Chapter 74: The Curiosity of the Youth

After the few young men had paid their respects, they sat down as host and guest. Zhang Yingchen ordered a Daoist boy to serve fragrant tea, a “Limu Mountain Oolong Tea” specially transported from Lingao. The strange fragrance of the tea immediately attracted the young men.

Zhang Yingchen asked with a smile, “Is there no window study in the first month?”

Zhuang Yongling and the others immediately stood up and said respectfully, “The master has arranged for us to read and practice calligraphy. We have finished our work, and since it is still early, we came out for a stroll.”

“That’s good,” Zhang Yingchen nodded. He looked at the several young men. Two of them were Zhuang Qian’s eldest and second sons, Zhuang Xialing and Zhuang Heling, both in their teens.

Zhuang Xialing and Zhuang Heling were not originally among these young men, but this time they had come along. It seemed that his last “poisoning” plan was very successful. He couldn’t help but feel secretly happy.

The several young men looked at each other, and finally one of them mustered up the courage to ask, “Daoist Master Zhang, today we heard you preach, and it is not the same as the usual Quanzhen or Zhengyi. Could it be that you have created your own school?”

This question was very sharp. Zhang Yingchen smiled and said, “This humble Daoist is from a collateral branch of the Shenxiao School’s True Person Zou Tiebi. This Dao is not created by this humble Daoist out of thin air, but is a little bit of enlightenment that I have gained from traveling all over the world for many years.”

“So, the True Person has attained the Dao?”

Zhang Yingchen avoided answering, but just smiled mysteriously and said slowly, “What is attaining the Dao, and who is a person who has the Dao?” He stood up and chanted, “To observe the principles of heaven and earth, to investigate things and extend knowledge, and to enlighten the world, this is attaining the Dao, and this is a person who has the Dao. Those who are skilled in techniques know the techniques, but they do not know the reason why. This is not attaining the Dao, and this is not a person who has the Dao.”

These words were very simple. The several young men of the Zhuang family were all scholars who had read the classics, so they naturally understood. Zhuang Qian nodded and said, “Sir has mentioned investigating things and extending knowledge many times. The book you lent to the students last time was also about investigating things. Could it be that this investigating things and extending knowledge is what you call the ‘Dao’?”

Zhang Yingchen nodded, “Exactly.”

The several young men looked at each other. This method was too different from the knowledge system they usually came into contact with. Countless questions swirled in their minds. They wanted to get to the bottom of it, but they were also quite afraid of Zhang Yingchen’s “immortal” identity. Moreover, their family education was very strict, and they “kept silent” about things like Buddhism and Taoism. They were afraid that if they asked too much, their families would find out and it would not be good.

Zhang Yingchen saw their expressions and roughly knew what they were thinking. He thought to himself, I can’t say it too clearly now, otherwise I’ll scare you and your parents away. Fortunately, I have a new weapon in my hand.

He stood up and beckoned, “Follow me.”

With that, he opened a door in the study.

The several young men looked at each other and followed him in.

Inside the door was another world. This was a solid courtyard, with no other door to enter except for the door of the study. There were several large tables in the room, on which were displayed all kinds of utensils, which were actually models and teaching aids that Zhang Yingchen used for teaching. Among them, there were seven or eight kinds of teaching aids that demonstrated physical theorems, which were particularly finely made. He had spent a lot of effort to get these from Lingao. At present, only the Fangcao Primary School and the National School on Jeju Island were equipped with them. Even Kaohsiung did not have them.

“These utensils explain the principles of heaven and earth,” Zhang Yingchen said in a loud voice.

The curiosity of the youth was the strongest. Seeing that there were so many exquisite and fun things in this room, the several people scattered and each surrounded the teaching aid models they were interested in to examine them. If they couldn’t understand, they naturally had to ask Zhang Yingchen for an explanation.

Zhang Yingchen was not a science student, but after D-Day, in order to spread his new Taoism, he read a lot of popular science books like “One Hundred Thousand Whys.” It was naturally not a problem to explain these physical laws that were only at the middle school level.

Of course, his popular science did not answer their questions and solve their doubts. On the contrary, it left more questions in the minds of these young people. At this time, Zhang Yingchen showed his “magic weapon.”

“This is the second volume of ‘Gezhi Xiaoshi’,” Zhang Yingchen took out the newly delivered popular science book. “You can take it and read it first.”

“Thank you, True Person!” Zhuang Yongling and the others were overjoyed. They had already thought the original one was a “strange book.” They passed it around among themselves and it was almost worn out. For this reason, several of them even secretly hand-copied a copy.

Zhang Yingchen took them on a tour, explaining the models one by one. Everyone was fascinated. Before they knew it, it was already noon, and Zhang Yingchen invited them to stay for lunch.

With a command, his disciple, Mingxin, set up four plates of pickles, all from Tianchu. One of them was “Hanshi Cai” from the Jeju branch of Tianchu, which was the Korean kimchi of this time and space. It was bright red and very beautiful. The staple food was a large pot of porridge made from relief grain, with some vegetable leaves added.

“Come, come, there’s nothing good to eat, but in this year of famine, it’s a great blessing to be able to eat a full meal,” Zhang Yingchen said with a smile. It wasn’t that he was deliberately trying to show that he was practicing asceticism. It was just that there was really no exquisite food on this land of southern Shandong at the moment. Rice and white flour were rare things. Even a rich family like the Zhuang family rarely ate them on weekdays. What’s more, in this year of famine, there was no place to find fine grain. The corrupt Daoist priest was so hungry that his eyes glowed green every night. He had to secretly chew on some office-supplied beef jerky and other things to satisfy his cravings.

The several young men saw that the food was very simple and couldn’t help but feel admiration. In a year of famine, the food of the Zhuang family was also very ordinary, but it was much better than that of Daoist Master Zhang. At least there were enough vegetables, and occasionally some eggs. Although the food was mostly coarse grains, it was at least the “fine grains” among the coarse grains, such as millet and sorghum. Every few days, they could also eat some fine grains mixed in. But what Daoist Master Zhang ate was a porridge made of something unknown. Although it tasted okay, the texture was very rough. It was obviously not good grain.

Zhuang Xialing, however, knew that this kind of porridge was something that the Daoist priest had bought in large quantities from the south specifically for the refugees. The food given to the refugees would not be fine grain. It was probably not even millet or sorghum. This Daoist priest was known as a “living Chunyang” and a “semi-immortal” and “true person” in Yizhou, but his food and drink were so simple. He couldn’t help but respect him a little more.

Fortunately, the pickles were very delicious, even delicious. Especially the “Hanshi cabbage,” which was spicy and had a unique fresh and refreshing taste, which whetted the appetites of the several young men, and they drank a few more bowls of porridge.

After seeing off the several young masters of the Zhuang family, Zhang Yingchen returned to his study. He took out a few soda tablets and swallowed them to resist the sour water that came up in his stomach after eating too much relief grain. As he was considering what to say during the sermon on the seventh day, the Daoist boy came to report again that a guest from the Zhuang family had come to pay a visit.

“Who is it?” Zhang Yingchen thought to himself, the Zhuang family is coming quite often during the New Year! He had originally planned to talk with them all at once during the ceremony on the seventh day. Now that someone had come, he might as well talk to them first.

“It’s the third master.”

The third master was Zhuang Ben, who was also a scholar. At present, he was in charge of many matters of the Zhuang family, including starting a pharmacy, relieving the common people, and cooperating with him in running the “Ciji Tang.” Zhang Yingchen’s evaluation of this third master was “simple and capable, resolute and decisive, worthy of being a powerful figure from a family of scholars in the countryside.”

This third master was very enthusiastic about the affairs of the countryside. Zhang Yingchen’s work in running the Ciji Tang and taking in refugees received great help from him.

“Please come in.”

Third Master Zhuang was a middle-aged man, of medium height, with thick eyebrows and large eyes, dark skin, and rough hands and feet. At first glance, he looked like a man from a poor background. The Zhuang family in Dadian Village started from Zhuang Qian, so his several brothers, although they later entered the school, all had a hard time when they were young and came from a farming and working background.

It was probably the experience of his youth that made Zhuang Qian and others spare no effort in the relief of refugees in Yizhou. Of course, good intentions alone were not enough to run a “famine administration.” How to relieve the victims in a year of great disaster, and how to “disaster relief and disaster reduction,” was a specialized knowledge in ancient society. It required not only knowledge, but also outstanding ability and a resolute character.

Zhuang Ben was such a person. Zhang Yingchen had originally thought that he would be an obstacle in the transportation of refugees, but he did not expect that the other party would not stop him and even provided some convenience.

“It is certainly pitiful and sad to leave one’s home to make a living, but it is better than staying here and starving to death or dying of illness,” Zhuang Ben once said.

Although the Zhuang family contacted the local gentry and large households and tried their best to raise grain and medicine to relieve the disaster, their efforts were just a drop in the ocean in the face of the great flood in the entire northern Jiangsu and southern Shandong. The little charity and relief from the government and the people could not cope with the huge disaster at all. The Zhuang family did not have a treasure bowl and could not produce endless grain, gold, and silver. They could only do their best and leave the rest to fate, saving as many people as they could.

In any porridge factory, there was a fixed amount of rice cooked every day. After it was distributed, they could only wait for the next day. If they were unlucky and starved to death, there was nothing they could do.

In the face of natural disasters, the backward productivity and organizational capacity of ancient society, its disaster relief capacity and effectiveness were very limited. And after a great disaster, there would inevitably be a great epidemic. For the bottom-level common people, fleeing the famine was the only way to live.

After Zhang Yingchen proposed that he could contact the colonists to transport a large number of refugees to Taiwan for reclamation, Zhuang Ben immediately agreed. It went without saying that a large number of refugees would die from acclimatization and the fatigue of the journey when they went to reclaim land across the ocean. But at least it could let most people survive, which was much better than waiting to die here.

Reducing the number of people also gave the remaining people a better chance of survival. It was just that in the past, this “reduction” was at the cost of death. Now that Daoist Master Zhang had this way of “immigrating and reclaiming wasteland,” it was already a great fortune.

“Daoist priest, has Master Wang returned?” Zhuang Ben asked about Wang Ruixiang’s whereabouts without any ceremony after paying his respects.

Wang Ruixiang was the “colonist from Taiwan” that Zhang Yingchen had mentioned. His Shandong-accented official language made the several masters of the Zhuang family much less wary.

Wang Ruixiang was not here at this time. He was escorting a group of refugees and had set foot on the old road to Longkou again to test whether this road could be used again.