Chapter 2164
Being able to obtain a stable living environment and stable income is the most intuitive feeling for most immigrants from Daming after settling in Haihan. For refugees like Ren Song who came to Haihan because of the war, stability is the top priority. Even if Haihan has many restrictions on its people, living in this country at least does not have to worry about one's own livelihood and safety all the time. It's a security issue.
Although Xiunian came to Haihan because he was affected by the war, he had only arrived in Zhoushan for a short time and could not fully empathize with Ren Song's statement. But Xiunian also gained an important piece of information from Ren Song's words, that is, the living environment in Haihan Kingdom is safer than that in other countries, and may even be higher than that of the Ming Dynasty.
Xiunian did not know the internal and external troubles that the Ming Dynasty was facing at this time, nor did he know how many areas of the Ming Dynasty had been in war in recent years. Almost every year, hundreds of thousands of people left their homes and became refugees due to the war. Ren Song claimed that Haihan was safer than the Ming Dynasty. This argument still surprised him. After all, in his impression, the Ming Dynasty had a vast territory and strong national power. It had always been the number one power in East Asia. How could it be possible that it was not safe in terms of security? Not as good as Haihan.
However, Xiunian also knew that he didn’t know much about Daming and Haihan, and asking too many questions would make Ren Song see through his own strength, so he didn’t continue to dwell on this issue, and instead asked the other party about the experience and side business of Fuqiang Village. .
Ren Song said: "This craft of making pottery and firing bricks and tiles has been passed down from our ancestors. Now that it can be carried forward in Fuqiang Village, I have no regrets in this life. As for how large this business can be in the future, it depends on the village. I’m afraid I can’t see what these young people are capable of!”
Xiu Nian said: "Being a village elder should make you strong, but you are too humble!"
Ren Song waved his hand and said: "I'm really not humble. In terms of craftsmanship, at least I won't lag behind others in the surrounding areas. But in terms of the ability to run a business, you still need to be able to read and write. The young people with flexible brains are amazing. . Monk, do you know that there is an academy opened by the government in Dinghai Port, which has courses specifically teaching people how to do business. If I were twenty or thirty years younger, I would definitely go and learn it."
Xiunian responded: "I haven't been to Zhoushan for a long time, but this is the first time I've heard about it."
The government-run academy that Ren Song refers to is actually a training class organized by the commercial department under the Zhoushan Administrative Committee. Local young people with a certain cultural foundation are selected as training subjects and let them learn how to use Zhoushan's unique trade environment to develop the local area. Various resources and specialty products, simply put, you need to know how to do business.
Although it is difficult to say that products such as pottery and bricks have any special features, and their value does not seem to be high, due to the large number of daily uses, it is indeed an industry that can be operated for a long time. The population of Zhoushan is still growing, and the demand for these products is also rising. The continuous expansion of production scale has also created requirements for professional operators. Craftsmen like Ren Song do not have sufficient business capabilities, so they have recommended candidates to go to Dinghaigang to receive training to operate the current specialty industries of Fuqiang Village. .
Neither Ren Song nor Xiu Nian had a clear understanding of the various aspects involved, but this did not prevent them from realizing the necessity of leaving professional work to professionals. This approach of the Zhoushan authorities was something they had never seen before. Whether it was the Ming Dynasty or the Hirado Domain, the government would only be responsible for collecting taxes and would never train specialized business talents for the private sector.
As for whether this method of operation is feasible, Fuqiang Village has obviously tasted the benefits. Xiunian noticed that the roads outside the village, the houses of the villagers, and the number of carriages going to and from the kiln factory were obviously better than those in Gaoxie Village that he had visited before. It seemed that Wang Dagui said that the wealth of Fuqiang Village was higher than that of Gaoxie Village. The words are true.
Xiunian looked at the Japanese immigrants who were working hard to make bricks, and thought that these people were very lucky. The skills they learned in Fuqiang Village could benefit them for life, and they would no longer have to worry about livelihood issues in the future.
In comparison, Xiunian also realized that the person with the best luck seemed to be himself. At least he did not need to do heavy physical labor like these ordinary immigrants as soon as they were assigned to the settlement. The task of visiting various villages in Baiquan Town did not seem to be as difficult as imagined. To be precise, it went smoothly beyond expectations. Both the village chief and the villagers provided extremely high cooperation, and there was no Xiu Nian. concerns about non-cooperation.
Xiunian was not sure whether it was his status as an official that played a role, or whether these people had enough trust in the town government to allow his errand to go smoothly. However, he knew that his so-called status as an official was actually just a misunderstanding among these people. He was indeed a person holding a letter of introduction from the town office, but he could not be called an official because he had not yet obtained the title of official official. The nationality is still essentially a foreign immigrant.
From a certain perspective, Xiunian's experience in Gaoxie Village and Fuqiang Village can be regarded as super-standard treatment. And this also gave him more expectations for his development prospects. After all, he could receive such superior treatment when he first joined the job. Then when he became a full-time naturalized citizen in the future, he would be able to walk in Baiquan Town with his head held high.
"Monk, you must have had a very unusual experience when you came to Zhoushan Island to be an official, right?"
Ren Song's question brought Xiunian out of his thoughts, and he smiled and replied: "Yeah, looking back now, this experience is really unusual. Fortunately, I chose the right approach every time. If I had to do it all over again, I might not be able to get to this place.”
Xiunian had no intention of defecting to Haihan when he was in Hirado. At first, he stood up to help Haihan's army maintain order, purely for the purpose of self-protection. But what he thought was the right approach was rejected by his former partners, so he had to completely separate from his past identity in Seogwipo and seek refuge with Haehan to obtain better living conditions.
Xiunian believed that he had not actively harmed anyone in the process. On the contrary, he knew that he had helped many civilians in Hirado who were kidnapped by the Haihan Army to save their lives, including fellow monks who regarded him as a traitor. . Xiunian believed that what he did was right, so he never felt ashamed of his choices. At this time, when he looked back at the choices he made before, it naturally seemed to be extremely correct.
However, Xiunian did not intend to brag about his experience to Ren Song when they met for the first time. This was because he was unclear about the purpose of Haihan's attack on Hirado, and he did not want Ren Song to have any hostility because of his origin; secondly, he did not He was sure whether Ren Song would spread what he said. If Jiang Zian got wind of it, he might not be able to keep his job. He knew that his status as an official was valuable, and that the other party was a genuine village chief, a member of the public family who received his salary at the town office every month. The consequences of saying the wrong thing in front of the other party could be very serious.
To be on the safe side, Xiunian kept her mouth shut and did not have an in-depth discussion with Ren Song on this topic. He asked Ren Song to lead the way to the place where these new immigrants were resettled. Ren Song did not refuse and took him to the village.
Fuqiang Village temporarily placed these immigrants in the village school. Yes, that's right. In order to enable the more than 20 children in the village to read and write, Fuqiang Village specially hired a teacher and set up a school in the village so that the children could study nearby instead of going to a school in the town. "The children read and write here during the day, and at night they set aside space for the new immigrants to sleep. There are eight households in total among the twenty people in the town. To build eight households' houses at one go, one or two hundred people will be needed, and the construction period will take a long time. It will take six or seven days to complete, so they will have to stay in the school for a while. If it is quick, they will be able to move into a new house next month. ”
Xiunian listened to Ren Song's introduction while looking at the environment of the school. This kind of brick house seems to be a standard feature in Fuqiang Village. In order to make it easier for school children to read and write, there are a number of open tiles on the roof, so the lighting inside the house is also very good, and the windows can be said to be bright and clean. It seems that the new immigrants can temporarily live in this kind of environment with a strong aroma of books, which is better than Gaoxie Village's arrangement in the ancestral hall. Of course, there is no village school in Gaoxie Village. Children go to public schools in the town, so there is no way to make a fair comparison.
Xiunian asked casually: "Are the houses built for new immigrants the same kind of brick houses?"
After asking, Xiunian felt that her question was a bit redundant. The cost of building a brick house is at least several times that of a mud-wall thatched house. Why should Fuqiang Village provide such good treatment to new immigrants.
Ren Song nodded matter-of-factly and said: "Of course we have to build brick houses, otherwise these newcomers will feel inferior in the village? Our Fuqiang Village receives several batches of immigrants every year, if we treat them differently every time , has formed a local trend, how many levels will this village be divided into after a few more years? ”
Xiunian initially thought that Ren Song's approach was because Fuqiang Village was relatively wealthy, and he could do whatever he wanted with his wealth. But then he thought about it, in addition to Fuqiang Village's financial resources and its own advantages of being able to make bricks and tiles, Ren Song also had this idea. To a certain extent, if there is a difference in treatment between existing villagers and new immigrants, leading to estrangement between groups, it will indeed be detrimental to the relationship between villagers and the unity within the village in the long run.
But he also remembered the practice of Gaoxie Village, which only provided thatched houses to new immigrants. As for renovating better houses in the future, he would have to work hard on his own. Wang Dagui believes that this approach can better stimulate new immigrants to work hard and enable them to adapt to social rules that use labor to improve their quality of life as soon as possible.
Which one of these two approaches is better? Xiunian feels that it is difficult to judge based on his own knowledge, but he feels that the two village chiefs have relatively good reasons for their actions. Perhaps this issue needs to wait until he returns to the town hall to see if it can be solved. Couldn't get an answer from the mayor.
After visiting the school, Ren Song politely invited Xiunian to stay for dinner, but Xiunian wanted to go back to the town office earlier. Rather than enjoying a dinner in Fuqiang Village, he wanted to go back early to sort out the harvest of the day.
Before leaving, Ren Song also gave him a souvenir, a clay pot produced in Fuqiang Village. It was quite big and felt a bit heavy in his hand.
"I made it myself. It can be filled with pickles, rice or water. It's not a valuable thing. Monk, please don't dislike it... If the town hall wasn't too far away for you to pick up, I would have given you a clay jar... …”
Xiunian could only smile bitterly and thank Ren Song for his kindness. After looking at the earthen jar with a diameter of two and a half feet, he wisely chose the easier-to-handle clay pot. He understood that Wang Dagui and Ren Song may have given him things for the purpose of getting closer to each other, but this could not be said to have much appeal for interests, nor was it to bribe him. After all, the gifts were all local specialties from the village, and they were not worth much. money.
This sense of simplicity reminded Xiunian of the time when he was at Guangming Temple. Devotees who came to the temple to worship would often offer fruits and vegetables harvested in their own fields. Although the property they offered was far less than the incense money sent to the temple by the dignitaries, it was more of a simple piety.
Xiunian believes that from a certain perspective, these village chiefs are also believers, but what they believe in is not the invisible gods and Buddhas, but the government that can bring them a stable life. And he, a well-educated pseudo-official, symbolizes the authority of the government in the eyes of these village chiefs. The gifts given to themselves are actually an offering to express their reverence to the object of their faith, rather than to help them achieve certain goals.
Xiunian knew that today he visited only two villages he randomly selected. There were dozens of villages like this on Zhoushan Island. However, upon contact with these villages and farmers, he could feel that they were anything but ordinary. At least it was very different from the farmers he had come into contact with in Hirado in the past.
These people no longer just make a living from farming, they also have other side businesses. Although these side businesses are not uncommon, these villages can operate successfully. Their vision is no longer limited to the one-third of an acre of land in front of them, but they have seen a wider range through the industries they operate, including the entire Baiquan Town, the entire Zhoushan Colonial Area, and even Haihan, thousands of miles away. Beijing.
They are still farmers, but they are no longer the traditional farmers that Xiunian thinks. With Xiunian's knowledge, he didn't know how to define the status of these people. He just intuitively felt that the lifestyle of these ordinary people was also a manifestation of the national strength of Haihan State.
Is this just a special case in Zhoushan, or does the entire Haihan Kingdom have such an atmosphere? What special industries do other villages have? How does the Zhoushan Management Committee manage and coordinate the affairs of so many villages? Xiunian suddenly became interested in this. interest.
He knew that maybe the people at the town hall could answer some of his questions, so he wanted to return to the town as soon as possible. But it was much more difficult than visiting the village itself, because the clay pot in my hand was really heavy.
(End of chapter)