Nanyang 1931: From piglets to giants

Chapter 240: Mr. Jianxiong, and a Gamble

Zheng Yi actually didn't think that the hydrogen bomb formula he casually wrote down would really play a big role in the United States' hydrogen bomb research.

Historically, the United States only approved the development of hydrogen bombs in 1950, after the Soviet Union tested an atomic bomb, and began testing it in 1951.

The focus of this thing is not on theory at all. What Zheng Yi can provide is at most an idea, and the impact is actually very small.

He is just fooling around and can't make a shitty nuclear weapon.

If someone else tried to fool the United States in this way, it would be very easy to be exposed and it would be unlikely to succeed.

But Zheng Yi's words really fooled the United States.

The title of the world's number one applied science scientist is itself too intimidating. No normal person would dare to question whether Zheng Yi is a liar.

Even in the United States, the only people who can communicate with Zheng Yi on an equal footing are the senior politicians at the top. Those scientists all turned into mysterious brothers and sisters when chatting with Zheng Yi.

After all, Zheng Yi's achievements today have long exceeded the so-called upper limit of ordinary scientists, and the scientific community all over the world regards Zheng Yi as an idol.

The mystery brother and fangirls are just Zheng Yi's one-sided deception. Those scientists who participated in the Manhattan Project were actually impressed by Zheng Yi, an outsider, under his eloquent deception.

So, after more than two days of waiting, Marshal Mai had already responded, telling him that Zheng Yi could take away all the war criminals involved in nuclear weapons as he wished.

However, the Americans do not mention teaching, and they don’t care what he teaches. However, in terms of research, they require comprehensive supervision.

Yoshio Nishina, Hideki Yukawa, Shin'ichirō Tomonaga, even if these people are taken away, they will still temporarily retain the status of war criminals and we will see what happens in a few years.

They are allowed to conduct normal teaching, lecturing and research in Singapore, but they will be subject to certain personal restrictions, especially in terms of research. Any research by the entire team must be conducted under the supervision of the intelligence department sent by the United States. They will even send a deputy director who has participated in the Manhattan Project to work with them on the research and development and promotion of the project.

This is certainly a good thing for Zheng Yi. In the United States, even if you are an intern participating in the Manhattan Project, you are still very popular. The confidentiality of this project is so high that ordinary foreigners cannot get in touch with the people in the project at all.

Again: He knows nothing about nuclear physics.

The scientific community in the United States may feel that they are taking advantage of Zheng Yi and trying to steal his research results.

After all, Zheng Yi also proposed that after they developed the nuclear power plant, the results would be shared with the United States. In this era, the United States is still relatively shameless in doing things, and it actually plans to send people over to help with the research.

At the same time, it also served the purpose of surveillance. After all, they were still a little afraid that Zheng Yi was secretly developing an atomic bomb behind their backs.

Throughout the project, the University of Singapore will cooperate fully with Columbia University. The deputy director will bring a group of Columbia University students to join the Singapore Institute of Physics.

The project is a joint venture between the National University of Singapore and Columbia University, and there may be subsequent collaborations such as exchange students.

Just a few days later, when the deputy director arranged by the United States flew over to see him, he was a little confused.

But a few days later, when Marshal Mai personally introduced the person to him, he was still a little confused.

"Hello, Mr. Zheng, my name is Wu Jianxiong." The man extended his hand very generously to shake hands with him and also spoke in Chinese.

"Um... Mr. Kenxiong?"

"Mr. Zheng, do you know my name too?"

Zheng Yi: “…………”

But Zheng Yi was really frightened. Instinctively, he was a little restrained.

The visitor was none other than the Chinese scientist Chien-Shiung Wu, known as the Eastern Madame Curie, and generally referred to as Mr. Chien-Shiung.

Of course, Mr. Jianxiong was not considered a top physicist during this period, but he had some glory because he was fortunate enough to participate in the Manhattan Project.

Its scientific status was not truly established until 1957, when experiments proved Mr. Yang Zhenning's theory of parity non-conservation.

Although Zheng Yi is a chemist, he has always heard of the deeds of these super Chinese tycoons. There are only a few Chinese people who are top scientific leaders in the world.

Instinctively, I felt a little excited like a fan meeting his idol.

Of course, at this time and in this space, Wu Jianxiong hadn't even become an associate professor. After meeting Zheng Yi, she was so excited that her palms were sweating. She was so excited that she almost jumped up when she saw that Zheng Yi had actually heard of her name. She was really flattered.

In fact, after a little thought, Zheng Yi could almost understand what the Americans were thinking.

In their eyes, assigning Zheng Yi the position of deputy director was clearly to reap the rewards, and it also carried a bit of surveillance, so Zheng Yi would definitely feel a little unhappy.

It just so happened that among the scientists participating in the Manhattan Project was a Chinese woman named Chien-Shiung Wu.

They are all compatriots, and Wu Jianxiong is still a young girl. She is only 34 years old this year, even younger than Zheng Yi's physical age. Zheng Yi is proud of his status and will probably not make things difficult for her. She is in Nanyang, so she will probably get along better with the powerful people in the Southern Asia Alliance.

Moreover, in the eyes of Americans, the girl was just lucky. She had the opportunity to join the Manhattan Project just a few years after graduating with a doctorate. Although she was definitely a first-class scientist, she was indeed far from being the top one. So they didn't feel bad about sending her to Zheng Yi and others.

Maybe there is still some idea of ​​favoring boys over girls.

"Mr. Zheng, are you satisfied with Ms. Wu?" asked Marshal Mai.

"Satisfied, satisfied, I am very satisfied."

The next principal has been chosen.

On that day, Zheng Yi took Mr. Jianxiong to meet Hantaro Nagaoka and the Director of Education Wang Zhaosong, who had just arrived from Southeast Asia the day before, and introduced them to each other. He also invited scholars in Japan that Zheng Yi admired, as well as some officials from the Ministry of Education here, to have a meal together.

During this period, Zheng Yi had almost taken over all the universities in Japan. He took the teachers and students from eight universities on board. Even in the fields of high school and basic education, Zheng Yi wanted all the outstanding teachers.

Zheng Yi bribed officials from the Japanese Ministry of Education to help recommend outstanding high school and middle school teachers across Japan, including teachers from well-known middle schools such as Fukuoka Prefecture Tochiku Junior High School and Tokyo Daiichi Junior High School, and even middle school students were recruited.

Japan's strongest point lies in its basic education, with a 0% illiteracy rate, a remarkable achievement even compared to European and American countries. Zheng Yi has already established a collaboration with Japan's Ministry of Education, which will see Nanyang universities collaborate with the Japanese Ministry of Education. Simply put, Nanyang universities, particularly the University of Singapore and the University of Penang, will continue to recruit students from Japanese secondary schools on a large scale.

The Chinese schools in Nanyang will also undergo a large-scale educational reform, adopting a dual-track model. A very important part of this is to have all the private schools and primary schools run by the chambers of commerce go to school to learn the Japanese education system and strive to fully align with Japanese education. Except for Chinese language, which will temporarily still use the original Four Books and Five Classics, all other textbooks will be translated into Chinese using Japanese textbooks.

After all, we are all East Asians. China's modern basic education has borrowed a lot from Japan's basic education system. It is all based on the 6-3-3-4 system and nine years of compulsory education. Even the subjects and content of basic education are similar and basically the same.

Zheng Yi himself had learned this in his previous life, so objectively speaking, he didn't think there was anything wrong with it. Although it placed too much emphasis on the basics, this kind of universal education was more suitable for late-developing industrial countries to catch up, and it could cultivate qualified industrial population at the fastest speed.

Traditional elite education, that is, British-style education, is still retained. Singapore's Raffles Secondary School and Penang International Secondary School continue to follow the original teaching methods, and even send people to spend a lot of money to go to Europe to recruit British, French and even German teachers to teach, and still adopt the 6+5+2 model.

To put it bluntly, Japanese-style education is for ordinary people. On the whole, it is similar to the exam-oriented education that Chinese people are familiar with in later generations. It gives children a chance to succeed. Those who are not suitable for studying after completing the nine-year compulsory education of 6+3 can go to work. A small number may go to vocational schools or the like.

There is no need for the Southern Alliance to popularize high schools at present, let alone universities. High schools are still something that only highly talented people can attend, and universities are full of the best of the best. Moreover, he has no plans to expand enrollment in the future.

British education is aristocratic education. To put it bluntly, it is prepared for children from wealthy families. They need letters of recommendation for admission. After completing the course, those who perform well can go to Cambridge or Oxford in the UK. Of course, those who want to stay in Nanyang to study at university are also welcome. Really good students actually all end up in the same destination.

Those who are not good at studying can at least go to the University of Malaya to get a university diploma. The lower limit is indeed much higher than that of Japanese education.

To be honest, Zheng Yi didn't know whether what he did was right or wrong. The entire education system was filled with too many Japanese, not only teachers but also students.

In particular, he raised the standards of the University of Singapore and the University of Penang so high in one breath. Even if he was biased and the examination papers were divided, the students in the school would still give priority to Ri Enren.

Even if these Japanese people renounce their Japanese citizenship and learn Chinese according to regulations, nationality cannot change what is in their bones.

Wang Zhaosong suggested to Zheng Yi that they could consider limiting the number of undergraduate admission cards to at least half and half. Since more than half of the students are Japanese, it would be easy for them to usurp the throne and become too powerful to be removed.

If we go to so much trouble to bring the teaching staff of these eight Japanese universities to Southeast Asia, but in the end all the students are Japanese, wouldn't that be a waste of time?

Japan is indeed in a miserable situation now, but what if in a few years, Japan has overcome its worst time and returned to normal, and all the Japanese students who came to Southeast Asia to study return home?
Even if I renounce my Japanese citizenship, what if I end up not being on the same page with the Chinese in Southeast Asia?
After all, although the two nations do have many similarities in cultural customs, the blood feud between them is also real.

However, after careful consideration, Zheng Yi still felt that this could not be done.

It is true that the overall quality of Chinese students is much weaker than that of Japanese students at this time, but at least in Southeast Asia, the base of Chinese is large enough, and the educational resources that the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation has provided to the Chinese in Southeast Asia are at least hundreds of times greater than those in mainland Japan, where students cannot even get enough food.

Let Chinese students work hard to catch up.

Because there are too many Japanese teachers, Chinese students are forced to work hard to take the normal school entrance exam. Zheng Yi had already allocated a large amount of funds to support normal schools before the Anti-Japanese War. If you don't have enough skills, just work hard to learn them. Using rules to restrict others, apart from making others look down on you and creating deep-seated conflicts, there are actually not many real positive benefits.

He had seen similar things in his previous life, the most typical example being Hong Kong Island.

In fact, most universities in Hong Kong Island have a similar situation to that in Nanyang at this time. The top students who dare to come to the local area have gone abroad, and those who can stay in the local area to attend university are at best second-rate, and in fact, the best they can do is to go to the second-tier universities in the mainland.

There was a time when all the students who could go to Hong Kong to study were at the level of Peking University and Tsinghua University.

For the sake of so-called educational fairness, students from Peking University and Tsinghua University are allowed to attend classes with students from second-tier universities. The end result will definitely be that no one is happy.

Students from Peking University and Tsinghua University will doubt their lives: Why the hell should I be classmates with such people?

Second-rate students from Hong Kong Island will also be unhappy: Why the hell should I compete with such people?

Forcing mismatched students into the same school will inevitably result in unsatisfactory outcomes for both parties. If the teacher lectures too deeply and too quickly, local students will not be able to keep up; if the teacher lectures too slowly and too superficially, mainland students will not be able to handle it.

Most of the time, teachers will accommodate mainland students. As long as they are not too mediocre, they will definitely like good students more.

When leading a project, mainland students will definitely be brought along. Even if local students are brought along under government mandatory requirements, at most you will be asked to serve tea and water and help out. Not to mention participating in the project, you may not even be able to understand what they are saying.

Needless to say, after graduation, employers will definitely give priority to mainland students, and the salaries of mainland students are generally at least two to three times higher than those of Hong Kong students from the same school.

This is between compatriots.

If this happened between the Japanese and the Chinese, wouldn't it be a huge threat to social development?
The gap caused by ability cannot be narrowed by any administrative means. Forcible narrowing will only sow the seeds of social injustice.

Of course, since Zheng Yi has chosen to do this, it is actually tantamount to taking a big gamble.

If in the next few years, ten years, or even twenty years, Chinese students fail to catch up and become the majority, or at least half, of the students in the two universities founded by Nanyang Chinese.

Then the future SAARC will very likely be at risk of being usurped by the Japanese, and the risk will be very high.

Because there is no doubt that the students graduating from these two universities must be the elites of SAARC society.

SAARC itself is still an elite society and does not play with votes, because Zheng Yi knows very well that they will never be able to beat the Malays and Indians in playing with votes. It is a game of whoever can give birth will be the most powerful, and it is a game of anti-industrialization.

What Zheng Yi is betting on is that within ten years at most, the Southern Association for Regional Cooperation will allocate more resources to Zheng Yi and he will poach outstanding teachers from Japan.

Their Chinese children can quickly catch up with the huge gap between them and the Japanese students, and even surpass them.

Japan is already in such a bad state and has no money. The little foundation it has has allowed it to dig into Southeast Asia. How can it still lose?

Anyway, he just felt that the Chinese would definitely win.

Win fairly.

　Kevin, there are only 4,000 left today. Does anyone think I'm too nice to the Japanese?

　　But I have a very bad impression of Japan.

　　The elites have all been poached.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)