amaotonovel Chapter 823 You, Zhu Chong, are really generous!
Chapter 823 You, Zhu Chong, are really generous!
As an old partner who had cooperated and fought with Li Shanchang for many years, Liu Bowen could tell what kind of fart Li Shanchang was going to let out just by sticking his butt out, and thus deduce whether Li Shanchang was eating leek dumplings or garlic scrambled eggs for lunch.
To put it bluntly, the main reason why Li Shanchang hoped that schools in other places could also produce talented people was that he felt he owed Yang Shaofeng a favor regarding the transfer of his fiefdom to Japan, and he wanted to repay that favor.
Pay attention.
Although the nobles of the Ming Dynasty were often called Dukes or Marquises, these so-called Dukes and Marquises only had salaries and land but no fiefs, meaning they did not have real estates.
Emperor Zhu has already made it very clear in his words that "the fiefdom will be moved to Japan".
This means that there will be actual fiefdoms in the future.
Most importantly, the fiefdoms of the nobles will be moved outside the Ming Dynasty, and to an island. Emperor Zhu and the Black Sesame Dumpling will no longer have to worry about these nobles having ulterior motives, which is equivalent to helping the nobles avoid the invisible chain of suspicion between the emperor and his subjects.
As the saying goes, "to repay a favor," Li Shanchang felt indebted to Yang Shaofeng and naturally wanted to help him out.
Even if no one mentions it, the entire Ming Dynasty court and local governments have to face the fact that the number of officials from the Ningyang faction will increase, and even the noble groups are beginning to see the shadow of the Ningyang faction.
From the initial twenty-five students who were sent to serve as county magistrates in the Sixteen Prefectures of Yan and Yun, to Li Mingchen, who led troops beyond the Great Wall without authorization but was granted the title of Earl of Kluge, the Ningyang faction had already begun to emerge without anyone noticing.
Then the problem is coming.
Just as Emperor Zhu could disregard the growing power of Ningyang County, so too could the black sesame glutinous rice ball enthusiasts; they might even intentionally support the development and expansion of the Ningyang faction.
But would the emperors after Zhu Biao care?
Or to put it more bluntly, the bandits of Ningyang County would praise Emperor Zhu and the black sesame dumplings, but they wouldn't necessarily praise Zhu Biao's son.
There are also students from Dengzhou Prefecture, and even students from Huai'an Prefecture. The former is under Yang Shaofeng's own jurisdiction, while the latter comes from Dengzhou Prefecture and is under the jurisdiction of Xu Jingyu, who has a strong Yang faction label. Students from these two places will naturally be close to students from Ningyang.
Half of the civil and military officials are from Ningyang. This is not a good thing. It may even become Yang Dianfeng's death warrant someday in the future.
Liu Bowen sighed inwardly, but still bowed and said, "Your Majesty, I second your opinion."
Although Emperor Zhu was not as disgusting as Liu Bowen, he had more or less guessed Li Shanchang's intentions.
However, Emperor Zhu curled his lip in disgust.
Li Shanchang and Liu Bowen, those two old geezers, were truly shrewd when they were clever, but also truly foolish when they were stupid.
Taking the traditional system of mentors, headmasters, and classmates from the imperial examination system and trying to apply it to the system of community schools, county schools, prefectural schools, and universities will only result in something that is neither fish nor fowl.
Emperor Zhu reached out and tapped the table, saying, "Mr. Shanchang, Mr. Qingtian, have you two forgotten that Dengzhou University will be split up in the future, and each of the dozen or so provincial administrations of the Ming Dynasty will have one, two, or even three universities."
"Moreover, these universities not only recruit students within their own provincial administration, but also recruit students from other provincial administrations."
"Different disciplines have different criteria for selecting students, and the destinations of students after graduation also vary."
Emperor Zhu didn't explain his words very clearly, but Li Shanchang and Liu Bowen understood them instantly.
There's no need to worry about the officials of the Ningyang faction forming cliques in the future, because a dozen or even dozens of universities naturally form a dozen or even dozens of factions.
Fellow townsmen and classmates—these two relationships intertwine, forming a whole host of messy new factions.
As for the Imperial College?
Since Emperor Zhu did not mention the name "Imperial Academy," it means that these universities were either based on the Imperial Academy or directly merged with it.
After giving Li Shanchang and Liu Bowen a brief reminder, Emperor Zhu continued, "Seventy million taels of silver can't all be put into the community schools and county schools. I do have an idea, you two can give it your consideration?"
Emperor Zhu once again bent his finger and slowly tapped the table, saying, "Just as Mr. Shanchang just said, this seventy million taels of silver can be said to have been earned back for our Great Ming by the Dengzhou fleet."
"Therefore, several more shipyards will definitely need to be built. Mr. Shanchang, please discuss this with the Ministry of Works and the Ministry of Revenue to see how to get this done."
"There are also community schools and county schools, which also cost money."
"But we can't just divide it equally among the prefectures and counties."
"After all, the number of villages and communities under the jurisdiction of each prefecture and county varies, and the number of people in each village and community also varies."
“Let’s calculate based on fifty households per community, and build one community school in each community. We’ll have each county report the number of community schools they want to build, and the Ministry of Works, the Ministry of Rites, and the Censorate will send people to verify them. Then the national treasury will allocate the funds.”
"As for county schools and prefectural schools, we will initially set up two county schools per county and one prefectural school per prefecture."
"Then there are the food, clothing, books, and writing materials for the students of the community school and the county school. The remaining money should be enough to cover these expenses, and there should even be a slight surplus."
Almost instantly, Li Shanchang calculated several numbers.
The entire Ming Dynasty currently has a population of over 70 million, which translates to roughly between 15 million and 20 million households.
Taking the maximum value of 20 million households, and calculating based on 50 households per community, that's roughly 400,000 community schools.
The construction costs of a community school are actually very low, probably less than ten strings of cash. The real expense lies in the cost of food, clothing, books, and writing materials, as mentioned by Emperor Zhu.
With 20 million households, there must be at least 10 million students of school age, right?
If each student spends five strings of cash per year on food, clothing, books, and writing materials, then fifty million strings of cash would be spent.
So, the current situation is that it will cost about two million to build a shipyard, about four million to build more schools, and fifty million to be spent on students. Of the total seventy million taels of interest, only fourteen million taels are left.
wrong.
There were also county schools and prefectural schools.
The standards for county schools and prefectural schools are always higher than those for community schools, and the corresponding expenses are also higher.
Even though each county already has a county school, the imperial court only needs to cover the cost of building new county schools, which would still amount to more than a thousand county schools.
If we calculate based on the construction cost of 100 strings of cash for each county school, that would amount to another 100,000 strings of cash.
If we add the expenses for the county students' food, clothing, books, and writing materials, it might cost another two million strings of cash.
What about the prefectural school?
So, in the end, there might only be less than ten million strings of cash left?
From seventy million taels of silver to less than ten million, Li Shanchang felt as if his heart was bleeding.
It hurts, it hurts so much!
The more Li Shanchang thought about it, the more heartbroken he became. He couldn't help but bow to Emperor Zhu and say, "To ascend the throne, the expenses in this area alone would be about fifty million strings of cash, and that might not even be enough."
Emperor Zhu paid no attention to how distressed Li Shanchang was. Instead, he smiled and tapped the table, saying, "As the saying goes, it takes ten years to grow a tree, but a hundred years to cultivate a person."
"That bastard only brought us 70 million taels. If he had brought us 700 million taels, we would have dared to spend 100 million taels on education."
"We have only one thing to say: no matter how much money we spend on education, we will never think it's too much. We are not afraid that there are too many scholars in the Ming Dynasty; we only think that there are too few."
Li Shanchang and Liu Bowen were not keen on getting involved with Emperor Zhu.
Only?
Seventy million taels appeared out of thin air, and you, Zhu Chongba, actually said that you "only brought back seventy million taels"?
I bother!
Emperor Zhu continued, "No matter how much silver is left, we plan to divide it into three parts."
"The first batch of grain was used to advance the construction of granaries and reserve warehouses, to continue building more reserve warehouses, and to purchase and store more grain in preparation for disaster years."
"As the saying goes, food is the most important thing for the people. When ordinary people have food in their hands and know that the court has prepared food for them, they can remain calm in the face of disaster years."
That's not all.
More importantly, the people knew that the imperial court had prepared grain for them, which not only made them feel at ease in the face of famine, but also meant that they would stand up for the people in the event of rebellion or foreign enemies because of this grain.
"The second portion will be used to power the water press."
“Floods can only be managed slowly by dredging waterways, but droughts can be controlled immediately with water pumps.”
"As for this third one..." Emperor Zhu smiled and said, "We plan to allocate them all to Dengzhou University."
As Emperor Zhu finished speaking, Li Shanchang and Liu Bowen were immediately stunned.
With nearly ten million strings of cash, it's understandable to allocate three million to the Ever-Normal Granary, and it's also understandable to allocate three million to promote the water pump.
The key point is that three million kan was directly allocated to Dengzhou University.
That's three million strings of cash, equivalent to ten percent of the national treasury!
You, Zhu Chongba, are truly generous!