Chapter 124: Little A-Wu

Outside Jingzhou City, the willow trees were lush and green, the grass soft and delicate.

On the lawn, a young man in white was practicing horse riding. Standing nearby was a young woman in green with a lithe and spirited posture.

Wang Yang was mounted on a tall, yellow-maned horse, fully focused, gripping the reins and pulling the horse to trot in small circles.

The horse seemed extremely reluctant, walking awkwardly and shaking its mane from time to time to protest.

This was a purebred Jingzhou horse that Wang Yang had spent a hefty sum of 18,000 on at the horse market, plus a series of matching tack and feed, bringing the total price to nearly 20,000.

Although it is not a thousand-mile steed, it can still be considered a fine horse; at the very least, it has passed Chen Qingshan's "professional certification."

While the horse is indeed a good one, riding is not easy to learn; Chen Qingshan says that those with talent can perform the "riding wave" movement within half an hour.

The so-called "riding wave" refers to the rider rising and falling with the galloping mount without their body leaving the saddle.

Wang Yang had been practicing with single-minded devotion for an entire morning, his limbs aching, but let alone the riding wave, even riding a bit faster was not easy!

"Don't lean your body forward, put your feet down, not like that... Right! Just like that! Let them hang naturally, let your legs follow the horse completely, especially the movement of the horse's ribs."

"Open your knees, relax your legs, imagine yourself standing on the ground..."

"Apply force to the outside of the stirrups... Don't press hard on the horse's belly, relax, just push lightly. If it doesn't work once, push twice; if twice doesn't work, then three times. The horse isn't stupid; it will understand your meaning very soon."

Chen Qingshan taught with dedication, and Wang Yang learned with earnestness; in the blink of an eye, another hour passed.

"Young Master! Wipe your sweat!" Little A-Wu ran over carrying a towel, a water flask, and a full bundle, looking like a children's welfare delegation.

Wang Yang first wiped his face and gulped down three large mouthfuls of water, then A-Wu handed him a bag of washed mulberries as if performing a magic trick. Wang Yang picked a few and tossed them into his mouth, while A-Wu, from who knows where, produced a large cattail leaf fan and, standing on tiptoe, fanned Wang Yang. While fanning, she invited Chen Qingshan to eat some fruit.

Although the fan was large, the horse was too tall and A-Wu was too short, so even though Little A-Wu fanned with all her might, she could only send the breeze to Wang Yang's waist.

Wang Yang sat on the horse, his white hem blown by the wind, translucent in the sunlight, fluttering in the air. Little A-Wu thought it looked as beautiful as a cloud.

"A-Wu, stop fanning, go play. Cherish the time you have to play; once Lady Xie finds a school for you, you won't have much time to play."

Little A-Wu immediately became pitiful: "Young Master, please don't make A-Wu go, okay? A-Wu won't play, A-Wu will serve you! A-Wu still has a lot of work to do!"

Wang Yang laughed: "Just take care of yourself. As for the chores, once your father returns from Tangzhu Village, we will hire help, and you won't need to do the cooking or cleaning anymore."

The so-called "school" was for children's education. It meant enlightening children in their studies, also known as "opening the mind" at the time.

There was no compulsory education in the Northern and Southern Dynasties, and children from ordinary families could not talk about academic enlightenment. It was not just a matter of money, but also of conceptual limitations. Because even if they learned, it was of no use.

Therefore, most of those who could study from a young age were from families with status.

Families with status could naturally solve the problem of teachers. Therefore, there were no government schools for children's education at that time; they were all private schools.

Private schools required connections, either finding a suitable teacher to come to the house to teach, or asking to be admitted into an already established school, such as a clan school or a family academy.

As for things like kindergartens or preschools, they didn't exist at all in this era. In the Jin Dynasty, the government had run primary schools, but since the Uprising of the Five Barbarians, primary schools had fallen into disrepair. Starting from the Southern Dynasties, there was no trace of primary schools. With the North and South confronting each other and years of war, the treasury was tight; where would the state have the energy to build primary schools?

Although Wang Yang could teach A-Wu himself, firstly, he wasn't necessarily suitable for teaching young children, and secondly, his time was limited, so he used a dish of "spun-sugar taro" that didn't quite pull into threads to ask Xie Xinghan to help find a school.

At that time, there was no lack of servants in great clans who were well-versed in poetry and books. For example, the servants in Zheng Xuan's family all read books, and their conversations often quoted the Book of Songs. But this situation was either because they had studied with their masters from a young age and were influenced, or because the master had set up a school in the mansion and ordered people to teach. There were also those who had their own encounters and accidentally became servants.

Sending retainers to outside schools was rare. Because if one could think of letting servants receive an education, there were usually conditions for teaching at home. But Wang Yang's household had just been established, and his foundation was too thin, so he had to send A-Wu out to study.

So when Wang Yang made this request, Xie Xinghan became even more certain that Wang Yang's status was extraordinary! Having such high requirements for servants, how could he have been cultivated by a small, humble family?

When Little A-Wu heard that they were going to hire help, she immediately felt that she was going to be "unemployed," like a bolt from the blue, and her little face turned pale instantly.

"Young Master... did A-Wu... do something wrong?" Little A-Wu pursed her lips tightly, her eyes reddening.

"No, you did very well! But..."

"A-Wu won't make vegetable soup anymore! Young Master, please don't stop using A-Wu!" Little A-Wu's big eyes were filled with tears, looking at Wang Yang pleadingly.

"It's not about the vegetable soup at all..."

Wang Yang didn't know how to explain it so that A-Wu would understand. Every time he saw Little A-Wu, who wasn't even as tall as the stove, cooking, washing dishes, and doing chores, he felt a sense of guilt for exploiting child labor.

Actually, it was fine for A-Wu to do work within her capabilities, but not so much! Every day she got up early and stayed up late looking for work, the room was cleaned spotlessly, the study was kept tidy, and she took on all the laundry. Yesterday, he even saw her shoveling cow dung!

As long as he didn't see her, he knew she must be working in some corner. She couldn't stay idle even if he told her to. Those who didn't know would think she would be kicked out if she were idle!

So Wang Yang let Little A-Wu study, firstly to reduce her burden, and secondly, studying was the right thing to do. He didn't say she had to become a talented woman or anything, but understanding reason, opening her mind, and exercising her thinking ability were the keys.

Little A-Wu didn't understand Wang Yang's thoughts; she only felt that she couldn't eat the Young Master's food for nothing. As long as she could do more work, she could save money for the Young Master and wouldn't need to hire help, so she desperately used herself as if she were several people. Now that she heard the Young Master decided not to let her do chores, she burst into tears, her little face wrinkled into a ball: "Young Master, give A-Wu another chance! A-Wu will work hard! A-Wu won't make vegetable soup anymore! Young Master, please don't stop using A-Wu!"

"What does it have to do with vegetable soup? A-Wu, don't cry! You are still too young..."

Actually, it had a tiny, tiny, tiny bit to do with it. Wang Yang really didn't like drinking that wild vegetable soup! And A-Wu's craftsmanship... how should he put it, it was barely edible... and she didn't really know how to cook meat... as for more complex dishes, it went without saying...

A-Wu cried more and more sadly, her little shoulders heaving with her sobs, but even crying like this, she still clutched the things and the bundle in her hands tightly, afraid of dropping them.

Chen Qingshan hugged little A-Wu and wanted to take the handkerchief from A-Wu's hand to wipe her tears, but A-Wu knew this was the Young Master's handkerchief and that it had to be washed clean for him upon returning, so she could not use it herself. Fearing she would smear tears onto Chen Qingshan, she used her sleeve to wipe her face instead.

Wang Yang's thoughts shifted. He stopped explaining, got off the horse, patted Little A-Wu's head, squatted down, looked her in the eye, and said seriously:

"Look at you, crying before I finished speaking. I'm not stopping you from working, but I'm going to assign you a more important task."

A-Wu was stunned for a moment, her eyelashes still trembling with teardrops, and then it quickly turned into a face full of surprise: "What does the Young Master want A-Wu to do?" She immediately guaranteed: "As long as it's what the Young Master orders, A-Wu will do it well!!"

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Note: ① Regarding horse prices. Mr. Miao Yue, based on the record in "Song Shu: Liu Cui Zhuan" that "merchants from afar often come to Shu to trade goods, some worth millions, Qian and others limited Shu cloth, silk, and cotton to no more than 50 catties each, and horses, regardless of quality, were limited to 20,000 Shu coins," set the lower limit of horse prices at the time at 20,000, saying "limiting merchants to 20,000 Shu coins for horses shows that horse prices must have been more than 20,000." ("Prices in the Northern and Southern Dynasties," see "Miao Yue Complete Works"). I disagree.

The original text meant that officials in Shu, in order to protect their own interests and exploit merchants from other places, made various harsh regulations, such as limiting the amount of Shu cloth that outside merchants could buy and setting a unified price for the Shu horses they bought. "Zi Huo" in the original text means "purchasing goods" in Shu, not selling. Therefore, the set 20,000 must be higher than the average standard of horse prices. This is like a sudden fixed price in a ginseng-producing area, saying that no matter the size or quality of the ginseng, it will be sold at this price from now on, which naturally makes everyone unhappy. Therefore, the result of the new regulations in Shu was "merchants sighed, and the people all wanted to rebel." Therefore, 20,000 should not be the lower limit of horse prices, but a price that is not low.

② "Each county sets up a primary school for every Battalion Commander; if there are fewer than a Battalion Commander, one is also established." — "Taiping Yulan: Rites Department" citing "Jin Ling"

③ Regarding the riding technique part, refer to "Classic Equestrian Tutorial" and the "Endurance Riding" and "Improving Rider Posture" volumes in the "China-UK Equestrian Club Training Series Materials." ===== CHAPTER 125 =====