As the highest leader of the Empire, the Emperor had supreme power. The entire country belonged to him. However, since ancient times, any Empire would decline and disappear. How could they let their Empire continue to exist? This was something that many Emperors were very concerned about. It was also their lifelong pursuit and mission.
After a few hundred years of development, as more and more conflicts accumulated, a Empire would always fall into chaos and be replaced by a new Empire. How to avoid this outcome was something that many Emperors were very concerned about. Therefore, every time a new Empire was born, they would always learn from the previous Empire to avoid repeating the same mistakes. However, many times things did not go as planned and would instead create new problems.
For example, when the Jin Dynasty was established, they learned from the Wei Kingdom that they did not confer the title of King, causing the country to be taken over by the Sima Clan. Therefore, they conferred titles of Kings without restraint. In the end, not only did they not manage to protect their own country, but it also led to the Rebellion of the Eight Kings. This caused the West Jin Dynasty, which had just been unified, to fall into great chaos, which led to the even more terrifying Rebellion of the Five Barbarians.
The Song Dynasty absorbed too much power from the Tang Dynasty's Jiedushi, which led to the end of the country being in chaos. Therefore, they gave up the military power and took away all the power of the generals. They also used the civil officials to suppress the generals so that they would not have the ability to rebel or set up a separatist regime. However, this caused the military power of the Song Dynasty to weaken. The internal problems did not seem to be very serious, but they were always beaten up by the strong enemies in the North, which eventually led to the fall of the Empire.
In addition, there were more eunuchs in the Han Dynasty who basically did not have any in the Wei and Jin Dynasties. In the Tang Dynasty, eunuchs rose again. In the Song Dynasty, eunuchs were very arrogant. In the Ming Dynasty, eunuchs were very arrogant. In the Qing Dynasty, eunuchs were very honest. This was caused by each generation learning from the previous generation. However, it was easy to forget these lessons after a generation. In other words, no matter which method was used, there would be a lot of drawbacks and it could lead to the fall of the Empire.
If you gave the generals power and let them guard the borders, it would be very easy for them to rebel. If you let the civil officials suppress the generals, the generals would not be able to use their abilities well. They would have to constantly worry about being suspected by the Emperor and their military power would be weakened. If you let the eunuchs suppress the officials, it would cause the eunuchs to bring disaster to the country and the situation would be even more serious. In short, there was no perfect ruling strategy in the world. As long as the ruler did not work hard enough, the Empire would fall. If you wanted to avoid the fall of the Empire, every Emperor of each generation had to work hard to rule. They had to treat ruling the Empire as their main task. They had to understand the principle of being vigilant in times of peace and not indulge in pleasure. Otherwise, no matter how good the ruling strategy was, it would be useless.
If you wanted to maintain the stability of the Empire, there was nothing more important than education. Since ancient times, in order to maintain the rule of the Empire, the Emperor would generally use various means to educate the people under his rule so that the people would willingly submit to the rule of the Empire. However, the most important means of education were for scholars because only scholars could come into contact with various articles. The old farmers worked in the fields every day and did not study at all. They did not even have much of a concept of the Empire. The education of these people naturally became a blind spot.
Among the universal education proposed by Ang Lee, there was a very important one, and that was the education of patriotism. Children could be exposed to the idea of patriotism from an early age. In this way, when they grew up, they would be able to support the Empire very well. If there was no education of patriotism, there would not be such an effect.
In the future, in a small place in Hua Xia, because of the long-term imperialism, the local people lacked understanding of their motherland, so they recognized foreign masters and really regarded themselves as foreigners. Some people would even shout at the top of their lungs, saying that they would rather be a fly on the poop of the foreign devils' pet dog than be an upright descendant of the Yellow Emperor. One could imagine the seriousness of their enslavement, and the consequences of the lack of patriotism education were obvious.
Although the Emperor of the Tang Dynasty was old, his mind was not muddled. After learning about Ang Lee's education ideas and model, he was very pleased. If all the children of the Tang Dynasty could read and write and understand patriotism, it would be of great benefit to the stability of the Tang Dynasty. This was the same as the Ten Thousand Miles Sound Transmission. After all, the advantage of the Ten Thousand Miles Sound Transmission was that it was convenient for the communication of information, for the Imperial Court to rule the whole country, and for the stability of the country.
Thinking in this way, the importance of universal education was as important as that of the Ten Thousand Miles Sound Transmission. Ang Lee did this not because he was bored, but for the stability of the Tang Dynasty. It was a very meaningful thing to do.
After understanding this, the Emperor felt relieved and very happy.
"Assistant Minister Li has set up a new school. What's it called?"
Li Longji asked the little eunuch beside him.
"Your Majesty, it's the School of Sound Transmission. It indicates that the Ten Thousand Miles Sound Transmission will be successful in the near future."
The little eunuch said.
"School of Sound Transmission, what a good name!"
Li Longji smiled and said, "Assistant Minister Li has taken the lead, and I don't know how many people will follow suit. This can save a lot of expenses for the Imperial Court. Only he can come up with such good ideas. "
Happy, Li Longji hurriedly sent the eunuch to summon several high-ranking officials of the Imperial Court. The sooner the matter of universal education was confirmed, the better. He wanted to hear the opinions of these high-ranking officials, and then settle this matter as soon as possible.
Ang Lee's propaganda and persuasion were very effective. The high-ranking officials of the Imperial Court basically agreed with the basic education idea put forward by Ang Lee, but they had their own unique opinions on some details, which were slightly different from Ang Lee's idea, but their basic ideas were the same. They also approved of comprehensive universal education, but felt that it was too much to force all children to receive education. However, Ang Lee insisted on compulsory universal education to really realize the dream of letting all children go to school, so that some children's parents would not let their children receive the most basic education in school in order to let their children work more. Ang Lee would not agree to this situation, but some ministers felt that compulsory education was too overbearing and could easily arouse contradictions between the officials and the people. Ang Lee told all the ministers that universal education did not require ordinary people to pay money. For ordinary people, sending their children to school was definitely an advantage. In this way, even if it was compulsory, it would not cause too many contradictions. A few unruly people could not change anything, and the people's hearts would not change because of the Imperial Court's coercion.
This was like someone giving you 100 million yuan, and you had to accept it even if you didn't want to. How could ordinary people refuse such a good thing? How could they hate the person who gave them the money because of this reason? This was obviously impossible. Forcing children to go to school was a good thing, and it would not infringe on the fundamental interests of the people. Therefore, there would never be too much resistance, or even no resistance at all. In addition, the Imperial Court also had to do a good job of explaining the benefits of universal education level by level, so that all the people of the Tang Dynasty would understand the importance of universal education to the Tang Dynasty and the benefits it would bring to every child. In this way, the resistance would be further reduced, or even there would be no resistance at all.
The efficiency of the Imperial Court was not high, but as long as it was something that the Emperor and the high-ranking officials attached importance to, the efficiency of the implementation was still very fast. After a fierce discussion, the policy of comprehensive universal education was smoothly passed.
The Imperial Court would determine the approximate location of the school and the attributes of the school according to the population and geographical distribution. Then, if someone was willing to build the school at his own expense, the Imperial Court would allocate this land to him for free, let him prepare the school well, and give the naming right of the school to this person. In addition, the daily management right would also be given to him.
This way of building the school with the help of social resources could greatly reduce the financial pressure faced by the Imperial Court, so that the preparation work of the school could be carried out faster and better. Moreover, since the businessman was in charge of the school, he would certainly not leave it alone. He would certainly hope that the school could teach some good students. In this way, the businessman would also be proud. He would even compete with other schools to make the school beautiful and give people a sense of grandeur.
In addition, the funds of the Imperial Court were limited. They would not allocate more funds to a school for no reason. However, the school that the businessman was in charge of did not have such a problem. As long as the businessman was happy, he could allocate a lot of funds to build the school, give the teaching staff better treatment, and even give some rewards to the children who studied well. As long as the businessman wanted to build the school well and improve his reputation, he was willing to spend a lot of funds. In many cases, as long as the funds were in place, things would be much easier to do.
During the comprehensive implementation of universal education, Ang Lee had always emphasized that universal education was to learn some of the most basic things so that the children could be literate and polite. It was not to train all the children to take the imperial examinations. However, once the businessman was in charge of the school, he would certainly not be willing to simply train the children to be literate. Perhaps he would train them to be more capable so that they could take the imperial examinations. As long as they took the imperial examinations, his face would be very proud. In addition, after taking the imperial examinations, the poor children might be able to become an official. No matter how high the child's official position was, it would be funded by the businessman. Perhaps in the future, the children who had been funded by the businessman would need the help of the children who had been funded by the businessman.
In other words, the businessman who funded the school seemed to lose a lot of money, but in fact, he gained more. Not only could he gain the reputation of being a great philanthropist, but when the children he trained were successful in the future, they could also repay him and bring him greater benefits.
It was precisely for this reason that since ancient times, many people who had a certain amount of power would choose to fund the school to invest in their connections and gain a certain amount of benefits for their descendants.
In the later generations, schools had winter and summer vacations. The school usually started after the summer and winter vacations. However, in the Tang dynasty, there was no unified standard. In many private schools, if the students fell ill, they could only have a holiday. Therefore, except for the Spring Festival, the rest of the holidays were uncertain. There was no such thing as a weekend.
Because of this, when Ang Lee was preparing to build the school, as long as the children were recruited, the school could start immediately and start teaching at any time.
Because it didn't cost a penny, and the school was opened by Ang Lee, the enrollment was very smooth. In the surrounding slums, children who didn't have schools to go to, expressed their willingness to enter the school established by Ang Lee to learn knowledge. Even some poor children who could go to school dropped out and came here.
However, there weren't many children who dropped out and came to Ang Lee's school, and almost all of them were poor children. Their families didn't have much extra money and couldn't afford to support their children who took the imperial examination. Originally, they just wanted their children to learn a few words and drop out after two years of private school. Now that there was a free school to learn how to read and write, they had no reason not to take advantage of it.
As for those children who were bent on taking the imperial examination, they wouldn't come. After all, there were very few people in the private school, and the teachers could better educate them more carefully. The school established by Ang Lee had more than a thousand children, but the number of teaching staff was not many. The teaching environment might be more lively, and it might not be suitable for taking the imperial examination. Moreover, because the children who entered the school were poor children, their quality was definitely relatively poor, and their temperament might be more wild. Children from rich families were definitely not willing to let their children learn with these wild children. Perhaps they were worried that their children would be led astray by these wild children.
Perhaps some people thought that this was a kind of prejudice, discrimination against poor children. In fact, it was really not discrimination. The children of the poor were raised freely, and there were fewer family members involved. A group of children who were not very old dared to run out to play in the wild. The children of the rich families were always well protected. Not only were they clean, but they also looked delicate. They were not on the same level at all.
Moreover, although most of the poor children were honest and simple, there were always some who were more wild and unruly. They liked to bully others very much. These children were circled to the school to study in order to use the means of education to turn these bad children into good children.
However, the parents of the rich families were not willing to take such a big risk to let their children be classmates with poor children. What if they were led astray? What if they were bullied? Their children were motivated to take the imperial examination and must receive quality education. Therefore, they could only choose private schools with a better educational environment. This was equivalent to the aristocratic schools of the later generations. The cost was naturally higher, but the rich families did not lack money. In order to train their children better, they were willing to pay a high price, and they could afford it.
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