Although it was not the first time Qi Lin came to this Shanghai Palace, in the past, when her father was the head of the business district, he worked here, and she had been here many times, but later Qi Xuanhao was transferred to the prefect of Songjiang, and now she is a Taoist of Su Song, and she has never been here.

However, today's palace is not the same as in the past, there are a large number of people walking around inside and outside the palace, walking into the hall on the first floor, you can see that the ceiling on the roof has been replaced, and some other decorations have also been mostly changed, without the solemnity of the previous official yamen, but it is full of royal luxury.

As soon as Qi Lin entered the hall, she saw several other sisters who also followed her father and brother to the banquet, and after whispering to her father, she just walked over, but these women just gathered together to talk.

These women are different from the men in the hall, most of the men's conversations are military affairs, Qi Xuanyun is talking about some economic affairs with a few colleagues, while a few girls on Qi Lin's side are talking about some gossip and trivial things.

"I heard that the one in your family has come back from Japan, whether to go back to Beijing to work in the department or to Shanghai!" A woman in a Western-style dress walked over and said to another girl who was also eighteen or nineteen years old.

The girl heard others talk about her fiancé, although there was a hint of shyness on her face, but it was common for women to get together to talk about their fiancés and husbands, so she immediately said: "I don't know very well, but listen to my father, he should be transferred to Shanghai!" ”

Her fiancé, a diplomat who had previously served in the Imperial Embassy in Japan, had been repatriated. There are three places of service for diplomats in China, one of which is to work directly in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Beijing. In addition, the Shanghai office and Guangzhou office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs belong to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Because Shanghai and Guangzhou were the most important windows of the empire's foreign exchanges. There are a large number of foreigners in Shanghai, including many foreign diplomats.

Although Britain and France and other countries generally set up legations in Nanjing, they also have consulates in Shanghai, and some countries have not set up legations in Imperial Beijing, that is, Nanjing, but only have a consulate in Shanghai, or there is no consulate at all, only a simple office, or simply no office organization. There is only one envoy, or let those businessmen who come to China act as their agents.

Thus, although Nanjing was the political center of the Chinese Empire, the diplomatic center was not in Nanjing, but in Shanghai.

Due to the fact that there are many foreign affairs in Shanghai and Guangzhou, in order to deal with the foreign affairs of other countries, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has set up offices in Shanghai and Guangzhou, and has stationed important diplomatic officials for a long time, such as the current director of the Shanghai Office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who is the current co-director of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Zuo Congdian.

This asked about the girl's fiancé. These women naturally talked about their fathers, brothers, or husbands, and unmarried people.

After saying something for a while, the girl just now suddenly raised her head and asked Qi Lin: "I heard that someone from the Li family in Suzhou went to your house a few days ago?" ”

Qi Lin, who had been listening to what others had been saying, heard others turn the topic to herself, and immediately her face couldn't help but show a slight embarrassment. The Li family in Suzhou came to propose, how did they know.

However, the girl's family is very concerned about this kind of thing, and immediately justified: "What is the matter! ”

When I thought of the second son of the Li family in Suzhou, he was hollowed out by wine. and pretended to hold a folding fan as a merry and talented person's obscene appearance, she couldn't help but show a trace of disgust.

Don't talk about herself. Even after his father saw the second son of the Li family, he directly rejected his proposal.

However, although Qi Xuanyun refused the marriage of the Li family in Suzhou. But it doesn't mean that he will always let Qi Lin go on like this.

You must know that his precious woman is nineteen years old this year, and she is a veritable old girl in this era, although Qi Xuanyun is a businessman-born new-school official, some practices and ideas are relatively open, and he also allows and supports his two daughters in the new new girls' school, and often takes these two daughters out, last year he and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs went to several colonial cities in Nanyang, such as Singapore, to investigate, they brought these two daughters.

He also knew that his daughter didn't like any so-called scholarly talents, thinking that since his daughter liked to play freely, he would let her be.

But as time passes, they are now nineteen years old, and they will be twenty next year, which is not very good if they haven't married yet, and it will not be easy to marry if it drags on for a long time.

In later generations, only a thirty-year-old woman can be called a leftover woman, but in this era, twenty years old is a leftover woman, and this age still means that these new types of establishments in Shanghai are, if it is in a rural area, if the sixteen-year-old has not yet decided on a marriage, then it is an old girl.

Today's women, in some more open urban families, girls generally set a marriage before the age of sixteen, and when to get married in the future, usually sixteen or seventeen years old, not more than eighteen years old, but if you encounter these things to keep filial piety, it will often drag on to about twenty years old.

As for in rural areas, it is even earlier, and often fifteen or sixteen-year-old girls are already carrying a child and are still carrying a child.

Qi Lin herself thinks it's okay, the key is that the family is a little anxious now!

However, Qi Lin is different from ordinary women today, although the empire has been established for many years, and has carried out almost earth-shaking reforms in all aspects such as industry, commerce, education, etc., after all, the large-scale reform time is only five or six years, and large-scale changes are generally limited to large cities, especially along the coast and along the river, where commercial and trade activities are more active.

In the vast inland cities and rural areas, the old appearance of the pre-Qing era is basically maintained, and some customs and habits are still maintained.

For example, when it comes to girls' education!

Although the empire has vigorously carried out educational reforms in recent years, established many new schools, and cultivated a large number of new students, these students are actually the same students who read the Four Books and the Five Classics in the past.

Whether it was the few universities in the empire, the higher secondary schools and the lower secondary schools, even the higher primary schools and the officially registered elementary novels, they were aimed at male students.

Co-education in the country is currently almost impossible. However, there are very few specialized girls' schools, and there are only two relatively large-scale girls' schools in the entire Jiangnan area. There are the Beijing Normal School for Girls and the Shanghai School for Girls, and there are several schools for girls founded by foreign pastors. It is not limited to Guangzhou, Tianjin, Shanghai and other relatively open large cities.

At the same time, these girls' schools do not have the same complete academic system and subjects as those officially registered new schools, and even the teaching content is different.

For example, the Shanghai Girls' School, which is the largest and has been established for a long time, recruits female students from about 10 to 18 years old, basically like the ancient academies, teaching from beginning to end, and the content of teaching is not the traditional scriptures such as the Four Books and the Five Classics or the new disciplines such as physics and chemistry. The main curriculum of Shanghai Girls' School is both traditional and new, such as learning those books that traditional ordinary scholars and women from the first family study, including the female Analects, female commandments, internal training and so on.

In addition to these books and courses that cultivate traditional women's virtues, other essays, hundreds of schools of thought, and some poems and articles will also be taught.

In addition, piano, chess, calligraphy and painting are also very important courses.

All of the above are within the scope of traditional women's teaching.

In addition, there are etiquette classes and some handicraft classes. You can also take foreign languages, English, French, etc., and even some foreign literary history and so on.

Well. Physics, chemistry, astronomy and geography will also be taught in simple new subjects, but they will not pay much attention to these.

In fact, the intention of these girls' schools is not to train students who can take the national civil service examination. Rather, it is an attempt to cultivate a lady of the upper class who has sufficient self-cultivation and interests.

Because the women who were able to come to school were usually the daughters of officials or wealthy merchant families. Their current fathers and brothers, future husbands and sons are either officials or businessmen. For example, if you marry a diplomat, and this diplomat is often stationed abroad and often attends diplomatic receptions and the like, and there is a so-called lady politics in the political circle, if a diplomat marries a traditional woman and takes it out to a drinking party, if he can't even speak French, the standard language of diplomacy, how can he talk to the wives of diplomats from other countries?

Qi Lin was also cultivated in this way in the early years, but she was a little different from those women, that is, her father liked to take him around, and he went around all over the South Seas, and he had been to many places in the country.

This Qi Lin has been to more places than more than 99% of women in later generations.

The more places I have visited, the more people I have contacted, and the broadening of my horizons, many of my thoughts in my heart will naturally change.

Now she looks at those sons and buddies who come to beg for her, just like the returnees in the 80s in the later generations look at other people in China.

With high vision, there are naturally few men who can enter her eyes, and the few men she can appreciate are all upstarts in the political arena, and they are generally older, but these men have the same characteristics, that is, they have long been snatched away by other women.

Potential stocks are not so easy to come across!

While lamenting in his heart that there is no good man left for himself in this world, he also casually copes with the gossip of a few girlfriends around him.

After chatting for a while, she saw her father Qi Xuanyun coming over, and then whispered, "It's almost over!" ”

Then she returned to her father's side!

After a while, I heard a loud song from outside the door: "The emperor has arrived!" ”

She was tall, and she looked up slightly, only to see a commotion in front of her, and then the crowd began to divide into a passage of its own.

After a few breaths, I saw a man wearing a dragon-patterned Chinese costume, about thirty years old, walked in, this man had a faint smile on his face, just walked into the door of the hall, just stopped slightly and looked around the venue, his eyes seemed to be looking at everyone, Qi Lin felt that for a moment just now, the man was looking into his eyes, as if the eyes of the two had met each other.

However, her gaze shifted slightly, and her gaze towards her looked ahead involuntarily dimmed, and the man was followed by a woman who was also richly dressed.

This man and woman are Lin Zhe and Fang Defei! (To be continued.) )