Ming Dynasty: Traveling through the harem, Zhu Yuanzhang was dumbfounded

Chapter 198 Four Tones
next door.

Zhu Yuanzhang fell silent since the thin man started speaking.

The landlords beat and scolded the poor and belittled their personalities, which made Zhu Yuanzhang very unhappy.

Because he remembered that he had been treated like this in Fengyang, even worse than that.

At that time, Zhu Yuanzhang just saw something he shouldn't have seen, and the landlord hung him on a tree and beat him like an animal.

No matter how he wailed or cried, the landlord was unwilling to let him go. He felt very helpless at the time.

It is also one of the few things that Zhu Yuanzhang is unwilling to recall.

Now it seems that not only he was treated like this, but many people in the world were treated like this, and similar scenes never disappeared, whether in the Yuan Dynasty or in the Ming Dynasty.

"Biao'er, do you think that the Ming Dynasty will be able to eliminate these inequalities in the future?"

With moved eyes, Zhu Yuanzhang asked his eldest son beside him.

Noticing his father's obvious emotional fluctuations, Zhu Biao paused, wanting to deceive him by saying that it would definitely not happen and that all inequalities in the Ming Dynasty would disappear in the future.

Unfortunately, Zhu Biao could not deceive himself. He knew very well that due to human nature, power is a terrible beast. Unless someone can remain absolutely calm, make absolute judgments, and imprison power with firm willpower, power will corrode 99% of people and turn them into puppets of power.

This is the horror of power, and almost no one is immune.

Finally, Zhu Biao answered honestly:
"Father, I believe that the Ming Dynasty will do better in the future and reduce this tragic situation. I may see it, but Xiong Ying will have the opportunity to see it. Our descendants will live under scientific education, the people will be enlightened, and the suffering of the people will be reduced. This inhuman situation will gradually disappear in the long river of history. When we see it in the future, it will not be too late."

There might be dissatisfaction in Cangmu's eyes with such an answer, but he knew that it was true.

Zhu Biao did not lie to flatter him, and Zhu Yuanzhang would not want his son to lie to him.

At the same time, Yang Chen's voice came from next door.

"As human beings, you must master the most basic human skills! Reading and writing!
Books are the ladder of human progress. If you want to change your current status and change others' perception of you, the first thing you need to do is to learn how to master knowledge, especially the most advanced knowledge.

Now, the knowledge recorded in thousands of years of history and civilization is all in books. How can we move forward without learning?
And today, I am going to teach you how to know this person! How to write and how to read! "

"Now, increase your concentration. Focus on me. Don't allow your attention to wander for even a moment. Pick up the pencils next to you. I don't care how you hold them, as long as you can write.

There is a notebook prepared for you on the table. You must learn how to describe it.

But none of this matters. What matters is that you need to follow me and read these symbols separately: one is r and the other is en.

The two together read, "日~恩,人"

Driven by Yang Chen's circular movement, everyone began to follow his footsteps and recite the pinyin together.

"Do you know why, if you are with Enhe, you can become an adult?"

Everyone in the classroom was confused. It was obvious that they were indeed curious about these pinyin, but they had no idea why.

Yang Chen was not anxious, nor did he say anything encouraging. Instead, he said slowly:

“Because every word we say every day, no matter how complex it is, in the end, there are only four tones in total.

Let’s take the simplest ‘阿’ as an example.

The word "阿" has four tones: ā, á, ǎ, à.

All four sounds are pronounced differently.

The first ā, you see, there is an ordinary symbol above it, which means that the pronunciation of this symbol is high and flat, neither rising nor falling.

The second á indicates that the sound rises from middle tone to high tone, which is a rising tone.

The third ǎ indicates that the sound rises from half-low to half-high and then falls back to half-low. It is a tone that rises first and then falls, and the rising part is longer than the falling part.

The fourth à indicates that the sound drops from high to low, which is a descending tone.

The textbooks already have pictures showing how the different tones are pronounced.”

Following Yang Chen's instructions, everyone quickly opened the textbooks that had been prepared on the table. These textbooks were the contents recorded by the eunuch Liu Jian who was in charge of the seal and his team.

Later, Yang Chen printed it and asked someone to draw patterns on it to make it look easy to understand.

Even a rough man can pronounce it accurately by following the pattern drawn above.

"Master Yang! Excuse me, is it composed of two sounds?"

Yang Chen looked at Sanxi with encouragement, and admired the child for being able to take the initiative to discover it.

"Yes, ren, is composed of two sounds. The first one is ri, which is the same as the ri we see on our platform. It is the first tone. The second one is en, which is also the first tone."

"But Lord Yang, why is the word "人" composed of these two characters? Can't the pronunciation of other characters be used?"

Sanxi's continuous questioning made Yang Chen laugh again and again.

"Very good. Those who take the initiative to ask are all smart kids. In fact, there is a story behind this."

When they heard the story, everyone was delighted.

They love hearing stories during boring times.

"That's right, let me tell you why humans are composed of Ri and En.

You guys, this is the sun, that is, the sun! The horse moves in the sun, the elephant moves in the field, and the basic rules of chess are also described in this way, right? "

Yang Chen drew a circle on the blackboard, and then drew many horizontal bars around the circle.

The bars look exactly like the suns that elementary school students draw in art class.

Anyway, his drawing skills are just average, as long as he can draw it so that people can clearly see that it is the sun.

“The reason why the word ‘人’ is composed of ‘日’ and ‘恩’ instead of other sounds or characters is because humans were born under the sun.

It is because of the blessing of the sun that we humans can slowly survive on this earth.

Think about it, why can we live happily in the hot summer as long as we have enough food and water?

But when winter comes, we start to feel depressed? Even if we have food and water, we still live an unhappy life, and some people even feel sad? Because in winter the sun is covered by thick clouds and fog, and we can't see the sun, so we get blessings, and all things in the world will languish. It is not until the spring when the ice and snow melt, the thick clouds gradually dissipate, and the sun reappears that people can resume their previous vitality. "

After hearing this, everyone was dumbfounded. They didn't expect that the very ordinary things in life could be so profound.

This is not something Yang Chen said randomly but it is a fact. Broadly speaking, since the birth of human civilization, the first group of people who enlightened the people all worshipped the sun as a god. They portrayed the status of the sun in tribal civilization, thus demonstrating that the current life is all brought about by the sun.

In a narrow sense, if there were no Milky Way galaxy where the sun existed, the planets around the earth would probably always be in a cold and dark environment like other planets in the universe.

The sun has been burning for countless billions of years, providing the prerequisite for the birth of all civilizations on Earth.

Without burning stars, the Earth would be in an ice age, during which no life could be born.

Therefore, the importance of the sun is self-evident.

"Now you know why people are called people, right? The Chinese character for "ri" is the beginning of the Chinese character for "people".

We all live under the blessing of the sun, we all have hands and feet, we are all upright people. "

In an instant, everyone in the room looked at Yang Chen with dull eyes. There was disbelief in their eyes. No one had ever imparted knowledge to them in this way.

It was not until Yang Chen appeared that they realized that knowledge could be learned in this way!

It was truly an epiphany, and I woke up instantly.

at the same time.

Zhu Yuanzhang, Teng Yi and Yang Siyi all took a deep breath.

Zhu Chong followed the drill arranged by Yang Chen in advance and also drew the four tones of Chinese Pinyin on the blackboard.

"How strange! How strange! How come I never realized that there are only four tones in speech before? This Yang Chen is really amazing!"

"Yes! Before I became the Minister of Revenue, I was well-read. I had heard of all the anecdotes in the world, but no one had ever been able to attack us in the way we speak.

Brother Teng, look at the drawing in the textbook and we follow his pronunciation, ahhhh, it's exactly the same.

The most miraculous thing is the grace of this man, Nairi."

"Your Majesty, I think that Censor Yang's idea is really wonderful. The Ming Dynasty has the sun and the moon at the same time, and the character for "人" begins with the sun, which is very consistent with the current situation of the Ming Dynasty.

If there is a chance to spread it in the future, the people’s recognition of the Ming Dynasty will definitely be raised to a higher level.”

Zhu Yuanzhang would not feel proud because of two attentive words. On the contrary, he would just feel average.

"I don't know if this kid did it on purpose or not, but he was willing to put in the effort and finally did something that wouldn't make me angry."

Thinking of the last point, Zhu Yuanzhang stroked his beard and smiled.

But on second thought, Yang Chen said that he could help these illiterate people master hundreds of common characters within a month.

These alone may not be enough for them to master it smoothly.

"Your Majesty is right. Censor Yang's method is indeed worth considering. However, these rough men will certainly be enthusiastic for a short period of time. After a few days, they will lose their passion and their learning speed will gradually slow down."

Teng Yi on the side also said the same thing. It was not that he did not believe Yang Chen, but he had seen too many similar things.

On the contrary, Zhu Biao seemed to trust Yang Chen very much. He knew that the other party would never do anything without certainty. This was something they understood on the first day they met.

Not to mention that in the second half, Yang Chen had not yet told Zhu Biao his true thoughts.

In the classroom, the rough guys' desire to actively learn was quickly encouraged by Yang Chen.

"Now that you know the four tones of Chinese Pinyin, you should understand one thing: as the saying goes, all roads lead to the capital. You only need to master one, and then you can follow the other and the third.

Learning to read may seem troublesome, but I can tell you that it is not that difficult, and can even be said to be very simple. "

After hearing these words, everyone next door who had just been worried about Yang Chen’s next educational method all had a big question mark in their heads.

what?
To learn a word, you only need to recognize one, and then you can slowly learn them all and finally master them all?
To them, this seemed to be something that was simply impossible.

However, while he was in doubt, Yang Chen had already started teaching.

"Look, I just said that r stands for sun and en stands for grace. No matter what word you see in your textbooks in the future, you just need to remember how to pronounce the symbol above the word.

Just like the word "run", it is composed of two symbols. One is r, which means "sun", and it is also pronounced as "ri" and it never changes. And the un at the back means "mosquito". When combined, it naturally sounds like "run", which is the correct pronunciation.

The origin of Chinese characters can be traced back to a long, long time ago, when Cangjie gathered all the knowledge and slowly created the unique writing system of Chinese civilization.

After many years of evolution, it finally became what we know today.

No matter how it changes, characters exist for people's convenience. The characters I teach you are called simplified characters, which means simple characters.

Compared to the previous inscriptions, simplified Chinese characters are much simpler. As long as you learn simplified Chinese characters, you will no longer be illiterate in the future, but a person who can read and write!"

As he spoke, he found a book on the table. Everyone had this book on their desk. He opened the first page and pointed to the table of contents and spoke.

“There are a total of 26 pinyin letters, and all Chinese characters can be found in the above, and now they are combined into a huge network. As long as you learn this, you will not be afraid of no one teaching you how to study in the future, because you can learn it by yourself.

Mastering a language can be divided into the following important steps: listening, speaking, reading and writing.

“I don’t ask you to be able to write now, but at least you should be able to listen, speak, and read. I believe all of you can do the first two, so now you just need to concentrate on learning the last two.

Start by reading. ”

When I opened the book, I found that there were nearly ten or twenty pages of records on Chinese Pinyin.

Yang Chen initially wrote all of them one word at a time on the template, and then took them to the printing department to carve the template. From then on, he started printing like crazy.

So far, Yang Chen himself doesn’t know how many copies have been printed, but it is enough for tens of thousands of people to use, and as the economy of Zhenjiang Prefecture becomes more and more developed, the number of copies printed is still increasing.

"From today on, I will slowly teach you how to learn the correct pronunciation of these 26 phonetic symbols, as well as how to pair them up and use them. I won't say that I can 100% teach you how to learn all the Chinese characters in the world, but at least 80% to 90% of them will be absolutely no problem.

So you don't have to have any psychological pressure in the days to come. It's just studying. No matter how difficult it is, you won't be in danger of going to the battlefield to fight, right?
Besides, if you study hard and learn well, I can give you money to spend. Why not do such a good thing? Right?"

(End of this chapter)