Chapter 628: The Nation's Future

This act of sending charcoal in a snowstorm far outshines adding flowers to brocade in a prosperous age.

Countless overseas students deeply cherish this kindness from the Nanyang homeland, and have long felt identification with South Hua, filled with gratitude.

Now South Hua's nine major universities have been completed, recruiting returning overseas students, and the news immediately sparked a heated response.

Large numbers of Huaxia students studying in the United States responded to the call, abandoning comfortable overseas life, further study opportunities, and career prospects, resolutely packing their bags and setting out to return home.

Head to South Hua's Huadu, devoting themselves to the new universities to study, teach, and build the nation.

In an instant, domestic Southwest University students headed south, overseas students returned, and the two streams of talent converged on Huadu Central University City.

Within the brand‑new campus, energetic young scholars can be seen everywhere.

Some study diligently in class, delving into knowledge.

Some work in the central fields, bending over to labor and understanding the people's livelihood.

Some endure rigorous drills on the military academy's field, tempering their bodies.

Some immerse themselves in research in the laboratory building, exploring new knowledge.

Students from the humanities, sciences, engineering, agriculture, medicine, military, navy, and armor fields gather together, with a thriving academic atmosphere and vibrant spirit.

One university after another stands in the heart of the capital, patches of fertile fields nurture students' original aspirations, and batches of talent head to Nanyang's warm soil.

Jiang Anguo builds the foundation with education and lifts the nation's destiny with talent, giving South Hua, beyond the iron‑blooded frontier, a future of continuous cultural lineage and passing of the torch.

Military force can seize territory, but only culture and education can determine a nation's destiny for a hundred years.

This university city, rising from the ruins, will become South Hua's endless cradle of talent, supporting the newborn regime as it moves from a regional stronghold to a brilliant, enduring golden age.

In the exact center of Huadu's nine major universities' circular embrace and the thousand‑acre practical training fields, the most central and solemn spot of the entire university city quietly stands a massive, pure‑white, upright obelisk.

The monument reaches 108 meters tall, wholly crafted from finely polished light‑colored granite, without superfluous ornate carvings; its lines are clean, austere, and soaring toward the sky, solemn and majestic, a seamless whole.

From any campus building in any direction—whether a national university lecture hall, a medical school laboratory, or the training grounds of the defense, navy, or armored academy—one can look up and see this monument, steadfastly standing in the middle of the fields, overlooking the entire cultural‑educational land, guarding countless young scholars.

This central fertile land is half cultivated fields where students labor, half the immortal monument to heroic martyrs; literature and martial, cultivation and tribute together form South Hua's unique educational core.

The obelisk's square, upright form symbolizes the soldier's steadfastness in defending the land and the scholar's integrity in study; its soaring, cloud‑piercing shape signifies the heroic spirit standing tall and enduring forever.

At the monument's base are densely engraved names and brief records, including South Hua soldiers who fought bloody battles in the Liao Nei Strait, defended the Malaya defensive line, and landed on Java for assaults.

There are also Nanyang civilians who, amid the war, supplied the army, guarded their neighbors, and were brutally massacred by the Japanese invaders; each name represents a tale of blood‑soaked sacrifice for the nation, the burden behind peace.

Of course, the names of all Expeditionary Force soldiers who fell for South Hua are also inscribed; the South Hua people will not forget them.

Jiang Anguo deliberately placed this martyrs' memorial at the very center of the university city rather than in a suburban cemetery or bustling square, a choice profound and heartfelt.

The nation's future lies in its youth.

A young person's original aspiration is to know the road they come from and understand the path home.

South Hua does not wish for sacrifice to become cold archives, nor for peace bought with blood to be taken for granted.

Placing the monument where countless scholars study day and night, see every day, is meant that every student of finance, industry, agriculture, medicine, or national defense looks up to see the heroes and looks down to reflect on their original aspirations.

In spring sowing and autumn harvest, when students labor in the fields, looking up reveals the monument; in dawn study and night‑long learning, looking up reveals the loyal souls.

It constantly reminds everyone: today's stable desks, prosperous cities, war‑free lands, and solid livelihoods have never arisen from nothing.

The peace of this Nanyang land stems from countless soldiers shedding blood on the battlefield, sacrificing lives to block the enemy, and countless civilians bearing humiliation and supporting the nation, their flesh and blood stacked layer by layer, dying to secure stable mountains and rivers.

In South Hua's educational philosophy, knowledge can strengthen a nation, and original aspiration can shape a person. Without martyrs who gave their lives, there would be no towering universities.

Without soldiers' bloodshed, students could not live in peace.

The 108‑meter monument is both the highest tribute to all fallen soldiers and victims, and the heaviest yet gentlest admonition to South Hua's youth.

Young people should know that the nation is hard‑won, in prosperous times remember the sacrifices of predecessors, and when they achieve learning they must repay the country, arising from the people and standing for the people, using their knowledge to guard this hard‑won land and peace.

Among all domestic rear‑area universities, the leadership and faculty of Southwest University are undoubtedly the most conflicted and complex group.

Since the outbreak of the War of Resistance Against Japan, most of Huaxia's territory has fallen, coastal prestigious schools have been destroyed one after another, and the flame of culture and education has nearly been extinguished.

To preserve the nation's cultural lineage and retain seeds of learning, teachers and students from universities across the country abandoned their homes, traversed thousands of miles, and relocated repeatedly.

Eventually they gathered in Southwest's land, stubbornly in the deep rear, and reignited the modern Huaxia educational flame.

For years, the entire Southwest University community has taken root in the deep mountains, enduring hardship and persevering in difficult schooling.

The campus buildings are crude thatched huts and earthen‑wall structures; desks and chairs are incomplete, books and paper scarce, supplies extremely scarce, and day after day they persist in scholarship amid air‑raid alerts, material shortages, and hunger and cold.

No one knows when the Anti‑Japanese war will finally be won, nor when the shattered nation will be reunified.

But all teachers and students hold a resolve and a faith, firmly believing Huaxia will not perish and will eventually triumph, gritting their teeth to steadfastly guard this final cultural‑educational outpost, protecting the hard‑won study desks in the chaotic world.

Yet just as everyone silently endures, awaiting victory, South Hua, rising far away in Nanyang, suddenly burst into everyone's view, completely shattering the years of silence and steadfastness at Southwest University.

South Hua unified Nanyang, pacified the turmoil, and on the ruins launched a grand cultural‑educational revival, rapidly constructing nine comprehensive, top‑facility modern universities, offering exceptionally generous conditions to attract teachers and students nationwide.

This sudden hope, like a burst of light, instantly illuminated the bewildered Southwest academic world and caused the senior staff and teachers of Southwest University to experience great inner turmoil.

In the Principal's office, several senior professors and university leaders sat together, their expressions complex, full of sighs and helplessness.

The Principal gazed at the crude mountain‑side campus outside the window and sighed softly: "We moved the school a thousand miles, steadfastly defending the Southwest, solely to keep the cultural lineage alive and the students unbroken. Years of hardship, not seeking glory, only awaiting victory and a return home. Yet now South Hua has emerged, offering stable lands, complete universities, ample funding—conditions for running a school we never dared to dream of."

The senior professor beside him wore a face of emotion, his tone unable to hide his stirring: "The Principal's words are spot on. Here we teach with a lack of books, equipment, and funding; students study in hardship, barely able to secure food and shelter, many disciplines cannot even be offered. Yet South Hua's universities are plentiful, fully equipped, tuition‑free, providing meals, lodging, and stipends, with career paths to serve the nation after graduation. Such conditions, no wonder students are attracted; even we, who have taught for years, cannot help yearning."

Another Chinese literature teacher shook his head helplessly: "We have held fast in the Southwest to guard the nation's flame, but after years of perseverance only poverty and hardship remain. Students seek education, ultimately desiring true knowledge, skills, and a way out. Studying in chaotic times has never been easy; now South Hua offers a platform that truly lets scholarship take root and talent flourish."

The senior officials are filled with frustration and conflict.

They have held the deep rear for years, exhausting their efforts to protect the cultural lineage, never showing any retreat.

Yet seeing the dilapidated campus and harsh academic environment, contrasted with South Hua's brand‑new university city, complete teaching system, stable peace, and generous benefits.

Everyone must admit that the future South Hua offers to teachers and students is far beyond what Southwest University can currently provide.

They are reluctant to abandon the foundations they have guarded for years, unwilling to see the hard‑kept cultural flame scattered, yet cannot blame the teachers and students who yearn for light and pursue hope.

In chaotic times, teachers uphold the Way, students seek truth; no one wishes to be trapped in barren mountains wasting youth, nor to betray the years of diligent study.

And precisely because of this, when South Hua's recruitment delegation arrived at Southwest University, countless teachers and students proactively inquired and eagerly enrolled, quietly launching a movement of scholars fleeing the chaotic era.