Volume 3: Dragon and Snake Movement Chapter 280: Teacher-Student Rebellion
Yang Yiming had been shouting too loudly before, and as it was evening when classes were about to end, more and more people gathered under the Imperial College archway. In addition to those students who were initially led from Ruexing Hall to the gate by him and who had witnessed Zhu Ying's "beating" scene, students from various halls such as Zhengyi Guangye also crowded around to watch the excitement.
As for the well-dressed Banshan Hall students, they gathered together and occupied a corner on the other side. They actually looked down on the dilapidated house of Suixing Hall - the place was narrower than Banshan Hall, the light was not as bright as Banshan Hall, and the tables, chairs and benches were broken at the touch and were shaky - but they all knew that the meaning behind it was very important.
If the two halls can be swapped successfully, it will actually indirectly shake the position of Ruxing Hall as the number one in the Imperial College, and also let people know that Banshan Hall is not the bottom of the Imperial College!
In the eyes of other students, compared to Yang Yiming who was refuted by Zhu Ying without any marks of whipping on his shoulders, and whose hoarseness seemed bluffing and ugly, Xie Wanquan's performance was undoubtedly more convincing. Besides, anyone who was not a student of Ruxing Hall could not help but secretly despise Yang Yiming for only thinking about Ruxing Hall and not caring about other students!
At that moment, someone bold in the crowd shouted, "Master Xie is right. The Imperial College has more than one Ruxing Hall! Banshan Hall and Ruxing Hall have swapped lecture halls, and the students in Ruxing Hall can enjoy the benefits. Why? Everyone should take turns, including Jiuzhang Hall. The eight halls of the Imperial College should rotate lecture halls once a month. This is equality!"
Upon hearing this, Zhu Tingfang, who was standing behind Zhang Shou, felt his heart skip a beat and immediately looked towards the crowd.
But before he could find the person who was making the noise, similar voices echoed one after another. Many people proposed the old system of Taizu that Zhu Ying had mentioned at the beginning, advocating that the rotation of six halls was the best way to solve the uneven size of the Imperial College. Among the chaotic voices, there were inevitably a few people who clamored for the court to allocate funds to repair the Imperial College, but they were all suppressed by other voices.
Amidst the clamor like a storm, the officers sent by Shuntian Prefecture, not far from the Imperial College, were late. The head of the police, Lin Lao Hu, looked at the crowd of people with a dark face, and couldn't help pinching his swollen eyebrows. When a constable beside him called out cautiously, he immediately turned his head away impatiently.
"There are too many people here, at least 1,800 of them. Should we disperse them?"
"Disperse? Tell me how to disperse them? These are all students, not just random people! Are you going to go up with the chains and shake them open so that the two of them can go back to jail, or what? There are so many of them, if you dare to go up, I believe their spit will drown you!"
The constable was so scolded by Lin Lao Hu that he could only shut up.
Lin Lao Hu stood on tiptoe and looked into the distance, and saw a huge crowd of people in front of the Imperial College archway. Yang Yiming, the instigator, was completely hidden by the crowd, so he could not see his expression, but he could see Zhu Ying who was sitting high on her horse.
Zhu Ying was seen watching the fun, and she looked in a certain direction with a smiling look more than once.
He didn't even need to guess to know that it must be Miss Zhu who was looking at her lover. Calculating, ever since the future son-in-law of Duke Zhao's Mansion arrived in the capital, their Shuntian Mansion has been in an unusually busy state. It seems that this cannot be said... Because when the man came to the capital, they had already accepted a hot potato sent by Duke Zhao's Mansion!
Amidst the noise, Zhu Tingfang found that Zhu Ying was calm and composed, and Zhang Shou was composed, but Yang Yiming looked pale, as if he would fall down and faint at any time. Even Xie Wanquan, who received a lot of admiration and praise, looked very unhappy, and his several attempts to speak were drowned out by the noisy noise. He thought for a long time and finally decided to take control of the situation.
When Zhu Tingfang and a few guards arrived, they saw Zhang Shou appear but was blocked by the crowd and could not approach Zhu Ying, so he personally took a few people to escort him through the crowd to meet Zhu Ying. At this moment, he took out a whistle from the brocade bag on his waist without hesitation, and then took a deep breath and blew it hard.
As the sharp sound suddenly rang out, Lin Lao Hu, who was on the periphery, suddenly woke up as if from a dream. He quickly took out the whistle he often used, put it in his mouth and blew it hard. His leading response also served as a clear reminder to other detectives. For a while, the sharp whistles were heard one after another, so much so that Zhu Ying, who was riding on a horse, directly covered her ears.
And Zhang Shou...as a doctor of the Imperial College, he had to maintain his calm and composed image in front of a large number of his students and non-students.
However, when he heard someone loudly cursing the officers of Shuntian Prefecture for abusing their power, and realized that the person who blew the whistle was actually the officer of the third shift, although he knew that it was his future brother-in-law who was setting an "exemplary" example, he still couldn't help but laugh to himself.
No one has verified who invented the whistle, but the actual large-scale application of this thing is from the street patrols in the 18th and 19th centuries to the traffic police, and then to the military and sports circles... Anyway, it should not be so popular in this era. He would not believe that Emperor Taizu had not equipped it on a large scale to the three shifts of officials in the government office!
This situation of crazy whistle blowing really gives people a sense of déjà vu!
Under the suppression of such continuous whistle, many students finally couldn't stand the evil sound piercing their ears. Some covered their ears, some shut their mouths. When the whistle finally came to an end with a change of tone from Lin Lao Hu, the crowd unexpectedly returned to silence. At this moment, Zhang Shou, whose patience had reached its limit, took a deep breath and uttered his words in a resounding voice.
"Not only do I understand everyone's appeal, but the Grand Secretary also understands it. Whether it is to regularly swap all eight halls of the Imperial College or to plead with the court to allocate funds to repair the Imperial College, the Grand Secretary is already planning and making suggestions. The emperor personally visited the Imperial College before, encouraged everyone, and asked for the rectification of the academic atmosphere. While hoping to produce more talents, he also noticed that the Imperial College's buildings were insufficient."
"The Imperial College is the highest institution of learning in the Ming Dynasty. Even if we cannot provide food and clothing all year round and support our families like Taizu did in his time, we should at least have the best place to teach! Hanging from the beams and piercing the thighs with a needle, drilling holes in the wall to steal light, using fireflies to reflect the snow, these are certainly the best examples of the ancients' tireless learning. However, if conditions permit, it is absolutely imperative that no matter how poor, the school should not be poor, and no matter how hard, the students should not suffer!"
Zhang Shou casually tampered with the famous saying of later generations, and then said word by word: "If the Imperial College, even the lecture halls and buildings are not as good as those of the private schools in various places, then how can it be called the highest institution of learning?"
Until this moment, when he saw the many students cheering and applauding, saw Zhu Ying in high spirits, and saw Xie Wanquan forcing a smile, Zhu Tingfang vaguely understood that Zhang Shou and Zhu Ying had teamed up to stage a big show.
As for the person who was cheated... since he took the initiative to provoke his sister, he should be prepared to be pissed to death!
Yang Yiming was old, and the whistle just now had a much stronger impact on him than on the young Zhang Shou. At this moment, he came to his senses and heard that Zhang Shou actually took this opportunity to curry favor with the students, clearly trying to win fame and favor. He was so angry that his eyes turned red, and his throat was extremely itchy, and he coughed repeatedly. Then, an irresistible fishy sweetness rushed up in an instant.
With a puff, he spat out a mouthful of blood. Seeing the dark red color, he thought that he had not had time to realize his ambitions after entering the officialdom, and had not had time to make decisions. He felt that everything was dark before his eyes. He raised his trembling hand and pointed at Zhang Shou and Zhu Ying, saying angrily: "You, you are so flattering and deceiving people... Damn you, damn you!"
Xie Wanquan looked at the shaky Yang Yiming with a complicated expression, and couldn't help but stepped forward to help him, but was knocked off his hand. Not only that, Yang Yiming glared at him fiercely, and the hatred that was chosen to bite was beyond words.
"Don't think I don't know your intentions! Just because Zhang Shou calls you the head of the hall, you are the head of the hall. As long as I am here, you will never get your hands on the position of the head of the hall in Suixing Hall! Since you dare to collude with Zhang Shou, I will no longer be your student. You are a person who betrays your teacher and ancestors. If you go out, you will be stared at and pointed at by !"
Xie Wanquan took two steps back in panic, realizing that his good intentions had been taken for granted. The resentment and anger in his heart made him straighten his back instantly, and he said firmly: "Dr. Yang, I respect you as my teacher, so I came out to speak for you before, but not only did you not appreciate my kindness, but you also slandered my character. You are simply unreasonable!"
He sneered and suddenly raised his voice.
"I ask myself, when I was the head of the Ruxing Hall, I never shirked my duties, never sought profit for myself, and always treated every student well. After I came back from my illness, since you, Dr. Yang, appointed me as the new head of the hall, I never competed with anyone and was wholeheartedly focused on my studies. As for me and Dr. Zhang..."
He took a deep breath, turned around and bowed deeply to Zhang Shou.
"Before, I was deceived and thought that you, Dr. Zhang, were a fraud and ruining people's future. That's why I went to Rongshui Village with Tang Jieyuan, but it turned out to be a huge joke. So after returning to the capital, I felt so ashamed that I became sick. In addition, I caught a cold on the way and was sick for more than two months."
"I have never apologized to you, Dr. Zhang, for this. Today, in front of so many people, I apologize to you, Dr. Zhang!"
Zhang Shou looked at Xie Wanquan with interest, thinking that even an honest man who usually behaves properly would go crazy when being bullied to the extreme, not to mention a very smart person like Xie Wanquan, how could he bear the crime framed by Yang Yiming? So, facing Xie Wanquan's public apology, he accepted it without hesitation.
"Although I really want to say that it is a great virtue to admit one's mistakes and correct them, the incident when you and Tang Jieyuan visited my house was more of a misunderstanding. You two were bewitched by others, so it can't be said that it was all your fault. So, let's just let this matter pass."
"As for what Dr. Yang said about you and I being in collusion, you should know that the reason why I kept thanking you just now was because I thought you were still the head of Ruxing Hall. Since I took office as the doctor of the Imperial College, I have been too busy with the affairs of Banshan Hall and Jiuzhang Hall. I have never even set foot in Ruxing Hall. How can you say that you are in collusion? I wonder if Dr. Yang is just making up stories or talking nonsense?"
Yang Yiming was already on the verge of exploding with anger, and when he saw Xie Wanquan and Zhang Shou singing the same tune and stabbing him again, he almost vomited blood again. But just as he was trying his best to swallow the fishy sweetness, he heard a crisp laugh.
"I didn't get beaten, but you want to frame me for beating someone. What's the point of slandering a few students?"
When Xie Wanquan heard Zhu Ying's sneer, followed by a heart-piercing remark, he suddenly felt relieved from Zhang Shou's public statement of letting bygones be bygones, and immediately made up his mind and made another decision.
"Since Dr. Yang thinks I am just a head of the Lianzhan Ratexing Hall, then I have something to say. Emperor Taizu once said, honey to you is poison to me. I, Xie Wanquan, am a real man, how could I be so blind as to think highly of the head of Ratexing Hall? Since you have insulted me like this, let alone the head of the hall, even the supervisor of Ratexing Hall, I don't want to be your teacher! You are not worthy of being my teacher!"
Zhang Shouzheng felt that Emperor Taizu's so-called famous saying was really embarrassing. When he heard Xie Wanquan's subsequent words, he was even more surprised.
In an instant, the students around him were in an uproar as if they had exploded. The status of Ratexing Hall among the six halls of the Imperial College has always been indestructible, relying on the method of upgrading and selecting, and the survival of the fittest, leaving behind the best students. Even though Xie Wanquan was no longer the head of Ratexing Hall, he was still one of the top students in Ratexing Hall.
Now, such a person is about to quit Ruexingtang in a fit of indignation just because Yang Yiming accused him of colluding with Zhang Shou, and even accused Yang Yiming of being unfit to be a teacher. This is something that has never happened in the Imperial College for a hundred years... This is undoubtedly a slap in the face to Yang Yiming!
When Yang Yiming heard that Xie Wanquan had broken up with him in public, he suddenly felt a loud buzzing in his head. He was so angry that he could no longer hold back and spit out blood again, then collapsed to the ground.
Even the head of the Ruxing Hall who replaced Xie Wanquan before, after careful consideration, decided not to step forward for the time being. Yang Yiming was like a mad dog before, biting whoever he caught. Even if he was happy that Xie Wanquan left Ruxing Hall and reduced a competitor for himself, who knew if he would get into trouble if he left now?
This time, the one who strode forward to help Yang Yiming was not someone else, but Zhang Shou. He did not help him directly from the front, but went around behind Yang Yiming, put his hands around his armpits, and directly lifted him up, and persuaded him in a very gentle tone: "Dr. Yang, for the sake of respecting the elderly, I will help you return to the Imperial College."
Sure enough, after initially standing still as if he was disheartened, upon hearing these words, Yang Yiming seemed to suddenly wake up and struggle and kick desperately. His hideous and terrifying face made many students who were facing him from the front and side talk about it.
A defeated general can also leave the battlefield with dignity, but Yang Yiming insisted on sticking to this extent. Isn't that too ungraceful?
Yang Yiming's cloudy eyes saw the looks of many students looking at him, and he saw only pity, contempt, and disgust... but not the respect and awe he hoped for. After hearing those discussions, he finally closed his eyes and passed out.
