Bringing the Railway to Daming

Chapter 377 Zhu Biao: The news of later generations is really interesting! [Subscribe]

Zhu Biao recalled the excitement and joy of farmers like Ge Sanqi in the sweet potato fields when he visited Gejiakou a few days ago. He smiled and said, "They were not only grinning from ear to ear, but were even dancing with joy."

Zhu Yuanzhang said, "With this year's bumper harvest of sweet potatoes, corn, potatoes and other American crops, it will be much easier to promote them to other places next year."

"As long as we promote this effectively, in ten years the people of the Ming Dynasty will no longer have to worry about starvation!"

Zhu Biao nodded and said with emotion: "If the Ming Dynasty is truly free from the worry of famine, our family will be worthy of the world."

After a few moments of silence, Zhu Yuanzhang asked, "Are you still going to the bridge with Liu Kuan tomorrow?"

Zhu Biao said: "This opportunity is rare, so of course I have to go."

Zhu Yuanzhang said, "Then you should be careful. If anything unexpected happens, take Liu Kuan and evacuate immediately."

"My son understands."

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The next day.

At around seven o'clock in the morning, Liu Kuan, who had already made preparations, bid farewell to his wife and children again, then met up with Zhu Biao and headed to the cross-river bridge with his entourage and guards.

This time, Liu Kuan prepared tables and chairs, and even snacks, just like in previous years.

When he arrived at the place, he took out his laptop and put it in place, then sat down with Zhu Biao to chat - this time of year and this place were the times when he was most relaxed since he traveled through the Ming Dynasty, and he vaguely felt like he had returned to modern society.

"According to the memorial submitted by the Ministry of Rites, a pilot program for school education will be implemented in Zhili in September. My brother-in-law, do you think the Ministry of Rites is lacking in any of its preparations?"

Liu Kuan said, "Your Majesty has entrusted the reform of official schools to Li Shuzheng, the Minister of Rites. From the beginning of spring until now, Li Shuzheng has been busy with this matter for more than half a year, and all the preparations have been quite sufficient."

"For example, regarding the school system, the Ministry of Rites, taking into account the current situation of Ming Dynasty's educational resources, has decided to establish four levels of schools: primary school, senior primary school, junior high school, and senior high school. Each level lasts three years, for a total of twelve years."

Zhu Biao nodded and commented, "It seems this system of education was also used in later generations. It should be quite reasonable. So how were the different levels of schools established? What were their standards?"

Liu Kuan: "The court will establish at least one elementary school every five miles, with at least one class each for grades one, two, and three."

"Primary schools will offer three courses: Confucianism, mathematics, and science. This means that each primary school will have at least three teachers."

"Primary school students can be between the ages of five and fifteen. This is because before the Ming Dynasty, some families were poor and didn't send their children to school. Now that conditions have improved, they want their children to go to school again."

"As for senior primary schools, the current plan is to establish at least one in each county. The curriculum will be similar to that of junior primary schools, but the teaching content will be more in-depth and complex."

"Currently, we only plan to establish at least one junior high school in each prefecture, offering nine subjects: Confucianism, mathematics, history, geography, physics, chemistry, biology, physical education, and art."

"However, Confucianism and mathematics are still the main subjects, followed by history, geography, physics, chemistry, and biology. Physical education and art classes have the least number of hours."

"In high school, these courses will still be taught in more depth because the learning difficulty increases, and there will be a division into arts and science after the first year of high school."

"Arts students no longer study physics, chemistry, and biology, and science students no longer study history and geography."

"By the way, the current plan is to build at least one high school in each provincial capital."

After listening to this, Zhu Biao asked with doubt: "Aren't there too few schools like this?"

Liu Kuan smiled and said, "Your Highness, the Ministry of Rites has its reasons for doing this. Firstly, these schools are just pilot programs, and whether it's the teaching staff or the student population, it's not suitable to open too many schools at once."

"Secondly, schools can have multiple classes for each grade. In later generations, some elementary schools have thousands of students, and some middle schools have tens of thousands."

Tens of thousands of students? !
Even though Zhu Biao already knew about the prosperity of education in later generations, he was still surprised to hear this.

It should be noted that the Imperial College, as the highest and largest institution of learning in the Ming Dynasty, had only a few thousand students at most.

In later generations, a middle school had tens of thousands of students. How could Zhu Biao not be shocked?

After coming to his senses, Zhu Biao asked, "If there are too many students and the school is too big, it would be difficult to manage, right?"

"That's right." Liu Kuan nodded. "So, considering that the teachers and school leaders have no relevant experience, the number of students in Daming's pilot school will be kept below 1,000 for both primary and upper primary schools, and below 3,000 for junior and senior high schools."

Zhu Biao continued, "Given the current population of the capital, Shangyuan and Jiangning counties will probably need to build quite a few primary schools, and quite a few middle schools as well, right?"

"That's true. We need to build dozens of primary schools and at least a dozen middle schools."

Talking about this, Zhu Biao wanted to ask about the university.

Although he had learned many of these things from memorials, he always hoped to hear some new knowledge from Liu Kuan.

However, just as he opened his mouth, he heard a captain of the imperial army not far away shout, "It's foggy!"

Upon hearing this, Liu Kuan and Zhu Biao looked around and found that the bridge surface was suddenly covered with a layer of mist.

Then Liu Kuan took out his mobile phone and found that there was a signal. He immediately started surfing the Internet.

Just in case, Liu Kuan sent another message to his elder brother via WeChat, but unfortunately WeChat still showed that the message failed to be sent.

He had no choice but to give up and start browsing and downloading various information, videos, movies, songs and other resources on his mobile phone.

Meanwhile, Zhu Biao expertly opened his laptop and automatically connected to the network shared by Liu Kuan. He was about to access the same small website he'd used before to download a video, but a large box popped up in the lower right corner of the screen. It was filled with text and images, seemingly from a later era.

He took a look, but he couldn't stop looking.

"XXAI's capabilities have been further enhanced, attracting investment from all over the world. This has led to another wave of layoffs worldwide!"

"Over 100,000 people marched in Paris, demanding the government restrict the use of AI software and increase unemployment benefits. Violent clashes broke out between the marchers and Paris police on the Champs-Élysées, leaving over a thousand injured!"

"my country's lunar underground agricultural experimental base has achieved encouraging results. We are now growing staple crops like rice and wheat, as well as dozens of vegetables and fruits, entirely using lunar resources. We are expected to achieve food self-sufficiency at the lunar base within ten years!"

"Relevant departments in Bald Eagle have once again issued a wildfire prevention alert for California, and the devil wind is coming again. The California Governor said that California firefighters are well prepared this time and will never allow Los Angeles to experience a fire similar to the 2024 fire..."

Zhu Biao looked at the picture of the female California governor with her hands in her pockets, and always felt that the news was sarcastic, but he didn't understand why for a moment.

Zhu Biao subconsciously moved his cursor, wanting to continue reading the news, when he suddenly heard Liu Kuan remind him, "Your Highness, why are you reading this news? You don't have much time, so you should download some useful resources quickly."

"Oh, oh." Zhu Biao came back to his senses and couldn't help feeling a little ashamed.

He was so obsessed with reading news from later generations that he forgot about his business for a moment. It was really wrong.

But this news about later generations is really interesting, I wish I could read it at will.

After entering the homepage of the small broken website, Zhu Biao kept his mission in mind and stopped indulging in various videos. Instead, he downloaded videos one by one at a fairly fast speed.

"What is Japanese disaster relief really like? Efficient? Bureaucracy is rampant!"

Is it about disaster relief in Japan? Seems okay, downloaded it.

"When it comes to buying new clothes and eating out, officials should take the lead in spending."

Wow, this title is worth pondering, I downloaded it.

"It's 2031, and there are still people who think high bride prices are justified? When will men finally stand up?"

The title is a bit strange, I don't know what it is about, I'll download it and take a look...

In this way, Zhu Biao would download any video he was interested in and didn't feel the passage of time at all.

It seemed like only a short while had passed, and after downloading a dozen or so videos, the latest one I found got stuck and couldn't be played.

I checked the laptop's network signal and found it was indeed disconnected. I looked up and saw that the strange fog had indeed disappeared.

Liu Kuan, who was standing next to him, looked at the signal disappearing on his phone and sighed regretfully, saying, "This time the strange fog only seemed to last seven or eight minutes, even shorter than before."

"The intervals between the strange fog's arrivals are getting longer and longer, but its duration is getting shorter and shorter. Perhaps after a few years, the strange fog will completely disappear and never come back again."

Hearing this, Zhu Biao was also a little worried.

But then he thought it through - the Ming Dynasty had already gained so much from the strange fog. If he continued to expect the strange fog to exist forever, wouldn't that be like greed?
He then comforted Liu Kuan, "Even if the strange fog disappears after many years, our Ming Dynasty has changed enough and there won't be many regrets left."

Liu Kuan smiled broadly after hearing this and said, "Your Highness is right. It is my greed that has led me to do so."

Afterwards, the two men packed up and returned to the city with their entourage and guards.

As he walked along, Zhu Biao recalled some news stories he had read about the future and couldn't help but ask, "Brother-in-law, what is AI, or AI software? Why is it triggering a wave of global layoffs?"

As soon as Liu Kuan heard it, he knew that Zhu Biao must have seen the relevant news from later generations on his laptop.

He explained: "AI is the abbreviation of artificial intelligence, and AI software is software that uses artificial intelligence technology."

"Before I arrived at the Ming Dynasty, AI technology had already exploded, and was even called the Fourth Industrial Revolution."

Zhu Biao then asked, "Could you please tell me what the four industrial revolutions are?"

Liu Kuan smiled and said, "Since Your Highness has asked, how can I not answer? The First Industrial Revolution mainly refers to a series of industrial production changes brought about by steam engines, which can be called the Steam Age."

"The Second Industrial Revolution refers to a series of industrial production changes brought about by technologies such as the use of electricity and the internal combustion engine. It can be called the electrical age."

"The third industrial revolution is an industrial transformation led by computers and the Internet, generally referred to as the information age."

"As for the Fourth Industrial Revolution, it refers to industrial transformation based on technologies such as the Internet of Things and artificial intelligence. It is known as the intelligent era!"

After a pause, Liu Kuan continued, "The emergence of artificial intelligence will make production more intelligent, and factories will employ fewer workers. In addition, the emergence of various AI software will make office work easier and save manpower."

"Under such circumstances, many factories and companies no longer need so many workers, so naturally there will be a wave of layoffs."

Zhu Biao listened, puzzled, and said, "I saw in the news just now that Paris had a massive demonstration of over 100,000 people demanding that the government restrict the use of AI software."

"So, isn't the birth of AI detrimental to the people and to national stability? It's not a good thing."

　First update.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)