In this era, it was common for officials near prefectures and counties to move around from time to time. In addition to official business, they were more likely to visit and make friends through literature. Du Zhongxiao was an official for nearly ten years and never met him because he was in Yongcheng and was poor on Hedong Road. Another reason was that he was not good at socializing, had no literary talent, and did not know how to do things like traveling in mountains and rivers.

According to the convention of this era, when the four magistrates arrived at the Iron Supervisor, they should arrange for them to visit Qingliang Temple and then pay tribute to the ancient Kunyang City, an ancient battlefield that changed history. Du Zhongxiao could not do such a thing, and because of limited time, they could only visit the Iron Supervisor.

The next day, after breakfast, Du Zhongxiao and Su Song took four people out of the yamen and arrived at the nearby barracks.

If it were in later industrial society, we would definitely visit factories first, or even mainly look at factories. In this era, officials should first manage their achievements and livelihood. When officials understand a place, they should first look at people's lives.

Work was already in place at this time, and the barracks seemed a little deserted. There were not many pedestrians on the street, all the elderly, young and women.

Looking at the neat streets and houses, Yan Shu said: "The houses here are built like chessboards, and every family looks the same. If you are an outsider, you will be lost when you get here. It is so convenient, but it is less wild."

Du Zhongxiao said: "My husband, this is a barracks, and he lives in the family of the iron supervisor. The most densely populated place is really not wild."

Everyone laughed at each other. The aesthetic intentions of literati and poets are really incompatible with industry. This is the first industrial zone of the Song Dynasty. Not to mention that there is no wildness, even the rural atmosphere is not slightest. Yan Shu talks casually, but Du Zhongxiao is too serious.

Du Zhongxiao couldn't help but be serious. The four people who came here had the lowest official position and had also been the master of imperial edicts. Yan Shu was a prime minister several times and had a great influence in the court. When they came here for a trip, their impression was very important and would even directly affect the court's policies.

The barracks were all covered with slag, drainage ditches were dug on both sides, and flowers and trees were planted on the side, which was clean and tidy. Walking on the street, the scenery on both sides was single, and I walked a distance without realizing it.

About two hundred steps, there was a house in front and a small garden appeared. There was a pool in the middle, with rockery in the pool, large lotus flowers planted in the water, and a pavilion in the middle. There were many flowers and trees planted around it. It was spring and many flowers were already in full bloom.

It is very lively. There are many women gathered in the small garden in the middle, doing work and chatting in leisure. Many children around are running around, playing games, laughing and laughing. There are many vendors at the intersection, including those selling vegetables and meat, and all kinds of snacks and toys.

There are two rows of shops in the garden, one south and one north. The shops in the north are taverns, groceries, clothes, shoes and hats, and there are several snack stalls outside. On the south are selling paper, ink, pens, inkstones, books, calligraphy and paintings. There is a big house in the middle, with the door wide open, and a few elderly people sitting inside, drinking tea and chatting. On the other side, the sound of reading aloud came from the houses, as if it was a village school.

Song Qi said: "Although there is no wildness here, there is a lively market. Fortune judgment, what is this place?"

Du Zhongxiao said: "When I go back to my husband, there is such a place for every five hundred households here, which is considered a market and convenient for residents. This small garden is where they go to have fun and relax. The shops in the north sell some groceries for daily use, and the stalls around are hawkers doing small businesses, and they don't have to go out of the barracks to cross the river to buy them. The ones in the south sell ink, pens, inks, and inkstones in the middle are the old ones in Lizheng Village discussing local affairs. The village is always selected by residents, and they take turns to be on duty there, and the yamen replenish some money and grain every month. On the other side is a school to teach children to enlightenment. All residents here have to study there for three years or more children over the age of six or under twelve. The official gives subsidies and no tuition fees are charged."

Ouyang Xiu was surprised: "Does everyone here enter school and have books to read?"

Du Zhongxiao nodded: "Not bad. Actually, I can't teach much. I can recognize thousands of characters and understand the calculation of books."

"This is amazing-" Ouyang Xiu nodded repeatedly. Although he was born into a family of officials, his father died early and was poor at a young age, and relied on his uncle's family. When he was a child, he relied on his mother to write calligraphy on the ground, and the conditions were very difficult. In fact, when Ouyang Xiu's father was alive, he did not like Ouyang Xiu, the child born by his ex-wife because of divorce. Ouyang Xiu's conditions were not much better than Ouyang Xiu's family. Instead, his stepmother came from a scholarly family and had no prejudice against Ouyang Xiu and taught him carefully.

Lamenting about his life experience, Ouyang Xiu felt particularly emotional about everyone here who was admitted to the school, thinking it was an extraordinary virtue.

Liu Zhi looked at the children playing in the garden, stroked his white beard and said, "As aged six to twelve, three years old, what should I do after three years? If no one teaches me, it will be a pity."

Du Zhongxiao said: "This is just a place for enlightenment. If you study well, you will have an exam in three years. After you pass, you will go to other schools. The Iron Supervision needs people everywhere. As long as you have a skill and study for a few years, you will work in the Iron Supervision. If you do a good job, you will go to the prefectures and county schools to study. Those who are really useless and incompetent will have no choice but to make a living."

There is no condition for free compulsory education in this era. It is already an amazing moral policy to provide three years of free education. In three years, you should learn more than a thousand words and know how to do simple math operations. As long as you pass, you can go to the school of the Iron Prison and learn further according to your personal interests and parents' plans. Generally, you will be a worker and a better technician in the future. As for those who read classics and history and do articles, you will naturally have a state-owned learning and county school, and you will be able to take the Jinshi exam in the future, which belongs to another system.

If you cannot emerge in this education system, you can only arrange your life path by your family, which has nothing to do with the Iron Supervision. If you are short of people in the Iron Supervision, you will not be recruited from those who are eliminated by education. You would rather go to other places to recruit people.

The iron supervision is a factory, and strictly speaking, it will not be responsible for the birth, old age, sickness and death of workers. It is the work of the workers themselves to pay money to them according to the salary system. Even the barracks here are also assets of the iron supervision. No one at home does work in the iron supervision, so the iron supervision will take it back.

The various insurances, employment subsidies, and so on in later generations were not available to Iron Supervision. Strictly speaking, those benefits are subsidies from society to participants, and the tilt of social resources to specific groups of people. That system was formed because of various reasons. After countless struggles and games, it did not represent advancedness or necessity. Compared with this era, the advanced level of productivity of Iron Supervision was unattainable and could provide wages far beyond the social average. As long as you pay more money, it was enough.

Infrastructure from schools to roads and other aspects is no longer an iron supervision factory, but a local government affairs. Even if it is not in an iron supervision, other places will gradually become popular under their rule. It is only related to local finances and has nothing to do with the identity of an iron supervision.

Even if there is an iron supervision and the local government has abundant fiscal revenue, the iron supervision can only provide three years of free education. In the early stage, everything was easy to discuss. However, it was still possible to listen to the three-year exam, but there were no forbidden areas around the classroom. In fact, there are some people who are willing to study now, because they are over the age of twelve and cannot enter the school, and they stand outside the window every day to listen. When everything is perfected, listening is not allowed. If they cannot pass the exam, they want to continue studying, so they can only ask teachers for a family and go to a private school.

The first thing to do is to popularize the education provided by the official is to be fair, and the most fair thing is to take the exam. If you pass the exam, you will pass, and if you fail, you will not pass. If you don’t go to school, you will not have any food. The foundation of public education is exams, because resources are unbalanced, some schools are good, and some schools are poor. If you have good talents and are willing to work hard, you should naturally receive good education. If you don’t use this as a basis, it will inevitably be unfair, and other fairness is fake.

Based on the region, there will be immigration exams. In this era, there will never be many such people. If you reduce the region to a smaller size, you will have school district housing. The price of school district housing is high. As long as the time is long enough, good school district housing will definitely be rich families. If you are poor, you deserve to receive poor education. The resources for basic education are used by the society.

Adding other content to the exam is like the one who uses a corner to determine the top scorer during the Taizu period, which will inevitably reduce the significance of the exam. What kind of sports bonus points in later generations and artistic bonus points are the same. If you have expertise in schools that cultivate expertise, don’t get involved in general education.

If you decide fairness by exams, you must supplement it with other education systems. Examination scores cannot represent everything. Every stage has various reasons, whether you don’t work hard or other reasons, which leads to poor examination scores. After time, you may suddenly wake up and become reborn. The so-called prodigal son will not change his gold medals, and if he doesn’t get good exams, it is not necessarily a talent. Then you have to go to other education systems to make up for the foundation, and then pass the exam and get the next stage of education.

The same is true for employing people. Passing a certain level of examination only means that you have reached the level of examination and cannot explain the future.

The core of this is that free education is a social resource, and the primary focus is fairness. The disadvantages of the examination decision to stay or leave are supplemented by other education systems, rather than pouring water into free education.
Chapter completed!