Volume 4: Gathering of Sages Chapter 476: How high is the sky, how big is the heart
"There are only so many opportunities in this world, and they are never enough for everyone to share equally. Just as it is impossible for a rich kid to give up his opportunity to a poor kid, a poor kid cannot give up his opportunity to a farmer or a poor kid. The latter two groups need their families to bear most of their work so that they can get the opportunity to read, learn to read and do math in public school."
"These farm boys, the best , may be able to get the opportunity to further their studies, but you have to know that there are very few talented people in this world. Most people can only do ordinary jobs no matter how hard they work."
“If at this time, there are still people with extreme personalities who instill specious theories in them, so that when they learn a little bit of skills, they are poisoned and think that it is not because they are not strong enough, but that the world is unfair, because it is because the children of rich families take advantage of their birth advantages and can rise to the top without any knowledge or skills, then the public school is not educating people, but harming people!”
"There has never been absolute fairness in this world. At best, we can only achieve relative fairness. What public schools need to do is to create educational opportunities for more people, so that they can have relatively more knowledge and pass on a little bit of simple truth and a little bit of knowledge to their children and grandchildren in the future, so that family precepts are no longer the exclusive domain of scholarly families and poor families, instead of letting them look down on others blindly."
Even though a day had passed, when Fang Qing thought of what Zhang Shou had said to him, he was filled with hatred. He had already realized his mistakes and was ready to change, but Zhang Shou still believed that someone like him was unfit to be a teacher in a public school! That would have been fine, but Zhang Shou even forced him to push a cart with Mr. Song to sell sugar water in the name of changing his ways!
At this moment, he was extremely glad that he had covered his mouth and nose with a white scarf, otherwise he would have almost died as a human being!
Two scholars selling sugar water... This scene is so beautiful! And fortunately this is in the outer city instead of the inner city, where there are many people coming and going. He probably, possibly, maybe, won't be recognized by others? But the most hateful thing is that Zhang Shou actually took that devil-like boy on horseback and followed behind him slowly as a supervisor!
Knowing that Song Juren was weak and Fang Qing was a weak scholar, Zhang Shou had the bad taste to pair them together, but he also took precautions. So, Anlu, the doorman who was lame but still very good at fighting, was sent to follow them from a distance in case of emergency. Ah Liu also sent a message to Zhao Tieniu of the South City Security Team, asking him to keep an eye on the two strange Juren.
Therefore, at this moment, Ah Liu accompanied Zhang Shou and followed behind the cart. He was puzzled: "Master, are you afraid that Mr. Fang will run away? If I am afraid that he will run away, I can..."
"Ahem!" Zhang Shou coughed heavily, interrupting the second half of Ah Liu's absolutely inharmonious words, and then said unhappily, "I'm not interested in watching the two of them selling sugar water. I want to go and see the vegetable garden run by Monk Zanghai's disciples next to Xinglong Tea House. I heard that seven or eight vegetable thieves have been caught in the past half month?"
When he first learned that the vegetable garden thief was there, he felt like he was watching a real-life version of a vegetable stealing game.
Ah Liu stopped talking about the topic in a sullen manner, and then said with a dull tone: "It's no big deal, just a bunch of small thieves, those monks can handle them!" Even the little monk Guanhai had knocked out a stupid thief with a ladle before. In fact, those thieves were so stupid that they didn't even know that most of the seeds were not planted at all.
Speaking of this, Zhang Shou himself also felt sad. The vegetable garden in Cangzhou Zanghai Lower Courtyard was naturally planted on time, so the supply of various vegetables was never interrupted, but it was too late for the capital, because even when Guanhai first arrived in the capital, it had already missed the best planting period for most crops.
The planting season for pumpkins, corn, peanuts, and sweet potatoes has passed; as for tomatoes and peppers, after the emperor learned of the planting time, he ordered people to test grow them in the palace, and transplant them to the greenhouse when the weather gets cold. But to be honest, Zhang Shou is very skeptical about what the immature greenhouse will do to the small tomatoes that were originally like cherry tomatoes in later generations, and it is even more difficult to say about peppers.
So, nowadays, the vegetable garden is more like a branch of Cangzhou martial artists in the outer city of Beijing than a place to grow vegetables! Whenever people from Cangzhou go to Beijing, they will go there to pay their respects, just like a group of monks who don't even have a certificate of ordination are the local tyrants. Even if the monks are quite embarrassed about this, it can't change this fait accompli.
When Ah Liu heard Zhang Shou sigh, he couldn't help but seriously wonder if Zhang Shou thought that the monks were good at fighting and had the ability to grow vegetables, so he planned to recruit some of them to Zhang Garden to help? Guan Hai originally followed them to the capital, but now he came here temporarily because they were preparing. He should take the little monk away...
Fang Qing looked back from time to time. When they passed a street corner, Zhang Shou and Ah Liu, who were like supervisors behind them, finally turned in another direction and parted ways with him. His sense of relief was tangible. But soon, he was no longer happy. Because Mr. Song took a deep breath and suddenly shouted.
"Authentic sugar water! Authentic sugar water from Guangdong! My great-grandfather also said that good sugar water should not be discarded, authentic double skin milk..."
This guy didn't even bother to think of new words to shout, and he used the same old words he heard yesterday! Fang Qingzheng was furious, but he didn't expect Mr. Song to suddenly kick him again: "Why are you still standing there? If you don't shout, who will buy my sweet soup? You heard what I said, and if you don't sell 500 copies in total, you can't get away!"
"The money from the sale will be donated to the public school, and your previous debt will be written off. Look how righteous I am, I still accompany you here..."
Fang Qing was so angry at this weirdo that he just wanted to spit all over his face. What do you mean you are so righteous? Are you accompanying me, or am I accompanying you? If you weren't a weirdo who didn't want to be a good juren, a good rich man, or a good jinshi, but insisted on taking the imperial chef exam, and now you don't want to take the imperial chef re-examination, but are here selling sweet soup, would I be so unlucky to accompany you to show up in public?
Zhang Shou had already forgotten whether Song Juren and Fang Qing, two guys who looked like enemies, would make a fool of themselves today. He saw that the vegetable garden that the emperor had just drawn a circle for the monks was gradually coming into sight. He even saw two bald men moving stones to build a wall with their bare chests from afar. He couldn't help but look at Ah Liu, who was also wearing tight clothes.
It was already so cold, and even Ah Liu, who was strong enough to fight a tiger, was wearing long clothes. Were these monks shirtless lunatics? He remembered that the emperor generously allocated them sufficient food and clothing, so why did they still look so miserable like they did in the lower house of Canghai?
When he saw this, Ah Liu curled his lips and said, "It's easy to go from frugality to luxury, but it's hard to go from luxury to frugality."
"You kid actually showed off your book bag to me!"
Zhang Shou burst into laughter. When he rode his horse to the outside of the uneven bamboo fence with bells tied to it, a sharp-eyed monk had already seen him, but in the end, the only one who came to greet him was Guan Tao, whose shoes and socks were relatively clean and his clothes were relatively neat.
"Dr. Zhang, Sixth Brother!"
After running over, Guan Tao smiled with his eyes curved, put his palms together and saluted, "I didn't expect you to come here by chance. Someone from Cangzhou has come, and they just went in! The brothers just said that they won't be afraid of thieves anymore!"
This didn't make any sense at first, but Zhang Shou, who had jumped off his horse, was very familiar with Guan Tao's unconventional thinking, so he immediately laughed and said, "Why, did your master send a bunch of brothers to help?"
Guan Tao was shaking his head, but Ah Liu had sensed something and suddenly laughed, "Master, it's not a bunch of bald heads who came from Cangzhou, but a bunch of young masters."
A bunch of young masters... Zhang Shou didn't bother to laugh and scold Ah Liu for using too weird a quantifier. He immediately looked up and soon saw a large group of people pouring out of the simple entrance of the vegetable garden. The guy running in the front had a dark brown face and was taller than him at first glance. He opened his arms and rushed forward. His exaggerated action made Zhang Shou laugh and cry.
Although he was not as charming and cheerful as Zhu Ying, Zhang Shou accepted Zhu Er's warm hug because he had worked hard and done a lot in Cangzhou. But he regretted it the next moment. Zhu Er, who was pushing his luck, patted him on the back and kept nagging.
"Brother-in-law, did I behave well this time? I have never suffered such hardship since I was a child! This year's cotton harvest is great, and I have already arranged everything for the trial planting... Alas, I run around in the countryside every day, my shoes are worn out, my thighs are rubbed raw, and I haven't seen a single beauty. Can you imagine how hard it is for me..."
"It's better than just hanging around in the capital and having your father teach you a lesson whenever he has nothing to do."
Zhang Shou broke free from Zhu Er's revengeful hug and punched Zhu Er on the shoulder twice. Seeing him immediately covering his shoulder and crying out in pain, he ignored this funny guy and looked behind Zhu Er. Sure enough, he saw Zhang Chen, whose skin was not much whiter than Zhu Er, standing there. He smiled with his white teeth showing when he saw him.
"Zhu Er complained all day long, but he actually persisted. I thought he would have slipped back to Beijing a long time ago."
Zhang Chen stepped forward and bowed to Zhang Shou with a smile, then said proudly, "From Cangzhou to Xingtai, we have opened up the entire route from cotton planting to textile production on both sides. Now the cooperative is in full bloom and there is no more noise."
Zhang Shou was greatly surprised to hear the words "no more noise".
You know, the hard part these days is not getting things done, but suppressing the voices of opposition. Otherwise, even the best policies may be overwhelmed by countless opposition and clamor, just like the countless open and covert opponents in Cangzhou and Xingtai at the beginning. Although he wanted to find out the truth, he knew that this was not the place to ask questions, so he simply patted Zhang Chen's arm.
"Okay, it seems like you are going to surpass me. You will definitely be better than me in business in the future!"
"How could that be possible? At most, I just followed the path you pointed out, young master. At best, I was just a little clever. After you came back to Beijing and mentioned it casually, this piece of vacant land in the south city that had been idle for many years suddenly became profitable. This is much better than what Zhu Er and I did for no reason!"
Zhang Chen said this, but he still couldn't hide his pride. He looked around, winked at Ah Liu, and then he and Zhu Er pulled Zhang Shou aside, and then whispered: "The eldest brother of the Jiang family is here too. This time he followed us and made a lot of money by making cotton yarn. But young sir, even if Cangzhou and Xingtai are added together, cotton planting and textile production are still far inferior to Shandong."
Zhu Er immediately followed up and said, "Even Shandong can't compare, and of course it can't compare with Jiangnan. So, I'm afraid the new loom can't be hidden for too long. What should we do next?"
Zhang Shou didn't expect that the two would ask him for advice as soon as they came back, so he immediately laughed and said, "As for this matter... we need to think about it in the long run, there's no rush."
As he spoke, he left Zhang Chen and Zhu Er, who were looking at each other in bewilderment, and looked behind them. He saw a group of people waiting there who dared not come up rashly. In addition to a few eye-catching bald heads, there was the smiling Jiang Da Shao and the chief escort of Shunhe Escort Agency, Cao Wu. As if he had noticed his gaze, Jiang Da Shao directly pulled Cao Wu to meet him.
So much time has passed, and Young Master Jiang, who had been beaten with more than a dozen sticks and whose buttocks were almost broken, no longer walks with a limp. However, when Zhang Shou glanced at his buttocks and legs, he could not help but feel a sharp pain in his muscles.
He coughed quickly and said awkwardly, "Dr. Zhang, I came here because I heard about the Beijing Public School, so I wanted to ask, if we also build a public school in Cangzhou... No, no, no, this name is a bit big, it's actually a literacy school, what do you think? First, the industry is big, and we actually need people who can read and write to run errands, and second, there seems to be a shortage of accountants."
He paused, and seeing that Zhang Chen and Zhu Er had both given him a look that told him to hurry up and stop dragging his feet, he had to accept the instructions of the two young masters because of his status and position, so he could only speak carefully: "Also, you have to know that nowadays, newspaper offices are prevalent in various places, and our Cangzhou is on the bank of the canal, so it is very convenient to get news from the capital. If we only rely on copying newspapers, the efficiency will be too slow, and even the engravings..."
He paused again, then smiled and said, "Woodblock printing is not very suitable for printing a small number of tabloids. But if movable type is used, people who can read, even if they have not passed the imperial examination, will not bother to become typesetters. So, I am thinking about training more people who can read, especially those who can read Yin characters, through literacy schools, and then I can turn the newspaper office into..."
Before Young Master Jiang finished speaking, Zhang Shou was already staring at Zhu Er and Zhang Chen. Although the two guys were avoiding his sight, he could still tell that Young Master Jiang's idea was definitely not his own, but that of Zhu Er and Zhang Chen.
Maybe it's not just these two guys, but also Lu Sanlang who always whispers in his ear in Beijing, asking him to pay attention to the future of the elite, but is actually the first media tycoon in Beijing! These guys are really more ambitious now!
Looking at Young Master Jiang, whose voice was gradually becoming quieter, at Cao Wu, who had a look of "I'm just here to watch", and then at Zhang Chen and Zhu Er, Zhang Shou finally laughed and said, "Don't you just want to train typesetters through the literacy school and seize the public opinion position through the newspaper office? Of course you can. You know, the Beijing Public School has already specially trained a group of typesetters."
