Chapter 10: Dazzling (Part 2) (This chapter is free)

Recently, Cheng Tong's majesty has grown with the development of Cheng Jiaao. With his scolding, no one in the yard dared to refute. The girls immediately stopped "work" and ran away like a frightened rat.

Cheng Tong did not come alone, and he followed the four people with the longest generation in Cheng Jia'ao: Cheng Laoer, Cheng Laowu, Cheng Laojiu, and Cheng Shiyi. The timid Cheng Laoqi stood at the entrance of the courtyard and wanted to enter. Finally, he simply squatted at the entrance of the courtyard and looked at Cheng Azhu in the room from the open door.

Hearing Cheng Tong's shout, Cheng Azhu also stood up and neatly packed up the tea set in the lacquer box to leave. But when she saw Cheng Laoqi at the door, she stopped moving and turned her gaze to Cheng Tong.

Cheng Tong walked into the house with a calm face, ignoring Cheng Azhu's existence, and sat down with Zhao Xing. The other old men walked to the door of the house, hesitated for a moment, and simply followed Cheng Laoqi, squatted outside the house and looked into the house.

Under Cheng Tong's assumption, Cheng Azhu immediately realized that she had the right to stay. She quickly poured a few cups of tea and handed it to several elders in the clan one by one.

Cheng Tong didn't know how to explain Cheng Azhu's appearance. He looked left and right and saw the book Zhao Xing threw aside, which was full of pictures. Many of the pictures looked like farm tools, such as plowshares.

"What book did the Master read? How could he draw agricultural tools in this book?"

"This is the "Qimin Yaoshu" from the Southern and Northern Dynasties. This time I went to the county town, but I didn't expect that there were such books in the small county town... good books, I was just scribing sentences to the book."

There are no punctuation marks and no segmentation in ancient Chinese. So knowing which sentence is from where to break sentences is knowledgeable. Zhao Xing himself is not proficient in this technique, so he simply hides his weaknesses and only teaches students popular science. As for mathematical knowledge (called numerology at the time), it is his best. Without books, he can start from basic teaching. Now, his students dare to be the leader in the calculation level in Huangzhou, and this is exactly what he is most proud of.

However, in ancient times, it was okay to not understand mathematics, but how could he not understand the "Six Classics". So Zhao Xing began to study the meaning of the classics of this era, starting with "Qimin Yaoshu". However, because he was not proficient in the snippets, he was dizzy when he read it. When Cheng Tong came, he simply threw the book aside.

After chatting for a few words about "Qimin Yaoshu", Cheng Tong still didn't expect to explain, so he turned the topic to this year's farming plan: "The Master means, but don't start work at the beginning of spring this year. When the children respond to the test, Cheng Jiaao will apply for naturalization from the prefectures and counties?"

Zhao Xing didn't understand why the other party was jumping in thinking so. Before he could answer, he had handed a teacup with his hands. With the help of this buffer, he silently took the teacup and lowered his head to drink tea.

Zhao Xing usually talks little, but when he bows his head, Cheng Tong regards it as an echo. He then thinks of the boatman brought back by the other party, and says in an understanding tone: "The Master brought back a few boatmen... Yes, if a few scholars come out of my small village in Chengjiaao, I will let them cross mountains and ridges to the county to learn, which is too unreasonable.

With a boat, it is convenient. You can travel back and forth from the river for a day and night... I agreed with those boatmen, and the monthly salary is 500 million yuan. The village will build a house by the river. If they are willing to move in at home, the village will allow them to become naturalized. Master, what is so good?"

Cheng Tong tried his best to learn to speak in a literary way. Zhao Xing's thinking pattern automatically translated his words mixed with this large amount of Song Dynasty slang into modern language. He nodded and reminded: "Blacksmith, I still need a blacksmith."

In the Song Dynasty, carpenters' craftsmanship was not a high-tech job. The wood carving technology of this era had reached the pinnacle of Chinese civilization. The wooden ware, doors, windows, beams and columns left over from modern times, were all decorated with patterns and exquisite carvings. In this era, it was easy to find a few carpenters with superb skills - as long as you give someone a saw, most Song people could be competent for carpentry work.

However, blacksmiths are hard to find.

In the Song Dynasty, due to constant wars around the country and the court had a strong demand for military supplies, local governments spared no effort to plunder blacksmiths. The skilled blacksmiths were all incorporated into craftsmen by the government and were responsible for military production.

Since Chengjiaao developed to the present, the lack of blacksmith technology has become a restrictive bottleneck. With blacksmiths and strong transportation capabilities, Chengjiaao has completely become an economic consortium that is self-sufficiency internally and exports a large number of products from the outside.

"It's... it's not easy to find a good blacksmith," Cheng Tong was worried: "I wondered, there are no good blacksmiths in Sigou and Eight Townships. No matter how far away they are, are they willing to come to our Chengjiaao?... The gentleman asked for inquiries. My Cheng clan was willing to offer a monthly salary of two cents."

In fact, the "monthly salary of 500 ounces" that Cheng Tong gave to the boatman is already a high salary of this era. In Huangzhou City, an adult pig is only sold for 100 ounces. The adult pig weighs about 200 to 300 pounds. Such an adult pig can be sold for at least 1,000 yuan in modern society.

In other words, based on the meat price of "Zhu Bajie", a penny in the Song Dynasty was at least equivalent to ten yuan in modern times, and a "monthly salary of five hundred yuan" was equivalent to a "monthly salary of five thousand yuan" in modern times.

In Chengjiaao, far away from the county town, such salary is an absolutely high salary. In the Song Dynasty, an ordinary county magistrate who was from the eighth rank was only 15 guan, while the prime minister's salary was 300 guan. Such monthly salary offered to blacksmiths was more than the monthly salary of the county public security bureau director (called county magistrate in the Song Dynasty).

But in the Song Dynasty, when hiring "high-tech talents" at this price, I still couldn't find a suitable one.

Zhao Xing shook his head gently. He took out a book from "Qimin Yaoshu" and introduced: "Actually, you don't need to find too clever blacksmiths... There are blacksmith skills in this book. Let him come and I will teach you."

Several elders outside the door lit up their eyes. Cheng Lao Er immediately interrupted and recommended his own boy. The rest of the people were unwilling to fall behind and also yelled, and there was a quarrel at the door of the cottage.
Chapter completed!