Chapter 2296
For the vast majority of ordinary people, the emergence of Qiongxi Academy actually provides them with a choice, allowing them to obtain another life-changing future at a lower cost in addition to the traditional way of studying and taking the imperial examination. opportunity.
Of course, not everyone needs this kind of choice, and not everyone has the courage to try new things. But even if there are two or three people out of one hundred or one thousand people who feel that this is a new way to try, then with the huge local population base, Qiongxi Academy will be enough to obtain the required students.
Of course, in order to convince the public that John West Academy has the ability to bring new hope to their lives, publicity plays a very important role. Fortunately, Zhang Jinbao has several years of practical experience in this. He knows very well who his target group is, what issues these people are most concerned about, and the publicity strategies he develops are also very targeted.
Moreover, Zhang Jinbao gave a detailed and complete description of his idea in the prior communication with Li Nai, which made Li Nai fully aware of the feasibility of the project, so he used Furifeng's resources to give him great support. support.
But Guangzhou is an unfamiliar area after all, and the influence of Qiongxi Academy here is almost zero. Although the publicity activities are going smoothly, Zhang Jinbao is still not fully sure of the results that can be achieved, and it is inevitable that he will still feel Somewhat uneasy. If this first shot fails and fails to attract the expected number of students locally, then Fulifeng may not be willing to provide such a high degree of cooperation when the next round of enrollment is conducted.
However, this uneasiness did not last long. After several days of intensive publicity inside and outside Guangzhou, the number of people who were interested in enrolling in the academy already exceeded the upper limit of the college's enrollment.
In the next few days, some people actually found the academy located at the southern foot of Baiyun Mountain according to the address published on the enrollment notice and expressed their intention to apply for admission. However, at this time, various preparations within the academy are still in progress, and the conditions for the start of school are not met. Therefore, those who are more willing to register can only pay the tuition fees and complete the admission registration procedures to ensure that they will have The qualifications for the first batch of admissions, and then let them come back when school starts.
Several teachers transferred from Danzhou also arrived in Guangzhou successfully a few days later. In addition to their personal luggage, they also brought textbooks and teaching aids needed for the opening of the Guangzhou branch. Furifeng's horse and carriage company dispatched ten carriages and made two trips to the Pearl River Pier before finally transferring all the supplies they brought to the academy.
At this time, Zhang Jinbao still did not stop the publicity work, but he changed other methods. He asked Fulifeng to announce the news to the outside world through its own channels. In future employment needs, graduates of Qiongxi College will be given priority. This is equivalent to adding another weight to ensure employment on the basis of the previous credit endorsement provided to the academy.
Although this matter has been frequently mentioned in previous publicity, it is far less influential than if it is said by Zhang Jinbao, it is not as influential as if Fulifeng releases the news on its own. As the largest business in Guangdong, the income level of Furifeng employees is naturally better than that of ordinary businesses, so this employment prospect still has considerable new appeal to ordinary people.
In addition, some rumors about Qiongxi Academy began to spread slowly in the Guangzhou market. Especially regarding the employment situation of Qiongxi College students, which is the topic that most concerns the spectators, there are various revelations said to come from the parties involved.
The employment situation of students at Qiongxi College in the past few years has been quite good, which is why Zhang Jinbao dared to make employment the focus of publicity. He knew what those people who were interested in choosing Jonesey College expected, and job prospects were the main reason why they signed up, so he released some news to convince them that Jonesy College could provide an excellent solution to their future livelihoods. question, that was enough to prompt these people to make a decision.
Although Li Nai did not personally participate in the college's publicity activities during this period, he would receive reports from his subordinates and was relatively familiar with the current publicity progress and enrollment situation.
Li Nai strongly advocated cooperation with Qiongxi Academy. Not only did he give it a credit endorsement, but he also provided a good manor in his family as a place for the academy to operate, and provided various resources for preliminary publicity. Of course, these measures will There are certain operating risks. However, Zhang Jinbao's performance did not disappoint him. The school plan was being realized step by step, and the actual results were even better than he expected.
Under such a situation, Li Nai could also make a request to his father and ask him to fulfill his previous promise and invite the leading figures in Guangzhou to attend the opening ceremony of Qiongxi Academy.
Li Jifeng is happy to see the outcome of this matter. First of all, he also wants to increase his social influence by investing in the cultural industry. Although Qiongxi Academy is not an educational institution in the traditional sense, it is still a place for teaching and educating people. Donating money for education is just like building bridges and paving roads, or providing food for disaster relief. It is a well-respected good deed, and it also helps him to provide for himself. Establish a social image of kindness and benevolence.
Secondly, taking this opportunity to invite celebrities from all walks of life to attend is also a good opportunity to interact with these upper-class figures. Li Jifeng is not worried that he will owe a lot of favors because of this. In many cases, owing favors is the real beginning of establishing a strong personal relationship. Moreover, the utilitarianism of standing up for educational institutions is not so obvious. On the contrary, it is a good opportunity to win over people's hearts, which can just give Some official figures who want to express themselves provide an excellent stage.
So Fulifeng took the lead and sent out multiple invitations to Guangzhou and surrounding areas, indicating the opening date of the Guangzhou branch of Qiongxi Academy. Those who received the invitations were asked to attend the ceremony.
Of course, the people who can receive invitations are all prominent local high-level figures, so after the news spreads, there will also be gossips and busybodies in the market, counting who Furifeng has sent invitations to. Those who are not within the scope of his invitation will obviously have a lower social status. At the very least, they will be excluded from Li Jifeng's social circle.
And by using this method, the opening time of the academy was also promoted in a wave of publicity. Now even people who have no interest in Jonesy Academy will notice the emergence of this new thing because of the participation of upper-class figures in society. Many people who had not paid attention to this matter before began to inquire eagerly about the origin of Qiongxi Academy and what was so special about it. It had such a great influence and invisibly promoted the academy once again. visibility.
At this time, some colleagues finally realized that although Qiongxi College would not directly compete with local colleges for students, it had sucked away all the local society's attention to educational institutions in a very short period of time. Of course, this will not immediately shake the business foundation of local academies, but the extent to which the entire society pays attention to it makes these colleagues a little worried about future changes in the situation - who is the real orthodox academy?
Before the emergence of Qiongxi Academy, there was no doubt about this answer. The teaching content of the academy should be the Four Books and Five Classics. If the teachers did not teach the classics and history, could it still be called an orthodox academy? However, after the emergence of an alternative academy like Qiongxi Academy that claimed not to teach the Four Books and Five Classics, it immediately attracted the attention of the local people. Many people even planned to enroll in this unorthodox-sounding academy. Although colleagues in the industry believe that John West Academy's propaganda is sensational, this method seems to be quite successful. It has not only captured the attention of the people at the bottom, but now even the upper class of society has begun to pay attention to this alternative academy. The whole of Guangzhou, from top to bottom, seems to be discussing things related to Qiongxi Academy, but such enthusiasm has never happened to the local academy.
But it seems too late to take some restrictive measures against Qiongxi Academy at this time, not only because it cannot afford to offend Fulifeng, who can't afford to cooperate with it, but also because the current social attention to Qiongxi Academy is already very high, and any Hostile measures may be amplified by public opinion, thereby affecting one's reputation. This is an unacceptable risk for local academies that cherish feathers.
The most depressing thing for local colleges is that the opening ceremony of Qiongxi College invited many celebrities, including many celebrities from the local cultural circles, but they did not invite their peers to attend the ceremony. Obviously, they did not intend to invite them. Establish good relationships with local colleges.
Of course, if there is a situation where water does not interfere with the river, then that is fine. After all, the educational content and direction of Qiongxi College are very different from local colleges, and the competition among peers in the future does not seem to be too fierce. But the matter did not end there. A few days before the start of the school year at Qiongxi Academy, teachers from various local academies successively submitted their resignations and no longer continued to teach.
Then some colleges discovered that these people were not leaving Guangzhou to find another job after resigning, but were planning to jump directly to Qiongxi College.
Although Qiongxi Academy does not teach traditional content such as the Four Books, Five Classics, and Eight-Part Essay, it does also provide literacy classes to help students with poor foundations better receive vocational training and education. Most of the professional course teachers in the college are craftsmen from various industries and are not good at teaching cultural courses. Therefore, the college still needs to find some real teachers to be responsible for these teaching tasks.
Considering the labor cost issue, the potential cost of transferring people from Danzhou will be much higher than hiring people locally, and there will be an adaptation period after arriving in Guangzhou. This is of course far inferior to finding ways to solve the labor demand locally.
If you have enough time, you can slowly recruit people locally. However, the countdown to the start of the Guangzhou branch has entered, so you can't be too particular about things, so you directly recruit people from local colleges through intermediaries such as Yaxing. .
Qiongxi Academy did not have high requirements for teachers who taught cultural courses, so those who were not highly regarded in the original academy became poaching targets. Zhang Jinbao directly offered to double his income, and soon he persuaded several people to come over to do things for him.
Zhang Jinbao doesn't care how the local academies think of him. When he was in Danzhou, the competition between academies was based on strength. When he came to Guangzhou, Li Nai also promised that he would solve the hostility from the outside for the academy. , so even though this method of poaching might offend local colleagues, he used it without any scruples.
At the same time, Zheng Zha, who was limited by his schedule, had left Guangzhou and returned home. Compared with Zhang Jinbao who also came to Guangzhou, Zheng Zha's errand was not smooth. There were many obstacles both overt and covert, which made it difficult for him to see the Annan Guild Hall start construction before leaving Guangzhou.
Although the land acquisition matter has been negotiated with the Li family, Zheng Zha did not get a clear answer as to when all the residents on the land could be moved away. The only good thing is that he has not invested a large amount of money in Guangzhou so far. Even the land purchase payment will not be paid until the Li family completes the land acquisition and demolition for him.
But the problem is that Zheng Zha doesn't care about these costs. He only hopes that the Annan Guild Hall he planned can be opened in Guangzhou as soon as possible, and in this way, he can open a direct trade channel between Annan and Guangzhou, so that future trade activities will no longer be necessary. When transferring through Haihan, there is no need to accept Haihan’s supervision. In terms of operating costs, perhaps the savings in one or two years will be enough to cover the cost of building the Annan Hall in Guangzhou.
Although the plan was good, when it was implemented, it still failed to prevent Haihan and Furifeng from joining forces behind the scenes. Therefore, Zheng Zha was really not in a good mood when he left Guangzhou, which also affected his impression of Guangzhou and the Ming Dynasty to a certain extent, and this was exactly the effect Haihan expected to achieve.
From the official perspective of Haihan, of course, they hope to put all trade activities between Annan and Daming under their control. It would be better for institutions like the Annan Guild Hall not to appear in Daming. Chen Tianqi reported the Annan people's movements in Guangzhou to Sanya, and received affirmation from the executive committee.
Of course, Chen Tianqi would not describe the various methods used in this report in detail, and the Executive Committee also tacitly agreed not to ask what kind of difficulties the Annan people encountered in Guangzhou. As long as the goal is achieved, the Guangdong Office will be credited with a success.
However, the implementation part of this process mainly relied on the Li family to handle it properly. The Guangzhou Guangdong Office was not directly involved. At most, Chen Tianqi just expressed Haihan's attitude to the Li family. And Chen Tianqi didn't know that Li Jifeng's bad impression of the Annan people was the real reason why the Li family secretly blocked the matter. He only acted like this because the Li family understood Haihan's intentions. Despite such an accidental collision, the two parties cooperated in a very tacit understanding.
(End of chapter)