Destroy Jin and conquer Song, and carry the Northern Expedition through to the end

Chapter 360: The Han people have always valued culture and education

Li Qi was one of the four commanders of the Dongting Lake navy. A few days ago, it was he who personally drove a sampan to take Xin Qiji to the small island in front of the Jin army camp to pay his respects to his teacher. In the next half hour, he watched from close range as Xin Qiji killed the Jin soldiers who came to challenge him one by one.

Originally, Li Qi just sighed and wondered what kind of vicious people these people coming from Shandong were. However, he did not expect that within two days, a small task would be assigned by Li Dao himself.

Let Li Qi bring all types of firearms of the navy to the Jingnan army and introduce them to Liu Dutong one by one.

Li Qi was naturally willing to make friends with heroes, but he was troubled when choosing firearms.

The Song army did not have strict control over firearms at that time, so the Dongting Lake navy actually had its own gunpowder workshop, and many of the things in it were secret. If they were leaked out, especially to the Jin Kingdom, it would be difficult for the Dongting Lake navy to maintain its combat advantage.

Li Dao was very generous about this. He just waved his hand and said, "Don't hide it. Bring whatever you have and tell Liu Dalang. Don't spread it."

In this way, Li Qi first came to Yu Yunwen's tent with a large pile of firearms to make a report, and then followed Yu Yunwen to the camp of the Jingnan army.

In order to maintain the density of river defense, the Jingnan Army did not choose Caishiji or the ferry to set up camp, but camped two miles north of Caishiji. In order to prevent the Jin army from sneaking across the river, the entire camp was lined up in a row, covering a very large area. There were four small camps in front of the main camp, each of which had soldiers stationed in rotation for vigilance.

It should be said that the Jingnan Army's vigilance was very effective. At least Yu Yunwen walked on the official road under his own flag and was checked by the cavalry three or four times along the way. However, he passed smoothly every time after Xu Zongyan took out his badge.

The person on duty in the camp at this time was Luo Shenyan. After checking the badges, he did not follow Zhou Yafu's example and only knew that there were generals but not superiors. Instead, he led Yu Yunwen and others to the central military tent according to the prior preparations.

"I will send someone to report this to the Commander-in-Chief immediately. Please wait a moment, Mr. Yu."

"General Luo, please don't be so polite. I'm just a corrupt scholar and have never seen the proper military rules. Could you please let me see them?" Although Yu Yunwen's tone was polite, the meaning in his words was very firm, and he seemed to be determined not to give up until he achieved his goal.

Luo Shenyan cupped his hands and said, "The Jingnan Army is upright and aboveboard, and there is nothing we dare not tell others."

Yu Yunwen smiled and said, "In that case, please let General Luo lead the way and go find General Liu first."

"Please!" Luo Shenyan made a gesture to lead the way and walked ahead with the knife in hand.

Yu Yunwen had only taken a few steps when his attention was attracted by the two huge blackboards in front of the stage.

On one side were written the names of the various armies of the Loyal and Righteous Army, and beneath the names were many words, most of which were blank, with only the Flying Tiger Army and the Enemy-Breaking Army having some words written under them.

Upon closer inspection, it was written that the Flying Tiger Army and the Destroying Enemy Army wiped out the first Meng'an of the Wuping Army. The Flying Tiger Army made long-distance raids and fought several battles, and was credited with two major merits; while the Destroying Enemy Army only participated in a small number of battles, and was credited with one merit.

On the other side, there are the big words "Battle Heroes". Below the four big words are the names of eight people, and after the names are written the number of beheadings or deeds of breaking the formation.

What Yu Yunwen noticed was that the biographies of three of these eight people ended with the words "died in battle at a certain place".

It turned out to be a soldier who died in battle.

Seeing Yu Yunwen stop, Li Qi, who was carrying a bamboo basket full of firearms, also stopped and looked at the blackboard following Yu Yunwen's gaze. He didn't know many words, but he was not illiterate. He had just finished reading it haltingly when he heard Luo Shenyan's explanation.

"Yu Sheren, this is the merit board of my Jingnan Army. If you gain merit, you can display it in the army. It will also be the basis for rewards after returning to Shandong. Even if someone dies in battle, their family will receive a deserved share. With so many people watching, no one will dare to embezzle it."

Yu Yunwen gestured with his hands twice: "The entire Jingnan Army has 5,000 men. Are we going to rely on these two boards to record our achievements?"

Luo Shenyan smiled and said, "Of course not. The main army's merit boards are used to record the achievements of each army and to boast about brave warriors. Each army under the main army also has such merit boards, which also record the achievements of its own warriors.

These are just for publicity. The truly detailed records also include merit books, which are similar to those in other armies."

Yu Yunwen nodded slowly: "Is this also to boost morale?"

"There is that aspect." Luo Shenyan paused and continued, "The commander-in-chief has other considerations. He wants to establish credibility through this move. He said that the reason many Song soldiers are so discouraged is because their superiors often do not honor their military merit rewards afterward. So they can only shoot one round of arrows and receive one round of rewards. It is impossible to win a battle this way.

But in the end, a war still requires rewarding according to merit. We must let the men know that we, the superiors, keep our word and will not embezzle their credit. Therefore, the commander-in-chief came up with this idea: to openly display the merits of each unit and let the whole army supervise it together.

"Does it work?"

"Of course it works. For example, even though many rewards can only be redeemed after returning to Shandong, the Jingnan Army is still able to fight bravely. Isn't it because the soldiers all trust us and the commander-in-chief?"

Yu Yunwen nodded again.

Li Qi pointed at the blackboard and asked curiously, "The characters written in chalk are beautiful, but can ordinary soldiers recognize so many characters?" Luo Shenyan shook his head and said, "Of course not, but we can teach them to read."

As if pressing him, Li Qi continued to ask, "Can you learn it?"

Luo Shenyan smiled. "Although some people are smarter than others, if one can understand orders while fighting in the army, there is no real fool. As long as one is willing to learn, even if one cannot become a great writer, at least one can master some basic writing skills."

The literacy rate in the Song Dynasty was actually quite good. Because clans were powerful, it was popular to build schools everywhere, and private schools were everywhere. In addition, with the development of commerce, people were also willing to let their children learn more characters.

But this was within the boundaries of the Song Dynasty; it was another matter within the Jin Dynasty. Especially in recent years, the landlords and powerful people in the Jin Dynasty had been struggling to make ends meet, and they no longer paid attention to cultural and educational undertakings.

As for the Jin Dynasty government... with their pathetic grassroots ruling ability, it would be worse to rely on a piece of barbecued pork than on them!
This was the situation in the middle period of the Jin Dynasty. After the great kindness of the Mongols and Yuan Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang spent most of his life in the early Ming Dynasty and failed to completely reverse the cultural and educational situation in the north. In his later years, he still lamented that the Central Plains and the north were full of fishy smells and the barbarian style was still prevalent.

In fact, Liu Huai had long wanted to use various methods to improve the literacy rate of the people under his rule.

On the one hand, private schools should be established to let teachers teach children. This is actually very difficult to do by relying on the initiative of the people, because in those days it was difficult for the lower classes to leave their jobs, and teachers were also human beings who needed to eat, and relying on a small amount of tuition would not be enough to feed them.

At this time, the government, clans and even landlords and powerful people need to step in to maintain the operation of private schools.

As for adult education, Liu Huai initially wanted to establish an educational institution such as a night school. However, during the actual preliminary preparations, he discovered that the prerequisite for organizing a night school was that there must be a large number of adults gathered there.

Factories in the future will naturally have this condition.

But it’s not possible now.

An important factor that restricts population density in agricultural society is that the land per unit area cannot support so many people.

It is really a hassle to ask farmers who have worked in the farm for a day to run to the county town to learn to read and write at night.

The only place where young and strong men gathered, apart from repairing canals in winter and training to guard against bandits, was in the army.

The person currently in charge of civil affairs in Shandong is Luo Shenyan's father, Luo Guzi. With this makeshift team newly formed, who knows what results they can achieve. Wei Sheng and Liu Huai, fighting the Jin bandits in the north and south respectively, have been forced to take time out of their busy schedules to implement basic education within the military.

Yu Yunwen was silent for a moment before he said, "Is it useful?"

Luo Shenyan said solemnly, "To say that everyone can be as powerful as ten men and invulnerable to weapons just because they've read and learned to read is impossible. But how can learning to read be considered a bad thing? Even if you learn to read today and die in battle tomorrow, it still has meaning."

This was obviously Luo Shenyan's own statement, but Yu Yunwen knew that although Liu Huai was young, he was not a stubborn warrior, but had certain political skills, and his move must have a deep meaning.

But Yu Yunwen couldn't understand what the point of letting a group of soldiers read and write was.

"Commander Luo, please continue to lead the way." After taking another deep look at the two large blackboards, Yu Yunwen waved to Luo Shenyan.

Luo Shenyan was still as cautious in his words and actions as his name suggests, and he led the way again.

Not long after, just two or three hundred steps, Yu Yunwen stopped again beside a training ground.

Three or four hundred men were already in a horizontal formation, armed with spears, axes, swords, and shields. They advanced like a forest, shouting "Drink, eat, serve!" to the beat of drums. At the officer's command, they changed from a battle formation to two lines of marching troops.

It seemed that there was a mistake in the command of a grassroots officer, which caused a part of the soldiers to become scattered during the process of changing from a horizontal formation to a column. Immediately, a person who looked like a high-ranking officer came forward to maintain order, and called out several officers who looked like captains and scolded them in person.

Yu Yunwen stood by and watched for a while. Just when Li Qi was hesitating whether to put the basket of firearms on the ground to rest his feet, Yu Yunwen walked away again without saying a word.

Afterwards, he went to a series of camps including the wounded camp, and after carefully looking at the regulations of the Jingnan Army, he came to the east side of the camp where Liu Huai was sitting.

This is an open-air camp. More than a hundred soldiers are sitting on the ground, holding branches in front of them as if they were holding a knife. Most of them have sad faces, while a few of them are writing on the sand in front of them with gritted teeth and a determination to die.

"Everyone, look up!" On a relatively low earthen platform, Liu Huai, holding a piece of chalk in his right hand and a short stick in his left, tapped the blackboard and said loudly, "Read with me."

"One, two, three, four,

Five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten pieces,
Hundreds and thousands of pieces,
Flying into the plum blossoms, it disappears."

(End of this chapter)