Chapter 422 - Conflict
"I had no idea. Come, tell me about it." Disregarding matters of status, Wang Ci pulled him aside to sit down, asking him to relate everything about the Australians' school.
Lu Da told him the full story of the National School. Wang Ci listened attentively. He didn't bother asking what the Lu Jia and Lu Yi brothers had learned—Lu Da hadn't studied, so asking would be pointless. However, Lu Da said with considerable pride that his two sons were learning the Australians' knowledge.
"The Australians' knowledge?" Wang Ci didn't understand for a moment.
"Yes, things like this land reformation—how to draw lines, how to dig dirt—it was all done by my son Lu Jia."
Lu Da was exaggerating. In truth, Lu Jia had only participated in agricultural water conservancy surveying and mapping as an apprentice. Lu Da, with a father's vanity, had bestowed this honor upon him.
Wang Ci wasn't entirely convinced. Though he didn't understand the Australians' knowledge, it certainly wasn't something an illiterate country boy could master.
"Who are the teachers?"
"There are Australian Chiefs, and there are also scholars from the Great Ming..."
"There are scholars from the Great Ming?"
"Yes, several of them. One is a local, surnamed Zhang. I heard he was originally from the Gou Family Manor..."
"That must be Zhang Xingjiao!"
Wang Ci knew this person because Zhang Xingjiao was a registered tongsheng in the county. Though he hadn't passed the examination, he still fell under Wang Ci's jurisdiction as County Educational Director. The Zhang Xingjiao family had originally been reasonably well-off, but they were later oppressed by Gou Da and had their family ruined. Zhang Xingjiao had been arrested and brought to the county yamen, nearly cangued for unpaid grain taxes. Only after Wang Ci personally interceded was his life spared. After that, there had been no news of him for a long time. Wang Ci hadn't expected him to have joined the Kun! Considering that the Kun had attacked the Gou Family Manor as soon as they landed, he had probably been the one who guided them there.
Wang Ci didn't blame him for this—it was revenge for family wrongs! Besides, the Gou Family were not good people to begin with; destroying them removed a scourge from Lingao. But to continue associating with bandits after exacting his revenge showed a failure of moral principle. Wang Ci resolved to find a way to see him and advise him not to mix with the Kun any longer—after all, he was also Zhang Xingjiao's teacher.
With this in mind, he nodded. "Are there any other scholars?"
"That I don't know. I heard they came from over in Guangdong."
"Are there any xiucai?"
"Probably not. Don't xiucai have to stay in their own county to receive the stipend silver and cold pork?"
These words were spoken without thinking, but Wang Ci detected a mocking edge. The students of Lingao, let alone the stipend silver, hadn't received even the cold pork customary at sacrificial ceremonies for several years. These past few years, every sacrifice had used a pig's head instead of a whole pig. After the ceremony, it became his exclusive property as Educational Director—in truth, a pig's head wasn't easy to divide.
Half-heartedly, he asked: "Do they learn to read?"
"Of course, of course, they learn to read." As he spoke, Lu Da produced a small booklet from his chest. "My son even wanted to teach me to read. I said I don't have the time or the brains for it! But he insisted anyone can learn. He even said something about 'no discrimination in education.'"
Wang Ci laughed. Unexpectedly, the Australians knew this too—the Australians he had encountered were people of vulgar speech. But since they claimed to be descendants of Cathay and the Song Dynasty, reading a few tomes of the Four Books and Five Classics wasn't strange. However, in his interactions with the Australians, Wang Ci hadn't felt that they understood these things. Several times when he'd spoken and mentioned allusions from the Four Books, that Grand Chief Wu Nanhai had worn a look of complete incomprehension.
They seemed to know a great deal, yet when they spoke, they seemed uneducated. He couldn't fathom what the Australians' knowledge actually was. Curious, he casually flipped through the booklet Lu Da had given him. He had seen the Australians' letters, notices, and newspapers before, but this was his first time seeing one of their books.
The book was printed quite simply, on slightly yellowed paper that nonetheless felt very smooth to the touch. On the cover was the title in regular script: New National Literacy Textbook Volume One (Trial Edition). Wang Ci half-understood this title and didn't dwell on it. When he opened it, he was startled: the book was printed exquisitely!
The paper was pristine, each character upright, the strokes all of uniform thickness. Most remarkably, the characters were all exactly the same size. There were no ink stains between characters either. It was extremely clean to look at.
"Excellent book!" Wang Ci praised it. Even in the large bookshops of Guangzhou, one couldn't purchase books so finely made. The saying that everything the Australians made was precisely crafted proved true indeed.
But it felt awkward to hold. The book opened from right to left, and the text was written horizontally from left to right—very unfamiliar at first. Looking further, it was a primer similar to the Three Character Classic, with folk songs and ditties as well, but all in simplified characters. Wang Ci's disdain increased somewhat. After all, having gone overseas and lived among barbarians, they had lost the orthodox origins of Chinese culture.
Examining the content, the writing was crude and incomprehensible. Wang Ci shook his head while reading—if this was supposed to be a primer, it was simply misleading children. Full of simplified characters, wouldn't writing them make people laugh? Not to mention taking examinations with them. In his view, the only advantage was that whether songs or short sentences, everything was punctuated, saving the primer teacher considerable effort.
Turning to the very front, there were strange symbols like ghost scribbles. Wang Ci didn't recognize them. "What is this?"
"Lu Jia said they're called phonetic letters. They're also a kind of writing."
These must be the Australians' characters, Wang Ci thought.
"...Lu Jia said that in the school, when learning to read, they start from these letters first. After learning them all, they learn characters, and the learning goes faster—"
"Absurd!" Wang Ci flew into a rage and hurled the book to the ground. Learning barbarian letters before Chinese characters—wasn't this transforming Chinese into barbarians?! And this group of Australians dared to claim they were descendants of Cathay! A bunch of people forgetting their ancestors and abandoning tradition!
Lu Da had no idea why this Master Wang had suddenly flown into a rage and thrown the literacy textbook—which his son had solemnly entrusted to him—on the ground. He hurriedly retrieved the book and wiped it off.
"Master Wang—"
"This book—you'd better not let your children read it. It's misleading children, misleading children!" Wang Ci spoke with righteous indignation.
Lu Da stared blankly at the Educational Director whose face had become somewhat distorted, thinking this official must have been possessed by phlegm. Why the sudden episode? He didn't dare speak and just mumbled along.
After his outburst, Wang Ci suddenly remembered that the person before him was just an illiterate mud-leg. Saying "misleading children" to him—he wouldn't understand anyway. So he softened his tone:
"You'd better call your two sons back to farm. This book shouldn't be read."
Lu Da looked disbelievingly at this "Master Wang" whom he had always respected. In his view, Master Wang had always been a learned and kindly official. Now that he suddenly said these words, Lu Da felt great revulsion rising within him.
The Australians taught his children to read so they wouldn't be illiterate. What was wrong with that? They provided food and clothing. Even the xiucai in the county didn't have such treatment.
He mumbled a few perfunctory sounds. Wang Ci knew he was unwilling in his heart. Originally, he was too disinclined to waste words with him, but thinking that Lu Da was the head tenant of the school lands and many things would depend on him in the future, he said patiently:
"Lu Da! Everything taught in this book is wrong!" He wanted to explain that the characters inside were simplified and the writing wasn't very coherent, but communicating this to an illiterate proved extremely difficult. He thought for a long time but couldn't explain it clearly.
Lu Da listened impatiently and said: "Since it's all wrong, is Master Wang willing to teach my two sons the correct knowledge?"
Wang Ci heard the sarcasm in this and his expression changed greatly. He thought resentfully: Truly bewitched! Then he reflected: he had no money, no people. He couldn't even raise the stipend silver for a few xiucai. The other side not only taught, but was willing to provide food and clothing. In comparison, he was weak and incompetent to the extreme. He felt lost and dejected.
What the common people sought was nothing more than having enough food and clothing. The Kun had seized upon this point to bewitch the people. Even if he were Confucius reborn with all his learning, he could only sigh helplessly!
Thinking of this, he was utterly disheartened. Wang Ci rebuked weakly: "What do you know! Go!" He dragged his feet toward the county town.
Lu Da watched the Educational Director's hunched figure walking away and couldn't help spitting on the ground: "Easy for you to talk, standing there! Useless scholar—all that reading's gone to the dogs!"
Lu Da couldn't care less whether the knowledge his sons were learning was right or wrong. He only knew that his sons ate well and dressed warmly at the National School, learned many things, and had recently been teaching everyone farming—was this knowledge fake? Reading a belly full of things that no one could understand—was that knowledge?
In that instant, Lu Da's long-held reverence—for the xiucai of the county school, for Educational Director Wang, for all the scholars in the county—completely collapsed. He suddenly realized that learned people in this world were not limited to these sour types who wore long gowns and spoke incomprehensibly. The Australians possessed another kind of knowledge, more useful than theirs.
Wang Ci staggered back to the county school. The Lingao County School of this space-time had been rebuilt on the ruins of the Song and Yuan county schools in the third year of Hongwu. It was renovated in the third year of Yongle and repaired many times thereafter, but the last major renovation had been in the eighth year of Chenghua—after that, the county school had gradually declined.
Though declined, the old scale remained. Entering from the Lingxing Gate, passing through the Halberd Gate, one reached Minglun Hall. On both sides were Jinde Study Hall and Xiuye Study Hall—the classrooms of the county school. Behind lay many supporting buildings, as well as the examination booths. In terms of scale, it ranked among the foremost on the entire island of Hainan.
The staff of the county school was also large. In terms of servants alone, there were six study hall attendants, two cooks, three gatekeepers, and three storekeepers. But this was only what was stipulated in official records. These servant positions were all "silver duties." By the late Ming, the silver for hiring servants was levied from servant households, but the people weren't necessarily employed. So in the grand county school, the actual servants remaining numbered only three.
(End of Chapter)