Chapter 119: The Campus

“Not bad,” Hu Qingbai said with a laugh. The Ministry of Education’s new office was a two-story building of red brick and red tile, located within the park. Moving out of the government compound meant they finally had their own space, a welcome change from the few cramped rooms they had been crammed into before.

Just inside the school gate stood a large stone pedestal, currently empty. A few students from the National School were clambering on it. Seeing an “official” approach, they all jumped down and scattered.

“This is the pedestal for a statue,” Mei Wan explained. The Ministry of Education had originally planned to erect a statue of a great man, but the debate over which great man to honor was still ongoing, so it remained blank for now.

The playground was vast, a standard 400-meter track. It was equipped with horizontal bars, parallel bars, and climbing poles. There were even soccer goals made of wooden frames and fishing nets. Next to it was a basketball court, not only with hoops, but well-made ones at that. Xiao Zishan had to admire Wu Kuangming, the man in charge of forestry and wood products—his craftsmanship was improving by the day.

However, the students were merely walking, playing, and using the equipment. No one was playing soccer or basketball.

“No basketballs or soccer balls?”

“We have a few, salvaged from the ship…” Hu Qingbai started to say, “but they were all taken by the General Office.” He caught himself, remembering he was speaking to the Director of the General Office, and quickly amended, “—not enough. We wanted to make them ourselves, but Mo Xiaoan said that applying for rubber from the strategic reserves to make balls would surely be rejected.”

“Didn’t they have soccer in ancient China? Gao Qiu was a master at it. Can’t we make a Song Dynasty-style soccer ball?” Xiao Zishan had completely forgotten about the “ball snatching” incident.

“It’s not the same thing,” Hu Qingbai thought, reflecting on how the Director of the General Office was quite adept at making random associations.

“It can’t be inflated; it has no elasticity,” Xiao Zishan suddenly remembered. The army often played rugby on the training grounds as a form of confrontational training. The last time he visited Yanchang Village, he had also seen the young people there playing rugby. The requirements for a rugby ball were not as strict, and the game itself was more intense.

“We can teach everyone to play rugby,” Xiao Zishan said. “Yes, yes. Xi Yazhou has promoted it well in Yanchang Village. And baseball! The equipment isn’t difficult to make.”

“Isn’t rugby too rough?” Bai Yu expressed his concern. “The children could get injured.”

“American children play rugby,” Xiao Zishan waved his hand. “We are to be the America of the 17th century!”

This incongruous analogy left everyone speechless. But on second thought, the transmigrator group did harbor such ambitions. Who wouldn’t want the title of world hegemon?

So it was decided. Rugby and baseball would be added to the school’s sports program. The army would be responsible for teaching rugby, and the special reconnaissance team would handle baseball. As a second-generation Chinese-American, Xue Ziliang was certainly no stranger to America’s most popular sports.

The limewash on the newly built teaching building had not yet dried, and it was not yet in use. The whole building was quiet. To Xiao Zishan, the classrooms looked much like the primary school he had attended as a child. The windows were large and fitted with glass to maximize natural light, but because the frames were wooden, the glass area was smaller, and the lighting was slightly dimmer than he was used to.

“No electric lights installed?” Xiao Zishan noticed the empty reserved spots on the beams and ceiling.

“No. We don’t have the technology to make light bulbs, and their use is strictly controlled. The Industrial and Energy Committee said we can use carbide lamps at night in the future—they can handle that.”

The blackboards, desks, and chairs were of a standard design. Except for the blackboards at the front and back, which were painted black, all the furniture was in its original, unfinished state. Still, Xiao Zishan thought it was remarkable that Wu Kuangming had managed to get a group of 17th-century peasants to produce 20th-century furniture.

On the white-washed walls above the blackboards, slogans familiar to the transmigrators had been brushed in ink: “Study hard and make progress every day,” “Cultivate your character,” “Knowledge is power.”

The classroom number was nailed to the door. Hu Qingbai explained that to maximize efficiency, they would not adopt a one-class-per-classroom model. Instead, like a university, students would move between classrooms for different subjects.

“Does that make sense?” Xiao Zishan asked. “Primary and secondary school students are in school from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. There’s almost no free time for the classrooms, except in the evening.”

“No, our education system is based on pragmatism,” Hu Qingbai said confidently. “One-third of the time is for cultural classes, one-third for labor practice, and one-third for military and physical training. So each class will likely not be using a classroom for about half the day.”

This “three-thirds” education system had received high praise from Ma Qianzhu. He had said on many occasions: “The Fangcaodi teaching experience best reflects the spirit and superiority of the transmigrator group,” “it is the perfect combination of theoretical study and social practice,” and “it is a good model for cultivating new people with ideals, culture, and discipline.”

The so-called labor practice class was not about making paper models or playing with clay, but about going to the fields, factories, and enterprises to do real work.

The campus itself had a base for labor practice: a small farm, complete with a vegetable garden, a livestock pen, and a sizable biogas digester. The biogas would be used for cooking, but its primary purpose was to treat the large amount of human waste and organic refuse generated on campus, turning it into fertilizer to be used on-site and saving them the trouble of dealing with sewage.

There was even a simple, wind-powered waterwheel on the riverbank for irrigation, and a row of large and small bamboo sheds with frame structures designed by Bingfeng.

“Many of the facilities on the farm were built by the students themselves,” Hu Qingbai said. “Not just this practice farm, but the entire campus construction. The students participated a great deal. These children used to study in the open air and read in their dormitories. Now that they can move into proper classrooms, they are overjoyed, and their enthusiasm for labor is high!”

It seemed Hu Qingbai himself had been infected by their spirit. He gestured enthusiastically. “Take this simple waterwheel, for example. A few students made it themselves. Not bad, right?”

“Indeed, not bad. But the waterwheel isn’t turning.” Xiao Zishan noted that the tributary of the Wenlan River was not large, and its flow was not strong enough to turn the wheel.

“It will be useful after we build a dam,” Hu Qingbai said. “This vegetable garden can be used by the students to grow their own food. We plan to raise pigs and sheep in the livestock pen. Their feed will be the swill from the cafeteria.”

“Swill?” Xiao Zishan had seen the natives eat. Given how they cherished every grain of rice, it was hard to imagine there would be much swill left over. This was not a 21st-century university.

“There is still some. The students can supplement the feed by growing pigweed and sweet potatoes, and by cutting wild greens. Raising sheep is even simpler; the students just need to cut grass,” Hu Qingbai explained. “The harvest from the garden and the farm will all be used to subsidize the food for the teachers and students, increasing our self-sufficiency.”

“And this bamboo shed?” Xiao Zishan walked into one. It was nearly two stories high, its frame made entirely of bamboo, its walls of bamboo and reed mats. The ground was compacted clay and sand. It was unclear what it was for.

“This is the site of the school-run factory,” Hu Qingbai introduced.

“What does the factory produce?”

“There’s no power, so we’ll have to start with manual labor. We can take on some outsourced processing. Wu Kuangming said he would outsource some rattan and straw weaving to us. The machinery factory has also agreed to help us make a few hand-cranked weaving machines. We can make safety helmets and straw hats. We’ll coordinate at the next meeting to see what else we can do.”

The next shed was smaller. Inside, many bookshelf-like shelves were neatly arranged.

“This can’t be a library, can it?” Xiao Zishan couldn’t imagine what else it could be, but it was too small and simple for a library.

Everyone laughed. “We’re preparing to grow fungi. Oyster mushrooms, wood ear mushrooms, shiitake mushrooms… Huang Dashan will provide the strains and technical guidance.”

“Aren’t you afraid of technology proliferation?”

“It doesn’t matter if the cultivation technology spreads. In fact, the more the better. As long as we control the strains. This is Huang Dashan’s patent.”

“Let’s go to the library now.”

To Xiao Zishan’s surprise, the library was a luxurious, two-story, pointed-roof building made of reinforced concrete. The gray concrete beams and columns stood out against the red brick walls. The building was heavily guarded. The windows were fitted not only with iron bars but also with iron-clad shutters. The door was also sheathed in iron and fitted with a modern lock.

“The things here are particularly valuable, hence the luxury,” Mei Wan said as he opened the lock. “Otherwise, I wouldn’t have been willing to use reinforced concrete.”

This building served as both a library and a laboratory. The library was on the well-ventilated second floor. The reading room was bright, and the rows of newly made bookshelves in the spacious repository were still mostly empty. There were only some thread-bound books purchased from Guangzhou—classics, history, and literature—and a collection of newly printed textbooks and bound volumes of the “Lingao Times.” Textbooks were a major problem. Zhou Dongtian was still working with the chemical department to solve the issue of printing press ink. Once that was resolved, the library’s collection would grow quickly.

The first floor housed a complete set of four laboratories for physics, chemistry, and biology, configured to the standards of a secondary school, as well as storage rooms for equipment. What particularly shocked Xiao Zishan was that there was even an electrical laboratory. Though not involved in the Planning Committee’s work, he knew how precious the electrical equipment installed here was to the transmigrators.