"What we teach our children are more practical skills. For example, some girls with a careful heart and good physique can learn nursing, learn how to decoct medicine, clean patients, turn over, and do simple rehabilitation. Those who have high-ranking officials and dignitaries have intelligent and capable servants in their families, while those who have little foundation but still have some money, such as merchants, can hire these professional nurses to go home and take care of the confinement, the sick or the elderly. It's just hiring, not buying, so that these girls have their own income, and whether they marry or not, they are not afraid that they won't be able to live. Even if you become a family, you have money in your hands, and you have the confidence to speak. Others, such as learning needlework and cooking, are all ways to live. ”

When he said this, Zhang Weizhao's eyes were bright, and he seemed to have returned to his previous confident appearance.

"Good!" Zhang Rongkun said: "To teach people things, you need teachers, where do you plan to hire teachers?" ”

"I can teach nursing myself. You can ask the widow of the scholar family to teach the cultural class, do you remember the Qi Ruren who came to us to see a doctor before? ”

Ruren is the honorific title given to the wife or mother of the Seven Rank Officials at this time. Qipinguan must be a figure with a head and face in the local area, but he is nothing in the capital. Moreover, the salaries of Dayan officials are very low, and the lives of those seventh-grade officials of the cold yamen are actually quite hard. Qi Ruren's husband was the director of Guanglu Temple during his lifetime, but he has been dead for six or seven years. Qi Ruren is now less than forty years old, the eldest daughter is married far away, and the youngest son is only eleven or twelve years old. She guards a small yard and gets up early and works late to do needlework to support her son's education. She is also the daughter of a scholarly family, quite knowledgeable, gentle and generous, if she is invited to teach girls to read and write, and have a stable income, she is eighty percent willing.

"It's a good candidate." Zhang Rongkun said, he also had a good impression of Qi Ruren. "What about cooking and cooking?"

"You can hire a cook and an embroidery lady to teach this. Or, we can hire a maid who has retired from the palace. ”

Many palace maids have skills, but they have nowhere to go when they leave the palace, and the evening scene is bleak. If Zhang Weizhao can provide them with stable accommodation and salary, and have students to accompany them and be respected, there will definitely be people who are willing to come.

The master and apprentice listed all the problems and discussed them one by one, trying their best to find the most appropriate solution.

It went even more smoothly than expected. Hearing that she was going to establish a girls' school to admit orphaned girls to enroll, the Queen Mother first sent two thousand taels of silver from the palace to her. followed by the eldest princess of Fengqing and Dong Zhenzhen, all of whom sent silver in turn. Even the shopkeeper Lu of the grocery store sent two taels of silver.

Zhang Weizhao bought a three-entry courtyard behind the Xuanmiaoguan. The yard is quite large, the first courtyard is set up with a kitchen and a dining room, the second courtyard is decorated with spacious and transparent rooms, which are used as classrooms, and the third courtyard is divided into independent small rooms, which are placed like bunk beds for dormitories.

The drawings of the interior decoration were all drawn by Zhang Weizhao himself. She didn't study design, but she had a foundation in painting, and she used the architectural drawings of this time as a reference, and the drawings drawn were not difficult to understand. It's just that her decoration concept is from the modern era, and sometimes it needs to be explained well to make the craftsmen carry it out smoothly. The craftsmen were found by Chen Youcong through the Ministry of Industry, and the craftsmanship is not to be said. Therefore, in the autumn of this year, the school's hardware facilities were roughly completed.

Qi Ruren accepted Zhang Weizhao's invitation and agreed to teach the children to read and write. The Queen Mother also recruited two elderly palace maids from the palace for Zhang Weizhao to teach needlework and etiquette. Originally, Zhang Weizhao didn't want to hold an etiquette class, but the Queen Mother said that if she learned etiquette well, she would be able to get a better salary in the future, and Zhang Weizhao felt that she was very reasonable.

Although the Queen Mother is in the deep palace, she is very interested in what Zhang Weizhao is doing now. It is precisely because of this that many old ladies in the capital have donated money and materials to the school, lest they fall behind. This is also an important reason why the running of the school has been carried out relatively smoothly.

Zhou Rong couldn't run out when he was close to autumn, but said that Dong Zhenzhen sent a cook from the family to be a teacher. The cook teaches here, and the salary is still from the Zhou family. You must know that a chef from a wealthy family with qualifications and good craftsmanship will have a salary even higher than a seven-rank official in a year. So that's a lot of support too.

In addition, Zhang Weizhao also hired four middle-aged women to take care of the children's daily life.

It's almost October, Zhang Weizhao bought a batch of mattresses and quilts, and added pots and spoons, lamps and candles. When these daily utensils are ready, you can ask the teacher to move in.

On this day, he was busy in school until dusk, and Zhang Weizhao was the last to come out. Just went out, but saw a lump of things nested in the doorway, and when I saw Zhang Weizhao come out, the lump of things moved, and slowly stood up, it turned out to be a thin girl of six or seven years old.

Zhang Weizhao walked over, half-squatted down and looked at her and said, "Little sister, what's your name?" It's so late, why are you here alone? ”

The little girl looked at her timidly, and when she asked for the second time, she whispered, "My name is Xiaoying." My mother brought me here. ”

When Zhang Weizhao first saw her, he understood that someone must have thrown the child over before the school opened, but she still needed to confirm it before she could make arrangements.

She asked again, "Did your mother tell you why you came here?" ”

"My mother said that there was no food to eat at home. There is food to eat here, and you can learn skills. It is better than being killed with a thousand knives, and he is taken out and sold in the kiln. ”

The child just has something to say, and Zhang Weizhao only feels sour in his heart when he hears it. She didn't ask who killed a thousand knives, but only said softly: "Your mother is right, you can eat enough here, you can also learn skills, and in the future, you can rely on your skills to eat and dress warmly." Can you go back to the Taoist temple with your sister for dinner now? ”

The little girl nodded vigorously.

Zhang Weizhao locked the door, took the little girl's thin little hand and walked along the alley together.

In a Qingzhan carriage not far away, Chen Jianjun lowered the curtain and said, "Go back." The carriage then started, and several eunuchs and guards dressed as domestic servants followed the carriage in the direction of the Forbidden City.

Chen Jianjun hadn't done anything like sneaking out of the Forbidden City in disguise for a long time, and today he suddenly became interested and wanted to come out for a walk. Where to go? Somehow, he thought of the school run by Zhang Weizhao and ordered the carriage to go in this direction. He often heard about the school from secret newspapers, and wanted to see what the real situation was.

It turned out that he didn't quite understand that Zhang Weizhao didn't do a good doctor, why did he go to a girls' school? When I saw the little girl in the doorway today, I suddenly understood a little.

He remembered that in "Han Feizi: Six Antis", it was said: "Parents are also to their sons, and they congratulate each other when they give birth to a man, and kill them when they give birth to a girl." Su Shi's "With Zhu Ezhou" also wrote: "Between Yue and Ezhou, the villain in the field raised two men and one woman, and then killed them." Especially the adopted daughter, who was soaked in cold water. His parents couldn't bear it, so they often closed their eyes and pressed their hands into a basin of water, babbling for a long time and dying. ”

Even if you are not drowned at birth, there are many risks associated with growing up. If ordinary people have children and daughters, when there is a famine, there is not enough food for the whole family, and they often sell or abandon the girls first.

Officials of the household department have also reported that because of the common folk custom of drowning female infants and abandoning girls, in some areas there are far more young and middle-aged men than women, and they are unable to marry wives, which breeds disasters.

In this way, adopting homeless girls so that they can grow up safely without hunger and cold is not only a great merit for these girls, but also a good thing for the country and the people.

It's just that such a good thing takes a lot of financial and mental resources, and once it starts, there is no way back. You can't adopt girls and discard them halfway through saying that the school doesn't have the money to continue running them, right? So only a stupid and bold person like Zhang Weizhao will do what he says.

When Chen Jianjun returned to the Maoqin Palace, it was already completely dark. He sent all the people out of the temple, and there were no lamps or candles in the temple, and he sat alone in a chair behind the table, motionless, and let the darkness swallow him up completely.

He was very envious of Zhang Weizhao, no matter where she was, she could always be interested in doing what she thought was valuable. When talking to her, she always looks at you with a very bright eye and never dodges. When she argues with people, she is full of energy, and she can knock down a piece with her momentum. When he cries, he reveals his true feelings and does not hide his sadness.

And Chen Jianjun himself, for many years, has always seen everything through a veil, laughing not to the fullest, often feeling that there is a big black hole in his heart, very sad, but he can't cry.

When he practiced with Zhang Weizhao at the beginning of the year, he had a very different feeling, as if the gray veil that had been covering his eyes for a long time had become lighter, and the world was much more vivid in his eyes. However, now, he has been beaten back to the prototype, even worse than before. In the past, he seemed to feel that there was a force in his heart, rushing left and right to find a path to change, but now he can't even lift this spirit.

He didn't want to admit that he missed Zhang Weizhao very much. This is not the love between men and women, but this kind of longing is no less shallower than the love between men and women.

But he was reluctant to recruit Zhang Weizhao back. He knew that the prince would go to Xuanmiaoguan every once in a while, and he also contributed a lot to Zhang Weizhao's school, and he even knew how long the prince would stay each time he went, whether the two of them stayed alone or were present. The reason why he knew so clearly was because he used the power of the West Factory to spy on Zhang Weizhao's whereabouts. The West Factory, which was originally used to inspect the imperial court, is now being used to spy on a young female Taoist doctor, which sounds a bit funny. But Xichang is directly subordinate to the emperor, so he is willing to do this, no one can control him, and no one else will know.