Lu Ming

Chapter 322

noon.

When a big callused hand grabbed the rope and shook it up and down, the copper bell of "jingle jingle" resounded throughout the campus.

After the bell rang for half a minute, the lame porter came down from the square platform in the middle of the playground and walked towards the gate alone.

And in the teaching building behind him, it didn't take long for a large wave of students to pour out.These students are male and female, they are uniformly wearing blue cloth school uniforms, canvas sneakers, and they are half the age of children.As soon as the students came out of the building, they shouted and rushed towards the cafeteria.

Chikan Middle School was not built for a long time, and the construction started after the completion of the Fourth Primary School.

With the continuous arrival of immigrants, the early Chikan Primary School has been renamed Chikan Primary School, and several subsequent primary schools have also sprung up in corresponding residential areas.

Now, unlike in the past, a certain regime has a population of more than 40.With such a large base, there will always be a small number of people who will be selected.Although the knowledge structure of these people is a bit incomplete, they can already study junior high school courses.

By this time, the establishment of the first secondary school was inevitably on the agenda.

So after the completion of Chikan Middle School, it immediately recruited more than 200 students.

The source is divided into two parts.The first part is the top students who have graduated from various elementary schools step by step.

Although it has been less than 2 years since the time traveler came here, since there are only two classes in elementary school, mathematics and Chinese, there will always be some children in each class who can stand the loneliness and boredom, from morning to night, plus evening self-study Keep working hard - the primary attribute of a Xueba is to be able to endure hardships.

After more than a year of graduation, these children entered the junior high school of Chikan Middle School.

Another part of the students are older people.

Most of these Ming people were petty bourgeois from places like Hangzhou and Fuzhou.As for their identities, down-and-out children, unemployed buddies, beggar monks, and a few scholars, their careers are complex.

The literacy rate in the Ming Dynasty was very uneven, and there were not many readers in a county in a remote area.But in a big city like Hangzhou, even among the small bourgeoisie, the literacy rate is quite high.Those ordinary weaving households usually let their children learn accounting and literacy, and in the future they will be people's buddies. If they are lucky enough to survive until they are 40 or [-] years old, they may become shopkeepers.

As the world has become more and more difficult these years, there will always be local "urban people" who can't get along and go to the officials to beg for a living.

Yes, recently, among the immigrants transported from the direction of Hangzhou, the proportion of the number of people from the petty bourgeoisie has shown a slowly rising trend.

The arrival of these people has added a lot of vitality to the Dawei society.Not to mention those who can read, even ordinary weavers are ready-made workers who can endure the boring assembly line work, which is much more useful than those sloppy farmers.

After the first wave of children rushed out of the teaching building, after a while, a group of older junior high school students who walked steadily followed out of the building.

These people are the boy boys just mentioned. They also graduated from primary school in a serious manner, and they are the best among their peers, but their primary school career is very short.

It is very easy for a guy who can read and do accounts to memorize the simplified characters by referring to the traditional and simplified tables.Like elementary school mathematics, once these people understand how to convert Suzhou codes into Arabic numerals, the learning speed is also very fast. After all, it is elementary school mathematics, and there is no difficulty.

Therefore, such a scene often appears in primary school classrooms: the little Doudings sitting in the front row study step by step, while those bearded "classmates" in the back row skip grades in a few months, or go to middle school.

And the group of people who came out of the teaching building today are "junior high school students" selected from the vast number of literate immigrants.These people can quickly adapt to the education model of later generations and integrate what they have learned into the framework of new knowledge in a short period of time. They can be regarded as "talents needed by society".

The young junior high school students couldn't bear the hunger, and rushed out as soon as the get out of class bell rang.

And these older people are somewhat reserved, so the first small tacit understanding since the establishment of Chikan Middle School was born in this way: let the children go first.

Among a group of talking and laughing old junior high school students, Zhong Simao was considered older.He was already at the age of three, and he used to work as a tent for others in a town near Jiaxing, and by the way ran errands to collect rent for others.

Who would have thought that the tide in August this year would go crazy, and the dikes and dams of Qiantang that had been in disrepair for a long time were broken.Accompanied by the heavy rain at the same time, countless people and animals were drowned in Haiyan, Jiaxing, Shanyin, Kuaiji, Xiaoshan, Shangyu, and Yuyao, and countless people were drowned in coastal and suburban residents. The number of drowned people is tens of thousands."

It is not an exaggeration to say that Chongzhen is the most unlucky emperor in history: since he ascended the throne in 1628, the seven weapons of drought, flood, locust, tide, hail, gale, and frost in the Little Ice Age began as if they had heard the starting gun. It took turns to wreak havoc in the most affluent Jiangnan region in China, and forcibly smashed the money bags of the Ming Empire to pieces.

The most coincidental thing is: in the last years of Chongzhen, these disasters gradually subsided and when Xuan Ye came to power, the Little Ice Age just ended. Then, Qiangu Yidi's big hat was also lifted out.

It can only be said that Chongzhen was too weak.

Zhong Simao died in this tidal disaster.

Several villages and mulberry fields where he collected rent all year round were all hit by disasters, the crops were flooded, and the whole family of the farmers was floating in the sea.Not only did his boss's loans go to waste, but all the mulberry orchards and cotton fields he invested in were also wiped out-where the tide washed the land, the land would be salinized and the price would plummet.In the words of later generations, it is these mulberry fields and cotton fields that have fallen to their limit.

So when Zhong Simao saw the owner of the firm hang himself, he also went bankrupt. The little money he saved, including borrowed funds, was also invested in the account of the firm.

Next, the accountant who wanted the account was called to collect the debt.
After losing all his family property, the bankrupt Zhong Simao had no choice but to run away with his wife and baby.Fortunately, it is more convenient to travel nowadays—it is no secret that Tangzhuang outside Hangzhou is "recruiting workers" all year round.

From the moment someone went to Fuzhou to receive the seal of the guerrilla general, the "secret underground population transmission line at Hangzhou Station", which had gradually become untenable, simply hung up the signboard of "Cao's Grain and Taiwan Agency" and started launched a semi-public "labor intermediary" activity.

Outside Tangzhuang Gate, Caishikou in Hangzhou City, and even outside Suzhou City, Hangzhou Station has set up "labor service stalls", ready to transport away the "recruited" bitter hahas at any time.

So Zhong Simao, who had nowhere to go with his family, registered at Tangzhuang and boarded the ship.As a result, after arriving in Dayuan, the family found that they did not encounter the hardships they imagined, and their lives were much easier.

Zhong Simao and his 8-year-old son first entered elementary school together.Then it was useless, Zhong Simao skipped a grade to middle school.

At this time, the Zhong family suddenly discovered that they had money again!

Little brother Zhong was free of tuition fees in elementary school, but Zhong Simao himself was given free board, lodging, school uniform, textbooks, stationery, and a monthly scholarship of 2 taels of silver from the day he entered middle school.
"Isn't this the catering student in the county school?" Poor Zhong Simao, who was born as a clerk, turned out to be the catering student that he had envied since he was a child after he went bankrupt.
The woman from the Zhong family also had work to do: she knew how to do accounts, and soon became a warehouse manager in the street office, responsible for keeping accounts and distributing pots and pans to new immigrants. Her monthly salary was 3 taels of silver.

The vitality of the Zhong family recovered in this way: they calculated carefully, and according to the current income situation, it would probably take less than three or four years to pay off the mortgage.

Therefore, Zhong Simao's gratitude to Cao's warlord regime is increasing day by day.Yes, in the eyes of Ming people, the Cao family is just like the Zheng family in history, just a traditional warlord, no different from Wu Sangui, Mao Wenlong and others.

When a group of short-haired "cookies" came to the school cafeteria talking and laughing, the young junior high school students were already eating with iron lunch boxes.

Today's lunch is ordinary: a large piece of deep-fried yellow lip fish in tomato sauce is the main course, with fried seasonal vegetables as a side dish, and each person can get a small bowl of yogurt.The staple food is mashed potatoes, unlimited roasted seaweed and seaweed egg drop soup.

Chung Simao was genuinely satisfied as he ate the sweet and sour fried fish cubes topped with red tomato sauce.

It's not that there are no high-quality meals and famous dishes in the Ming Dynasty, but they can only be eaten when rich families or businessmen hold banquets.Zhong Simao had never seen such a delicious meal in a county school here.

There was a sound of chewing in the cafeteria, and it was enjoyable.When everyone was halfway through eating, the teachers came in one after another.

When four or five teachers came in one file at a time, the students were still munching. There was no need to salute in the cafeteria.

And when the teachers passed behind Zhong Simao, he suddenly felt a light pat on the shoulder, and then a small voice sounded in his ear: "Go to the principal's office after eating, someone wants to see you." you."

Zhong Simao turned his head in astonishment, only to find that it was Mr. Jiang Shang who was speaking, the youngest but extremely knowledgeable teacher in Chikan Middle School.

After saying this, Jiang Shang, who had already put on a pair of imported myopia glasses, patted Zhong Simao on the shoulder, smiled, and turned away.

Zhong Simao is not calm now.Although he has never communicated with the principal, he knows that the principal is a high-ranking official here, just like the Guozijian Jijiu and Ritual Minister of the Ming Dynasty, he is a great man.

So after Zhong Simao ate up all the food in the box, he hurried out of the cafeteria and ran to the 3-story administrative building.

Arriving at the lobby, after showing his student ID card and explaining the reason, Zhong Simao was directed by the guard to the innermost office on the third floor.

When he knocked on the door tremblingly, the first thing he saw were bookshelves and books occupying two walls.In the office, Principal Bai Jiabao, who was wearing a light yellow plaid suit, was gently reaching out his hand to signal him to go over.

Beside the principal, sat a fat middle-aged man.

(End of this chapter)