Chapter 1301: Destroying Confidence
In fact, Liu Shang also knew that some Ming officials who had previously served on Qiongzhou Island had been demoted to the Han Dynasty. For example, the local official Luo Sheng and Director Dongluo whom he had met in Yinggehai County before were the counselors of Yacheng Water Village. Will. And Yuzhen, who was managing the hard labor camp in Shilu, used to be a member of the Gongmen of Yacheng. To put it this way, it seems very reasonable that the official in charge of cultural and educational undertakings in Danzhou was the former magistrate of Danzhou.
Liu Shang does not have a relatively accurate number of how many former Ming officials currently serve in Haihan's official institutions. However, judging from what is known so far, since even civil and military officials at the level of governor and general are Being retained by Haihan, it is conceivable that a large proportion of Ming Dynasty's entire bureaucracy in Qiongzhou Island should have defected to the new owner in recent years.
But Liu Shang seemed to have no better way to vent his anger besides scolding traitors secretly in his heart. These former Ming officials had already changed their appearance and served their new owners obediently. How could they still remember the kindness of their old owners? Although people like Yan Mingjun have no real power in their hands, they are still prosperous in the local area. Liu Shang, the famous man, stared at Yan Mingjun who was talking, but did not listen to what he was saying.
What Yan Mingjun reported to the inspection team was the operating conditions of local educational institutions in the past year, as well as the current composition of local vocational training disciplines. The Haihan Executive Committee attaches great importance to many private educational institutions in Danzhou. Basically, it reviews the majors offered by each college every year and regulates the direction of school running to ensure that students trained by local colleges can meet the needs of the students. Haihan development needs.
The vocational training system established by Haihan is something that Ming Dynasty does not have. In this way, Haihan has obtained thousands of professional trainees in just a few years. These people adapt much faster after taking up their posts. It can be regarded as a very useful immediate combat power for Haihan by employing workers with no foundation.
As for the lucky ones who can actually enter a higher-level institution to learn more professional skills and become an entry-level disciple of a time traveler, there are really very few of them. In a place like Danzhou, if you can screen out ten or eight people a year, it would be pretty good.
The symposium lasted until noon, and then Zhang Xin hosted a banquet to entertain the arrival of the inspection team. This was also the reception banquet they officially attended only a few days after arriving in Danzhou. However, the guests Zhang Xin invited were far more than just the inspection team. Representatives from various countries who were participating in the local arms exhibition after the military exercise were also invited. They had to have a banquet anyway, and Zhang Xin, as a local governor, was too busy to do all the work, so he simply joined them. We did it together.
Liu Shang also gradually adapted to Haihan's banquet culture, and he was able to cope with such occasions with ease. When a big shot came over to propose a toast, he would immediately get up and respond along with the others, so that he would not be at a loss.
During the dinner, Liu Shang paid a little attention and discovered some interesting phenomena. For example, the envoys from Portugal and the Netherlands are obviously from the West, but they will not sit at the same table to eat. The situation is similar for Annam and Champa, which are neighbors. They will not even look at each other. Go up. Although these people were very polite in front of Haihan officials, it was obvious that they were not so harmonious with each other, and even had a bit of overt and covert fighting.
"This may be an opportunity that can be used in the future." Liu Shang secretly turned around this idea in his mind. These trading partners or military allies of Haihan are not monolithic, and there will definitely be contradictions and conflicts in their respective interests. However, Liu Shang could not think of any feasible way to use these rifts to provoke their hostility towards Haihan. After all, Haihan's accumulated prestige is so great that these countries fear Haihan's force and may not dare to do anything unreasonable.
After the luncheon, we took a short break and planned a visit to a local academy in the afternoon. However, because there were many foreign guests staying in Danzhou, Zhang Xin did not have time to accompany them in person, so he handed over this errand to Yan Mingjun. Of course, there is also a man in the inspection team who is very familiar with the local situation in Danzhou, and that is Zhang Qianzhi, who Liu Shang is very afraid of.
Zhang Qianzhi lurked in Danzhou Zhongming Academy for a long time as a student, and finally captured a group of conspirators headed by Huang Zixing. Later, Zhang Qianzhi served as the security director of the Qiongbei area for a long time and spent a lot of time in Danzhou. It is not an exaggeration to say that he is half a landlord.
But this way, Liu Shang couldn't help but tighten his toes. As long as Zhang Qianzhi was within a few feet of him, the feeling of being targeted by a wild beast never disappeared. He is still not sure whether this is Zhang Qianzhi's vigilance caused by spying on him, or whether it is purely neurotic caused by his own guilty conscience. Fortunately, Zhang Qianzhi's work station was in Qiongbei. Liu Shang knew that as long as he persisted for a few more days, he should be able to completely get rid of this inner demon.
Yan Mingjun took the inspection team to visit, naturally, the well-known local educational institutions such as Bailu Academy and Qiongxi Academy. Liu Shang had been distracted during the morning symposium and did not pay much attention to what Yan Mingjun said at that time. It was not until he entered the academy that he suddenly realized that the academy in Danzhou was very different from the academy environment he knew.
What Danzhou Academy trains is not just scholars who can only write poems, songs and eight-legged essays, but mainly various vocational trainings. For example, students majoring in navigation are employed as navigators, bosuns and sailors on ships. Key positions such as chief mate, while students majoring in finance and trade will work in state-owned commercial institutions, banks, and even the Ministry of Commerce and other units after graduation. The teaching materials used in these majors are uniformly provided by the Ministry of Education, and the teachers who teach them have received specialized training. Some of the lecturers are even professionals who have been working in the field for many years.
The detailed occupational division of labor here was enough to amaze Liu Shang. Even the agricultural technology disciplines, which mainly focus on farming, are also subdivided into multiple disciplines such as food crops, cash crops, and deep processing of agricultural and forestry products. The duration of study varies according to the degree of difficulty of the major. Some crash courses only last a few dozen days, while some difficult majors may require several years of study.
As for those old masters who can only teach a subset of classics and history, although the academy will still support them, there is basically not much teaching content arranged. In addition to teaching literacy classes, the rest is almost all free time arranged by themselves. . Whether they want to study knowledge, write or draw, or even take their direct disciples to travel, the academy does not have many restrictions on them. In the words of Mayor Zhang Xin, it doesn’t cost much to raise these old masters. After all, culture must be passed on by someone. Even if cultural activities such as reciting poems, writing and painting are not productive, the state is still willing to allocate special funds to let these "cultural people" do what they want to do. Of course, the premise is to obey the government's management and not engage in illegal activities like Huang Zixing of Zhongming Academy in the past.
For Liu Shang, this kind of education system in Haihan is undoubtedly a very new thing. The Haihan people do not need to go through various levels of examinations such as imperial examinations to recruit professionals. Instead, these vocational education institutions recommend their own talents. It is enough for students to pass the review by professional institutions. This means that many ordinary people who have not read the Four Books and Five Classics also have the opportunity to enter Haihan's bureaucracy by mastering professional skills. Although most of them are just "officials" rather than "officials", as long as they enter this system, it is equivalent to gaining a channel for advancement. In the future, whether you join the Youth League or seek opportunities for further study, there will always be the possibility of changing from a civil servant to an official.
However, Liu Shang also noticed that these private educational institutions did not have majors related to steam engines. According to reports, this major has not yet been opened to private institutions, and relevant courses can only be studied in government-run colleges in Sanya. This made Liu Shang a little disappointed. If there was a private academy here with access to steam engines, then we could try to arrange for people to come here to study.
After visiting around, Liu Shang found that these majors in local colleges are basically very practical subjects. Students often have roughly determined their future employment direction when they enroll, and some majors are even determined when they enroll. Relevant agreements have been signed with the employer.
For a large number of ordinary students with average family conditions, this path to admission and employment undoubtedly saves a lot of time and avoids the possibility of detours. Compared with those scholars who have taken the imperial examinations for several years and decades but have not been able to gain fame or become an official, it is only for ordinary people to obtain a job with stable income and room for advancement through receiving vocational training. It is the safest route in life.
When Liu Shang was young, he also went to the academy system to study the Four Books and Five Classics, and was a scholar who had participated in the provincial examination. He also had a relatively clear understanding of the promotion path for scholars in the Ming Dynasty. Thousands of troops crowded the single-plank bridge of the imperial examination, and only a handful of people could cross it. Haihan's vocational training system has given more people hope and lowered the threshold for entering the bureaucracy to a very low level.
Of course, Liu Shang also understood that the current situation was because the country was just founded and there were not many talents available, so he had to lower the employment threshold to recruit talents. Even he pretending to be a storyteller would be actively recruited by state agencies. This shows that Haihan is very interested in recruiting talents. The level of talent thirst. After Haihan Kingdom develops for a few more years and its talent pool gradually increases, the threshold for becoming an official will probably increase year by year. This approach is not uncommon in history. If a discerning person sees the current situation in Haihan clearly, he will certainly sharpen his head to seize the many opportunities in the first few years of the founding of the country.
If it weren't for Liu Shang's special status, the courtesy given by Haihan would be enough to make him stay and work hard. How can a storyteller who hangs out in wine shops and teahouses be comparable to his current status as a state official? If he had been a storyteller, he would have burned incense to eight generations of ancestors.
Liu Shang was thinking about some random thoughts in his mind while following the team. Although he came here with the mission of overthrowing Haihan, after he came here to truly see the prosperity of this emerging country, the smooth government and people, he could not help but have some doubts about the task he shouldered - with the excellent governance ability of the Haihan people With a stable political system, how can we seize its power of governance with only some unspeakable means?
The more Liu Shang saw along the way, the more he understood that the rise of this group of Haihan people in the South China Sea was definitely not due to luck. Their ability to govern was far better than that of the local officials in the south of the Ming Dynasty. Now, if we want to stir up this political power that has taken root in the local area, we must either hope for internal strife among its top leaders, or else we can only hope for natural disasters. Trying to take back Qiongzhou Island by force and expel the Haihan people seems to be an unrealistic plan.
These private academies are basically public educational institutions, and there is no secret at all. Liu Shang looked at it with little interest. He also listened to what Yan Mingjun and others said along the way without saying a word. Probably, I no longer have the energy to concentrate on collecting information as much as I did at the previous stops.
It wasn't until he returned to his residence in the evening that Liu Shangjing reflected on the day's gains and realized that he had been distracted during the visit today. If you think about it carefully, this should also have a lot to do with watching the Haihan military exercise three days ago. He believed that it would be impossible for any of his colleagues to remain indifferent after seeing the many advanced weapons displayed by Haihan. Faced with such a highly armed Haihan army, no one would be willing to act as a role on the battlefield. their opponents. At least Liu Shang had completely given up the idea of relying on force to retake Qiongzhou Island after watching the military exercise.
If possible, Liu Shang really wants to let his boss, his boss's boss, and the big shots in the capital come here to see it in person, so that they can confirm with their own eyes that the so-called "South China Sea Barbarians" have created something in the south. What a big situation. If you didn't come here to witness it with your own eyes, the big shots above would probably continue to argue over whether they should "appease" or "slay" the Haihan people who occupied Magpie Nest Jiu. Liu Shang believed that after they came here to see the real situation of Haihan Kingdom, they would give up these unrealistic ideas - with the current strength of Haihan Kingdom, can they still obey Ming's "appeasement"? Are you still afraid of "killing"?
The southern government was cautious and turned a blind eye to Haihan's foreign expansion in recent years. Half of the reason was because it had taken enough benefits from the Haihan people, and the other half was probably because they did not want to create a reason for the Haihan people to start a war. Once a war breaks out, the rate of territorial loss in the southern coastal areas will probably be equal to the speed of the Haihan Army's march.
These thoughts were floating around in Liu Shang's mind, and the more he thought about it, the more frustrated he became. He knew that as an intelligence officer lurking behind enemy lines, his depressed mood was extremely inappropriate, but there seemed to be no way to regain his confidence at the moment. Perhaps it was an irreversible mistake to take this job in the first place.
(End of chapter)