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"Researcher Chen, from here to north, cross this river, and enters the boundary of Taoyuan Township. ※%" said the person from the shrub farm pointing to a small river about ten meters wide in front of him.

Because it is too desolate and too sparsely populated, there is not even a bridge on the river, so you can only wade ashore. Fortunately, there are farm workers familiar with the nearby geography leading the way, so Chen Ke and his team quickly found a section of river downstream that is suitable for swimming.

Today is January 20, 1651. Chen Ke and his team spent three weeks conducting a rough investigation of the Dahuang Farm, the Shurhu Farm and the Guangrong Farm, and then prepared to get up and go to Taoyuan Township to the north (about 20 kilometers east of the Dahuang Farm, at the intersection of the Shaosai River and the Little Olimar River) - the last destination of this investigation.

A young man who acted as a guide - the son of a farm renter, who was just eighteen years old this year - rode his horse into the river first, and he took off his clothes and rode on a light horse without a saddle. When the horse walked to the center of the river, his legs could no longer touch the bottom of the river. The young man slipped down from the horse's butt, grabbed the horse's tail tightly, and swam forward with the horse. Whenever the horse wanted to turn around, he would splash water on the horse's face and let the horse turn his head back and continue swimming forward; and when the horse's legs reached the riverbed on the other side of the river center, he jumped onto the horse's back. Finally, when the horse stepped onto the bank opposite, he had stood firmly on the ground and played intimately with his horse.

The others looked at each other. They were not as superb as this young man's horseman's horsemanship and familiarity with horses, which could only be achieved by those who lived with horses all year round. I heard that in the western grassland area, many children of wealthy farmers would find ways to raise a foal when they were young. They were familiar with riding while caring. When they grew up, riding was often very good. These people were also the main force in every battle to clear out the barbarians. They brought their own horses, gears and sabers, and followed the regular cavalry units of the army. Searched for the Chalua camps to attack.

Chen Ke worked in the office for a year far more than his outdoor working hours, and his riding skills were naturally very average, so he could only take off his clothes and go down the river to the opposite side. Some of his entourage followed suit, while others tried to learn how to guide - but most failed and finally had to swim across the river honestly.

The deeper you go to the north bank of the river, the more desolate the ground is. There are scenes of animals living happily all over the way, but there is no one inhabited. The grassland is full of endless thistle and thorn brackish thistle. These two plants seem to be brought from the old continent many years ago. But now it is growing spectacular - it seems that the environment here is particularly suitable for the growth of thistle and thorn brackish, so this plant grows everywhere. It almost forms a trend of species invasion.

Chen Ke and others went north along a sandy road that could barely be called a road. The heights of thistles and thorny brackish thistles on both sides were almost as high as those of horseback. According to a fellow Gao Qiao man, the thistles on the east coast prairie are not particularly tall. In many places on the fertile Pampas prairie, the thorny brackish thistles are often higher than the heads of riders. Cattle herders often don’t lose the cows in thistle bushes (and then the domestic cows are so happy that they turn into bison...), and the losses are heavy.

"It's all done by the Spanish! Fortunately, this plant grows poorly in humid areas suitable for farming, otherwise it will be troublesome to develop these areas in the future. You have to spend a lot of effort to clean them first. This is probably a blessing in disgrace." Chen Ke looked at the tall thistle and thorny thistle bushes on both sides of the road, thinking with some gratitude.

Just walking on the small road among the tall thistle grass, they spent a day and arrived in Taoyuan Township on the evening of January 21. The settlement in Taoyuan Township is not large or small, with about 700 people, mostly European poor people attracted by the East Coast Homestead Law. In addition, the proportion of Ming people is about one-third - almost all of them work in the orchard.

The number of settlers in this stronghold is obviously not comparable to the Dahuang Farm (more than 1,200 people), shrub farm (more than 1,300 people) and Guangrong Farm (more than 900 people) in the south. Taoyuan Township, with only 722 settlers, originally originated from a large orchard (peach tree garden). Because the soil here is very suitable for the growth of fruits such as peach trees, orange trees and grapes, and the terrain is located between low hills and the terrain is excellent, Tao Chenxi, director of the General Administration of Textile Industry of the East Coast Republic, spent money to rent a large piece of land in Taoyuan Township, which was still a wilderness at the time, and then recruited people to level the land, transplant fruit trees, and began a pioneering operation seriously.

Of course, he himself did not forget to buy a homestead in this Taoyuan to build a villa garden, called "Taoyuan". However, as more and more local immigrants and the gradual growth of peach trees, outsiders increasingly replaced "Taoyuan" with "Taoyuan". Over time, "Taoyuan" became the official place name here. In mid-December last year, the State Council clearly named this settlement Taoyuan Township and moved a group of new Livornian immigrants of four or five hundred people here - they are still on the way and should have arrived here within a few days, after all, the transportation is inconvenient.

Chen Ke and others lived in a small guesthouse next to the township government. They said it was a guesthouse, which was similar to a farmhouse. There were vegetables planted in the front yard and some chickens and ducks. There were seven or eight sheep in the back yard. Not only was it fishy, ​​but it also bleated all day long and made people bleating. But this is the case when going out for business. At least there were hot water, hot rice and neat beds for everyone to live in, which was much better than living in a tent in the wild, right?

The person who runs the guesthouse is a middle-aged Ming soldier who lacks one leg. He is wearing a prosthetic limb and it is not particularly difficult to walk. Chen Ke saw that he is not as frowning as an ordinary disabled person, and he looks very cheerful. His Polish wife is very beautiful and her children are also very cute and diligent. It is already sunset, and the little girl is back from outside the yard with a bunch of firewood. Her mother is cooking in the kitchen, her younger brother is burning fire in front of the stove, and her father is filling the coal ball stove in the yard with hot water. The whole family is busy.

After dinner was ready, Chen Ke asked everyone to help move the table into the yard. Then more than ten people sat together, opened a few bottles of West Lake beer, and then started eating and drinking. Beef stewed with potatoes, garlic and mutton, steamed cod and some vegetables. Everyone was already hungry, so they ate quite sweetly.

After the meal, the son of the guesthouse owner, who was less than ten years old, brought everyone a few plates of clean peaches, and then ran to the stable in a corner of the yard, picked up a brush and took a shower for a foal. The foal should have been prepared by his father for him. At this time, he was licking the little guy's face intimately, having fun with each other.

Chen Ke looked silently for a while, and then asked how the child's father went to school. There were only more than 700 people in Taoyuan Township, and probably not necessarily had a school, right? Unexpectedly, the facts far exceeded Chen Ke's expectations. Although there were only dozens of children in Taoyuan Township, only 20 of them lived in the villages, and the rest were all scattered in various villages, the village still built a primary school to teach students ideology, morality, Chinese, arithmetic, labor (usually handmade), singing, and gymnastics. In addition, boys also had simple agriculture and business classes, and girls had extra tailoring classes.

It is worth mentioning that the education system on the East Coast is similar overall, but there are still some differences between places. For example, the capital Dongfang County, Ping'an County, the northern industrial town, and Zhenhai County, the old shipbuilding base. The course sheets of these wealthy counties do not have agriculture, tailors, etc. Because there are many local handicraftsmen and the social division of labor is relatively detailed, there is no need to learn this knowledge specifically. However, in the inland grassland areas with congested traffic, it is necessary to learn these courses, because there are not many handicraftsmen here to do this and that. What is needed here is a versatile talent, not a specialist, and everyone must master multiple skills.

Another difference from coastal areas is that due to the problems of population density, transportation factors and poor governance, children here - especially children from remote rural areas - may not necessarily go to the township or county for compulsory education. They often help at home since childhood. Even if the village urges to go to the township and county to go to school, they will most likely drag them. In addition, the journey is really far, so the enrollment rate of rural children is not very high.

In order to solve this situation, local governments in various places have tried their best to create opportunities for rural children to receive education. For example, they arranged for some scholars from the lower classes of the former Ming Dynasty to teach them in the village (with the increase of immigrants, the East Bank has been seriously insufficient in teaching staff themselves), but the traditional methods of teaching knowledge by these scholars are old-fashioned and seriously do not conform to modern education methods.

For example, they mainly teach literature (ancient texts, vernacular), occasionally mixed with some abacus, letters and other things. The most common scene in the classroom is the memorization from dawn to dusk. The educational methods are extremely backward and incomplete. When the training of faculty gradually follows up in the future, these private schools will be merged and cancelled sooner or later. However, for now, the existence of these private schools' informal schools still has its positive significance because it gives the inconvenience to go to school.
Chapter completed!