The Prosperous Era of Longwan

“It is said that when the people of the country are in peace, the people are filial when the superiors are old, the people are fraternal when the superiors are old, the orphans are compassionate but the people are not doubled. This is the way of a gentleman.

What is evil to those above, do not do it to those below; what is evil to those below, do not do it to those above; what is done to the front, do not do it in order; what do you do to the back, do not do it to the former; what do you do to the right, do not do it to the left; Those who are evil to the left should not be handed over to the right; this is called the way of justice. "

Wei Guangde sat in the school, shaking his head and reading "The Great Learning". In about ten days, Wei Guangde memorized the entire text of "The Great Learning", and Master Sun also explained the full text with translations and annotations.

Review the old and learn the new. Before Master Sun arranged a new book, Wei Guangde could only review these over and over again in the past two days.

As usual, after checking the students' knowledge, Master Sun started teaching and explaining new things.

As for those who were at the same time as Wei Guangde, because they had just finished a book, the Master had nothing else to say for the time being and only asked them to write the full text of "The Great Learning" silently in class.

When school was about to end in the afternoon, Master Sun stopped Wei Guangde's group of students and told them that the Analects of Confucius would be taught tomorrow and that they would bring books over tomorrow.

When I first bought the book, the four books cost two taels of silver, and they were also bought from Master Sun.

In order to make it easier for students to buy books, Master Sun's private school will of course prepare some. Of course, they can also go to other bookstores to buy them.

But this is just a polite way of saying it. After all, this is just a town. There are bookstores in the town, but they are not close to each other in the county.

Fortunately, the price of books in private schools is similar to that in bookstores in the city. In fact, Master Sun only charges a little extra for traveling expenses, so everyone usually buys books here.

Although movable type printing was invented in the Song Dynasty, it did not mean that the cost of books came down.

In this era, most books are not cheap to print and produce, so ordinary people cannot afford to read books.

Twenty taels of silver, military households in Bengshan Fort could not get so much cash in a year.

In addition to receiving some grain and salt from Father Wei, ordinary military households could also get less than one tael of silver to buy other daily necessities.

This counts as Father Wei having a conscience, at least he can still see money.

According to the Ming Dynasty's military system, soldiers in the guard station should have one stone of food per month, which is ninety-six kilograms, but this is obviously unreachable.

The food for the military households in Bengshan Fort was produced from the fields they were responsible for. The more they produced, the more they could get. It was similar to the household contract system in later generations, but the proportion of handovers was a bit higher.

That was the tenants, but Father Wei did not use the soldiers' military status to squeeze the soldiers like other guards. Basically, the grain amount was distributed according to the standard of ordinary tenants, not below this standard.

The reason why there are so many fleeing sergeants in many guard posts is that the officers treat these registered military households as non-human beings, and they are not even treated as civilian tenants.

The treatment of tenants is bad enough, but registered soldiers are not even as good as tenants, and they cannot choose freely. Because you have military status, your children and grandchildren can only serve as soldiers, and you can only be exploited and exploited by officers.

The standard of tenant households in the Ming Dynasty was not high, but they could still survive in good times, but it was difficult for military households.

Just when Wei Guangde and his classmates were about to leave the private school, the servant outside, Uncle Li, suddenly hurried into the school with a post in his hand.

"Master, there is an immortal visiting outside, saying he is your old friend."

Uncle Li is Master Sun's servant. He usually works as a concierge. He is the one who naturally announces when someone comes to the house. This time, he was bending down and standing respectfully in front of Master Sun, handing the door sticker with both hands.

When Master Sun heard that his old friend was visiting, he stood up quickly, took the post and took a look at it. Then he was instantly pleasantly surprised, and he didn't care about Wei Guangde and others, and hurried out.

"Are you being negligent?"

Master Sun has not forgotten to ask the concierge, Uncle Li.

"I asked him to wait in the concierge while I came in to make the announcement."

Master Sun nodded slightly and strode out of the school as usual, but Uncle Li could only bend slightly and follow behind Master Sun.

"My old friend is here, are we okay? It's time to go?"

Someone among the students murmured something.

Although the master seemed to have finished telling them what to do, he didn't ask them to leave. At this moment, everyone didn't know whether to leave or stay.

"Just wait a little longer. If Master has other things to give you, I'll leave. I'm afraid I won't be in trouble tomorrow."

It didn't take long for someone to answer.

Wei Guangde also felt that it was reasonable. If Master Sun hadn't walked so fast and Wei Guangde didn't respond for a while, he should have asked first.

But this is just a matter of thinking about it. If you really ask, Wei Guangde still feels sad.

I haven't been beaten recently, and I have been practicing calligraphy for more than half a month. Now Wei Guangde's calligraphy has finally gotten rid of the level of a dog, although it is not good yet.

Perhaps it was because he saw that Wei Guangde had no talent as a calligrapher, so Master Sun also asked him not to learn other fancy calligraphy, but to practice Taige style. After all, if Taige style is written, it will be used in the imperial examination and officialdom in the future.

In fact, this was also because of the emperor's liking. From Zhu Yuanzhang to Zhu Di, due to their personal preferences, they all vigorously promoted calligraphy, and the calligraphy school flourished for a while.

In the Ming Dynasty, when selecting scholars for the opening of subjects, all answers to the examination papers were written in regular script to ensure neatness.

Those who write poorly will lose their reputation even if they are full of knowledge.

This had a great influence on the style of calligraphy art at that time.

When scholars write, they only want to be upright and respectful, horizontally and vertically, neatly, and write like woodblock printing. This formed the Taige calligraphy style of the Ming Dynasty, which is called "Taige style".

But now for Wei Guangde, it's just to avoid being beaten.

Soon I heard Master Sun and another unfamiliar voice chatting happily in the yard, and the footsteps were getting closer, and they were obviously walking inside.

Wei Guangde and others immediately stood there respectfully. However, he was worried that his husband would lead his friends directly to the backyard and not see the people still standing in the school. Wei Guangde quietly moved to the door to make himself more conspicuous.

Although there are some words that I dare not say out loud, I still express them in other ways.

Master Sun led his friend through the school gate. It seemed that he really wanted to lead his friend into the backyard. However, when he walked through the school gate, he also noticed Wei Guangde and other students.

"You can clean up and go back. Remember what I said."

Master Sun stood in front of the door and said to the students in the room.

"These are all disciples of Brother Sun. As expected, all of them are outstanding talents."

At this time, Wei Guangde also saw the Taoist priest standing next to Master Sun. It was indeed a Taoist priest.

After traveling for more than a month, this is the first person from outside the country that Wei Guangde has seen.

Although I don't know who he is, he looks very handsome. He wears a Taoist priest's hat and a blue Taoist robe. He looks very energetic.

"They are all a bunch of incompetent people, real people shouldn't look up to them."