Chapter 830 - 830 Between the Ruler and his Subject
830 Between the Ruler and his Subject
In the study of the Royal Palace in the capital.
The Emperor was holding a book with a few pages in his hand. He said to Jiang Zhennan, ” my Dear Minister, the Hanlin Academy has already compiled the ‘dictionary’ that you spoke of. Come and take a look. Is it like this? ”
Jiang Zhennan took the book from the Emperor’s Hand and flipped through it. Then, he frowned slightly.
This was because this ” dictionary ” only contained some words and some simple pictograms. It was very different from the dictionary Lin yuelan had proposed.
Lin yuelan had once told him that 2000 years later, there would be a book called ‘dictionary’, which was an essential tool for men, women, old, and young to read and write. As long as one didn’t know the words, one would be able to look them up with the book.
However, this book only contained some characters. If one didn’t already recognize the Chinese characters, it was pointless. But if one already recognized the characters, why would they need this book?
Seeing Jiang Zhennan frowning, the Emperor asked with some doubt, ” Minister Jiang, what’s the matter? is there any problem with this dictionary? ”
However, Jiang Zhennan shook his head and said, ” Your Majesty, this dictionary is very different from the one that the expert had mentioned!”
When the Emperor heard this, he immediately asked curiously, ” Oh, then what does the ‘dictionary’ that your expert mentioned look like? ” Then, he thought of something that Jiang Zhennan had mentioned to him before and asked, ” Minister Jiang, I remember you’ve mentioned something called the letters system. Don’t tell me that the system really has such a great use?”
He was a wise ruler, and he would spare some attention to anything that was beneficial to the country and the people.
It was just that at that time, Jiang Zhennan had mentioned the system of letters to him, but in his opinion, people who used to read and write didn’t rely on the letters. So, he didn’t take it to heart and only ordered the people of the Hanlin Academy to collect all the Chinese characters.
The corners of Jiang Zhennan’s mouth twitched slightly. At that time, the Emperor had clearly taken this matter to heart. He did not expect that in the blink of an eye, he would think that the system was not of much use.
However, he was the Emperor after all, so Jiang Zhennan could not say anything.
He only said, ” Your Majesty, now everyone learns characters through word of mouth. After everyone has learned some characters, they can only recognize them by their shape and image. However, this way, those who want to study can’t afford the expensive tuition fees.”
The Emperor nodded and said, ” that’s right!” This was a common phenomenon in the world.
For a poor family to study, they had to use up all their financial, material, and human resources to produce a scholar.
Some people could find a good job with just the knowledge of a few words, such as a shopkeeper or an accountant.
However, the number of literate people in the entire country was still in the minority. There were countless cases of people being deceived and forced to sign contracts of selling themselves because they did not know how to read. This also led to a large loss in population.
The government could not conscript the men who were servants. However, the Army needed people, so they could only conscript the illiterate farmers.
In this way, when developing agriculture, there were no strong men to do farm work. This caused the rural areas to only have women, old, and young laborers. Without strong men, the agricultural harvest was greatly reduced.
In short, this series of reactions caused the country and people to become poor because they were illiterate.
As the ruler of a country, the Emperor naturally had to consider the people’s livelihood.
If everyone in the Longyan Kingdom could read and write, then why would his Kingdom worry about not being rich or strong?
Therefore, he had been too negligent before.
When Jiang Zhennan saw that the Emperor had really taken his words seriously this time, he immediately became very serious and said, ” that master once taught me 26 letters. She told me that all the words in the world can be pronounced with these twenty-six letters. As long as they are taught how to spell these twenty-six letters, it will be twice as easy for them to recognize characters.”
Hearing this, the emperor’s eyes lit up. “Minister Jiang, ” he said in surprise, ” are these 26 letters really that magical? ”
Jiang Zhennan nodded his head and said, ” Your Majesty, I have personally experienced the wonder of these twenty-six letters, so I dare not lie to Your Majesty.”
The Emperor immediately asked, ” then what exactly are these 26 letters? Minister Jiang, tell us immediately!”
Jiang Zhennan said, ” a, o, e…”
He repeated the twenty-six letters.