"Therefore, small and big things... practice them side by side, work conscientiously, and dare not be complacent. You will be the first in the world, but the customs have not become thicker." [Introduction to the Imperial Examination for Jinshi]
The ground under your feet was unbearably hot, as if you were stepping on the coals of a furnace.
The boy was wearing a vertical brown shorts, and his trousers were rolled up high, revealing a section of his calves that had been tanned by the sun. Compared with several dark-skinned, rough-skinned boys in the distance, the boy's handsome appearance was as sharp as the nape of his neck.
The white skin that is sometimes exposed fully demonstrates his uniqueness.
He whipped a short whip like an ordinary farmer, driving an ox to pull an improved curved shaft plow, turning up the deep and fertile soil in the field. Behind him, he was dragging a deep trail like a tail.
Ditch.
The young man is You Chu, a student of Taixue's Business Department. The field outside the city has been allocated as a school field for Taixue. There are about 400 other people who dress and act like him, all of whom have studied in Taixue's Business Department for the past two years.
Recruited students.
As the scale of Taixue gradually expanded, in order to meet the growing expenses, the emperor specially formulated the academic field system. According to certain needs, a certain area of land was allocated to Taixue and handed over to Taixue for management and operation. All harvests from the land were
It will be used to pay the salaries of Taixue teachers and subsidize students’ expenses.
Most of these fields come from small farmers on the outskirts of Chang'an. Since there is no need to pay land rent for this school land, the farmers who are responsible for taking care of this land do not need to perform any labor. Every year, after supplying the needs of Taixue, the remaining land is distributed among everyone.
Not only that, the school-age children of farmers’ families can also be qualified to enter elementary school and have the opportunity to become officials in the future.
Being accepted as academic fields provided various preferential treatment for their own fields. Even though the imperial court offered the lowest price, these farmers voluntarily and enthusiastically dedicated their fields to the Imperial Academy.
Of course, after acquiring these fields, it does not mean that Taixue has now become a landowner waiting to collect grain. According to the emperor's request, Taixue must send all students to participate in the work every spring and autumn harvest to show that it does not forget farming and mulberry trees.
.
This kind of thing, in the eyes of people at that time, was naturally very damaging to the demeanor of scholars.
"Zhong Yun, just push it a few times and you're done. It's just a few fiddles. There is no need to do it so thoroughly." Yan Bao, a classmate who studied business with You Chu and lived in the same room, was standing on the ridge beside the field and said to him.
You Chu shouted.
You Chu looked back and saw that at the junction of several fields, where the fields and ridges met, there was a tall mulberry tree used by farmers to provide shade and shelter from the cold. Under the mulberry tree stood a middle-aged man with a hand holding a
A wooden board, holding a pen in one hand, with his back to You Chu and the others, looking at other fields, lowering his head from time to time to write and draw on the wooden board.
"Have you finished your work? If you just did a few things casually, be careful that the academic record will record you and give you a 'bad' rating." You Chu kept moving his hands and seemed to be driving with great pleasure.
Although Niu has never done farm work many times in his life, he did not have any resistance or unfamiliarity. He quickly got started and worked quickly and well, as if he was born to do this.
You Chu discovered this specialty of his very early on. He seemed to be interested in everything except reading, and as long as he was given time to get familiar with it, he could do it as well as an experienced player. It’s just that he is a descendant of Feng Yi’s You family.
, with high expectations, it was impossible not to be exposed to this matter in the past.
Fortunately, he left home on the pretext of studying at Imperial College, and then he was like a dragon returning to the sea, or an eagle flying across the sky, completely liberating his long-suppressed nature. Not only did he choose the least popular subjects according to his own preferences, but he also
He was also particularly enthusiastic about the farming tasks assigned by Taixue.
Yan Bao and You Chu both came from Feng Yi's powerful family and entered school at the same time. However, he initially chose Ming Jing. Later, due to too many people choosing Ming Jing, the distribution of students in each subject was uneven, so Taixue Pushe
Pan Xucai redistributed the redundant students to the subjects with vacancies for adjustment. This is how Yan Bao entered the business department. He liked Confucian classics since he was a child and was good at composition. He came to Taixue originally to worship the great Confucian as his teacher, but he did not
It occurred to me that I spent the whole day studying unorthodox knowledge such as ditching and farming hours in the business department.
He had long been suffocating in his heart. After listening to You Chu's words, he jumped down from the field ridge and walked to You Chu's side in a few steps. He said angrily: "Don't scare me with this. Quan Taixue Liang
There are more than a thousand people, but our business department works hard all day long, building ditches, building dams, and cultivating the fields. How can it not be done by people from our business department? I came to Taixue to study the teachings of sages, no?
Come to work as farmers.”
You Chu glanced sideways at him, temporarily stopped the cow, and said to Yan Bao: "Wentong, you are exaggerating. The content of the business department is to teach farming and build ditches. The country has also said that 'paper
I know that I have to do it personally. Isn’t it better to experience how to dig a ditch and how to choose a site in person than to sit in the school and recite the textbooks? What’s more, I was not asked to dig a trench in the first place. I just watched from the side.
It’s just learning, knowing how to calculate earthwork and other things, it’s not as serious as you say.”
"What about this school field?" Yan Bao pointed to this large field of a thousand acres and said: "We have to do the spring plowing and autumn harvest. What does this mean?"
His doubts were the unanimous voice of many Tai students. Everyone was dissatisfied, but no one could refute it. After all, the scholars at this time were not the vain and flashy scholars of the Wei and Jin Dynasties. They still had a more or less down-to-earth attitude.
There were many sages who became famous for their simple style of cultivating their own acres and living in seclusion in the fields. Therefore, even though the emperor tried to force everyone to do so, they could not say anything and could only occasionally complain in their hearts.
"This is just a formality. You are not asked to be in the fields every day. You only come twice a year. The rest of the time, farmers will take care of it." You Chu looked at Yan Bao helplessly and said, "The country specially cultivates the fields.
, even thousands of acres of private land were allocated to Taixue, thinking that the output of the academic fields was to supply Taixue and poor scholars. We came here to plow the autumn harvest in order to show that we do not forget the cultivation of mulberry trees and attach importance to reclamation.
Otherwise, when you are appointed as an official in the future, you don’t even know when spring plowing and autumn harvest will happen, so how can you herd and protect the people?"
Yan Bao said with dissatisfaction: "Even if you say that, I don't think it is a good thing. Of course, a student from the Imperial College will do what a student from the Imperial College should do. Even if this school is beneficial to Han scholars and the head of Guizhou, it should not be allowed to do so."
Wouldn’t it be better for us students to do it and just leave it to the common people to take care of it? We are also asked to go to the fields and cultivate it ourselves. This kind of thing is no better than calculating earthwork and measuring length and length. You can learn it once..."
You Chu knew that the other party was proud of his status and did not want to do what ordinary people did, so he complained repeatedly. In fact, there were only a handful of students in the entire business department with strong backgrounds like him and Yan Bao, because they were in
When transferring, more people would rather study Mingfa or Transcript, so they managed the relationship through the power of the family, and all of them were transferred to Mingfa and other relatively better subjects.
The remaining ones who were transferred to the business department were almost all students from poor families. Therefore, compared with the children from rich families, they did not have the slightest resistance to farming, but actually enjoyed it. Because they knew that it was
Part of the output of the academy was used by the imperial court to support their education.