People live in the Ming Dynasty, evil spirits are soaring into the sky

Chapter 366 I don’t believe it. Without you scholars, I can’t rule the world.
Now these civil servants have become smarter.

They knew very well that even though the little emperor was only ten years old, he was very ruthless.

No matter how smart an official is, he will be defeated by him.

He has no other tricks but to let you take the blame.

Or use the ultimate skill of sincerity to leave you speechless.

You can be very political, you can be very wise, or you can be very cunning and beat around the bush and make things confusing.

But when you stand before this emperor, he has only one trick to deal with you.

If you are targeted by the Jinyiwei and are investigated by them and it is found that you are indeed suspicious, then there is only one thing waiting for you.

No matter what means you have, he can make you helpless in front of him.

Just like those officials before, they said some unpleasant things in front of the emperor just to impeach Chen Han.

There is no need to say anything else, but the emperor can directly accuse you of treason and say it in front of you openly. I am wrongly accusing you, what can you do?
So now many officials have become smarter.

They knew that they had to appear to be very obedient to any order from His Majesty the Emperor.

Don't ever think that he is just a child and you can fool him at will. If you fool him, he will fool you.

Now everyone understands one thing, that is, His Majesty the Emperor may really be Chen Han’s illegitimate son.

Anyone can impeach, but not Chen Han.

It is very obvious that people are on Chen Han's side. If he still recklessly impeaches Chen Han, he will most likely be accused of treason by the emperor.

So now these officials have become smart and can say anything, but they cannot say bad things about Chen Han.

They had no idea why the emperor was so protective of Chen Han, but they understood that if they wanted to stay alive, they must not do these things.

Just like now, even if His Majesty the Emperor just asked: Do you still have any resentment? They were all very nervous.

Because once you say yes, what is likely to await you is whether you are plotting a rebellion.
If such a big hat is put on you, not only yourself, but even your family members may be killed.

Guo Feixue was very happy when she saw this scene.

Although she had not been with Chen Han for a long time, she had been able to come and go freely in the capital during her time there, and she had seen countless civil servants, officials, and wealthy people in the capital resent Chen Han.

Their resentment mainly came from Chen Han’s reforms, which first deprived them of many privileges.

For example, there are many wealthy people who have cultivated many scholars. They take advantage of the tax-exempt privileges of scholars and register their land with the scholars to obtain tax-exempt privileges.

But now, it has become a one-size-fits-all approach.

From now on, scholars will not have much tax exemption rights. Officials and gentry will pay taxes and serve as officials together, and all those who want to be tax-exempt will be dismissed at once.

From now on, they still have to pay taxes.

Even if one is an official, his family cannot be exempted, let alone those who have only passed the imperial examinations or become scholars or juren.

That's why I offended so many people.

That's why so many people secretly want Chen Han to die.

But now they saw that His Majesty the Emperor was so supportive of their master, so they could only shut up.

No wonder my master can be so unscrupulous.

When the emperor arrived, he saw that all the civil servants were relatively honest, so he walked towards Sophia.

Although Sophia is a foreigner with a high nose and white skin, she speaks Ming Dynasty Mandarin fluently.

If you close your eyes and listen, you will never be able to tell where she is from.

Just because people would think she is a genuine Ming Dynasty person.

And her accent is much better than those of people in the south, so most people would think that Sophia is a native of the Ming Dynasty, and she just has a foreign face.

Little did she know that it was her genius talent for language that gave her this ability.

Sophia also had great respect for Emperor Wanli.

First of all, Chen Han has always emphasized to her that the current emperor will definitely become a wise ruler for all ages.

So you can't show any disrespect in front of him.

During the time that Chen Han was away, Sophia had been dealing with His Majesty the Emperor.

Many times, at the invitation of Sophia, the emperor would personally come to the Imperial University of Peking to give instructions on specific work.

Don’t look at it, Emperor Wanli is only ten years old now, but he is Chen Han’s soul after all.

However, quite a lot of constructive suggestions were actually made on many details.

Sophia was even surprised at Emperor Wanli's understanding of modern universities.

She never imagined that an ancient emperor, even an emperor who did not leave the Ming Dynasty, would have such a deep understanding of modern educational concepts.

To a certain extent, he even understands it more thoroughly than her, a college student.

Therefore, whether in terms of status or strength, Emperor Wanli left a very good impression on Sophia.

Let Sophia understand that it is quite difficult to fool Emperor Wanli.

So she was very cooperative and tried her best to build the current Imperial University for the Ming Dynasty.

Because she no longer has a home.

She betrayed her father without caring about her relatives, although in the eyes of many people, her behavior was understandable and even justified.

After all, her father was not a good man.

After she learned about her father's disgusting activities of trafficking women and children and sucking blood from Daming's body, her inner justice told her that she must never go along with such a father.

Fortunately, he met Chen Han who was willing to accept her and did not let her be humiliated. He even allowed her to display her true abilities in the capital, allowing him to build the Imperial University and fully display his talents.

And respecting many of her ideas gave her an unprecedented sense of accomplishment. It also gave her a home deep in her heart.

But it must be said that she is truly a loner.

Emperor Wanli came before Sophia, and Sophia hurriedly saluted, and she saluted according to the etiquette of the Ming Dynasty.

Perhaps in the eyes of many Westerners, kneeling is a very shameful thing.

Of course, in Sofia's eyes, this is just adapting to local customs.

So she didn't have any psychological burden. After paying her respects to Emperor Wanli, Emperor Wanli raised his hand and said, "Now you are also a minister of my Ming Dynasty. Although I haven't assigned you an official position yet, since Minister Chen recommended you to be the head of the Imperial University, I must give you a position in the Ministry of Rites. Although there is no precedent for women to be officials in this dynasty, I will start with you. I not only want women to be officials, but also let other foreign friends see that as long as they are talented, they can be officials in my Ming Dynasty. Send out this signal, and I believe that more extraordinary people will come from overseas to the Ming Dynasty to display their talents."

After hearing what Emperor Wanli said, Sophia was very excited: "If your majesty can do this, it will be a blessing for the Ming Dynasty. Although the Ming Dynasty is ahead of the West in various technologies, it still has a certain gap with the West in terms of navigation and lawmaking. If we can make up for this gap, I believe the future of the Ming Dynasty will be smooth."

Emperor Wanli nodded after hearing this. "Then I'll have to trouble you to help Ming establish a set of navigation technology training for Ming. I believe there are many Portuguese and Spanish people stranded in Indochina now. They may not like to wander on the sea. We can summon them to Ming and let them teach our students how to sail on the sea. As long as they are willing to come and teach, Ming will offer them a salary that satisfies them."

Sophia was a little surprised after hearing this. She had been in Ming Dynasty for more than ten years. After all, she settled in Macau with her father.

To be honest, if she hadn't gone to China to attend university, she would have stayed in Ming Dynasty longer than in her motherland.

So she knows very well what the biggest problem of the Ming Dynasty is now, or what was the biggest problem of the Ming Dynasty before?
That is, the salaries of officials are too low.

Why was the deputy envoy of Guangdong's Haibei Circuit willing to accept even a small bribe of silver?

It was because their salaries were too low. A second or third rank official would only receive one or two hundred taels of silver a year.

Although there are various miscellaneous taxes that can make them no longer worry about material life, after becoming such a high-ranking official, their activities are by no means as simple as eating and drinking, but also involve spiritual enjoyment.

And which spiritual enjoyment does not require money to pave the way?

Under this contradiction, officials will inevitably reach out to the people for money and engage in corruption.

But what he did not expect was that after arriving in the capital, he found that the officials in the capital had received higher salaries than before since Chen Han's reforms, so that the officials here were no longer as greedy as the officials in Guangdong and Guangxi.

Now we hear the emperor personally promise that he can offer fairly high salaries to attract talents.

He was even more surprised. For example, he was now only responsible for the construction of Imperial University and part of the management of students of Imperial University, but his monthly salary had reached 150 taels of silver.

This salary is higher than the annual salary of a second or third rank official.

On the one hand, she was surprised at Chen Han's generosity, and on the other hand, she felt that Chen Han was the one who truly knew how to attract more talents to Daming's schools.

What did the Ming Dynasty actually lack?
What is lacking is not the scholars of the Four Books and Five Classics.

What is lacking is professional technical talents.

During her more than ten years of stay in the Ming Dynasty, she found that the Ming Dynasty was too good to scholars, but treated craftsmen and engineers too poorly.

Many people in the Ming Dynasty actually had very advanced skills.

Whether it is building houses or repairing roads and rivers, they have very comprehensive experience, but their income is very low.

This results in talents in this area not being respected by the public, and also means that these talents can only stay in their hobbies.

There are many craftsmen who can build a house with carved beams and painted rafters, and draw up the blueprints by hand. Such talents are highly respected in their country.

But in the Ming Dynasty, this was regarded as a strange and clever trick.

So when he was talking with Chen Han about building the Imperial University of Peking, he also found out that Chen Han had already discovered this problem.

That is why she was allowed to let go and vigorously absorb and cultivate such talents.

Perhaps because the two of them have something in common, Sophia respects Chen Han more and relies more on him in her heart.

And now hearing Emperor Wanli say this, he was even happier.

"If Your Majesty can think this way, I think it will definitely attract more talents for our Ming Dynasty."

However, many civil servants who were listening felt that it was very unfair. To be honest, they had worked very hard for so long and wanted to get a high salary, but their salary was too low.

They take risks and do many things they are unwilling to do. Don't they know that if they do something wrong, it would be like adding a sharp blade to their head?

They all know.

But if I don’t do this, how can I satisfy my spiritual needs?

Just as the emperor and Sophia were chatting.

The scholars have gathered. These scholars are different from other scholars. Most of them are craftsmen. They may not have the elegance of scholars and may appear a little rough, but everyone has excitement on their face.

It's like the love of knowledge.

After Sophia heard what Emperor Wanli said to her, asking her to recruit as many students as she wanted, she said to the students below: "You all came from all over the Ming Dynasty to show your knowledge and break through the discrimination against scholars. You all hope to achieve success in the Imperial University. You even hope that after spending three years at the Imperial University, you can become an official and no longer be a hard-working craftsman who is discriminated against."

The civil servant gasped when he heard this.

My goodness! How can one become a local official just by studying at the Imperial University for three years? This is so unfair.

You have to know that in order for these people to become officials, they first had to study hard for at least ten years, and then take the imperial examinations, step by step from scholar to juren to jinshi, with the examinations only held every three years.

Even if one could pass the imperial examination every time, it would still take nearly nine years.

With this calculation, it would take at least twenty years for me to become an official if I were lucky.

However, what Chen Han proposed was that one could become an official in the locality by studying in this Imperial University for three years, which was very unfair to them.

An official immediately said to Emperor Wanli: "Your Majesty, in three years they will be able to serve as local officials. Isn't that too unfair to the students today? Which of them didn't study hard for more than ten years?"

Emperor Wanli turned around and asked, "Why don't you think about this? Those craftsmen have at least ten years of experience in their craft before they dare to take part in this imperial examination. They have also worked just as hard, and even harder than you scholars who sit in your study and study. They also work to support their families. And the scholars feed their families alone, and when they become officials, they try every means to repay their families. How do they repay? Do I need to tell you?"

This rebuttal immediately left the officials speechless.

"Your Majesty, if this continues, who in the world will be willing to study?"

Emperor Wanli said again, "If they don't want to, then let the craftsmen take up this position. I don't believe that without you scholars, I can't govern the world."

……

(End of this chapter)