For one thousand two hundred private schools, the minimum construction cost is one thousand taels of silver each. Here it is a full 1.2 million taels. This is just to build the private schools, and this step is the simplest.
The hardest part is the personnel.
How many literate talents were there in the entire Great Qin Empire? How could it be possible to support such a huge number of private schools?
This is something money can't buy.
Even if there are so many scholars willing to teach in private schools, a private school with two teachers is 2,400 people. The salaries of these people, the annual maintenance fees of the private schools, the pens, inks, paper and inkstones used by the children to study...
Li Chen asked Xu Changqing to roughly estimate that the husband's expenses would be at least ten taels of silver per year, and the children's expenses would cost at least three taels of silver per year.
Taking all the expenses together, the imperial court had to invest at least 10 million taels of silver every year to support compulsory education.
What was the national tax revenue of the Qin Empire last year?
Three million taels of silver, and if the grain tax is converted into silver, the entire Qin Empire's total annual income will not exceed 20 million taels of silver.
Of these 20 million taels, 70% is food, which is needed to support all expenditures of the entire country, and is stretched every year.
Coupled with the cash expenditure of 10 million taels, the Qin court will be brought down in an instant.
Therefore, judging from the current situation, this matter is impossible to accomplish.
The loopholes in the bank some time ago, just the two million taels, almost made Li Chen angry. If Zhao Xuanji hadn't used the money to settle it, the court would have gone bankrupt.
Even Li Chen can't conjure money out of thin air, nor can he let people all over the world do things for him for free without money.
The embarrassment of living without rice made Li Chen realize his own whims. He was completely fooled by those time-travel novels and TV series in his previous life. Those protagonists often dreamed of great things and could do anything they thought of. But when it came to reality, Li Chen discovered those cool stories.
How ridiculous the main character is.
The bright eyes of the girl in front of him kept looking at Li Chen, which made Li Chen even more embarrassed.
After traveling through time, this was the first time that Li Chen was so embarrassed that he didn't know how to get back to someone else's house... He had always been the only one who scared others into speechlessness.
After coughing dryly, Li Chen said honestly and sincerely: "This... may take a long time, because the imperial court does not have that much money."
The girl blinked and asked curiously: "Does it cost money to study?"
"need."
Li Chen smiled and said: "Private schools cost money, and finding a teacher also costs money. If you come to study, you must buy pens, inks, paper and inkstones. These all cost money."
The girl tilted her head and thought about it, feeling a little disappointed.
Li Chen said warmly: "But the court is already thinking of ways to solve this problem. You can give us a little more time."
The girl's eyes lit up and she said: "That's great. I also want to study, but my mother said that girls don't need to read so many books. In fact, I know that it was because the family had no money. My father and mother quarreled last time.
At that time, I also heard that my mother blamed my father for spending money lavishly, and said that he should save some money and save the money for me as a dowry, but I still want to study more than dowry."
As soon as he said this, the adults around him laughed happily.
Chapter completed!