The waterwheel and paper were finally made, but the increasingly cold weather forced Hua Xi to give up the idea of continuing to make paper, and could only hope to make plans after next spring.
However, the work of logging has not stopped. Every day, hundreds of tribesmen are still cutting down trees in the woods outside the city. During this season, they either keep warm or make fires. However, more tribesmen are motivated by selling money.
Came to chop
In order to vigorously promote the development of currency circulation and daily trade, Hua Xi also increased the distribution of currency. He announced this new measure outside the Senate and in front of a house in the Senate.
The tribe needs a large amount of wood. Now it is purchased in large quantities at the price of 1 yuan for 100 kilograms.
Ordinarily, the price of 1 Chinese yuan for 100 kilograms of wood is very low no matter how you look at it. In normal times, there may be very few people doing this, but now it is the cold winter season, except for a few workshops and markets.
If you have work to do, you can sell your physical strength in exchange for Chinese coins. Most other workshops have closed and stopped working.
I can't be hungry anymore. The hard work over the past year has already earned me enough food to last me through this winter. But if I stay at home to avoid the cold every day, it would be better to go out and cut some wood, bring it back, and drag it to the Elder's House to sell it for some money.
Originally, primitive people had no concept of money and savings. Most of them went hunting when they were hungry and stayed there when they had enough to reduce calorie consumption. However, since Hua Xi implemented the monetary policy, after a year of use and contact, the tribesmen
Today’s understanding of currency is no longer as superficial as it used to be.
Therefore, throughout the cold winter, Chinatown showed an amazing vitality that other tribes did not have. The entire town and outside the city were full of shouting people, and the bustling labor atmosphere was compared to Chinatown, Iron Wall and Sunset Fort.
How deserted it is. The mountains are covered with snow and the water is frozen. This is one of the reasons why Iron Wall and Sunset Fort are deserted. However, the most important thing is that after all, the second city is only a branch city at present, and there are not as many tribesmen living in the two cities combined.
The population is less than 2,000. As the main city, Chinatown has a population four to five times that of the two combined. It is very popular.
Counting with fingers, it seems that there are only forty or fifty days until spring. Although it is not far away, the weather is colder than before. Several tribesmen who were logging in the wild have frozen to death in the forest and collapsed.
Unable to sleep on the thin snow. In order to prevent this kind of thing from happening again, Hua Xi ordered all clan members to stay indoors through this cold winter.
Two months later, although the weather is still very cold, the branches on the big tree not far away that used to be a bit heavy with snow have now stood up straight with their heads raised, and the buds have already broken through.
The little snow still hanging on the branches reveals a tender green smile to people. The vast white land and woods are now mottled with a lot of green, dotting this beautiful land.
Spring is here, and the birds are calling all kinds of workshops and things inside and outside the city that have been dusty for a long time. It seems as if they have been sprinkled by the magic of the goddess of spring overnight, and they are renewed and full of vitality.
People who had been waiting for four or five months were already impatient to wait, because their rice jars and food were almost exhausted, and the Chinese coins they could pay for had long been spent. Therefore, when Hua Xi met with the elders in the Senate
After discussing with the generals and priests, a priest stood under the big stone monument in the square and solemnly announced to the people gathered in the square: Spring has begun!
As soon as the signal of spring came out from the mouth of the priest, almost all the tribesmen, whether they were distinguished people, commoners, or slaves, couldn't wait to run towards the workshops, farmland, forests, and battlefields that they had not been to for a long time.
Everyone's face was filled with happy and excited smiles and excited looks
They all have a belief in their hearts that after working hard for a year last year, hunger and cold are far away from them. If they work hard today, their own houses and daily necessities and other private property will no longer be far away. Everyone's vision for this year is
There are differences, slaves, civilians, rich people, everyone has their own calculations, everyone has their own goals to strive for
This is exactly what Hua Xi hopes to see. Hua Xi sees something called ‘hope’ in them.
In order to commemorate the beginning of spring, Hua Xi also used a few days in the new year, one month before and after the beginning of spring, to locate the Spring Festival and record the origin and meaning of the Spring Festival into the Chinese Code.
Spring Festival, as the name suggests, is a spring festival. Spring is coming, everything is renewed, and a new round of sowing and harvesting seasons is about to begin. People have enough reasons to sing and dance to welcome this festival.
Couplets and the paper on which they are written do not have this condition now, but it does not hinder the joy of the New Year. Hua Xi allows elders, generals and priests who have some means of production in their hands and live well to have to kill pigs and sheep to celebrate.
I believe that with the improvement of the quality of life and the passage of time, this wonderful festival of the New Year will be gradually accepted by people and will continue.
It's not enough to just do it with one's own actions. Hua Xi, as the clan leader and the priest, held the unprecedented grand Spring Festival sacrificial ceremony in front of the ancestral temple in front of the ancestral temple. Every clan member present could get a small bowl of
For food, children under the age of 16 can get a dime from the priest's apprentice, which means a lot of profit and good health.
There is something to eat and something to take, and as it is a festival given by God, the people’s understanding and knowledge of the New Year festival has gained widespread support and recognition in a short period of time.
The carrier of the Chinese Code was also changed from animal skin to a thick A3 paper. The paper was replaced by two finger thick paper and the cover was wrapped with treated animal skin. Four large characters were stamped on it with bronze metal juice: Zhonghua
code
Although the birth of paper has various benefits, the use of paper is the general trend. However, if we want to use paper on a large scale, it is obviously not something that the current productivity can support. Paper is time-consuming and labor-intensive to produce, which also gives it a high price.
price
In a short period of time, except for some extremely important and urgent documents, only paper can be used. Even the patriarchs, let alone the dignitaries and commoners below, animal skins and bamboo slips are still the carriers of recorded words.
Not to mention that papermaking is one of the four major civilizations in China, it is one of the most outstanding inventions and creations in the history of human civilization. Its properties alone are beyond what can be understood in this era, which is enough for Hua Xi to keep the confidentiality and attention of papermaking.
The papermaking workshop is only two or three miles away from Chinatown, adjacent to the farmland outside the south gate. Hua Xi built a small village here, but with sufficient food storage. The village only occupies half a hectare of land (one hectare =
10,000 square meters), home to more than 30 people who specialize in papermaking
To maintain the stability and prosperity of a tribe, food and clothing are fundamental; but for the tribe to develop on this basis, knowledge must be inherited and accumulated through civilization, and all of this requires a carrier for dissemination.
The advent of paper has solved this problem very well. Although there is currently no ability to produce paper on a large scale, animal skins and bamboo slips can still be fully utilized.
Throughout the cold winter of the twelfth lunar month, Hua Xi asked people under the elders to conduct a survey on the popularity of writing in the tribe. The survey showed that the literacy rate in the tribe was less than 20%, and most of the tribesmen who knew writing were those who had some knowledge of production.
Most of the tribesmen and their children in the data are in an awkward stage of being illiterate.
There is a normal phenomenon, which is the same as the history Hua Xi saw on the Internet. Rich people always receive much better education than poor people. Poor people work hard for a mouthful of food and are unlikely to have extra energy to learn words.
, and have no money to send their children to the ancestral temple to educate the priests and children.
However, the good news is that although most people are illiterate, the words they communicate have been unified from the different languages of different tribes to the current unified Mandarin language, which has a great impact on the improvement of productivity and the stability of the political system.
At present, the strength of the tribe is much better than last year. Hua Xi decided to vigorously promote Mandarin and improve the literacy rate of the tribe starting from this year. For this great decision, the elders and generals of the Senate unanimously voted to approve Hua Xi's decision.
A small number of elders objected to the decision that commoners could also learn writing. However, the minority obeyed the majority. In the end, they could only choose to agree. No one would be stupid enough to go against the clan leader.
Hua Xi also privately recruited the chief priests and worked out a good way to offer sacrifices to the ancestral temple. Under this sacred institution, a new organization "Missionary Association" was established.
The missionary society, as its name suggests, is responsible for sowing the seeds of civilization to the general public. The personnel are called missionaries. They must visit all strata every day and are responsible for teaching Mandarin, writing and other knowledge to the tribesmen. According to the taught writings, the literacy rate and widespread of the tribesmen
level, you can obtain varying amounts of Chinese coins from the auditing priests at the end of each month
Of course, if you want to enter the missionary society and become a missionary, the first condition is to understand the written language and the law. If you are familiar with some scriptures of the priests (the tribe does not have a religion yet), the chance of being selected to pass the test will be greatly increased.
Hua Xi has always believed that human nature is greedy. As long as you have something practical to offer, there will naturally be more people working for you, and the degree of force will naturally be deeper.
As soon as the news came out, the square in front of the ancestral temple was crowded with hundreds of tribesmen who came after hearing the news, including some children of elders (both men and women are eligible to go to school, as long as they have enough money to pay the tuition). However, most of them
The tribesmen are all common people
The work of missionaries is highly profitable and not as tiring as other labors, so it is deeply loved by these primitive intellectuals.
In addition, Hua Xi also issued a decree: Anyone who can read and write 100 characters proficiently, regardless of status and gender, can receive a one-time reward of 50 Chinese coins from the ancestral temple.
Those who can read over a thousand words and interpret the meaning of the words will not only be rewarded with over a hundred Chinese coins, but can also directly enter the ancestral temple and learn different knowledge from different priests, called priest apprentices.
Under the dual measures, the whole nation has started a craze for learning Chinese characters and Mandarin. You can follow the missionaries in the fields while farmers plow the fields and read aloud the contents of the textbooks compiled by Hua Xi. Of course, only one textbook is genuine, and the carrier is
The textbooks carried by the missionaries were written on bamboo slips or animal skins.
Although it is inconvenient to carry, it does not affect the enthusiasm of the majority of the tribesmen for preaching and being taught.
In addition, Hua Xi also used some short stories composed of short stories to deepen the impression of the tribe and make it easier to understand. For those civilians and slaves who are working or resting, they can listen to it in their spare time.
They can learn a lot of weird stories and knowledge for free, so naturally there will be no resistance at all. On the contrary, they can also get incentives for literacy, so that they can learn to work hard and thank the patriarch from the bottom of his heart for teaching them.