The imperial court had official schools.
In culture, there were classic institutions like the Imperial Academy and Imperial College, with lower-level schools beneath them, but most were established for aristocratic children and were not open to the public.
In martial arts, commoners had martial arts schools, while nobles had training systems like the Feather Forest Army. Promising seedlings were absorbed internally right away. After all, whether someone had talent was easy enough to see—not like studying, where someone might look clever yet fail the examinations year after year.
Honestly, creating a complete system from elementary school to middle school to university was unrealistic.
There were many reasons.
First, institutions like martial arts schools were mostly run by local powers. Sticking a hand into that would mean touching their cake, easily turning into a thankless task. Second, the administrative cost of running schools was absurdly high. Ordinary county magistrates were local emperors; adding another system was equivalent to adding another whole bureaucracy. To keep it running steadily, inspectors would need to be established on top of that system, salaries paid, and teachers absolutely could not be lacking. Third, the direct returns from running schools were not great. Not every martial academy could draw crowds like Huaiyin Martial Academy, siphoning off wealthy students; relying on tuition from local apprentices to support itself was difficult, and so on...
With a casual thought, Liang Qu could already come up with several reasons.
These reasons reinforced one another. Individually, none seemed important; put together, they were fatal.
Was the resistance great? Great. But Da Shun was at its zenith, its control stronger than ever. The resistance was certainly not so great that it could not be resolved. Yet when there was no profit to be had, that resistance became no small matter.
So starting at