prosperous age

Chapter 15
"It is said that those who govern their country in a peaceful world are those who are old and the people are filial, those who are elders are the people who are fraternal, and those who are lonely and the people are not doubled. This is why the gentleman has the way of decency.

What is evil to the top, do not let the bottom do it; what is evil to the bottom, do not put it on the top; What is evil on the left should not be handed over to the right; this is called the way of cleanliness and moments. "

Sitting in the school hall, Wei Guangde shook his head and recited "The Great Learning". In ten or so days, Wei Guangde memorized the full text of the Great Learning, and Sun Fuzi also explained the full text with translation and annotation.

Learn the new by reviewing the past, before Master Sun arranged new books, Wei Guangde could only review them repeatedly in the past two days.

As usual, after checking the students' mastery of knowledge, Mr. Sun was going to start teaching and explaining new things.

As for those who were at the same time as Wei Guangde, because they had just finished a book, the master had nothing else to say for the time being, and only asked them to silently write the full text of "University" in class.

When school was about to finish in the afternoon, Master Sun called Wei Guangde's group of students to a stop and told them that they would start teaching "The Analects of Confucius" tomorrow, and that they would bring books with them tomorrow.

When I first bought the books, the four books cost two liang of silver, and I bought them from Mrs. Sun.

In order to make it easier for students to buy books, Master Sun's private school will of course prepare some, and of course they can also go to other bookstores to buy them.

But this is a more polite way of saying it. After all, this is just a town. There are bookstores in the town, but they are not close.

Fortunately, the price of books in the private school is about the same as that of the bookshops in the city. In fact, Master Sun only charges a little extra travel expenses, so everyone usually buys books here.

Although movable type printing was invented in the Song Dynasty, it does not mean that the cost of books has been reduced.

In this era, most books were printed and produced cheaply, so ordinary people could not afford to read books at all.

Two taels of silver, the military households in Bengshanbao can't get so much cash in a year.

Ordinary military households, in addition to receiving some food and salt from Wei Daddy, can also get less than one tael of silver to buy other daily necessities.

This is considered to be conscience of old man Wei, at least he can still see money.

According to the military system of the Ming Dynasty, soldiers in the guard should have one stone of food per month, which is 96 catties, but this is obviously not achieved.

The grain of the military households in Bengshanbao is the output of the fields they are responsible for, and the more they produce, the more they can get. It is similar to the household contracted production in later generations, but the ratio of handing over is a bit high.

That's the tenants, but Father Wei didn't use the military status of the soldiers to squeeze the soldiers like other guards did. Basically, the food amount was distributed according to the standard of ordinary tenants, not lower than this standard.

The reason why there are so many fleeing sergeants in many guards is that the military officers do not treat these registered military households as people, and even fail to meet the standards of civilian tenants.

The treatment of tenants is bad enough, but registered soldiers are not even as good as tenants, and they cannot choose freely, because you are a military member, and your children and grandchildren can only serve as soldiers, and they can only be exploited and squeezed by officers.

The standards of tenants in the Ming Dynasty were not high, but when the weather was good, they could still live on, but it was difficult for military households.

Just when Wei Guangde and his classmates were about to leave the private school, the servant Uncle Li suddenly rushed into the school with a post in his hand.

"Master, there is a fairy elder visiting outside, saying that he is your old friend."

Uncle Li is Master Sun's servant, and he usually does the porter's work. Naturally, he is the one who comes in to inform the family. This time, he is bending over and standing respectfully in front of Master Sun, handing over the door sticker with both hands.

When Mrs. Sun heard the old friend's visit, he hurriedly got up and took a look at the post. Then he was pleasantly surprised, and hurried out without caring about Wei Guangde and others.

"Is there any negligence?"

Mrs. Sun has not forgotten to ask Uncle Li, the concierge.

"I asked him to wait at the porter, and I came in to make an announcement."

Master Sun nodded slightly, and still walked out of the school with big strides, while Uncle Li could only bend slightly to follow Master Sun.

"The old master is visiting, are we all right, should we go?"

Some of the students muttered something.

Although the master seemed to have finished talking about stopping them, the master did not tell them to leave. At this moment, everyone didn't know whether to leave or stay.

"Wait a little longer. If the master has other things to order, I'll leave. I'm afraid I'll have to hang up tomorrow."

Soon someone gave an answer.

Wei Guangde also thought it was reasonable, if Master Sun hadn't walked so fast and Wei Guangde didn't respond for a while, he should have asked first.

But this is just a matter of thinking about it. If you really ask, Wei Guangde still has sympathy.

Recently, he has not been beaten. After practicing calligraphy for more than half a month, Wei Guangde's brush calligraphy has finally got rid of the level of a dog crawling, although it is not very good.

Maybe it was because Wei Guangde didn't have the talent of a calligrapher, so Master Sun told him not to learn other fancy calligraphy, but to practice Taige style. After all, Taige style is written, and it will be used in the imperial examination and official career in the future.

In fact, this is also because of the emperor's liking. From Zhu Yuanzhang to Zhu Di, due to their personal preferences, they all vigorously advocated calligraphy, and calligraphy learning flourished for a while.

In the Ming Dynasty, when opening subjects and selecting scholars, they all answered the test papers in regular script to ensure neatness.

Those who write poorly, even if they are full of knowledge, will lose their reputation.

This had a great influence on the artistic style of calligraphy at that time.

When scholars write, they only want to be correct and respectful, horizontal and vertical, neat and tidy, and write like a woodblock printing style, which formed the Taige calligraphy style of the Ming Dynasty, called "Taige style".

But now for Wei Guangde, it's just to avoid being beaten.

Soon I heard Mrs. Sun talking happily with another strange voice in the yard, and the sound of footsteps approached, obviously walking inside.

Wei Guangde and the others immediately stood there respectfully again, but worried that Mr. would lead his friends to the backyard directly and not see everyone still standing in the school, Wei Guangde quietly moved to the door to make himself more conspicuous.

Some words, although dare not say, but still expressed in some other ways.

Master Sun led his friend through the gate of the school. It seemed that he really wanted to lead his friend into the backyard, but he also noticed Wei Guangde and other students when he walked through the gate of the school.

"You pack up and go back, remember what I said."

After standing still in front of the door, Master Sun said to the students in the room.

"These are all brother Sun's disciples, and they are all outstanding talents."

At this time, Wei Guangde also saw the Taoist priest standing next to Mrs. Sun, and it really was a Taoist priest.

After traveling for more than a month, this was the first person Wei Guangde saw from outside the square.

Although I don't know who he is, but his appearance can be regarded as dignified, with a Taoist hat on his head and a blue Taoist robe, he looks very energetic.

"They're all a bunch of incompetent things, real people shouldn't praise them"

(End of this chapter)