Chapter 239 Waiting for the Queen to Cause Trouble
After the three exams were over, Jin Sui was both disappointed and took it for granted, because 90% of the female officials recruited were not immediately qualified for the job and had to be handed over to Chen Yunniang for training at the Women's College first.
Some female official positions were filled by candidates from the academy. Chen Yunniang comforted Jinsui that the new champion had to enter the Hanlin Academy for three years before he could take up his post. So we should treat our Women's Academy as the Hanlin Academy for female officials! The remaining 10% who could be immediately appointed as female officials were all daughters of Yandi aristocratic families. Two of them were related to Yan Jiu, one was his aunt's cousin, and the other was his uncle's cousin.
According to the two girls, not only did Yan Shiyi support them in taking the exam for female officials, but even Shier Niang had written many letters to encourage them. Jin Sui laughed. It seemed that the Yan family was the most supportive of the queen's work among the aristocratic families.
She warned herself not to rush, because she could not achieve everything in one go. The female official system had been approved by the court, and she had plenty of time to improve it slowly. It was better to go slow than to take too big a step and fall.
After the female official examination was over, the academy immediately started the enrollment examination. This time there were more people because half of the recruits were from craftsmen, which made craftsmen all over the world very excited.
They had been craftsmen of inferior status for generations, and suddenly learned that the academy founded by the Empress was recruiting craftsmen students, providing food and accommodation and extremely low tuition fees. Moreover, if they passed the exam, they could be admitted even if they did not have tuition fees, and could pay the tuition fees after graduation and work.
You have to know that in this era, no matter what skills you want to learn, you have to work as an apprentice for a master for at least two or three years, endure being beaten and scolded, and work hard without complaint, and only then can you learn real skills.
It takes several years to earn money as an apprentice. In the meantime, there is no income at all. Ordinary people cannot afford to send their children to learn a craft without any family background.
And now the Queen's College actually provides food, accommodation, and tuition, and all are admitted equally regardless of their identity or class. How can the people not be tempted?
The Women's College started recruiting students last year. After only half a year of study, some of the first batch of female students entered the textile workshop. Not only did they pay off their tuition fees, but they also earned money for their families.
The people who were still waiting and watching last year regretted it very much. This year, they immediately sent their daughters of appropriate age to register. There were more boys. After all, they were worried about safety issues when sending their daughters, but they did not have such worries for their sons.
At one time, the number of applicants to the Technical College was greater than that to the Spring Examination and the Imperial Academy.
But this did not attract the attention of officials and dignitaries. Instead, they looked disdainful when it was mentioned and secretly despised the queen's behavior. It was true that she was born in a humble family and even though she was the queen, she still got entangled with these untouchables.
It's hard for the emperor to object. You said you want to run a girls' school, so you should only recruit daughters of officials and nobles, not even those from craftsmen and slaves! In this way, even if the powerful families want to send their daughters to the academy, they will not do so.
Then I heard that the technical college provided food and accommodation, and issued two sets of school uniforms, and that the tuition was even lower than that of a private school. Even poor families who could not afford the tuition could study first and take a tutoring course later.
The academy is so big that it can accommodate tens of thousands of students. All the officials are watching coldly. Let's see when this academy will close down! If we oppose it, it will only bring displeasure to His Majesty.
Then let Your Majesty see with your own eyes how the Queen wasted money and manpower to run a weird academy. When it finally closed down and drove away the students, it aroused opposition from the people, ruined the Queen's reputation, and alienated the emperor and empress.
Jinsui certainly knew that many people in the court were unwilling to see her doing well. The reason was simple. Gu Changxiao's refusal to take a concubine had shattered the dreams of many people of becoming royal relatives.
Naturally, they hoped that Jinsui would fall from the altar, and it would be best if she caused trouble and made the emperor disgusted with her, so that the emperor would naturally take a concubine.
These pieces of news reached Jinsui's ears through various channels. Among the nobles, it was Yan Shiyi who told her, among the officials, it was Cheng Yu who asked Chen Yuniang to tell her, and among the powerful and wealthy, the news was more funny, as it was heard by Grandpa Ling.
Because Grandpa Ling has been very close to the Imperial Observatory recently, with some astronomical knowledge given by Jinsui, as well as an astronomical telescope, and Grandpa Ling's emotional intelligence, he immediately became a distinguished guest of the Imperial Observatory and has become a recognized Taoist priest.
It was easy to get gossip about the rich and powerful. The rich and powerful's attitude towards the queen made Grandpa Ling angry and helpless, but it also aroused his ambition. I must make some achievements to make my granddaughter proud! Jin Sui comforted Grandpa Ling in turn, saying that he didn't need to care about other people's opinions. Anyway, I didn't need to please these rich and powerful people. Instead, they had to please me. Wait and see, I may not see any achievements in one or two years at the technical college.
But if she has three to five years, a group of technical talents will surely pour into the six ministries. At that time, everyone in the world will be proud to be admitted to the Technical College! Our Technical College will become a more powerful college than the Imperial Academy!
Grandpa Ling likes Jinsui's positive character the most, as if any difficulties are just a small blow in front of her. He can't help but think of what his granddaughter once said to Yan Shiyi: There are no ravines in front of a tiger, but there are obstacles in front of a coward.
This sentence is very suitable for my granddaughter's style of doing things. If the road is bumpy, just flatten it. Wind, frost, rain and dew are just another kind of scenery on the way forward.
But there is a very realistic question: "But in this case, the college needs a lot of funds to operate. Will it be short of money every year?"
Money is something that is always in short supply, because when you have a hundred taels of silver, you want to do things worth a hundred taels, and when you have a thousand taels, you want to do things worth a thousand taels.
But Jin Sui told Grandpa confidently: "Don't worry! Granddaughter, I am not short of money! The business I cooperated with the Yan family has dividends every year."
No one knew about the maritime business she was cooperating with Yan Jiu, only Gu Changxiao knew about it. She provided nautical charts and some high-end goods, and the dividends she received from the Yan family's maritime business were enough to run the academy.
Therefore, it would be impossible for the officials and dignitaries to see the Queen be defeated, because they had no idea how many people were supporting the Queen.
After the Spring Examination, the emperor opened another special examination, which was an unprecedented civil servant examination. Anyone with the title of scholar could take the examination.
Official positions were given in advance, and candidates could apply for them on their own. At first, Jin Sui and Gu Chang Xiao both thought that positions like the northwest border positions, positions along the coast of Fujian Province, and even managing water conservancy projects, surveying mountains and mines, etc., which were hard and small positions, would not attract many applicants.
In the past, officials who made mistakes were demoted to these posts, because few officials could achieve results in these posts due to their mentality. Unexpectedly, this time the emperor recruited officials for these posts through a formal imperial examination.
Surprisingly, many students came to apply for the exam, especially some juren and xiucai who had failed the exam many times. It was like they had found a life-saving straw. No matter how remote the position was, as long as it was an official official of the court, they were willing to give it a try.
Jin Sui and Gu Chang Xiao sighed, "Three hundred Jinshi are selected every three years, and two hundred of them are occupied by the noble families. It is too difficult for ordinary children from poor families to become officials. Now that His Majesty has opened a special examination for historians, they will naturally go all out."
There is no scholar who does not want to become an official. Although the position of a clerk is low, he is also a formal official appointed by the court and can still make a name for himself.
In short, the most lively event in the capital this spring was examinations, from the Kaien examinations to the female official examinations, the technical college and the Imperial Academy entrance examinations, to the civil service examinations, in addition to conscriptions and caravan exchanges.
There were as many as 100,000 candidates and their relatives and friends pouring into the capital. Even the officials in Chang'an lamented privately that they had not seen such a grand occasion in the capital for many years.
Chang'an once had such a grand occasion, but that was many years ago. In recent decades, Chang'an has been under extremely strict security. Due to the increase in commercial taxes, the number of merchants from other places has gradually decreased, and the people in the city are timid.
In contrast, in the new capital, the people stand tall and are not afraid of power, and everyone is full of energy. In fact, for the people, a prosperous age is a prosperous time if no one starves to death.
But now the people of Yanzhou say that the prosperous times created by the emperor and empress are no longer about having enough food and clothing, but about eating well, dressing well, living well, having a future for their children, and having a purpose in life.
It is common to see elderly people over 70 years old sitting at their doorsteps, watching the carriages and pedestrians passing by on the road, doing nothing but watching with a smile on their faces.
Then he would sigh to his family from time to time: "If it were in previous years, we would never have dared to dream of living like this!"
During the meal, the daughter-in-law brought the meal with meat and eggs. The little grandchildren called "Grandpa" and "Grandma" in a flattering manner. The old man understood what she meant and smiled as he gave the meat and eggs in the bowl to the children.
Then the children are taught by their parents not to ask for food from their grandparents because the elderly need to nourish their bodies.
Listen, old guys like us used to have to find water and rope to save food for our family, but now we can eat food that nourishes our bodies.
After expressing his feelings, the old man would then educate his children and grandchildren, telling them to always praise the good things about the emperor and the empress. They can live a good life now, thanks to their wisdom!
The people in other places might only be grateful to the emperor, but the people in Yan must be grateful to both the emperor and the empress, because they have all been cared for by Miss Ling.
No matter what the people from Chang'an said about the queen, such as her humble background and arrogant behavior, if the people of Yan heard about it, they would definitely feel indignant for the queen and might even engage in violence.
If our queen wasn't crazy, could she have defended the border? Could she have shocked the Tartars? You didn't see the deserted border town. If it weren't for the queen, it wouldn't be what it is today...
Jinsui did not see such a scene, but Grandpa Ling did. He was happy for his granddaughter and also understood what she had said, that she did not need to care about the opinions of the powerful because she cared about the common people.
In March, all the examinations, big and small, were over, and the first public elementary school in Yanzhou was completed. It was undoubtedly supported by Yan Jiu, and it was almost entirely funded by the Yan family, but it was named after the Empress.
It was also undoubtedly ridiculed by the powerful and opposed by some officials. Their reasons for opposition were funny: pens, ink, paper and inkstone were expensive and a waste of money from the national treasury.
Another argument is that the queen provided the funds without using the national treasury, which silenced some people. But there was a new reason for opposition, which was that it was not beneficial to the country to let the children of the lower classes go to school.
Now that everyone is here to study, who will till the fields and who will farm the land? This question has been discussed many times, but they just choose to ignore it.
Then some people laughed at the joke. Public schools also charge tuition, but it is less than private schools, and they also provide lunch. This is a huge expense. Let's see how long the queen's private capital can support her.
Then there was the most expensive item: books! Some dignitaries directly said that they had moved from Chang'an, and their books would remain in Chang'an, as they had no books to donate to the queen.
That’s right, in the past, when the royal family wanted to open an academy, they had to ask the nobles to donate books. In those days, books were extremely valuable and were passed down from generation to generation.
They thought the queen would use her power to let some scholars copy books. Unexpectedly, Grandpa Ling's Taoist temple donated 10,000 enlightenment books to the college.
Everyone looked curiously and saw that the books were beautifully printed and the paper quality was excellent. Unlike previous books, these enlightenment books had punctuation marks and pinyin for learning Chinese characters.
The pinyin used by Jinsui was not alphabetic pinyin, but a pinyin that Jinsui asked a scholar from the Hanlin Academy to come up with by combining radicals with oracle bone inscriptions.
This shocked the academic community, who began to oppose the empress's reckless behavior. How could she tamper with ancient texts at will? Then they saw that the screenwriter Pinyin was a scholar from the Hanlin Academy, and was approved by the emperor.
The use of pinyin and punctuation did make enlightenment much easier. At the same time, they were concerned about how a Taoist temple could have such a powerful printing technology and how it could be kept secret.
Of course it wasn't leaked. Gu Changxiao had the movable type printing machine printed in the military district, and then secretly sent the books to the Taoist temple.
The emergence of this batch of books dealt the greatest blow to the gentry. Their proud educational monopoly was completely broken, and their proud private schools would be lost to the public from then on. There would no longer be a situation where half of the Hanlin scholars came from the gentry's private schools.
The swallows that used to fly in front of the halls of the rich and powerful now fly into the homes of ordinary people. However, the families of the rich and powerful in this dynasty have become ordinary people in another way without experiencing war.
They could sense a general trend, but they were powerless to resist it. The tide of history was like a rolling wheel, and if the nobles could unite as one, they could still resist it.
However, the relocation of the capital and the almost complete annihilation of the gentry in Chang'an, and the land reform system severely damaged the vitality of the gentry. The Yan family, the head of the gentry in Yan, followed the lead of the empress, which led to the gentry's resistance, which was futile.
They could only watch as the queen used one new rule after another to strip away the halo from their heads bit by bit.
The completion of the first public college shook the educational foundation of the gentry.
The emperor supported the public college by recruiting a group of teachers for the college through the civil service examination. This was different from the teachers in private schools, as they had to be recognized by the court and had obtained a teaching certificate.
Some people also tried to find out how these books were printed, but unfortunately Taoist Ling kept his mouth shut.
Cheng Yu told Jin Sui that it was a waste to only print textbooks. At this time, the printing workshop was still using military funds. If there was no revenue, the military would probably have opinions after a long time.
Jin Sui laughed: "How difficult is that? We can print whatever books sell best in the market. If they are cheaper than Yang Diao, then we will make huge profits."
Cheng Yu said embarrassedly: "The best-selling books on the market are vernacular novels, miscellaneous studies, travel notes, and novels. Is it inappropriate for your printing house to publish these books?"
Jin Sui sneered, "What's wrong with that? As long as they don't publish pornographic or banned books, it'll be fine! Lord Cheng is totally overthinking it. Novels can also be educational."
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