Chapter 356: Establishing Schools

In this era where all kinds of knowledge were extremely scarce, information traveled at a glacial pace, and the illiteracy rate exceeded ninety percent—compounded by women's extremely low social status—many common facts that children of later generations would know were utterly unknown to anyone in the present day.

Take women's menstruation, for instance: whether regarding basic understanding of the matter or the personal hygiene measures one should subsequently take, the vast majority of women were in a state bordering on total ignorance.

Zhu Youjian had once asked Empress Zhou how women handled menstruation, only to be scolded by her, after which she went off to Noble Consort Yi'an's place with a look of disgust to lodge a complaint against him.

Left with no other option, Zhu Youjian turned to the virtuous and gentle Noble Consort Yuan, and only after he explained in advance that he intended to solve this problem for poor women throughout the realm did she, blushing with shy reproach, tell him the answer: cloth belts for menstruation were stuffed with incense ash to absorb the flow.

Even as Zhu Youjian marveled at the wisdom of the ancients, he could also imagine how women in impoverished households suffered through this matter.

Solving this problem was not particularly difficult: simply replace the incense ash with sterilized cotton.

But under current conditions, large-scale production was impossible, because the cotton supply was nowhere near sufficient.

With countless common people struggling on the line between life and death, solving the problem of food and clothing for the masses was the most pressing issue; this matter could only be left for later consideration.

Say what one will, the material foundation was what mattered most—only after every stratum of the Great Ming became relatively prosperous could other matters be placed on the agenda.

According to Zhu Youjian's plans, Jing'an Hall was merely the prototype of what he envisioned.

His intention was that the future Jing'an Hall would be built along the lines of a maternal and child health hospital of later generations, and would gradually be promoted and established in every county town throughout the Great Ming.

Based on the wealth he currently possessed, he could open such institutions in most county towns right now, but the extreme shortage of female physicians had become the greatest constraining factor.

Just thinking about this matter gave him a headache; this was simply not a problem that throwing money at it could solve.

In his eyes, the Great Ming of today lacked everything—in the field of medicine and public health alone, let alone female physicians, even male medical practitioners were pitifully few.

This was not a problem that could be solved in a year or two, or even eight or ten years; it required a long-term plan and strategy.

Fortunately, the Bureau of Health had already taken action on this matter based on the specific circumstances.

Selecting suitable candidates as reserve strength for medical practitioners and female physicians, organizing experienced doctors and female physicians to conduct intensive training for them, and printing and distributing relevant medical books for the trainees to consult—these were the measures Wu Youxing had put forward, and they were also the most effective actions currently available.

When Zhu Youjian summoned Wu Youxing and lavished praise upon him, he also specifically allocated silver from the privy purse to provide support.

While reflecting, Zhu Youjian realized that raising the literacy rate, the manufacture and use of paper, the printing and dissemination of various books, the popularization of much everyday knowledge—all these problems were intertwined with one another, none dispensable, and required enormous expenditures of manpower, material resources, and money before they could be carried through to the common people at the grassroots level.

And establishing schools was the foundation of everything; once the number of literate people surged dramatically, solving the other problems would become far easier.

It was precisely after recognizing the importance of literacy campaigns that Zhu Youjian changed the traditional practice of exiling the families of convicted officials to remote and desolate places, instead exiling them to locations that were closer and where people were more concentrated, thereby passively bringing these culturally knowledgeable special groups into the literacy campaign ranks.

Since this measure had been implemented, judging from the reports fed back by the Embroidered Uniform Guard monitoring these people in various localities, the results were still quite remarkable—this group had played a very important role in the literacy campaigns unfolding across different regions.

The reason these people displayed such high enthusiasm lay in the relevant policies Zhu Youjian had specifically formulated for them.

As long as they actively cooperated in completing the tasks assigned by the court and achieved corresponding results, after a certain period of time, according to their personal wishes, this batch of convicted officials' families would be released to return to their native places, and would also be given a certain amount of compensation; after returning home, they would be permitted to participate as commoners in any productive activity except the imperial examinations.

After the local government conducted periodic reviews of them, as long as their conduct was good, then starting from the fourth generation they would be allowed to take the imperial examinations.

It was precisely under the incentive of this measure that this group burst forth with their greatest work enthusiasm and initiative, and they felt genuine gratitude and reverence for the Emperor's benevolent policy.

This gratitude and reverence was no exaggeration.

Because compared to the emperors of past dynasties, Zhu Youjian could be said to be extremely benevolent.

First, he did not execute the entire families of offending officials, but only punished the principal culprits.

Second, he did not send the female family members to the Music Bureau, sparing them from physical and personal humiliation.

Third, although it was exile, he did not treat them harshly in daily life—their food and provisions differed little from those of local farming households.

The final point was also the most important.

Originally, exile meant that descendants could never again return to their native soil, and would henceforth become registered as base people, becoming the lowest stratum of society.

But now exile had a time limit, and moreover, as long as they followed the rules, their descendants could still have a chance to rise in the world—this provision was simply beyond their imagination, and many families of convicted officials built living shrines to Zhu Youjian in their homes, offering daily worship to express their gratitude.

The Embroidered Uniform Guard naturally would not stop such behavior that honored the Emperor; they merely reported the matter back to the capital and awaited their superiors' disposition.

When Zhu Youjian learned of this, he merely smiled; Luo Yangxing naturally understood that the Emperor tacitly approved, so he did not issue any special orders on the matter, and the colonels naturally understood the intent and let it be.

However, the number of exiled persons was ultimately too small—although they could play a certain role in literacy campaigns, their strength was still far too weak.

Only by broadly mobilizing more social forces to participate, and stirring up a nationwide upsurge of establishing schools and promoting learning throughout the Great Ming, could the literacy rate of ordinary people achieve a tremendous leap.

But there remained one important constraining factor in this, and it did not come from the material side, but rather from the monopoly over knowledge held by the official-gentry and scholar-gentry classes, as well as their fear of popularizing knowledge.

These lofty gentlemen were all direct beneficiaries of culture and knowledge; they naturally understood the power of knowledge, but at the same time they fantasized about this resource remaining controlled by a small minority, so that their descendants could enjoy endless wealth and glory.

And once this monopoly was completely broken, it would mean a flood of competitors coming to snatch away their golden rice bowls, causing some among them to be eliminated from upper-class society from then on, while those commoners they had always regarded as worthless weeds would become upper-class people on equal footing with them.

This enormous reversal was something the official-gentry class could not accept.

The literacy campaign promoted by Zhu Youjian met with resistance both overt and covert; some local officials adopted an attitude of complete indifference toward it, and although they did not dare openly defy the matter, complying in appearance while opposing in substance had become the norm.

Zhu Youjian was also prepared to produce corresponding measures to deal with this situation.

He planned to add a new assessment criterion for officials in areas currently undergoing literacy campaigns, incorporating the literacy rate into the Ministry of Personnel's evaluations, thereby motivating and supervising the degree of importance relevant officials attached to literacy work.

This provision would be implemented as a hard indicator.

Minister of Personnel Zhou Yun could be counted as his staunch supporter; he should execute this decision of his to the letter, whether he was willing or not.

As for how to mobilize more social resources to invest in establishing schools, Zhu Youjian had also thought of another avenue—if there could be good supporting policies, this avenue should yield considerable results.