How did Zhu Yuanzhang, who was born in poverty, become quite literate?

Zhu Yuanzhang, a rogue proletarian, was born in a poor family when he was a child and could not afford to go to school. Later, he not only established the Ming empire, but also skillfully read the memorial from his culture and handled state affairs, which was already very literate. So, how did he learn these cultures and knowledge?

Literacy culture in temples

Zhu Yuanzhang was born in troubled times at the end of Yuan Dynasty, and his family was poor. After his father Zhu died, there was no place to bury him because there was no land at home. Fortunately, I asked a landlord in the village to give my father a few minutes to bury him. Of course, Zhu Yuanzhang couldn't afford a private school in such a predicament. So when I was a child, Zhu Yuanzhang had only one birth name, Zhu Chongba. There are two eights in the year of birth, so it was only after he made a fortune.

When I was a child, I dropped out of school and made a living as a monk in a temple. The advantage is that when you enter a temple, you have to recite Buddhist scriptures. If you can't read all the words, the words in those Buddhist scriptures will be groggy and illiterate, and it is easy to make jokes because of homophonic mispronouncing. This is disrespectful to the Buddha and is not serious in the temple. Therefore, in the Huang Jue temple where Zhu Chongba became a monk, literacy and culture were taught. In order to be familiar with Buddhist scriptures, Zhu Chongba studied hard. Because of his bitter background, he especially wanted to get ahead, so he finally seized this opportunity and secretly made great efforts to literacy. As a result, he laid the foundation for his unexpected apprentice.

I studied hard in the military camp. Even when I became emperor, I was still studying and receiving training.

Later, when the war broke out, Zhu Chongba's temple was set on fire by officers and men of the Yuan Dynasty, because there were monks in other temples of the rebel army. There is no way out, Zhu Chongba can only go to the rebels wrapped in red headscarves (also known as the "Red Army" in history). In the team, Zhu Chongba, a man who has experienced great disasters, can read and speak Buddhist scriptures. Coupled with his intelligence, he soon stood out. For example, he is decisive, careful, diligent and enterprising; Can understand, oversight's orders, proclamations, soldiers' letters, people are looking for him to translate;

Fighting bravely and firmly, charging ahead, not greedy for merits and trophies, but also caring about his companions, so he soon won the favor from top to bottom with his loyalty and knowledge. Marshal Guo Zixing of the "Red Army" promoted him to Qin Bing and later married his adopted daughter Ma Shi. With this backing, Zhu Chongba was promoted all the way and became an important general more and more.

With his own cast, Zhu Yuanzhang likes to hang out with literati. For example, Feng, Feng, Dingyuan Brothers, Li Shanchang, etc. Zhu Yuanzhang listened to their words, remembered the knowledge and strategies they mentioned, and studied hard, even until midnight. Li Shanchang this just advised him to pay attention to rest. Later, when his career got bigger, Zhu Yuanzhang invited Liu Ji, Song Lian and many other scholars to give lectures and start training, and he himself learned the truth and essence of governing the country and keeping the country safe.

By the way, Zhu Yuanzhang himself likes to ask for advice from intellectuals, but he banned his subordinate generals from interacting with literati early, demanding that "Confucianism cannot control the past and the present." This may be determined by his narrow mentality of humble origin. Here, we may find that he not only killed the hero, but also brutally persecuted the literati in Daxing "Literature Prison"

Rich experience, true knowledge comes from practice.

Zhu Yuanzhang's knowledge is mainly obtained from rich experience and practice, and book knowledge is only a part. Book knowledge and other people's experience, this is indirect experience; Society is a big school, social practice is a big classroom, and the knowledge gained from personal experience is direct experience, which is more real and reliable. The combination of these two parts, direct experience plus indirect experience, constitutes the whole of one's knowledge.

Zhu Yuanzhang was young and poor, not only his father and grandfather were tenant farmers, but also his grandfather was a wizard. He couldn't find a celebrity ancestor for dozens of generations, and he could only call himself "Jiang Zuo Buyi", "Huai You Buyi", "Cong Tian" and "humble origin". Originally, this was just inferiority, but it became an advantage of your own efforts. At the same time, it also shows the twists and turns and difficulties of his low starting point. The twists and turns and difficulties are necessary experiences, which have enriched his horizons and broadened his knowledge, enabled him to have practical social knowledge and experience in military struggle, and exercised and cultivated his ability to manage subordinates and govern society.