New Shun 1730

This scene in the court actually shows one thing, that Dashun has been internally divided.

However, it has been divided since the founding of Dashun, and the emperor is not prepared to bridge this division at all.

On the contrary, he wants to set up two governments, regulate and control power in the middle, achieve balance through mutual division, and make the imperial power a transcendent arbitrator.

This stems from the checks and balances policy chosen at the beginning of Dashun, and institutionalizes the emperor's own thinking.

However, in fact, this division is far more complicated than the emperor imagined. And it is absolutely different from the division that was deliberately left at the founding of the country to restrain the imperial examination officials.

Similar in form, but not in spirit.

What happened in northern Jiangsu has already happened, people have been shot, and the moral "shit pot" has been seized, and people can no longer live.

But all this is just the beginning.

To equalize the land, to fill the villages where the gentry were almost wiped out, to improve the organizational strength there to prepare for the subsequent Huaihe River Phase II project and the new seawall, all of this requires talents.

But these talents have a very embarrassing position, so it is not easy to choose.

The emperor chose Dengzhou Prefecture in Shandong for the selection.

At this time, many young people in Dengzhou Prefecture, Shandong, were heading towards Weihai, Jimo and other places. They had to participate in an assessment and selection.

Dengzhou Prefecture is where Liu Yu started his career.

With the rise of shipping and the deepening of trade with Japan and Korea, Dengzhou Prefecture gradually prospered. Weihai Port and Qingdao Port have both developed along with shipping, and have become important transit stations for Dashun immigrants to Liaodong.

The new school system here has also been gradually established.

The court does not allocate funds. This is a matter of principle. There is money to allocate funds for new schools, but no money to build official Confucianism?

Fortunately, Liu Yu relied on his own money to support it, and with the donations from overseas trade, the new school system in Dengzhou Prefecture has gradually taken shape. In fact, it doesn't cost much a year. Although compulsory education nationwide cannot be afforded, it can still be afforded in a county or a prefecture.

If they cannot enter the military academy or the Academy of Sciences, the remaining people will mainly go to some technical schools, mainly studying navigation, accounting, trade, foreign languages, agronomy, etc.

After so many years, people gradually discovered that they could really find jobs after graduating from the new school, and the new school gradually revived.

The court did not recognize the academic qualifications of the new school, and the crap learned by the new school really could not participate in the imperial examination.

Therefore, in the early stage, they could only attract the lower-class people to let their children study by providing a lunch.

Moreover, they had to be divided before the age of fourteen, because they could work at the age of twelve or thirteen, and it was impossible for the people's families to support a full-time labor force for nothing.

In other words, in recent years, the benefits of the new school have gradually emerged. Whether it is going to sea or going out to make a living, the court does not recognize the academic qualifications of the new school, but those companies and maritime merchants do.

Therefore, I have learned more in recent years and feel that it is a way out.

At worst, I can also learn to vaccinate cowpox and so on. It is easier to make a living than farming at home.

This place is different from Songjiang Prefecture, where the mainstream culture is the emerging bourgeois culture, which is dominant.

Here, it is the "middle-class" culture, and the mainstream aesthetic is to have "a skill" rather than "get rich overnight".

Knowing Japanese is a skill, knowing French is a skill, knowing how to do accounts is a skill, and knowing how to farm is also a skill.

At this time, in Qingdao, a new port that has recently risen due to shipping, several young people aged 17 or 18 gathered together to discuss the notice posted by the court a few days ago.

The court wanted to recruit some people to go to northern Jiangsu.

However, this notice was not as popular and sought after as imagined, although it was a formal court notice.

A young man in the crowd muttered, "People say that the first-rate students go to the Academy of Sciences, and the second-rate students become officers. We can't get into the Academy of Sciences, and we can't get into the military academy."

"But what's the point?"

"Even if we get into the Academy of Sciences, we won't even be granted the title of Jinshi. Not to mention being granted the title of Jinshi, we won't even be granted the title of Juren or Xiucai."

"Now the court is selecting people to go to northern Jiangsu, and I won't go anyway."

"They only pay two taels of silver a month. The reclamation company over there offers four taels of silver a month for those who study agronomy if they pass the assessment, and there will be promotions in the future."

"Not to mention that the court only pays two taels of silver, you will only be a village official for your whole life and you can't get promoted at all. Who would go to the court if they can go to the company, or to Ezo or Nanyang?"

When he slandered the government, his classmates next to him also echoed him.

"That's right. There are also people who study new learning in Beijing, but the good places are all given to them first, so why don't they find a job? No one in Beijing would go to that hellhole in northern Jiangsu for two taels of silver a month, so why don't they find us?"

"Anyway, I'll go to the company first, and if I don't pass the exam, I'll go to the court."

"If I work for the court, my life will be over. There's no hope anyway."

The word "hope" is divine in the culture of the middle class.

The court doesn't give these people any hope at all, because it doesn't recognize new learning qualifications at all, and they can't become officials.

The notice doesn't say it so clearly, but everyone who reads it understands that if they really go, their life will be like that.

Those who come from the new learning here, as long as they are good at learning and can enter the specialized branch school, can't stay in their hometown.

If they stay in their hometown, they can only eat shit, or become a charity school teacher.

Or go to southern Jiangsu, or go overseas, or go to Southeast Asia, it's better than staying at home.

This group of young people who grew up from Xinxue, or the first batch of Xinxue students who were born and raised when Liu Yu was training in Dengzhou, have been completely separated from Dashun in the past.

This is an artificial separation of identity labels.

Those who study Confucianism can only take the imperial examination, but even if they are admitted to the Academy of Sciences and eventually become academicians, they will not even have the same background as a Jinshi.

Those who study Confucianism are orthodox knowledge.

But they are heresies, miscellaneous scholars, eccentric and cunning scholars.

To a certain extent, they learned the same thing as those Liangjiazizi, but the difference was that they were the descendants of the brothers from the fifth camp, who were the Liangjiazizi of the Great Courtyard and the foundation of the Dashun royal family.

It is impossible to free up the space occupied by Liangjiazi for these people.

Therefore, these new students did not belong to Confucian scholars, nor did they belong to the class of good families who were vassals of the feudal imperial power.

With the rise of Sunan Capital Group, the demand for "middle class" with certain knowledge and skills has gradually created a middle-class culture for young people in Dengzhou Prefecture that relies on economic foundation in the past two decades.

Culturally, it has actually been separated.

Is it better to farm and study for generations or to conquer the world with one skill?

Letter of benevolence, wisdom and etiquette? Or tear away the veil of tenderness and look all at money?

Is it collecting land rent and lending money? Or do you rely on your own skills to make a living and make a fortune?

Is the feudal hierarchy insurmountable? Or in the pre-Qin heretical culture, slaves who are talented and skilled regardless of their origin can also be chosen as prime minister?

The shaping of the community had begun quietly more than ten years ago, but it was carried out so secretly that no one in the government noticed it.

When these newly learned young people gather together and say "A ship on the sea will see the mast first," everyone will smile.

Talk about peas and smile knowingly.

Singing the line "Go to school with your schoolbag on your back, you are not afraid of the sun or the wind and rain" is also a knowing smile.

Standardized annotations in general textbooks, jokes, nursery rhymes, humming songs, almost identical bells for starting and ending classes, being shaped to shout "hello teacher", etc., etc., have also shaped their same memories.

A marginalized, culturally bizarre community was created.

Of course, the number of people in this strange community is not very large, and is insignificant compared to the total population of Dashun.

Moreover, this strange community does not study politics, but only studies ideological and moral principles, that is, various scriptures.

However, the problem lies in their literacy.

Dashun’s printing technology could print pamphlets.

Literacy is the foundation, which is why in the chaotic and hopeful history of later generations, the headquarters of the uprising was at the Commercial Press.

Just like China's special handicraft industry foundation, hand-woven textile industry, spinning and weaving are not dead, and the backbone of women are basically from a "spinning factory" rather than a "cloth factory".

Not by chance, but by necessity.

At this time, the court could not feel the danger of the grave that Liu Yu had quietly dug.

The emperor could vaguely sense the danger of these new students, but he only felt that the danger came from the fact that the imperial examination did not recognize their knowledge and could not serve as officials.

Generally speaking, for the Dashun court at this time, these new students were more beneficial than harmful, and they should be far more beneficial than harmful.

First, the army and the Academy of Sciences absorbed first-class talents and incorporated them into the imperial court.

Secondly, the industrial and commercial development and overseas expansion in southern Jiangsu have accommodated a large number of employed people. The number is not very large to begin with. During the period of growth, the most people can do is complain, and there will be no major problems.

On the contrary, when the emperor wanted to use someone, he could choose from these new students.

It is impossible for those in the capital to get the kind of job of a village official in northern Jiangsu, because the amount given is too little.

Why don't you find something to do in the capital? Naturally, we can only recruit people from places that are willing to go to the countryside for a few taels of silver.

Without these people, it really wouldn't work. All the squires in several counties were killed. Someone had to go to the grassroots level. The emperor also had to try the Qin Dynasty organizational model that was so magical in the history books.

As for those local places sending imperial examination talents, it is definitely not possible.

First of all, the younger ones still have hope, maybe they will win the exam next time; the older ones can take the exam every year, so how can they go to the countryside for the two taels of silver?

Furthermore, they don’t understand some knowledge at all.

So, in Dengzhou Prefecture, such a strange news happened.

The company and the imperial court were recruiting people almost at the same time, and the young people who rushed over went to the company first, and then came to the imperial court after they were not selected.

The imperial court didn't care anyway. The first- and second-rate talents were all under the control of the imperial court. With the dividends brought by external expansion, they squeezed into the system on the premise that they would not occupy the vacancies in the imperial examination.

For those who go to rural areas in northern Jiangsu, it is enough that they can be literate, can be intensively trained for a period of time before taking office, can collect taxes, and can organize people to build the Huaihe River and sea embankments in the future.

Hulala picked up the company's leftovers and recruited and evaluated more than 200 people.

The emperor had long since thought of it, and it was a huge profit.

There are more than 200 people. Even if they are given more money, they will only get six to seven hundred taels of silver a year.

Spread to the grassroots, raise the tax rate, get rid of the middlemen, and raise the per-mu tax when building the Huaihe River Irrigation District to increase land production in the future. How can it not be more than five hundred taels of silver?

After the selection is completed, there is no need to go anywhere, it is directly loaded on the ship in Dengzhou and sent to Haizhou.

Over in Haizhou, Liu Yu presided over a short-term training and then took up the post.