Guide to Traveling through the Northern Song Dynasty.

Chapter 901 0896 [The education system of the Ming Dynasty takes shape]

There was no court meeting the next day, and Ju Ming was only an hour and a half late when he went to work.

When it was almost noon, Ju Ming saw a memorial and immediately said: "Call Huan Guo here and prepare an extra lunch."

When Huan Guo came to Chui Gong Hall, lunch had been prepared.

Ju Ming said: "Come and eat together."

"Thank you, Your Majesty, for the food." Huan Guo stepped forward.

The eunuch brought a chair and placed it next to the emperor's desk. The emperor and his ministers ate in front of a pile of memorials and documents.

Ju Ming asked: "Is the Xuedian problem so serious?"

Huan Guo said: "Many official schools were abolished at the end of the Song Dynasty. After the founding of the Ming Dynasty, they were restored one after another. Especially after the destruction of the Jin Dynasty, the number of official schools was restored even more. Now that Jiangxi's farmland has been completed, the country's schoolland can finally be fully counted. Situation It’s really bad, and the imperial court must issue an edict to unify the situation.”

"That's okay. Catch some typical examples, confiscate their homes and exile them. Anyway, the border needs to replenish its population!" Zhu Ming nodded.

"Your Majesty, Holy Might!"

Huan Guo was extremely supportive of this, and he even hoped to kill a group of them.

Because those who invaded and occupied the school fields were all powerful or wealthy families. Those guys themselves were not short of money and food, but they came to ruin the jobs of the scholars.

Damn it!

The Xuedian system in the Song Dynasty was established during the Qingli New Deal.

Official schools in various places are provided with land, usually 500 acres of land. Later it was increased to 1000 acres, but many schools did not have that condition and still only had the original 500 acres. In some places where education is important, the school land can reach 3000 acres!
These fields are managed by schools and rented to farmers to collect food or money.

Since farmers did not have to pay taxes or perform corvee labor, it was very cost-effective for farmers to farm and study their fields. For the sake of reputation, the principal would probably not dare to mess around.

With the income from school fields in various places being supported, the imperial court did not have such a headache for education funding.

The last education statistics of the Northern Song Dynasty were during the reign of Emperor Huizong of the Song Dynasty: there were more than 16 official students in the country, more than 9 classrooms and dormitories, and more than 300 million acres of school land. Each year, it collects 64 million gu in tuition fees and dan in academic food (study money and academic food include both tuition fees for self-financed students and income from the school field).

Huan Guo said: "The last statistics were from the Daguan period, but Cai Jing later made great efforts to run the school, and it reached its peak in the Zhenghe period. There were no exact statistics at the time, but according to my estimate, there were at least 20 official students during the Zhenghe period! That's a lot! It is difficult to allocate school land to newly built schools. In order to please Cai Jing, some officials cleverly seize people's land to use it as school land."

"There are 20 government students in the country. No wonder Cai Jing later abolished a large number of government schools." Zhu Ming could imagine the financial pressure at that time.

Hu Anguo said: "If there were school land to support it, and some students from other dormitories studied at their own expense, the court would not have to allocate too much funding. However, the school land was occupied too seriously by the disadvantaged households. They used various means to rent the school land, but did not pay the land rent to the school or the land tax to the court. The professors and teachers of the school were powerless to collect the rent, and the local government was none of their business. The local government schools could only ask the court for money and grain to run the schools."

"In addition, when Cai Jing abolished schools, local households took the opportunity to invade and occupy the school fields!"

"Damn it!" Ju Ming spat.

In fact, there are really not many wealthy families who have been scholarly for generations who invade the school fields. Not only did they not encroach, but they occasionally donated money to the school or even donated land directly.

The main force that invades and occupies the school fields is those local tyrants.

Their family had few talents who could be high-ranking officials, but through doing business, occupying land, mining, and colluding with officials, they became local snakes in the prefectures and counties. The wealthy families disdained to deal with them, and the local officials did not want to offend them. The school had to suffer the consequences when its land was occupied.

Zhu Ming said: "The school land system in the former Song Dynasty must be reformed. According to the size of the school, the number of students, and the grade of the school, a quota of school land for each official school should be established. It cannot be more or less, and it is not allowed to accept school land donations."

Huan Guo couldn't understand: "Why can't the school accept land donations? Isn't it a good thing that rich households support school running?"

Zhu Ming said: "The Ming Dynasty strictly inspected the land. It will be difficult for large households to send the land to temples and small people in the future. Moreover, after the land is divided into acres, labor money will be collected based on the land. The more land, the more taxes will be paid. It cannot be done. If you can’t send it to the temple, you can’t send it to the common people, so someone must send it to the school!”

"How can it be like this?" Huan Guo was shocked.

He had also been a local official, but he had never encountered such an operation.

Because of the lax government management in the Northern Song Dynasty, the property could be easily sent to temples and ordinary people. There was no need to send it to schools to evade taxes - the schools were full of scholars, so this kind of thing would easily become known to everyone.

Ju Ming said: "Let's eat first."

Huan Guo started to pick up vegetables, but his mind was thinking about the sexy operation of sending farm property to the school.

The operation is very simple, and nothing needs to be changed. Large households only need to name their land under the name of the school, and they can perfectly avoid land tax and labor money.

And if the principal is greedy for money, he will definitely be willing to cooperate if he charges benefits. Even the principal can gain a good reputation and political achievements. After all, under his management, local gentry actively "donated land" to the school.

Even more school fields are donated, more benefits are given to the principal, and big families can arrange for their children to enroll in schools in violation of regulations!

This situation is not likely to happen, but it will definitely happen!
After grabbing a few more mouthfuls of food, Ju Ming said: "Order the government schools across the country to conduct self-examinations and report the number of school fields. After formulating new standards for school fields, the local government will redistribute them. The excess school fields will be sold to the original tenants at a low price, and those with insufficient school fields will find a way. Add to that. If the local officials find someone who has illegally transferred to the school or occupied the school land, they can be arrested and prosecuted by the court. If they should have their homes confiscated, they should be exiled. After a year, I will send the censor to conduct random inspections! "Official sage" Huan Guo used his chopsticks to flatter him.

Zhu Ming said: "Scholars from all over the country, if they have financial difficulties, can go to the county school without taking the exam. Scholars from all over the country, if there are financial difficulties, can go to the state government school without taking the exam. They can study in the official school for a maximum of three years. Those who fail after the deadline will automatically Drop out of school."

Official schools provide free accommodation, free meals, and free tuition, which is very helpful for students from ordinary families.

Of course, there are also self-financed students with a fixed quota, and tuition, food, and accommodation fees are still very expensive.

The teaching quality of official schools is often not as good as that of private schools and academies of wealthy families.

To put it bluntly, public schools are not as good as private schools (village schools and social schools are not included).

Therefore, truly wealthy people will not covet the free benefits of official education. The teaching level there is not as good as my own, and the food there is so bad that I can’t get used to it, so I can’t afford to compete with poor students for free places.

The current school system of Ming Dynasty is as follows:
Official schools (public schools): primary school (elementary school), county school, state school, Taixue. As well as various technical schools such as military academies and medical schools.

Private schools (private schools): village schools, community schools (community schools), private schools (family schools), libraries (family schools), and academies (large private schools with open enrollment).

Students in public schools at all levels can voluntarily participate in traditional imperial examinations. You can also advance to higher schools step by step and participate in courses that recruit professional talents.

Ju Ming carefully looked through the statistics of the Ministry of Rites and found that the number of official students in the Ming Dynasty was far behind that of the Song Huizong period.

There are about 6 primary school students in the country, about 4 county students, about 2 prefectural students, and about 3000 Taipei students. The total number is more than 12, which is not as good as the more than 16 in the early days of Song Huizong's rule, let alone the 20 before Cai Jing abolished the school.

There are also more than 6000 students from military, medical, shipbuilding, smelting and other vocational colleges.

The vast majority of students in Daming are actually studying in private schools!

According to Ju Ming's vision, about 1200 million acres of land would be allocated for school fields, which was slightly more than during the peak period of the Northern Song Dynasty.

This kind of school land system seems difficult for the court to manage directly, but it is actually more practical than having all funds allocated by the court. Can effectively reduce corruption in education funds!

The principals of county schools and above are all Jinshi, and the school's property has nothing but academic fields. Once the principal is too corrupt, the students will not be able to afford food, and if the problem gets too big, their future will be ruined.

The students at this time were not so easy to get rid of, and all of them were real scholars.

In another time and space, the Ming Dynasty also had a school field system.

However, there are only 50 acres of academic land nationwide, which is only a fraction of the academic land in the Northern Song Dynasty. Therefore, most of the land in the Ming Dynasty was allocated by local governments.

But how can local governments honestly allocate funds for education?
In the end, the official education system of the Ming Dynasty existed in name only. Although there are a large number of students in county schools and government schools, they are just registered under one name. They usually do not come to class, so only junior students go to collect rice on time.

Even the Imperial College of the Ming Dynasty existed in name only, and none of its students attended school. Most of the teachers in Taixue were appointed as civil servants, and they only thought about how to take the imperial examination all day long.

Although the imperial examination system of the Northern Song Dynasty was imperfect, the educational system of the Northern Song Dynasty designed by Fan Zhongyan, Wang Anshi, and Cai Jing was far superior to that of the Ming and Qing Dynasties in another time and space.

Ju Ming will naturally inherit and improve the good system.

There was the imperial examination reform before, and now there is the academic field reform. The education and imperial examination system of the Ming Dynasty has basically been finalized.

Ju Ming thought about it carefully: "Issuing another decree. Those who occupy academic fields will be charged with a third-level crime more serious than those who occupy civilian fields. Anyone who colludes with others to secretly send edicts and occupy academic fields will be dismissed from office and handed over to a competent judge for conviction. From now on, write this decree Enter "Da Ming Law".

The imperial minister took a note and asked the Tongzhengyuan to draft the edict and submit it to the Ministry of Punishment.

Huan Guo accompanied the emperor to finish lunch and left happily.

Ju Ming got up and took a walk to eat, thinking about increasing the number of junior colleges.

Officers, doctors, scientists, agriculturists, engineers...these are not in sufficient numbers and need to be cultivated more.

Of course, the finances may not be able to sustain it, so we have to control it at a certain level.

But even if junior colleges are not free, they cannot charge too high tuition fees. Because those who are really rich will definitely take the imperial examination, while those who are willing to go to junior college do not have much money.

Although Ju Ming has quotas for Jinshi and candidates for college students every year, these quotas cannot be set too many, otherwise it will arouse opposition from traditional scholars.

Alas, governing a big country is like cooking a small dish, and the heat is really difficult to control.

When Ju Ming ordered the country to clean up the school fields, Annan's Queen Mother Du finally came to Beijing.

Zhu Guoxiang deliberately avoids suspicion and avoids contact with court officials, so he still doesn’t know that the new concubine he wants to take is a queen mother...

(End of this chapter)