Zhu Youjian frowned slightly, wondering what exactly this little sunflower that Gao Qingyun had mentioned at the beginning was.
However, he was too lazy to think too much about it and simply lowered his voice, saying to Wang Chengen behind him:
"Go to the Imperial Kitchen and select the best sunflower seeds from those that were offered as tribute in previous years, and send them to Chef Gao!"
Wang Chengen quickly agreed.
Zhu Youjian nodded and turned to look into the classroom.
At this moment, Gao Qingyun began to call roll.
Although there are only six students here, Gao Qingyun still feels a strong sense of ceremony.
He started calling out numbers one by one, according to age.
"Zhang Xianzhong".
"I'm here."
"Li Zicheng".
"arrive!"
...
"Zheng Chenggong".
"arrive!"
As the last childish voice rang out.
The roll call is finally over.
Gao Qingyun smiled.
"Alright, then let's have a Chinese lesson for our first class, and..."
However, he was interrupted before he could finish speaking.
Zhang Xianzhong grinned widely.
"Sir, I don't understand what Yuwen is."
"Could it be a method to pray for rain?"
These words made Gao Qingyun laugh in anger.
"You little brat, are you deliberately trying to cause me trouble?"
“No matter how remote your Dahe Village is, you must know what Chinese means.”
Zhang Xianzhong shook his head again.
Li Zicheng, who was standing nearby, was worried that he might say something incoherent, so he quickly pulled him back.
Then he cautiously said to Gao Qingyun:
"Sir, Xianzhong is indeed causing trouble, please don't take it to heart."
"However, Mr. Gao, we are all of different ages and know different things."
"Look at me, I only attended a private school for a few years... cough cough, I did read some books on my own."
"And Xianzhong couldn't even read a few characters."
"How about we start by talking about something interesting to get started?"
Upon hearing this, Zhang Xianzhong curled his lip, revealing a hint of displeasure.
Old Zhang did receive an education when he was young.
But before he could speak, Gao Qingyun nodded in agreement.
"What you said does make some sense."
"So tell me, what should we talk about in our first lesson?"
Li Zicheng swallowed hard, recalling Wang Chengen's instructions to him the day before.
So he tentatively said, "Sir, we all love to hear stories, why don't you tell us some history?"
Gao Qingyun had no doubts.
He smiled and said, "Oh? What would you like to hear? The Three Kingdoms? The Chu-Han Contention? Or something else?"
Li Zicheng quickly shook his head.
"Sir, we've heard all of this before."
"We mainly want to know..."
He swallowed again, knowing that if he were to say these words elsewhere, it would be a capital offense.
But he glanced at the young emperor at the door and saw that he had a calm expression and was even smiling at him.
So I just gritted my teeth and made up my mind.
"Sir, I would like to hear stories about the Qing Dynasty."
"How exactly did the Jurchens enter the pass? And after entering, how did they manage to secure their rule over the country?"
Sure enough, as soon as he said that, the remaining five students turned around sharply and stared at him intently.
They seemed to find it hard to believe that Li Zicheng was so bold.
Even Zhang Xianzhong looked at Li Zicheng with new respect.
"Goodness, I always thought I was the one who was recklessly bold, but now I see that Old Li is quite daring too."
However, Gao Qingyun nodded.
“That makes sense, since the pseudonyms you’ve chosen are all characters from the late Ming Dynasty.”
"It's normal that you're interested in the Jurchens."
At this point, he didn't want to be too authoritative.
When telling a story, it's best to be easygoing.
He stepped down from the podium and sat down next to Li Zicheng.
"The Jurchen invasion was actually a problem within the Ming Dynasty itself."
Have you ever heard this rhyme?
"That means the Ming army is not fully paid; when fully paid, they are invincible."
"Where can I find full pay? At Huangtaiji outside the pass."
Gao Qingyun spoke eloquently, explaining how, at the end of the Ming Dynasty, many officials and soldiers defected to the Jurchens and were subsequently incorporated into the Han Eight Banners.
Finally, he confessed to his role as a collaborator in inflicting heavy losses on the Ming army.
"In the end, it was the Ming Dynasty's own corrupt officialdom that caused it to be unable to collect much tax."
"If the imperial court collects one coin, the common people have to pay ten coins."
"In the end, the people could no longer survive and rebelled. The court had no money to support the army, which gave the Jurchens an opportunity to take advantage of the situation."
It took quite a while just to tell this story.
Although Gao Qingyun couldn't see anything, he could feel the temperature gradually rising.
I knew it was noon.
It's around October now, and since Beijing is in the north, there's a significant temperature difference between morning and noon.
Therefore, Gao Qingyun felt it very clearly.
He chuckled a few times, then said, "Alright, alright, it's almost time. You can all leave now."
"I didn't expect that just telling stories would take up two class periods."
"Our first serious lesson will have to wait until the afternoon."
However, he didn't see that the students in front of him were looking at him with incredulous eyes.
After all, they had long heard that their Mr. Gao was from the future.
But I've never seen him do anything out of line.
Apart from Gu Hengbo, who had come into contact with that "miracle drug".
Others could only remark that Mr. Gao's accent was strange and they couldn't tell where he was from.
Now, they finally realized that Mr. Gao was no ordinary person.
"If Mr. Gao made all this up, then he is truly amazing."
After class, Zheng Chenggong sighed.
But Li Zicheng patted his head.
"Such a detailed story, how could it possibly be made up?"
"I never expected this, Mr. Gao is actually from later generations!"
"But the question is, given Mr. Gao's special status, why would he come to teach us?"
"And judging from his manner, he seems to know us quite well?"
"Could it be that we were some kind of powerful figures in history?"
After listening to Gao Qingyun tell stories all morning, Li Zicheng's accent was also influenced, and he started speaking strange-sounding Mandarin.
They no longer use "uh" all the time.
However, his words sparked the imaginations of all the students.
Zhang Xianzhong was the first to speak.
"In that case, I must be the number one philanthropist in the Ming Dynasty."
Zheng Chenggong also chimed in:
"Then I must be the naval admiral."
"It must be because my father was eventually granted amnesty, so I also became a member of the government army."
Zhu Youjian, who was in the distance, heard this and his lips twitched.
He knew where these people came from.
Zhu Youjian stared at Zhang Xianzhong for a while, then shook his head and said, "What kind of number one philanthropist is he..."
"But with Master Gao's guidance, he might actually become a very good person."
He shook his head, then went into the classroom and found Gao Qingyun.
"Mr. Gao, I have some good news for you."
Zhu Youjian, beaming with joy, recounted the deeds of Zhou Yanru and the Donglin Party in a completely different light.
"Those in the village who were against me have completely given in."
"From now on, I, Xiao Zhu, will be in charge of Dahe Village!"
However, Gao Qingyun chuckled softly.
"Little Zhu, why don't you ever learn your lesson?"
"I almost got scammed by that old bastard in the village back then, and now I'm going to get tricked by a few old foxes again?"
The smile on Zhu Youjian's face froze instantly.
"What?"
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