1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 180 Map
Li He asked in confusion: "Mr. Ning, what is a primary school?"

Ning Qi explained: "This elementary school is the same as Mengxue. It mainly teaches children to read. Of course, in addition to reading, we will also teach them some other knowledge, such as simple mathematics, nature, common sense, etc. "

Li Nai nodded again and again. Although he himself is a beneficiary of the imperial examination system, he is not a nerd who dies at school. The business he runs and his young age has a lot of experience in traveling abroad, so he is very clear about mathematics, common sense, etc. The importance of knowledge in life.And these things are often rarely taught by teachers in the elementary school of Ming Dynasty, because in the eyes of scholars, these are not the orthodoxy of cultural learning-of course, it is not ruled out that many teachers themselves have never learned relevant knowledge.

The militiamen on duty at the gate immediately gave a military salute when they saw Ning Qi coming, which reminded Li Nai of the scene when he visited the militia garrison in Shengli Port on the first day.The frequency and density of Haihan people's use of militia soldiers is obviously very different from that of Ming Dynasty. In Li Nai's view, these militia soldiers are almost professional soldiers like the army. Even when they are not training, they are still on duty. Is the setting of the standing army.

After entering the academy, the first thing Li Nai saw was a flat playground. Although it was not as big as the playground seen in the militia barracks, the setting was exactly the same.The whole playground was leveled with loess, and a few elliptical circles were drawn with lime on the outside. Li Nai had heard Tao Donglai introduce it when he visited the recruit camp. This circle was used for training running. Unexpectedly, there were such circles in elementary school. facilities.

There are several rows of wooden houses around the playground, from which the sound of students reciting neatly comes from.Ning Qi took Li He and the two to the classroom, and introduced as he walked: "Our elementary school is divided into two stages, two-year elementary school, and two-year high school. This is the junior elementary school, and it should be learning characters now class."

The first thing Li Nai noticed was that the classrooms here are all windows inlaid with glass, and looking in from the windows, you can see that there are also skylights made of glass on the ceiling.It seems that in order to have good lighting conditions indoors, the people of Haihan really paid a lot of money.

There are more than 30 children in the classroom, each with a table and a chair. Although the wooden tables and chairs that have only been painted with a layer of varnish look somewhat clumsy, the uniform shape reflects the Haihan people’s consistent attention to detail. rule.

There was a blackboard hanging in front of the classroom. Li Nai saw a man from Haihan pointing at the content on it and teaching the students to read word by word. The content he was teaching the students made Li Nai feel very kind. The "Thousand Characters" is often used.

"Thousand Characters" was compiled by Zhou Xingsi in the Southern Dynasties. It is said to be an article composed of a thousand different characters developed from Wang Xizhi's works.This article is well-conceived and is most suitable for memorization by schoolchildren at the literacy stage. Even in the 21st century, hundreds of years later, "Thousand Characters" has been reprinted and published repeatedly, with a very long cultural heritage.

However, there was one thing that made Li Nai very concerned. On the top of the thousand-character text on the blackboard, there was a symbol with twists and turns, which seemed to be some kind of mark, but Li Nai couldn't understand it at all.

Li Nai looked at it for a while, and couldn't help being curious, so he lightly touched Ning Qi's arm, signaling that he had something to say.After the three of them left the classroom window for a certain distance, Li Nai asked, "Look at the strange symbol on the top of the thousand-character script. I don't know why?"

Ning Qi explained: "That kind of symbol is called pinyin, and it's for these students to develop a unified pronunciation habit from the very beginning."

Li Nai frowned and said, "Uniform pronunciation habits? What's the use of that?"

Ning Qi smiled, the consciousness of the ancients in Xindao was indeed far behind, and patiently continued to explain to Li Nai: "China has a vast territory, and the accents of different places are very different. For example, in Qiongzhou Island, there are several dialects. , Even people who are born and raised here may not be able to understand, so there will be a lot of inconvenience in communication. If children can develop the same pronunciation habits from the beginning of enlightenment education, then no matter whether it is study or life in the future It is much more convenient. The real unification of language and writing is also of great benefit to the country, do you think this is the reason?"

Li Nai suddenly said: "So that's the case. Using this northern accent as the standard, it must be the Haihan tradition?"

Li Nai himself speaks Cantonese mandarin, so it is not troublesome to communicate with the people who speak Mandarin.After getting along these few days, he could of course hear that most of these Haihan people had a certain northern accent, so he had such a guess.

Ning Qi nodded and said: "That's right, in our country, this kind of accent is the standard official language, and everyone has to learn it."

"Very good, very good. When these dolls grow up, they can save a lot of worry when they go to the north to take the exam." He Qiang also twirled his beard and praised.

Ning Qi smiled and said nothing. The educational institutions of the Traveling Group are not cultivating talents for the Ming Dynasty. In the future, the graduates who go out here will never take the imperial examinations of the Ming Dynasty. He Qiang's comfort may be in vain. up.

However, what Li Nai said next surprised Ning Qi: "A few years ago, I saw a book called "The Miracle of Western Characters" written by a Western missionary. , very similar to the pinyin symbols used by you."

Ning Qi has also heard a little about the book Li Nai mentioned. The author of "The Miracle of Western Characters" is the famous Italian missionary Matteo Ricci. This book was published in Beijing about 20 years ago. Chinese character articles with phonetic notation.Of course, the Latin alphabet phonetic method used by Matteo Ricci is completely different from the Chinese Pinyin, only because the letters look similar.However, Li Nai has even read this kind of book, which is indeed beyond Ning Qi's expectation.

Historically, after Matteo Ricci and before the traveler came to this world, the French missionary Ginny Ge once published a book similar to "The Miracle of Western Characters" in Hangzhou. The phonetic notation scheme in this book is a more scientific modification based on Matteo Ricci's scheme, and it is completely designed according to the Beijing accent, which has many similarities with the Chinese pinyin of later generations.

The Chinese Pinyin scheme used by Time Travel Group has undergone hundreds of years of precipitation and continuous revision in modern times. With rich practical experience as a reference, it is not difficult to promote it in enlightenment education.Moreover, when the local residents found that their children had started to learn the accent of the Haihan chiefs in a short period of time, most of them were overjoyed, and the doubts they had about the Mengxue Academy run by the Haihan people disappeared. up.

Then Ning Qi took them to another classroom, this class was in high school, and the teaching content was not as simple as pinyin and literacy.Hanging on the blackboard is a large map of the world, which is one of the materials brought by the time travel group from later generations.The teacher is pointing to a point on the map with a pointer and explaining to the students: "This is the Port of Victory where we are now. From a global perspective, this is just a point the size of a pinhead..."

Li Nai was really shocked this time, grabbed Ning Qi's arm and said, "Mr. Ning, this... this is..."

"This is a map of the whole world, including Daming." Ning Qi replied calmly: "We'll go in and have a look after they finish class."

"Okay, okay!" Li Nai realized that he had lost his composure, and quickly let go of the hand that was holding Ning Qi.

The three of them waited outside the classroom for a while, and finally waited for the bell to ring for the end of get out of class.The children swarmed out of the classrooms and ran on the playground.Impatiently, Li Nai followed Ning Qi into the classroom, and Ning Qi greeted the colleague who was about to pack up the map: "Put it up first, our guests want to see this map."

Li Nai walked quickly to the map, and saw that this map was different from all the maps he had seen before. It was printed very beautifully, and various place names were densely marked on it in small characters the size of mung beans.Li Nai is somewhat knowledgeable. It didn't take long to find the location of "Guangzhou" on it, but there was no text mark--in fact, Li Nai was able to find out the Yangtze River and Yellow River marks in this area. Determine the coastline of Daming, and finally find the Pearl River Estuary in the south.

Li Nai looked at it for a while and then asked a question: "Mr. Ning, why are there many place names on this map that are different from what I know?"

Ning Qi had already prepared for this: "This is what we Haihan call it. Mr. Li doesn't need to pay too much attention to such details."

"But it clearly says the People's Republic of China, not my Ming Dynasty... and there are two other characters in just seven characters..." Li Nai was so angry that he couldn't even speak smoothly.

Of course, there will be no other characters on the map, they are just simplified characters of later generations.However, facing Li Nai who felt deeply "humiliated", Ning Qi could only explain it as an omission in the map making process.In order to make up for this mistake, Ning Qi found a pencil and outlined on the map the approximate location of the territory in the late Ming Dynasty.

Although Li Nai is a literati of the Ming Dynasty, this is the first time he has seen the size of the territory of the Ming Dynasty and which areas it covers intuitively from the map.What worried Li Nai the most was that a large area in the Northeast was under the oppression of the Tatars, and only a thin passage like a gossamer in the Liaoxi Corridor was connected to Shuntian Prefecture where the capital was located.

"If this channel is cut off, wouldn't the great rivers and mountains outside the pass be lost?" Although Li Nai knew nothing about marching and fighting, he could still understand such an intuitive situation map.Over the years, the imperial court has fought many battles with the Tatars and Jurchens in the north. Although they have won and lost each other, it seems that they have not been able to eliminate the momentum of the northern captives' invasion of the south.

(End of this chapter)