Chapter 547: The Virgin Heart and the World of Tigers and Wolves (Third update, please subscribe)

There is absolutely nothing wrong with hiring overseas workers to make up for the shortage of human resources.

Compared with the Europeans who only cared about hiring and not caring about life and death, the Ming Dynasty was undoubtedly the "light of humanity" in this world.

Even Chen Wenqiang, the assistant minister of the Ministry of Immigration, did not know that in the following 30 years, African companies hired tens of millions of indentured laborers. Of course, not all of these indentured laborers were sent to the North Sea or Alaska to open mines. Most of them were used to open plantations, build railways, and complete other related work in Africa. After the work was completed, these indentured laborers were sent back home to reunite with their families with the rewards of ten years of indentured labor.

Of course, these are all stories that happened later, but in the following decades, the hard work of these laborers made a very great contribution to the overall rise of the Ming Dynasty, and of course, they also received corresponding rewards.

However, not many people would accept this at the beginning. After all, among the high-ranking officials of the Ming Dynasty, a considerable number of them were contract laborers. Among the ministers of various ministries, there were two who were contract laborers.

Wang Xinjie, the Left Vice Minister of the Ministry of Culture, was also a former indentured laborer. Although he was a scholar, he was the first elementary school principal of Nanhua. Now the Ministry of Culture is also in charge of primary and secondary education. When he learned that the court was going to use "indentured labor" in the mines in the North Sea and Alaska, he immediately asked to see His Majesty to express his attitude.

"Your Majesty, don't do to others what you don't want others to do to you! Since we are against Westerners hiring Chinese workers, how can we..."

Before Wang Xinjie could finish, Zhu Xianhai spoke.

"Oh, mining is not only hard work, but it can also kill people. Every Chinese is extremely precious to the Ming Dynasty!"

What about non-Chinese people?

As the emperor of the Ming Dynasty, why should I be responsible for other people?

They are not the people of the Ming Dynasty. I am not the United States, nor the world police. Why should I make myself miserable?

Even the United States selectively sees or ignores it based on its own interests.

For the United States, if a country does not conform to its interests, it will definitely see all kinds of things that country does. All it needs to do is to find various reasons to interfere in the internal affairs of that country.

If it is in his interest, all injustice, racial discrimination, etc. can be ignored.

We in the Ming Dynasty don't need to find reasons to beat others like they do. Of course, there are not so many so-called responsibilities for those foreigners.

In fact, that is how it is.

Of course a country has to take care of its own people, as for foreigners.

What does it have to do with me?

"this……"

Wang Jie was stunned and said weakly,

“Your Majesty, this is an act that hurts the people. Although they are not from our Great Ming, Your Majesty is a sage king of the time. Naturally, you will not allow me to use the name of contract laborers to practice slavery…”

Look at what you said. Indentured laborers are paid, but slaves, do they get paid? Not only do they get paid, but they also get food and accommodation.

But Wang Xinjie didn't think so. Not to mention a ten-year construction period, even if it was an eight-year construction period, how many people could survive? How long did they stay in the gold mine back then, and how many people survived in the end?

God can testify that after the ten-year construction period is over, if one or two percent of the people can return home alive, it will be a blessing from God!

From a scholar to a Taiping soldier, from a prisoner to a contract laborer, and from a contract laborer to an assistant minister of the Ministry of Culture, Wang Xinjie has always been conscientious. Faced with something that goes against his conscience, of course he has to stand up and oppose it.

He even wanted to learn from those Ming Dynasty ministers in history books who were not afraid of being caned in court and speak out for justice. However, he was obviously wrong. Zhu Xianhai, the Ming Emperor, was neither Wanli nor Jiajing, and Wang Xinjie was not a loyal minister of the Ming Dynasty. Emperor Zhu only showed a little dissatisfaction, and Wang Xinjie immediately wilted. There was no need for him to be caned in court.

"Slaves! According to what you said, it is I, the emperor, who has taken the lead in using slaves!"

Emperor Zhu immediately said angrily.

"After all this time, the root of the problem lies with me! Is that what you mean?"

His Majesty's anger almost made Wang Xinjie fall to the ground and apologize.

"Your humble servant, your humble servant deserves death, your humble servant deserves death... Your Majesty, I believe that the way we use contract laborers in the Ming Dynasty must be different from that of Westerners. I, I will come now!"

Wang Xinjie left in disgrace.

Looking at his back, Zhu Xianhai felt a little helpless.

You said that you are a good minister of education, isn't it enough for you to just take care of your education?

It's really annoying that you have to ask about things beyond your job responsibilities.

Besides, it's foreigners' business, so you shouldn't worry about it, right?

At the same time, he knew very well that it was time for this Minister of Culture to move to another position. What kind of world is this?

What a world of tigers and wolves!

Without a heart of a tiger or a wolf, how can you survive in this world where the strong prey on the weak?

In this world where the strong prey on the weak, the rules of survival are very simple: either be a tiger or a fish.

If a country doesn't even have this little bit of ruthlessness, it definitely doesn't deserve to survive in this world!

However, Wang Xinjie is very serious about his work. He is the kind of person who will do his best if given a job. This is why Zhu Xianhai asked him to be in charge of primary and secondary education.

In this era, the Ming Dynasty did not have many education experts. What it needed most were people who could do things seriously, or in other words, people who could implement his plans seriously. In this regard, Wang Xinjie was quite satisfactory. After all, the general direction would naturally be grasped by Emperor Zhu himself.

In fact, Emperor Zhu himself did not understand education, but he had a vision that was a century and a half ahead of his time. Although Emperor Zhu could not handle everything, he could easily steer the ship.

For example, in education, he first came up with the "four, two, three, three" school system, four years of primary school, which is compulsory education.

The reason why four-year compulsory education was implemented was ultimately due to financial constraints, but this is almost the case in this era.

Four years of compulsory education can enable children to learn to read and write, do math, and have a basic understanding of the world.

At least in their future lives, they can read books and newspapers, and even when they encounter some problems, they can turn to some reference books to solve them.

All children under the age of 15 must receive compulsory education. Of course, in addition to coercion, there are also inducements - in order to get parents to send their children to school on their own initiative, he even requires schools to provide free lunches.

Fortunately, Ming Dynasty was a big agricultural country, and it was just free lunch for hundreds of thousands of children. Zhu Xianhai couldn't guarantee whether a cup of milk could make a nation strong, but Ming Dynasty could still afford to drink this cup of milk and eat meat.

At least it can help the children of Ming Dynasty to win at the starting line in terms of physical fitness!

With this glass of milk and a piece of meat, in a few generations, the physical fitness of the people dragged down by the "scarce prosperity" of the Qing Dynasty will be restored to its original level!

However, it is not enough to just eat and drink well!

"In this barbaric world, if you want to survive, you can't rely on morality. 'Civilize their spirits and barbarize their bodies.' In fact, when dealing with barbarians, you have to be barbaric yourself! If you have been civilized for too long and have forgotten the true face of barbarism, the country will suffer!"

Emperor Zhu shook his head while talking to himself and made a secret decision in his heart.

"This Wang Xinjie... well, let's move him to another position! We can't let him train only righteous gentlemen who are full of benevolence and morality!"

Of course, Zhu Xianhai does not deny that social development needs such people, but people with a "saintly heart" will definitely not be able to survive in this era. A saintly country in this era will definitely be fat meat in the mouths of beasts.

"Civilization! It's a good thing, but in the jungle, you should first learn to be a beast!"

Shaking his head and sighing, Zhu Xianhai frowned as if he had thought of something and said.

"It seems that military physical education classes alone are not enough. We should think of other ways to awaken the martial spirit of the people!"

Although Zhu Xianhai had promoted "military national education" as early as the Nanhua period, and also promoted "military sports" in schools, in his opinion, there were still some shortcomings.

Martial spirit!

How can we awaken a nation’s dormant martial spirit from deep within its heart?

This question is a bit complicated.

(End of this chapter)