The next morning.
The soldiers sent by the Ministry of Revenue arrived at Fang Family Village with a thousand prisoners.
Fang Er, having received the news, hurried out to meet them.
"I am Liu Tong, an inspector from the Ministry of Revenue. Greetings, General Fang!"
Among the soldiers from the Ministry of Revenue, an official in a green robe saluted Fang Er as soon as he saw him.
Following his address to Fang Er.
The villagers who had come to join the fun widened their mouths in surprise.
"Has he been promoted again?"
"Was the captain made a general?"
"But I wonder what rank he is!"
"Lord Liu, there's no need for such formality. It's just an honorary title."
Fang Er said politely.
"I dare not, I dare not. General Fang, I am here to escort the prisoners. A thousand in total. Please receive them, General Fang."
Liu Tong took out a scroll from his懷.
The content was already written.
The general content was similar to a receipt.
Fang Er placed his handprint on it, and it was considered complete.
He assembled the five hundred guards, escorted these prisoners, and sent them directly to the cement kiln thirty miles away!
The training of soldiers and the production of cement had all begun to proceed in an orderly manner.
The printing plates were also progressing smoothly.
The carved movable type was arranged in sequence on a steel plate.
Individual pieces of movable type needed were taken from the steel plate and placed into a frame made of steel strips.
Inside, there was melted pine resin.
These movable type pieces were firmly adhered to it.
Fang Er also built a frame for an automatic printing press.
It was in a V-shape.
The inner side was used to place the printed movable type.
The arranged movable type, along with the outer frame, was placed directly inside and secured with clasps.
The outer side could be manually opened and closed to place paper.
In the center of the V, there was a rolling brush. As the V opened, driven by gears and springs, the brush automatically inked the movable type.
Then, paper was placed in, the printing press was closed, and a sheet of paper was printed!
The speed was very fast!
In just three breaths!
The printed pages were neatly stacked after the ink dried and were then placed on another paper cutting machine.
When the switch was pressed, the cutting blade descended, and the pages were cut neatly.
Then came the gluing and binding!
Ma Tongyuan stood in the printing workshop.
Looking at the bound books, he was filled with excitement!
"This!"
"Perhaps the era when aristocratic families monopolized knowledge is about to end!"
"In the past, I also couldn't afford books and could only borrow them from classmates. Then, at night, I would light a lamp and copy them myself before returning them."
"However, the books I could borrow were all very ordinary ones."
"Truly good books were impossible to borrow!"
"Now, with this printing workshop, the children of Fang Family Village will no longer face the predicament of not having books to read!"
He took a copy of the newly printed "Di Zi Gui" back to the school.
School had already finished.
However, there were six young men in the classroom.
These were friends whom Ma Tongyuan had summoned by letter.
"You all should look at this."
Ma Tongyuan handed them the book.
The six young men flipped through the book and were very surprised.
They were not surprised by the content of the book; they had seen "Di Zi Gui" before.
What surprised them was the text in the book!
These characters looked like they were written by Ma Tongyuan.
But upon closer inspection, they found a problem.
These characters did not appear to be hand-written.
The six men stared at Ma Tongyuan, and one of them spoke.
"Brother Ma, is this printed from woodblocks?"
"Yes and no. As for how it was printed, I cannot say without the headmaster's permission. But I can tell you that with this printing workshop, they can print over a thousand copies of such books a day!"
Ma Tongyuan said proudly.
He was not exaggerating, because books of this era had very little text!
In ancient times, due to the difficulty in making and storing bamboo slips.
Scholars always tried their best to condense the text. As a result, for a classical Chinese text of about a hundred characters, the amount of text would increase exponentially after translation!
"You all must know the poem 'Grape Wine with a Glass of Crystal' by the headmaster from before the New Year."
"The headmaster is knowledgeable, values loyalty and righteousness, is generous, and cares for the common people. That's why I, Ma, am willing to stay here and teach."
"You have all witnessed everything that has happened on the estate in the past few days. Are you willing to stay with me?"
Ma Tongyuan looked at the people before him and asked calmly.
Because he believed that these friends, who had similar experiences to his own, would make the right choice.
"Good! I'll stay. What about you all?"
"We'll stay. We have nothing else to do anyway, so it's good to stay here."
"Me too."
The others also agreed.
That evening, Ma Tongyuan brought the group to the Fang residence.
In the inner courtyard, Fang Er, having heard the news, warmly welcomed them into the inner courtyard.
"Headmaster, these are my classmates and friends I mentioned to you before. They are Li Huancong, Zhao Lingyu, Yang Zitong, Gu Chen, Liu Mo, and Xue Zhiqian."
"Greetings, Headmaster Fang!"
The group bowed to Fang Er simultaneously.
"Thank you all for thinking highly of Fang Family Village. With your joining, these children will be fortunate. I, Fang, can thank you all on behalf of the children. Please, sit!"
Fang Er was very happy.
He quickly led them to their seats.
After being served clear tea, the kitchen began to prepare food and wine.
"Headmaster, I have a question. I hope the headmaster can enlighten me."
After sitting down, Liu Mo cupped his hands and asked Fang Er.
"Please speak."
"Brother Ma told me that the Fang Family School not only does not charge tuition but also provides food, paper, and ink for the students. With such enormous expenses, what is the headmaster's purpose in running the school?"
"If it's to have them enter officialdom through the imperial examinations, the hope is likely slim. Therefore, I don't quite understand this."
"To establish the heart for Heaven and Earth, to secure life for the people!"
"To continue the lost teachings of the past sages, to bring peace to all generations!"
Fang Er ostentatiously quoted the words of the great Neo-Confucian scholar Zhang Zai from the Northern Song Dynasty.
These simple four sentences,
Twenty-two characters, struck the hearts of the few like a bomb.
Including Ma Tongyuan!
"To establish the heart for Heaven and Earth!"
"To secure life for the people!"
"To continue the lost teachings of the past sages!"
"To bring peace to all generations!"
How broad-minded, how grand were their aspirations!
At the same time, these simple four sentences could also be said to express the grand wishes of all ambitious scholars in the world!
"Headmaster, your virtue is great! Your talent is great! You are a true sage! I am willing to go through fire and water for the Headmaster's aspirations!"
Liu Mo's voice trembled. He excitedly rose from his chair.
He bowed deeply to Fang Er.
The others also stood up and saluted.
Even Ma Tongyuan was no exception.
"The Headmaster's aspirations are like the bright moon in the sky, illuminating the earth. We sincerely admire you! We wish to lend a hand to the Headmaster!"
"Hahaha, everyone, please don't be so formal. Sit down, the food and wine have been served."
Xiao Qing and Xiao Huan came out from the kitchen with the food.
Seeing how respectfully these men regarded their young master, they were immensely proud from the bottom of their hearts!