Chapter 15 15 An Old Friend Visits

"The so-called peace of the world lies in governing the country. When the ruler respects the elderly, the people will be filial. When the ruler respects the elders, the people will be fraternal. When the ruler cares for the orphans, the people will not betray. Therefore, the gentleman has the way of the square.

What you hate in the superior, do not use it to command the inferior. What you hate in the inferior, do not use it to serve the superior. What you hate in the front, do not use it before and after. What you hate in the back, do not use it to follow the front. What you hate in the right, do not use it to associate with the left. What you hate in the left, do not use it to associate with the right. This is called the way of the square."

Wei Guangde sat in the school and shook his head while reading "The Great Learning". In ten days, Wei Guangde memorized the whole text of the Great Learning, and Master Sun also explained the full text with translations and annotations.

Reviewing the old to learn the new, before Master Sun arranged new books, Wei Guangde could only review these repeatedly in the past two days.

As usual, after checking the students' knowledge, Master Sun started to teach and explain new things.

As for those who were in the same period as Wei Guangde, since they had just finished a book, Master Sun had nothing else to say for the time being, and only asked them to recite the full text of "The Great Learning" in class.

When school was about to end in the afternoon, Master Sun called Wei Guangde's group of students and told them that they would start talking about "The Analects" tomorrow and they had to bring their books tomorrow.

When they bought the books, they spent two taels of silver on the four books, which were also bought from Master Sun.

In order to make it convenient for students to buy books, Master Sun's private school would of course prepare some, and of course they could also buy them from other bookstores.

However, this is just a polite statement. After all, this is just a town. There are bookstores in the town. There are some in the county town, but they are not close.

Fortunately, the price of books in the private school is similar to that of bookstores in the city. In fact, Master Sun only charges a little extra travel expenses, so everyone generally buys books here.

Although movable type printing was invented in the Song Dynasty, it does not mean that the cost of books has been reduced.

In this era, most books were not cheap to print and produce, so ordinary people could not afford to read.

Two taels of silver, the military households in Bengshanbao could not get so much cash in a year.

Ordinary military households, in addition to receiving some food and salt from Wei Laodi, could only get less than one tael of silver to buy other necessities of life.

This is considered that Wei Laodi has a conscience, at least he can see money.

According to the military system of the Ming Dynasty, soldiers in the garrison should have one stone of grain per month, which is 96 kilograms, but this is obviously unattainable.

The grain of the military households in Bengshanbao is the output of the fields they are responsible for. The more they produce, the more they can get. It is similar to the household contract responsibility system in later generations, but the proportion of submission is a bit higher.

That is the tenant, but Wei Laodi did not use the military status of soldiers to squeeze soldiers like other garrisons. Basically, the grain quota was distributed according to the general tenant standard, rather than below this standard.

The reason why many soldiers in many garrisons fled was that the military officers treated these registered military households as non-human beings, and even failed to give them the standard of civilian tenants.

The treatment of tenants was bad enough, but the registered soldiers were not even as good as tenants, and they could not choose freely, because if you were a soldier, your descendants could only serve in the army, and they could only be exploited and oppressed by officers.

The standard of tenants in the Ming Dynasty was not high, but they could still survive in a good year, but it was difficult for military households.

Just when Wei Guangde and his classmates were about to leave the private school, the servant Li Shu suddenly ran into the school with a post in his hand.

"Master, there is an immortal outside visiting, saying that he is your old friend."

Li Shu was Master Sun's servant. He usually took care of the work of the doorman. Naturally, he came in to report when someone came to the house. This time, he was bending over and respectfully standing in front of Master Sun, handing over the door post with both hands.

When Master Sun heard that an old friend was visiting, he hurriedly stood up, took the post and took a look, then he was instantly surprised, and didn't care about Wei Guangde and others, and hurried out.

"Did you neglect me?"

Master Sun didn't forget to ask Uncle Li, the doorman.

"I asked him to wait in the doorman, and I came in to report."

Master Sun nodded slightly, and still strode out of the school, and Uncle Li could only bend slightly and follow Master Sun.

"Master, an old friend is visiting, are we okay, should we leave?"

Someone among the students muttered.

Although the master seemed to have finished talking about why he called them, he didn't ask them to leave, and now everyone didn't know whether to leave or stay.

"Wait a little longer, if the master has other things to tell us, we will be in trouble tomorrow if we leave."

Someone gave an answer soon.

Wei Guangde also thought it made sense. If Master Sun hadn't walked so fast, Wei Guangde would not have responded for a while, and he should have asked first.

But this is just a thought. When Wei Guangde really asked, he still felt sympathetic.

Recently, he was not beaten. After practicing calligraphy for more than half a month, Wei Guangde's calligraphy finally got rid of the level of dog crawling, although it was still not good.

Perhaps it was because he saw that Wei Guangde did not have the talent of a calligrapher, so Master Sun also told him not to learn other fancy calligraphy, but to practice Taige style. After all, Taige style can be used for imperial examinations and official career in the future.

In fact, this is also because of the emperor's love. From Zhu Yuanzhang to Zhu Di, due to personal preferences, they have vigorously promoted calligraphy, and the study of calligraphy flourished for a time.

When the Ming Dynasty opened the imperial examinations to select scholars, they all answered the test papers in regular script, and they must be neat.

Those who wrote poorly would fail even if they were well-versed in the classics.

This had a great impact on the style of calligraphy art at that time.

When scholars write, they only want to be upright and respectful, horizontally and vertically, neatly, and write like woodblock printing. This formed the Taige calligraphy style of the Ming Dynasty, which is called "Taige style".

But now for Wei Guangde, it's just to avoid being beaten.

Soon I heard Master Sun and another unfamiliar voice chatting happily in the yard, and the footsteps were getting closer, and they were obviously walking inside.

Wei Guangde and others immediately stood there respectfully, but because they were worried that the teacher would lead his friends directly to the backyard and not see the people still standing in the school, Wei Guangde quietly moved towards the door to make himself more conspicuous.

Although I dare not say some words, I still express them in other ways.

Master Sun led his friend through the school gate. It seemed that he really wanted to lead his friend into the backyard. However, when he walked through the school gate, he also noticed Wei Guangde and other students.

"You can clean up and go back. Remember what I said."

Master Sun stood in front of the door and said to the students in the room.

"These are all disciples of Brother Sun. As expected, all of them are outstanding talents."

At this time, Wei Guangde also saw the Taoist priest standing next to Master Sun. It was indeed a Taoist priest.

After traveling for more than a month, this is the first person from outside the country that Wei Guangde has seen.

Although I don't know who he is, he looks very handsome. He wears a Taoist priest's hat and a blue Taoist robe. He looks very energetic.

"They are all a bunch of incompetent people, real people shouldn't look up to them."