The Ming Dynasty did not revolutionize

Chapter 382 "Knowledge is priceless"

Persian King Fateh, holding a glass of iced grape juice in his hand, stood in front of an air conditioner, stretching his hand towards the wind for a long time.

I ran to the window more than once and looked at the indoor and outdoor units through the window several times.

More than once, after drinking grape juice, he followed the Persian servant in the room to the refrigerator and reached out to check the temperature inside.

The Persian king could never understand how it all worked:
"How on earth is this done? How can two boxes and a few fans turn summer into autumn and autumn into winter?
“It’s not just the coolness of a fan blowing air, but it really makes the whole room cooler.

“If you put it in a small box like this, it can even freeze directly.

“It’s incredible.”

Ma Weiguo next to him said with a smile:
“These were all made by His Majesty and his craftsmen. The principles behind them are quite complicated and cannot be understood by non-professional craftsmen.

“I don’t really understand it, but it’s taught in the schools of Daming.

"The schools under the Academy of Sciences will teach the working principles of these machines, that is, why they have such effects and how to design machines to utilize such effects.

“The schools under the engineering academy will teach students how to produce, manufacture and repair such machines.

"If Your Majesty is really interested, you can go to the Academy of Sciences to attend classes after you arrive in Ming Dynasty."

Fatah was stunned for a moment:
"This...Shouldn't this technology be confidential? Can anyone learn it?"

Ma Weiguo waved his hand directly:
“It’s certainly no secret how the cars and boats we travel on work and how they’re made.

“It’s no secret how to use oil to make something like this.

“Even if you don’t go to school, you can actually buy books with relevant introductions in bookstores on the market.

“For the Ming court, we hope that all the people can understand these things.

“That makes the school’s job easier.”

Fatah is still a little incredulous:
"What you said is for the people of the Ming Dynasty, right? Can we Persians... ordinary people from Persia and foreign countries also go to the schools of the Ming Dynasty to study?"

Ma Weiguo continued to explain:
“Ordinary foreign citizens are not allowed to go, but citizens from vassal states of the Ming Dynasty can go to the Ming Dynasty to study after being reviewed and approved by their respective vassal states.

"If you are a Persian citizen, you can go and study in the future with your permission, the king.

"Of course, after they arrive in Ming, they must abide by Ming laws. Otherwise, they will be punished according to the law and then sent back to Persia.

“They can pay for their own studies, or the fees can be provided by the court of a vassal state, or by a cooperating manufacturer.

“That is to say, Your Majesty, you can use your own money to select a group of smart Persian children and send them to study in the schools of the Ming Dynasty. After they have completed their studies, they can return to serve you.

“Factories and businesses in the Ming Dynasty and its vassal states require craftsmen with specific skills and managers with specific cultural levels.

“We can also cooperate with specific schools and use our own money to support some students to learn specific knowledge.

“After graduation, these students will work in corresponding factories and businesses.

"Ordinary students can also go to school at their own expense simply to gain knowledge."

After listening to these introductions, Fatah was surprised and his mentality changed.

Originally, Fatah had really been considering arranging a way to arrange for people to go to Ming Dynasty’s schools to learn how Ming Dynasty developed these things.

Especially learning how to mine kerosene on a large scale and how to make those magical things with kerosene.

If the Ming Dynasty does not allow it, he should spend money to hire people in the Ming Dynasty, and hire graduated Ming students to go to Persia to help him develop these industries.

But after Ma Weiguo said that everyone could go, and Fan State could legally and openly arrange for students to go, Fatah was not so enthusiastic now.
Fatah was even a little disappointed.

He had discovered unspeakable secrets, so he instinctively wanted to figure out these secrets. There must be huge benefits hidden in these secrets.

But now the secret has become public knowledge, knowledge that can be understood and learned at any time.

There are many people in the Ming Dynasty who have mastered this knowledge, and they can probably be hired directly without paying any price, so of course there is no need to go through the trouble of finding them.

Fatah asked Ma Weiguo with some confusion and entanglement:
"Sir, why did His Majesty do this? How can such precious and priceless knowledge be disseminated directly to the public?
"Or... the cost of learning this knowledge... is actually very expensive?"

Ma Weiguo was delighted when he heard this question:

“The Lord said that knowledge is priceless.

“The techniques and knowledge created by His Majesty and the great craftsmen are indeed priceless secret manuals, as stated before.

“The things we live and use now are all creations of this knowledge.

“But His Majesty also said that priceless also means that they have no price, which means that knowledge can be provided for free if the conditions are met.

“So, although the schools in the Ming Dynasty charged tuition, what they charged was not the price of the knowledge itself, but the cost spent in the process of imparting knowledge.

“For example, for a book, we only charge for the editing, binding, printing and transportation of the book, but not the content of the book.

"Now, in all prefectures and counties in the Ming Dynasty, as well as in all towns and villages in prefectures and counties that have established subordinate towns, there are primary schools funded by the court.

“Primary school tuition is twenty to thirty gold notes per year.

"The monthly income of workers in Ming Dynasty's government-run factories started at 20 gold notes, and the monthly income of ordinary workers in private factories has increased to 15 gold notes.

"One month's wages can support a child's one year of schooling, and an ordinary worker can support two to three children.

“The tuition for middle school is between fifty and one hundred gold notes per year, depending on the content of study, and the tuition for university is between one hundred and five hundred gold notes.

“For ordinary families at the bottom, secondary and university tuition fees are relatively expensive.

“So the court encouraged local government offices, government-run manufacturers, and private manufacturers to cooperate with schools and provide students with funding agreements or interest-free loans.

"We support students to continue their studies by using work-year agreements or by using their post-graduation wages to offset tuition fees in installments.

"The income of high school graduates is at least 30 gold notes per month. College graduates have the opportunity to work directly in government offices, and those working in factories can earn 50 gold notes per month.

"They can pay back all their debts within three to five years after graduation, so there is actually no pressure.

“Oh, yes, it cannot be said that there is no pressure, because the more complex the knowledge, the more difficult it is to understand and master, so students need to learn from the simplest to the most complex.

“You have to pass the final and entrance exams before you can enter higher education.

“If your test scores aren’t good enough and your brain isn’t smart enough, you won’t be able to get into a higher-level school even if you want to.

“On the other hand, for students with particularly good test scores, local government offices at all levels in the Ming Dynasty and the central court will provide an additional scholarship.

“Students with the best grades can be given priority to work in government offices.

"Recently, there seems to be a new imperial decree that the tuition fees and textbook material expenses required for schooling for the top ten students in each county's unified examination will be fully subsidized by the local government.

“However, students who have received this subsidy must return to the place where they received the subsidy and work for a period of time after graduation.

"The length of time you work is calculated based on the specific time you receive the benefit. If you receive the benefit for one year, you must work for at least one year. If you receive the benefit for ten years, you must go back to work for ten years.

"Of course, if students want to work outside the province, the subsidy quota can be given to students with lower rankings." The feudal states can choose whether to do so.

“Also, all children in all military farms and garrisons can go to school for free.

“All children must complete primary school, and those with excellent grades can continue to complete secondary school or even university for free.

“All the royal family members of the Ming Dynasty are funded by the royal consortium and are forced to go to school and at least finish middle school.

“After graduation, depending on your grades, you can work for the royal consortium.

"According to the Ministry of Clan Affairs, this model is called compulsory education by the emperor. It is currently being tested within the royal family, and they will consider whether to implement it on civilians in the future."

Zhu Jianxuan currently only implements compulsory education among clan members and guard posts.

There was no compulsory or free education for all the people in the Ming Dynasty, but education was not used as a tool for profit either.

The vast majority of public schools are barely able to break even and have almost no profit surplus. They occasionally need subsidies from the government, but not much.

Zhu Jianxuan’s evaluation standard for the education system is that the best outcome is to spend as much as you earn.

Compared with the compulsory education in the 21st century in Zhu Jianxuan's previous life, the current Ming Dynasty's investment in education is of course far behind.

But compared with previous dynasties and other countries at that time, they were all very outstanding.

At the very least, all civilians can afford to go to primary school.

According to ancient standards, this kind of elementary school student is already a learned person.

As Fatah listened, his eyes gradually widened. He felt that all this was very unbelievable.

Fateh knew that going to school in Ming Dynasty was not particularly difficult.

I also confirmed that the magical technologies and knowledge I had previously learned were truly completely public.

The Ming Dynasty did not really regard those technologies as secrets or conditions, but was really willing to allow everyone to understand and master them simply.

But what shocked Fatah the most was not these:

"No...Mr. Ma, what did you just say?
"The wages of ordinary workers in the Ming Dynasty are about 10 to 20 gold notes per month. Is this equivalent to 20 or even 30 silver dollars?"

"The people of the Ming Dynasty are too rich!
"The Ming Dynasty has 500 to 600 million people, so if you count the workers who can work, there should be 200 million, right?
"Each person gets 20 to 30 silver dollars a month, so that means we can receive 3 to 4 billion silver dollars in wages every month?

“How much tax do they have to pay?

"If we pay taxes at a rate of one-tenth, that would be four to five billion per year?
"The point is, from what you said, Mr. Ma, it seems that the Ming Dynasty court, factories, and businesses are all particularly short of craftsmen and managers?

“We have to actively spend money to cooperate with the school to train students in batches?
“Why do government offices and military garrisons at all levels spend money to set up schools, and even force some people to study?

"Aren't there 500 million or 600 million people in the Ming Dynasty? If the court, government offices, factories, and businesses need any kind of people, can't they just recruit them directly?"

After hearing this series of words, Ma Weiguo didn't even know where to start.

Ma Weiguo didn't even expect that after Fatah listened to his introduction, his mind would directly turn to this angle.

Fatah's pettiness and rusticity were fully exposed in this passage.

The Ming Dynasty's fiscal revenue was far more than what he calculated, and it was not collected in the way of Fatah.

What Fatah was talking about was a fixed poll tax, which usually exists when there are few people and a lot of land, the social value of people as labor is extremely high, and the relative value of land is extremely low.

At the same time, the overall level of social productivity is extremely low, ordinary people do not own any valuable assets, and naturally there is not much gap between the rich and the poor.

In most places outside Shenzhou, during most of the time in ancient times, there were always few people and more land.

During the middle of the Northern Song Dynasty and the middle of the Ming Dynasty, the population of Shenzhou grew to the point where terraced fields needed to be opened for cultivation.

That is to say, as the population increased and the land became scarce, the head tax naturally began to shift gradually to land tax.

Zhang Juzheng's reforms in the middle and late Ming Dynasty, the land-based tax system in the Qing Dynasty, and the policy of never increasing taxes on increasing population in prosperous times are all manifestations of this transformation.

The Ming Dynasty is now gradually entering the industrial age. The taxes that the Ming court directly collects from ordinary people are mainly income tax, consumption tax, and land tax.

Land tax is targeted at rural areas. The more land you own, the more you pay.

Income tax and consumption tax apply to everyone. The more income and consumption an ordinary person earns, the more they pay.

In this case, the figure of twenty gold notes is only the lower end of the income of the people of the Ming Dynasty; the median and average are much higher.

Even the taxes collected directly from the people are far higher than Fatah's rough estimate.

What's more, the main source of tax revenue for the Ming Dynasty was business tax, which was levied directly on factories and businesses.

Ma Weiguo found it difficult to explain these things to Fatah.

What I said might cause him to have new misunderstandings, so it’s better to just skip over the matter.

Just to answer his subsequent doubts:
"Your Majesty is right. The Ming Dynasty is really short of people everywhere. The court, government offices, factories, and businesses are all short of people.

"Don't you know that among the more than 200 prefectures in the Ming Dynasty, which prefecture doesn't have dozens or even hundreds of factories?

"In the nearly 2,000 states and counties in China, which city doesn't have a few factories and a bunch of businesses outside?
"A factory or a business, no matter how small it is, must at least have an accounting office, right? Even if the owner manages the accounts himself, he still has to learn it, right?

"Every factory must have at least a few master craftsmen, right? Where do these people come from?
"These places need people. The Ming Dynasty requires hundreds of thousands or even millions of craftsmen and managers.

"This is just the situation in the mainland. If we include the border provinces and overseas provinces of Ming Dynasty, there are too many places that need people.

"That's why the imperial court had to use all sorts of methods to actively train them.

“It is really not possible to recruit craftsmen directly from the public at present, and there are not enough self-taught students from the public.

“Not only is the quantity insufficient, the quality is also insufficient.

“According to the current imperial court standards, the students taught in the private schools in the past could only be considered literate, at best at the level of elementary school students.

"When you get to government offices and factories, you have to learn more."

Fatah was stunned again after hearing this. With so many factories and businesses in so many cities in the Ming Dynasty, how much tax did the Ming Dynasty collect every year?
This is probably more than the people's head tax. No wonder the Ming emperor and the court are so rich.

But I still can’t figure out, with so many factories and businesses in the Ming Dynasty, to whom do they sell the products they manufacture and sell?

Ordinary people of the Ming Dynasty?
It seems...it is indeed possible. The people of Ming Dynasty can buy a lot of good things with thirty silver dollars a month.

Fatah was equally surprised at the lack of talent in the Ming Dynasty.

At the same time, there was a somewhat puzzled question:

"If the private schools in the Ming Dynasty cannot meet the needs of the current court, factories, and businesses, then is there no one trying to change it?
“Even if there are no suitable people now, and if the court, factories, or businesses really need it, the people will learn it themselves, right?
"They already have a monthly salary of 20 gold notes, which is enough for them to take the initiative to learn more skills and knowledge."

(End of this chapter)