Zhao Hanzhang looked at them, full of worry, and asked: “What’s the most difficult character you’re currently learning?”
The young boys were similarly silent for a while. Then Jia Shan paused and said quietly: “I think my own name is quite difficult.”
He was almost crying. “At the time, Aunt Chen had us choose characters for our names. She said ‘shan’ is the ‘shan’ in ‘kindness.’ I felt I wanted to be a kind person in the future, so I grabbed that character, but I didn’t expect it would be so hard to write!”
Zhao Hanzhang looked at him sympathetically but was unable to help.
“Among those in the school who, like you, find learning very difficult and can’t learn no matter how hard they try, are there many?”
The young boys nodded. “Many!”
Zhao Hanzhang sighed and lowered her eyes in thought.
As she was thinking, hurried footsteps sounded outside the door. Zhao Hanzhang looked up.
The young boys also turned their heads to look. The door was wide open. Chen Siniang came running over, out of breath, and immediately entered everyone’s view.
Chen Siniang’s footsteps halted abruptly. The worry on her face turned to stunned confusion when she saw the room full of people sitting cross-legged on the floor.
But she quickly recovered. Taking a deep breath to slightly calm her breathing, she walked to the doorway, bowed deeply to Zhao Hanzhang inside, and said: “I greet the County Magistrate. Chen Siniang has come to apologize.”
The young boys became anxious, feeling they had implicated Chen Siniang.
Zhao Hanzhang smiled and beckoned to her: “Come in and talk.”
Chen Siniang took off her shoes and entered. The young boys hurriedly stood up respectfully, heads lowered, standing on both sides.
Chen Siniang knelt before Zhao Hanzhang, bowing her body to apologize: “The children were unruly—it’s because Siniang wasn’t strict enough in managing them. Please allow me to take them back to the Relief Hall for severe punishment.”
Zhao Hanzhang said: “I’ve already punished them. Of course, if the Relief Hall feels it’s not enough, feel free to add more punishment.”
Hearing she could add punishment, Chen Siniang knew they hadn’t been expelled from the Relief Hall. She breathed a great sigh of relief, a smile appearing on her face as she bowed: “Yes, I will definitely punish them severely when we return.”
Zhao Hanzhang nodded and said to the young boys: “You may go. Since you don’t want to attend school, then don’t go for now. These next few days, first learn the skills from the kitchen staff. That way you won’t be flustered when receiving your punishment later.”
The young boys bowed and backed out.
Zhao Hanzhang said to Chen Siniang: “I also have something to discuss with you. Let’s talk.”
Chen Siniang answered somewhat nervously.
“Currently in the Relief Hall, aside from adult widows and widowers, among the orphans, how many are twelve years old or older?”
Chen Siniang answered without hesitation: “Sixty-eight people.”
“How many boys, how many girls?”
“Thirty-six boys, thirty-two girls.”
It was quite balanced. Zhao Hanzhang asked: “How are they doing with their studies?”
Chen Siniang hesitated before saying: “Most of them are average, but there are some who are particularly clever.”
“For example?”
“For example, there’s a young man called Jia Xian. Like Jia Shan, he’s also twelve years old. He’s very clever and studious—even Mountain Principal Zhao praises him as quick and eager to learn.”
Zhao Hanzhang nodded. “Any others?”
“There are also two from the ‘Yi’ character class. Both are twelve years old, just with later birth months. One is called Yi Cheng, the other Yi Gui.” Chen Siniang paused. “Yi Gui is actually a girl, but I think she studies very well. The teacher who teaches her repeatedly laments that she isn’t male.”
Zhao Hanzhang raised an eyebrow. “In my view, what difference does being male or female make?”
Chen Siniang couldn’t help but smile slightly at the corners of her mouth. She had officially joined the county office staff. Although she mainly managed the Relief Hall, she also participated in other affairs. Zhao Hanzhang treated her equally—assigning her work as appropriate and giving her the same salary as Song Zhi and the others.
Although she didn’t lack this small salary, it made her realize that leaving her husband’s family and her natal family, with nothing at all, she still had the ability to support herself.
The prerequisite for all this was Zhao Hanzhang.
Chen Siniang looked deeply at Zhao Hanzhang.
Zhao Hanzhang was startled by her loving gaze. For some reason, she suddenly felt a bit nervous. She shifted back uncomfortably, stammering slightly: “What is it?”
“The girls in the Relief Hall are all very fortunate to have met the Lady. I’m also very fortunate.”
Zhao Hanzhang exhaled and smiled: “Meeting all of you, I’m also very fortunate.”
Seeing Chen Siniang didn’t agree, Zhao Hanzhang said seriously: “It’s true. Meeting all of you is my good fortune.”
Not to mention that she and Professor Fu had gained an extra lifetime instead of simply perishing, but speaking of after arriving in Xiping, without their help, she would have found it very difficult to govern Xiping County well. So she was also very fortunate to meet them.
If they were all like those aristocratic sons at the banquet, how many gray hairs would she have grown already?
“After the New Year, the school must change,” Zhao Hanzhang said. “For clever and studious people like Jia Xian, their main energy should still be on studying. But for people like Jia Shan who aren’t good at learning, besides continuing to recognize characters and learn arithmetic, they must also learn other skills.”
She paused. “The requirements must be somewhat stricter. Common characters and addition and subtraction within one hundred—everyone must learn these to graduate. Even if they farm and cultivate in the future, they’ll all use these.”
Chen Siniang had always felt Zhao Hanzhang was both kind and generous. Even the number-one charitable person among the aristocratic families wouldn’t think of teaching every poor relative to read and calculate, let alone the tenant farmers and laborers below them.
“What has the Lady decided they should learn?”
Zhao Hanzhang said: “Making tofu, pressing oil, carpentry, blacksmithing, carving, medicine, needlework, weaving, plus raising silkworms, raising pigs, raising sheep, raising all sorts of things—all of these can serve as their means of livelihood.”
So after the New Year, the school would undergo major changes—they would implement tiered education.
Chen Siniang listened with her mouth agape, heart surging. She knew Zhao Hanzhang was very good, but she hadn’t expected she could be good to this extent.
She crawled forward on her knees, reached out to grasp Zhao Hanzhang’s hands, pressed her face against the back of her hand. “Lady, are you truly a Bodhisattva reincarnated, as they say?”
Feeling the slight wetness on the back of her hand, Zhao Hanzhang was bewildered.
She looked completely confused, having no idea where the logic was in all this. Weren’t they just discussing the education of the children in the Relief Hall?
Chen Siniang embarrassedly wiped away her tears, then used her handkerchief to wipe the tears from Hanzhang’s hand as well. When she looked up at her, her face was already solemn. “But this way, the school will need to add many classrooms. Will Mountain Principal Zhao and the others agree?”
Currently, the teachers in the school were all Zhao clan members, and all were Zhao Cheng’s students. Besides drawing terrain maps for Zhao Hanzhang and editing Xiahou Ren’s manuscripts, they also had to teach at the school.
Yet most of the children here weren’t the kind they considered suitable for study. So the school was noisy and chaotic, and the young teachers were all exhausted. If not for Zhao Cheng suppressing them, they would have rebelled long ago.
Zhao Hanzhang said: “After the New Year, Gentleman Fu and I will personally go to the school to participate in management and teaching, organizing the school properly.”
She currently lacked talented people, so the county’s education was something she absolutely couldn’t neglect.
—