Chapter 829 (1/2)

Chapter 829: Vol V Chapter 189

A Chinese saying states that the core of a country is in its hustle and bustle.

This phrase originated from the ancient Chinese classic “Zuo Zhuan, which discussed the two important pillars of governing a country—sacrifices and war. The extract in which this quote was taken from was in the context of about 572BC, where Lu Chenggong, Liu Kanggong and Cheng Sugong worked together to help Jin Ligong attack Thailand. While presenting offerings, Cheng Sugong was not earnest enough, and Liu Kanggong had admonished him.

In this record, “sacrifice” did not just include religious sacrifice but also that of culture and education. Faith, culture, education, war… In the olden, traditional days, they were indeed the most important things to a country as they are now.

This applied to almost every other world.

Sui Xiong had uttered this phrase casually but did not really remember where it came from. He remembered it from a game where a character’s virtual background was decorated by these Chinese characters. That character was called Confucius, and he was a virtuous and warm intellectual. Actually, there was an issue with the creation of this character as religion was slowly separated from religion, where Confucius was the one who had spearheaded such change. Of course, Sui Xiong was unaware of this, and he only remembered this phrase which sounded wise.

In this world, the divide between education and religion was not clear. Not many scholars were independent of religion, and some aristocratic families had many illiterates. To call the entire world an educational desert was not even an exaggeration.

Because of that, Sui Xiong’s creation of a technical school and Wall’s promotion of stationery became extremely popular. Wall was even able to use his achievements in developing culture and education to become a real god. Within a short period of time, Wall even managed to rise to a mid-level Divine Power. The people of this world had craved education for too long.

The Republic of Northwest promoted education best in this world, and there were virtually no more illiterates left in the country. Even the poor who could not afford to study in the day visited the Church of Void Mask and the Church of Knowledge’s combined Literacy Evening School to attend free classes. Within a year or so, they were able to recognize a few hundred simple words and compose simple sentences. This level of literacy was considered under the tier of the low literacy of the common folk. However, if one were to consider the same level of literacy in the Orc Empire or other similar places, these peoples’ limited knowledge would already be revered.

Within the Republic of Northwest’s army, the educational level was even higher. The truth was that many families chose to send their newly legal children to conscript for three to five years as one could learn much in the army. The army was made up of the following: patrols and the national defense force. Both areas of the army recruited from the public, but the former was a temporary position while the latter was long-term.

Patrols typically consisted of the conscripted youths and their jobs mostly included patrolling the roads of the country, chasing thieves and maintaining order as well as helping out in disasters. Because of the good governance in the Republic of Northwest and the lack of natural disasters, these patrols mostly spent their time training and studying if they were not out on daily patrols.

On the other hand, the national defense force trained much harder than the patrols and often followed the Regiment of Knights on missions to fight dangerous Magic Beasts.