Yuyuantan was once a royal garden from the Jin and Liao dynasties. The scenery was natural and beautiful. Its water surface alone reached more than a thousand acres, with the shimmering land and poetry and painting.

However, since this place has been abandoned for more than two hundred years, and in order to build Nanyuan, the Ming Dynasty royal family migrated almost all the craftsmen and farmers who maintained the gardens near the capital. Therefore, at this time, Yuyuan Pond was quite desolate, and the weeds around the pond were almost one person tall.

Yang Cong seemed to have no intention of the officialdom. After the first draft of "Theory of Understanding and Knowledge" was presented, he summoned thousands of migrant workers to build a large-scale construction by Yuyuan Pond, not only building a college, but also building a house.

This house was obviously built for people to live in. Not only did he plan to run a school in Yuyuantan, he even planned to bring his family to live in forever!

His meaning is very obvious, that is, to tell Yan Song that he really withdrew, and he even didn't want to stay in the capital. He just tosses as much as you like.

How could Yan Song do anything? Before there was any clue at this moment, he really tried hard to make a lot of effort in Yuyuantan. The entire outer periphery of Yuyuantan was surrounded by a tall wall, and inside the wall was pavilions and towers and houses everywhere along the mountains and waters.

This Yuyuan Pond itself has an area of ​​nearly a thousand acres. If it covers the surrounding mile, it will reach more than 3,000 acres. If it is used to build a house, it may be possible to build the entire Ming Dynasty and even the largest house in the world today.

However, there is a taboo now, that is, you cannot overcome the current emperor.

For example, you cannot build this house larger than the palace, and the total area of ​​the palace is only more than 1,000 acres. Therefore, the largest house in the capital and even in the Ming Dynasty is only about 1,000 acres. No matter how big it is, it will be overwhelming. If someone is serious, it is possible to make you laugh.

Of course, Yang Cong knew this taboo. He would not give Yan Song a chance to clean up him. The mansion he built for himself was only about a hundred acres, but only he and his family lived in it, such as servants, guards, maids and old men, when they were fine.

In this way, even if it exceeds a thousand acres, there is nothing to say. After all, if you don’t have a unified circle, you can’t be considered a mansion, right?

As for the college, he also built a larger building than other colleges. At most, other colleges are a house, a school, and some canteens, houses, and thatched cottages. However, he built many houses, many schools, and many houses, and there was no problem with hundreds of students living in it.

If someone is interested in going in and looking carefully, you will find that the university hall he built is different from the university halls of other colleges. The university halls of other colleges are just a podium, and dozens of tables are neatly placed below, and the university halls he built are all very strange.

Many of the schools he built were actually built in the form of workshops!

For example, the Metallurgical Academy is not a neat table, but a furnace and a fine sand pool.

For example, the Shipping School is even more amazing, it is just a dock!

There are also astronomy schools, geography schools, weapons schools, etc., one is more weird than the other. Not to mention schools in other places, even the entire Ming Dynasty would probably not be able to find so many weird places.

If this guy was coming, he would definitely be stunned. Should he teach or open a workshop?

When Wang Xuan, Tang Shunzhi and others saw these schools, they were very excited and shouted that they were well built!

Because they all knew that what Yang Cong wanted to teach was not the simple Four Books and Five Classics, but the principles or methods of studying things to gain knowledge.

In Yang Cong's words, the Ming Dynasty did not lack students who studied the Four Books and Five Classics at this time. In the entire Ming Dynasty, millions of scholars read almost all the Four Books and Five Classics. A few hundred or thousands of them were missing, which did not affect everyone's study the Four Books and Five Classics. There were fewer scholars who truly learned the principle of studying the Four Books and Five Classics.

Nowadays, scholars who have some skills will choose to get fame or work hard in the officialdom. Who would study the things used by common people or even lower-level craftsmen? Even if someone studies it, they will basically be forced to do anything and be forced to do so.

For example, Wang Xuan is a craftsman, and he failed many exams. After several exams, he was still a juren. He couldn't afford the cost of taking the exam. Therefore, he lost his mind on the imperial examination and focused on studying the skills of craftsmen.

For example, Luo Hongxian, such a top scholar, should have a bright future, but he met Xia Yan, a "jealous person" who specialized in various top scholars, second-tier and Tanhua. He also locked himself in the Hanlin Academy's duty room when he saw that he had no hope of promotion, and was studying maps every day, drawing maps, and asking him to really get promoted and make a name for himself, he would probably have thrown the map aside.

In other words, scholars today are basically studying hard, and the purpose of reading is to get fame and fortune, which is not as good as officialdom.

This is not good. You should know that the Ming Dynasty officialdom has only tens of thousands of people, from first-rank officials to ninth-rank officials. In other words, almost ninety-nine percent of scholars are wasting time, and scholars are basically managed by tens of millions of people in the Ming Dynasty. How could the Ming Dynasty achieve great development by wasting talents like this?

Yang Cong wanted to change the problem of most scholars who only know how to read books to death, cultivate a group of people who know how to apply what they have learned and can study things and gain knowledge, so that they can drive the atmosphere of studying things and gain knowledge.

His so-called study of things and knowledge is not about studying theory, but rather focuses on practice, which means doing it directly and real knowledge is derived from practice.

For example, metallurgy is to use copper ore, iron ore, even gold ore, and silver ore to smelting, studying smelting methods and the properties of various metals, and even experimenting with alloy methods similar to bronze, in order to smel more practical metals.

For example, shipping is to truly participate in shipbuilding and constantly study shipbuilding technology in order to build more advanced warships.

This was also the main reason why he built the academy in Yuyuantan, because Yuyuantan was connected to other water systems, and the ship was built from here, and even through the water system in the capital, it could be directly driven into the sea.

If others knew that he wanted to do this, they would probably think that he had been in the head, but Wang Xuan, Tang Shunzhi and others didn't think so at all, because he had seen the power of new muskets, artillery, and even new warships. That guy was simply crushing against the Tartars and Japanese pirates holding old weapons!

They had long seen that swords, guns, swords, and halberds would be eliminated, and the future would definitely be the world of gunpowder weapons. At this time, studying these so-called "new technologies" can continue to maintain the advantage of the Ming army to crush the enemy. If they ignore them like before, they will probably be overtaken by others soon.

They are quite clear that the so-called new muskets and cannons were actually developed based on the Continental Ferron machine cannon.

Yang Cong also said that all the powerful countries in the continent are working hard to study these things. Their warships have even traveled thousands of miles to the Ming Dynasty. However, no one has been to the continent, and most people don’t even know where the continent is!

This is quite terrifying. If the continental countries rushed over with muskets and artillery that were more powerful than the Ming Dynasty, how could the Ming Dynasty resist?
Chapter completed!