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"Because our army has taken over most of Anhui, Anqing News will be renamed to Anhui News. Please take note, readers." In a rather nice courtyard in Anqing, a young man about 17 or 18 years old stood in the hall, reading the contents of the latest newspaper to a group of elders sitting on chairs.
These days, as long as it was a decent family in Anhui, they would all become loyal readers of Anqing News. Generally speaking, as long as a family was rich, powerful, or cultured, they would know the importance of the official media. Moreover, after Anqing News was launched, the impact it brought had indeed shocked these people.
The first page was a compilation of news, about the war, politics, economics, and major events in Anhui led by the Taiping army would all appear on it. At first, these readers were skeptical of the Taiping army's bragging. Even if the information was not smooth, these people could still get the latest news more easily than other people.
When other news that lagged far behind the Anqing News reached Anqing, and after many comparisons with the Anqing News proved that the Anqing News had a certain degree of reliability, each of the reader families had their own thoughts. For example, when the Anqing News reported that after it was upgraded to the Anhui News, each newspaper had been upgraded from one article to two articles, someone snorted and used the words "exorbitant levies" to describe it.
The young man reading the newspaper was called Wang Mingshan. He was not happy about being interrupted when reading the newspaper. If he could, he wanted to hide in his study and read the newspaper alone. However, the people in his family were very strict with the newspaper. After reading it, they had to hand it to Wang Mingshan's grandfather for safekeeping. Two copper coins was nothing to Wang Mingshan, but the circulation of Anqing News was limited. More and more people were buying the newspaper monthly. The newsboys had basically changed from hawking on the street to delivering newspapers. It was hard to buy more even if he wanted to. Needless to say, the Wang family leader seemed to be deliberately controlling the control of the news.
"Continue reading!" Wang Mingshan's father, Wang Yuncheng, ordered.
Wang Mingshan did not dare to complain. There were more than 20 brothers of the same generation as him. It was already an honor to be chosen to read the newspaper. There were many brothers and cousins who envied and envied him behind his back. If he disappointed the elders in any way, he would be deprived of the right to read the newspaper for them. For Wang Mingshan and his father, Wang Yuncheng, it meant that their status in the family would drop. No matter how unwilling he was, Wang Mingshan worked hard to do his job as a newspaper reader.
"The civil servant examination will begin on June 18th of the solar calendar (May 14th of the lunar calendar). The exam was divided into three levels: official civil servants, contract civil servants, and temporary workers. Those who were willing to join the new Anhui government could apply for the official civil servant exam. Those who only wanted to join the new Anhui government temporarily and were not prepared to work in the long term could apply for the contract civil servant exam. Some temporary units of Anhui's new government need temporary workers, so they're recruiting temporary workers … "
"Alright! Don't read this part, read the rest! "Wang Mingshan's elder said.
Wang Mingshan was very interested in the civil servant exam, but he could not read this part by himself. The content of the next paragraph was a recruitment notice. The Taiping army in Anqing had been expanding their arsenal. Every day, there was content about this.
The most important content on the first page was a document by the current top leader of Anhui, Vézé. It was an article titled, "Ensuring the implementation of this year's grain tax payment".
This article was written in the vernacular language. The choice of words was strange, but it was not to the point of being incomprehensible. In the article, Vézé introduced the importance of the grain tax payment to the Taiping army, as well as the relative difficulties in the implementation process. In the end, Vézé said, "Whoever dares to obstruct the implementation of this year's grain tax payment in Anhui, whether it be the Qing Army outside of the Taiping Rebellion zone, or the landlords and gentry in the Taiping Rebellion zone, will be digging their own graves! What will rush towards them will be the thunderous fury of the Taiping army, which has the support of the people of Anhui! Those who try to stop the Taiping army from completing the grain tax payment will end up like a mantis trying to stop a chariot! "
When Wang Mingshan read this article, the whole living room was silent. Wang Mingshan did not really understand the content of the article. He was a child of a scholarly family in the city, so he did not know much about the Manchu Qing tax system introduced in the article, nor did he understand the analysis of the conflict between the landlords and the tenant farmers. However, these things were relatively clear, and they echoed with the whole article. Wang Mingshan roughly understood that the most famous Prime Minister of Anqing, Vézé, had issued a threat. Whoever dared to stop him from collecting this year's taxes would die.
After Wang Mingshan finished reading the newspaper, he heard Wang Mingshan's grandfather say, "Mingshan, put down the newspaper and go out first."
Although he did not understand what his grandfather was thinking, Wang Mingshan obediently obeyed his grandfather's order. After leaving the main hall, Wang Mingshan left home with the reason that he wanted to go to the library to study. He jogged all the way to the library where he originally studied.
At this time, the library could only be considered to be barely open. After Anqing was conquered, the local scholars' idea of taking the scholarly examination was the first to fall through. When the Taiping army attacked the city, the teacher who opened the library was scared sick, and the substitute teacher basically did not manage the library. Because of this, the number of people willing to let their children continue to study in the library decreased.
Wang Mingshan did not care about this. As soon as he entered the library, he saw that the teacher was not on the podium. But the students each had a newspaper and were reading enthusiastically. A few students had already begun to argue about the content of the newspaper.
Anqing News did not only have the content of news promotion, there were many different sections in the other sections. Recently, the main topic was about the astronomical calendar.
For any dynasty, the content related to astronomy was very important. Although the Manchu Qing itself was an extremely autocratic system, so the scholar-officials had no way to use astronomy to check and balance the imperial power like the previous dynasties. But for Vézé, if he could establish himself as a "cultural pioneer", it was equivalent to establishing a school. Everything did not necessarily have a good side. After reading Vézé's newspaper, the Manchu Qing and the people who opposed Vézé could also receive cultural education, which was equivalent to a disguised form of funding for the enemy. But Vézé firmly believed that in the process of using civilization to expel ignorance, the system of the Manchu Qing would naturally be shaken. Some small losses were nothing.
Therefore, the introduction of the solar system, the introduction of the earth, based on the understanding of the solar system to explain the changes of the four seasons. There were also some simple chemical reactions, such as the introduction of using vinegar and alkali as an introduction to the acid-base neutralization experiment.
For young people like Wang Mingshan who had read some books, the articles in the newspapers were all accompanied with relevant model making information. With their language ability, it was not difficult for them to read the article that described how to make these models. The difficulty was how to complete the model according to the description in the article.
Wang Mingshan was not very early. He took today's newspaper from his classmate and began to read. How could those boring books compare to these newspapers that were rich in content and covered a wide range of topics? In the blink of an eye, Wang Mingshan completely read it. He could not even lift his head.
"I've made the globe!" A proud shout came from the door, causing everyone to raise their heads. Everyone saw their classmate Shen Xin walk into the room with something in his arms. The other experiments were relatively easy to do, but the globe was difficult. The relevant article clearly stated that to make it exquisite, there must be a gear transmission part. Although this thing could be made from bamboo, and the materials were not particularly difficult to obtain, it was not easy to make such an exquisite gear. Even without the use of gears, many things were needed. At the very least, they had to make a bamboo ring as a track.
Surrounded by more than a dozen students, Shen Xin took out a simplified version of the "three-body" model. This model only included three planets, the sun, the earth, and the moon. These three planets were even molded with clay.
Everyone used the sunlight that came through the window, and according to the book, they demonstrated the solar and lunar eclipses. This group of young scholars had naturally read about solar and lunar eclipses from the books of the Holy Sages. However, those statements were very mysterious, and were not as detailed as the Anqing News.
However, some students still did not understand this kind of projection. He frowned and said, "If the moon shines on the earth, won't it cast the earth's shadow on the sun?"
Shen Xin smiled and said, "Didn't you read the article? The sun shines on its own. The moon doesn't shine on its own, but reflects the sun's light. Without the sun, how can the moon have light? "
"How do you know the moon doesn't shine on its own?" That student obviously did not unconditionally accept the description in the Anqing News.
Shen Xin replied, "The longer you stand under the sun, the hotter it gets. But under the moon, the longer you stand, the colder you feel. Isn't this proof? "
"That's not necessarily true!" Although the student did not necessarily oppose Shen Xin to the end, there was no young person who did not like to argue, so he put forward his own opinion.
Wang Mingshan and other students fiddled with the globe. This kind of article had the biggest impact on Wang Mingshan. Knowing that the earth under their feet was not horizontal, but a huge ball, who would not feel surprised?
But Anqing had some conditions. There was no lack of sailors who had been to Poyang Lake, Chao Lake, and Hongze Lake. In this article, it was clearly stated that if the earth was not round, then the first thing to be seen on the surface of the water would be the whole figure of the ship in the distance. If the earth was round, then the first thing to be seen would be the top of the mast of the ship in the distance. Wang Mingshan could not help but ask the sailors, and the response he got was quite consistent. On a clear day, when a ship was seen, the first thing to be seen was the mast of the ship. This was a huge impact on Wang Mingshan.
Fiddling with the globe, he simulated the occurrence of a lunar and solar eclipse. Wang Mingshan believed the article in the Anqing News. However, another bigger puzzle emerged. How did the sun, the earth, and the moon hang in the air? What kind of world was beyond them?
Just as he was feeling puzzled, he heard Shen Xin shout, "Since you said so, I'll go and sign up for the civil servant exam. It's clearly stated in the newspaper that if I sign up for a temporary job, I can still go to the new school. There must be a teacher there who can explain these things clearly. I will take a temporary job and go to the new school at the same time! "
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