The next day, Xu Guangqi, who had been writing an article in the middle of the night, washed up, threw his father to his old servant at home, and asked him to lead him around the house. He carried his backpack and went straight to the Normal School of the Capital.
The cowhide backpack I was wearing was bought from Rishenglong. It is similar to a bamboo bookcase, but much smaller. Because Xu Guangqi was young, he bought a backpack that he could carry on both shoulders. Many officials and colleagues in the Gewuyuan who were older than him carried single-shoulder bags.
But these are not the mainstream. Officials and civilians still make up the majority of people who carry things in their robes, arms and sleeves. Popular on the market right now, and at eye-popping prices, are all kinds of small leather handbags – just for women.
First, the concubines and princesses in the palace carried small handbags to replace sachets and waist bags made of silk, containing perfumes and sanitary napkins for women. Soon this kind of simple and elegant luxury goods with strong impact spread from the two capitals - together with glass and ice jade, they brought a heavy burden to henpecked men.
Zhu Yijun sees his wife every day, wearing colorful silk and satin clothes with complicated patterns, that is, "real ancient clothes", but holding a modern leather handbag in his hand. After getting used to it for a long time, he still feels a little bit spicy. Eye.
But there is no way, Confucius said: "The one who started the figurine still wants to cry beautiful even with tears in his eyes." Every day when Zhu Yijun faced Zhuang Jingjia with various handbags and asked if they were worthy of the queen's uniform, they all said they looked good--and they were very upset. You have to come up with words to express what is so good about it.
...
Xu Guangqi's backpack contained the lecture notes he was going to give at the Capital Normal School. The Capital Normal University was rebuilt from the Imperial College, and there was quite a bit of turmoil at the beginning. However, due to the serious shortage of officials in Myanmar, most of the Imperial College students were sent out to become officials, and things calmed down a lot.
Xu Guangqi is a part-time lecturer at the Normal School. His current job is to lead a research group at the Gewu Institute, responsible for researching the "flow number" topic in "Zhu Zaiyu's Three Laws".
Today is July 30th, and the school, which has been open for more than half a month, is full of books. When Xu Guangqi passed by several classrooms, he heard his colleagues from Gewuyuan inside leading the students to read Latin:
"A'erfa, hold him, wash my mother - come on, read after me, A'erfa, hold him!"
"Alfa, hold him back!"
The corners of Xu Guangqi's mouth twitched, and he sighed while stroking his forehead. He had long heard that the emperor was learning Latin, and he also hired several translators from Guangdong to Beijing - these Latin letters were taught by the translators and were used by the Gewu Academy to derive mathematical formulas.
However, the scholars of Gewu Academy, who were deeply influenced by Chinese-style education, asked students to learn the Eight Classics of Scripture first by reading it in sentences. This method made Xu Guangqi dumbfounded.
In his class, he just writes these letters randomly and then tells the students the pronunciation. They will remember it naturally, so why bother to teach them specifically.
However, in the new normal universities, lesson plans and teaching methods are still being explored, because the teaching materials and courses are completely different from those in the Imperial College.
Because the imperial court had accumulated a lot of experience in Nanyuan Martial Arts, the medical school and normal university avoided many detours. But in this way, the university was mixed with the style of martial arts, and it became different from what Xu Guangqi expected, and it was a bit too polite. Compared with the original Imperial College, it looks more like a military camp.
When Xu Guangqi was walking through the campus playground, he saw many strong young men running shirtless and holding an olive-shaped ball on the playground. There was a guy lying on his back on the sidelines with a big bulge on his forehead. Someone next to him was holding a long gown to fan him. Xu Guangqi guessed that the guy must have fainted.
Shaking his head, Xu Guangqi bypassed the group of people and walked directly to his teaching and research group. Today his class is at 9:30 in the morning - this is another reform. As timers become more and more accurate, the cumbersome and difficult to learn timekeeping methods have also been changed. Nowadays, all major universities in the capital use new ones. The twenty-four-hour timekeeping method is consistent with the folk twelve hours.
Xu Guangqi sometimes feels that things like "poetry" and "literary talent" are becoming increasingly worthless these days. Taking timing as an example, he felt that "日昳" sounded much better than thirteen o'clock, because the latter sounded like playing mahjong.
Thinking of playing mahjong, Xu Guangqi smiled. Princess Leping is one of the few mahjong masters in the palace. After growing up with the Queen Mother Rensheng, her mahjong skills surpass those of the palace. When the two of them corresponded, Princess Leping often wrote in her letters: "Yesterday I accompanied my mother to play mahjong until Rending. Today I am very sleepy..." and other words.
Well, the timekeeping method of the inner palace has not been changed yet. The most pioneering ones now are the various universities in the capital. All such changes begin in universities. On the one hand, Xu Guangqi enjoyed this new lifestyle, such as being able to communicate with the princess at any time, but on the other hand, he secretly criticized certain reforms.
For example, what he finds very outrageous is that students at the Normal University are now learning the simplified Chinese characters being taught at Nanyuan Martial Arts School. The emperor has issued an edict that starting from the eleventh year of Wanli, graduates sent to various places will only be able to teach simplified characters. It would be a crime to teach "orthodox" characters. Starting from the fifteenth year of Wanli, the emperor's edicts, official documents and newspapers will all use simplified characters. Prior to this, both simplified Chinese characters and regular Chinese characters were legal official document styles.
This "controversy between simplicity and righteousness" has been noisy in the newspapers for a while, and many scholars have been criticizing and criticizing it as if they were mourning their heirs. However, as more and more ritual vessels and oracle bones were unearthed from the Yin Ruins in Anyang County, Henan Province, a large number of characters on them were also identified, proving that when our ancient ancestors first invented writing, they were rushing to simplify graphics. .
This blow was simply a dimensionality reduction blow, directly wiping out any trace of the voices that resisted simplified Chinese characters. Those who support simplified Chinese characters - mainly Hanlin officials trained in the Attendant's Office - plausibly say: "Simplified Chinese characters have been around since ancient times, so why not use them now? If everyone wants to go back to ancient times, they must learn Oracle Bone Inscriptions. He is the true ancestor of writing!”
The words were good and the logic was impeccable, but Xu Guangqi still felt uncomfortable. For example, the simplified character for "close" is simply "close". How can we get close if we can't meet each other?
There are so many examples, such as "love", "yi", "郷", etc. After the orthographic characters are simplified, the beauty in Chinese characters is simply deprived of all. Many people cited these examples and made a fuss for a while, but because the court ignored them, they gradually became silent.
Another problem with simplified Chinese characters is that calligraphy doesn’t look good when written in them. Many people knew that the emperor was good at writing large characters, and they were all waiting for Zhu Yijun to write the first simplified calligraphy. But the emperor was very double-standard. He used simplified Chinese characters in his comments in the question book, but he still wrote straight characters in his calligraphy works.
Later, Xu Guangqi heard from people in the palace that the emperor's view was that tools should be tools and art should be art. If you want to write big characters and practice calligraphy, there is no problem in using straight characters. But for those officials who still write the correct characters in the title book after the fifteenth year of Wanli, then don't do it.
Xu Guangqi walked to the teacher's area with random thoughts. When he was in the corridor, he saw a group of people blocking the door of his teaching and research office. In the middle was a guy wearing a pure Yang scarf and dressed like a Taoist priest. He was Wang Shizhen, the president of the Normal University.
Wang Shizhen saw Xu Guangqi and rushed over to greet him. In the ninth year of Wanli's reign, he finally achieved enlightenment. He was recommended to the emperor by Feng Bao and appointed as the principal of the Normal School in the capital.
Principal Wang barely escaped being knocked unconscious by a big pie falling from the sky, and burst into tears after receiving the edict. He didn't know that Feng Bao was behind the scenes, but he just carried the gift to see Feng Bangning, the president of Nanjing Daily, and knelt down as soon as he entered the door.
Feng Bangning was startled at the time. After asking for explanation, he comforted him and said: "Mr. Fengzhou has been advocating reforms in these years. The emperor has read all the great articles. What does it have to do with me? Come to Beijing quickly to thank me. I How can Lao Feng help you with this?"
Although Wang Shizhen did not enter the officialdom, his appointment as principal meant that the Wang family, which had fallen into despair, was pulled up from the abyss by the emperor. From then on, Mr. Fengzhou became an extremely staunch imperialist-his descendants continued to do so for generations.
Seeing Xu Guangqi at this moment, he wiped the sweat on his face and said: "Sir, please don't go to the next class and hurry up and enter the palace."
Xu Guangqi asked strangely: "Why? What happened? But Your Highness..."
Wang Shizhen smiled and said: "If you don't do His Highness's business, the Emperor wants to summon you."
When Xu Guangqi was confused, the eunuch behind Wang Shizhen stepped out and said in a sharp voice: "Captain, I heard that the title book of Governor Luo Wanhua has arrived. It said that it is estimated that in the spring of next year, there will be an incursion of Western barbarians. Pay tribute to the emperor. The emperor asked you to enter the Wenhua Palace to learn Latin and Portuguese. Then, as a representative of the royal family, you will be in charge of host and guest affairs. Well, I sent this slave to summon you and give you a few words - come with us quickly. "
Because Princess Leping was favored in the palace, she did not dare to neglect her fiancé, the eunuch. The internal officer explained clearly the information he had in a few sentences, giving Xu Guangqi some reassurance.
Xu Guangqi first agreed and said, "Who will take my class?" After saying that, he took out the lecture notes from his bag.
After he finished handing over to the substitute lecturer, he asked straightly: "Learning a language is fine, but why do you want to go to the Wenhua Hall? Shouldn't you go to the Seiyi Hall to learn?"
The officer looked at him as if he saw a fool. Principal Wang and the people around him also looked at Xu Guangqi as if he were a fool. Wang Shizhen broke the embarrassment and laughed loudly: "You idiot, yesterday you were at the school gate waiting for the special messenger to deliver a letter to you. Now that you are allowed to enter the study, will the letter still take that long to go?"
He cursed in his heart: "Mom, that's the Wenhua Hall, where the Crown Prince studies! You, a prince-in-law, occupy the latrine and don't shit, why do you still have so much!"
