Song Gexing

Chapter 49
"Those who have been favored will be assessed and selected to serve as officials. Those who fail will be given corresponding false posts, and the redundant officials will be diverted. The imperial court will set up educational official schools and let these people go to teach in various places. How do you think?"

Zhao Fang thought about it again and again, and finally made a suggestion. This suggestion was based on the historical Qingli New Deal and the reform of the Enyin system by Fan Zhongyan and others.

Lao Fan was more ruthless than him, and those who failed the assessment were simply dismissed. However, this caused a large number of officials to oppose, and this was the main reason for the failure of the New Deal.

Reforming finances and taxation will indeed touch interest groups, but they will not hurt the bones. Officials in the Song Dynasty had extremely high salaries, and people of insight could bear the pain and sacrifice their own interests for the country and the people.

But the grace system touches everyone's descendants, so people who didn't originally oppose it all stood up and opposed it.

No one can guarantee that their descendants will be able to study and be admitted to the imperial examinations and become officials. Therefore, it is human nature to leave benefits to their descendants after dedicating their lives.

But Lao Fan's reforms directly cut off the future of their children and grandchildren, and it would be a shame if they didn't object.

Originally, people would not ask for extravagant things if they didn’t have them, but you took them away when you obviously had them. This is unacceptable to human nature.

"I support the King of Wei in establishing an official school. I wonder if there are any regulations?"

Yan Shu immediately added, not talking about how to deal with Enyin, but that he was very interested in education.

Zhao Fang looked at it and smiled secretly: "Old man, I stole your historical achievements, young master, so don't blame me!"

Immediately he solemnly introduced the establishment of official schools, with counties as the unit, and the government in each county called on the rich and wealthy people in the county to donate money and food to build school buildings.

The imperial court appointed academic officials, and set up academic divisions in each road to manage the state and county academic administration and professors. The imperial court gave a certain amount of land according to the size and population of each county, and used it as an educational field to serve as education funds.

This is very important. In fact, during the Han Dynasty in China, the government began to implement the official school system. However, without long-term guaranteed education funds, the official school could still be run during the heyday.

However, once the imperial court was in financial difficulty, it would be unable to support education funds, and the official schools would be in name only.

The school land system was proposed by Yan Shu in history. Each county gave a certain amount of official land to schools, and the schools hired farmers to farm, and the rent collected was used as education funds.

It effectively prevented the country's financial instability and the turmoil caused to education. This was a pioneering work in the Chinese education sector. Yan Shu made a great contribution, but now it has been stolen by Zhao Fang.

"King Wei is saying that education should be popularized in rural areas? This..."

After talking about prefectures and counties, Zhao Fang continued to talk about rural education. Yan Shu hesitated. After all, there were many rich people in the county. In addition to school fields, rich people could donate money.

But if schools were to be built in rural areas, they could only be financed by the imperial court. Besides, there were not so many fields. After all, there were a lot of official fields, and most of the fields were in the hands of landlords.

Of course Zhao Fang knew about this problem and said sternly: "It's different. The prefecture and county official schools educate the students who took the imperial examination. As for rural education, it only requires enlightenment. The purpose is to make more people literate as much as possible, so that when the imperial decree is issued, the people will be educated." People are deceived and cannot understand the notices on the list.”

When Yan Shu heard this, it was nothing. Fan Zhongyan and others had heard him say that the imperial power would not go to the countryside. When they heard this, they didn't understand that their prince was planning something.

With a hiss, Han Qi was the first to support: "The King of Wei did this a great good deed. The study of Itching Preface has been around since ancient times. If the Later Han Dynasty could do it, there is no reason why the Song Dynasty couldn't do it."

Yes, the establishment of rural schools was not an original creation of Zhao Fang. In fact, it existed in the Eastern Han Dynasty. The Han Dynasty had a system of counties and counties. County schools were called schools, and county schools were called schools. This is the origin of schools.

The name "Itch" in the countryside and "Xu" in the village also came from the names of schools in the Eastern Han Dynasty. However, after the fall of the Eastern Han Dynasty, subsequent dynasties never had such great courage to establish schools across the country.

Ban Gu's "Ode to Two Capitals" wrote, "There are many schools, and there are many schools in the city." This is exactly the prosperity of education in the Eastern Han Dynasty.When future generations read the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, wouldn't they find it strange that Zhang Fei, the pig butcher, was educated, and Guan Yu, the fugitive, read Spring and Autumn Annals? In fact, it was precisely because they both had read books, or at least were enlightened to read.

"If it's just enlightenment, it's feasible. People live together in the countryside. The court only needs to provide the salary of an enlightenment teacher, and they can provide the rest themselves, which is nothing more than a school building and pen, ink, paper and inkstone."

Fan Zhongyan then agreed, and Wang Yaochen, the God of Wealth, thought for a moment and said, "That's right. King Wei popularized movable type printing. Books are no longer a problem. They can be printed in large quantities. Children don't need good study materials for their studies. They can Just write.”

Everyone became excited when he said this, and they all made plans and supplemented the details, and the matter was quickly settled.

Of course, Zhao Fang's dream of printing enlightenment books to make money was shattered. Yan Shu directly waved his hand and announced that the Ministry of Industry would be responsible for printing books and providing them to rural schools for free.

And this old man is not a good person either. He said with a smile about this grand event, how could he not call on the rich to donate money? This is to give them the opportunity to be famous forever.

He didn't know how many people he could get to donate money, but Zhao Fang knew that there must be people, and there were quite a few.

In the Song Dynasty, Chongwen was not only the court, but also the folk custom. When it came to educating future generations, many people were willing to contribute money and efforts.

"King Wei has solved two of the three redundant problems. Although it is not completely solved, it can indeed be alleviated a lot. Now the last one is left. How about King Wei talk about it?"

Yan Shu said as if he was asking for advice humbly. Seeing him like that, Zhao Fang knew that the old man was weak, so he thought of emptying himself to make it easier for him.

"Let's waste this matter..."

Zhao Fang pondered for a moment and looked at the crowd, saluted solemnly, and then said, "Please agree with me to abolish the ministerial money system!"

"what?"

"No!"

"Bullshit!"

There were several sounds in a row, ranging from surprise to anger, and some people even shouted out. They all stared at Zhao Fang like fighting cocks, but Wang Yaochen remained silent.

When everyone stopped, Ouyang Xiu asked: "Does your Majesty know what the minister's money means to the scholar-bureaucrats?"

Zhao Fang curled his lips and said: "The little king knows that everyone thinks that the court gives money to the envoys because it treats the scholar-bureaucrats well and has the tradition of nourishing scholars in the Spring and Autumn Period."

"Then King Wei still wants to abolish it?"

"Why not?"

Zhao Fang asked loudly and retorted: "Isn't the Song Dynasty treating scholar-bureaucrats well enough? Who can compare to our Song Dynasty in the prosperous Tang Dynasty?"

After asking two questions in a row, everyone was speechless and their eyes flickered, not daring to look at him.

Zhao Fang looked at them and did not stop, and continued: "For ninth-grade and eighteenth-grade officials, the annual salary of a minister is equivalent to 600 taels of silver. The youngest one, a ninth-grade official, has an annual salary of 100 taels. For a commoner with a family of five, 20 taels of silver a year is enough to live on. This does not include the annual gifts given to you by the imperial court and the subsidies for various duties. Ask yourself, without ministerial money, did the Song Dynasty treat the scholar-bureaucrats badly?"

(End of this chapter)