Chapter 152: One Thousand and One Nights

Unlike the king's brand-new intelligence unit, the Western Xianbei know quite a lot about the affairs of Youzhou.

Youzhou City is hard to enter, and outside there are still several counties under the king's jurisdiction; gathering news is still easy.

The king is not only famous in the Eastern Xianbei, being their top target to eliminate, but also in the Western Tuoba Xianbei, the king is notorious, a major threat alongside Liang Jin.

After all, this fellow, without the help of Shanggu Pass, managed to spare the lives of Qiu Mu Ling's two thousand cavalry, and seemingly made Youzhou quite well?

After hearing that the Eastern Xianbei temporarily had no intention to move south, the king was still happily at home! Still waiting to fatten up? You just wait; you'll wait for the eagle to fully grow its wings.

With the labor in place, his silver mine soon yielded output; this silver was secretly mined, and the silver only goes into his private stash.

Meng Meng not only did well in infrastructure, but the equipment provided is top-notch.

The king loved the silver ingot samples sent over and couldn't put them down.

There were ingot shapes like yuanbao, little fish, square, long, round lumps—everything you could want; the palace attendants serving in the king's hall were rewarded that day with some oddly shaped silver ingots.

One hundred taels, one thousand taels, twenty-five thousand taels. The king's silver mine, in its first month of trial operation, dug out twenty-five taels of silver from the ground.

Zhu Ti closed the ledger, saying, "A conservative estimate is that it will double next month."

The king's mouth almost cracked back to his ears.

"Don't stop buying slaves in the south; if the mines are enough, buy them back to reclaim land. This time, don't rush—take it slow, buy discreetly so as not to draw attention."

When the king's early-year fortunes were going extremely well, the Grand Tutor notified him, saying Mr. Xie was leaving.

The king jolted upright in his dream, "How can this be?"

Then his big lottery wheel didn't just fly away with one, two, three, four, five rewards!

The king has also been wondering how to handle his Mission Three Academy; recruiting a hundred students is hard, and without famous teachers it's even harder.

Youzhou currently has a top-notch one; how could we just let it slip away?

He immediately went to check the academy's progress bar—only two-thirds done; if the big shot leaves before completion, what can we do?

"You send Mr. Xie a notice, saying I invite him to tour Brush Rack Mountain, see the academy under construction, and let him give some pointers?"

The Grand Tutor showed a troubled expression.

If it's said that whoever in Youzhou cares most about the Northern Border Academy's progress, it's definitely not the king but him, Xu Zhi. He just visited the academy's construction site yesterday; he knows the situation there best.

"I'm afraid that won't work; Brush Rack Mountain still hasn't taken down its external scaffolding, the whole site is very unsuitable for visiting, there's a lot of dust, and outsiders aren't allowed in or out."

"Then… I'll send him a vat of koi?"

"Mr. Xie himself bought a vat of nine."

"Isn't the lion's head dish at Taste Sea Pavilion usable anymore?"

The Grand Tutor remained silent, feeling that the king's act was a desecration of the academic master, and could only protest in silence.

The king was worried sick, and at night went to find his "Dog-headed Strategist" Bai Yang.

"You want him to preside over your academy?"

"Very much so! Because this place, Youzhou, has no learning atmosphere at all! So, without famous teachers, where would I recruit a hundred students, and how would I boost the academy's fame to complete the mission? Let me tell you, the rewards are fragrant, many times A-level draws."

"Is this Xie Yuan famous? To have the academy renowned throughout the realm, you need someone like Xunzi of the Jixia Academy, right?"

"Xie Yuan, this generation's most renowned of the Chen Commandery Xie clan. As the chief scholar of the Great Jin's top academy, Qingyang Academy, he's famous in the academic circles of the Great Jin. The only one qualified to compare with him is Lu Chengji of Fanyang; that old man, I haven't even seen him, but we must seize this opportunity and not let him go!"

"Academic cliques, academic cliques! This is the academic clique! The Lu and Xie clans have knowledge locked in these great aristocratic families. King, when you recruit students for your Northern Border Academy, don't look at background; we can't let the big clans keep monopolizing, or your rule… will be very disadvantageous for you later."

The king looked at him blankly: "Of course! Then can I pick their backgrounds? Even recruiting a hundred literate students of appropriate age is hard!"

Bai Yang: …Forgot that Youzhou doesn't even have many people.

"Then… if we teach commoner students, what can these aristocratic bigwigs do? At Qingyang Academy, the students are all aristocrats, right?"

"No, even wealthy merchants don't qualify. So I'm worried! When the time comes, Meng Meng will give me five NPCs, pick five specialties; the only urgent thing now is to have a local bigwig hold down the fort."

Bai Yang thought it over and gave the king a bad idea: "Have you heard the story of One Thousand and One Nights?"

The king simply shook his head, clueless.

Bai Yang gave the king a simple rundown; the king became even more worried: "... I can't tell stories!"

"I ask you, for a scholar, shouldn't there be great curiosity about fields of knowledge beyond his reach?"

The king shook his head, then nodded halfway through. "Maybe, I don't understand the scholar's pursuit; I just have little curiosity about knowledge, thanks."

Bai Yang asked him again: "Is 'One Hundred Thousand Whys' enjoyable to look at?"

This time the king nodded: "Nice! I've learned quite a few interesting things."

"Got it? Copy some of the 'One Hundred Thousand Whys' and the popular science books I gave you for Xie Yuan to see. Write just two answers, copy the rest as questions. If he wants to see it all, tell him to wait until the Youzhou Press publishes it, then let him serve as an honorary president at the Northern Border Academy for a year. Permanently staying is impossible; he has his own main job—first get his stipend for holding down the fort, then rely on him to recruit students, and we'll talk more next year."

The king manually gave Bai Ge a thumbs-up: "... or you folks from later times are sly."

Bai Yang: "Just say whether it works or not!"

"Totally works!"

The king went back to study by lamplight, and the next day he was dozing off in class; the Grand Tutor sighed repeatedly at the sight.

Last night, who knows if he went to the army camp to work hard or went somewhere to play; the Grand Tutor couldn't imagine that this guy was losing sleep over studying.

Who knew that as soon as he announced the end of class, the king instantly revived, jumped up and stopped him: "Grand Tutor, wait, I have something to see you about!"

The king pulled a stack of manuscripts from his messy book bag: "Is Mr. Xie saying he's leaving tomorrow or the day after? Please, Grand Tutor, take this manuscript to him today; this is my sincerity in trying to keep him."

"What is this?"

The Grand Tutor casually flipped through it and saw on that page a big line of characters: "Why does the sky rain?"

Flip again: "Why is seawater salty?"

Grand Tutor:!!

He asked: "Why?"

The king: "Answers cost money."

Grand Tutor: ……

Fortunately, the Great King also had bait; he earnestly copied an Earth chapter.

Inside it was told of a child setting out on a journey; the Great King also slipped in some private goods—indeed that child was himself. He set out on a journey, encountering several geographical problems along the way. He simply wrote about the Earth's shape, motion, structure, climate and landforms.

Showing it to the Grand Tutor left him doubtful and uncertain: "Is all this really true? Any basis for it?"

You should know that the current saying is "heaven is round, earth is square"; yet the Great King's manuscript writes that the Earth is round and even rotating on its own?

"Yes. It's all true. Detailed explanation requires books from the Imperial Academy; since the Imperial Academy has opened this course, we can open a class to study it separately."

"Then I will definitely go listen."

The Grand Tutor left with a head full of questions; I don't know how Xie Yuan reacted, but the Grand Tutor took the bait directly.

The Great King seemed to see an A-level turntable beckoning to him.