After Mr. Zhu came back, the second thing he did was to write a township contract for Bailu Village.
"One, virtue and karma encourage each other. Virtue means that you must do what you see and do, and you must correct what you hear. Neighbors, being able to choose friends, being able to keep integrity, being able to give benefits widely, being able to be entrusted with, and being able to save people from adversity..." He handed over this township covenant to Bai Jiaxuan and the clan elders.
"Mr. Zhu's township agreement is well written. If it can be done like this, then our Bailu Village will really become Renyi Village." Lu Taiheng laughed.
"It's just that the restrictions are too strict, and I'm afraid the folks won't be able to abide by them." A clan elder said worriedly.
"Yes, what is written on it is stricter than the notice in that county." A clan elder said, "I don't know if the villagers will accept it."
"The common people obey the teachings. What is teaching? It means talking, walking, behaving, and dealing with the world. There must be certain rules. This township covenant is the rules." Mr. Zhu explained, "The so-called seeking the best will get it. Those who ask for it will get what they want, and those who ask for it will get nothing. The rules must be set stricter from the beginning, so that good results can be obtained.
Like fire and water, the fire is so fierce that it can’t hold it if you get close to it. Therefore, people are afraid of fire and stay away from it, so they are rarely burned to death.
The water is soft, so everyone likes to be close to the water. When it is hot, they like to go into the water to take a bath. As a result, people drown every year. "
Everyone felt reasonable after hearing what he said.
"Brother-in-law is right." Bai Jiaxuan agreed very much, "I will ask everyone to copy this township treaty back home, and me to recite it all by heart. I also want to carve this township treaty into a stele and stand it on the Our ancestral hall, let future generations abide by it."
The clan elders nodded when they heard this.
…
Afterwards, Bai Jiaxuan really engraved the Township Covenant into a monument and erected it in the Bailu Ancestral Hall.
The villagers also began to recite the village agreement, and even the old men who could not read followed suit.
But Xiang Nan knew that this was basically formalism.
Just read the Four Books and Five Classics, the Biography of Loyal Officials, and the Biography of Second Officials like scholars, but they have done double-faced and treacherous things.
There are not many people who can be as honest and self-confident as Mr. Zhu, who sacrifice their lives for righteousness.
Therefore, it is not a big deal to recite the hometown contract. It is the most difficult thing to apply what you have learned and to integrate knowledge and action.
Sure enough, although Bailu Village has built an ancestral hall, plowed tobacco seedlings, and established a village covenant, the people's hearts and customs are not so easy to change.
After all, to be good is as good as climbing, and to be evil is as bad as falling. It's not easy to learn well, but it's easy to learn badly.
People like those who have been gambling for several years have already developed a gambling addiction. And people like Bai Xing'er, Bai Shitou'er and others have become addicted to drugs.
And these addictions cannot be controlled by a mere village agreement.
So they still recite the township contract, but they still play with money and smoke, and they haven't changed at all.
…
Bai Jiaxuan was furious when he knew that the villagers were obedient and vicious.
"Oh, Jiaxuan, it can't be done, it will kill someone." Seeing Lu Zilin, he hurriedly persuaded him.
"If someone dies, I will pay for it." Bai Jiaxuan said, and walked over with a stick.
"Oh, patriarch, we don't dare anymore, we don't dare anymore!" Bai Xing'er, Shitouer, Sang Laoba and others all shouted.
"Shut up, how many times have you said this, and you didn't say it's annoying, all the young and old are tired of hearing it." Bai Jiaxuan scolded, "I'll cure your hand problems today. I'll treat the problems in your mouth. Cure your mouth."
After finishing speaking, he picked up his stick and beat them on the board in front of all the villagers.
The beating was so painful that Bai Xing'er, Sang Laoba, Bai Shitouer and others grinned and cried for their father and mother.
And this approach also scared the other villagers.
Most of them are honest people, who have never seen such a scene before, many of them were scared out of their wits. Bai Xiaowen was so frightened that he peed his pants, because this was the first time he had seen such a cruel father.
After playing the board, Bai Jiaxuan asked them to tell them how much they won and how much they lost, and then asked the winner to go home and get the money back.
Followed by setting up a pot in the ancestral hall, pouring boiling water into the pot, and then throwing money in, let them start fishing. In the end, they were all burnt until they grinned and called their father and mother.
"Remember the pain well. Next time you dare to gamble again, I'll put you in the frying pan!" Bai Jiaxuan scolded, "Okay, I'll cure your hand problems, and now I'll cure your mouth problems. Mouth."
Afterwards, he asked people to dig out two spoonfuls of yellow soup from the cesspit, forcefully opened their mouths and poured them into it.
All the people in the village were ashamed and their limbs were weak when they saw it. No one dared not to take the township agreement seriously.
And after those smokers suffered such torture, they really didn't dare to smoke anymore.
Of course, this is something.
…
After punishing these people, Bai Jiaxuan approached Lu Zilin and Xiang Nan to discuss building a school in the village.
"If you want to change customs, you have to pay attention to enlightenment. What is enlightenment, that is education influence. How to educate influence, then you need to build a school." Bai Jiaxuan explained, "I want to build a school in our village so that children can read Literacy, what do you think?"
"Uncle Jiaxuan is a good idea. There are currently thirty or forty children in the village. Except for Zhaopeng Zhaohai and Xiaowen Xiaowu, the other children are all out of school. don't know.
I think they should be allowed to read books. Only by reading can they be rational, can they learn a lot, and can they make progress through reading. I fully support it. Uncle Jiaxuan, in this way, I will pay for the children's books, and each child will have a bucket of food every month to make up for the family's shortfall when they are studying. "Xiang Nan said.
The reason why many children do not study is because their families are poor.
It is not uncommon for the so-called children of the poor to take charge of their homes early, and it is not uncommon for five or six-year-old children to work in the fields, weeding, collecting firewood, feeding cattle, and catching insects. Even at the age of thirteen or fourteen, one is already a strong laborer.
Because of this, Bai Jiaxuan had good intentions to set up a school, but not everyone has the conditions. In ancient times, it took three generations to support a scholar.
That's why Xiang Nan proposed that each child be given a bucket of grain every month. A bucket of grain is twelve and a half catties, barely enough for a child's ration.
The school in Bailuyuan is not a nine-year compulsory school. Most of the children learn three-character classics, hundred surnames, and thousand-character prose. They can write their own names, and counting is enough.
So the children who go to school are basically between the ages of six and eleven or twelve, and no matter how old they are, it is impossible for them to go to school. For children of this age, half a catty of food a day should be enough.