Chapter 297 The Emperor and Empress wholeheartedly commend the girls' school...
Qi Chengming was not lying.
In his view, it was inevitable for the empress to manage the inner palace, and the Empress Dowager had a tacit understanding with him on this matter, so she naturally wouldn't make things difficult for Yizhen.
However, external conflicts also arise—for example, many concubines now reside in the palace, and this year's palace banquet and other events were all organized by several of them. Should Yi Zhen take away their power? How will she handle the situation when managing the harem in the future, dealing with elders whose seniority is all higher than hers?
Qi Chengming was fully aware of these things, but he didn't intend to interfere.
This is a good opportunity for Yizhen to practice, consider it a beginner's village. She is the mistress of the palace, and there are many more things to be entrusted to her in the future.
"What...is it something important?" Tao Jiang looked uneasy, and sat up slightly to listen carefully.
Qi Chengming organized his thoughts.
He wants a wife who will fight alongside him in the future, someone who understands him perfectly. Or at least, a wife who won't hold him back and whose ideals don't clash with his. Initially, Yizhen is open-minded and good at adapting; the only thing they lack right now is... heart-to-heart communication.
"When I took over Dingguo, natural disasters and man-made calamities were everywhere, and the years of war during my father's reign had only just been quelled." Qi Chengming put it mildly. Including the time since his ascension to the throne, was the war truly over for at most a year?
"This is the latest statistic. Dingguo now has about 40 million people, but less than 7 million are able-bodied men." Qi Chengming reported a figure, which was from the infrastructure system's statistics; there was no more accurate data. Generally speaking, able-bodied men account for 20% to 30% of the total population, but Dingguo is far from reaching that standard.
He saw that Tao Jiang looked somewhat confused. She clearly didn't understand what this meant or why he had to tell her. She only realized that this was not a good thing for Dingguo.
The girl simply listened attentively to the political affairs.
Qi Chengming took his wife's hand and said earnestly, "The shortage of able-bodied men is due to the loss caused by years of war and natural disasters. Without enough able-bodied men, the country cannot be strong. Because of war, corvée labor, and everything else, we need people. Yizhen, what do you think we should do next? Don't hold back, speak freely."
Tao Jiang was about to say that she shouldn't interfere in politics, but she was stopped in her tracks. She moved her lips and then spoke directly, following the train of thought: "We have three kinds of divine food, so we don't have to worry about food. We're not at war anymore, and I heard that we're going to do wool trade with those small countries. Next, we should... rest and recuperate, and encourage the people to have more children?"
Tao Jiang's thoughts became clear at this point, and she suddenly understood why His Majesty had told her all this.
As the mother of the nation, it is more reasonable for her to issue such an imperial edict.
"Should I also go and reward those women who have made contributions and encourage widows to remarry?" The clever Tao Jiang could even draw inferences from one instance to another.
The prevailing social atmosphere in the capital reveres the elegance of the previous dynasty and places great emphasis on female chastity. A woman who carelessly loses her reputation will face difficulties in finding a husband. Last year, after rumors spread that His Majesty had a penchant for older women, those women who had waited until later in life for various reasons found marriage much easier to marry, and thus benefited from this.
Now she can set an example and break this trend in the capital.
Qi Chengming was momentarily blinded by the sunlight outside the palace: "...Yes, these also need to be done."
"But isn't this what you originally wanted to tell me?" Tao Jiang immediately realized, her slender eyebrows furrowing as she pondered deeply.
"This is why I insist on appointing women to official positions," Qi Chengming began. "Do you know Fang Bi from the Ministry of Works?"
Tao Jiang's illusion was dispelled, and her eyes lit up: "She was the first woman to become an official, and I heard she was originally your husband's..."
“She was my palace maid, but with her talent, it’s too much of a waste for her to be just a palace maid.” Qi Chengming shook his head, seeing the familiar hesitant and confused expression on Tao Jiang’s face. This was the expression that most of the people around him would show after he insisted on promoting women’s entry into the court.
Perhaps those people weren't entirely prejudiced, but most people's first thought was simply confusion:
This palace maid is so capable, why not just keep her by your side and reward her with some wealth and gifts? If you want to be even more secure, why not take her into the harem? That would be even more prestigious, wouldn't it? Why did His Majesty have to go to such lengths, going through all that trouble and braving the opposition of the people to make a mere palace maid an official?
Tao Jiang certainly didn't want anyone else to enter the harem, but she was also wondering about the reason behind it—the country lacked able-bodied men, so why did His Majesty go against the grain and make women serve as officials instead?
She had heard that the women currently in office were reluctant to marry, simply because some married officials quickly became pregnant, thus delaying their duties and causing their positions to be revoked. Childbirth was a lengthy process, taking at least three years to return home—what difference was there between this and the mourning period? Nobody wanted to be subjected to such a thing so soon after becoming an official and before they could even establish themselves.
Therefore, the policy of encouraging women to become officials should contradict the method of encouraging the birth of able-bodied men.
She voiced her doubts.
Qi Chengming patted his wife's smooth hand reassuringly. He had made a point of setting aside time today to have a heart-to-heart talk with the Empress, and he would explain everything in detail.
"Yizhen, you only see the women in the court. Do you know how women in ordinary families live?"
“When we were in Liuzhou, we set up textile factories, glass factories, cement workshops, bathhouses, bicycle factories, and many other new factories that I ordered to be built were constructed all at once in a short period of time. Liuzhou had just suffered a disaster and was short of everything. We encouraged women, whether married or unmarried, to work, and that's how we managed to get through it.”
"From then on, many things in Liuzhou were no longer divided by gender, and I deliberately suppressed and downplayed them," Qi Chengming said. "There have always only been men and women in the world. If women could also use all their abilities, wouldn't the strength of Dingguo be doubled? After hearing that women could become officials, the girls' schools in Liuzhou immediately started teaching modern knowledge and official duties..."
Liuzhou was geographically remote and had a more open and progressive atmosphere, with less entrenched feudalistic ideas. It was only natural that it would accept the will of its local master, Prince Rui, and then undergo further changes.
—But what Qi Chengming didn't expect was that the girls' school that those girls in Liuzhou had set up as a joke back then not only did not disband a few years later, but also followed his intentions so flexibly, which really surprised Qi Chengming.
Tao Jiang now understood His Majesty's thinking, and she readily accepted it: "I was also the female manager of the jewelry shop I frequented in my boudoir, and there are female waitresses in the restaurant. It seems that in the common people's labor, there is never much distinction between men and women... Your Majesty wants me to encourage women to participate in labor and become officials? But what about able-bodied men..."
She hesitated again.
Both corvée labor and warfare are forms of hard labor, which can only be done by able-bodied men between the ages of eighteen and forty. Even if women are encouraged to participate in all aspects of labor, it will not solve the current problem of a lack of able-bodied men in Dingguo, and will instead affect fertility.
"Who says women can't fight?" Qi Chengming retorted. "Perhaps there were various restrictions in the past, but the Ministry of Works has developed some new weapons. With guns and cannons... those weapons, future wars will be completely different. I've wanted to change the corvée system for a long time. The system of conscripting people for corvée labor without compensation is too crude... These things should be done by the army to wear them down and prevent them from causing trouble, drinking, and gambling."
Qi Chengming said a lot more afterward, but none of these things were put into practice—because we can't rush things; it will take at least several decades to gradually transition these things over.
Otherwise, if women were allowed to become officials and he were to promote women to serve in the military, the foundation would be unstable, and a major incident could easily occur if he were not careful in the army.
Qi Chengming's goal was to gradually increase the number of things women could do, leveraging modern civilization and wisdom. This would naturally lead to a stronger nation. Frankly, this was far more effective than allowing people to have children indiscriminately; the people were struggling, and children were unlikely to survive.
That afternoon, Tao Jiang heard about a new world she had never seen before.
The more she listened, the more she realized how beneficial His Majesty's idea was. How could she have overlooked such a large pool of capable people before?
Now, let's think outside the box—even if there are no more talented people to choose from, we can select the best from among the women. As for the fact that there are now twice as many competitors vying for the prize, Tao Jiang has already readily changed her mindset. She is the Empress; she doesn't need to consider such things.
"No wonder those high-ranking officials in the court are unwilling to let women serve as officials!" Tao Jiang finally understood everything.
The next day, the first imperial edict issued by the Empress was announced in the palace.
She highly commended Zhao Qingjin, the leader in establishing girls' schools in Liuzhou, praised her actions, and bestowed upon the Liuzhou Girls' School a plaque personally inscribed with the words "Diligent Study and Earnest Practice" to encourage the students.
With the emperor and empress getting married, the new empress's every move was already under public scrutiny.
Once her imperial decree was issued, Zhao Qingjin's name and the story of the girls' school became known to everyone in an instant, and were widely circulated. When the news reached Liuzhou, one member of the Zhao family fainted on the spot in shock.
Zhao's mother rushed to Zhao's husband's house to find her. She was so excited that she cried and laughed at the same time, saying with tears in her eyes, "Good girl...you are going to go down in history!"
Historians would always record the wedding in the emperor's daily records. And the first imperial edict issued by the empress after the wedding was so different from the past. As long as it was recorded that "Zhao Qingjin was commended for running the girls' school," then the Zhao family could die without shame before their ancestors!
"His Majesty still remembers us after all." Miss Zhao's husband looked at her with a mixture of surprise and joy.
They were all students back then, and they unwittingly became the emperor's playmates. Later, when the emperor ascended the throne and made a mistake, they were summoned by their elders and scolded severely. Afterwards, most of the affairs of Liuzhou were handed over to these younger generation members to do whatever they wanted.
Even after marriage, Miss Zhao did not give up her studies and was able to dedicate herself to improving her knowledge every day, all thanks to the blessing of knowing His Majesty…
Unexpectedly, His Majesty has indeed not forgotten them...
Miss Zhao herself was also dizzy, and the smile on her face never left her, but she managed to keep her composure: "With the Empress's decree issued, other places should also follow suit and set up girls' schools. Mother, I must hurry to the school to give instructions and prepare the rules, waiting for them to come and learn... This is definitely the scene that Brother Qi wants to see!"
"Sigh, sigh." Zhao's mother was no longer as anxious as she had been at the beginning, and she readily agreed, letting her daughter do whatever she wanted. Zhao's father nodded silently from behind, adding, "Tell us if you have any difficulties."
He had always felt that his daughter was causing trouble and had never expressed his opinion, choosing to ignore it to keep quiet. He never expected that his daughter would now make him look at her in a completely different light.
...I'm afraid my future honors will also depend on this daughter.
The imperial edict clearly stated: Zhao Qingjin, of the Zhao family.
She wrote her real surname, not her husband's—now everyone knows she's a good daughter of the Zhao family! Haha!
Miss Zhao turned around, her face beaming with a bright and happy smile: "I understand, Father!"
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The author's note: With his wife's help, Qi Chengming can do even more things more effectively.
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