Datang Nongsheng

Chapter 713 New ten-year plan
In many lectures on education in later generations, scholars will always criticize the country's education system in various aspects, saying that teaching children too much unnecessary knowledge will make them lose their spirituality, and the burden on children is too great. Let them play more or something.

Sun Xiangfu thinks there is some truth to what he said. At least, he believes that in the education system, the knowledge that must be learned and the knowledge that is not necessary to be learned should be demarcated.

What is the knowledge that must be learned?
Such as certain agricultural knowledge.

The country is based on the people, and the people depend on food. Agricultural knowledge is the knowledge that solves the fundamental problem of human survival such as food. If the talents cultivated by a country's education system do not have the most basic agricultural knowledge, it is a kind of sad.

Of course, the scientific and technological civilization of later generations has advanced to an extraordinary level. Even the students educated in a country with a large population like ours have no idea what farming is like after graduation, and they can rely on a large amount of imported grain to solve their meals As long as there is no war, life can basically be passed.

But if there is a war, when external food imports cannot be obtained, and internal industrial output cannot be exported, only God knows what will happen.

Compared with later generations, the education system of this era is even more fucked up.

Eight Chinese lessons a day, ten years or even a lifetime of hard study with the Four Books and Five Classics in hand, through such education, what can the country gain?
Most of them are waste materials that can't be carried by hands, shoulders, and grains, and only know how to exploit others with one mouth.

If everyone focused on improving productivity, and everyone had enough to eat and warm clothes, there wouldn't be so many problems in society at all.

Therefore, the education system that Sun Xiangfu wants to implement is a system that can cultivate the next generation's hands-on ability and various basic survival skills, instead of cultivating a bunch of people who only know how to take exams, and they will have to use it for many years after entering the society A scholar who learns to do things from scratch.

This roasted sweet potato, Li Shimin eats very deliciously. The seven or eight-year-old princes and princesses can grow sweet potatoes by themselves, which is a very gratifying thing for him.

Therefore, he canceled his original idea of ​​going out for a stroll, and asked about the study of these children in detail. After one afternoon, he learned a lot.

The most obvious feeling is that the children know a lot of things, which is completely different from when they were in Chang'an, when the teacher of the royal family learned the scriptures repeatedly and asked them to copy them back and forth. It's only been half a year in Yuan County School.

Li Shimin ate dinner alone with Empress Changsun. Among the dishes was the amaranth that Li Lizhi brought back from school. While eating the vegetables, Li Shimin chatted with Empress Changsun about the reform of the internal servant supervisor. The basic framework was finalized. The detailed rules have to be studied and discussed slowly, and finally implemented.

"I mean, next year we will continue to keep the children in Jiuyuan County to go to school, what does Guanyin servant girl think?"

Empress Changsun replied, "The children here have a unique spirituality, which is indeed more suitable for them to study. However, Your Majesty, the people of Shannan Road are your people, and the people in Guanzhong are also your children." Min, since the teaching here in Shannan Road is better, it should be promoted in Guanzhong and throughout the country, so that all children can learn this useful knowledge."

Li Shimin nodded when he heard the words, "You are right, but if this happens, the Imperial College, and even the entire education system we have used in the past, will all have to be changed. In the system of Jiuyuan County School, all the way to the junior high school , did not teach more than one thousand characters of the contents of the Four Books and Five Classics, the obstacles of Confucianism are not small!"

Upon hearing the words, Emperor Changsun smiled and said, "Didn't your majesty order Cheng Qian to supervise the country? He has always had a way. Your majesty, you might as well teach him how to do it."

Li Shimin nodded again and said, "That's right, I will go on a western tour next year, and the journey is far away, so it's inconvenient to take you with me. The reform of the internal servants will also be left to you to decide!"

"Your Majesty is away from home, so please take care of yourself."

The couple finished their dinner while chatting heart-warmingly, and went out to sing and dance with everyone, without mentioning it.

The next day, Li Chengqian, who was sitting in Jiangling, had an additional document sent by Li Shimin on his desk. After reading some of the things mentioned in it, Li Chengqian smiled, not taking it seriously at all, and issued an order to the Ministry of Industry In Chang'an and Weinan, [-] new schools each with a teaching capacity of more than [-] people were built, and the rest of the prefectures and counties each built two to three schools according to the population size.

After the completion, these schools will recruit students of all school-age children who hold Datang household registration, and all tuition fees will be waived.

Seeing this decree, several people in the Zhengshitang were still a little confused. Fang Xuanling, Wen Yanbo and Tang Jian quickly found Li Chengqian.

Tang Jian, who is directly in charge of the education department, took the lead and said, "His Royal Highness, to build so many schools in Chang'an, Weinan, and Guanzhong prefectures and counties, and to provide children with free education, this expenditure is not small. According to the current population of nearly 600 million in Guanzhong Counting, there are nearly a million children of the right age to study. In addition to building schools, the annual investment is probably in the millions.

Moreover, many of these school-age children used to study in prefectural and county schools. If the new school was free of tuition fees, wouldn't the students from the prefectural and county schools be transferred to the new school? "

Li Chengqian said with a smile, "The only thing we need is this effect. The teaching content of the schools in those prefectures and counties in the past can no longer keep up with the needs of the times. Only schools like Jiuyuan County School can better educate students.

The imperial court has invested more money in the new schools, so the investment in the original state schools and county schools will be less. Although the cost will increase, most of the increased costs are due to the lack of education before. For those children who are studying, the increase in expenses can be fully afforded by the current financial capacity of the imperial court.

You can imagine, if all the schools in Guanzhong have the same talents as Jiuyuan County School, how much benefit will they create for Datang in the future? "

Hearing this, Tang Jian looked at Fang Xuanling and Wen Yanbo, seeing them nodding repeatedly, he didn't say much.

Li Chengqian said again, "So, next year will only be in Guanzhong. Within three to five years, this model must be rolled out to the whole country, and all the people must receive a certain degree of education."

Launching universal compulsory education, this idea, if it was put in the past, would have been unthinkable. Fang Xuanling still remembers that a few years ago, the imperial government’s education promotion plan was just to build a school in each state and county. That's all.

Unexpectedly, in just six or seven years, the plan will rise to the point of universal education.

If you want to talk about why Li Chengqian dares to do things so drastic, you have to look at where he studied government affairs. His learning template is Shanyang!

After Sun Xiangfu built Shanyang City, he directly built several schools in the city, so that children from all common people, regardless of Hu Han, high or low, could go to school.

The benefit is that Shanyang now has more than [-] students who have mastered the basic culture every year, embarking on the road of studying medicine, agriculture, engineering, business, and even continuing to study liberal arts. Various industries, providing more high-end backbone.

Hearing Li Chengqian's rhetoric, Tang Jian's heart beat faster. When he was in charge of the Ministry of Rites, he expanded the education system and promoted education for all, which naturally gave him a great credit, because such things will inevitably be recorded in the history books. Big book.

However, this credit is not so good. Most of the existing people who have benefited from the education system are Confucian scholars. The troublesome one is Lao Kong, the wine-sacrificing officer of the Imperial College.

However, Fang Xuanling found out some of Li Chengqian's intentions in doing so, and explained to Tang Jian, "His Royal Highness means that you don't announce the abolition of the old college, but directly establish a new school. The students who were studying in the old college have all transferred to the new school, so no one can blame them."

Hearing this, Tang Jian's eyes lit up, and he immediately felt that this matter was very feasible, and the imperial court did not deny those old county schools and state schools.However, students have the right to choose what school to go to and what knowledge to learn. The knowledge you teach is useless, and students don't like to learn, so it's no wonder that the imperial court promotes new learning education.

When everyone stopped going to state schools and county schools, these old colleges would naturally be abolished.

So, Tang Jian said, "In this case, the cost of building the school and subsequent teaching needs to be approved by the Ministry of Finance under the order of the Political Affairs Hall."

Fang Xuanling was about to nod, but Li Chengqian said with a smile, "Actually, the cost will not be very large, because, like here in Yuantian District, Shannan Road, there are local chambers of commerce, and it will be easier to provide funds for education expenses." More and more, in the future, most of what the imperial court needs to invest is just money for building schools."

The benefits generated by public resources should be given back to public services. These are some views brought by Sun Xiangfu in later generations.

Because in later generations, there are many places where there are coal mines, but in the end only a small number of coal bosses and corrupt officials colluding with the coal bosses are rewarded. This is very inappropriate.

Therefore, Sun Xiangfu wanted to let the local people participate in the operation and management of these local resource industries, control part of the right to speak, and share most of the benefits brought by these industries.

And as these industries grow more and more, and become bigger and bigger, it will not be a problem to meet the needs of the whole people in medical care, education, and pensions, because Datang now has many times more resources than our country in the future. , The population that needs to be fed is only over 3000 million, not even a fraction of it. The per capita resource allocation is more than a hundred times higher than that of the most developed countries in the future. It is just a drizzle to bear the expenditure on education.

By analogy, Fang Xuanling felt that not only the education system needs to be upgraded, but all other aspects can actually undergo a round of upgrades, because Datang is rich now!The promotion of infrastructure and the protection of people's livelihood are all things that are helpful to the long-term stability of this country. Since Li Chengqian wants to do it, why not start doing it!

His idea fits into the imagination that Sun Xiangfu sent out some time ago, to make all the mountains and rivers more beautiful and colorful, and to make all the rivers more gentle and peaceful...

Therefore, in October of the ninth year of Zhenguan, Prince Jian Guo Li Chengqian, together with the left and right ministers Fang Xuanling and Wen Yanbo, and the Minister of Rites Tang Jian, made a development plan for the next ten years within the Tang Dynasty.

This round plans to invest in infrastructure projects such as schools, hospitals, waterways, roads, docks, and even city renovations every year. Starting from 5000 million yuan in the first year, it will increase year by year. After ten years, the infrastructure of the entire country will It must reach a certain level, at least to ensure the living environment of all the local people in the Tang Dynasty, which is not inferior to the people in the Yuantian area of ​​​​Shannan Road.

Of course, ten years later, it’s hard to say what kind of life the people in the Yuantian area of ​​Shannan Road will live. At least, in Jiuyuan County, more than half of the residential buildings have been replaced with exquisitely decorated buildings this year. Afterwards, Yingzhou and Yuantian County under the Fuzhou administration are expected to follow suit.

(End of this chapter)