Bringing the Railway to Daming

Chapter 365: Graduate students are everywhere, and college students are worse than dogs? Old Zhu is crying with envy [Please subscribe]

"For example, in addition to mainstream schools, there are also various technical schools, which are actually technical schools with more specialized majors."

"There are also martial arts schools—later martial arts schools mainly teach various martial arts, not military affairs. Schools that truly teach military affairs are called military academies, and generally speaking, the lowest level is second-tier."

"Then there are all kinds of private tutoring classes, study classes and other educational training institutions, and so on."

Hearing this, Zhu Biao could not help but sigh, "It seems that education in later generations is truly prosperous and fascinating."

Zhu Yuanzhang asked, "You just said that elementary school, middle school, and university all have a certain length of schooling. Does that mean future generations of students will have to study for a certain number of years before they can graduate and take up a position? If so, wouldn't that be unfair to those geniuses who progressed so quickly?"

Old Zhu is still good at finding problems.

Liu Kuan smiled and said, "Your Majesty, if there is truly a genius, we can talk to the school and allow him to skip a grade after taking the exam."

"For example, if a child completes the content of grades one to four in two years, he or she can skip to grade five after finishing grade two."

"On the contrary, if a student is too slow to keep up with the teaching progress, the school will contact his or her parents and consider having him or her repeat a grade, that is, repeat a certain grade's courses."

"Finally, some top universities in later generations even set up classes for young geniuses, specifically to recruit young prodigies and allow them to enter university several years early to avoid wasting their youth."

"That's fine." Zhu Yuanzhang nodded, then asked, "Then from which students will officials be selected in the future? Will it be the bachelor's degree, master's degree, or doctorate?"

Liu Kuan looked speechless.

"Your Majesty, people in later generations study for more than just official careers. In fact, before I arrived at the Ming Dynasty, nine years of compulsory education had already been implemented for decades. According to Ming parlance, there were hundreds of millions of 'students'. Could it be that all of these students would embark on official careers?"

"Therefore, later dynasties used special examinations to select officials. Taking the Xin Dynasty as an example, it was called the 'civil service examination', or simply the public examination."

"In later generations, there were national unified civil service examinations, as well as examinations held by each province or department."

"The requirements for each exam vary, but generally speaking, they all have certain age and educational requirements. For example, the age requirement is between 18 and 35, and the educational requirement is a college or university degree or above."

"The imperial court would select talents based on their abilities and assign them positions based on their passing scores, usually starting from grassroots positions similar to today's minor officials."

Zhu Yuanzhang and Zhu Biao were surprised when they heard this.

Zhu Biao said, "From what my brother-in-law said, it seems that the selection and appointment of officials in later generations is actually practicing the method of 'a brave general must rise from the ranks, and a prime minister must be promoted from the provincial government.'"

Liu Kuan knew that the training of officials in later generations was not as simple as Zhu Biao said, and the various situations were quite complicated. However, he did not understand it, and it would be useless to explain it, so he said, "You can put it this way."

Zhu Yuanzhang said, "Liu Kuan, from what you said, it seems that the civil service examinations of later generations are not very important to the world. They are completely incomparable to the status of the current imperial examinations."

Liu Kuan bowed, "In the past, the imperial examination system reached its peak during the Ming and Qing dynasties. There was a saying that 'all things are inferior, only reading is superior', and the purpose of studying was to become an official."

"Your Majesty and Your Highness, could you please consider whether this is a distorted talent selection system?"

"Not to mention the Qing Dynasty, the Ming Dynasty boasted the highest level of education among all dynasties before modern times. Gu Yanwu, a renowned scholar in the late Ming Dynasty, once estimated that there were approximately 500,000 scholars during the Chongzhen reign."

"Scholars couldn't become officials, and the Ming Dynasty didn't have that many positions to offer them. But in the social atmosphere of the time, scholars, especially those with official titles, held a high status."

"The vast majority of these scholars were self-satisfied and disdained occupations such as industry and agriculture. Some devoted their entire lives to studying the classics in order to pass the imperial examinations and become officials; others resorted to scheming and opportunistic tactics to gain official positions through other channels; and quite a few simply indulged in composing poems about the wind and the moon and empty talk about state affairs, while actually doing nothing."

"This is just the scholar level. How many scholars are there who haven't even passed the examination? One million? Or ten million?"

"Your Majesty, Your Highness, please consider this: is it beneficial to the court's rule and the stability of the Ming Dynasty to have so many scholars doing nothing?"

After hearing what Liu Kuan said, Zhu Yuanzhang and Zhu Biao looked at each other and found that each other's expressions were very solemn, even horrified.

Liu Kuan continued, "In fact, historically, the reason the peasant army in the late Ming Dynasty survived the repeated encirclements and suppressions by the government troops, and eventually entered Beijing and overthrew the rule of the Ming Dynasty, was because some down-and-out or unsuccessful scholars joined in."

"For example, Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong, although they both came from poor backgrounds and served as soldiers at the bottom of the Ming Dynasty, both of them knew quite a few words. Although they were not familiar with the Confucian classics, they could read and write."

"Li Zicheng later had four great military advisors. Li Yan and Niu Jinxing were both unsuccessful juren (imperial candidates), while the other two, Gu Junen and Song Xiance, were also scholars with some talent."

"Zhang Xianzhong also recruited a group of scholars to serve as military advisors and staff, who made great contributions to his campaigns in Huguang and Sichuan and the establishment of the Daxi Kingdom."

"By the way, in Zhejiang, where literature flourished at the end of the Ming Dynasty, there was also a rather large uprising whose leadership was almost entirely composed of students (scholars). However, the leader was later tricked and killed by the government using a surrender trick, so the uprising never amounted to anything significant."

"Finally, in the late Ming Dynasty, many students and scholars participated in factional struggles and stirred up all kinds of trouble. Whether they were motivated by passion or opportunism, the end result was to make the court more chaotic and society more turbulent."

Liu Kuan paused here. Old Zhu frowned, as if thinking about something.

Zhu Biao also frowned, but asked directly: "Is it wrong for the Ming Dynasty to vigorously promote education?"

Liu Kuan said, "Promoting education is never wrong. What is wrong is that we should not trap everyone on the path of imperial examinations and becoming an official."

"Having said that, I suspect the reason the Qing Dynasty secretly reduced its support for basic education wasn't just to guard against the Han people, but also because they self-righteously learned a 'lesson' from the Ming Dynasty."

"They perfected the eight-part essay and made it harder to pass the imperial examinations, which was also one of the reasons."

"However, by doing so, they still trapped many talented people on the path of imperial examinations."

"Talent in industry, agriculture, commerce, and other sectors became scarce. Furthermore, during the Ming and Qing dynasties, the imperial court and society paid little attention to other industries and even looked down upon workers and farmers. How could these industries develop?"

"If all talented people were vying for official positions, wouldn't such a society be distorted? Decline would be inevitable."

While saying these words, Liu Kuan was thinking in his heart: In the Ming and Qing dynasties, all the talented people went to take the imperial examinations, and they were able to suppress the neighboring countries. If the talents were allocated reasonably, wouldn't they be even more powerful?
From this point of view, there are actually some inevitable factors in China's later rise.

Zhu Yuanzhang and Zhu Biao fell into deep thought.

After an unknown amount of time, Zhu Yuanzhang finally said, "If what you said is true, then the way the imperial examination is conducted is wrong?"

Liu Kuan shook his head. "Your Majesty, there's nothing wrong with the imperial examination system itself. Since its inception during the Sui and Tang dynasties, it has been the world's most advanced and fair system for selecting talent for over a thousand years."

"For over a thousand years, other countries have mostly selected officials based on bloodlines and personal connections, a system far inferior to our imperial examination system. People in later generations talk about this with pride."

"What's wrong is the content of the imperial examinations, and the direction of their selection process – in the past, the imperial examinations were almost exclusively for admission to schools, and the selected talents could only become officials. It was truly distorted."

Zhu Yuanzhang didn't know how many times he had heard the word "deformity", and every time he had the urge to beat Liu Kuan up.

But he knew that what Liu Kuan said was true and that he helped the Ming Dynasty find the drawbacks of its talent selection system, which was a good thing. He had no reason to beat Liu Kuan, and he was reluctant to do so.

Zhu Yuanzhang then mentally compared the Ming Dynasty's current imperial examination system with the talent cultivation and selection systems of later generations, and asked, "According to what you said, almost everyone in later generations would go to school, and with the nine-year compulsory education, they would at least be able to complete junior high school."

"Under such circumstances, how did future generations arrange for so many students? If the arrangements were not made properly, wouldn't they be afraid of causing chaos?"

Liu Kuan said, "Arranging employment for students is also a difficult task in later generations, and it is highly valued by the state. However, because later generations cultivate talents not only for official positions, but for a variety of purposes, this gives talents more places to go."

"For example, factories and businesses run by the imperial court also needed skilled managers and highly skilled personnel—such jobs not only paid well but also held high social status, so people flocked to them."

"Similarly, there are still many privately-run factories, businesses, companies and other institutions in the future that also have a great demand for talent and can also provide many good jobs."

At this point, Liu Kuan thought of the social situation before he traveled through time, and then said, "Of course, with the efforts to promote education in the future, there will definitely be a surplus of talent."

"In fact, this phenomenon had already existed for 10 to 20 years before I came to the Ming Dynasty."

"Take university graduates as an example. Twenty years ago, they were all very popular. After graduation, the imperial court would assign them jobs, and various places were vying for them, and the pay was good."

"Before I came to the Ming Dynasty, the world was already full of graduate students and college students were worse than dogs."

There are graduate students everywhere, and college students are worse than dogs?
What kind of a description is this?

Zhu Yuanzhang and Zhu Biao looked strange for a moment.

Then Zhu Yuanzhang couldn't help but calculate in his mind:

A graduate student, corresponding to a master's degree, has to study 6+6+4+3, oh, and two years of kindergarten, which means that it usually takes 21 years to train a graduate student in the future!
And what about training a university student? Subtract 3, which generally takes 18 years.

By the way, this guy Liu Kuan seems to be just an ordinary college student, right?
But he was a great talent in the Ming Dynasty!
This means that those graduate students and college students were equivalent to talented people who had been carefully cultivated for ten or twenty years and were knowledgeable and experienced in the Ming Dynasty, but in later generations they were described as "walking all over the ground" and "worse than dogs".

Thinking of this, Zhu Yuanzhang was truly envious, jealous, and resentful. He hated that there were so many talented people in later generations who could not be used by the Ming Dynasty.

　First update.

　　New Year’s Eve!

　　I wish all my readers a happy New Year's Eve! May your family be reunited and happy!

　　
　
(End of this chapter)