Looking at the group of innocent-faced children before him, the old master, who had always been the most knowledgeable in Dongwan city, sighed deeply, feeling that his life had come to an end.
Although he never thought education was a shameful matter, he had also never believed that every child should go to school and learn to read and write.
It was simply an absurd idea. Where in the world was it the rule for everyone to study? If everyone learned the teachings of the sages and understood various principles, then who would farm the land, who would labor, and who would become slaves and servants?
What he could least tolerate, were actually those girls sitting timidly and hesitantly in the corner.
Damn it, what was this all about? Men and women studying together under the same roof and receiving the same treatment. What on earth was this?
He sighed again, and glanced at the two soldiers seated near the entrance. With no choice but to carry on, he used the inferior chalk that was running out of powder to write a few characters on the blackened wall, and then had everyone follow along and write them down.
In the world familiar to the old man, if a girl wanted to learn something, shouldn't she have a private tutor come to her residence to teach?
If a boy wanted to study, shouldn't his family background be checked for integrity, whether he was enlightened, whether he had the determination and resolve, before being classified into different educational tiers?
Lumping everyone together was simply an insult to the word 'education'! Although he thought so, glancing again at the soldiers at the door, he could only swallow his words.
The situation was out of his control—the two soldiers at the door were not there to protect him, but to supervise him. He had to faithfully follow the teaching schedule, and the soldiers had to keep study logs, which, he heard, their squad leader checked every day.
As a scholar, the old gentleman considered himself to be the most learned within a radius of tens of miles; his students, if not scholars heard by provinces, at least should be the cultivated literati.
Now, well, if these two foolhardy soldiers went out and said he was their teacher, how could he, at his advanced age, live with such dishonor...
So, the old pedant, his facial muscles twitching with suppressed dejection and anger, had no choice but to patiently teach the pronunciation of the characters written on the blackboard one by one.
With another sigh, he walked off the podium with his hands behind his back, making his way into the midst of the children who sat behind desks of various kinds. With each step he took along the aisle, his heart ached just a little.
These were all fine desks that he had seen before: the first row belonged to the Li family, known for their dignity and grandeur; the desk on the left in the second row was a treasured heirloom of the Zhao family, which he himself was reluctant to use too often; and the one at the back... that one... was his own!
Watching a desk made of precious Huanghuali wood placed in the classroom for these little brats to casually use, how could he not feel pained?
That being said, these soldiers from afar who claimed to be Tang people were indeed extravagant, supplying paper as if it cost nothing. Every child who went to get it was sure to receive a full allotment, with no hesitation whatsoever.
What depressed him even more was that on such excellent sheets of white paper, the characters that these children wrote were so twisted and contorted, they truly looked like crawling bugs!
"Penmanship! Penmanship!" the old man nearly fainted from anger and could not help but cough and scold, "Such poor handwriting, how can it carry the spirit of a scholar?"
"..." The sergeant seated by the door looked down at his own ugly string of characters and curled his lip: When he was trembling on the ground scared by a shell, no one saw any aura of integrity from the old gentleman...
He had no liking for these low-level teachers who taught reading and writing— the same was true back in Brunas. Those literacy instructors were always the most stubborn old men, and their lessons were the least popular among Brunas school students.
Especially after being exposed to teachers of physics, chemistry, physical education, etc., in school, they liked the literacy instructors even less.
This was actually wrong, carrying a clear mark of the times, a short-sighted and unavoidable compromise.
Great Tang Group was rushing to employ people, and the training cycle for talents was very short, so there often wasn't time to solidify the basics. Everyone's handwriting looked poor, because from learning the alphabet to graduating, they had no time to practice their writing.
For them, the requirement was only the most basic: to write out the content they wished to express accurately and legibly for others to understand. That was enough...
Tang Mo was aware that this was not ideal and would remind the graduates to practice their writing and improve their literary cultivation. However, this issue was bound to persist for some time.
When he reached the side of his own desk, the angry old master paused for a moment. He saw a pair of calloused, delicate hands writing a few somewhat decent small characters.
It seemed the child couldn't bear to waste so much paper at once and was carefully copying the text from the blackboard into a tiny corner with neat and tidy font, one stroke at a time, and trying to mimic the graceful iron-brush silver-hook style of the blackboard.
The old man slightly bowed, stared for a few seconds, and huffed with conceited pride before offering a tip, "That horizontal stroke should arch ever so slightly, forming a curve. When the mountain cannot be crushed, it gains weight...and with it comes momentum. With such energy, rhythm can be nurtured...and that is not far from crafting a good character."
He was unaware that what he was teaching was actually considered the most elementary and least regarded aspect of the Great Tang Group's educational system. He strode off, confident in his irreplaceability, toward the back.
This somewhat surprising discovery gave the old man a flash of insight. He seemed to grasp some truth—kids whose handwriting bore a trace of character became his delight.
The boy practicing calligraphy rewrote the same few characters several times, stubbornly making his writing resemble that on the blackboard even more.
His name was Liu Guozhu, once called Liu Zhu. He hadn't attended school before and never dreamed he might have the chance to become a disciple of a town scholar. Cao Fei had given him his name, and the added character for "nation" seemed to make it flow more smoothly.
For Liu Guozhu, everything Cao Fei had said was carved into his heart; he now truly believed that there was such a place called Brunas.
He also believed what Cao Fei had said about Dongwan City becoming as beautiful as Brunas one day, with starlight illuminating every street and alley at night, and everyone having more food than they could eat and clothes without patches!
Therefore, he studied hard, seizing every opportunity to learn, vowing to become someone useful, studying everything possible to become great like Cao Fei!
"Dong! Dong!" The temporary school had even requisitioned the large bell from inside Dongwan City, which reminded everyone of the time, and now it hung on the great tree in the center of the mansion, ringing as the bell for class dismissal.
Upon hearing the bell, the elder returned to the lecture hall, drawing out his words as he loudly admonished, "You must realize the opportunity is precious, hard-won! Go home and practice diligently, and do not squander your potential!"
"We will remember!" All the students stood up, including two burly soldiers at the door, responding in a motley chorus to the old man's parting message. Discover exclusive content at empire
Then, as the old man stepped down from the podium, the children in the classroom scattered, because the lessons to follow were what they enjoyed and excelled at.
Classes in subjects like math, physics, and chemistry had yet to start; the textbooks were still adrift at sea. However, other classes had already begun and were very popular.
Agriculture courses taught all the children how to farm—skills the children of the poor already possessed. They just didn't know the principles, so they studied with extreme earnestness.
In the afternoon, these children would learn military drills with the Troops, a prospect that frightened all the parents.
They feared their children would be trained as Soldiers and sent to the battlefield as cannon fodder. They saw such training as ominous, a ploy by the occupying forces to conscript able-bodied men.
However, the voices of dissent soon faded because the natives simply lacked the courage to challenge the might of machine guns and cannons.
Months ago, when the Goblin nation attacked, they were too scared to resist, so how could they dare challenge the Tang People who had driven away the Goblins?
So, everyone could only grumble privately and then watch, uncertain, as their children grew stronger and more spirited.
The families of children attending school received a half portion of food as a subsidy, the children enjoyed a special food supply at school, and eating at the school cafeteria was completely free...
For that half portion of food, the families could only hold their noses and take the risk of dutifully sending their children to school. In those days, anyone with food to eat was sovereign.
Whenever they saw bags of flour and other foodstuffs unloaded from the big ships docked at the port, the residents of Dongwan City behaved even more subserviently.
They had never seen so much food before—to them, it was akin to a "Golden Age."
In the afternoon, Liu Guozhu indeed got his wish and received his very own wooden rifle. These rifles, made from local materials and carved with bayonets by the Soldiers, were rough and bumpy, barely resembling the actual shape of a rifle.
Yet even so, Liu Guozhu adored it. He held the object and executed every command given by the drill sergeant.
He performed each movement meticulously, always envisioning a figure in front of him, a figure as imposing as towering mountains.
The image of Cao Fei standing before him, striking down Goblin soldiers with a rifle, intoxicated Liu Guozhu. He wanted to be that person, to ensure that his fellow villagers would never be bullied again!
"Kill!" He lunged with his rifle, shouting fiercely, swift as lightning. Though his body was still frail, his actions were exceptionally precise. The officer watching nodded repeatedly, extremely pleased with the class representative he had selected.