Chapter 82, Shandong's sudden change (Part 2)
Southern Shandong, beside the Grand Canal, Jining City
Although the northern provinces this year and last year have been in bad times, with natural disasters, wars, banditry, starvation, and invasion of Eastern invaders... there are all kinds of bad news coming from all sides, but along the Grand Canal this With the golden waterways flowing with wealth, the people of Jining can barely live a comfortable life. While other places were struggling to make a living due to excessive taxes, exploitation by the gentry, and various natural disasters, Jining had been prosperous and prosperous because of water transportation, and there were many officers and soldiers stationed in the city, which could mobilize enough people to train, even if there were occasional large groups of refugees. After passing by, everyone dared to avoid Jining and go elsewhere.
However, at this time, Jining City has finally fallen into the haze of war. Even the towering city wall, the wide moat, the various garrison equipment on the city head, and the relatively capable civilian soldiers could not make the Jining gentry in Jining City feel enough peace of mind.
Because this time, there were too many refugees and thieves who were incited by the Wenxiang Sect to besiege Jining.
Looking out from the top of the city, I saw that it was so dark that there were people everywhere, and I couldn't even see the edges. Due to prolonged drought and no rain in various parts of the Central Plains, farmland is cracked and roads are raising dust. With so many people acting together, the dust kicked up was like a sandstorm. The vast majority of them were naturally unkempt, ragged clothes, famine-stricken refugees carrying sticks and stones, and dull eyes, but there were also many strong men with strong bodies, weapons in hand, and well-organized movements. There were even a few riders on brightly dressed and angry horses, shuttled in and out among this unprecedentedly large army of refugees. In addition, many craftsmen and strong men used the wood obtained by demolishing houses and removing beams and pillars along the way to bundle and manufacture various siege equipment on the spot.
However, unlike ordinary refugee rebels, among the refugee bandits besieging Jining at this time, there were many artists in red and colorful colors, carrying various gongs and drums, as well as flags, streamers, ribbons, and incense candles for the table. A special cart was even prepared to pull the statue of the god, and worship and sermons were organized all day long. At the same time, some bran cakes mixed with salt were distributed to the believers... Although it was coarse grain, it was already a delicacy in the eyes of the hungry people in exile.
——This is another large-scale uprising in the Wenxiang Sect after ten years since Xu Hongru's uprising and defeat in the second year of Tianqi.
The Wenxiang Sect is a branch of the White Lotus Sect that emerged in the late Ming Dynasty. (They are all called the So-and-so Sect in China, which gives the impression that they are not affiliated with each other. In fact, the relationship between the Wenxiang Sect and the White Lotus Sect is probably the same as that of the Protestant Sect. It has a similar relationship with Catholicism and worships almost the same gods). It was first founded by Wang Sen during the Wanli period. After Wang Sen's death, his son Wang Haoxian and Wang Sen's apprentice Xu Hongru continued to preach. After twenty years of underground development, the Wenxiang Sect has spread throughout Shandong, Shaanxi, Henan, Hebei, and Sichuan, and its number of followers once reached two million.
Seeing that the sect had such a huge power, the leader Xu Hongru launched a rebellion in the second year of Tianqi. The rebels were once huge, gathering tens of thousands of people from all directions, attacking important towns, cutting off water transportation, and becoming invincible, which shocked the world. But then they suffered successive defeats in the subsequent battles, which fully exposed the true nature of this group of people as a mob. There were often scenes of tens of thousands of believers being overwhelmed by hundreds of officers and soldiers. In the end, Xu Hongru was defeated and died, and Wang Haoxian fled south to Yangzhou and was killed. As a result, the Wenxiang Sect suffered heavy losses, and internal divisions broke out, and they were forced to cease operations.
After the defeat of Xu Hongru's rebellion in the second year of Tianqi, the Wenxiang Sect has always been a serious threat that the Ming court focused on combating. However, the Wenxiang Sect rooted in the local area is very tenacious. Despite the severe suppression by the court, the Wenxiang Sect has never stopped its activities. , but acted much more low-key.
During the Chongzhen period, the war and chaos in the world became more and more fierce, and the imperial court was no longer able to suppress the Wenxiang Sect, so the Wenxiang Sect, a professional rebel, revived again. Especially in the third year of Chongzhen, the fourth year of Chongzhen, and the fifth year of Chongzhen, from Shandong to Henan and then to Shanxi and Shaanxi, the entire Central Plains suffered from severe drought for three consecutive years. This is the so-called: "There is no harvest, and it is difficult to grow wheat. There is no grass in the wild. Nine out of ten rooms are empty, so there are those who have a bucket of rice worth five cents, and those who can't get enough rice in a day, and those who collect it. There are those who feed their hunger with grass roots and leaves; there are those who abandon their wives and mothers who abandon their children; there are those who sell their children for less than a few meals; there are those who hang themselves in empty forests to fill ditches; there are those who starve to death on the side of the road; there are those who beg for food and clothing. , there are those who died after leaning against each other on pillows, there were those who fled with their bamboo baskets on the mud door, and there were those who cannibalized their flesh and blood. "
In the summer of the fifth year of Chongzhen's reign, the Yellow River embankment burst in Mengjin, turning countless villages and towns into swamps, further aggravating the suffering of the people in the Central Plains.
Even though the natural disaster was so severe and the crops were harvested, the excessive taxes and miscellaneous taxes imposed by the court officials and the usurious land rents of the landlords and gentry could not be reduced at all, and they continued to weigh heavily on the shoulders of the common people. There is even a trend of getting worse... In the vast fertile soil of the Central Plains, thousands of villages and households have no smoke, farmers' wives have hanged themselves on the dead trees with their bark peeled off, and dead bodies can be seen everywhere on the roadside where even the weeds are dead.
Such a tragic and desperate situation, where life was worse than death, made the people yearn for any illusory salvation in despair, so the number of followers of the Wenxiang Sect once again increased like a snowball, almost comparable to when Xu Hongru started his army ten years ago. Recently, a secret force generously donated a large sum of money to the Wenxiang Sect to provide weapons and food. As a result, the new leader of the Wenxiang Sect, Wang Ke, decisively ordered the sect to launch another rebellion in Shandong!
At this moment, hundreds of altar owners, incense makers, and preachers are walking back and forth among the ignorant and hungry people, preaching and encouraging them:
"...The catastrophe of the end of the world is coming! In the past three years, the land in Henan has been thousands of miles away, and the crops have been harvested. The east side of Shandong is close to the sea, and under the care of the Dragon King, it is finally a little better. The prefectures in our west The drought is just as severe as in Henan next door, but God, the drought is not the worst! What's terrible, what's terrible is that instead of providing relief, there are only endless taxes and exorbitant taxes everywhere in the world. In the past few years, there has been an increase in Liao's pay, and recently there has been another increase in expropriation pay. The officials are pressing hard at every turn! Just kill people, it’s really hard for the people to survive!”
"... In such an apocalyptic world, people all over the world are suffering so much that they can no longer survive. We in Shandong are also in the same misery! The crops have failed for several years, and the court's exorbitant taxes and miscellaneous taxes have not been reduced at all! Those rich and landlords do not pay taxes. But they exploit us poor people to death!”
"...The combined taxes and land rents that each household has to pay are several times more than all the crops produced in the fields. Farming is tantamount to committing suicide! You want to sell your land, but you can't sell it for a good price! It has been difficult for generations of small people. The few acres of land I had saved were sold by the evil gentry for only five taels of silver for one hundred acres of land! The best farmland! No one wants the inferior land, and they don’t dare to plant it, because after planting crops, they have to pay ten bushels of millet in taxes and fees! , they all appear on the fields of our common people, forcing everyone to abandon their fields.”
"... Those officials who collect taxes and grains come to the village. Not to mention the official official taxes, their benefits alone cost dozens of dollars at a time. The poor people have no money in their pockets, and the fields cannot be sold at high prices. No one If you don't care, you can only sell your children first and then mortgage the land. Those big land purchasers are evil-minded. In disaster years, you can only get a hundred cents for one acre of land. This small amount of money is not enough for official officials to buy wine and food. If they come more than ten times a year, everyone will be forced to die! The official grain and taxes are not paid in full, and all the land that can be sold is sold, but they still can't do anything good. We poor people can only borrow money from loan sharks when we are in jail, but how can we borrow money at loan sharks casually? It’s like being in jail at home!”
"...As far as I can see, every county has ten rooms and nine empty houses, and there is no smoke or fire in the morning or evening. Even if you tighten your belt and pay all the Liao's salary and grain taxes, what will happen? You will eat all day long. They are all leaves, grass roots, and it is a blessing to have some rice bran in them. I have nothing to wear, nothing to eat, and no money. All the grain has been wiped out by the officials, and that's not all. The powerful local officials will take the opportunity to appropriate your fields, take away your children and wives, and kick you out of your shack, leaving you with nothing left. ! Either starve to death on the roadside or be beaten to death by a servant of a wealthy family!”
"...We are all poor people who have been forced by the government to survive. We just want to gather together and seek a way to survive! As long as we burn incense and worship Maitreya Buddha and the Inanimate Mother, listen to the teachings and break this worldly way, everyone can be saved. , you can go to your hometown of paradise after you die, and you don’t have to be tortured by such sufferings! It’s not that we want to be thieves, it’s the end of the world that forces us to pick up swords and guns and fight for our lives!”
Although the eloquence of these "preachers" of the Wenxiang Sect can only be said to be average, those hungry people with good looks and thin bodies were all listening with rapt attention. Some had angry faces and gnashed teeth, while others were emotional and couldn't help but burst into tears. His eyes filled with tears and he kept wiping the corners of his eyes.
There is no way, this is what Shandong is like now. Continuous floods, droughts and natural disasters, as well as the imperial tax and corvee, have already made Shandong full of desperate people. Even small landowners can no longer survive - for a few mouthfuls of coarse grains to satisfy their hunger, they have to They sold their children; for the land rent and taxes that could never be paid, they lost everything, even their The corpses of their relatives buried in the ground were dug up and eaten by the more hungry refugees... Originally they were just wandering around like zombies, living as long as they could, and dying wherever they could. However, The speech just now was like a long needle piercing into the heart, reminding these numb people of the sorrow of the past.
yes! Thinking about the endless taxes and miscellaneous taxes, the fields that have had no harvest for several years, and the family members around them who are constantly starving to death of illness and disease, many people suddenly find that they have never seemed to have a comfortable life from the time they were born to the present. In the days of peace, I was suffering every day, every month, every year, thinking about how to survive, but I still couldn't survive! On the one hand, God does not want it to rain, and on the other hand, there are the Liao and Dao salaries sent by the imperial court to cramp and peel off the skin. The scourge of these excessive expropriations is even greater than that of the drought and locust plague. Not only do people starve to death, but they also sell their children and daughters to sell their land. The loan sharks who have been dishonest in the past few lifetimes—such a dark world, what is it if it’s not the end of the world? What is it if it’s not a catastrophe?
So, listening to the preacher preaching about the Age of Ending Dharma and the impending catastrophe, not to mention the people who were already believers in the religion were fascinated by it, and the newcomers on the way were also very convinced, these days are coming to an end. We are about to reach a desperate situation. What kind of catastrophe is coming? Are these droughts, locust plagues, government taxes, and the rent pressing of the Jin gentry not a catastrophe? This is the end of the world! Who can survive in such a situation and in this age? Who cares about peace? Who cares about Wangfa? They all thought that it would be nice to rebel, as there would be no need to hand over anything if there was chaos! Anyway, there is nothing in this world for them to miss, so before these dozens of kilograms of meat rot, they should fight fiercely and drag more people down to be buried with them!
While everyone's emotions were high, those gods and goddesses began to send talisman water and spread incense ash everywhere, saying that it could make people immune to all diseases, and they were still shouting:
"...The great calamity is about to come, and the fairy kingdom on earth will come to the world. Whoever works hard and sacrifices his life will be able to enter the paradise hometown and be protected by gods and Buddhas..."
"...The city of Jining ahead contains a fraction of the world's food. If we break up the city, we can have enough to eat every year..."
"...When Jining City was opened, everyone was well fed, eating meat every day, and there were beautiful women sleeping..."
If this was said in peacetime, I'm afraid not too many people would join in, but at this time, everyone has become a desperate person who seems to be drowning and is about to die. Even if there is a straw, they will throw it away. Seize it, not to mention that the Wenxiang Sect has indeed allocated food to help everyone. As long as you join the sect and burn incense, you will have something to eat every day. Don't think about eating enough and just barely not starving to death, but this is a way to survive. In contrast, neither the government nor the gentry had any money to spend. At this time, if the hungry people didn't believe in the Wenxiang Cult, who would they believe?
Um? Maybe die? They no longer care, the endless suffering has already made them dry their tears. So what if I die? These miserable days are finally over, and we can finally escape from the sea of suffering - when a person is not even afraid of death, there is nothing to care about.
So, under the encouragement and urging of the Wenxiang congregation, thousands of refugees shouted crazily:
"...Maitreya comes to the world, the Kingdom of the Western Heaven!"
"...Empty hometown, birthless old mother!"
"...Opened Jining City! There is not enough food to eat!"
——No matter how docile the people are like sheep, they will become ferocious and terrifying when they are in a desperate situation. One or two poor people will naturally not be able to do anything big, but if thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands or even more people are Gathered together, it is a mighty force as powerful as the earth shattering!
Seeing these victims and refugees, who were all in rags and rags, and all of them excited, the die-hard followers and leaders of the Wenxiang Sect hurriedly struck while the iron was hot, picked out the young and strong among them, and each said: I bought half a coarse grain pancake and a bamboo spear, and prepared to let them lead the ant attack on the city. Others, the old and the weak, were given sacks filled with soil, ready to fill the moat against the defenders' arrows and rolling stones...
As the direct force of Wenxiang Sect, thousands of "religious warriors" with bright armors supervise the battle formation behind the cannon fodder. What frightened the defenders at the top of the city even more was that there were actually several heavy artillery pieces that were slowly pushed over by the Wen Xiang Cult thieves - where did the demon thieves get such military and national weapons? !
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Under the thatched roof of a tea shed more than two miles away from Jining City, the leader Wang Ke and the dignitaries of the Wenxiang Sect sat in a circle facing each other, watching from a distance hundreds of thousands of refugees, under the command of the followers, the crowds of refugees were gathering in a dark crowd. The ground is squirming, preparing to chew down the city of Jining with life and flesh.
Faced with such a grand scene, Wang Ke was very proud for a moment: "...Everyone, the situation is very good now. People everywhere are suffering a lot, and they are all waiting for our religion to come forward to take them out of the sea of misery. However, the government is already in dire straits. It’s hard to worry about it, this time our religion launches, it will be unstoppable and unstoppable!”
Although the sect leader looked full of confidence, several elders in the sect seemed a little less confident. They exchanged a few glances with each other, and finally one of the senior elders stood up and spoke, "... Hierarch, please forgive me for speaking frankly. Although our army is responding to hundreds of calls and has a huge momentum, after all, it has not really fought any tough battles. Moreover, those guys who sent us money, food and weapons before may not have good intentions..."
"...Haha, I know all this. They don't expect us to succeed at all. They just want our religion to cause chaos on the ground in Shandong and add some trouble to their enemies in the court! But...then...then So what? ”
Wang Ke snorted coldly and explained calmly, "...In recent years, the Ming Dynasty has imposed excessive taxes, suppressed taxes, suffered severe droughts for many years, and now the Yellow River has burst. It is really that the dragon's veins have been cut off and its strength has been exhausted. .countless People are suffering and burning incense in order to seek liberation. As long as they start doing it, tens of thousands of poor people will immediately respond. It will not only sweep the world, but at least sweep across the Central Plains.
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Those high-ranking officials in the imperial court treat us as pawns, so why don’t we treat them like monkeys? No matter what plan they have in mind, the weapons and food they sent are real! The news that Jining City has plenty of food and is weakly defended is also true! As long as we break the canal hub of Jining City, we will have countless gold and silver treasures and at least millions of stones of food in our hands. With so much food, we can light a fire on the ground of the Central Plains, mobilize the people and households who cannot survive, and lay down a large territory! Rather than huddle in one place and wait to die like Xu Hongru ten years ago! At that time, even if those high-ranking officials in the court who think they are smart have all kinds of plans and conspiracies, what can they do to me? ”
After explaining this, seeing that several sect elders who had experienced the disastrous defeat of Xu Hongru's rebellion still looked unsure, Wang Ke could only sigh and shook his head, and issued an order: "... Let the artillery fire a few rounds first. Ring, and then everyone beats the drums to attack the city!”
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In July of the fifth year of Chongzhen, the Wenxiang Sect once again caused chaos in Shandong, gathering hundreds of thousands of hungry people to cut off the canal and besiege Jining, which shocked the world. After six days of fierce fighting, Jining fell. The thieves plundered the city and captured grain, grass, baggage, and countless gold and silver. Immediately, the leader Wang Keqin led his troops south along the canal, claiming to be 500,000 strong, and headed straight for Xuzhou. He also sent a partial army into Henan, and along the way he coerced the hungry people of Henan into rebellion.
The terrain in eastern Henan is flat and lacks the geographical conditions for building a stronghold. The victims gathered on the plains could easily be killed by the Ming army. However, when the Ming army was unable to attack, the subsequent backlash from the victims was very powerful. When the officers and soldiers of Henan were transferred to Beijing by King Qin's order, the "bandit situation" in the province deteriorated rapidly - at this time, Henan was already full of refugees, and there were people everywhere who were desperate and crazy. After entering the province to instigate gangs of thieves, robbers suddenly appeared all over the county. Kaifeng and Guide were in crisis one after another. The situation in the province was almost irreversibly corrupted. At the same time, several groups of bandits from the northwest also crossed the river and fled eastward, passing through Shanxi and heading into Henan. Those who possessed the thieves were like clouds for a while, and the chaos in the Central Plains became more intense...