On the second day of the Lantern Festival, Chongzhen and 8 cabinet ministers met in the Wenhua Palace, and by the way, the first cabinet meeting of Chongzhen's second year was held.

Today's cabinet meeting only represents the beginning of the normal operation of Chongzhen's cabinet in the second year, and basically has no substantive content.

After chatting with several cabinet ministers in a relaxed manner, Chongzhen mentioned: "Feng Zhenlu did a good job in Shaanxi last year, and now that he is back, you gentlemen may wish to discuss how to arrange his new position." ”

For Feng Quan and Feng Zhenlu, several cabinet ministers are not very unfamiliar. Huang Liji and Qian Qianyi were quite familiar with him, but most of the people present did not want Feng Quan to return to the position of the center of the imperial court.

First of all, the first assistant Huang Liji was very opposed to Feng Quan's comeback, when Feng Zhenlu was attached to Wei Zhongxian, he was really undisciplined, and he threw away all the dignity of civil officials.

Although Feng Zhenlu finally became the chief assistant of the cabinet because of his complete obedience to Wei Zhongxian's orders, his behavior caused a great loss of face to other civilian officials who originally thought that he was allied with Wei Zhongxian against the Donglin Party, and there was a threat of gradually losing the independence of the civilian body in the government.

It is precisely because of this that some civil officials headed by Huang Liji will try their best to oust Feng Zhenlu from the position of chief assistant to the cabinet. Huang Liji, who drove Feng Zhenlu home with his own hands, was naturally unwilling to let him come back to the DPRK to oppose him.

And Feng Zhenlu is only 35 years old now, but because he once served as the first assistant to the cabinet, his qualifications are simply outrageous. If he is allowed to return to the court, there will basically be many people whose path to advancement will be interrupted.

Therefore, in addition to Huang Liji, Zhang Ruitu and others are also unwilling to erect a huge barrier in their careers, once Feng Zhenlu is allowed to return to the throne, his age is enough to survive a large number of officials.

However, Qian Qianyi was still a little hesitant, first, he had a good personal relationship with Feng Zhenlu, and the two were known as the leaders of the literary circles in the north and south, and they did not make poems to praise each other.

Second, as soon as Feng Zhenlu returned to the capital, he went to his house to visit him, and there was a faint intention to join the new Donglin Party during the conversation.

Since the emperor expressed his attitude, Qian Qianyi's New Donglin Party is now in the limelight, and the number of officials and scholars who want to join the New Donglin Party is increasing day by day, but there are few figures with sufficient weight among them.

It's just some opportunists in the officialdom, and a group of young and enthusiastic southern scholars. Qian Qianyi didn't think that relying on these people would take him to the next level.

It's Feng Zhenlu, although his reputation in the past is not very good, but his status among the northern scholars still exists, and with the title of a former cabinet chief, he can really greatly increase the prestige of the New Donglin Party.

The most important thing is that when Feng Zhenlu visited him yesterday, he was very respectful when he bowed down and was small, obviously with the intention of taking him as the main one in the future.

Therefore, Qian Qianyi, who had been thinking about it for a long time, finally ignored the eyes of Huang Liji and Zhang Ruitu, and said a few good words for Feng Zhenlu. thinks that it should be seen that Feng Zhenlu is diligent in doing things in Shaanxi, and let him return to the court to serve Chongzhen.

Huang Liji, who had been playing delaying tactics with Chongzhen, suddenly realized that his idea of suppressing Feng Zhenlu and not letting him return to the dynasty would not work after Qian Qianyi issued a proposal to support the emperor.

Especially the current official secretary Xu Guangqi is still Chongzhen's most staunch supporter, with the support of these two people, even if he is the first assistant, he can't stop Chongzhen to appoint Feng Zhenlu to a new position.

However, he quickly interrupted, and Qian Qianyi recommended to the emperor that Feng Zhenlu take over the post of secretary of the Ministry of Rites to promote the three-year compulsory education of primary school.

After all, since last year, except for Beizhili and Zhejiang, the three-year compulsory education of primary schools in other provinces has been progressing slowly, and the current Ministry of Rites Shangshu has obviously been derelict in his duties.

Although the Ministry of Rites Shangshu Lai Zongdao was not here, Li Tianjing, who was in charge of education affairs in the cabinet, couldn't help but distinguish a few words for Lai Zongdao.

"The three-year compulsory primary school education system cannot be implemented, and the officials of the Ministry of Rites cannot be completely blamed for their ineffective work.

Even if it is the simplest village school, it will cost at least 150 taels to build a school building, 50 taels to purchase desks, chairs, and textbooks, and hire a teacher who teaches Chinese language and a teacher who teaches mathematics, each of which will be given 60 taels a year.

In other words, it will cost 320 taels to build a village school with 4 or 50 professors, and it will continue to spend 150 taels every year in the future.

One acre of midfield in the south produces only 2 taels a year, and one acre of midfield in the north is up to 1 tael. That is to say, to maintain a village in the south, it must have 75 acres of school land, while in the north it is at least 150 acres of school land.

The current three-year compulsory education system for primary schools in Beizhili has only just covered 60% of the area of Suncheonfu, and there are also no more than 30% of the villages that have established primary schools outside Suncheonfu.

Up to now, most of the village schools in Suncheonfu have been maintained by the silver taels allocated by His Majesty from the Inner Treasury.

Zhejiang Province is the best area to promote the three-year primary school compulsory education system, the province has a style of learning, even if the family is not rich, will desperately send their children to enlightenment, even if they read for a year or two, know a few words are good.

In addition, Zhejiang is densely populated and narrow, and the proportion of students is large, and the cost of hiring teachers can be reduced to 50 taels a year. In addition, children from three or four villages can often cobble together a school, so the number of school buildings to be built and the number of teachers to hire is greatly reduced.

In addition, the people of Yiwu, because of the meritorious service of the former patriotic country, according to the instructions of His Majesty, 50,000 taels were specially allocated by the Ministry of Households, and 30,000 taels were allocated annually by the Inner Treasury, and 250 primary schools were built, which was the highest area for primary schools in Zhejiang.

As for the other provinces, the northern provinces have been so badly affected that it is impossible to make primary education compulsory. Although there are many merchants in Shanxi, the distribution is extremely unbalanced, and there are many primary schools in areas with many merchants, and there is no way to build them in areas with few merchants.

Henan and Shandong are heavy on learning and light primary schools, so naturally they can't afford to develop. As for the southern provinces, they either have no trend of learning, or they think that primary schools are not the right path, and only private schools and academies with the goal of the imperial examination are the right way.

The budget of the Ministry of Rites this year is only 4 million yuan, and even if it does nothing, it can only build 10,000 small villages, which are divided into two capitals and 13 provinces, but 666 in each province, just enough to cover a medium-sized prefecture.

And it's not just the construction funding that is problematic, it's also the hiring of qualified teachers. There are not many scholars in the north, and even fewer know mathematics and physics.

The school building has been built, but if there are not so many teachers, it will not achieve His Majesty's goal of promoting primary education. As for the south, although there are quite a few scholars who are willing to accept the hir, the good and the bad among them are mixed, and most of them are just old children who know a few words to apply.

Their teaching methods are rude, and they do not have the effect of enlightening wisdom and guiding students to learn, but they only let these students know a few words, and they have wasted three years..."

Qian Qianyi didn't expect that what he said made Li Tianjing pour out a lot of bitter water. For these practical problems, he immediately felt that his scalp was a little numb, and he also had doubts about whether to continue to recommend Feng Zhenlu to serve as the secretary of the Ministry of Rites.

He didn't want to show favor to Feng Zhenlu, but he pushed the other party into the fire pit, so that he was complained by the other party.

Huang Liji was naturally very happy when he heard this, he held back his mood and helped Li Tianjing say a few good words about the difficulty of education, hoping to dispel the emperor's idea of letting Feng Zhenlu take over as the secretary of the Ministry of Rites.

In his opinion, Qian Qianyi's recommendation was obviously hinted at by Chongzhen, otherwise how could Qian Muzhai, who had been in the cabinet and mud, dare to jump out and contradict his colleagues.

However, Li Tianjing had obviously been preparing for a long time, and after talking about Qian Qianyi's topic today, he said to the emperor without hesitation: "... Therefore, the minister thinks that this year's education budget is too small, and asks His Majesty to reconsider it so that the Ministry of Rites can promote primary education in various places. ”

If Huang Liji and the others were still applauding Li Tianjing in the front, then now they suddenly flipped back.

This year's budget, to be honest, is the most abundant in more than a decade. But for the cabinet ministries, it is still very clumsy.

Huang Liji knew very well that the military spending, which accounted for 57% of the budget, would definitely not be moved, after all, the General Staff and the Military Department had the support of Chongzhen behind him, and he now also needed Sun Chengzong and Wang Zaijin to remain neutral in the court.

And the rest of the budget is the money that the ministries have already regarded as in their pockets, and even if he, the head of the cabinet, is not easy to change the use. He didn't want to be this wicked person for Li Tianjing's sake.

Regarding Li Tianjing's proposal, Zhu Youzhen also had a headache, but he couldn't do anything about it. Although he knew that the implementation of compulsory primary education was the most urgent priority, after all, every year of postponement was equivalent to creating hundreds of thousands of illiterates.

At the beginning, a certain unit was beaten and was about to be wiped out, and they all went to Jinggangshan to become bandits, and they still diligently insisted on carrying out cultural education for the army and the masses in the base areas, so that a large number of talents could be cultivated for the restoration of China in the future.

This experience will naturally not be forgotten by him, so since he ascended the throne, he couldn't wait to implement three years of compulsory primary education, not that he was too anxious. Rather, he knew very well that only intellectuals who had been trained through compulsory education would be the most determined change-makers in the country.

Because of the education they have received, it must be determined that they will not be satisfied with their status quo and want to seek a way up the class. The Confucian scholars, who wanted to use the imperial examination to continue to hold the dominant position, were naturally their enemies.

Compared with the huge class of students who have graduated from compulsory education, the number of scholars who are less than a million and the elite of scholars and doctors who are less than 200,000 are completely just candles in the wind.

However, the current state fiscal revenue has reached the limit. Even Zhu Youzhen didn't dare to add a final straw to it, so he could only prevaricate vaguely about Li Tianjing's request.