Chapter 88: Paper Horse Shops Spreading Everywhere
Du Li heated up the kitchen stove, mixed the water, and called Meng Qing to come and take a bath. He also brought another basin of water to serve Wang Zhou as he washed up. Wang Zhou had just cried and admitted his mistake, so he was still embarrassed to be alone with him. He pursed his lips, lowered his head, and remained silent. After taking off his clothes and being carried to the bed, he lifted the quilt and covered himself completely.
Du Li smiled as he stared at the bulge under the blanket. He took the water and went out, closing the door behind him.
Wang Zhou lifted the covers and peeked through the crack to make sure no one was in the room. Then he kicked off the covers and rolled around on the bed.
"Go, go, go back to your nests, don't stay in the yard." Du Li herded the geese back to their nests, then picked up the shovel standing next to the nests and shoveled up the goose droppings.
The scraping sound of a shovel digging up soil and sand came through the door, which reassured Wang Zhou. He glanced at the dim candlelight in the room, then pulled the covers up and lay down, listening to the footsteps outside and watching the flickering light and shadows on the wall, his eyelids slowly drooping.
When Meng Qing came in, Wang Zhou was already fast asleep. She tucked him in and, looking at his face, she remembered how he had cried loudly that night, and she laughed out loud.
"What are you laughing at?" Du Li came in to open the box and get a change of clothes.
"I'm laughing at the way you two are crying your eyes out." Meng Qing didn't hide her mocking intentions. "Hey, aren't you embarrassed to cry in front of Wang Zhou?"
Du Li felt embarrassed. He stammered a couple of times, grabbed his change of underwear, and ran away.
Meng Qing burst out laughing.
Du Li looked embarrassed. He deliberately lingered in the shower for a while, waiting until Meng Qing fell asleep before returning to the room.
After a good night's sleep, dawn broke, and the events of the previous night were deliberately forgotten by Du Li and Wang Zhou, thus turning the page.
For the next five days, people came to the free school every day to register for the assessment and donate money in exchange for paper effigies. Those who registered for the assessment could leave their names and leave, while those who donated money had to wait in line. Currently, the free school was not short of manpower; thirteen craftsmen and their apprentices could complete thirty to thirty-five paper effigies in three days. People who came to donate money lined up in order, and only those who received a number and a specific date could donate their money.
Five days have passed. Meng Qing has handled 1,800 guan of income, 135 guan of wages, 670 guan of cost of goods, and 10 guan of food expenses. She has kept a detailed record of all of these.
February 24th was the day 478 people participated in the assessment. Meng Qing did not participate; she only prepared the assessment content and asked royal craftsmen to act as examiners on her behalf. They were craftsmen from the Imperial Household Department, serving only the royal family, so they didn't have to worry about offending anyone. Those rejected by them personally dared not disobey.
It took a whole day for thirteen artisans to select fifty apprentices from four hundred and seventy-eight people. These apprentices were skillful, meticulous, and had experience in the funerary object industry or in weaving, carving, and embroidery.
Meng Qing earned another thousand strings of cash that day, and the baskets and boxes at home were not enough, so he piled the strings of copper coins directly on the ground, covering the entire area.
"Is this money ours?" Du Li asked uncertainly.
Meng Qing shook his head, "The thousand strings of cash we collected today might end up in our hands."
"What about the others? They all belong to the Ministry of Rites?" Du Li had already guessed that the free schools belonged to the Ministry of Rites, and the other party couldn't be so generous as to only seek a good reputation.
Meng Qing didn't want to talk about it. "Let's not talk about that. Let's talk about the believers. You will also serve as a teacher tomorrow. Pick eight of the best students from the forty students you took in last year. Each of the ten of us will take five students and start by teaching them how to dye, dry, and iron paper."
Du Li had no objection.
However, the apprentices who paid to join the school had objections. They refused to acknowledge experienced apprentices with only one year of experience as their teachers, even if it was only temporary.
“Dyeing, drying, and ironing paper are very basic tasks that don’t require any special skills. They’ve been doing this for a year and have already mastered these steps. It’s no different from what I do myself,” Meng Qing said. “When it comes to the steps of binding, thickening, and pasting, which require skill, I will personally teach you. Don’t worry, I promise to teach you for a year until you’ve mastered the skills. If you can’t graduate after a year, I will refund your tuition.”
“Just because someone can do it doesn’t mean they can teach it. Not everyone is suitable to be a teacher. I came here because of you. I’ve already paid the money, so you have to teach me personally,” a man said.
The others echoed his sentiments.
"How do you know they can't teach if you haven't even started learning?" Meng Qing retorted, her face stern. "I hope everyone understands that you only paid twenty strings of cash, not two hundred, but the skill you learn can earn you two hundred, or even two thousand, strings of cash. Such a high return with low investment, so don't nitpick. You all know what you're after, and I know it too. Everyone, restrain yourselves and focus on learning the skill so you can graduate sooner and start your own business."
“We said from the beginning that once you enter this door, you must follow our rules,” Du Li continued. He glanced around and said, “If you don’t agree with our way of teaching, you can leave now. We’ll refund your tuition on the spot. We’ll refund whatever you paid.”
“Yes, we don’t lack apprentices who want to become our disciples,” Meng Qing said.
Those who had previously spoken up in agreement fell silent. Some looked displeased, but were reluctant to back down, so they could only lower their heads and endure it.
Meng Qing waited for about half a cup of tea's time, and seeing that no one had withdrawn, she said nothing more, took out the list, and began reading out names to form groups. After the groups were formed, each group led their five apprentices and dispersed.
Meng Qing led her five apprentices to fetch wooden basins, tung oil, raw lacquer, alum, and paper. She first explained the ratio of alum to water, then the differences in paper quality, and then guided them to prepare alum water by hand and make alum paper, tung oil paper, ink paper, and raw lacquer paper themselves.
The new apprentice assigned to the senior apprentice quietly came over, listened for a while and found that there was indeed no difference, so he obediently went to learn how to dye and dry paper.
Two days later, the paper dried, and then I learned how to iron it.
Two days later, all fifty apprentices had learned the three steps. Just when they thought the steps were too simple, Meng Qing distributed paper, clay sticks, and charcoal pencils. In addition to teaching them bone-setting, he spent an hour each day teaching them to draw the facial features of pigs, cows, sheep, horses, and people.
With nothing to do, Wang Zhou followed his mother around and learned to paint. When the apprentice used bamboo strips to bind the bones, he used wheat straw to bind the bones. When the apprentice used thatch to fatten the pig, he used paper strips to fatten it. Finally, when it was time to paste the paper, he used tung oil paper to apply glue to the paper pig he made.
"Is this the Qingniao Paper Craft Academy?" That day, a courier dressed in a black robe walked into the academy. "Is Meng Qing here? There is a letter for you."
Meng Qing knew immediately who had sent the letter. She went over to take it and asked, "Is it from Luoyang?"
"Yes." The courier handed her the letter. "You are Meng Qing. Let me see your household registration."
"I'll go get it," Du Li said. "Is it a letter from the third brother?"
“It’s him,” Meng Qing said.
It was already the end of April. Judging by the journey, he planned to write a letter to Chang'an as soon as he arrived in Luoyang.
Du Li brought the household registration, and the courier checked it and left. Meng Qing accepted the letter but didn't read it in a hurry; she continued her work as a believer.
When evening came and the school closed, Meng Qing went back to the backyard and tore open the envelope. Du Li and Wang Zhou gathered around her, waiting for her to read the letter.
"The third brother said he couldn't adapt to the new environment, couldn't eat or sleep, and lost seven or eight pounds after arriving in Luoyang," Meng Qing concluded after scanning the letter.
“It’s not like it’s his first time in Luoyang, how could he be suffering from acclimatization problems?” Du Li found it suspicious.
Meng Qing smiled and said, "The acclimatization problem is just a pretext. The real issue is that he can't eat or sleep. I guess on the way to Luoyang, he had no rank or grade and no servants to wait on him. He couldn't get hot meals and had a miserable place to sleep. He lost seven or eight pounds when he arrived in Luoyang."
Du Li rubbed Wang Zhou's head and said, "Luckily we listened to you and didn't go."
Wangzhou took the paper and looked at it. He asked tactfully, "Mother, is my name on the letter?"
Meng Qing smiled and nodded, pointing to a line of words on the letter. Taking advantage of his illiteracy, she made up a story: "This is it. Your third uncle said in his letter that it was fortunate Wang Zhou didn't come along. If you had lost seven or eight pounds, he would have been heartbroken."
Wang Zhou chuckled.
Du Li glanced at the paper, and after Wang Zhou left, he whispered, "You made this up, didn't you? Lao San isn't the type to say things like that."
Meng Qing smiled.
Du Li glanced outside and felt sorry for Wang Zhou: "Wang Zhou has been thinking about him for nothing."
“Wang Zhou is a sentimental person,” Meng Qing said. “I was quite surprised when I heard that the third brother had sent a letter, even though it was full of complaints.”
That's true. Du Li recalled that when they were in Wu County, Du Min went on a trip with Mr. Qinglun. They were gone for a whole year without any news.
Two months after that letter, Meng Qing received another letter from Luoyang, again from Du Min. The letter instructed him to visit Prefect Yin, and the two had a very pleasant conversation and got along very well. The letter also mentioned that although the Luoyang County government was not short of manpower, there were still vacancies in the surrounding county governments.
After reading it, Meng Qing guessed that this was Du Min's way of finding a way out for himself. If he could not participate in the imperial examination as he wished, he would once again follow the path of Yin Mingfu and leave Chang'an to take up a post in another place.
Less than a month after that letter, Meng Qing received another letter from Du Min. In this letter, his emotions were much more outward, because someone had died.
"The magistrate of Heqing County is dead. He died from overwork. The father-in-law of the son of the former prime minister, Li Yifu, died. This man held a grand funeral for his father-in-law, with the funeral procession stretching for seventy miles. The magistrate ran around doing all the errands. Before the funeral was even over, he died from exhaustion." Meng Qing read the contents of the letter to Du Li and Wang Zhou. She looked at the last two lines of text and said, "The emperor and empress are furious, and the call for simple funerals is growing louder in the court."
"The opportunity for paper-made funerary objects to gain a foothold in other places has arrived," Du Li said.
Meng Qing nodded, and she read the letter carefully twice more. She felt that Du Min's opportunity was coming.
Sure enough, within two months, the emperor's decree was issued, announcing the establishment of special examinations in May of the third year of the Linde era: two categories for those with both talent and knowledge, proficient in both theory and practice, and for those with special skills. These examinations were to select individuals with broad knowledge and the ability to effectively solve practical problems, requiring expertise in administration, law, Buddhism, and funeral rites.
In short, next year's curriculum will focus on discovering talent to address the issue of extravagant funerals, promote the concept of simple funerals, and reform ceremonies.
After the imperial edict was delivered to Chang'an, Meng Qing's free school became highly sought after. Scholars, members of collateral branches of aristocratic families, and mediocre officials who remained in Chang'an flocked to the school to learn about paper-made funerary objects.
Unable to stop them, Meng Qing could only agree with them that they should not disturb the students in the free school. Afterward, she accelerated the pace of teaching, generously purchasing 500 strings of cash worth of paper and 300 strings worth of tung oil and ox glue for the students to take as they pleased, and strongly encouraged them to make their own paper offerings. It didn't matter if they were ugly or not up to standard; she collected them all, chose a suitable day, and took them to the river to burn them all together as offerings to wandering ghosts.
With such reckless practice, all ninety apprentices in the school were able to graduate after three months.
The end of the year is a peak season for paper-made funerary objects. Meng Qing resisted the temptation of money and released fifty apprentices ahead of schedule, allowing them to return home and start their own businesses.
"The Qingniao Paper Craft Academy is backed by the Ministry of Rites. Its initial purpose was to promote paper craft funerary objects. I'm not charging you 20 strings of cash for tuition to get rich, but just to set a threshold. Anyone who can open a paper horse shop in Chang'an before March next year can come to the academy with the contract after the shop opens and receive a 10-string gift as a congratulatory gift," Meng Qing announced. "If you can't find a way to purchase supplies, you can also come to the academy to inquire. I will tell you the academy's channels for purchasing various tools."
The fifty apprentices were deeply moved, and upon leaving, they all praised Master Meng of the Qingniao Paper Craft School for his benevolence and righteousness.
After the fifty apprentices left, Meng Qing devoted himself to running the free school business.
Over the next three months, she sent out congratulatory gifts totaling five hundred strings of cash and confirmed that all fifty apprentices had opened their own shops.
Before the emperor and his officials returned to Chang'an, paper horse shops had already sprung up all over Chang'an and the surrounding counties. Qingniao Paper Efficiency School lost its unique status and its unparalleled prominence in Chang'an, and Meng Qing suddenly felt safe.
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