Tian Liang, Huang Bochun, Zhao Zhongjing, Ananda, and Jiji sat around the fire, eating and taking turns sipping the white wine from the bowl. The five of them were all young men sent by Miao Jiang to study in the Pili Army, and they were friends before they came. They have been under the rule of Perak for almost a month and have not seen each other. This is partly because after getting off the boat in Chongqing Fucheng, they were taken to their respective study places. On the other hand, it is also because of the heavy academic curriculum, extremely tight schedule, and even lectures at night. Because of the Spring Festival, all teaching sites have a three-day holiday. "Every festive season, we miss our loved ones even more." Thinking that tomorrow would be the Spring Festival, a few people made an appointment to have a dinner at a restaurant in Chongqing Prefecture on New Year's Eve.
This winter has been extremely cold, and it snowed a few days ago. It is also a great pleasure to gather around the fire in this mid-winter season and eat greasy meat and fragrant wheat cakes. What was especially happy was that Tian Liang magically took out a bottle of wine from his arms, which made everyone smile. The Pili Army banned alcohol to prevent the consumption of precious food, and mainly to combat commercial alcohol brewing and sales. In fact, the Pili Army officially operates a winery. In addition to purifying medical alcohol, the wine produced is also provided to the public for drinking during festivals, but the quantity is very small. Tian Liang brought this bottle of wine from Banzhou.
Those who can come to the Pili Army to study are naturally young talents, and these five people are no exception. Tian Liang, Huang Bochun, and Zhao Zhongjing are descendants of a large family in Bozhou, among which Tian Liang is the son of the general manager of Tian Da. The three people's study directions are military, teachers and doctors respectively, which is what Banshu values most. Ananda and Jiji are descendants of powerful chiefs from Zhenzhou and Luoshi Ghost Kingdom respectively, and their study directions are industry, mining and agriculture. Production in these two places is extremely backward. They often fight for limited resources, and their soldiers are extremely brave and good at fighting. Therefore, they did not bother to fight with the Perak Military Academy, but were more interested in how to mine and smelt iron to make weapons and agricultural tools, and how to increase food production to fill their pockets.
After drinking, several people started chatting, and they all talked about their studies in the Perak Army. Ananda was the first to speak. He studied in Wanjiaping. After large-scale mining, the resources in Jiguan Mountain are beginning to be exhausted, causing the mines to become deeper and deeper, making mining more and more difficult. The Pili Army's current mining centers are in Linqiong, Huojing, and Dayi, Qiongzhou. In order to improve efficiency, new factories are also located near the mines. Although there are still many coal and iron mines in Liuliba and Wanjiaping in Jiguan Mountain, as well as some production workshops, their technology and production capacity are far inferior to the new mines and factories in Qiongzhou and other places.
In addition to keeping confidentiality, the more important reason for arranging Miao people studying industry and mining in Wanjiaping instead of Qiongzhou is to adapt to the local productivity level, achieve rapid learning, and quickly take root in Miao territory. Compared with the industrial and mining industry in Bozhou, the surrounding tribes are even more impoverished. Although the selected people can understand Chinese and even recognize some Chinese characters, they find it difficult to study in Wanjiaping. The technology of Qiongzhou's new mines and new factories has been iterated many times. Learning it is not only difficult, but also requires a long-term process.
Ananda’s learning experience is a typical example. A total of 100 people studied industrial and mining technology in Wanjiaping, including 60 people from Bozhou and various tribes and 40 people from Yifan area. These students will first mine for three months, smelt for three months, and finally learn casting. The training of students is mainly based on practice and supplemented by theory. In terms of practice, it was okay. After all, swinging a sledgehammer and doing hard work only required strength and could not embarrass Ananda. But Ananda couldn't understand the theory at all, and he often dozed off as soon as he started the theory class. The teacher who gave the lecture had nothing to do about it. After all, Ananda was not the only one who dozed off, but quite a few people.
"Only when I arrived at Wanjiaping did I realize how powerful the Perak Army was," Ananda sighed as he took a sip of wine. When these 100 trainees first arrived in Wanjiaping, they did not start studying first. Instead, they first visited industrial and mining production so that they could have a preliminary idea of the production process and links to facilitate teaching. The students first visited the bottomless mine and the mountains of coal, iron ore and other ores piled outside the mine. Then we visited the coal coke plant, smelting blast furnace and material warehouse. What shocked Ananda the most was the foundry. In his words, the Wanjiaping Foundry's production of farm tools, swords and other weapons in one day is equivalent to his tribe's annual production, and the quality of the ironware is even better. Moreover, I heard from the teacher that the production capacity of Wanjiaping Foundry can only be ranked in the middle or lower position among the foundries under the rule of the Pili Army.
The next person to express emotion was Zhao Zhongjing, whose training school for barefoot doctors was in Hengyuan Village. The transportation and location of Hengyuan Village are extremely advantageous, so with the recovery of the economy, the Pili Army rebuilt the village at the original site. Different from the original wooden stockade, the current stockade wall is made of cement walls filled with rammed earth, and there are trenches outside. Coupled with the protection of the nearby Hengyuan Fort, safety is guaranteed, and the people in the village can evacuate to Jiguan Mountain in times of war crisis. The Pili Army's Barefoot Doctor Training School is located in Hengyuan Village. In addition to 60 students from Miao and 40 Yibo students, the school also has 300 local students.
When he first heard the name of the school, Zhao Zhongjing was quite confused. Later, when I heard the explanation from the school teacher, I understood why it was named Barefoot Langzhong School. It turns out that according to Ouyang Xuan's idea of running a school, not only can people get medical treatment, but they should also be able to afford it. If we follow the traditional master-disciple teaching system, it will take a long time to train a doctor, but illness will not wait for anyone. Therefore, Ouyang Xuan adopted the idea of industrial production to quickly recruit a group of doctors and solve the problem of availability first. The reason why it is called Barefoot is because after these students become doctors, they do not break away from production, but take root in various settlements and industrial and mining enterprises. While treating people, they are also engaged in industrial and agricultural production.
Different from traditional master-apprentice teaching, there are not many theoretical courses in the school, especially courses on the interplay of the five elements of traditional Chinese medicine. They are more about diagnosis and treatment of common diseases, public epidemic prevention knowledge, and practical skills training such as medicinal material procurement and prescription production. Many people in Zhao Zhongjing's family are doctors, and they have been exposed to it all year round, which makes him think he knows something about medicine. According to the Five Elements theory, diseases are caused by imbalances in the balance of metal, wood, water, fire, and earth in the body. Although school teachers do not deny this statement, they believe that some are caused by microorganisms.
Zhao Zhongjing also argued with the teacher about this, but the teacher convinced him after doing a comparative experiment. The core of this experiment is the latest microscope developed by Pili Junma. Zhao Zhongjing truly saw the wriggling protozoa, schistosomiasis and other disease-causing pathogens under the microscope. It is said that this microscope is much more difficult to make than a telescope. It is very difficult to grind the lenses. At present, it can only achieve low magnification of dozens of times, and it is not yet possible to grind high-magnification lenses.
Of course, the school and teachers do not deny the Five Elements Theory, but adhere to the principle of "it doesn't matter whether the cat is black or white, as long as it catches mice, it is a good cat" and pursue pragmatic standards in teaching. Ouyang Xuan expressed support for this, believing that "practice is the only criterion for testing truth." Under the guidance of this idea, the school resisted various pressures and even opened human anatomy classes to allow students to observe internal organs, muscles, blood vessels, nerves and other tissues. In the eyes of Confucians, this approach was not only bloody but also against human ethics. Ouyang Xuan relied on his own prestige to suppress the opposition. Fortunately, it was a war and there was no shortage of enemy corpses, otherwise he would not be able to convince old scholars like Ru Dezhi.
