Guide to traveling through the Northern Song Dynasty

There was no court meeting the next day, so Zhu Ming was only an hour and a half late for work.

When it was almost noon, Zhu Ming saw a memorial and immediately said, "Call Hu Anguo and prepare an extra lunch."

When Hu Anguo arrived at the Chuigong Hall, the lunch was ready.

Zhu Ming said, "Come and eat together."

"Thank you, Your Majesty, for the food." Hu Anguo stepped forward.

The eunuch brought a chair and placed it next to the emperor's desk. The emperor and his ministers ate in front of a pile of memorials and materials.

Zhu Ming asked, "Is the school land problem so serious?"

Hu Anguo said, "Many official schools were abolished in the late Song Dynasty. After the founding of the Ming Dynasty, they were gradually restored. Especially after the destruction of the Jin Dynasty, the number of official schools was restored. Now that the land in Jiangxi has been measured, the school land in the country can finally be fully counted. The situation is really bad, and the court must issue an edict to unify the governance."

"That's fine. Catch some typical cases, confiscate their property and exile them. Anyway, the border needs to be populated!" Zhu Ming nodded.

"Your Majesty is wise!"

Hu Anguo was very supportive of this, and he even hoped to kill a group of them.

Because those who occupied the school land were all powerful or wealthy families. Those guys had no shortage of money and food, but they came to destroy the rice bowls of scholars.

Damn it!

The school land system in the Song Dynasty was established during the Qingli New Deal.

Official schools in various places were given land, generally 500 acres. Later, it was increased to 1,000 acres, but many schools did not have the conditions and still only had the original 500 acres. In some places that attach importance to education, the school land can reach 3,000 acres!

These school lands are all managed by the school and rented to farmers for food or money.

Since there is no need to pay taxes and perform corvée, it is very cost-effective for farmers to rent school land. For the sake of reputation, the principals mostly dare not mess around.

With the income from school land in various places as a bottom line, the court is not so troubled by education funding.

The last education statistics of the Northern Song Dynasty was during the Daguan period of Emperor Huizong of Song: there were more than 160,000 official students in the country, more than 90,000 classrooms and dormitories, and more than 10 million mu of school land. Every year, 3 million strings of tuition and 640,000 shi of school grain were collected (school fees and school grain included both tuition fees for self-funded students and income from school land).

Hu Anguo said: "The last statistics were during the Daguan period, but Cai Jing later vigorously established schools, and it reached its peak during the Zhenghe period. There were no exact statistics at the time, but according to my estimation, there were at least 200,000 official students during the Zhenghe period! Many newly built schools were difficult to allocate school land. Some officials also seized the people's land for school land in order to please Cai Jing."

"With 200,000 official students in the country, it is no wonder that Cai Jing later abolished a large number of official schools." Zhu Ming could imagine the financial pressure at the time.

Hu Anguo said: "If there is school land to support, plus some students from other dormitories to study at their own expense, the court does not need to allocate too much funds. But the school land is too seriously occupied by the powerful households. They use various means to rent the school land, but do not pay the land rent to the school or the land tax to the court. The professors and teachers of the school are unable to collect the money, and the local government is not concerned. The local official schools can only ask the court for money to run the school."

"In addition, when Cai Jing abolished the school, the local powerful households took the opportunity to occupy the school land!"

"It's really damn it!" Zhu Ming spitted.

In fact, there are really few families with generations of scholars who occupy school land. Not only do they not occupy it, they occasionally donate money to the school, or even directly donate land.

The main force of occupying school land is those local tyrants.

They don't have any talents who can become high-ranking officials, but they become local snakes entrenched in prefectures and counties through business, occupying land, mining, and colluding with officials. The big families disdain to deal with them, and the local officials don't want to offend them. The schools can only suffer in silence when their land is occupied.

Zhu Ming said: "The school land system of the former Song Dynasty must be reformed. According to the size of the school, the number of students, and the level of the school, a quota of school land for each official school should be formulated. It can't be more or less, and it is not allowed to accept school land donations."

Hu Anguo couldn't understand: "Why can't the school accept land donations? Isn't it a good thing for rich families to support the school?"

Zhu Ming said: "The new Ming Dynasty strictly checks the land. It will be difficult for the big families to send their land to temples and ordinary people in the future. Moreover, after the land tax is distributed, the land tax will be collected according to the land. The more land, the more taxes. If it can't be sent to temples and ordinary people, then someone must send it to the school!"

"It can be like this?" Hu Anguo was shocked.

He was also a local official, but he had never encountered such an operation.

Because the Northern Song government was lax in management, land could be easily fraudulently sent to temples and ordinary people, and there was no need to send it to schools to evade taxes. The schools were full of scholars, and such things could easily become known to everyone.

Zhu Ming said, "Let's eat first."

Hu Anguo began to pick up dishes, but he was thinking about the trick of fraudulently sending land to the school.

The operation was very simple, and nothing needed to be changed. The rich just needed to register the land under the name of the school to perfectly evade the land tax and labor service.

If the principal was greedy, he would definitely be happy to cooperate in receiving benefits. The principal could even gain a good reputation and political achievements. After all, under his management, local gentry enthusiastically "donated land" to the school.

Even if there are more donated school lands and more benefits paid to the principal, the wealthy families can arrange for their children to enter the school illegally!

This situation is not just possible, but inevitable!

After taking a few more bites of food, Zhu Ming said: "Order the official schools across the country to self-check the number of school lands and report them. After the new school land standards are formulated, the local government will redistribute them. The excess school land will be sold at a low price to the original tenant farmers, and the insufficient school land will be supplemented. If the local officials find someone who has illegally deposited school land or occupied school land, they can be arrested and sent to the law department and the procuratorate for trial. If the property of the person should be confiscated, the property of the person should be confiscated, and if the person should be exiled, the person should be exiled. The local officials can gain political achievements! After a year, I will send the censor to conduct random inspections."

"The government is wise." Hu Anguo flattered the emperor while holding the chopsticks.

Zhu Ming said: "Scholars from all over the country, if they have financial difficulties, can go to the county school without taking the exam. Juren from all over the country, if they have financial difficulties, can go to the official school of the prefecture without taking the exam. They can study in the official school for up to three years. Those who fail the exam after the deadline will automatically drop out."

Official schools provide free accommodation, free meals, and free tuition, which is very helpful for students from ordinary families.

Of course, there are also a fixed number of self-funded students, and the tuition, food, and accommodation fees are very expensive.

The teaching quality of official schools is often not as good as that of private schools and academies of wealthy families.

To put it bluntly, public schools are not as good as private schools (village schools and community schools are not counted).

Therefore, real rich people will not covet the free treatment of official schools. The teaching level there is not as good as their own, and the food there is too bad to eat, so there is no need to compete with poor students for free places.

The current school system of the Ming Dynasty is as follows:

Official schools (public schools): elementary schools (mongol), county schools, prefectural schools, and imperial schools. As well as military schools, medical schools and other types of technical schools.

Private schools: village schools, community schools, private schools (family schools), book halls (family schools), academies (large private schools with open enrollment).

Students at all levels of public schools can voluntarily participate in the traditional imperial examinations. They can also go to higher education level and participate in the system of recruiting professional talents.

Zhu Ming carefully read the statistics of the Ministry of Rites and found that the number of official students in the Ming Dynasty was far behind that of the Song Huizong period.

There are about 60,000 primary school students, about 40,000 county students, about 20,000 prefecture students, and about 3,000 Tai students in the country. A total of more than 120,000, less than the more than 160,000 in the early period of Song Huizong's reign, and even less than the 200,000 before Cai Jing abolished schools.

There are more than 6,000 students in military, medical, shipbuilding, smelting and other technical colleges.

The vast majority of students in the Ming Dynasty are actually studying in private schools!

According to Zhu Ming's idea, about 12 million mu of land would be allocated for school land, slightly more than the peak period of the Northern Song Dynasty.

This school land system seems difficult for the court to manage directly, but it is actually more practical than all the funds allocated by the court. It can effectively reduce the corruption of education funds!

The principals of county schools and above are all Jinshi graduates, and the school's property is nothing but school land. Once the principal embezzles too much, the students can't afford to eat, and if it gets out of hand, it will ruin their future.

The students at this time are not so easy to deal with, each of them is a real scholar.

In another time and space, the Ming Dynasty also had a school land system.

But there are only 500,000 mu of school land in the country, which is only a fraction of the school land in the Northern Song Dynasty. Therefore, most of the funds in the Ming Dynasty were allocated by local governments.

But how can local governments honestly allocate funds for education?

In the end, the official school system of the Ming Dynasty existed in name only. Although there are a large number of students in county schools and prefecture schools, they are just names. Those who don't come to class on weekdays are just stipend students who go to collect rice on time.

Even the Imperial College of the Ming Dynasty existed in name only, and all the students of the Imperial College did not go to school. Most of the teachers of the Imperial College were Juren, who only thought about how to take the imperial examination all day long.

Although the imperial examination system of the Northern Song Dynasty was imperfect, the education system of the Northern Song Dynasty designed by Fan Zhongyan, Wang Anshi and Cai Jing was far superior to the Ming and Qing Dynasties in another time and space.

Zhu Ming naturally wanted to inherit and improve a good system.

There was the reform of the imperial examination before, and now there is the reform of school land. The education imperial examination system of the Ming Dynasty was basically finalized.

Zhu Ming thought carefully: "Another decree will be issued. Those who occupy school land will be charged with a crime three levels more serious than occupying civilian land. The teachers and professors who collude with others to falsely send and occupy school land will be dismissed and handed over to the officials for conviction. In the future, this decree will be written into the Ming Dynasty Law."

The imperial attendant took notes and asked the Tongzhengyuan to draft the imperial edict and submit it to the Ministry of Justice.

Hu Anguo accompanied the emperor to finish lunch and retired happily.

Zhu Ming got up and took a walk to digest his food, thinking about increasing the number of technical schools.

Military officers, doctors, scientists, agronomists, engineers... these are not enough, and more must be trained.

Of course, the finances may not be able to support it, and a good degree must be grasped.

But even if technical schools are not free, the tuition fees cannot be too high. Because the really rich families will definitely go to take the imperial examinations, and the families willing to go to technical schools have little money.

Although Zhu Ming has quotas for Jinshi and Juren for technical school students every year, these quotas cannot be set too many, otherwise it will cause opposition from traditional scholars.

Alas, governing a big country is like cooking a small fish, and the heat is really difficult to control.

When Zhu Ming ordered the country to clean up the school fields, the Queen Mother Du of Annan finally came to Beijing.

Zhu Guoxiang deliberately avoided contact with court officials, so he still didn't know that the new concubine he was going to marry was a queen mother...