Chapter 495

As the saying goes, if you don't suffer others, don't persuade others to be kind.

There are some things that you can't just look at at the surface. On the issue of marriage, the way of thinking of the people of the Ming Dynasty is actually more realistic than that of later generations, at least ask a common person casually, they do not daydream, let alone fantasize about ascending to the sky in one step, and they do not need to get married to change their fate.

In fact, marriage, for the Ming women, is just a node to change their fate, the Ming Dynasty women want to achieve the pinnacle of life and career through their own struggle, it is almost unimaginable, even if Cheng Shijie has made a lot of efforts, with his support, Yang Yunniang became the vice minister of the Ming Cabinet, ranking below Sun Zhilan, the second cabinet minister, and is in charge of the business industry, the Ming Imperial Bank, the Ming Commercial Bank and the Ming financial system.

With the support of Cheng Shijie, Jin Qiaoer became the general manager of the largest textile company in Daming, she managed more than 100,000 textile workers, and also became one of the members of the Jinzhou Executive Committee.

Zhang Chen even became one of the members of the Liaodong Management Committee, and despite Cheng Shijie's efforts, the status of Ming women has only improved slightly, not really changed. Even Zhang Chen, Yang Yunniang and Jin Qiaoer, the three most successful women in the Ming Dynasty, of course, are now Qin Liangyu, the director of the Lin'an Management Committee.

But the problem is that the status of women is still about the same as before, even Qin Liangyu herself will not admit that she is stronger than men, just like the issue of bride price, in fact, Cheng Shijie has always known that there is also this problem.

From the Han Dynasty onwards, the bride price of the Han Dynasty gradually evolved into a more materialistic form. In addition to traditional poultry, silk and other valuables, the man also has to prepare more than 30 kinds of dowry such as livestock and grain.

During the Ming Dynasty, the law stipulated that the rich would marry the rich, and the poor would marry the poor. Zhu Yuanzhang also issued an edict, stipulating that the appearance of sky-high bride prices was not allowed and advocating frugality.

But the problem is that after Zhu Yuanzhang's death, the bride price of the Ming Dynasty became heavier and heavier, and the rich family had a dowry of five or six hundred gold, equivalent to five or six thousand taels of silver, which was just the dowry of the dowry, not only the dowry, but also the property of the dowry, such as silk and cloth, due to low productivity, a high-quality Songjiang cotton cloth would cost more than 100 taels of silver, and a silk would cost 67 taels of silver.

There are also thousands of horses of great wealth, and the poor naturally have the way of the poor, and sometimes, a bucket of grain, or even a few liters of grain, can be a dowry.

In Cheng Shijie's view, the type and quantity of bride price have greatly increased, which shows the accumulation of social wealth and economic development. Wealthy families often choose money as part of the dowry, which reflects the importance and pursuit of material wealth.

However, this materialized bride price has also gradually brought inequality and pressure, making people begin to reflect on the nature and value of the bride price. This in itself is a process of selection, to give a simple example, is it fair for Wu Dalang to marry Jin Lian?

If in terms of appearance, this is unfair, after all, the two of them are two extremes, in "Water Margin", the author Shi Nai'an has this description of the marriage between the two: "When Da Lang was young, he played with Jin Lian, and married her when he grew up. This description shows that the two met and married at a young age.

Wu Dalang's home is in Yanggu County, he has a house facing the street, two floors are about the size of two three-bedroom and one living room, and this house is already very good whether it is bought or rented, and there is a very large living room, Wu Dalang will always make cooking cakes in this place.

The bedroom they live in is also more than 20 square meters. It's very convenient to go out to the street. There is also a teahouse opposite. There is also a small yard out of the house.

If you look at it now, this is simply a small villa for commercial and residential purposes, and it is also facing the street. If you put it in the current society, his house is also very valuable. So why does Wu Dalang live in such a nice house just a small vendor selling cooking cakes?

In fact, Wu Dalang is not poor, at least not as poor as he is in the TV series, which shows that the poor need to use other advantages to make up for the gap in identity.

In both time and space, Cheng Shijie has seen the ugly man and the extremely beautiful couple of the woman, of course, he has also seen the woman old and ugly, but married to a handsome and young guy.

As an aside, there is a neighbor downstairs in the community where the author lives, and at first I thought they were mother and son, the man was born in eight or nine years, and the woman was seventy-two years old, a difference of seventeen years, and the woman was married for the second time, and the eldest son was twenty-eight years old and had already joined the work.

The reality is so cruel, never take the bride price to talk about this matter, because this problem shows that financial resources and economic development have a direct relationship, fifty years ago, everyone was poor, and the bride price was a few yuan, just like "In the Courtyard" Jia Dongxu married Qin Huairu only spent 20 yuan, which is equivalent to a month's salary.

Xiang Hui listened to Cheng Shijie's explanation and asked puzzledly: "Why do those experts say that heavy bride price will affect social fairness?" ”

"Will the daughters of those experts marry poor boys?"

Cheng Shijie asked rhetorically: "When you marry me, how much is the bride price?" ”

Xiang Hui sighed and said, "Eight thousand, it's a big loss!" ”

Cheng Shijie smiled: "Do you know how long it will take me to earn eight thousand at that time?" ”

"You said you needed to go six months without eating or drinking!"

Cheng Shijie smiled bitterly: "That's me bragging, in fact, I didn't turn positive at the time, a month's salary plus rewards was eight or nine hundred, if it weren't for the fact that I won the second place in the city because of the youth labor competition, there was a thousand bonuses, maybe I wouldn't have been able to get the eight thousand bride price!" ”

In the ears of Xiang Hui's maidservant Shen Mengniang, she felt that the eight thousand that Cheng Shijie said should be eight thousand taels of silver, not eight thousand dollars!

This matter is naturally just a joke, Shen Mengniang plucked up the courage and said: "When my eldest brother got married, he gave a dowry of sixty taels of silver to my sister-in-law's family!" ”

Xiang Hui asked, "How long can your family earn sixty taels of silver?" ”

"This ......"

Shen Mengniang thought for a while and said, "It's almost going to sell more than a hundred stone of grain, an autumn grain!" ”

Xiang Hui is now balanced in her heart, Daming and later generations are actually similar, whether it is a bride price or a dowry, it has a direct relationship with income, of course, it is not the average income of the individual, but the income of the whole family.

In the north of Golden State, a school is under construction, and hundreds of workers are working together, and the work efficiency is quite fast. Seeing the carriage with Cheng's logo coming, the person in charge of the school hurriedly greeted him.

Through the introduction of the principal, Cheng Shijie learned that this is a middle school affiliated to Baiqiao Town, with the increase in the number of children, the original school building is no longer enough, and the area of the school has to be expanded.

Xiang Hui looked at the school, and decided to get out of the car and come over to take a look, on the school grass where she walked, more than a dozen big guys followed behind Xiang Hui, followed by Shen Mengniang and several other servants, who kept a distance of dozens of meters from Cheng Shijie.

The principal of the school is a person who has been raised for four years of the Apocalypse, surnamed Tang Mingshun, the word filial piety, and Chen Liuren.

Tang Shun said to Cheng Shijie: "Your Majesty, someone recently proposed that the school should add Spanish, Portuguese and Dutch courses, and the students are a little worried! ”

Cheng Shijie asked, "What are you worried about?" ”

Tang Shun said: "Your Majesty, in the past, we had a talent in Chen, and by chance, he learned Portuguese, and what religion did he believe, he shaved his hair, and he wore the clothes of a foreign devil, dressed as a foreign devil, isn't this a betrayal of his ancestors?" ”

Cheng Shijie was silent for a while, to say that the current Daming has gone out, dealing with more and more Spanish, Portuguese, and Dutch people, and there is a market demand for language courses, and translation talents are needed.

But the problem is that this is a middle school, and what is taught is basic knowledge, and from Cheng Shijie's point of view, there is no need for middle school students to learn foreign languages, because it is useless. It is almost impossible for a person who has studied a foreign language to deal with foreigners in this life.

Just like the author himself, graduated in 2001, at that time, it was true that spoken English was not good, but simple spelling was not a problem, and with the help of a dictionary, you could also understand simple articles. But until now, twenty-two years after graduation, the English learned is of no use at all.

Cheng Shijie learned about this situation and said: "Principal Tang, your concern is reasonable, this matter is very important, we need to look at the opinions of the education department, in principle, I think that middle schools should not open language courses, because we don't need them, they can be used as prerequisite courses, interest courses, not included in the scope of the examination, and language courses are only allowed in universities!" ”

In the long run, these language courses are of little use, as long as Daming can maintain the current momentum of development, the whole world will learn Chinese, learn to speak Chinese, and there are many foreigners who come to Daming to do business or foreign exchanges, and they all take the initiative to learn Chinese.

Ordinary Ming people don't have the opportunity to go abroad, so why do they learn these languages?

But the most important thing at the moment is to popularize the official dialect of Daming, so far there are too many dialects in Daming, even if Cheng Shijie can speak Mandarin, there are still many dialects that he can't understand, and unifying the domestic language is the most important thing at present.

Knowing about this matter, Cheng Shijie issued a letter of inquiry to the education department, asking them to preside over a special meeting in this regard, and prepare to form a unified national pronunciation and writing method.

……

Li Zhixiang finally joined Li Fang, Li Fang wanted to spit on Li Zhixiang, but he didn't dare.

Li Zhixiang did not show his face to show what happened to him, as the commander-in-chief of the expedition to Wolmore, but he was separated from the troops under his command, which caused everyone to be discouraged.

"Why are you here? How's going on in India? ”

Li Fang told Li Zhixiang what had happened recently, they led an expeditionary force to raid Tamil, but after a fierce battle, Li Fang beat these natives who didn't know how to write dead characters all over the ground, and captured the little prince of the earth king, and hung him up and beat him.

When his son was taken away, the king of Tu felt very shameless, so he brought the elite soldiers of the entire tribe to trouble Li Fang, so that these outsiders who drifted from the sea knew who the master was.

However, Wang Wang's performance was not much better than that of his son, so that Li Fang was beaten violently, and the elite soldiers who had been put together would be beaten to a mess, with heavy casualties, and the luxury carriage that he had spent a lot of money to order, as well as the three white beauties bought back from Europe, became Li Fang's trophies.

Therefore, it is also a technical job to stand up for his son, one is not careful, the face is not recovered, and he has to pay for the old book, the beaten king of the soil can't swallow this breath, and sends someone with a considerable amount of property to the British to help him out, nominally he is the younger brother of the British, and now he is being bullied, and the British have to stand up for him.

The British did not understand the Tamil language of the Tuwang, and thought it was a war between their Tuwang and the Tuwang, so they accepted the goods sent by the Tuwang and immediately sent four companies, about five or six hundred people, to trouble Li Fang.

Compared with the old Spanish Empire and the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, Britain's strength grew rapidly, because the defeat of the Spanish armada, Britain was very confident, they thought that the people who came to attack the Tamil should be the Dutch, or the Spaniards, and then the Portuguese.

As for the Ming Dynasty, they have never met at all, the navy of the Ming Dynasty rarely appears here, but it is a pity that the British know the dragon flag of the Ming Dynasty, or the Sun and Moon Flag of the Ming Dynasty, the British who originally wanted to give their little brother anger, looked at the dense Ming warships appearing on the seaside, especially such a large battleship, even in the United Kingdom, right?

Now the largest warship in Britain is the Sea Monarch, with a full load displacement of 1,625 tons, but it has not yet been officially commissioned, and even the Sea Monarch is not comparable to the warship in front of it.

There are also those large-caliber naval guns on the battleship, which scared them into a cold sweat.

They immediately threw away the idea of giving the younger brother a head start, and hurriedly stepped forward to ask what the situation was, and as a result, the Ming claimed that one of their ships ran aground, and the Tamils attacked them without asking.

The British hurriedly said that it had nothing to do with them, that they had heard that there were stranded ships here, and that as a member of the civilized world, they would not sit idly by and come to the rescue.

Da Ming naturally knows what they mean, your family asked for help with more than a dozen artillery pieces, pulling more than a dozen carts of shells and ammunition?

However, the British turned around and sold the Tamils, and not only did they capture the king, but they also seized the gold and silver that he had accumulated for generations, and loaded them into bold ships.

Only then did Li Zhixiang know that the British were so shameless.

It's not that the British are shameless, at least in the East, there are really no countries that dare to provoke the Ming Empire now, the Ming Dynasty now has four main fleets, more than 600 warships with a displacement of more than 1,000 tons, almost the size of three Spanish armadas, just ask who is not afraid?

(End of chapter)