Chapter 533: Everyone is competing to visit me, Gao Yao?

Chapter 533: Everyone is competing to visit me, Gao Yao?

"Yu Shu, has anything happened during the time I was away?"

As soon as Lu Zhi left to get something, Gao Yao asked Yu Shu, who was concentrating on pouring tea for him. Gao Yao's sudden question really startled Yu Shu.

The reason for this is not any other reason, but that Lv Zhi had previously asserted in a private conversation with her that Gao Yao would definitely take advantage of Lv Zhi's absence to ask Yu Shu about the specific situation. Now it seems that Lv Zhi's words really came true.

Yu Shu couldn't help but sigh inwardly: Gao Yao was certainly familiar with and understood Lv Zhi, but Lv Zhi's insight into Gao Yao was also profound. Especially in terms of guessing Gao Yao's thoughts, Lv Zhi was obviously the clearest among all the women.

Facing Gao Yao's questioning, Yu Shu calmed down a little and responded softly: "My husband, nothing special has happened here. Everything is as usual. However, many people often send many items to our house. According to my husband's previous instructions, I have accepted all those things. As for how to deal with them, I have to wait for my husband to return before deciding."

Hearing this, Gao Yao frowned slightly and asked, "Sending things? Who sent them? What were they?"

For Gao Yao, there were too many people who sent him gifts. Normally, he should not be worthy of Yu Shu, so he specifically explained it.

"These days, the front of the mansion is always bustling with people from various families coming to give gifts. Among them, the medical school, the Mohist school, the Confucian school, and the miscellaneous school have all sent generous gifts, the number of which is staggering. Such a scene has never happened before, but now it has become a monthly routine."

"Especially Master Xu of the Mohist School, he was very generous and gave many valuable gifts. Not only that, he often visited in person and was very attentive, asking to see my husband again and again. Even if he couldn't see me, he didn't get angry. He was still the same every time, which made people curious."

When he heard the word "Mohism", Gao Yao, who had been silent all this time, could not help but frown slightly. He knew very well that in the Former Qin Dynasty, the influence of Mohism was extremely huge among all the schools of thought.

Mohism advocated universal love and non-aggression. Its doctrine was widely popular at the time and had many disciples. The skills of Mohism were superb, whether it was mechanical engineering or city defense, they were all unique. Because of this, Mohism was highly respected among the princes of various countries, and its influence was once not inferior to Confucianism. Some princes even relied heavily on Mohism and would consult Mohist disciples on many important matters.

Mohism was born in the Warring States Period. Its founder was Mo Di, also known as Mozi. Mohism was a strictly disciplined group, with its leader called "Ju Zi". Its members had to promote Mohist ideas when they served as officials in various countries, and their salaries had to be donated to the group. The ten major ideas of Mohism were: respecting the virtuous, respecting the same, loving all, not attacking, frugality, frugal burial, heaven's will, understanding ghosts, not music, and not fate. The most famous of them were loving all and not attacking.

Most of the Mohists came from the lower classes of society. They had lofty ideals and took "promoting the benefits of the world and eliminating the harm of the world" as the ultimate goal of education. As early as the early Warring States period, the early Mohists had already emerged and had a far-reaching influence.

The core of its social ethics is universal love, advocating the spirit of equality and mutual love to replace the difference between people. This concept is in sharp contrast to the strict social hierarchy concept upheld by Confucianism, and there is a fierce conflict between the two in many aspects of concept.

The decline of Mohism in the late Warring States period was not accidental, but the result of multiple factors. Mohism advocated benevolent governance and called on the literati and aristocracy to voluntarily give up some of their interests and transfer them to the people. In the early Warring States period, in order to win the hearts of the people and attract more people, the various vassal states naturally praised the Mohist ideas.

However, as time went on, social class differentiation became more and more obvious, and the vested interest groups continued to grow. At this time, the Confucian approach of emphasizing class fixation was obviously more able to cater to the interests of the ruling class. As a result, the influence of Mohism gradually weakened in the late Warring States period, and it declined to a very serious level during the Qin Shihuang period.

Nevertheless, as the saying goes, a lean camel is bigger than a horse, the glory that Mohism once had and the ideological legacy it left behind cannot be ignored. The absence of people who employed Mohists does not mean that the Mohist heritage is cut off.

It was just that Mohism had changed, but a huge change had quietly taken place within the Mohist school - differentiation! Different branches emerged, such as Xiangli's Mohism, Dengling's Mohism, and Xiangfu's Mohism, which were active on the ever-changing historical stage in the middle and late Warring States period. This differentiation was not accidental, but was due to the consideration of the wider dissemination of Mohist thought, and it also demonstrated the strong vitality of the school's own continuous evolution and progress.

As for the Mohist school as a whole, Gao Yao was full of admiration, because Mohism was like a beacon, following the trend and meeting the urgent needs of social development in that turbulent era.

Especially for those skilled workers at the bottom of society during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, the Mohist school was like a savior, carefully building a stable and reliable system of wisdom inheritance for them.

The knowledge imparted by the Mohists covers many fields, including but not limited to agricultural production, sophisticated handicraft skills, advanced military equipment manufacturing methods, rigorous logical thinking, and early natural science experimental exploration, etc. It is precisely because of the Mohists' in-depth practice and research in the handicraft manufacturing process that they keenly realized that through a series of systematic and standardized experimental operations, it is not only possible to reveal the inherent causal relationship between things, but also to summarize and record these valuable experiences in detail, so as to achieve the inheritance from generation to generation, effectively avoiding the waste of resources and time consumption caused by repeated exploration.

For this reason, the Mohists attached great importance to dialectics and various experimental activities. At the same time, the salaries obtained by the Mohists were not taken for themselves, but were uniformly allocated through the Mohist's strict organizational system and selflessly contributed to the entire group. In this way, the bad phenomenon of the master deliberately retaining key tricks when imparting technology was fundamentally eliminated, ensuring that the Mohist knowledge and skills could be passed on intactly.

Moreover, the Mohist classics can be said to be one of the earliest books in the world that systematically expounds scientific knowledge. The Mohists have very accurate and forward-looking insights in many fields, and their concepts are even quite similar to some value concepts of later generations.