After defeating the arrogant Luo Zhen, Yang Peng returned to his own Tianjing New City. Now that Luo Zhen has been escorted to Beijing and imprisoned by the Ministry of Justice, no one dares to covet Yang Peng's property easily, and Yang Peng's status has been consolidated a lot. With such a consolidated power, Yang Peng has to consider the long-term development of the territory. The first problem to be solved is the problem of education.
An educated soldier or official is far better able to cope with changing situations than an illiterate person who cannot read. The world of an illiterate person is narrow and monotonous, but a literate person can gain insights from books, can understand account books, understand signs, and know things thousands of miles away. If the people in the territory can read and write, the speed of industrial and military development will increase a lot.
For the long-term development of the territory, Yang Peng decided to popularize literacy among all the children and soldiers in the territory. Yang Peng made a simple statistics based on the yellow book: Tianjing Xincheng, Dagou, and Yanshan County currently have more than 2,000 worker families, less than 2,000 migrant merchant families, more than 2,000 peasant families, and a total of 10,000 minor children. Seven hundred and twenty-three children, Li Zhi is preparing to let them attend school during the day. Yang Peng and the Huben Division have 14,000 soldiers, and Yang Peng plans to let them have classes in the evening after training every day.
If these children and soldiers are gathered together to learn literacy and arithmetic, in about three years the children and soldiers will be able to recognize commonly used words and learn basic addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. Yang Peng divided the more than 10,000 children into three groups according to their age, and currently only allows the oldest group of more than 3,000 children to enter the literacy class. After this group graduates, they will educate the next group until all three groups of children have been taught. Assuming that there are 40 children in a class, Yang Peng needs more than 80 teachers, 40 to teach literacy, 40 to teach arithmetic, and more than 80 classrooms need to be built.
These eighty classrooms are used by children during the day and by soldiers at night. Of course, soldiers need to be in a squad of fifty. However, soldiers have excellent discipline, and classroom discipline is definitely better than that of children. A class of fifty people is more suitable. After making up his mind, Yang Peng asked the masons who had been expanding the villa to stop building the villa and start building eighty large classrooms. At the same time, a cathedral was built in Dagou, like Yanshan. Yang Peng began to post notices in various prefectures and counties, recruiting 120 teachers with a salary of 20 to 2 months and three meals a day - 80 to teach children during the day and 40 to work at night to teach soldiers. Teachers do not need to be scholars, they just need to be literate or able to do arithmetic.
On November 20, the construction of irrigation canals has been two months. In some places, irrigation canals have been built and some dragon tail trucks have been put in place. Seeing the water conservancy facilities being gradually repaired, the people who had divided their fields were happy and energetic. Dai Quan's family was a refugee rescued by the Dagou army. It has been three months since they escaped the clutches of the Khitan soldiers. In the past three months, the Dai family's situation has been getting better and better - better than ever before.
Dai Quan is thirty years old this year. He has a 28-year-old daughter-in-law at home, a fifty-year-old father, and two teenage children. It is a family of five. In the past, his family rented 30 acres of farmland from Mr. Wang's family in Wangjiaji, Baodi County. The family had three mud houses. There was no water source next to the field, so I had to fetch water from a small river a mile away to water the field. Due to insufficient irrigation, he could only grow 25 to 6 shi of rice and noodles a year, but he had to give 50% of it to Mr. Wang for rent, so he could only keep 12 to 3 shi at home. Every year during the lean season, the whole family goes hungry.
What made matters worse was that Khitan soldiers came later, and Dai Quan and his family hid in the county town. As a result, the county town was also captured by Khitan soldiers, and the family became Khitan slaves. The Khitan shaved off their hair and left their pigtails in pigtails. They refused to accept Chinese clothes and clothes. They also wanted to take everyone to the bitter cold land of Liaodong to be slaves, doing hard labor every day and serving them with whips. At that time, in the Tatar camp, at night, there were cries all around.
The ten days that he was robbed by the Khitan soldiers were not long, but in Dai Quan's memory, those ten days were extremely long. During those ten days, Dai Quan once thought that his life was over. The next step was to work as a cow or horse, and after more than ten years of hard labor, he was whipped to death. Who would have expected that when they arrived at the ditch of Tianjing New City, the ferocious Khitan soldiers were defeated by the officers and soldiers of Tianjing New City, and all the people who had been plundered by the Khitan were rescued.
The lord of Tianjing New City was Yang Peng, a great benevolent man. He allowed the people to settle in the north of Dagou City and gave them thick porridge to eat. Because of his contribution to defeating the Khitan soldiers, he was promoted to guerrilla general by the court, and everyone called him City Lord. Later, the Khitan soldiers left the border, and the surrounding people returned to their hometowns one after another. But Dai Quan's family couldn't go back. They would have nothing to eat if they went back. The landlord Wang's family was also devastated by the war. Like himself, he was taken to the Khitan slave camp. The Wang family's food stash was probably robbed by the Khitan soldiers. I go back to Wang’s house to gather food. What will I eat this year?
When Dai Quan was hesitant and desperate, there was no way out, and news came that the city lord was going to lead everyone to cultivate new fields. Dai Quan shed tears when he heard the news. Good news comes one after another. It is said that the city lord will allocate twenty acres of dry land to each adult and strong girl, and only collects 30% of the land rent a year to pay back the land rent and food money, which is equivalent to no land rent. Moreover, the dry fields distributed by the city lord to the poor are all good fields with canals for irrigation.
Upon hearing the news, Dai Quan's family cheered and encouraged. Forty acres of good land, 30% of the land rent. Although Dai Quan is not good at arithmetic, he knows how to ask literate people, and he knows that these fields are well cultivated. In addition to the land rent, he can have 27 or 8 shi of food left over a year, which can make his family live. Good times ahead. The Lord of the City sent Zheng Baihu to organize everyone to build irrigation canals, install dragon tail carts, and also summoned a large number of masons from all over Cangzhou to build houses for the poor. By November, half of the irrigation canals had been repaired, and half of the dragon-tail cars were said to have been installed. Zheng Baihu sent someone to allocate a piece of land beside the canal to Dai's family, which was really 40 acres, and he was waiting for the planting to begin next spring.
Dai Quan tried out the dragon tail car. He asked his wife to dig the canal next to his field, and he swung the dragon tail cart by the river. He saw the trickling river water being pumped into the canal by the water cart, and all of it flowed into his dry field. At this rate, during the irrigation season, I can irrigate my family's 40 acres of paddy field by running the water tanker for one day. No more coolies have to go to the river to fetch water.
What made Dai Quan even more happy was that the house assigned to him was also repaired. These are two brick houses, very spacious, built in a planned small village. The house is made of fine red bricks, with black tiles on top. It is said that the cement invented by the city lord is also used. In short, the house is very strong and does not leak even if it rains heavily. Dai's family used to live in a leaky mud house with a thatched roof. Where had they ever lived in such a nice brick house? Even the house where Mr. Wang lives is nothing more than this!
On the day they were assigned a house, the whole family sang, danced and had fun all day long. The person who allocated the house to Dai Quan said that the two houses cost ten taels of silver and were loaned to Dai's family by the city lord. They would be repaid in five years. In the next five years, Dai Quan would have to pay an extra pound of rice and flour when paying land rent. One stone of rice and noodles is not much, and the general only charges 30% of the land rent. Dai Quan knows that he now has a balance of twenty-seven or eight stone every year, so he can afford one stone of rice and noodles.
Dai Quan felt that good times were just around the corner, so he and his wife worked hard on the canal construction site every day, very actively. His efforts were noticed by the officials in Tianjing New City, and he was labeled as an activist by the officials. The officials gave priority to Dai Quan's daughter-in-law to do light tasks such as cooking and cooking. They also asked Dai Quan to do the honorable tasks of sharing meals with the poor.
With the appreciation of the officials, Dai Quan worked even harder. On this day, Dai Quan was ramming soil at the construction site, but he heard Mr. Chai calling his name and saying that the cattle were divided. The city lord will give us a share of cattle? Dai Quan handed his rope to a farmer next to him, patted the dirt on his hands, and followed the poor man to the place where the cattle were divided. When he arrived at the place where the cattle were divided, Dai Quan saw hundreds of cattle gathered under a slope, and a dozen "activists" stood there waiting to divide the cattle. Zheng Baihu, the manager, came to the scene in person to check the account books.
The chai who brought Dai Quan said to Dai Quan: "Your Majesty, the Lord of the City, is kind enough to lend one cattle to every five people in the village, and hand it over to honest people to take care of it. You, your wife, and the three people in your village will share one cattle." . The price of the cattle is thirty taels. It is lent to you by the Lord of the City. It will be returned to the Lord of the City in five years. On average, each person in the family will pay an additional six dou of grain per year."
I used to rent cattle from Mr. Wang, but now I have my own cattle! Farmers have a natural love for cattle. Dai Quan's eyes gleamed when he looked at those strong cattle. The Lord of the City was so kind to us that Dai Quan hurriedly agreed to what Mr. Chai said. Master Cha saw that Dai Quan didn't ask clearly, so he said, "Do you know how much food you can have left in a year after paying for the cattle?" Dai Quan was stunned and said, "Go back to Master Cha, I can't figure it out." ." The poor man smiled and said: "The two of you rent forty acres of dry land. Calculated based on the harvest of one stone, the grain harvest is forty stones a year. Twelve stones will be given to the general for rent, and there will be some leftover. Twenty-eight stones, if you pay one stone of grain to make a house, there will be twenty-seven stone left. For two people, you will pay one stone and two bullfights, and there will be twenty-five stone and eight buckets left. Five people eat fourteen stone of grain a year, and there will still be The balance of eleven stones and eight measures equals twenty-three taels of silver."
I can save more than 20 taels of silver a year, which is enough to make cotton-padded jackets and quilts for the children and buy meat. Hearing that he had such a large surplus, Dai Quan flushed with joy and said, "The general's kindness will always be remembered by the common people!" The poor man smiled and said, "The harvest of spring wheat in the first year was lower and it was difficult. A little, but in the first year the city lord only charges 15% of the land rent, your family can still have a balance of fifteen taels of silver!"
Being able to save so much money immediately in the first year, Dai Quan had nothing to say and could only nod his head desperately. Seeing that Dai Quan was happy, the poor man taught him a lesson: "You have to take care of the cattle of these five people. You must manage them well. The cowshed must be built securely and the cow dung in the cowshed must be cleaned up in time." You have to feed bean cakes when you use them, you have to graze the cattle and eat green feed in the summer, and you have to comb the cattle and clean them to prevent epidemic diseases in the winter. Did you know?" After a pause, Mr. Cha added: "Of course you don't do these things alone, they are distributed. The five members of the family who use the cows take turns taking responsibility, but you have to manage it and don’t let the cows get sick and die.”
Dai Quan only nodded hurriedly. The poor man taught Dai Quan a lesson and took him up to collect the cattle. When it was Dai Quan's turn to queue up, Zheng Baihu walked around among the cattle and gave Dai Quan a majestic bull. Dai Quan smiled with joy when he saw that the ox had strong limbs and shiny hair, and looked strong with its head held high. Seeing Dai Quan's happy look, Zheng Baihu said with a smile: "The good cow is given to you, so take care of it!" Tang Shidian was a boy. Tongsheng is a scholar who has passed the county examination and government examination but failed the college examination. Those who pass the academy examination are scholars. Tong Sheng does not have any privileges, but he can be regarded as a decent scholar.
But Tang Shidian, a young boy, was not respectable. He is thirty-two years old this year. Both his parents are dead and he has never been married. Originally, he was teaching at the Tang Family School to earn a living. But this year, Cangzhou was hit by a military disaster. One hundred shi of food in the barn in Tangjia Village was looted by Khitan soldiers, and the ancestral hall in the village was burned by Khitan soldiers. With all the funding and space for running the school gone, the ethnic school had no money to continue, and Tang Shidian lost his job.
Fortunately, Tang Shidian still had more than ten taels of silver in savings, so he would not starve to death for a while. In the past few months, he rented a shabby house in Cangzhou City and went around asking if there was a shortage of teachers. He searched everywhere for several months but could not find a job for his husband. He was even willing to work as a bookkeeper, and finally even as a clerk, but he could never find anything to do.
These days there are wars and chaos everywhere, and there is a depression everywhere. There are fewer and fewer places to hire people every day, and there are more monks and less rice. Tang Shidian didn't find a job. He was afraid of running out of money and starving to death, so he only dared to drink two bowls of gruel every day. After a few months, he became sallow and skinny from hunger. He was worried that day and was wandering around when he saw a new notice in front of the county government office. Tang Shidian was fine anyway, so he went up to take a look, but what he saw was a surprise on his face:
Tianjing New City wants to recruit 120 teachers to teach! No student status is required, as long as you can read and do arithmetic. Tang Shidian had heard of Tianjing New City and knew that it was the richest place near Cangzhou, where everyone had enough food and clothing. Tianjing New City is recruiting a gentleman, isn’t this a good thing falling from the sky? Tang Shidian felt refreshed and rushed to Fanjiazhuang.
On the way, when passing by the Liuhe River, Tang Shidian saw more than a thousand people building irrigation canals by the river. Are the guerrilla generals in Tianjing New City still engaged in water conservancy to reclaim new fields? I have never heard that the military attachés of the Song Dynasty were so energetic. Tang Shidian watched for a while by the river and found that the farmers were well organized and very efficient in ramming soil and building canals by the river. The irrigation canal was one foot above the river, and it was obvious that water would be lifted up by water trucks.
And a water tanker? Organize such a complex water conservancy project? Tang Shidian suddenly felt that the chief officer of Tianjing New City was different from other military attachés of the Song Dynasty. Arriving at Tianjing New City, Tang Shidian explained his origin at the city gate and was taken to the official hall by a soldier. Although Tang Shidian had heard about the affluence of Tianjing New City, Tang Shidian was still shocked when he walked into Tianjing New City for the first time:
The weather is cold in November at this time, and the pedestrians in Tianjing New City are all wearing half-new or even brand-new coats. Even if they have patches on them, they are not many. They are by no means as poor as the people in Cangzhou City, who are covered in patches. Pedestrians in the city walked calmly and calmly, with no trace of malnutrition or hunger on their faces. It was obvious that they all had enough to eat every day, and even ate meat from time to time. People like Tang Shidian, wearing a coat full of patches and looking disheveled, look like outsiders at first glance.
Both sides of the road are covered with two-story houses, with white walls and black tile roofs. There are shops under the houses along the street. There are customers coming in and out of the store, and business is booming. Occasionally, I passed by a few teahouses and restaurants, and they were full of people, all of them wealthy residents drinking and drinking tea. There are many children playing and playing on the road. The innocent and carefree appearance of these groups makes people not feel the atmosphere of troubled times at all.
Tang Shidian was led by soldiers as he passed a market and heard a commotion. There were meat sellers, vegetable sellers, chicken sellers, fish sellers, pot sellers, pot sellers, and everything else in the market. There were shouts one after another, and there were voices of bargaining everywhere, and people were coming in and out. It was full of people and a bustling scene.
Nowadays, the war is in chaos, and every town outside is very depressed. But here in Tianjing New City, there is a vibrant and prosperous economy, and it seems that it is not affected by the military disaster at all. Even the road beneath my feet is different. The spacious roads in Tianjing New City are paved with bluestones and are very clean. There is no garbage on the roads. They are not as dirty as other cities. The road is high in the middle and low on both sides, and dirty water flows along the road into the sewers on both sides. The sewer is also covered with bluestone, and people can walk on it. Every few dozen meters on the road there is a big bucket for garbage, and people throw their garbage into the bucket.
The whole city looks prosperous and clean, and it's not an exaggeration to say it's a paradise. Tianjing New City, under the rule of the city lord of Tianjing New City, is so rich and clean! A few years ago, Tang Shidian passed by Tianjing New Town. It was still a poor settlement, dirty and messy. If you hadn't seen it with your own eyes, who would have believed that Tianjing New City has become such a good place in just a few years.
If you can get a job as a teacher here, you will truly be worthy of the rest of your life. Tang Shidian walked and praised all the way, and slowly walked to the official hall. The soldier who led the way led him into a side room in the official hall to wait. The official in charge of the official office gave Tang Shidian a wooden sign with "No. 21" written in red paint, and asked him to come out for an "interview" when the number was called.
There were already several scholars sitting in that wing, probably all here to apply for jobs as teachers. The soldier who took Tang Shidian into the city did not leave, but stood outside the wing waiting for Tang Shidian. He seemed to be afraid that Tang Shidian, who had no one to act as a guarantor, would do bad things in the city. Not only was there this one soldier waiting outside, but there were also five soldiers standing next to him. There was probably one soldier watching each applicant.
Tang Shidian also understood this. A city like this Taoyuan should build more defenses, otherwise it would be destroyed by bad guys. Tang Shidian sat in the side room for a while, then was called out by an official, and met the city lord Yang Peng in the main hall of the official hall. It turns out that the job of checking the applicants' details was done by the city lord himself. Tang Shidian was very nervous when he saw such a high official. When he walked into the lobby, he was about to kneel down and salute, but he heard the Lord of the City shouting "no ceremony".
Yang Peng pointed to a chair in the lobby and asked Tang Shidian to sit opposite him. Tang Shidian was very grateful at that time. He was grateful to the city lord, Corporal Li Xian, for allowing him, a child, to sit and talk. He sat down on the chair tremblingly, with only half his butt on the chair, when he heard the Lord of the City asking: "Have you ever been a gentleman?"
Tang Shidian quickly replied: "The student has been teaching for ten years, and he taught the village children in the village's ethnic studies." "Oh? You teach people to read?" Yang Peng became interested and said: "How many years can an average child teach? Can you understand announcement documents?" Tang Shidian raised his hand and said, "If a child is under ten years old and wants to understand general announcement documents, three years of teaching is enough. If it is a child under ten years old whose intelligence is not yet developed, it will take four or four years of teaching. Five years.”
Yang Peng nodded and asked: "Do you have any fame?" Tang Shidian's face turned red and he said: "The student has no fame, he is just a child." Yang Peng said with a smile: "A child is not bad! Have you read it? A book written by a saint, right? However, when I teach people how to read here, I only teach ordinary words. The purpose is to enable children and soldiers to understand proclamations and documents. I don’t teach the enlightenment of saints. Do you have any questions?"
Tang Shidian raised his hands and said, "If we don't teach the saints, we can only teach literacy, and the students will be willing to do so!" "Oh?" Tang Shidian thought for a while and said, "There are wars going on nowadays. It's the time for a good man to wear a sword and make achievements. It would be a bit pedantic to preach and educate saints every day. At this time, it is important to recruit warriors and practice bows and armor. Only then can the peace of the nine states be possible. When the world is peaceful, it will not be too late to teach the saints. ."
After hearing Tang Shidian's words, the city lord nodded, secretly thinking that this boy was not stupid after reading so many sage books. Yang Peng said with a smile: "What books do you read?" Tang Shidian raised his hand and said: "In addition to the books of saints, students also read "Six Tao", "Han Feizi", "Sun Tzu", "Tao Te Ching", "Mozi" 》etc., what I read is quite mixed!”
Yang Peng secretly thought that this was a sensible person, and asked: "I want the people and soldiers in Tianjing New City to be literate and able to read books. What do you think?"
Tang Shidian said: "If the people can read and write, they will not be easily deceived by gangsters. When the government publishes notices and provisions, the people will soon know. There are many talented people among the people, and the government will be more selective when selecting officials. More. If a soldier can read well, he will understand good and bad, and his knowledge and reaction will be better than that of an illiterate man. He will be able to advance and retreat in a controlled manner, and his morale will be higher on the battlefield."
Yang Peng nodded and said: "Okay, that's good. I'll ask you to be the leader of the forty teachers in the Chinese language group of the children's class. You will be responsible for organizing teaching and researching teaching content. You will be paid three taels a month! You will also be responsible for three meals a day. !" When Tang Shidian heard these words, his face flushed with excitement, and he felt joy falling from the sky, and the gloom of several months was swept away. He staggered up from the chair, raised his hands and said, "Student, thank you, Lord City Lord!"
If you want to know what happens next, let’s look at the breakdown in the next chapter.
