History of the Great Zhou Dynasty

Chapter 20 Praising the Country
"Sergeant, I'm going to step back."

The soldiers retreated hurriedly.

Feng Yun frowned slightly.

"You are not allowed to practice, and you are not allowed to give lectures. That's what you all think, well..." Feng Yun nodded as if in agreement, but added: "Is that what you all think?"

Feng Yun's tone seemed to be in approval, so the children, including Hei Quan, all nodded in agreement.

"So..."

"No, Master Yun, that's not what I think." Hei Quan, who had originally nodded, said hurriedly: "When Master taught me my inheritance for the first time, the others were eavesdropping in the corner. Master did not expel them, but allowed them to listen. …”

Black Dog's cheeks turned red. Only then did he remember this and almost said the wrong thing.

Feng Yun looked at the other children who were getting nervous.

Don't blame either.

"You are different from the past few days, and now you are flattering me?"

"Master..."

Feng Yun waved his hand to stop what they were about to say.

"When you see the armored soldiers bowing their eyebrows and nodding in front of me, you guys also have a distant respect for me."

"You should respect the Master, not be in awe. If you were in awe of me, you wouldn't tell the truth to me."

"Would it be difficult for me to teach you what you say if you tell the truth? Then after you finish learning the calligraphy, you can easily come up with these lies to ruin my reputation?"

"Master... we don't dare anymore." The children all lowered their heads. They were lifted up just now, and their hearts were suddenly knocked to the ground by Feng Yun.

But they are young and do not yet understand the truth that Feng Yun wants them to understand.

Then Feng Yun explained: "When you study, I am the master and you are the disciples... When I give lectures, I am not a master, and you are not common people, you are just disciples and teachers."

"I teach you, and you learn it. You are not learning it for me or your parents. Think more about yourself... If you can't learn it for yourself, then drop out of school, otherwise it will be hard to learn. I’m tired of myself.”

Learning calligraphy, in this era, was exclusive to the gentry.

If the common people want to learn calligraphy, the gentry and masters will not teach them.

Hearing the sound, the children hurriedly blamed themselves, and some even cried.

"After watching, now let's listen to the lecture."

When Feng Yun spoke, the children did not dare to say anything.

"There was once a man who was a king. His younger brother rebelled and wanted to separate the kingdom..."

Not long after Feng Yun spoke, he heard rustling again.

This time, no child dared to interrupt, and Feng Yun did not stop him and continued teaching.

"After the defeat, his younger brother was exiled by the emperor... When he was in exile, his younger brother died. He had a son who had poor conduct due to his father's false teachings and bad environment."

"After his father died, his son escaped from the bad environment and teachings, learned to make his own judgments, and then gradually understood the truth and realized that it was unjust for his father to rebel against the emperor. From then on, he woke up and became a moral person."

"Later, when the emperor heard about the transformation of his younger brother's son, he recommended him to be a minister and serve as an official around him. After observation and testing, the emperor understood that he had changed his ways, and then he went to the Emperor of Zhou and made Cai Hu a viscount. Founded the State of Cai..."

"Later generations will call the king a benevolent and righteous king who is extremely kind to his brothers, while Zijue Cai is a man who has reformed his past and is a virtuous man who knows how to return from his lost ways."

After telling this story, Feng Yun looked at the children who were still confused and explained: "Use the story to bring yourself into the story. Just think about it yourself."

It’s no wonder that Feng Yun would tell such a story of benevolence and righteousness. It’s just that these children have been too deeply affected by the environment. Feng Yun hopes that they can realize themselves and have their own judgment instead of blindly following others.

Just as they responded flatteringly to Feng Yun's words just now, they didn't think about Feng Yun's usual behavior.

Feng Yun stood up.

"Teacher...what does ren mean?"

Feng Yun, who wanted to leave, was stunned.

"Benevolence...is a kind of kindness in the heart, a noble character."

Feng Yun then remembered that benevolence is the thought of Confucius, but there is no Confucius now.

"I have something to do. I will come back at noon. Then I will hear what you have to say."

"promise…"

The armored soldier next to him saw it and ran over quickly.Feng Yun also happened to come to him for something.

"Brother, do you know where this Lutian is?" Feng Yun took out a Lutian deed. He knew that Lutian was nearby, but he was not as familiar with it as the armor soldiers here.

The armored soldier took it respectfully, and after looking at it, he was shocked and said, "Isn't this Zongbo's food?"

It was actually assigned to Feng Yun!

You must know that the land around Dating City has been set aside.

Only the land further away can still be demarcated...

Soldier A immediately said: "I know, I know, it's not far from here. I'll take you there."

His posture became even more humble.

Being able to draw Lu Tian from Uncle Zong's hand shows that Feng Yun is taken seriously.

The Dazhou Dynasty used the well-field system, with a field divided into [-] acres. A field was divided into a well-shaped shape, with public fields in the middle and private fields for the rest.

Eight families farmed private fields, and eight families farmed public fields together, and then took one-ninth of one field as tax.

Of course, this is the land allocated by the princes to the common people for farming.

As for the scholar-bureaucrats under the princes, most of them farmed as slaves, and their income was not taxed, but was their own salary.

In other words, if Feng Yun has Lu Tian, ​​he will no longer have a monthly salary after one year. If he wants anything in the future, he can only exchange it for the grain produced by Lu Tian.

However, there were few slaves and they still needed to be purchased. Most of the nobles still farmed as common people, and the taxes were relatively high.

As a sergeant, Feng Yun's land was [-] acres, or three hectares of land.

However, Feng Yun knew that modern measurement was different from that of the Zhou Dynasty.

One acre in Dazhou was about one-third of modern times, and the [-] acres at that time was as big as a dozen football fields now. According to Dazhou, each acre of land produced one stone of corn, and here there are two seasons a year, that is Six hundred stones, equivalent to eighteen thousand shell coins.

In today's big Zhou Dynasty, when a slave costs two hundred shells, Feng Yun's annual output per mu can buy ninety slaves.

……

"Who!"

Feng Yun was heading to Lutian with Jia Bing, when suddenly a young man blocked Feng Yun's way.

"Slow down, I'm not a villain!"

The young man was seventeen or eighteen years old. He was dressed in an unusual way. He should be a member of a noble family, but he looked like he was wearing it for the first time. There were no rules. When he saw Feng Yun, he gave an unfamiliar salute.

"Sergeant?" The armored soldier stood in front of Feng Yun and asked Feng Yun.

Feng Yun looked at this man's young face and his accent that was different from that of Da Ting, and asked curiously: "A nobleman's son from somewhere else?"

"Well, I am a descendant of Baoguo..." The man was vague and only said the name of the country.

"Praise for the country?"

Feng Yun Youqian has read "The Geographical Chronicles of the Great Zhou Dynasty". The ancestor of Bao Bao was a marquis and a high official of the Zhou Dynasty. It has been passed down for many years. Since Bao Hou passed away more than ten years ago, it has declined rapidly. Now it is just a small town in the country. A medium-sized country in the southwest.

Why are there people who praise the country here?

Da Ting Kingdom is in the southeast, thousands of miles away...

See Feng Yun thinking.

The young man from Baoguo asked: "What are you thinking about?"

"Hey, don't stop me. I have something to talk to this senior...sergeant!"

Feng Yun signaled, and then the armored soldier let go and let him come over, while the armored soldier also walked further away slowly.

Seeing the soldier walking away, the young man from Baoguo breathed out a sigh of relief.

He said: "My father-in-law became an official in the Kingdom of Wu. Now something happened in the Bao Kingdom, and he needs to go back to inherit the inheritance...and I am his eldest son, so I will go back with him."

As he said this, the man bowed deeply to Feng Yun again. This time he was much better, not as awkward as before.

"I just listened to what the master said, and when it was applied to me, I was shocked and realized that the master is a talented person."

"I wonder if Master is willing to go to Baoguo with me to serve as an official. I will treat him as a minister."

(End of this chapter)