Volume 4 is in the ascendant Chapter 506: Countdown to the Academic Exam
On the sixth, seventh and eighth days of June in the fourth year of the Chu calendar, the Chu State began the admission examinations for thirty designated experimental universities.
Unlike the imperial examination, those who passed the academic examination were eligible for admission, so the participants were younger.
And except for the Martial Arts Hall, other universities did not have restrictions on background, and enrollment was easy to obtain. One only had to pass the tests in the township or county school. Therefore, it was very popular among people from poor families and even "real civilians"!
Some civilians, who were not even from poor families, had just become "rich" among the common people by relying on hard work or the benefits of development and the courage to join special units or workshops such as the pioneering army. At this time, because they had some family background and did not need too young a labor force, they sent their children to the county school and were eligible to apply for the exam.
Among the dozen or so universities, there are Jinling University, which has a full range of subjects, Poyang University, which is more agricultural, very practical and down-to-earth, and Qu'a University, which is a professional university that encourages maritime skills...
From the composition of the applicants, we can also see that the wealthy families mostly send their young men, and most of them focus on management-related majors; the children of the aristocratic families mostly choose niche majors; the students from poor families are distributed more evenly; and the rich families mainly choose various practical majors...
Among them, the children of aristocratic families seemed to come to buy textbooks, with the intention of taking the knowledge back and equipping their own families.
Bai Tu was not surprised by this, nor did he think that doing so would be very practical. After all... the college's majors are here and anyone can learn them.
If one really wants to have the convenience of inheritance, one must learn it in depth enough. To that extent, it will be a good thing for the State of Chu. Anyway government-run universities will always be open to everyone.
The choice of the wealthy families is also easy to guess. Many of these wealthy families are richer than many aristocratic families. Especially after the rise of trade in the Chu State, the wealthy families who focused on commerce and industry took advantage of the opportunity. On the contrary, most of the "investments" of the aristocratic families were in land, and the results were much worse.
However, in terms of political status, some wealthy families are not as good as some promising poor families...
Firstly, they want to become bigger, so they need management knowledge. Secondly... the wealthy families are striving for higher political status, and management skills are most useful in the imperial examinations!
As for the poor families, they generally had some political status, their families had produced local officials such as prefects several generations ago, or they were distant relatives of some aristocratic families. However, most of them lacked inheritance, and at this time they flocked to Chu, hoping to absorb all the knowledge they could.
And ordinary wealthy people...
After all, most of the "mud legs" who were despised not long ago are very pragmatic.
Taking this situation into consideration, Bai Tu, after looking at the big data statistics of the academic examinations, has already started planning with the Ministry of Works and the Ministry of Rites to further increase the development of "craftsmanship".
As the name suggests, it is a place to learn craftsmanship. In comparison, although Nanyang University, with Huang Yueying as its honorary president, also offers a major in institutional science, and Poyang University also offers a major in agricultural science, these schools focus more on teaching principles and are intended to encourage innovation and design.
In the artisan training, practicality is the main focus, and students are taught to use common tools and operate bulky Qi machines, so that they can take on more technical workshop positions. Even if they do not recognize all the characters, it will not affect their teaching.
In fact, there are already experimental craftsmanship schools being run, which are mainly jointly undertaken by the Ministry of Works and the Ministry of Rites. The Ministry of Rites is only responsible for the "start-up" procedures and preparations, while the contents are summarized by the Ministry of Works.
In contrast, there is no need to take any exams to study craftsmanship, as long as you pay the money you can study - and the State of Chu cannot afford to spend more money to subsidize craftsmanship.
However, the advantage of learning craftsmanship is that it can be connected with private workshops and government workshops to train specialized talents. Naturally, this part of the "Shuxiu"... that is, the tuition fee, will also be paid by the government or private workshops, and then a three-year, five-year, or even ten-year contract can be signed.
This move actually attracted a lot of criticism, but the pressure was not that great.
After all, in today's era, craftsmen often have "inheritance", otherwise there would not be sayings such as "passing on skills to men but not women" and "teaching the apprentice will starve the master to death". Now it has suddenly become completely open and can be learned by just paying some tuition. There must be some folk craftsmen who are dissatisfied, but...
It is easy for Bai Tu to bear the pressure from the conservative aristocracy. He has a large number of supporters willing to promote Baixue. What kind of pressure can a craftsman, who already has a low status, cause?
Moreover, most of the truly top craftsmen are in the Ministry of Works. The Doctor of the Ministry of Works is equivalent to a fourth-rank official in the official system of the Chu State. Even several craftsmen who have made great contributions in medium-sized and large-scale Qi machines and other important projects have been granted titles of nobility...
For these top craftsmen, the improvement in status is not a small amount. Although they are just a few Guannei Hou without fiefdoms, it is already inspiring enough... These people must be in the same mind with the State of Chu!
Moreover, workshop owners themselves are increasingly in need of knowledgeable craftsmen, so middle-level craftsmen have also benefited a lot in this regard.
In comparison, not only were the voices of the craftsmen negligible, but the craftsmen were the group that benefited greatly from the rise of the workshops, and it was impossible for them to be disgusted with the King of Chu on a large scale.
Moreover, these middle and lower-level craftsmen soon discovered that due to the sharp increase in demand, there was a great need for teachers in craftsmanship, and many of them were already "really attracted to it" - although they wanted to make these semi-monopolized knowledge that could produce practical benefits known to a large number of students, but... they gave too much!
Originally, the "academic examination" in Chu was planned to be conducted on a university basis, with each university conducting the examination within a time limit. However, due to the improvement of Chu's own national strength and transportation convenience, and in order to further promote the new system, Bai Tu and the Ministry of Rites finally decided to conduct the academic examination on a "Dao" basis.
This also surprised some people, but it was consistent with Chu's initial propaganda - the academic exam only tested basic knowledge and had nothing to do with the major you were applying for!
No matter you apply for management, government affairs, or agriculture, you will not see corresponding content in the assessment. As long as it is a university in the same province, the assessment content is the same, and all provinces are divided into four subjects - Baixue, Literary Theory, Arithmetic, and Namingbian.
It goes without saying that Baixue is a required subject and arithmetic is as the name suggests.
Literary criticism mainly tests reading and writing skills, and debate... is derived from famous scholars and debaters, and is actually what later generations called "logic".
The four subjects have equal weight and are all scored in percentage.
After the exam, you can register for specific universities and subjects, and those with higher scores will be given priority for admission.
Because the academic examinations in each province are on the sixth, seventh, and eighth day of June, candidates can only choose one to take the examination, and...if the target university is in another province, they need to go to the corresponding province to take the examination. Cross-province enrollment is not possible. You can only apply for the university in the province where you take the examination.
This limitation is also due to the speed of information transmission, there is nothing we can do about it.
After all, in the field of radio, we are currently only guiding the discovery of the applicable underlying principles - due to the lack of talent accumulation, the speed of progress is very limited unless it is a technological direction that Pang Tong can be personally responsible for.
Especially in order to avoid going astray, in the current research projects of the Ministry of Industry, "hard disk knowledge" only plays a guiding role and points out the direction.
The four subjects were announced by the Ministry of Rites two and a half years in advance. Apart from Baixue, there are no clear knowledge points. After all... everyone is not born with a set education process!
Anyway, it's based on a 100-point system and the ranking is the assessment standard, so just make some questions from easy to difficult.
At the same time, during the academic examination period, many candidates who were not from the Chu nationality flocked to the capital states of each circuit.
This was what Bai Tu had promised to other princes before. The content of the exam was the same, but for the convenience of supervision, foreign candidates had to take the exam in each designated state, which was generally the most developed city...
Nearly half of them came to Jinling, which made Jinling quite lively and also gave the outside candidates a chance to learn more.
For the State of Chu, Jinling is also the largest window for displaying itself to the outside world - it is the most prosperous city to receive foreign candidates, and part of the reason for this is also for this consideration.
after all……
When the State of Chu included Chu studies in the examination list, other princes were very dissatisfied. Liu Xie even wanted to announce that Han law would be used to prohibit anyone from going to Chu to take the examination.
But in the end, it was stopped by Liu Ai and others, and only a symbolic ban was imposed on the spread of the heresy of the Chu State in the Han Dynasty - it was not allowed to spread, but many people took the exam... Well, anyway, it’s okay as long as they don’t study openly!
Although other princes were not as radical as Liu Xie, most of them were also very dissatisfied. After all, they just wanted to get Chu's technology for free and did not want the subjects under their rule to learn Chu's new knowledge.
However...the initiative in this matter is ultimately in the hands of the State of Chu!
Anyway, I will take the test, whether you want to study or not...
The end result was that many candidates from other princes' jurisdictions also learned Chu learning.
Of course, studying is studying, and most people look at it dialectically in their minds. After all, those who can come all the way to Chu to study and take exams are basically the children of wealthy families from other places. Memorizing a few more times will not affect their true thoughts.
If what we see at this time is that the cities of the State of Chu are shabby and the people of Chu are hungry, then it will be useless to praise Chu learning to the sky!
on the contrary……
If it can have the effect of triggering their three views at the first impression, then Chuxue will naturally penetrate into their hearts.
The children of wealthy and powerful families all have their own interests involved and are born with their own stances.
However, in Chinese culture, there has always been no shortage of "people with lofty ideals" who have stepped out of their own positions and stood on the side of historical progress.
After all, Chinese civilization is very sentimental, and this is also very common in the Chu State, especially... after the ties of the clan system were intentionally weakened.
At this time, Jinling, which was presented to the candidates under the rule of other princes, broke everyone's cognition right from the start - the last time there was a capital city without city walls was in the Stone Age, right?
Therefore, the State of Chu preferred to use the word "city" to boast about itself. After all, without the city walls, there was no feeling of "pool".
Because the workshop area outside the city was too large, Jinling had already demolished its city walls long ago, and as the capital of the Chu State, cement roads had become common.
The main road can accommodate eight horse-drawn carriages and has pedestrian areas on both sides. The track only allows rail carriages to run. The original city wall is the "first ring". A total of three rings of express lanes have been built, and the fourth ring of the outer circle is being built...
For candidates from outside, it is actually a "dangerous" place.
In order to prevent such frustrating incidents as traffic accidents among external candidates, the Ministry of Rites specially organized guides.
According to the Han people's impression, Chang'an in its heyday could be said to have a population of one million - when Dong Zhuo burned Luoyang, he forcibly relocated millions of people into the pass.
However, considering the area of Luoyang City, whether it is millions or tens of millions, it is impossible that it is just the population within the city walls, otherwise it cannot be accommodated...it should be the entire Luoyang, or even Henan County, including the population in other cities and villages.
Judging from the registered population, before the Yellow Turban Rebellion, the registered population of Henan County did exceed one million. Considering that Luoyang was the capital of the Eastern Han Dynasty, it must have had a huge floating population, and it is not impossible that the population was two or three times more.
When Ni Heng first arrived at the General's Mansion, Jinling was just "new" and wealthy, and its population density was far from reaching the peak of Luoyang City.
But now...
In Jinling Prefecture alone, the registered population exceeds 500,000, and the permanent population within the Fourth Ring Road exceeds 1 million. Including the floating population, the population exceeds 1.5 million most of the time throughout the year!
A large number of workshops attracted Chu people who worked here full-time, and these people now live in "Jinling".
Starting from the second ring road in Jinling, all residential houses have been centrally planned by the Ministry of Civil Affairs. The mansions that can be built and laid out by the government are often very expensive, so expensive that... it is completely possible to subsidize ordinary residential houses in the official quarters.
The buying and selling of residential houses mostly took place between workshops and the court. Most private and official workshops would arrange living quarters for the laborers.
The six ministries' concentration on Nanjing was even a little uneasy, but Bai Tu was not surprised.
After all, if we compare the levels of industrialization, London had a population of one million at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries, and the total population of the United Kingdom at that time was similar to that of the current Chu State.
At this time, medium-sized Qi machines have been put into use, and the operation of large-scale Qi machines is also being prepared. It is basically equivalent to the stage when the internal combustion engine appeared. Even if the development and accumulation in other aspects are weaker, the degree of concentration of local urban population can be completely comparable to that at the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
The clean, overly flat and solid ground, the perfect drainage structure, the densely packed houses and workshops, the incredibly bustling market town, and most importantly... each and every one of them was so "radiant" and looked like a groom per capita, and their clothes were so "gorgeous" for ordinary people.
It formed the best "show of power"!
