TBFCWTE - Chapter 14
Chapter 14
This was a mountain village whose residents did not live especially close together. The area where the village head's home stood was the most densely populated part of the surroundings.
Centered on this area, a few households were scattered sparsely around the nearby hillsides.
Some villagers had already come back ahead of time to spread the word, telling everyone what the passing caravan intended to buy and what prices it was willing to pay.
So some villagers willing to sell had already come one after another from their homes to the village head's house, bringing all sorts of things.
Seeing that some villagers carried chickens, ducks, and geese, while others led pigs or sheep, with all sorts of chaotic sounds filling the air, Cui Jinghuai looked at He Shu with some concern.
But he found that facing such a scene, she did not even frown. Instead, she watched everything before her with great interest.
Sensing Cui Jinghuai's gaze, He Shu said with a smile.
"I was thinking about something. If the main road outside the village could be properly built and more people were attracted to travel this way, and then the village built good roads connecting to the main road, the livestock they raise could be sold much more easily."
Instead of how it was now: even though they were close to the main road that led to the county town and prefectural city, the village's produce was still inconvenient to transport out.
Inconvenient roads not only blocked the villagers' steps toward the outside world, but also made the village lose many opportunities to increase its income.
Take this time, for example. If she had not deliberately chosen to stop here, even if the caravan needed to buy supplies or goods, its first choice would have been the households closest to the main road.
It would not have come this way, as it does now, walking over those rugged village paths deep into the mountain village and then carrying everything bought out by human labor, which was extremely troublesome.
After the village head arranged for Steward Liu and the others in charge of receiving goods, and instructed the villagers who had come to sell, he hurried over to entertain He Shu and the others.
"Forgive me, forgive me. The house is in such a mess, and I have been neglectful of you all. Please come into the main room and have some tea."
Cui Jinghuai cupped his hands and said mildly, "It is we who have intruded. There is no need for such courtesy, elder brother. This nephew of mine has grown up without going out much. On this trip with our caravan, he finds everything novel."
"So that's how it is. But this young master is truly impressive. Even though he has hardly been out, his knowledge is extraordinary."
Cui Jinghuai knew the other man was referring to the matter of the imperial court's land requisition compensation, and nodded with a smile.
"After all, my nephew can be counted as a scholar. He is bound to know something of the laws and statutes of the realm and the policies of the imperial court."
The village head sighed with deep envy. "It is good to be a scholar. I hear that nowadays, as long as one is a scholar, even without earning an official degree, anyone who can pass the government recruitment examination has a chance to become an official."
Even people in this remote little mountain village had heard of the new regulations for recruiting officials that the imperial court had only formally implemented two years earlier, which satisfied He Shu considerably.
Reforming the way officials were recruited could both improve the professional competence of staff at every level of government and raise the efficiency of grassroots work, while also promoting the spread and popularization of education.
Not long after Emperor Zhengning ascended the throne, when he discovered that for various reasons all levels of government offices were suffering from large staffing vacancies, he had begun trial implementation of the new recruitment rules.
After several years of trials and repeated improvements, they had been formally implemented only in the past two years.
"Yes. The imperial court now places great importance on promoting education in local areas. As long as a scholar can master a skill, he has a chance to apply for work with fairly good pay. Does your village have a village school?"
The village head shook his head, unable to hide his regret. "No. Our village is poor and remote. Although with government subsidies we built a few rooms to use as classrooms, we have never been able to hire a teacher."
"Doesn't your village have a scholar?"
The village head waved his hand. "Ah, Scholar Zhang has long since opened a school in town and become a teacher. How could we presume to ask him to come back to the village? It is already very good of him to be willing to come back and help when the village has trouble, as he did this time."
This quickly made He Shu's feelings somewhat complicated. Clearly, a mountain village like this also had to face the problem of "talent" draining away.
People who could read and write could find better work and living conditions outside. Leaving aside whether they were willing, others could not demand that they must return to the village.
What new rules could be made to give more village children the chance to learn to read and write became one of the key matters He Shu needed to note down.
"Grandpa Village Head, are there any other literate people in your village? One does not have to hold an official degree to be a teacher. As long as someone can read, whether man or woman, they could be invited first to teach the children some characters."
Hearing this, the village head could not help but ponder. Before he could come up with an answer, an old woman standing beside him spoke.
"Oh my, nephew, how could you forget? When it comes to literate people, besides the Zhang brothers, who learned a few characters from the scholar years ago, there is also Wang the Elder's wife. Wang the Elder's wife once served as a maid in a wealthy household, and she can write and do accounts."
Clearly, when it came to knowing the people in the village, the village head was not as well informed as this old woman.
Hearing her words, the village head quickly said.
"Now that Auntie mentions it, I remember too. But never mind the Zhang brothers. Zhang the Third and his brothers were never cut out for studying. They hardly learned a few characters back then, and by now they have long forgotten them all. What about Wang the Elder's wife, though?"
Seeing the village head hesitate, the old woman immediately took up the thread.
"Wang the Elder's wife has been married into the village for nearly ten years and has always been dutiful and capable. If the village is willing to invite her to teach at the school, I will be the first to send all my mischievous boys there."
The old woman was shrewd. Having just heard the conversation between the village head and this young man from the caravan, she had become even more aware that learning to read and write was a good thing, and she naturally hoped her own grandsons could learn some characters too.
Wang the Elder was her neighbor. His wife had been a criminal slave sold off because her master's household had committed an offense. When she was so ill she was close to death, a broker passing by had sold her to Wang the Elder for a very low price, half selling and half giving her away, and only then did she recover her life.
Wang the Elder had been willing to go into debt in the village and insisted on saving her life. After she recovered, he married her. In the years after their marriage she bore a son, who was raised exceptionally well and looked different from the other children in the village, filling the old woman with envy.
Seeing her attitude, the village head nodded solemnly. "All right. Later I will discuss it with the villagers and see whether the others agree."
"Why wouldn't they agree? As things are now, you cannot find two people in the whole village who can read and write. Whenever something comes up, we have to go to town and ask the scholar to come forward. What a bother."
He Shu knew what the village head was hesitating over. Under the current circumstances, agreeing to let a woman serve as a teacher in the school was absolutely a challenge.
"Grandpa Village Head, this grandmother is right. For your village, the most important thing now is to give the children a chance to learn to read, not to quibble over whether the teacher is a man or a woman. If there is someone who can teach the children, that person should be treasured and respected, whether man or woman."
The old woman nodded hurriedly. "Right, right. This young brother is truly worthy of being a scholar. His mind is sharper than ordinary people's. At such a young age he already has such ideas and insight. Nephew, you cannot go wrong listening to this young brother."
He Shu then went on, in a casual conversational way, to describe how, without brush, ink, paper, or inkstone, one could make a blackboard from wooden boards, grind eggshells into powder to make chalk, and make charcoal pencils.
Since she had encountered them and had a good impression of the people in this village, she wanted to offer as much guidance as she could, hoping they would seize the opportunity.
Having become crown prince in this life and risen to a high position, she had come to appreciate more and more how unfree it was to be a person.
This lack of freedom included but was not limited to the difficulty of traveling, being forced to remain confined in the deep palace for long periods, and all kinds of restrictions on what she could say and do.
Even though her emperor father in this life had long since recognized his own limitations, obeyed her every word, and left great power in her hands, yet precisely because of this, she not only could not act according to her own temperament and temper, but had to be even more cautious in every decision she made.
Because she bore not only the future of her own family, but also the lives and prospects of the subordinates loyal to them.
So even when she wanted to do something, she could only first write it down, then plan slowly and look for the right moment. She could not simply give casual orders for whatever she wanted and demand that the entire court and country cooperate.
After leaving the palace this time, He Shu discovered that some local officials' practice of deceiving superiors and hiding the truth from below was nearly blatant. The situation was far more serious and vile than she had previously imagined.
And this was what she had seen with her own eyes while still not far from the capital and having visited only a few places.
None of it could have been revealed in the information the Shadow Guards sent back to the palace.
It was not that the Shadow Guards were not diligent and responsible. Rather, in their eyes these were common phenomena that could simply be brushed over with a single stroke of the pen.
He Shu knew that in some respects she was indeed too idealistic. Take the Tax Reform Plan she had proposed this time: strictly speaking, it had actually been somewhat hasty.
But even knowing this, she had still chosen to seize the opportunity and get it started early. In the end, it was because at heart she was not a qualified politician.
Her desire to do more for the common people living in hardship was simply too urgent.
Because she had once lived in a society where ordinary people did not worry about food or clothing, and the government not only did not tax grassroots commoners but even provided living subsidies to the poor.
Since she could not close her eyes and enjoy honor and privilege, could not become a muddleheaded crown prince who cared nothing for the people's suffering and could ask something as foolish as "Why don't they eat meat porridge?", she could only strive to realize her ideals.
Looking again at the villagers' houses before her, most had mud walls, and most roofs were not tiled. Some walls had already cracked open in long fissures, making them truly fit to be called dangerous buildings.
Only a few households had adobe houses with tiled roofs. Those were probably the comparatively better-off families in the village.
The village head's three-room main house of gray brick and tiled roof was unique in this village.
If He Shu had not seen these things with her own eyes, she could never have imagined such scenes, whether from her previous life living among tall buildings or her present life in the magnificent deep palace.
Precisely because she had seen with her own eyes the living conditions of the grassroots common people of Great An, He Shu regretted her choices even less, and wanted all the more to do some practical things for these people.
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