Chapter 357 The Essence of Mocheng

In the small noodle shop, Sun Shiheng looked at Qin Yu's answer with disdain.

Qin Yu was quite carefree. "Although I practice Mohism, my teacher has taught me the 'universal love tax' since the beginning of my practice. However, this is not a tax explicitly stipulated by the laws of Daxia, and it is extremely heavy. Therefore, ordinary Mohists can choose to pay the price and avoid this heavy tax, and the Mohists will not pursue it too much, nor do they have the motivation and ability to pursue it, unless the Mohists do not want to preach in Daxia anymore."

Zhou Tieyi nodded slightly. The universal love tax had no binding force from the beginning.

There are two reasons for this. The first is that Daxia was a feudal dynasty and would certainly not allow others to levy taxes. Therefore, the essence of the universal love tax is more like the Buddhist "offering". It is a personal initiative under Taoist education and is not compulsory.

The second is that if the Mohists forced everyone who practiced Mohism to pay a universal love tax from the very beginning, then the Mohists would lose their underlying foundation. Therefore, regarding the universal love tax, the Mohists were more based on a voluntary principle. Even if many Mohists paid the universal love tax, they would secretly conceal their true income.

"What price?"

Li Jianhu asked curiously.

Qin Yu smiled and said, "In fact, the price is not high. It's just that there is no teacher to teach the way of cultivation after the fourth rank. The cultivation methods of the Mohist school before the fourth rank can be easily bought in the ghost market. It is even easy for the Mohist school before the fourth rank to switch to the Gongshu school's cultivation method. The risk is extremely low."

"Of course, everyone will pay a symbolic tax, because after paying the tax, the Mohists can send their offspring to Mo City to be raised. At the beginning, the big families actually liked to use this method to give their offspring a better education, but it didn't go as planned... In the end, the big families gave up this idea."

"What went against your will?"

Li Jianhu asked.

Qin Yu glanced at the Mohist master who was standing nearby and replied, "Compared to the outside world, the progress of practicing Mohist methods in Mo City is not only not rapid, but surprisingly slow. Because the aristocratic families have many descendants, they have used many twins for experiments and obtained roughly the same conclusions, with only very few exceptions. Therefore, after decades of experiments, the aristocratic families have given up the idea of ​​sending their descendants to Mo City to study."

"How... could this happen?"

Li Jianhu glanced at the Mohist leader who was standing nearby. The Mohist leader did not refute, which meant that what Qin Yu said was the fact, or a fact close to it.

Zhou Tieyi smiled and said, "Absolute egalitarianism leads to equal opportunities and even results, so the difference between geniuses and mediocre people is rapidly narrowing. Aristocratic families have no shortage of educational opportunities and have more and better resources in the outside world. On the contrary, in Mo City, if you use one point of resources, you may have to pay three to five points of taxes. Sir, am I right?"

The Mohist doctrine of universal love, in the end, is absolute egalitarianism, respecting the old as well as the young of others. Although this ideal looks beautiful, it can also make people lose the motivation to make progress. That's why Zhou Tieyi asked the Mohist leader how many years he had been watching the scene in front of him.

"Average chance? Average outcome?"

The leader of the Mohist school showed a thoughtful expression. With his wisdom, he could certainly understand the meaning of Zhou Tieyi's two sentences. It was just that no one had put forward two clear concepts in front of him before. Combined with what Zhou Tieyi said about the "universal love tax", he suddenly saw the essence of many problems in Mo City.

Just like he told his disciples before coming here today, he would gain a lot from meeting Zhou Tieyi, so it was worth it for him, a top-notch person in the world, to go to the airport to greet him in person.

You should know that even when the prince visited in the past, the leaders of the Mohist School never went to the airport to greet him.

The Mohist leader looked at Zhou Tieyi and continued to ask, "Then what do you mean by saying that Mo City is a group of people exploiting the people of the world? How do you interpret this sentence?"

Zhou Tieyi pointed at Qin Yu and said, "Hasn't he already given the answer?"

"Of course, it is to exploit the people of the world through the universal love tax."

Everyone around him showed an expression of disbelief at Zhou Tieyi's answer, even Xuan Chan, the Gongshujia who was most opposed to the Mohist school, showed an expression of disbelief.

You should know that the reason why Mohist school was respected by people all over the world in the past was because of its tax of universal love, which gathered the wealth of practitioners and used it to help the poor. But now Zhou Tieyi says that this is exploitation of people all over the world!
"What's the meaning of this statement?"

The leader of the Mohist School took off his tortoise-shell glasses, and his eyes suddenly became sharp. His extremely handsome features were white and transparent, and his eyes reflected a long river of stars. Everyone around him felt as if they were in a flowing river. The scenery of the small noodle shop became blurred, and all around him were pictures of the Mohist School influencing the world.

Mohists are chivalrous and righteous, Mohists are benevolent and help the poor, Mohists build cities...

In the flow of time, everyone can touch upon the Mohist concept of universal love and deeply feel the process and results of Mohist practice.

This is the Taoist way.

Zhou Tieyi was accustomed to the scene before him. Now that he understood more about the way of cultivation, he naturally knew that advanced practitioners could deduce the future through the Taoist tradition.

Especially when they feel the new "Taoism", they will simulate and deduce it through their original Taoism.

The others were almost speechless under such interrogation, and were completely immersed in the grand ideals of the Mohist school. Zhou Tieyi smiled at ease and said, "The wealth created by heaven and earth has its own fixed number. If you take it in a controlled way and use it sparingly, you will have plenty. If you take it without control and use it without sparingly, you will have poverty. You used to believe in this principle, didn't you?"

The Mohist leader carefully thought about every word of Zhou Tieyi's words, and then nodded slightly.

Zhou Tieyi spread his hands and smiled, "Since the master believes in this principle, then it is simple. Although the people in Mo City are frugal, their living standards are still much higher than those of people in other places. Since wealth is born with a fixed number, it means that wealth from other places must have flowed to Mo City through some means. What means?"

Zhou Tieyi pointed at Sun Shiheng next to him and said, "Although the master does not admit it, he is doing it. The 'Universal Love Tax' cannot be forcibly collected before the fourth rank of the Mohist school. However, after the fourth rank, because of the practice of 'Ren Xia', if you want to complete this level of practice, you must use the wealth and power you have collected in the past to support the weak. For the vast majority of Ren Xia practitioners, the simplest way to support them is to pay the full amount of the 'Universal Love Tax'."

Zhou Tieyi looked at Sun Shiheng, "The tax you pay every year must be enough, so you feel that you are practicing very fast and are very proud of it. But as a fourth-rank cultivator, where does the money you earn come from?"

Sun Shiheng answered subconsciously, "The money I earned through Feipeng is from wealthy families..."

"Where does the rich family get their money?"

Zhou Tieyi asked again, and even continued to joke, "When you asked the wealthy merchants to buy the tickets, you didn't give them a discount, so you asked them to return the money to the people, right?"

This time Sun Shiheng did not answer.

"That's it. How should the 'universal love tax' collected by the Mohists be used? Should it be used to support the poorhouse in Shantong Prefecture first, or should it be used to support the Mohist Academy in Mo City first?"

Zhou Tieyi pointed out the essence, "The so-called universal love tax is not the ideal universal love in the world. The essence of the universal love tax is the gathering and redistribution of social wealth. In this distribution process, it is decided by people. As long as they are people, as long as everyone is not a great cultivator at the level of 'universal love', there will be partiality. Along the way, I saw that Master Sun was proud of Mo City, which is good, but it also shows that if you, Master Sun, were to distribute this universal love tax, you would also use it on Mo City first."

Sun Shiheng opened his mouth and sighed softly.

Zhou Tieyi continued, "And Mo City teaches Mohists through an education level far higher than the surrounding areas. These Mohists have accepted the Mohist concept of universal love since childhood. At the same time, if they want to cultivate to the fourth rank, they will leave Mo City and go to the world to 'become knights'. In this way, the Mohists can use the middle-rank practitioners to gather the wealth of other people in the world, thereby further intensifying the exploitation of the world's people by the 'universal love tax'. Therefore, the maintenance of Mo City itself is based on exploitation, not on universal love."

"During this process, many low-level Mo masters would voluntarily pay heavy taxes in order to allow their offspring to enter Mo City, thus becoming another link in this exploitation. Let me give you a simple example that I saw in Mountain Copper Mansion this time."

The Mohist master sighed softly, and his voice stirred up waves in his own school of thought, but he still asked seriously, "Please speak."

Zhou Tieyi said, "In the mines of Shantong Mansion, the price paid by the disciples of the Mohist and Gongshu schools for prospecting for miners is the same! It's normal for the Gongshu schools, as they believe in the law of the jungle. But why do the Mohists charge huge amounts of money? Because they have to pay enough 'love tax'. They are not from the local Mo City. Only by paying enough 'love tax' can they send their children to Mo City, a city without disputes but only with great love."

"It's right next to Mo City, in Shantong Prefecture. This is Mo City's exploitation of Shantong Prefecture. Otherwise, why wouldn't the miners bring their offspring to live in Mo City? Is the road too far? No, they can't enter the city, they can only watch from outside the city! So Mo City won't change in sixty years, even in a thousand years."

"This place is like a beehive flowing with honey. The people at the bottom are content with poverty and have achieved the highest standard of life in this era. Limited by their talents and education, they do not have more pursuits. The people in the middle are like bees, sent out to the world to collect wealth and return to Mo City to support the entire city. And the top people here, the noble Mohist masters, use the dream and concept of universal love, as well as power, to educate generations of descendants, making them believe that they live in the best city. There is no better place in the world. This is a perfect city, if you don't consider its essence."

(End of this chapter)