With nothing to do in the afternoon, the group returned to their residence to rest. Liu Xuan, Zhao Xiaoshan, and Zhao Dani also returned to their residence after finishing their business at the restaurant to prepare dinner.
It was still early, so there was no rush to cook. The group sat down and chatted.
Judging from their situation, Zhao Xiaoshan and Liu Xuan are doing quite well. Although they are busy all day long, they are very happy.
Zhao Dani has made a lot of money in the past few years. After getting married, she moved out of the mansion and bought a mansion in Qing'an Prefecture.
The house was located in a remote area of Qing'an Prefecture and was not expensive, costing only a few dozen taels of silver.
The two of them could easily afford a better house in the city center, but they both came from humble backgrounds and were very frugal. They were already very content to have a place to live in Qing'an Prefecture.
The group chatted like that, and before long it was time to cook. Seeing that it was getting late, they went to make dinner.
The next morning, Zhao Xian and the others finished packing and returned to Narcissus Village.
This time, they left Narcissus Village and led an army of 100,000 to the foreign country. It took them more than three months to return today. In order not to disturb the villagers, they quietly returned to the village.
In just three months, the village has undergone significant changes. The third phase of the market construction project is taking shape, and the village's development pattern has been fully established. The future of Shuixian Village is something to look forward to.
To Zhao Xian and Li Guang's even greater surprise, Yang Ruotong and Meng Yaoyao were already nine months pregnant, and the baby would be born in another month.
During this time, unless something special happens, the two will not leave Narcissus Village; they will wait until their two children are safely born.
The day after Zhao Xian returned to the village, Li Zheng came to him and introduced him to the progress of the third phase of the farmers' market construction. Zhao Xian nodded repeatedly after listening.
According to the current construction progress, all projects will be completed by next spring, and a large number of workshops will also be built.
By then, his or her industry will have further developed and risen to a new stage.
Next, the village head told Zhao Xian about another matter.
Currently, both schools in the village are overcrowded. Both Ruan Fang's Wu Fang Academy and Lin Fuzi's school have reached their maximum enrollment capacity.
Due to location limitations, the two schools can no longer accommodate more children. Once the third phase of the project is completed, the village's population will increase significantly, and more children will come to study.
Upon hearing this, Zhao Xian said, "This is a good thing. In the past, the villagers were very poor and couldn't even get enough to eat, so the children couldn't afford to go to school."
Now things are much better, the villagers all want to send their children to school, but the children cannot be deprived of education because there are not enough schools.
"In that case, let's hurry up and build a bigger school so that children can go to school."
"Yes, that's what Headmaster Ruan thought too. She said she'd discuss this matter when the Marquis returns."
“Alright, this is a big event for the village. We must invite Master Lin to participate in the discussion.”
Considering that many girls in the village will need to attend school in the future, it is still necessary to build a girls' school.
Zhao Xian knew that in modern society, co-educational schools were possible; all that was needed was to build one school where both boys and girls could attend.
But this was in ancient times. If only one school were built so that both boys and girls could study there, it certainly wouldn't be enough.
If this is done, the vast majority of people will oppose it, and it might turn a good thing into a bad thing.
"Then let's do it this way. The children have to go to school during the day, so I'll gather them together in the evening to discuss this matter."
After dinner, the village head came to find Zhao Xian, saying that everyone had arrived at Wufang Academy and invited Zhao Xian to come over to discuss the construction of the school.
Zhao Xian nodded and followed the village head to Wufang Academy. Ruan Fang and several old gentlemen were already waiting there. When they saw Zhao Xian coming, they stood up and bowed to him.
"Greetings, Marquis Zhengyang."
Zhao Xian quickly returned the greeting and said, "No need for formalities, please have a seat."
Next, Ruan Fang told Zhao Xian that Wu Fang Academy has already enrolled more than 200 students, and many more children want to enroll, but the academy is only so big and cannot accommodate so many children.
When the academy was built, it was very well thought out. Given the situation in Narcissus Village at the time, building such a large academy was sufficient, and it could also accommodate children from neighboring villages who came to study.
What is unexpected is that Shuixian Village has developed too fast in recent years, and the village population has increased dramatically.
This is not the main reason. Because of the high quality of teaching at Wufang Academy, many families travel far and wide to Shuixian Village to study for their children's future.
It is conceivable that with the completion of the third phase of the village's construction, the village's population will increase dramatically, and the number of children needing to go to school will also increase.
The situation at Master Lin's School is similar. The school has already accepted more than fifty girls, and Master Lin has divided them into three classes for teaching.
It is already very difficult for one person to teach so many children; Master Lin is busy every day.
During this period, Zhao Xian was very busy and had no time to pay attention to the school. It would be a bad thing if he made these old teachers sick from overwork.
It seems that the issue of children in the village going to school requires not only expanding the schoolhouse but also hiring some teachers to come to the village to teach. The current few old teachers are definitely not enough.
After learning about these circumstances, the group discussed the urgent issue of building a new school building to serve as a boys' school and the original Wufang Academy to serve as a girls' school.
The group generally agreed with the proposal. The next issue was site selection. After discussion, they decided that it would be more appropriate to choose a new school site near Wufang Academy.
Once the third phase of construction is completed, the center of Shuixian Village will be moved to the new district, and the school site will be chosen in the old part of the village, away from the commercial center. This area is relatively quiet and suitable for teaching.
The new school building will still be named Wufang Academy, and its construction area will be greatly increased, allowing it to accommodate at least five or six hundred children. Such a large-scale academy was extremely rare in ancient times.
Such a large academy must occupy a considerable area. Since there is no such large open space in the old village area, it involves land acquisition and demolition.
That's easy to handle. The village head can take care of it. Currently, the villagers are very interested in land acquisition and demolition. If such a good thing happens, they all hope it will happen to them.
As for consulting a teacher, that's a matter for later; we'll discuss that once the new dormitories are built.
After the matter was agreed upon, the next step was to implement it. The village head calculated that building an academy of this size, including the demolition compensation, would require at least eight hundred taels of silver.
Building an academy is different from building shops; it is a public welfare undertaking with no return. The funds for this project mainly come from the village's investment and individual donations.
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