Volume 4 is in the ascendant Chapter 507: A Blow to the Head
The major central cities, headed by Jinling Prefecture, gave the first "warning" to the candidates for the academic examinations under the jurisdiction of other princes.
What is used is not swords, spears, or halberds, but prosperity and heroism.
The city is prosperous, and the spirit of the Chu people is heroic...
Because of the "prophetic" function of the hard drive, major central cities have been trying their best to avoid the problem of stingy layout at the beginning of their planning.
For example, the major central cities in the world in later generations are often the first to develop and the fastest to become obsolete - after all, when the city was first established, the layout did not anticipate that there would be dozens of times more population and so many vehicles in the future.
For example, the earliest subway appeared in London in the first half of the 19th century. In fact... if the roads had not been too crowded in the beginning, there would have been no need to build a subway so early!
And things like urban drainage facilities, security facilities, and workshop sewage facilities were able to be added in a timely manner at the beginning of the design, which saved a lot of "tuition fees".
Water plants and the like cannot be repaired for the time being, large-scale Qi machines are still a scarce resource, and there are not enough "hands" to repair more livelihood projects. However... there are simple alternatives.
…
"Huh? What is this? Where does the water come from?" Liu Ba looked curiously at a young man on the side of the road who was pedaling, causing water to gush out of the pipe in front of him.
That’s right, although Jinling doesn’t have a real water plant now, iron and cement pipes have been laid within the Third Ring Road to bring in river water from upstream. Then, water pipes were led out and manual water pumps were installed in various settlements and workshops.
In residential areas, there is an average of one water pump for every three households, and they can pump water for their own use. In the workshop area, some workshops that use a lot of water and are not near water will install small Qi water pumps on their own.
It is already very common in Jinling, but... to outsiders, it looks a bit novel!
Cao Pi, who was standing by, was a little worried that Liu Ba would embarrass himself, so he pulled him aside and explained a few words in a low voice.
Liu Ba was actually from Jingzhou and had never served as an official in Jingzhou before. However, when Lady Cai and Liu Cong, mother and son, were wise and offered the state to the State of Chu, Liu Ba, in a very rare move, went north to join Cao Cao.
After all, the King of Chu is not the Chu currency. Everyone likes the latter, but the former... after all, there are still people who don’t like it.
In history when there was no white rabbit effect, Liu Ba was a die-hard fan of Cao Cao. When Liu Bei took away the Jingzhou team, Liu Ba joined Cao. Later, after Liu Bei occupied southern Jingzhou, Liu Ba was unable to return to the north, so he lived in exile in Jiaozhou for a while to avoid Liu Bei. Later, he joined Shu Han at the recommendation of Zhuge Liang.
But now in the world of Cheng Ji, Liu Ba is even more "determined". When he surrendered to Chu in Jingzhou, the thirteen-year-old Liu Ba went to the north alone. At that time, the Han court had not yet recovered the Xu County area, so Liu Ba entered Wei.
Liu Ba is only seventeen years old now, and is considered relatively young among the candidates from outside the state. Most of the local candidates from Chu are between fifteen and twenty years old, but the candidates from outside the state are generally older.
After all, for local candidates in Chu State, this opportunity is very common and is available every year. Unless they have to travel several miles to apply for the exam, the cost of food and accommodation is not that exaggerated. For foreign candidates, this is a chance to learn about Chu State's skills. The sense of mission and cost are greater, so those who come are more confident.
The entire Chu State has a first batch of 30 pilot universities this year, which can enroll a total of 10,000 students - compared with modern universities, the scale is so small that it feels a bit like a copycat, but... after all, it is only in the starting stage.
However, in the entire Chu State, there were more than 38,000 people participating in the academic examination!
From other princes, more than 300 people came from Wei alone, and including those from other princes of the Han court, as well as students from Liaodong and Jiaozhou, there were nearly 500 people in total. These were only those sent by officials. As for those who came to Chu alone in private, there were also thousands of people.
If nothing unexpected happens, the admission rate for the 1,500 people should be over 1,000. It's not that the Chu court gave them any preferential treatment, but... after all, if they were not sure, they would not come all the way here and register across borders and verify their identities before they can take the exam!
The only ones who were given preferential treatment were the dozens of people specially dispatched by the Governor's Office of Danzhou and Yizhou, as well as dozens of people from the Wuxi and Shanyue tribes.
In recent years, Yizhou and Danzhou have also sent many children to the county schools in Jinling and Kuaiji. These children can be said to have "experienced great changes" - they were still in the Neolithic Age when they were children, and they had to learn the knowledge of the Iron Age when they were teenagers, and strive to master the skills of the Qi Age when they are young, and then return to their hometown to build!
Yizhou and Danzhou also selected intelligent and clever people from among those who had already returned and sent them to the native land of Chu for education.
The proportion of Wuxi and Shanyue people living in cities and rural areas has been increasing, and now exceeds 80%. There are very few left in the mountains and forests, and the number continues to decrease. However... their literacy rate and the level of craftsmanship they have mastered are still too backward.
If we really want to compare, how can these children who were still in the Neolithic Age a few years ago be opponents? Now, those who can basically read and write Chinese characters and have a more active brain have been called...
Now is not the time to talk about fairness. The goal of the State of Chu is to increase and balance the development speed of various regions as much as possible.
Unbalanced development will pose huge hidden dangers and even set back the pace of urbanization.
In order to better promote integration, these hundreds of special candidates will basically be admitted - the majors they take are all those needed locally, and... they understand without the need to sign a special agreement that they must return to their hometown to build it after graduation, otherwise they will be rejected.
As for other remote areas, they will also be included in the support plan one after another. However... after all, there are only more than 10 million people now, and not every "corner" is inhabited. The people living in the corners are basically the Shanyue and Wuxi people, who have previously accepted very little Han culture.
Directly selecting elites from among them and teaching them Chu studies is also an excellent means of assimilation.
If calculated this way, the admission rate for the 38,000 candidates from Chu State is about one-quarter...
However, considering that the universities are also being improved and are still five-year systems, including the new universities that will be opened in the future, the total number of students in five years will reach 70,000 to 100,000.
In terms of productivity during the "Zhenqi Era", Chu's literacy and reading and writing rates were relatively low, but in terms of the end of the Han Dynasty, Chu's "literacy" was already terrifying.
Because of the urbanization process, the literacy rate of Chu State was close to 30% - this refers only to "literacy", that is, people who can understand common characters and write a limited number of characters including their own names.
Many so-called wealthy families, butchers, merchants, grassroots generals, etc., are actually at this level. There are also great differences within this level - some can only understand account books and common information, some can understand court reports, some can understand storybooks, and some can understand real articles...
The Chu State tried its best to write vernacular Chinese in its reports to the people.
In theory, most craftsmanship only requires this level of "literacy" to complete studies.
Among them, only about one-fifth of the people who can read and write can actually master "reading and writing skills", that is, 800,000 to 1 million people...
Although the next ten years will see an explosion in literacy and illiteracy rates, the current number of universities and the large number of craftsmanship courses that will be opened will be sufficient to meet the demand.
This is also due to the elementary education that started - Bai Tuke has the buff of elementary education master, and has been guiding the development of elementary education since the General's Mansion era. After the establishment of the Chu State, it was even included in the assessment indicators for local officials.
If it were ten years ago, because the level of urbanization was lower, it would have been even less meaningful for ordinary farmers to achieve "basic literacy". The literacy rate of the Han people was less than 10%, and only about 10% of them actually mastered the ability to read and write.
Now under the rule of other princes...
The proportion is actually also a bit larger. After all, those who can read are basically still learning and passing on their literacy to future generations, while many illiterate people have died. The increase is all due to the reduction in the denominator!
However, only the State of Chu experienced truly explosive growth. After all, in terms of proportion, if there were no State of Chu, the population of Jing and Yang states with the ability to read and write would not exceed 200,000. However, the number of people in the State of Chu was five times that.
In other words, among the "talented" people who mastered reading and writing skills, 70% were commoners who originally should not have had the opportunity, and another 10% were the result of the influx of wealthy and powerful families from other places - the literacy rate and reading and writing proficiency of this group of people were extremely high, which would increase the proportion.
Those people who were born among the common people and have mastered the ability to read and write are basically concentrated between the ages of thirteen and twenty, and even... one quarter of them are women!
In France in the early 19th century, the literacy rate among men was about half, and among women was about a quarter - note that it was "literate".
If we only calculate the literacy rate and reading and writing rate of the population under the age of 20 , the State of Chu is actually not inferior.
But overall, it is much weaker, after all, the foundation is weak!
But even so, it also brought a great shock to these foreign candidates...
At the beginning, because there were many students from other places from the State of Chu in the large inn arranged, most of these candidates from outside Chu took the initiative to communicate, in order to test the background of the candidates from the State of Chu and to expand their interpersonal relationships.
However, if you don’t communicate, you won’t know. Through this communication, I found that many of these Chu students…
"Are you from Yingchuan? I know. My father said that there are many educated people there!"
"Here, these are the salted plums my mother pickled. Take some and try them."
"My name is Wang Jin, the Jin of gold... the rich gold, not the rebellious Yellow Turban, and my courtesy name is Fengshou. What's your name?"
"Don't say too much to him! Don't be fooled by his abundant harvest. He is a profiteer at home. Last time, he built a wall for my house and used second-hand bricks..."
"Are you interested? Why are you bringing this up in front of outsiders? Your mother was sick, didn't I send you a hen?"
…
Most of the students in Chu State were very enthusiastic, but the vast majority of their conversations were meaningless and rustic like this !
At the beginning, these young talents from outside Chu secretly despised them, but as they met more and more students from Chu, they became more and more worried...
This "blow to the head" seems... even more powerful than "a show of strength"!
