Chapter 910 – Two Years of Hibernation, The Great Powers of the World (1)
“All talk about making a big deal out of nothing, yet I’m feeling quite pleased inside.”
Jiang Pengji said, “So, according to you, the scholars entering Golden Scales Pavilion are too scared to scold me?”
“People live for their reputation, and trees for their bark. Not everyone can be as shameless as those few,” Feng Zhen chuckled slyly. “Scholars across the land have benefited from the Lord’s grace, so naturally, they won’t dare to criticize you. As long as you don’t do anything that incites public wrath, your reputation should remain intact.”
Establishing the Golden Scales Pavilion and bestowing favors upon scholars, those who’ve studied would at least keep some dignity and wouldn’t easily confront Jiang Pengji.
Jiang Pengji propped her chin, feeling that Feng Zhen’s words held some truth.
“Since we’re bestowing favors, let’s go all the way then.”
Feng Zhen was surprised, “What new idea does the Lord have this time?”
Jiang Pengji pulled out a booklet from her sleeve. Feng Zhen took it and saw the cover neatly written with the four characters of ‘Da Xia Yun Shu.’
Feng Zhen smiled wryly after looking at it. “At this age, why would you still need to read Da Xia Yun Shu? Just keep it for yourself, Lord.”
The so-called Da Xia Yun Shu was simply an ancient version of phonetics, akin to the lingua franca familiar to the audience of the live stream.
The founder of Da Xia Yun Shu was the former Prime Minister Huang.
The pronunciation system of Da Xia Yun Shu is divided into direct sounds and fanqie, where direct sounds use homophones to annotate the characters, and fanqie uses two common characters to annotate one character. For example, for “慷” (kāng), the direct sound would be marked by “康” (kāng), while the fanqie would use “可” (kě) and “昂” (áng).
Thanks to Da Xia Yun Shu, the official speech of the five nations remained consistent after the fragmentation of the Da Xia Dynasty.
Otherwise, with dialects all over the place, proper communication would be impossible!
Before the young boys embark on their studies, they need to memorize the “initials” and “finals” in Da Xia Yun Shu, easing their future learning.
However, the pitfall is that there are 49 “initials” and 181 “finals” in Da Xia Yun Shu!
Young children, before starting their education, must memorize 230 commonly used characters.
In simpler terms, before teaching someone to read, they must possess some foundational knowledge.
Only after memorizing 230 commonly used characters from Da Xia Yun Shu can they use those characters to annotate the pronunciation of other characters.
The slow start for young boys and the struggle of the common people to enlighten their minds pose significant obstacles.
Jiang Pengji said, “Just open it and see for yourself.”
Feng Zhen, hesitant, opened the pages and found that even the first page was written with Da Xia Yun Shu, each character accompanied by bizarre symbols.
Confused, he looked up at Jiang Pengji’s face, which was filled with anticipation.
Suppressing his emotions, Feng Zhen turned a few more pages.
Inside were familiar characters, but each character was surrounded by densely packed symbols akin to small calligraphy.
He pondered and began to carefully search for commonalities among these symbols, and surprisingly, he found some patterns.
The deeper he looked, the more startled he became.
It was rare for a wastrel to invest himself wholeheartedly in something, while the audience of the live stream wrote vigorously.
Why?
They all knew Jiang Pengji hailed from a world beyond the stars, yet she had never spoken a word of her native tongue, let alone written any characters from her homeland.
Now that they had a rare chance to see it, how could they miss it?
This was a golden opportunity to study the future’s writing!
Seeing Feng Zhen mimicking the symbols she drew, Jiang Pengji’s eyes squinted with a smile, knowing he had grasped the essence.
She said, “A few days ago, you told me that Feng Yi complained about how Daxia Yun Shu confounded the young scholars at Golden Scales Academy, right?”
Feng Zhen vaguely guessed what was coming, his fists clenching secretly, suppressing the tumult of emotions inside.
“Indeed, that’s the case.”
“So, I went and found a copy of Daxia Yun Shu and, after careful study, I discovered a great secret.” Jiang Pengji squinted her eyes with a smile and suddenly asked a seemingly unrelated question, “You know the punctuation symbols that Mr. Cheng Cheng has come up with, right?”
Feng Zhen replied, “Of course.”
Thanks to the punctuation, the famous scholars gathered in Wanzhou argued fiercely, with everyone having their own opinions about sentence division, making the scene resemble a battlefield.
Jiang Pengji continued, “That inspired me. I was wondering if I could also use different symbols to represent different pronunciations?”
Her world also had such a concept as phonetics, but the symbols used were entirely different from those known to the audience of the live stream.
Jiang Pengji did not adopt the symbols suggested by the audience but instead chose the interstellar characters she was familiar with.
“Daxia Yun Shu is indeed good, but it’s too complicated. The threshold is high, making it incredibly challenging for the common people to get started. If we used these symbols to annotate pronunciation, it would be much simpler; a young boy would only need to remember a handful of symbols to learn phonetics and characters.”
Feng Zhen had his suspicions but still couldn’t quite believe his ears when Jiang Pengji affirmed them.
Could something so complex as Daxia Yun Shu really be simplified like this?
“Can any character be spelled out?”
“Why don’t you try it and see?”
Feng Zhen, not believing in evil, grabbed a couple of scrolls of documents, picked out a few dozen characters, and matched them with the symbols he’d compiled.
After the experiment, they all matched correctly!
He blinked in disbelief. If this simple method of annotation could be widely promoted, how much time and energy could it save?!
Indubitably, it would lower the entry threshold for education, giving more children from humble families the hope of learning.
“I intend to make a personal trip back to Wanzhou,” Jiang Pengji told Feng Zhen. “This new phonetic book will initially be trialed at Golden Scales Academy to see how it works. If all goes well, I plan to promote these phonetic symbols throughout my territory.”
Feng Zhen struggled to calm himself down.
“Lord—”
Jiang Pengji said, “Enlightening the people is a long road ahead. The common people may not know a single word, but if they apply themselves, they can memorize it in less than three days. At that point, the state government can issue orders, using one sheet with common characters and another annotated with symbols. The common people can then piece together pronunciations one character at a time. Just think, if that happens, how much effort could the state save?”
The low literacy rate among the common people indirectly affected the efficiency of government orders.
Because they couldn’t read, they had no clue what the government had issued.
In the dark, they couldn’t understand anything.
If they could spell it out themselves, they would know what notices said.
Even if they couldn’t read the characters, they could pronounce them.
Feng Zhen felt parched, staring blankly at his lord.
The look in his eyes wasn’t that of admiration for a lord, but rather reverence for a divine being!
Seeing Feng Zhen’s lack of response, Jiang Pengji slammed the Daxia Yun Shu in frustration, scolding, “Will you agree or not?!”
Feng Zhen, caught off guard, realized how good this opportunity was and could not possibly refuse.
Moreover, the Lord was the master; she was the one making decisions, so why was she asking him?
Feng Zhen said, “Everything will be decided by the Lord; I genuinely wish to serve you faithfully and will not hesitate even to face death!”
Jiang Pengji said, “Good, then it’s settled. Wanzhou’s affairs will rely entirely on you.”
Feng Zhen finally processed Jiang Pengji’s words and suddenly broke into a cold sweat.
“Huh?”
Jiang Pengji said, “Didn’t I mention earlier that I wanted to return to Wanzhou and asked for your agreement? You said I could make the decisions.”
Feng Zhen stared blankly at the pile of bamboo slips in the administrative hall, then back at his beaming lord.
My life is over!
“Literary Zheng, save me!”
