Chapter 296 Departure
Daiyu kept this a secret. If Wang Xifeng hadn't come to find Yuan Hongqu and wanted to send Yingchun to the study tour as well, Yuan Hongqu would still have been kept in the dark.
She knew that Daiyu had recently become quite close to several classmates, and they often spent their free time together, reading and writing.
Seeing that Daiyu was in good spirits and getting along well with her classmates, Yuan Hongqu realized that as children grow up, they have their own circles and ways of doing things. Adults should only play the role of guides and not interfere too much.
As for their reading and writing together, Yuan Hongqu was even more pleased to see it happen.
Daiyu was a woman of great talent. Perhaps I raised her in the wrong way, which is why those well-known poems in the original work did not appear. Now that she is with her like-minded classmates, I believe that it will not be long before Daiyu's poems are published.
Therefore, Yuan Hongqu not only failed to fully investigate Daiyu's behavior, but even strongly supported it.
The girls would come over from time to time to ask Yuan Hongqu some questions, and Yuan Hongqu would answer them one by one and give them some very useful help.
However, Yuan Hongqu never imagined that Daiyu and these students were doing such a big thing together.
When Wang Xifeng came to her to register Yingchun, Yuan Hongqu thought that Yingchun was going to go to the grassland with Daiyu. She did not expect that Daiyu and the others had organized such a large-scale event.
Seeing that she could no longer hide it, Daiyu handed over the completed plan to Yuan Hongqu.
Instead of criticizing Daiyu and the others for acting arbitrarily in the name of the academy, Yuan Hongqu instructed Mi Ling to quickly form a working group for the long-distance study tour and take over these matters.
Daiyu and her eight classmates also became members of this group.
Such a large-scale study tour would be a headache no matter where it is held.
There were nearly a hundred students, seven or eight maids and servants, three or four cooks and general laborers, and more than twenty coachmen and guards.
When a student goes out, there are at least forty people, including those who follow him. The standard is five carriages and forty horses.
In this way, the number of students traveling to study at the girls' academy will reach nearly four thousand.
Yuan Hongqu inexplicably felt that this was not a study tour, but a trip to destroy a country.
The guards sent by each family are the elite of the elite, each capable of taking on at least ten men, while someone as powerful as Lan Su can take on a hundred men.
These nearly two or three thousand guards would be a force to be reckoned with anywhere.
Yuan Hongqu had no choice but to go to the palace to report the incident. Fortunately, when the emperor heard about it, he thought it was just a little girl's playful antics.
To demonstrate his benevolence, the emperor also dispatched one hundred imperial guards to accompany and protect him.
Yuan Hongqu pretended not to see the Empress's longing eyes, but she knew that the Empress also wanted to go out and play.
However, since she had already received the Emperor's favor, she could no longer abduct the Empress.
That would be too unfair.
No sooner had Yuan Hongqu left than the Emperor began to criticize her in his heart.
"It's not that your Mr. Yuan is the laziest. Organizing such an event takes a lot of energy, but I didn't see her being unwilling at all."
“Your Majesty, this was not something Mr. Yuan came up with on his own. You didn’t see the plan he brought. It’s like a child playing house, full of idealism, and everything is so perfect it’s like a dream. This must have been done by Princess Jiangzhu. Mr. Yuan was afraid she wouldn’t be able to handle it, and he was also afraid she would suffer setbacks and be heartbroken, so he took it upon himself to handle it.”
The Empress looked through the planning document sent by Yuan Hongqu. It was detailed in terms of the itinerary for each day, the location of the camp, and the time points for each day.
Yuan Hongqu didn't have the leisure to make such a detailed plan that even stipulated her wake-up time.
However, Mr. Yuan has really changed a lot for his junior sister!
Daiyu hadn't expected that so many classmates would want to participate in the study tour.
As the number of people grew, she initially considered asking Yuan Hongqu for help, but then she also wanted to test her own abilities.
She simply teamed up with eight classmates from the advanced class to research materials, plan routes, and even visited the geography museum in the academy many times to look at maps and take notes.
The advantages of elite schools are numerous.
Maps are something that ordinary academies would never have, but their academy did. It was a three-dimensional map that the teacher had guided them to create step by step based on the terrain and landforms. Although the map was not yet finished, it had already been pre-ordered by the Ministry of War.
Daiyu also read many books about the local customs and culture along the route, checked geographical records, and went to the palace library to look through county records. She and her eight classmates made a thick notebook just from these preparations.
One of the reasons Yuan Hongqu ultimately took on this task was because she was impressed by the dedication of the nine women.
They were all young ladies from wealthy families, born with silver spoons in their mouths, who could have done nothing and had everything provided for them. Yet, they still chose to accompany Daiyu in doing this.
Apart from Daiyu, the other eight are all students about to graduate, and most of them have reached the age of marriageable age.
Among them were the granddaughter of the Minister of Works and the youngest daughter of the Minister of Revenue. This journey was the farthest they had ever been since birth, and it was their first and possibly last time traveling far from home.
They have reached marriageable age and will be expected to perform the traditional wedding rites upon returning home. It is unlikely that they will have such an opportunity again.
Take this opportunity to say goodbye to your younger self.
Take this opportunity to give full play to your strengths and apply all the knowledge you have learned.
All students participating in the study tour can freely form teams of ten.
The nine students who initially designed the trip each managed a group, except for Daiyu.
Each group is also accompanied by two teachers from the academy. If there is anything, you can report to the teachers first.
Other arrangements, such as the accompanying medical team and the scout team, were all made.
Before the troops march, the supplies must be ready.
Yuan Hongqu experienced this firsthand.
As the dean of the academy, she worked behind the scenes to coordinate and fill in any gaps, and managed to get the study tour going.
On the morning of the day of departure, all the teams gathered outside the city and set off together.
Yuan Hongqu and Daiyu were in one carriage, with only the two of them inside. Lan Su was riding a horse outside, while the other maids were in the carriage behind.
The carriage was already quite comfortable, but Yuan Hongqu was still worried that Daiyu might feel uncomfortable riding in it for a long time. Although she had taken many measures, the wooden wheels didn't have any shock absorption. Although they were traveling on the official road, the road only looked flat, and the carriage would still bump around.
Once the carriage started moving, she took out a sofa cushion from the space. The cushion had a sponge inside and a cool-to-the-touch cowhide mat on the outside, so it wouldn't feel stuffy in this kind of weather.
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