plumnovel Chapter 194 Flourishing of Culture and Education
Chapter 194 Flourishing of Culture and Education
The implementation of the Equal-Field System and the construction of official roads and post stations were like replacing the wheels and axles of the newly formed Xing Kingdom's chariot with more solid and stable ones, significantly improving its internal operations and territorial control. However, Chen Xing and his core ministers, including Jia Wen, knew that land, roads, and harsh laws alone were far from enough to ensure the longevity and stability of the nation. The people's hearts were not only set on food and clothing and peace, but also on spiritual identity and cultural belonging. Especially for a new regime that had rapidly annexed Xiliang, integrated some Hu tribes, and aimed to absorb more regions and ethnic groups, establishing a cultural and educational system that could unite the people, educate the masses, and provide a legitimacy for its rule and a talent pool was of paramount importance.
The establishment of "official schools" was a crucial step in this grand strategy. However, these official schools were by no means the empty talk places of the old aristocratic families that only taught Confucian classics and discussed the nature of the mind. Chen Xing, Jia Wen, Wu Xuejiu, and others discussed repeatedly and set the tone for the official schools of Xing Kingdom: emphasizing practicality, clarifying laws and regulations, enlightening the people, and selecting virtuous and talented individuals.
The Imperial Academy in the capital city took the lead in reform, becoming a model and the highest institution of learning for the new type of official schools. It was divided into several departments: Classics and History; Mathematics; Law; Crafts and Technology; and Border Affairs.
The compilation of the textbook was overseen by Wu Xuejiu, the Grand Historian, who led a group of carefully selected, relatively open-minded or pragmatic senior scholars and young writers to revise it day and night. Chen Xing personally reviewed the outline, requiring that the language be "simple and clear, the principles be straightforward, avoid embellishment, and be practical." Although the final textbook inevitably still had the limitations of its time, it was much more "approachable" than the previous obscure and difficult commentaries on the classics.
In terms of admissions, the strict barriers of social class were broken down. The Imperial Academy in the capital and the official schools in various prefectures held annual entrance examinations. Anyone aged fifteen to twenty-five with a clean background, regardless of social class (scholar, farmer, artisan, merchant, or even the son of a chieftain who had submitted to the Hu tribes), could apply. The examinations did not focus on traditional poetry, prose, or policy essays, but rather on basic literacy, arithmetic, and understanding of the fundamental provisions of the *Xinglu* (a classic text on astronomy). Those with excellent grades not only received tuition waivers but also received a partial living allowance from the government; those with average grades but from impoverished families could apply for student loans.
This decree sent shockwaves through the north. Initially, many aristocratic families adopted a wait-and-see attitude, or even resisted it, believing it "corrupted academic integrity," placed scholars at the same table as commoners, and was an insult to scholarship. Some self-righteous old Confucian scholars even openly criticized the official school textbooks as "incongruous" and "disgracing the sages." However, for the vast majority of children from poor families, and even some small and medium-sized landowners and merchants, this was an unprecedented and tangible ladder to advancement! No longer needed to be subservient to powerful families, no longer needed to exhaust their wealth to curry favor with famous teachers; as long as they were willing to put in the effort to study, learn to read and write, understand the law and arithmetic, they would have the opportunity to enter official schools, and even become officials in the future, changing their destiny!
Thus, while the Equal-Field System stirred up waves of land interests, another bottom-up desire for knowledge and a change of fate began to quietly surge within the Star Kingdom. On the day the results of the first "entrance examinations" were released in each county, the scene of countless poor students embracing their families in tears became one of the most touching images of that autumn. Some enlightened aristocratic families, after perceiving this irreversible trend, also began to quietly send their illegitimate or more intelligent sons to official schools, hoping to secure a place in the new power structure.
The flourishing of education was not only reflected in the establishment of official schools, but also permeated the minutiae of daily life. With the smooth operation of official roads and post stations and the initial recovery of commerce, the "Xingyuan Tongbao" coins, which had previously circulated only in the capital and a few large cities, and the newly promulgated summary of the "Xinglu" (Star Laws), began to spread to rural towns at a faster pace. Official notices written in vernacular Chinese were frequently posted on the walls of post stations and at the gates of county towns, explaining the essentials of the new laws, encouraging agriculture and sericulture, praising the virtuous, and warning against the wicked. Although most people were still illiterate, there were always one or two young men who had attended a village school for a few days or had just returned from a holiday from an official school, willing to read and explain these things to others during their leisure time.
During Su Xiaoxiao's tenure, the Imperial Household Department also cleverly utilized commercial networks to promote "culture and education." She ordered government-run caravans to include inexpensive booklets printed with commonly used characters, simple mathematical formulas, or core provisions of the "Star Laws" when selling salt, iron, and cloth. She even launched a "free booklet with purchases over a certain amount" promotion. These booklets were made of rough paper and were not particularly well-printed, yet they quietly circulated among the people, becoming enlightenment reading materials for many families' children to learn to read and understand principles.
Cultural penetration and integration were also reflected in the strategies towards the Hu people. In some counties in northern Xinjiang where Han and Hu people lived together, official schools specially set up "bilingual classes" to teach Hu children both Chinese and Mandarin, while also allowing interested Han children to learn simple Hu language and understand grassland customs. Some of Pang De's generals and clerks who were fluent in both Chinese and Hu languages were often invited to official schools or markets to tell stories of the frontier and the customs of the Hu lands, subtly enhancing mutual understanding and eliminating barriers.
Of course, resistance and backlash never disappeared. The inertia of old cultural concepts was powerful; some local powerful families secretly obstructed the children of tenant farmers from taking the exams, satirizing official schools as "schools for artisans"; in some remote areas, the implementation of new textbooks encountered resistance from conservative gentry; even among the Hu people, some stubborn leaders believed that learning Han culture would lead to the extinction of tribal traditions and thus harbored resentment. Chen Xing's attitude towards this was clear and resolute: the trend was inevitable, and those who followed it would prosper. Legitimate and reasonable dissenting voices were allowed to be discussed and gradually guided; those who maliciously obstructed or undermined national policy were dealt with according to law by the Censorate and local governments, without any leniency.
The flourishing of education and culture, though subtle and pervasive, possesses immense power. Unlike the immediate results of a war victory, it shapes the soul and future of a nation on a deeper level. Even before the first batch of students in official schools graduated, and while those rudimentary vernacular pamphlets were still circulating in the countryside, a new sense of identity with "Singapore" and a cultural centripetal force were already sprouting and growing tenaciously like spring grass in the vast and once barren cultural soil of the North.
During an inspection of the newly built mathematics hall at the Imperial Academy in the capital, Chen Xing saw students from diverse backgrounds intently working with counting rods and debating a problem about land tax. A look of satisfaction appeared in his eyes. He said to Jia Wen and Wu Xuejiu, who were accompanying him, "It takes ten years to grow a tree, but a hundred years to cultivate a person. We may not live to see these seeds grow into towering trees, but the future of Xing Kingdom will be different because of them."