Fei Chun has been really busy these days. He has been busy since last winter until the spring plowing season, and he didn't even have a break during the Chinese New Year.
Moreover, he didn't know when his parents would come, and he was busy with work and forgot about his parents' personalities, which would cause trouble.
On the way home, Mrs. Ling continued to chatter all the way, complaining that her son had become a high official and didn't even have a sedan chair.
Fei Chun sighed helplessly, summoned the father-in-law on the roadside, called two carriages, and asked his parents to go home on the sliding pole.
Many great Confucian scholars in ancient and modern times opposed such things as sedan chairs, believing that they treated the common people as cattle and horses.
Zhao Han, who advocated equality for all, allowed the existence of sedan chairs and sliding poles. He even created an industry that allowed unemployed vagrants to register with the government and pay a small fee to carry passengers on sliding poles to make money.
It can be understood as a rickshaw or a taxi.
It can not only generate revenue for the government, but also alleviate urban employment.
Fei Lin, the Ling couple, had lived for decades, and this was the first time they were carried away, and they immediately felt much better.
Ling said: "Chun'er, if you call for a sedan chair, how can you walk back as an official? Don't be too shabby and be looked down upon by others."
Fei Chun had no choice but to explain: "Mom, if it's not necessary, Brother Han will walk alone. Brother Han has a lot of rules. No slaves are allowed in the house, and no servants are allowed to be abused. Also, don't show off and cause trouble in the future. This
The first time I just got slapped and fined, but if I do it again, the crime will be increased! If someone comes to my house to ask for help, no matter how big the gift is, they can't accept it, otherwise I won't know when I will be beheaded."
Behead?
Mrs. Ling was suddenly too frightened to speak.
Fei Lin asked: "You and Brother Han are very good, but you still want to be beheaded for even a little money?"
Fei Chun said: "If you are greedy, you will be demoted. If you are greedy, you will go mining in the mountains. If you are greedy, you will be beheaded! Either way, it will be the same."
Fei Lin muttered: "It won't work this way, that won't work either, even raising a maid is not enough, so why are you rebelling?"
He couldn't explain it for a while, so Fei Chun could only say: "Father, mother, you just need to remember that if you accept gifts indiscriminately, your son's official position will not be guaranteed, and his head will be easily moved."
The couple was so frightened that they didn't even dare to talk nonsense anymore.
Back home, Fei Chunzi explained the rules in detail, where he must pay attention and where he must not violate them, and took out five taels of silver to buy clothes for his parents.
Ling asked: "Chun'er, what is your current salary?"
"The monthly salary is twelve taels." Fei Chun replied.
Fei Lin complained: "Brother Han is really stingy. The big boss of Fei's Trading Company has a monthly salary of ten taels, and he still gets dividends at the end of the year."
Fei Chun sighed: "The official salary is already very high, I can't wait to lower it even more."
Why?
Because Fei Chun was in charge of money and food, he was already in dire straits.
Zhao Han paid high salaries to officials. Fei Chun's monthly salary of 12 taels of silver, if converted according to the price of grain in Ji'an Prefecture, was equivalent to a fourth-rank official in the Ming Dynasty.
Of course, grain prices fluctuate. Ji'an Prefecture has had a bumper harvest in the past two years, so grain prices are relatively low.
If there is a year of great disaster, Fei Chun's salary may drop directly from the fourth rank to the sixth rank compared with officials of the Ming Dynasty.
In addition, there are charcoal fire subsidies in winter, and paper and ink subsidies for officials above the county magistrate.
No matter what, as long as there is no extravagance and waste, Fei Chun will have no problem supporting his family with his salary, and he can also hire a few servants to do housework. If there is a big day and there are many servants, he will definitely not be able to afford it.
Compared with the Ming Dynasty, not only the salaries of officials were increased, but the salaries of staff were also generally increased.
This is also the reason why Fei Chun has been complaining that he cannot afford to support so many officials and keeps asking for the reduction of town-level yamen.
To support so many officials, you have to pay for them!
When Zhu Yuanzhang started his business, and even at the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, he could not afford to pay officials. So he came up with a temporary policy. At the end of the Yuan Dynasty, wasteland was everywhere, and the land was directly given to officials to open up wasteland, and the harvested grain was used as salary.
Pang Chunlai, Fei Ruhe, Fei Chun and others all hoped to return to Qianshan County as soon as possible.
Because they know that there is an open-pit copper mine in Qianshan County!
During the reign of Emperor Huizong of the Song Dynasty, the largest coin minting center in the country was called "Yongpingjian", located in Yongping Town, Qianshan County, where copper mines had been mined since the Western Han Dynasty.
In addition, the raw materials for coining coins in Yongpingjian come from Qianshan Chang (Yongping Town) and Dexing Chang (Dexing County).
The Dexing Copper Mine, after more than a thousand years of mining, is still the largest open-pit copper mine in Asia!
Zhu Yuanzhang's earliest minting institution was Jiangxi Baoquan Bureau. The minting address was located in Yongping Town, Qianshan. Due to over-exploitation of Yongping copper mines and Dexing Copper Mine, which was too far away and located in the mountains, coins were gradually stopped minting from the mid-Ming Dynasty.
It was not exploited again until the founding of New China.
As long as Zhao Han occupies Qianshan County and Dexing County, there will definitely be no shortage of raw materials for casting copper coins.
There are even large mine salt mines in Jiangxi, but unfortunately they are buried too deep and require modern exploration technology to discover them. As a result, Jiangxi was unable to produce salt on its own in ancient times.
…
On the fifth day of her stay in Ji'an Mansion, Zhao Zhenfang happily went to find Fei Rumei with her schoolbag on her back, and the two girls went to school together in the northern suburbs of the city.
Decades ago, because Bailuzhou Academy was destroyed by floods, the school moved to Renshou Temple in the south of the city. The site of Renshou Temple was then changed to Luling County School, and Bailuzhou Academy moved to the northern suburbs of the city. When Bailuzhou Academy was rebuilt
, the schools in the northern suburbs of the city were converted into private schools, and now they are converted into girls' schools.
Zhao Han popularized four-year compulsory education and required girls to go to school, which made the gentry quite dissatisfied.
Although they are just children, men and women cannot be intimate with each other.
Moreover, compulsory education is too nonsense, the teaching content is very superficial, and the quality of teachers is also uneven. Especially in many rural schools, the teachers are actually children, and they cannot pass the Four Books and Five Classics. They can only teach students to read and learn arithmetic.
So some gentry requested that they raise their own funds to establish a girls' school without the government paying a penny.
Zhao Han naturally agreed to such a good thing, with only one request: to delete some of the content in the "Four Books on Women"!
For example, the first chapter of "The Female Commandment" was changed beyond recognition by Zhao Han.
The "Humble Chapter" was changed to the "Kunde Chapter", and the bastard sentence "Knowing her humbleness, she can take charge of her subordinates" was changed to "The virtues of a wife and the proper management of the house". Putting a daughter under the bed to teach her, giving birth to a daughter
Put your son on the bed and teach him. Delete all such things about respect and inferiority! Delete all the decorations and tiles as well!
Zhao Han directly wrote a preface to "Female Commandments" and wrote:
"The prosperity of a country lies in its people, and the prosperity of a family lies in its people. If you want to establish a country, you must first establish the people. If you want to establish the people, you must establish education. As a mother, you must observe the beginning of education..."
The gentry had no choice but to let their daughters read the new version of "The Commandments of Women" at school, and then study the old version of "The Commandments of Women" when they returned home.
Yingchun and Dongfu have regained their freedom, but they still work as maids for the Lou family.
They took the two little girls to register at a girls' school in the north of the city.
Along the way, Zhao Zhenfang and Fei Rumei were chattering. Everything they saw felt new and strange, mainly because they were full of fantasies about going to school.
Yingchun said to Dongfu in a low voice: "We are getting married on March 3rd, are you going?"
"I'm not going, I'm so embarrassed." Dong Fu said with a blush.
Yingchun smiled and said, "I'm going to check it out. I'm already twenty-three, one year older than you. If I don't get married, I won't be able to get married."
Dongfu joked: "You just want a man."
"If you want a man, you want a man," Yingchun said with a smile on her face. "Even if you stay in Qianshan, you should marry your husband's family. When you come to Brother Han's place, you don't have to be a domestic slave. You can marry an officer and maybe have a son."
Being able to be an official is a good thing that I never dreamed of before."
Dongfu was very moved, but he said stubbornly: "I will not marry, but my wife will treat me well and I will serve her all my life."
After walking all the way, Dong Fu suddenly asked: "What is a marriage partner?"
"Haven't you heard?" Yingchun explained, "Every year on March 3rd, soldiers have a holiday, and for those who are not married, the missionary officer organizes a matchmaking party. All unmarried women can sign up to participate, even widows can
"Let the daughter's family choose the one they like first. If the man is also willing, we can go on a group outing in the countryside. If you don't regret it when you come back from the outing, the marriage will be considered a success."
Dongfu blushed and said, "Oh, that's really embarrassing. Unmarried men and women go on an outing. Isn't that disrespectful to men and women?"
Yingchun smiled and said, "It's not like I'm letting you have a private tryst. There were a lot of people outing together that day."
"Who did you hear about this?" Dong Fu asked curiously.
Yingchun said: "Like what the maid named Yang Cai said in Master He's courtyard. She said that she was too embarrassed to sign up last year, so another maid signed up and married a young officer. The officer had only a few years of education.
Well, I quit my job after I got married, my husband’s family paid a sum of money for the breach of contract, and I heard that I’m about to have a baby now.”
"Then the soldier must be a high-ranking official, and he can afford to pay for the breach of contract," Dong Fu said.
Yingchun said with a smile: "If you have done great service, you will be rewarded with money."
"It's good luck." Dong Fu was a little envious.
"Are you going?" Yingchun asked.
Dong Fu bit his lip and said, "It's okay to go and have a look, but I won't quit my job. You can ask your wife to change the contract and come here to work early every day, and then go home to live your own life in the evening."
Yingchun joked: "You said you don't want to go, you've even thought about your days after marriage."
Dong Fu was too embarrassed to speak, so he just walked forward with his head down.
In Zhao Han's territory, there is no need to worry about public security, and thugs and beggars are prohibited. These are labor forces, and they cannot be left idle and wasted. The three weapons depots can absorb a lot of them. Many menial jobs have no technical content.
Before arriving at school, Zhao Zhenfang met a female classmate on the way. She didn't know which family she belonged to, and she was escorted by two servants, a male and a female.
There was a plaque at the door of the girls' school. Zhao Zhenfang looked up and saw the four characters "Sao Mei Academy".
"What does eyebrow sweeping mean?" Fei Rumei was a little confused.
Zhao Zhenfang said with a smile: "Have you forgotten? Girls study at the Wanli Bridge, and live behind closed doors in the loquat flowers. A talented person who sweeps his eyebrows knows a lot, but he is not as good as managing the spring breeze. We have learned this poem, and a talented person who sweeps his eyebrows is a talented woman."
Fei Rumei immediately recalled it and exclaimed: "Oh, this allusion comes from Xue Tao. Xue Tao is a happy girl."
"My second brother has abolished his music status." Zhao Zhenfang pointed to the plaque and said.
Fei Rumei took a closer look and found out that the words "Sweep Mei Academy" were inscribed by Zhao Han himself.
Regardless of whether they were male or female servants, they were blocked at the school gate. Yingchun and Dongfu came to register their children and were specially allowed to enter.
It's quiet and quiet inside, and occasionally female students can be seen.
Even the teacher is a woman from a wealthy family, and there is not a single male in the school.
"Gegegege..."
A string of laughter sounded like silver bells. Zhao Zhenfang walked through the corridor and saw several female students playing shuttlecock.
Fei Rumei said happily: "I like it here, there are many playmates to play with."
Zhao Zhenfang said with a smile: "It's very lively. It's much more interesting than staying at home."
Zhao Han now does not shout slogans about equality between men and women, but only tries to do something to help women come out of the boudoir.