Chapter 48 Just a Matter of Law
The official instinctively took the dictionary that Xu Fu handed him. As soon as he held the dictionary, he could sense its extraordinary nature. This dictionary was made of paper and could hold more words than previous books.
After opening the dictionary, you see the seal script and the simplified script, which is missing some parts and is called "simplified script" by the people at Qingjiu School. The two types of characters are compared.
Outsiders generally understand the strange school's name as a wish for the school to last a long time, while the principal himself knows that it is an abbreviation of the host and system's names, which can also be roughly understood as a wish for longevity.
This was also the thinking of officials in various places, including the official who received Xu Fu's dictionary. He thought that the school was only for selecting craftsmen to serve the royal family and the Qin army, but did craftsmen need to know how to read?
It's a character I've never seen before...
He voiced his genuine confusion: "Do craftsmen need to be literate?"
Xu Fu calmly took out a blueprint and showed it to the official: "You can't read, so how can you understand this blueprint?"
Official: Well, he really can't understand it...
Even if he could read, he couldn't understand those lines piled together; he simply didn't understand them.
After thinking it over, the official returned the dictionary to Xu Fu. Since it wasn't about instigating a rebellion among the common people, but rather a request from above, he decided to turn a blind eye. In officialdom, the most important thing is to get by.
Seeing that his actions were tacitly approved, Xu Fu even signaled his attendants to go into the crowd and pull people aside to promote the benefits of enrolling in their Qingjiu School.
This includes, but is not limited to, guaranteed job placement by the government upon graduation to repay initial investments; and although no tuition is provided upon enrollment, room and board are included, etc.
The mere fact that the school provided food and lodging was enough to attract many commoners to enroll. Although the social status of craftsmen was low at that time, for commoners who struggled to even have enough to eat, having a skill and a job was already a great thing. Moreover, the school provided food and lodging, which was simply a windfall.
To prevent schools from becoming overcrowded, the admission regulations state at the beginning that there will be an exam in March, and those who do not score above the required level will be expelled.
It was also suggested that students first learn some simple words from the leaflets distributed by the school, and that officials would read the contents of the leaflets aloud at designated locations every day.
It's okay if you can't learn it. After enrollment, there will be a special teacher to teach simplified Chinese characters. You only need to have some knowledge of simplified Chinese characters before enrollment.
****
There are officials who honestly follow orders, and there are those who shirk their duties and try to cheat. Some of these people may simply be going through the motions to comply with orders from their superiors, while others may have seen through the true intentions behind these eulogies.
Those who saw through this intention can be divided into two categories: one is those who actually did things to hinder the promotion of simplified characters among the common people, and the other is those who saw through it but disdained to do anything about it.
The profession of craftsman has no status today, and giving a writing system such a nickname shows their contempt for simplified characters.
But this was exactly what Zhu Qing'ai wanted; she wanted them to look down on her and lower their guard.
Let them continue to cherish their own knowledge and let them continue to avoid communicating and progressing with the outside world.
As for the remaining clowns, she also had ways to deal with them.
The reason these people dared to jump up is ultimately because the Qin king is far away and cannot control them. If this were under the jurisdiction of Xianyang, let's see if they would still dare to be so outwardly compliant but inwardly defiant.
Although she didn't think there would be any officials near Xianyang who would recklessly disregard orders from their superiors, Zhu Qing'ai still included the area around Xianyang in the scope of her supervision.
In the past few days, her RAM has been overloaded, which has made her consider whether to expand the memory and add another database.
She directly created a 'performance' table for each county and prefecture on a seven-day cycle. What could be more convenient than her checking up on them?
Those who were merely negligent could be warned, while those who deliberately caused the reciter to mispronounce words, or those who bribed the people sent from Xianyang, were both recorded in the notebook.
It's a pity she only has one host. If only she had multiple hosts, she could directly notify the hosts in different locations to handle the situation...
After thinking about it, she decided to give it a try and send a dream. The principals of the branch schools in various places were basically the first batch of outstanding graduates. They were also the group with the deepest feelings for Qingjiu School and Zuo Xiang, so the possibility of them having any disloyalty was extremely low.
She appeared in the dreams of the principals of several problematic branch schools, telling them, without revealing her identity, that the local officials had ulterior motives, and that they should keep a close eye on the recitation, or simply stop and wait for someone from Xianyang to handle it.
She kept repeating this dream for three days in a row, until even the most oblivious person went to the scene in person before she finally stopped.
Every time she saw those commoners holding a few pages of paper, looking at the minor official with longing eyes, she could hallucinate that in her past life, she, as an orphan, also longed for knowledge and for a better life.
At that moment, she felt immense empathy for them. After carefully inspecting the entire Qin state, she returned to Xianyang with the results of her efforts over the past few days.
****
For nearly a month, neither of Zhu Qing'ai's two hosts contacted her... Ah, no, she only had one host.
Neither the child she tricked nor its host came looking for her. When she returned to Xianyang Palace, she found the two of them together.
At present, Lü Buwei basically controls the major affairs of state, but it is not completely peaceful. There are also power struggles from Empress Dowager Huayang's side, and the newly joined Empress Dowager Zhao Ji is also cultivating her own power in the court.
Lü Buwei clung tightly to the power in his hands, almost seizing all the power of the prime minister. However, Taishu Jiu, as the left prime minister, could not truly be without any power.
Besides the school matters, he also handed over some miscellaneous but tedious little things, which were more troublesome than troublesome to deal with.
Taishu Jiu hadn't studied this area yet, and he also had a lot on his plate, including many technologies that needed his attention, so he simply didn't have time to deal with these trivial matters.
He originally planned to visit Lü Buwei again to deliver another gift and then pass on these administrative affairs to him. However, Ying Zheng somehow found out about it, and in the end, these trivial administrative affairs were all given to Ying Zheng to practice on.
However, what the outside world knows is still what Taishu Jiu handled.
As soon as Zhu Qing'ai walked in, she saw a large and a small man working on scrolls. The small man was practicing politics, while the large man was frantically writing textbooks in simplified Chinese characters.
The school he previously ran only taught the basics. Now that he has the first batch of graduates, he needs to consider the advanced teaching materials for the next stage. Fortunately, those people went to do internships, which gave him some time to prepare. Otherwise, he really wouldn't have been able to compile usable teaching materials in such a short time.
Ying Zheng was the first to notice Qin's arrival. When he put down his pen and stretched his wrist, he inadvertently discovered that Qin was sitting quietly in a chair to the side, resting his cheek on his hand and staring blankly ahead, seemingly lost in thought.
As he looked over, she looked back at him: "Have you finished dealing with the political affairs?"
"Yes, those things are troublesome but not too difficult, perfect for practice."
Taishu Jiu was still writing furiously, seemingly unaware that Ying Zheng had moved to the other side of the hall and was whispering something.
Qin didn't say much, but simply listed the names he had written down and also played the video recordings he had made as evidence.
"I can sense that if this font is promoted, even if those people disdain to use it, only the common people will learn it. I may become more powerful and even manifest myself."
"Never before has a country enlightened its common people. I am the first, but I could have foreseen this change, and it is for the better."
Ying Zheng nodded in agreement, then frowned as he looked at the video and said, "But someone is trying to sabotage Qin's path to prosperity."
“Yes, there are quite a few people who are just going through the motions, and some are even deliberately sabotaging this policy,” Qin said with a wave of her hand. A series of images were spliced together, and the images and sounds were all about people looking down on ordinary people learning simplified characters. She continued, “I know that there are not enough officials and clerks in the country, so those who are just going through the motions can be warned and given a good talking-to. As for those who are deliberately sabotaging, let’s deal with them.”
When the policy was first introduced, some people might have been perfunctory, but those who deliberately sabotaged it were a very small minority. Dealing with these people would just create a new batch of positions to be allocated, and with the balance of power among various parties, no major incidents would occur.
"I'm sorry to have wronged Mother. If Zheng holds real power in the future, none of these people will be able to escape."
Qin paused, wondering if this was the power of familial guilt. She rubbed her forehead and said, "There's no need for that. They are my children. It's best if they know they're wrong and can correct their mistakes. I'm not willing to give them up just because of that."
She gradually explained her ideas to Ying Zheng, telling him that in her view, they could be given a chance, and that even if they held real power, they didn't need to wipe them all out.
“A warning is enough for minor mistakes, but severe punishment is necessary for repeated offenses,” she casually added. “Even some Qin laws are too harsh, and I can’t bear to see people physically disabled. It would be better to sentence them to a few years of hard labor, so they can make more contributions to the Qin Dynasty.”
She plans to bring up the issue of abolishing most forms of collective punishment after unification, as the situation during wartime and after unification are naturally different.
Ying Zheng remembered that commoners were also part of the mother's family, and he worried that if the law led to an excessively high rate of disability among the common people in the country...
No, he couldn't think any further. He simply couldn't imagine what such a situation would be like in his motherland. Now, he saw that she was unharmed on the surface, but who knew if the skin under the clothes was intact?
Ying Zheng had studied Legalist thought for many years, but compared with the two, he believed that the law should give way to 'Qin'. It was just a law, so what if it was changed for his mother?
So he echoed, "Zheng also thinks so."
Qin could sense the sincerity of the person in front of him. As for the process, it didn't matter; as long as the result was right, that was enough.
“Yes, very good,” she said, changing the subject back to those who were outwardly compliant but inwardly defiant. “Give these a lesson, and we’ll figure out how to deal with the rest.”
"I've prepared the letters of condolence for those people. Zheng'er, could you please copy them down?"
After much deliberation, Qin decided to threaten those people with a letter of condolence. Her trip of more than half a month was not just for surveillance.
She also observed those officials for a period of time, and the information she obtained personally was far more detailed than that of Qin's rudimentary intelligence agency.
Floating before Ying Zheng were countless pages of paper, each bearing a letter of condolence written in pale gold lettering.
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Author's Note: Zhu Qing'ai: Thankfully, I'm not love-struck, otherwise I'd really worry about the country's demise (crossed out).
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