The construction and reform of the Directorate of Education, including reforms to the civil service examinations, were all underway.
Embarrassing as it was to admit, although the Directorate of Education was the highest authority over education, when it came time for actual reform, there was hardly anyone from the Directorate itself doing the work. A great many officials, lecturers, and others were either inspecting construction sites, compiling textbooks, or traveling about in search of master craftsmen, skilled farmers, and experienced herdsmen. Preparations had already begun.
Meanwhile, Wang Yan steadily taught classes at the Directorate of Education. He taught one class a day, lasting an hour and a half—three hours in total—which took up most of his mornings.
He did not force anyone to attend, but less than a month after he began teaching, the eight hundred students admitted through the expanded enrollment, the original two hundred students, and the children of various wealthy and influential families—whose households had finally caught on and donated money to the Directorate to purchase places—had brought the total to more than two thousand. He had also added another class in the afternoon to his original morning lecture.
He was now a great scholar of his generation.
People might suspect Wang Yan of harboring rebellious ambitions, but they would never doubt that his learning was profound enough. Recently, rumors from who knew where had begun circulating that Wang Yan's "New Learning" offered a way to solve problems. Some officials had already used ideas from the New Learning to address practical matters in their work, and had achieved success. Some merchants had used its ideas to forge alliances and maneuver between rivals, earning quite a bit of money in a short time.
It was true, because what Wang Yan had committed to writing included methodology. Though he