The drums sounded, and everything ended.
Liu Xiang clenched his fists tightly. In an academy debate, one word meant life, another meant death-not the life and death of one person, but the survival and future of an entire school.
He had seized an opportunity, caught a foolish Confucian scholar, and fleeced him relentlessly. The key was not winning or losing this round, but expressing his own views.
The Legalist School-no, the Criminal Law School-had steamrolled the Confucian School, much to the delight of the other schools watching.
They knew this was only an accident. The Confucian Order had vast holdings and deep roots; it could not be toppled so easily. Still, this was at least a promising trend.
For the Hundred Schools, suppressing the Legalist School was something they did in passing, like eating or sleeping. They took a couple of swipes at it whenever the mood struck. But if they searched their hearts, what they really wanted was for the Confucian Order to die.
Through well-rounded education and freely appropriating others' ideas, the Confucian Order had essentially beaten all the other schools into the ground.
Their own failures were certainly distressing, but the Confucian Order's success was even more unbearable.
In a word, All Under Heaven had suffered under Confucianism for too long!
The Dongist Confucian scholars curled their lips and thought, Just as expected, a bunch of utterly feeble fighters. They spend every day poring over the classics, only to be knocked flat with ease. Only our Dongist Confucianism can carry the Confucian Order's great banner.
The Mengist Confucian scholars were secretly delighted as well. Mengzi held a lofty position within the Confucian Order, but Mengist Confucianism was an outlier within it. During the Qin Dynasty, Mengist Confucianism had suffered severe blows, largely because of its stubbornness and