Chapter 999: The Five Academies of Xuzhou

Qingjiangpu was the hub where wealth and goods converged across the realm, and the recent Qingjiang Grand Market had lifted it to even greater heights. Although the Zhao Camp's Cloud Mountain Firm loomed overhead, everyone's fortunes had genuinely swelled and each had grown rich. The wealth and supplies pooled by the great merchants truly amounted to an enormous sum. Once word of this spread, even second- and third-tier merchants stirred at the news. Their thoughts ran deeper — did this congratulatory tribute represent some future qualification? If they held back now, would they be squeezed out later? With that in mind, every person of means in the Qingjiangpu region resolved to contribute coin and grain toward the tribute.

Now, because the Zhao Camp held the choke points everywhere and even controlled the supply lines everywhere, Qingjiangpu's actions set Yangzhou in motion as well. Those on the salt routes who relied on Zhao Jin, those who needed Zhao Jin's coal, iron, and grain supplies, all followed the Qingjiangpu model and pooled their contributions. And the Yangzhou Feng family, vassals of the Zhao Camp, went even heavier with their investment. As for the more distant Jiangnan, the Yu family of Songjiang alone threw all their strength into it, unwilling to fall behind anyone else by even a step.

Ship after great ship sailed north along the canal, then passed through the Yellow River to reach Xuzhou. All manner of goods were loaded onto an endless stream of carts and horses and delivered to every part of He Village. Had the Zhao Camp and Cloud Mountain Firm not been accustomed to handling such vast flows of people and goods, He Village would surely have been unbearably congested again — and this was with over two thousand sons of various families already sent to the estate.

The days around the fifteenth of the sixth month were no festival, yet the He Village area of Xuzhou was livelier than any festival. The men from Qingjiangpu and Yangzhou were seasoned in staging such extravagant displays. They came not only bearing goods and congratulatory gifts, but also brought the finest opera troupes from Qingjiangpu and Yangzhou. They set up a stage right at He Village, and operas were sung without pause every day.

The salt merchants, long accustomed to collecting money from their seats, came and spent each day taking in the novelty and excitement, buying specialty goods from beyond the passes and the steppe, purchasing fine horses and sturdy oxen, and inquiring whether the Zhao Camp had any Shandong women or children for sale. The Qingjiangpu merchants, many of whom had built their fortunes on management and enterprise, came on the one hand to curry favor and flatter, and on the other to see if there were business opportunities. In the markets and salt exchanges of Xuzhou, there were now many merchants from Northern Zhili, Shandong, Henan, Shanxi, and even Shaanxi and the grasslands, quite a few of them representatives of enormously wealthy magnates. Southern and northern merchants meeting face to face, all men of substantial means — who knew how many chances to make a fortune lay here. Many Qingjiangpu merchants had come with precisely this in mind; they brought their managers, clerks, and sample goods directly and started negotiating deals right on the spot. The scene was truly blazing with activity.

The prosperity and bustle at He Village also drew people from villages all around to join the excitement. Every day there were free grand operas to watch — a rare treat.

This spectacle set Wang Zhaojing, Ruhui, Zhou Xuezhi, and the others, along with Sun Jia and Geng Mancang, who had hurried over from Yutou Town — all these leading figures connected to Cloud Mountain Firm — to considering hosting similar events. Xuzhou was a hub where water and land routes intersected, the boundary between north and south, the most convenient place for merchants from every province north and south to find a gathering point to meet. Once here, they could exchange what they had for what they lacked and conduct trade.

After all, Xuzhou lacked the support of a water network, and overland transport costs were not low, so a permanent market like the Qingjiang Grand Market was out of the question. But holding a gathering once a year lasting a fortnight or a month would be ideal. When the time came, Cloud Mountain Firm could step forward to host it and could also enter and participate. However you calculated it, it was a business that would bring in a fortune daily.

When this idea was reported to Zhao Jin, he said only one line: "Isn't this the Canton... 'Xuzhou Trade Fair'?" That seemingly offhand remark settled the name.

Whether they had come to offer congratulations and gifts to the Zhao Camp, to seek connections and a future, or simply to enjoy the spectacle, everyone noticed one thing — Xuzhou had newly established several academies. These academies provided room and board and charged no fees whatsoever, but upon completion, the students were required to serve in every aspect of the Zhao Camp's operations.

At first, everyone thought this was nonsense. Academies and private schools were places for teaching the classics of the sages. What other use could those who studied there have besides taking the civil examinations to seek official rank? An academy might sound fine, but wasn't this just sending people to the court and government offices? The Zhao Camp had been shrewd for so long — how had they turned foolish this time?

Only after looking deeper did people realize it was not what they had imagined. The Xuzhou Commercial Academy, the Xuzhou Industrial Academy, the Xuzhou Agricultural Academy, the Xuzhou Foreign Affairs Academy, and the Xuzhou Martial Hall — five in all. Those who went to inquire and ask around came back with faces full of bewilderment and confusion, unable to grasp what the Zhao Camp was trying to do, because this was nothing at all like proper private academies or government schools.

The Three Character Classic and the Thousand Character Classic were indeed studied, but only as primers for basic literacy. These several academies taught people to read, which was true to the nature of an academy, but the fact that the Martial Hall also required literacy struck everyone as rather odd. Beyond literacy, the Four Books, Five Classics, poetry, and rhapsodies were not taught at all. The Xuzhou Martial Hall went without saying, and what the other academies taught had not the slightest connection to the civil examinations.

The Xuzhou Commercial Academy taught the knowledge of trade and commerce and shop operations — from how clerks attended to customers, how account-room men kept the books, how managers administered, all the way to purchasing and selling goods, and so on and so forth, everything was imparted. The instructors were all experienced merchants and managers from Xuzhou and Qingjiangpu. The wealthy Qingjiangpu merchants who had come to Xuzhou to offer congratulations had already received invitations, either to give lectures themselves or to send their most capable men to teach.

At first, everyone found it difficult. Each house had its own secrets to making a fortune, they thought — if those secrets were taught to others, what would their own families live on? Yet no one dared refuse when the Zhao Camp spoke. Some even wondered if this was a pretext for the Zhao Camp to swallow everyone up. But their misgivings soon dissipated. It turned out the Zhao Camp only wanted them to teach those universal principles and rules of business, things everyone knew, no different from taking on apprentices in the past, except now it was lecturing.

This actually stirred great interest. No matter how extravagant and illustrious a merchant might be, they were still the lowest of the four classes — scholars, farmers, artisans, and merchants — and always harbored a vague sense of inferiority. Now, unexpectedly, they had the chance to transmit knowledge and dispel doubts, to be addressed as teacher and master. Some found it amusing, some found it dignified. Besides, the Zhao Camp was not asking them to be here every day, only to come lecture once a month. Naturally, everyone was willing.

The Xuzhou Industrial Academy taught various crafts — from coal mining and iron forging to carpentry, bamboo weaving, and leatherworking, even raising horses, feeding oxen, and harnessing carts, all had to be learned. In the Great Ming, artisan work was also a base occupation. Having a craft could certainly sustain a person and support a family, but what people saw more were those artisan households, little better than slaves. No one was willing to come learn this. Moreover, the instructors at this Industrial Academy were all old master craftsmen — ironworkers, lumberjacks, shipwrights, and the like, probably too old to work anymore, come here to take on apprentices. Graduating from here meant doing manual labor just the same. And it was also said that inside the Industrial Academy were various workshops, where students still had to learn while working. This set everyone muttering in private, thinking that Master Jin truly had a nature that would squeeze oil from a stone — could he be looking to make money off this too?

As for the Xuzhou Agricultural Academy, it drew even more disdain. What did people study for? Wasn't it to bring glory to their ancestors, or to live a little more comfortably? If there was any other way out, who would still toil with their face to the yellow earth and their back to the sky? Having finally gotten the chance to study, why would anyone choose to study such hardship? But inquiries turned up little. Those with local connections, however, caught wind of rumors — for instance, that many clerk households in Xuzhou and Pizhou were sending their sons to study here, and some prominent families close to the Zhao Camp were also sending their sons.

What outsiders did not know was that the Xuzhou Agricultural Academy did indeed teach farming methods — when to sow, when to break ground, when to water and fertilize. Every skill of the fields was taught here. Those imparting this knowledge included eloquent old farmers, landlords well-versed in agricultural affairs, and estate managers who ran the manors. But beyond this, the Agricultural Academy also taught how to collect taxes, how to assess acreage, how to manage tenant households, and other such detailed practical matters. Those who came to teach these subjects were the veteran clerks of the Six Offices from Xuzhou's one department and four counties. They were rich in experience and understood all manner of practical affairs — the most suitable men to lecture on these topics.

Anyone shrewd who learned of this would realize that this was not merely training field hands to farm, but also cultivating methods of governance and management. Wasn't this exactly what the officials and clerks of the Great Ming did? No wonder those families were sending their children. It sounded laughable, yet the future prospects might well be the greatest of all. Think of the Zhao Camp's estates and properties spread across every region — those would all be future placements for the graduates of this Agricultural Academy.

Names like Commercial, Industrial, Agricultural — hearing them, one could at least guess what they were about. But "Foreign Affairs" left people baffled. This academy, however, kept no secrets. What the Foreign Affairs Academy taught was shipbuilding and seamanship, travel by water, and the business of rivers, seas, and oceans. It was said they even had to learn the barbarian tongues of foreign lands. People murmured in private that the Zhao Camp's ambitions were truly vast. With such a grand situation on the Yellow River and the Grand Canal, they still weren't satisfied and were setting their sights on maritime ventures. The risks at sea were so great — the slightest mishap meant shipwreck and death. And even leaving that aside, was the world of canal transport and river trade so easy to enter? The profits had long since been divided among established powers; barging in would surely bring danger. Besides, the instructors at this Foreign Affairs Academy were all seasoned sailors, and some maritime merchants had come as well. Everyone knew the backgrounds of such men — they were cut from the same cloth as pirates, their hands not clean. Sending one's sons to study this — wasn't that leading them down a crooked path?

The Xuzhou Martial Hall needed no explanation. This was surely where the Zhao Camp drew in talent. With all those household guards, militia, student guards, patrol guards, and volunteers — so many private soldiers and militias bearing blades and spears — they had to learn genuine skills, and they had to have men to manage them. Anyone wishing to enter the Zhao Camp's service had to first familiarize themselves with the Zhao Camp's rules. Moreover, the instructors and masters of this Xuzhou Martial Hall were either martial masters of renowned and awe-inspiring fame, or seasoned military officers living in idle retirement. Even the commanders of the Zhao Camp's various regiments and companies were to come and lecture. Here alone lay true prospects for the future.

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