historical significance would be gone.

Since the Han Dynasty, the characters that have been written simplified in the past dynasties can be sorted out and promoted. On this basis, some simple ancient characters, common characters, phono-shaped characters, etc. can be used.

The purpose is to make reading in Hanshu easier and improve literacy and efficiency.

Liu Jun also opposed the merger of Chinese characters in large quantities. There is no need to merge a large number of them, just simplify some particularly complex characters.

The Han Dynasty now has a population of more than 200 million. Although there are 600,000 scholars and millions of scholars, the literacy rate is not high for more than 200 million people.

Especially those natives in frontier areas, fewer people know how to write Chinese characters.

Simplifying characters can not only strengthen the literacy rate of Chinese characters, but also allow the young people in the border to quickly accept Chinese characters. If the common language is fully promoted, the empire's centripetal force cohesion will inevitably be stronger at that time.

In order to improve the literacy rate and popularize common languages, Liu Jun believes that the best solution is to promote simplified Chinese characters and the most widely circulated Beijing dialect. Adding a Chinese pinyin to Beijing dialect will help you improve efficiency.

Well, for the court, efficiency is the most important thing. (To be continued.)
Chapter completed!