However, rather than struggling with the issue of language unification, little Jeanne soon became more interested in technical details.
"I probably understand what you mean. But if you implement Chinese characters as a universal text, how do you connect it with local languages?" She asked: "There are many local languages here, and they have different vocabulary and grammar. How do you connect them with local languages?" Are they unified?"
"We don't call it universal writing." Guo Kang told her: "To be precise, Chinese characters should be called 'war writing'. It is bound to the military and is not a legal universal language. It is just the relationship between our civil system and the military. It’s very close, so it seems to have a great influence.”
"Isn't this the same..." little Jeanne muttered.
"It seems the result is the same, but when it is actually implemented, the difference is huge." Guo Kang shook his head and explained: "Forcibly promoting a text that has no foundation or even has nothing to do with the local language is of course very difficult and almost impossible to succeed. . No matter how powerful we are, with just that few people, we can’t even be considered a tribe, and we definitely won’t be able to do that.”
"My ancestor Yuanting Gong, when he first arrived in the Bulgarian fiefdom, found that he could not understand what others were saying. Not only could he not understand, but also Boyantemur Khan could not understand, and the Golden Horde who came with them The envoys also couldn't understand, and even the officials sent by the puppet tsar of Bulgaria to help with the contacts couldn't understand the local 'Bulgarian dialect.'" He introduced Guo Gai's original deeds:
"But there are too few people who can translate there - or in that place, there are no people who can translate from native to Chinese. You have to do double or even triple translation to have a conversation with ordinary people. This kind of communication model It’s obviously not sustainable in the long term.”
"Therefore, the lords who were appointed to this place before have been unstable. Because as outsiders, they can't even pass the language barrier. They are nominally entrusted by the Khan to manage the place, but in fact they can only give occasional support to the local people. The powerful men gave some simple instructions. These powerful men have long been accustomed to being on both sides of the fence. They know that even if the Golden Horde comes over, they won't stay long. They just need to pay and leave. In daily management, this is fundamental. Don’t take them seriously.”
"An ordinary lord would usually rely on the soldiers he brought over to maintain the local order until the soldiers could not defeat the powerful armed forces, or the income from maintaining the rule could no longer make up for the expenses. You can use Greece If you speak Chinese, Bulgarian, or even Kipchak, you can talk to a few local snakes here and urge them to pay taxes on time, and you are already a very responsible manager. Most people don't have the ability, nor the mood, to talk to ordinary natives."
"But Mr. Yuanting is a man with great ambitions, and he feels that doing so is nothing more than a decoration. So he hopes to at least bypass the local nobles and powerful people, directly recruit a group of residents, and place them in his own farm. Otherwise, he will not be able to survive. If you don’t even have a foundation, what else can you do in the future?”
"Fortunately, he learned things quickly. He quickly learned some local dialects and went to organize the people in person. He also found people to teach them how to farm and build water conservancy projects. In his spare time, he also led people to learn boxing and martial arts, and taught his own skills. "
"At that time, he actually had no idea of popularizing the language. He just couldn't learn dialect well, and sometimes he couldn't help but mix in some Chinese. The locals soon discovered that they could get close to him if they learned simple Chinese. It is also easier to learn various skills. Therefore, many people come here because of his fame, and he even teaches them by making gestures and guessing."
"The local powerful were very sensitive to this and came to provoke them many times. But Duke Yuanting was also a knight who traveled far and wide. In a conflict of this scale, the outcome was actually determined by a few servants and thugs. He solved the problem in a few times. The remaining guards, bandits and the like will disperse in a hurry."
“The so-called universal lingua franca is actually just what it means.”
"But aren't you talking about the usual organization of agricultural production?" Princess Jeanne asked.
"It's all the same thing." Guo Kang didn't even feel the need to explain: "It's the same in every industry. If you can organize farming well, basically everything else can be organized as well. Anyway, it's the same system."
"But in war, the need for a unified language is not very great. If you put people from the same place together, it will be enough if there is an officer who can understand the orders." Princess Jeanne said: "As for farming, the requirements are even lower. Right. On weekdays, I only have to work in fixed fields. At most, I don’t have the opportunity to communicate with people who speak other languages during village activities.”
"We were not like this at that time." Guo Kang shook his head: "If nothing else, we have to build water conservancy. Can people from one village build a river control project?"
"Ah?" Princess Jeanne seemed not to have thought about river management. She thought again and then said: "There should be professional engineers doing this work. Let them do the design and then subcontract it to people in different regions to build it. Wouldn't that be enough? As long as the contractor can understand If you can design and understand the engineers’ explanations, you should be fine.”
Guo Kang listened and shook his head.
"I don't know what level of project you are talking about, but the requirements for the project we needed to carry out at that time should be higher than this." He shook his head and said, "According to the rumors circulated by the Li family, although it was later named 'military purpose' words', but what they originally thought of was mainly engineering issues."
"The people there are too scattered. After all, it's just a refugee den. There are everything from Greeks to Kipchaks. If we divide them into teams one by one, we won't be able to direct them. Moreover, their projects require precise operations. The requirements may be higher than those of war. After all, at that time, most of the troops here knew that it was enough to advance according to orders. And the requirements for construction are much more precise than this."
"As for outsourcing, we can't find anyone. Because the Li brothers themselves are the best water conservancy contractors in this area. They can't find anyone else either..."
Princess Jeanne probably really didn't expect that this kind of agricultural project would have higher technical requirements than war, and she was speechless for a moment.
"The universal characters we later used were what they used when they were designing and guiding everyone to build water conservancy projects as planned." Guo Kang told her: "The locals are basically completely illiterate, and there is no difference between recognizing Chinese characters and recognizing Greek. , Chinese characters are easier to use.”
"Why is this?" Princess Jeanne asked.
"Just think of those Chinese characters as ideograms. For them, characters like 'long', 'high' and 'square' are much easier to remember than a string of Greek codes." Guo Kang is certain about this: "The information content of graphics is much greater than coding. So there are definitely advantages."
"This can probably be regarded as an 'engineering language'. Later, we took advantage of these characteristics and applied them to the military, and we followed the trend."
(End of chapter)
