Ding Yun spent a long time alone in her room that day, feeling that perhaps she could do more.
The things she had just heard.
Were a microcosm of the original body's family.
And also a microcosm of many families in the world.
She used to think she had done enough, but now she realized that what she had done was far from enough.
She clearly had the capacity to do more.
After a night of contemplation, Ding Yun.
Made new decisions and plans the next day.
She did not intend to solve problems with violence, but merely to change the world with her current abilities as much as possible.
A week later, under her direction, her forces and connections began to take new actions.
For example, building a large number of new workshops and recruiting female workers.
And appropriately raising their wages to ensure they earned no less than men who did manual labor.
For example, using grain stores to establish free girls' schools in various places.
To prevent most families from preferring their daughters to work at home rather than go to school, Ding Yun not only offered free tuition and two meals a day but also stated that she would teach skills like embroidery and cooking.
This was already the limit of what she could do.
After all, she couldn't pay people to go to school.
She actually had many other ideas, such as setting up women's mutual aid organizations, but considering that such actions lacked public support, she temporarily put aside those more radical ideas.
She only planned to start with economic and ideological changes.
Once these two aspects gained some momentum.
She would then proceed to more advanced steps.
As for her measures, the construction of workshops and the recruitment of female workers had not yet caused much discussion. However, the large-scale construction of girls' schools later did spark debate. Many officials and scholars felt that her actions were wasteful, believing that ignorance was a virtue for women and that educating girls was simply stirring up trouble.
They argued that the money could be better spent on more private schools, printing more Four Books and Five Classics, and cultivating more scholars.
There were even people impeaching her in the imperial court.
However, Emperor Yuyuan found Ding Yun to be sensible.
He believed that Ding Yun establishing schools that only taught girls was undoubtedly a display of loyalty to him, indicating that she had no intention of forming factions or causing trouble. This was because, no matter how much women read or learned, they would never be qualified to participate in the imperial examinations or become officials. This was more honest and loyal than those ministers who appeared impartial but secretly wanted their own disciples to secure more quota in the imperial examinations.
Therefore, all those impeachments were suppressed by him.
After a few times, the impeaching officials grew tired of the effort.
They finally stopped bothering with the matter of girls' schools.
Thus, the girls' schools established by Ding Yun officially gained legitimacy and blossomed nationwide.
However, at this point, the attitudes of the local government offices.
Were mostly outwardly unresisted, but inwardly they continuously created obstacles.
Coupled with the fact that many families kept complaining, asking if their sons could attend school instead of their daughters, believing that girls studying was useless and that boys could become top scholars.
Some even had their children cross-dress to attend school.
All just to take advantage of the free benefits.
Therefore, the overall progress of girls' schools was indeed very difficult.
Far more difficult than building workshops and recruiting female workers.
Only Ding Yun knew that such matters could not be rushed, and thus she was able to suppress her desire to accelerate the pace and painstakingly deal with these troublesome matters.
The most troublesome aspect for Ding Yun was not the imperial court or local government offices, but the parents of these women. Their intention in sending their children to school was hardly about genuinely learning and improving themselves. More often, it was about taking advantage of free benefits, or thinking that if their daughters learned embroidery and cooking, they could demand a higher dowry and marry into a better family.
Some even more short-sighted ones thought that the food at Ding Yun's girls' schools was good and specifically had their daughters take wild vegetable flatbreads to school, eat the wild vegetable flatbreads themselves, and bring the two meals saved back home.
Bringing them home for their brothers to eat.
All these things truly gave Ding Yun a headache from anger.
Yet, she could not completely eradicate them.
She could only proceed slowly and plug loopholes.
Fortunately, Ding Yun's persistence was not entirely without effect. In the first year, the changes were not significant, but by the second year, the female workers who had money and stable jobs undoubtedly stood taller.
Their status at home also subtly changed.
The children studying in the girls' schools, due to the influence of culture, changes in thinking, and the confidence of possessing a skill, exuded a different brilliance.
This was a transformation of spirit and vitality.
However, because these changes occurred gradually and subtly over two years, most people who reacted slowly had not yet noticed much.
But after five or six years.
These changes became very apparent.
By then, it was too late for some families to regret.
At the same time, a small part of the rules of the entire society had been altered due to Qiao Mu's actions.
That was the age of marriage for women.
In the past, folk customs generally dictated that daughters should be married off as early as possible. Now, because daughters could also work in workshops and earn more than men doing manual labor,
Many families were reluctant to marry off their daughters early, delaying it until the legally mandated age when they would face fines if they didn't marry.
So, many social problems.
Could actually be attributed to economic benefits.
If a family's daughter could earn a fortune daily, some families would probably prefer to pay fines rather than marry off their daughters.
In addition, the status of married women working in workshops also improved, which was the confidence brought by stable economic income.
Why did the matriarchs of some large families act with such confidence? Besides their own status and background, the most important factor was their substantial dowries.
And the fact that they controlled the family's finances.
If they couldn't manage the household, had no control over finances, and their dowry wasn't substantial, then they could only live lives like Jia She's second wife, the awkward Madame Xing.
Facing these relatively positive changes.
Ding Yun naturally continued to work hard.
And made it her lifelong goal.
However, in addition to this, she did not forget another matter, which was to continuously adjust the crops planted in her farm according to the current situation and to make preparations for her eventual departure from this place.
She would definitely leave in the future, and the super-fast growing farm she carried with her would not be left behind. Therefore, in the near future, her grain store business would inevitably be unable to continue with a stable and continuous farm as a supply base.
Hence, she had to make changes in advance.
To allow the grain store to operate stably even without the farm.
In addition, preparation for cultivating a successor was also necessary.
The former, changes related to the farm, were being made by herself. The latter, cultivating a successor, was directly advertised as a gimmick and reward, with her Ding Yun openly declaring that she would select a successor from the girls' schools.
Subsequently, the enrollment for the girls' schools exploded.
The surge in numbers exceeded Ding Yun's expectations.
Not only did common people flock to send their daughters to the girls' schools, but even some prominent families, tempted by the prospect, selected daughters from their families to send them.
Planning to take a gamble.
After all, if they truly became Ding Yun's successors, they would easily possess assets accumulated over generations, comparable to some thousand-year-old aristocratic families.
Who wouldn't be willing to take a chance? If it weren't for the fact that only women were accepted, the numbers would triple or quadruple.
It was only at this point that the girls' schools built by Ding Yun truly flourished. Although it seemed to have no impact on the imperial examinations, her girls' schools actually encompassed over eighty percent of the young girls in the land. In a few decades, this would be nearly half the population.
The collective power of nearly half the population in the future.
Who could easily ignore it.
Only then would her plan be fundamentally laid, and the general trend of the entire society could truly be shaken.
And to completely change the thoughts and aspirations of the people.
It would take at least several generations of effort, requiring several generations to persistently carry out Ding Yun's actions without changing their original intentions.
But regardless of the future, at least she had started it, planted the seed. As long as the seed did not die, it would eventually take root and sprout, growing into a towering tree.