After things were settled, old lady Liu took her people and left.

Some people from the Gu family, together with Chen Xuanxuan and Gu Yanzhang, politely sent the three of them to the entrance of Chenjia Village. Gu

Yuxi, who was still sitting in Gu Yanzhang's house drinking tea, saw that these people from his family seemed to have gotten a great bargain, and he felt a little unhappy.

A child has to pay 500 coins to learn some skills... This apprenticeship fee is almost the same as the tuition fee he received when he was studying.

Since ancient times, everything is inferior, only reading is high. How can the apprenticeship fee for learning to make buns be on the same level as the tuition fee?

Just when he was hesitating, one of his grandsons came over quietly.

"Grandpa, let's go home early, shall we?"

"Making buns is profitable anyway. My grandson has studied for more than ten years and is now in his twenties. Every time I wanted to go to the provincial capital to take the imperial examination, my family couldn't afford much money, so I wasted my time and wasted until now."

"Now that Liu has agreed to accept disciples and pass on his skills, let's spend some money and let our family go to her to become her apprentice. This way, we can also earn more money. As long as we invest more and work harder, maybe next year, I will be able to go to the provincial capital to take the exam. As long as my grandson can get the title of scholar, our family's dozens of acres of fertile land will no longer have to pay taxes. Maybe my grandson will have some spare money to protect those poor families in the clan."

Gu Yuxi heard this and couldn't help but ponder.

He understood his grandson's considerations.

The poor are good at literature, but the rich are good at martial arts. Studying is the most expensive thing. For farmers like them, it is as difficult as climbing to heaven to make a name for themselves.

They cannot afford tuition, cannot afford a teacher, have no money to buy books, paper, and pens, and have no money to travel with their classmates.

As for spending more than ten years to learn the Four Books and Five Classics thoroughly, preparing to take the imperial examinations, this has become a major obstacle for educated farmers.

County examinations, prefectural examinations, metropolitan examinations, anyway, as long as it is an examination, it will cost a lot of money.

First of all, you have to jointly guarantee and recognize each other. Joint guarantee is better, find a few classmates to get together to guarantee each other, and it doesn't cost money. But acknowledging is different. It is very troublesome. They all needed to find a student from the same county to guarantee their children, to prove that their children were qualified to take the exam.

Because among these five students, if only one of them had a problem, the student who guaranteed them would also be punished. After all, if they didn't know each other, they would still take risks. Why would they guarantee you?

Therefore, anyone who wanted to take the Tongsheng exam or take the Xiucai exam had to spend money.

In their place, the price of finding a student from the same county to guarantee them was relatively high. It cost two taels of silver each time.

In addition, after any exam, the court also stipulated that every participating student had to pay for sealing the papers. It was about three cents per person.

But after arriving at each place, the actual situation was different. The vast majority of places would charge more.

Basically, after taking the exam once, a peasant family that makes a living by farming will lose all the money they have saved up in the past five or six years.

As for the examination for the title of scholar, the cost is extremely high. Because according to the regulations of the court, the examination for the title of scholar must be held more than once.

In their place, it must be held three times. Each examination will take a whole day.

Therefore, any family with a scholar generally knows that those who pass the exam once are only "tongsheng". Only those who pass the exam several times and are on the list can be considered to have the official title of scholar.

As long as one passes the examination for the title of scholar, the peasants who dig for food in the fields every day can be considered to have changed their status. The two pairs of trousers on their feet can also shake off the mud. Xiucai didn't have to work in the fields all his life, and under normal circumstances, they would never die of hunger.

Every day, they only needed to hold a few books and drink tea, and the good days of leisure and ease would come just like this.

Thinking of his eldest grandson, who was much more talented in studying than him, and had his own ideas since he was a child, and now he only had one last exam to get the same fame as Xiucai, Gu Yuxi thought about it, nodded to him and said, "Okay, I'll listen to you. Let's go home now."

Knowing that his grandson was like this, he must have a lot of things to say to him. It's just that they are outside now, and it's not convenient to say all those things that are related to their interests directly. So, Gu Yuxi said hello to Gu Yanzhang's father, Gu Yu'an, and went back.

As soon as the head of the Gu family and his entourage left, the other members of the Gu family also hurried back home.

They were actually very busy all day long.

It was already

late autumn. The cold winter was about to come.

Every household was seizing the time to repair their roofs, collect firewood everywhere, and especially prepare enough food for the winter.

In this late autumn season, there were still a lot of wild vegetables and fruits on the mountain. They all had to go to the mountain to take a look.

...

As soon as these people left, Gu Yu'an and his wife Yu, who still liked the liveliness, felt a little disappointed.

The people you usually ignored, but in the past few days, you saw that they were very warm and flattering, and said a lot of nice things. They had already been tired of hearing them.

After hearing these nice words, Gu Yu'an wanted to hear more.

The life he was leading now made everyone envious, and those people said he was blessed. If he said he was not happy, it would be a lie. Thinking

about the fact that his family had undergone such a big change in just a few years, Gu Yu'an felt that his family's fortune had come. Thinking about the beginning of

next spring, matchmakers from the surrounding villages would come to him to introduce him to some good wives for his precious grandchildren, and the smile on Gu Yu'an's face could not be suppressed.

He was just wishful thinking, because his cousin, the head of the Gu family, Gu Yuxi, was holding an emergency meeting at this time.

All those present were married people from Gu Yuxi's family.

"Grandpa, we have a large family. I suggest that the second and third uncles should all learn the craft of making dumplings. In this way, even if we split up in the future, everyone in our family will have someone to rely on."

Gu Yuxi couldn't help but say, "It's enough to send one child over, why send two?"

Isn't this a waste of money?

Gu Chongzuo, the eldest grandson of Gu Yuxi, sighed helplessly in his heart when he heard this.

Although grandpa is old, he still lacks his grasp of human nature.

In a big family, the more people there are, the more twists and turns there are.