Volume 3: Confrontation! The Run of Civilization Chapter 574 Education is related to the foundation of the country
Chen Yutai (Dalai), Liu Ruozai (Yinping), Cao Xun (Yunda) and Shi Kefa (Xianzhi) were all Jinshi in the first year of Chongzhen (1628) in the historical perspective. These four people lived in the turbulent era of the late Ming and early Qing dynasties. Liu Ruozai was lucky and died in the thirteenth year of Chongzhen. Shi Kefa died a heroic death for his country. After the fall of the Ming Dynasty, the other two refused to serve in the government for the rest of their lives, no matter how the Qing court forced or recruited them.
In short, these are four candidates with bottom lines.
Of course, when the candidates got together, they naturally talked about this imperial examination.
"Brother Dalai comes from a family of scholars and is an excellent writer. This time, it is possible that Brother Dalai will win the first place in the imperial examination."
"Xianzhi, you are joking. I am a remnant of the Donglin clan. If the imperial examination was not about to be overhauled, I would not want to take part in the examination."
"Uh...Brother Dalai is only over 30 this year, how can he be a member of the Donglin Party? Didn't the Donglin Party fall more than ten years ago? Could it be that Brother Dalai was only in his teens?"
"When the Donglin Party plotted to poison the emperor, I was already sixteen years old." With a wry smile, Chen Yutai said, "I am from Wuxi. I entered the Donglin Academy at the age of thirteen. At that time, I studied under Mr. Cunzhi (Gao Panlong)."
"Hey! What's the problem? Only a part of the Donglin Party was involved in treason. People like Mr. Cunzhi were not involved at all. And I heard that Mr. Cunzhi is now in power in Japan and has reduced Japan's land tax from 50% to 30%. He has saved countless lives and has done immeasurable good deeds!"
"That's right. The emperor is so magnanimous that he doesn't even pursue Mr. Cunzhi. Brother Dalai doesn't need to worry too much."
"Ahem, thank you all for your kind words. I don't ask for much. As long as I can get a third place in the imperial examination and be sent to a county in the future to benefit the local people, I will be satisfied. Well, it's all because of the imperial examination reform. Everyone, have you done the civil service exam? I'm a dull boy. The best points."
"Hahaha, you're joking, Brother Dalai. I can't even finish those 100 questions in an hour and a half on the civil service exam!"
"That's right. The text questions are a bit easier. As for the numerical questions, oh, they look easy, but I just can't figure them out."
"So, everyone should work hard in this subject. Otherwise, there will be no chance in the future."
"Hush~" After drinking a full glass of wine, Liu Ruozai said with a sigh, "Actually, to be honest, isn't the court now building new middle schools in various prefectures based on the model of Fangshan Middle School? It is said that if you can graduate from Fangshan Middle School, you will be able to do well in the civil service exams."
"Hey, it's easy for Brother Yinping to say that, but it's not that easy to get into a middle school in this city."
"Oh? Brother Xianzhi, what do you mean?"
Shi Kefa stood up and saluted: "Everyone, I am from Kaifeng Prefecture in Henan. Because this place is the provincial capital, the Kaifeng Middle School and Primary School are also the first batch of new schools established by the court.
"The school building, teaching aids and teachers are really good. But the students, oh!"
“What do the students say?”
"Everyone, Kaifeng Middle School enrolled 100 students in the first year. Everyone knows that if you enter this school, you will almost certainly become an official in the future, so naturally there are countless people who want to study there. In order to show fairness, this school has an entrance examination. The examination content is divided into four subjects: Chinese, mathematics, general knowledge, and physical education. I won't talk about Chinese. Scholars like me are not afraid of it, and our children at home are not afraid of it either. But in mathematics, we are far from being the opponents of those sons of merchants. As for general knowledge, it is actually a test of some worldly things published in the six major newspapers. World history, geography of the country, etc., but how many ordinary scholars can persist in reading newspapers every day? In order to understand the market situation, more merchants insist on reading newspapers every day. And what about sports? Those sons of merchants have been following their fathers to go door to door since they were young. How can we scholars who study hard every day compete with them? Therefore, when Kaifeng Middle School enrolled students for the first time, among the 100 admitted students, the sons of merchants accounted for more than 60%... That's why I said that if you can't pass this exam, it will be extremely difficult to enter a middle school in various places for tutoring. "
"Brother Xianzhi, what you said is quite good. Although this examination method gives the sons of merchants an advantage, it is still a fair examination after all."
Liu Ruozai stood up and said, "I am from Anqing Prefecture in Nanzhili. In recent years, since Prince Xin came to Nanzhili as the censor, some shocking cases have been uncovered. For example, the immigration funds were misappropriated, and the new dam was built with shoddy materials. The six major newspapers have published it, so I won't say more.
Last year, His Royal Highness Prince Xin traced the flow of stolen money and traced it to a big businessman in our Anqing Prefecture. This guy usually ran rampant in the village, had no respect for the law, and seemed extremely arrogant. Who knew that after being dragged into prison by Prince Xin, his whole body became limp and he said everything he should and shouldn't say. In addition to bribing local officials to get the new construction project of the Anqing Yangtze River embankment, this guy also bribed the principal of Anqing Middle School and got the test questions for his two sons before the entrance examination...Hahaha, everyone, if you follow the six major newspapers, you should know what kind of character His Royal Highness Prince Xin is. His Royal Highness followed this clue and kept investigating, and almost dismissed the principals and vice principals of the entire Anqing Middle School and Primary School!"
"Ah~" Cao Xun sighed: "My family has always had contacts with Lord Yuan, so my father often taught me. He said that the times have changed dramatically, and the officials selected by the original imperial examination system can no longer cope with the increasingly complex situation today... Well, I admit this. But if we have to abolish the old and establish the new, if this new thing cannot guarantee fairness, then it will be worse than the old..."
…
After listening for a while, Zhu Youxiao and others lost interest in eating and drinking. They quickly paid the bill and returned to the palace: It was the Lantern Festival, and they had to go back to the palace to accompany Empress Dowager Guo before midnight.
"Youxiao, you have been the regent for the past few years. Haven't you noticed the problems in education ?"
"Uh, big sister." Zhu Youxiao smiled awkwardly: "Of course I noticed it."
"Then how do we solve this problem? Although I am a woman, I know that if all careers are taken over by unscrupulous businessmen, the foundation of this country will be in jeopardy."
"Sister, after all, my brother has been the regent for the second time. How could he not know that once the social mobility channel is blocked, the social classes that lose the upward channel will abandon our royal family? But this problem is extremely difficult to solve."
"Why is it so difficult? Tell me about it."
"I once wrote to my eldest brother for advice on these issues. He said that the root cause of these problems is the shortage of low-cost, high-quality educational resources.
Sister, in the past, the imperial examinations in my Ming Dynasty only tested the Four Books and Five Classics. It was affordable for the family to buy these books. As for asking a teacher for advice after buying the books, if you have money, you can ask him right away, and ask a good one. If you don’t have money, you can accumulate honestly. If one generation is not enough, you can accumulate for two generations... But now, in this Fangshan model, you have to study for a total of eight years from elementary school (four years) to middle school (four years), including Chinese, mathematics, general knowledge (physics, chemistry, biology, history, geography, etc.), physical education... The time is extended, and the number of subjects is increased. It is definitely not affordable for ordinary farmers and workers now. Therefore, my eldest brother does not hesitate to invest 15% of the court’s income into education every year, and establishes compulsory education schools across the country, just to make ordinary workers and farmers’ children able to afford to go to school.
However, the imperial court only has an annual revenue of more than 100 million yuan, and investing more than 10 million yuan every year did not seem to be a big deal in the early days. But in recent years, more and more schools have been established, and the annual expenditure on maintaining existing schools has eaten up 70% to 80% of the more than 10 million yuan, so the progress of building new schools has naturally slowed down.
So, the problem now is that everyone knows that after the reform of the imperial examination system, if you want to become an official in the future, you have to finish elementary and middle school under the Fangshan model to pass the exam. But the court is unable to build more compulsory education schools.
In the case of an extremely scarce supply of high-quality educational resources, people from all walks of life will naturally try every possible means to get their children into the system in order to ensure that their children will have a good future. As my eldest brother said, if the problem of resource shortage is not solved, even if we kill everyone we catch, corruption in education will still not be stopped. "
"I see. Then why don't you slow down a bit and wait until the court has the power to fully implement compulsory education before reforming the imperial examination system?"
"That won't work, sister." Zhu Youxiao smiled bitterly. "Nowadays, the scientific and technological development of our Daming has reached a bottleneck. In the words of my eldest brother, in the early stage, with his guidance and gathering some talented scientists of our Daming, we can achieve great results. But now, with the promotion of steam engines, all walks of life in the country must develop, which requires a large scientific research team. If the imperial examination system is not changed and the value orientation of the people of our Daming does not change, it will be impossible to form a scientific research team of tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands."
Seeing Zhu Huijuan still a little confused, Zhu Youxiao continued to explain: "My brother is now the chief designer of Binhai Shipyard, but the current ship design requires thousands of sketches. How can my brother complete such a large workload alone? He must have an assistant. Among my brother's assistants, if they are from Fangshan School, I only need to give a brief outline, and he will know how to do it. If they are the children of ship workers who have not studied elementary physics and chemistry, you must repeatedly draw and explain the sketches in detail, but if you have done this, what else do I need you to do? And this is just design. When it comes to production and assembly, the workload is even greater, and more assistants are needed. Therefore, without tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of ordinary scientific researchers, it is absolutely impossible for my Ming Dynasty to climb new technological peaks."
"Oh, does this mean that the problem now is that in order to train scientific researchers as quickly as possible, the imperial examination system must be reformed. However, the court is limited by financial resources and cannot popularize compulsory education. This has led to a scarcity of high-quality educational resources, and then educational corruption has emerged."
"Haha, big sister is big sister, this summary is very accurate."
"It's still a money issue. Is there any solution?"
"I have also consulted my eldest brother, and he said that this should be done in two ways. One is to establish several normal colleges to train teachers. The other is to introduce private capital to supplement the lack of financial resources of the court."
"Yeah." He nodded slightly, his expression slightly relaxed. "Lu Lang, after my father passed away, my eldest brother gave me some of the shares of the original Ciqing Palace in Honghe Industry and Fangshan Grocery Store. I think, why don't we take out this money and open a school?"
"Okay, as long as the emperor allows, we will open a school. I will then recruit my classmates from the military academy to be part-time teachers."
"Well, I will take care of this matter after the Lantern Festival. And!" Zhu Huijuan turned her head and glared at Zhu Youxiao and said, "I don't care what my eldest brother says. Anyway, my attitude towards corruption in education is the same as that of my sixth brother. There will be no mercy! In my opinion, corruption in education should be regarded as treason! If we don't give hope to the lower classes in education, then the lower classes will really abandon our Zhu family completely. This is something that concerns the foundation of the country!"
" Yes, my brother's attitude on this point is the same as my elder sister's. I have already arranged at the State Council meeting that in the tenth year of Tianqi, all the censors under the Censorate will focus their work on newly built schools in various places!"
