Chapter 180 Map
Li He asked in confusion: "Mr. Ning, what is a primary school?"
Ning Qi explained: "This elementary school means the same thing as elementary school. It mainly teaches children to read. Of course, in addition to reading, we will also teach them some other knowledge, such as simple mathematics, nature, common sense, etc. ”
Li Nai nodded repeatedly. Although he himself was a beneficiary of the imperial examination system, he was not a nerd who studied hard. The business he ran and the fact that he had a lot of travel experience at a young age made him very clear about mathematics, common sense, etc. Importance of knowledge in life. And these things were often taught by teachers in the Ming Dynasty's elementary school, because in the eyes of scholars, these are not orthodox cultural learning - of course, it does not rule out that many teachers themselves have never learned relevant knowledge at all.
The militiamen on duty at the gate immediately gave a military salute when they saw Ning Qi coming. This reminded Li Nai of the first day he came to Victory Port to visit the militia station. The frequency and density of the use of militia soldiers by the Haihan people is obviously very different from that of the Ming Dynasty. In Li Nai's view, these militia soldiers are almost professional soldiers like the army. They are still on duty even when they are not training, which is completely It is the setting up of a standing army.
After entering the academy, the first thing that caught Li Nai's eyes was a flat playground. Although it was not as big as the playground seen in the militia camp, the setting was exactly the same. The entire playground was leveled with loess, and several oval circles were drawn out with lime on the outside. Li Nai had heard Tao Donglai introduce it when he visited the recruit camp. This circle was used for training running. He didn't expect it to be like this in elementary schools. facilities.
Surrounding the playground are several rows of wooden houses, from which the sound of students reciting in unison can be heard. Ning Qi walked to the classroom with Li He and the two of them, and introduced as they walked: "Our elementary school is divided into two stages, two years of junior primary school and two years of senior primary school. This is the junior primary school, and it should be learning literacy now. Lesson.”
The first thing Li Nai noticed was that the classrooms here were all made of glass windows, and looking in from the windows, you could see that there were also skylights made of glass on the ceiling. It seems that in order to provide good lighting conditions indoors, Haihan people have indeed spent a lot of money.
There are about thirty children in the classroom, each with a table and a chair. Although the tables and chairs made of logs and painted with only a layer of varnish look a bit clumsy, the neat and uniform shape reflects the Haihan people's consistent attention to detail. rules.
There was a blackboard hanging in front of the classroom. Li Nai saw a Haihan man pointing at the content on it and teaching the students to read it word by word. The content he was teaching to the students made Li Nai feel very kind. It was actually from the Ming Dynasty Elementary School. The Thousand Character Classic is often used.
"The Thousand Character Essay" was written by Zhou Xingsi during the Southern Dynasties. It is said to be an article composed of a thousand different characters extracted from Wang Xizhi's works. This article is exquisitely conceived and is most suitable for schoolchildren in the literacy stage to memorize. Even hundreds of years later in the 21st century, "The Thousand Character Essay" has been reprinted and published again and again, and has a very long cultural heritage.
But there was one thing that made Li Nai very concerned. Above the few thousand-character sentences on the blackboard, there was a twisting symbol, which seemed to be some kind of mark, but Li Nai couldn't understand it at all.
Li Nai looked at it for a while, and couldn't help but feel curious, so he gently touched Ning Qi's arm, indicating that he had something to say. After the three of them were some distance away from the classroom window, Li Nai asked: "Look at the strange symbol above the thousand-character text. What's the explanation?"
Ning Qi explained: "That symbol is called pinyin, and it is to allow these students to develop a unified pronunciation habit from the beginning."
Li Nai frowned and said: "Unify pronunciation habits? What's the use of this?"
Ning Qi smiled. The consciousness of the ancients was indeed far behind. He patiently continued to explain to Li Nai: "China has a vast territory, and the accents vary greatly from place to place. For example, in Qiongzhou Island, there are several dialects. , even people born and raised here may not be able to understand it, which will cause a lot of inconvenience in communication. If we can let children develop the same pronunciation habits from the beginning of education, then they will be better in both study and life in the future. It will be much more convenient. Really unifying language and writing will also be of great benefit to the country. Do you think this is true?”
Li Nai suddenly said: "I see. Using this northern accent as the standard must also be a Hai-Han tradition?"
Li Nai himself speaks Cantonese Mandarin, so it is not troublesome to communicate with people who speak Mandarin. After spending the past few days together, he could certainly tell that most of these Haihan people had a certain northern accent, so he made such a guess.
Ning Qi nodded and said: "Yes, in our country, this accent is standard Mandarin, and everyone has to learn it."
"Very good, very good. When these babies grow up, they will be able to go to the north to take exams with much less worry." He Qiang also twirled his beard in admiration.
Ning Qi smiled and said nothing. The educational institutions of Chuan Chuan Group are not cultivating talents for the Ming Dynasty. In the future, graduates here will never take part in the imperial examination of the Ming Dynasty. He Qiang's relief may be in vain. . However, what Li Nai said next shocked Ning Qi: "A few years ago, I saw a book called "The Miracle of Western Characters" written by a Western missionary. It contained both articles in Chinese characters and annotations in Western characters. , very similar to the pinyin symbols you use.”
Ning Qi had also heard about the book Li Nai mentioned. The author of "The Miracle of Western Characters" was the famous Italian missionary Matteo Ricci. This book was published in Beijing about twenty years ago, and it contains useful information. Articles in Chinese characters with Latin alphabet phonetic notations. Of course, the Latin alphabet notation method used by Matteo Ricci is completely different from the Chinese pinyin, but they look similar because of the letters. However, Li Nai has actually read this kind of book, which is indeed beyond Ning Qi's expectation.
Historically, after Matteo Ricci and before the time-travelers came to this world, the French missionary Jin Nige also published a book similar to "The Miracle of Western Characters" in Hangzhou, titled "The Ear and Eyes of Western Confucianism". The phonetic notation scheme in this book is a more scientific change based on Matteo Ricci's scheme, and is completely designed according to Beijing's accent. It already has many similarities with later Chinese pinyin.
The Chinese Pinyin scheme used by Chuanchuan Group has been accumulated and continuously revised for hundreds of years in modern times. With rich practical experience as a reference, it is not difficult to promote it in enlightenment education. Moreover, when the local residents discovered that their children had begun to learn the accent of the Haihan leaders in a short period of time, most of them were overjoyed, and any doubts they had about the elementary school run by the Haihan people disappeared. .
Then Ning Qi took them to another classroom. This class was in high school, and the content taught was not just as simple as pinyin literacy. A large world map hangs on the blackboard, which is one of the materials brought by the Time Travel Group from later generations. The teacher was pointing at a certain point on the map with his pointer and explaining to the students: "This is the Port of Victory where we are now. From a global perspective, this is just a point as big as a pinhead..."
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Li Nai was really shocked this time. He grabbed Ning Qi's arm and said, "Mr. Ning, this... this is..."
"This is a map of the whole world, including the Ming Dynasty." Ning Qi replied very calmly: "We will go in and take a look after they finish class."
"Okay, okay!" Li Nai realized that he had lost his composure and quickly let go of the hand holding Ning Qi.
The three of them waited outside the classroom for a while, and finally waited for the bell to ring for the end of get out of class. The children swarmed out of the classroom and ran around on the playground. Li Nai impatiently followed Ning Qi into the classroom. Ning Qi said hello to his colleague who was about to pack up the map: "Hold it first. Our guests want to see this map."
Li Nai walked quickly to the map and saw that this map was different from all the maps he had seen before. It was printed very beautifully, and various place names were densely marked on it with small characters the size of mung beans. Li Nai was somewhat knowledgeable, and it didn't take long to find the location of "Guangzhou" on it, but there was no text label - in fact, Li Nai also found the location of "Guangzhou" through the labels of the Yangtze River and Yellow River in this area. Determine the coastline of the Ming Dynasty and finally find the Pearl River Estuary in the south.
Li Nai looked at it for a while and then asked a question: "Mr. Ning, why are there many place names on this map that are different from what I know?"
Ning Qi had already prepared for this: "This is just what we call Haihan. Mr. Li doesn't need to pay too much attention to such details."
"But this clearly says the People's Republic of China, not the Ming Dynasty...and there are only two other words in just seven words..." Li Nai was so angry that he couldn't even speak smoothly.
Of course there will be no other characters on the map, they are just simplified Chinese characters for later generations. However, facing Li Nai who felt deeply "humiliated", Ning Qi could only explain it as an omission in the map production process. In order to make up for this mistake, Ning Qi found a pencil and sketched the approximate location of the territory in the late Ming Dynasty on the map.
Although Li Nai was a scholar of the Ming Dynasty, this was the first time for him to intuitively see how big the territory of the Ming Dynasty was and what areas it covered. What worries Li Nai the most is that large areas of the Northeast are under Tatar oppression, and only a thin gossamer-like passage in the Liaoxi Corridor is connected to Shuntian Prefecture, where the capital is located.
"If this passage is cut off, wouldn't the great rivers and mountains outside the pass be lost?" Although Li Nai knew nothing about marching and fighting, he could still understand such an intuitive situation map. In recent years, the imperial court had many battles with the Tatars and Jurchens in the north. Although there were victories and defeats, it seemed that they had never been able to eliminate the momentum of the northern invaders' invasion from the south.
(End of chapter)