Now that the specific address of the fiefdom had been determined, Xie Changshi and others began to contact officials of all ranks in the northern desert to implement the assignment of Xinliang to His Highness Prince Wen's command, while also writing letters to the capital to report the matter.
At this moment, Gu Yuzhi fell silent as he looked at the twenty-six pinyin that Shu Xiaohan had written on the so-called blackboard. What were these winding, strange things?
“Young Prince, these are the pinyin letters I’m telling you about.” Shu Xiaohan put down the chalk and clapped her hands. “They are very helpful for us when we first learn to read. For example, if you are starting your education now, Young Prince, you can begin with the Three Character Classic, a special textbook written specifically for intensive character learning.”
The Three Character Classic is rich in content, exquisite, and relatively easy to understand, but it contains many repeated characters. Therefore, there are other concentrated literacy textbooks. However, Shu Xiaohan does not know much about this. Her eldest son once mentioned that the ancients were pitiful.
The young prince is only a kindergarten child in modern times, so Shu Xiaohan pulled out a set of pinyin alphabet charts from the main system to help him learn faster and more efficiently.
Gu Yuzhi nodded: "Master Xie said that the Three Character Classic, the Hundred Family Surnames, and the Thousand Character Classic are the three most important books for our enlightenment. After we have read and learned these three books, we will be able to recognize many characters."
At least after learning these characters, he won't need Chief Secretary Xie to write letters to his mother anymore.
"Teacher Shu, isn't this how modern people learn their children?" He pointed to the so-called pinyin letters on the blackboard and said, "I recognize all of these. Are they foreign scripts?"
Shu Xiaohan thought for a moment and said, "I guess so. These letters evolved from the Latin alphabet and were designed to help us with our early learning. All the words we need to learn can be marked with these letters, making it easier for you, Little Prince, to remember their pronunciation."
She wrote the four characters "人" (person), "认" (recognize), "刃" (blade), and "韧" (toughness) on the blackboard, and then asked, "Young Prince, how many of these characters can you recognize now?"
Gu Yuzhi thought for a long time, then lowered his head in shame and said, "I only know the character '人' (person)."
Shu Xiaohan stepped forward and ruffled his hair: "Young Prince, you've only been learning for half a month, and you can already recite the Three Character Classic fluently, which is already very impressive." She winked at Gu Yuzhi, "Now I'll show you the benefits of pinyin."
As she spoke, she marked the pinyin on these four characters: "If you don't want to read them, just look at the pinyin markings and see if they are the same, young prince?"
Gu Yuzhi nodded, then a flash of inspiration struck him, and he exclaimed in delight, "Teacher Shu, could it be that these characters can read people?"
Xie Changshi said that he can only recognize a limited number of characters at this stage of his education. In the future, when he encounters unfamiliar characters, he can either guess the character based on the context or use simple homophones for annotation, which is the same as the pinyin annotation method taught by Teacher Shu.
Shu Xiaohan gave Gu Yuzhi a thumbs up: "Your Highness is great! But we need to mark the phonetic symbols. For example, the first '人' is in the second tone, and the '认' is in the fourth tone. We need phonetic symbols to help with the pronunciation."
She marked the phonetic symbols for a few words and then said, "There are only four phonetic symbols, which are very easy to remember." Seeing that he wasn't very interested, Shu Xiaohan asked, "Does Your Highness feel that looking at pinyin like this isn't very helpful?"
"Young Prince, please think about this: if we don't know any characters right now, and we learn pinyin first, then when we open a book with pinyin annotations, wouldn't you be able to experience the joy of reading fluently?"
"Not only that, but in the future, the young prince can promote this method. If the emperor takes a liking to it, you can ask the emperor for a reward."
Wen Xiuzhu, who had been watching silently from the sidelines, couldn't hold back any longer and burst out laughing, his eyes full of sarcasm: "These crooked characters are something the people of Sang have never even seen before. You just open your mouth and say you can ask the Emperor for a reward. Aren't you afraid of causing trouble for His Highness?"
Shu Xiaohan was slightly taken aback. Could promoting a better way to learn characters really cause trouble?
She glanced at the young prince, sighed softly, and began to reflect on whether she had been too radical.
But seeing the young prince working so hard to memorize his lessons every day, she couldn't bear it.
Why not use a faster method?
It was rare to see Shu Xiaohan put up with a smug look, and Wen Xiuzhu couldn't suppress the smugness on his face. He kept slapping his fan against his palm and said, "But I think that if Teacher Shu learns this pinyin well, it will be very useful. Don't think about asking the Emperor for a reward yet. Your Highness can learn it first, and we can find a way to spread the word when Your Highness grows up."
Wen Xiuzhu is a thorough businessman, and he has already seen a huge business opportunity in this pinyin.
In just a short while, Wen Xiuzhu had already come up with a way to spread the word about the pinyin: when His Highness grew up, he could go on a sea voyage and establish His Highness's own academy. The academy would then spread the word, and once its reputation was established, money would flow in continuously.
Wen Xiuzhu felt increasingly pleased with himself as he thought about it, and with a swish, he opened his folding fan to cover the corners of his upturned mouth.
Gu Yuzhi had no idea what Wen Xiuzhu was thinking at that moment. She looked at him with bright eyes and said, "Manager Wen is right. No matter what happens in the future, I will learn on my own first."
However, Gu Yuzhi's face quickly fell again, and she asked with some worry, "Is this easy to learn?"
Teacher Shu smiled slightly: "It's very simple. In our area, pinyin is the key to our early education." She drew a circle on the blackboard with her hand, "These twenty-six letters can be memorized by singing. a, b, c, e, f, g..."
She sang the complete pinyin once, then smiled and said, "Young Prince, after singing along with me, won't you find these letters easier to remember?"
Gu Yuzhi scratched his head and, encouraged by Teacher Shu, sang along softly once. Then he heard Teacher Shu say, "Hey, that's really good. The little prince did a great job. We don't need to do anything else today, just memorize these twenty-six letters."
The young prince already has a heavy workload, so we shouldn't make her extra learning more difficult...
Shu Xiaohan watched with a smile as Gu Yuzhi practiced again and again, from his initial soft and unfamiliar voice to his later loud and confident voice. The whole process only took a dozen minutes...
The next second, Shu Xiaohan saw Gu Yuzhi pick up a calligraphy brush and write a letter on a piece of paper, reading it aloud as he wrote.
Shu Xiaohan was so moved that tears almost fell. With the little prince's self-awareness, he would definitely be a top-notch playboy in modern times!
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