When the New Year came in the second year of the Ming Dynasty, Wang Jianguo's second year, the candidates from six provinces gathered in Nanjing to prepare for the imperial examination competition held on the first day of February. There were also candidates from Jiangnan, Jiangbei, Jiangxi, Zhejiang, Fujian, and Guangdong. The advisors of these six provinces have already fallen into a big debate about equalizing land or tax farming.
Although the total number of people involved in the debate is not large, the total number of candidates in the six provinces is 14,000 to 5,000, and the number of permanent consultants in the six provinces of Nanjing is even less, only more than 100. But these people are the intellectual elite of the entire New Ming Dynasty society!
Although their knowledge seems a bit partial to Zhu Heji, they all need to take a good cram school! But the bureaucrats Zhu Heji can rely on for a long time to come must come from this group of people.
After all, cultivating new talents is a very long process - Zhu Heji started a new school almost from scratch, without even the most basic teaching materials and a small number of teachers who could teach the new learning.
At the beginning, he had to write textbooks himself and teach the young soldiers around him mathematics and physics (magic).
Later, I got an assistant from Mr. Bei. Mr. Bei had received a Western education, was proficient in Latin, and was also very good at mathematics. It was not about how deep he studied, but that he had talent in this area, and he also got started. . Therefore, she can quickly master the primary school mathematics textbook written by Zhu Heji, and can also study the middle school mathematics textbook by herself.
After she thoroughly studied the textbook "Primary School Mathematics", Zhu Heji made her a mathematics teacher at the "Palace Primary School" and asked her to be responsible for teaching mathematics to a group of young guards from the Zhu family in Chaozhou.
Later, Zhu Heji collected several talents through the Guangzhou imperial examination, such as Qu Huajie (Qu Dajun's son), Fang Zhongtong (Fang Yizhi's son), Fang Zhonglu (Fang Yizhi) Zhiyouzi) and others were led by Gu Yanwu to study by themselves at Guangzhou Haizhu University using the teaching materials provided by Zhu Heji. After having a certain foundation, Zhu Heji transferred them to serve as ministers, so that they could personally guide them in their studies. .
In addition, some students with excellent grades in the Army Academy and Naval Academy were also transferred to Zhu Heji as guards. They also studied by themselves under Zhu Heji's guidance in middle schools, academies (junior colleges) or University textbooks.
But Zhu Heji had too many things to do and couldn't spare much time to teach students. Therefore, the progress of these people was very slow. It was not until the arrival of Leibniz that they had a good teacher who could teach the ministers and guards.
But no matter how knowledgeable Leibniz was, he was only one person. How many students could he lead? Moreover, he taught not just one subject, but mathematics, physics, magic, geography, history (Western history), and philosophy (Western philosophy) all!
So now, although Haizhu University and Jinling University have been opened, they are suffering from the lack of teachers and can only cultivate talents through self-study... This new school is really going to take off. I'm afraid we have to wait a few more years.
Before a large number of new talents are cultivated, Zhu Heji can only make best use of these old-era elites as much as possible.
And among these elites of the old era, maybe there are some people who are quite knowledgeable about the new learning?
After all, it is not too far away from the era of free thought and the spread of Western learning to the east in the late Ming Dynasty!
The main purpose of Zhu Heji's holding of this imperial examination competition was to select a large number of more capable officials to promote equalization of land in the four provinces of Jiangbei, Jiangnan, Jiangxi, and Zhejiang.
Therefore, it is very necessary to hold such a big debate before the official competition begins so that future bureaucrats who are about to enter the officialdom of the Ming Dynasty will have a deep understanding of the benefits of the land equalization system and the disadvantages of the tax farming system.
The right side of this great debate is of course Huang Zongxi, Gu Yanwu, Zhu Shunshui, Yan Yuan, Qu Dajun, Luo Wenzao and other "imperial mouthpieces" of the Ming Dynasty. Zhu Heji himself sometimes took time out of his busy schedule to write in "Confucianism" Articles were published in Menxun Bao, advocating equalization of land and criticizing tax farming.
The opposing sides of the great debate were Zhou Peigong and Li Guangdi. They used the "Confucian Xunbao" as their front, published articles opposing land equalization, advocated tax farming, and even shouted the slogan "share the world with the scholar-bureaucrats."
In addition to articles published in newspapers by the standard-bearers of both parties, the real and fake "Confucian Xunbao" began to accept submissions from readers in December of the second year of the Ming Dynasty's supervision of the country - readers can express their own opinions on it.
Among them, submissions for Zhenbao can be sent directly to the Confucian Affairs Hall in the inner city of Nanjing.
The place where the false newspaper was submitted was the Council's affairs hall in the inner city of Nanjing. There was a notice wall outside the Council's affairs hall, which was originally used to post Council announcements. I don't know who had the idea to submit the submission. The manuscript for the fake newspaper was posted directly there. Zhou Peigong would send people there to copy them, and after getting them back, they would print them on fake newspapers and distribute them.
Because the debate between the two sides was too intense and there were too many submissions, both the real and fake "Confucian Xunbao" changed from "Xunbao" to "daily", and their circulations increased greatly.
The more than 10,000 candidates who live in Nanjing buy a "real newspaper" and a "fake newspaper" almost every day. In order to distinguish, Zhou Peigong simply asked people to openly print the word "fake" in front of the registration in his fake "Confucian Xunbao".
And because the circulation of the "fake Confucian Xunbao" is much less than that of the real "Confucian Xunbao", the supply has always been in short supply. Therefore, the price of this "fake "Confucian Xunbao"" is also more expensive, with the retail price of each copy reaching ten to fifteen cents... This public fake is actually sold for more than the real thing. In this situation, this is really unique.
Therefore, when the imperial examination competition in the second year of the Ming Dynasty was about to begin, the two rebels Zhou Peigong and Li Guangdi had already made a fortune by publishing "fake newspapers"!
While Zhou Peigong and Li Guangdi were busy becoming big Vs and making a fortune, Zhang Ying and Gao Shiqi, two truly rebellious Jinshi, also made considerable progress.
I don’t know if it’s because the tricks in the “Reverse Scripture” book worked too well, but in short, the rebellion of these two men was going smoothly!
They first threw the salt in their hands in Anqing and exchanged it for less than 60,000 silver dollars. Then they wanted to use the name of opening an iron company to purchase iron materials and hire blacksmiths... At this moment, there was actually a ready-made The iron works are about to close down, and there are ready-made iron materials and craftsmen. And the location is actually in Tongcheng County!
The two of them didn't think much, and immediately bought the iron company, and then hired a group of guys. They began to build weapons in Tongcheng in the name of building equipment for the Ministry of War, and at the same time, they also purchased firearms at high prices.
I don’t know if it was just their luck, but at the same time they were looking to buy firearms, the garrison in Anqing happened to be equipped with flintlock muskets, so the original matchlock guns were useless... and they wanted to sell them as scrap metal. After Zhang Ying got the news, she quickly bought it through the Zhang family in Tongcheng.
After buying thousands of matchlock guns, Zhang Ying and Gao Shiqi began to follow the "anti-classical" method and paid heavily to recruit heroes and bandits from the nearby Dabie Mountains.
They soon recruited an "old traitor" who was known as Mr. Zu. It was said that this old traitor and his minions were all defeated by the Qing army in the Battle of Anqing. Since they had no way to go, they could only stay in the The grass has fallen in the Dabie Mountains. And their fighting power was not weak. Anqing's Ming army suppressed them several times, but they were unable to succeed.
"Brother Dunfu, now we have everything ready, and we can raise the flag and start trouble at any time..."
In the Zhang Family Manor on the outskirts of Tongcheng County, Gao Shiqi, who had just returned from delivering muskets to Old Man Zu in the Dabie Mountains, looked really excited!
He walked back and forth in Zhang Ying's study. As he walked, he said in a deliberately lowered voice: "I didn't expect that we two scholars could be so strong in rebelling. If I had known..."
Zhang Ying felt a little uncomfortable after hearing what he said, and quickly coughed and said: "Now that everything is ready, let's not wait any longer. The nights are long and the dreams are long... hurry up and raise your troops!"
Gao Shiqi nodded: "Yes, raise the soldiers... By the way, how can we raise the soldiers so that we can succeed easily?"
Zhang Yingdao: "It's in the book, it's written in the book! Let me think about it, you can make fish belly books, you can bury stone people, you can drop strange rocks from the sky, you can kill white snakes with swords..."
