Chapter 169: There is an emperor in Shanghai! (Part 1)
"...Cavalry, assault!"
Accompanied by the flag waved by the flag officer of the Qing army, a small group of sturdy Eight Banners cavalry launched a final attack on the frightened rebels. Wherever the Qingqi passed, the seemingly outnumbered rebels were shot with bows, chopped with knives, and clubbed. Smashed, the casualties were horrific, and it completely collapsed in an instant.
——The heart-rending screams, the head that flew up after being chopped off by the knife, the pungent blood, and...the mace getting closer and closer to his head!
"...ah——"
In the dim morning light, accompanied by a sharp scream, Chen Zilong suddenly sat up from the bed. Only then did he remember that he had long been away from the battlefield and fighting, and was now in his own courtyard in Shanghai County, but he often recalled it in his dreams. The scene at that time still left me with lingering fear.
After being in a daze for a long time, Chen Zilong stretched out his hand and touched it. His forehead and temples were all wet, and his clothes were really soaked with sweat.
More than a month ago, the "Zhenwu Army" that he and his friends jointly formed was beaten to pieces by a small group of Qing soldiers and fled. When the entire army collapsed, Chen Zilong once thought that he was about to die for his country, but in the end he was rescued by a few loyal servants who fought to the death.
But even so, Chen Zilong, who fled to Shanghai, still fell seriously ill. From then on, he did not dare to talk about military affairs lightly, let alone talk about military affairs casually on paper.
"...Sir! What's wrong with you?"
Liu Rushi, a famous prostitute from Suzhou who followed Chen Zilong and escaped from the Qing soldiers, had just gotten up not long ago. She was getting a basin of well water and squatting in the yard outside to wash herself. At this time, she heard Chen Zilong's exclamation and did not care about her disheveled hair. , and hurried over to ask.
Chen Zilong looked up from the bed and saw Liu Rushi with loose hair, messy clothes, and a woman's fragrance coming into his nose. Under normal circumstances, he would have been so distracted that he couldn't help himself. It's just that at this moment, he doesn't have the slightest intention of seeking beauty.
"...It's nothing, I just had a nightmare!" Facing Liu Rushi's pretty face, Chen Zilong just waved his hand casually, jumped out of bed, took off his pajamas and put on a coat - anyway, as a prostitute and benefactor, The two of them have been sleeping together for a long time, and there is nothing to avoid. Then, Chen Zilong put another sesame seed cake in his arms for breakfast, and hurried out of the door with his two boys. Before leaving, he did not forget to tell Liu Rushi:
"...If so, I have to discuss important matters with Xu Gebu and Mr. Sun in the Catholic Church today, so I won't be back for lunch!"
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Shanghai County has a long history. Its earliest establishment can be traced back to the Tang Dynasty. However, until the late Ming Dynasty, it was still a small city by Jiangnan standards. Even the capital city of Songjiang Prefecture is not in Shanghai, but is located in Huating in the south.
However, since the "Longqing Opening of the Sea" in the late Ming Dynasty, Shanghai has gradually become a foreign trade port, exporting large quantities of Songjiang Prefecture's specialty cotton cloth overseas and to various parts of the country, and the market has begun to flourish. The county's population has grown to 100,000 households, and there are more than 30,000 households in the city. It can be regarded as a first-class large county in the Ming Dynasty. However, compared with the major seaport cities in Fujian and Guangdong, which were already very prosperous at that time, the scale of Shanghai Port is still much lower. It is completely incomparable to Suzhou, Hangzhou, and Yangzhou, which have a population of nearly one million.
However, such an ordinary county town was now flooded with more than 100,000 war refugees, which instantly exceeded Shanghai's capacity. When Chen Zilong walked through the streets with his boy, he saw that under the eaves of every house were crowded many hungry people from other places with shabby clothes and disheveled faces. And because the "Australian" fleet blocked the sea lanes and Songjiang cotton could not be sold, local weavers, printing and dyeing craftsmen in Shanghai were also unemployed in large numbers, and outsiders could not find jobs. So many people with no food and clothing are crowded in the small county town of Shanghai, making the market increasingly chaotic - just like the old saying goes: When you are desperate, please don't forget that there is one last way out. It's a crime.
As a result, various robberies, murders, thefts, and riots spread in Shanghai County at an explosive rate, and soon exceeded the county government's management capabilities. Even the Shanghai County Magistrate did not know how to do it last month. Who was beaten to death, causing the city to enter a state of anarchy.
At present, it is completely dependent on the most prominent aristocratic families in Shanghai. They jointly dispatch armed servants from each family to patrol and suppress. They hang a string of human heads on the streets and at the city gate to "shock the traitors", and use the stored grain to give out porridge. This is Only then could the basic order in Shanghai County be maintained.
The Catholic church that Chen Zilong visited this time was located in Fahua Town outside Shanghai County, which would later be known as Xujiahui. Because Xu Guangqi's descendants once lived here, it got such a name. But right now, Xu Guangqi is still alive.
This veteran Westernizer in the late Ming Dynasty, who introduced Western geometry and sweet potato cultivation technology, is one of the few Chinese scholar-officials who can "open his eyes to see the world", and is the highest-ranking Christian in the Ming Dynasty. He is now more than 70 years old. He is now the number one figure in Shanghai. Moreover, the meeting held at the Shanghai Catholic Church was also initiated by Xu Guangqi.
In fact, Xu Guangqi's experience in this time and space in the past two years can be described as twists and turns.
——In the fifth year of Chongzhen, Xu Guangqi originally served as a cabinet scholar in Beijing. Because Marshal Chen Xin’s Dengzhou town rebelled, he expelled Sun Yuanhua, the governor of Denglai, and the Shandong army suffered defeats. The Ming Dynasty There were fires and smoke in all directions, and there were repeated defeats everywhere. He did not have the strength to launch a large-scale attack on Dengzhou. Therefore, Emperor Chongzhen, who had not yet changed his soul at that time, sent Academician Xu Guangqi out of the capital to go to Shandong to appease the Dengzhou rebels.
Unexpectedly, before the recruitment negotiations could be concluded, Guan Ning's army defected and led the Eight Banners Tatars to invade Beijing. The Ming Dynasty collapsed. Xu Guangqi, who was negotiating in Dengzhou, couldn't help but despaired. He simply got a sea-going ship through his connections in Dengzhou Town and went back to his hometown in Shanghai. After arriving at his hometown in Shanghai, Xu Guangqi was shocked to find that his good student, fellow villager and church friend Sun Yuanhua was already waiting for him in Shanghai. After being defeated by the rebels in Dengzhou Town, Sun Yuanhua, the governor of Denglai, was afraid of the court's punishment and did not dare to After returning to Beijing, I took a boat directly south to escape to my hometown in Shanghai.
After returning to his hometown in Shanghai, Xu Guangqi originally focused on living in seclusion and retiring. Apart from reading the Bible, he basically paid no attention to worldly affairs. Although the Donglin Party court in Nanjing, after proposing Yonghe Emperor Zhu Yihai, sent people to Shanghai to recruit him to serve as an official again, Xu Guangqi declined on the grounds of old age and frailty. His student Sun Yuanhua, who was also religious, basically did the same thing after escaping to Shanghai.
However, in the current war-torn times, Jiangnan is also not a land of peace. With the successive invasions of the "Australian Bandits", the late Emperor Chongzhen and the Eight Banners of the Qing Dynasty, wars broke out in the land of fish and rice in the south of the Yangtze River, and the Nanjing government collapsed. The Qing army's land-racing and enslavement policies, especially the unprecedentedly brutal massacre of Suzhou, caused a bloody storm in all the prefectures in the south of the Yangtze River, with ghosts crying and wolves howling.
In the face of the crisis of destruction, Xu Guangqi had no choice but to stand up despite his old age. Using his high reputation and family power, he and his student Sun Yuanhua joined forces with local gentry celebrities to form a maintenance association in Shanghai and appointed themselves as president. It temporarily functions as a provisional government. Due to the selfishness of a Catholic, Xu Guangqi and Sun Yuanhua arranged the location of this maintenance meeting in the Catholic Church in Shanghai.
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From the outside, the Catholic church in Shanghai in the late Ming Dynasty did not look like a church at all, because it was originally rebuilt from a landlord's manor. If it were not for the cross erected on the roof that could be seen from outside the courtyard wall, there would probably be no one there at all. You will notice that this was originally a "Cross Temple".
Because they had been together many times and were already familiar faces, when Chen Zilong came to the church, the doorkeeper of the church opened the door and welcomed him in without asking any questions. The buildings inside the courtyard wall are not much different from the Ming Dynasty mansions of this era, except that a Western-style chapel was built using the original garden land, and some religious-themed murals and reliefs were decorated both inside and outside. However, Chen Zilong had no intention of admiring it at this time and just walked straight in.
As soon as he walked to the door of the chapel, Chen Zilong heard the voice of his friend Xia Yunyi:
"...Hey! Our Zhang Pu and Zhang Tianru have really made a huge mistake this time by gathering the iron of Jiangnan and making an unprecedented mistake! Why borrowing help from teachers! It's like inviting a group of demons to come down to earth! The student ventured to Suzhou the day before yesterday. Trip, then The scene is...indescribable! Hundreds of thousands of people in the city were turned into corpses, and there were no living people on the streets, only crows and wild dogs! Even if it is the Shura Hell in the Buddhist scriptures, it is probably nothing more than this!"
Chen Zilong quickly walked over and took a look and found Xia Yunyi standing under the cross, spitting about what he had seen secretly taking people to Suzhou to scout the enemy's situation a few days ago. Xu Guangqi, Sun Yuanhua and several other Shanghai gentry were sitting on benches listening, their faces as sinking as water.
"...Hey, I didn't expect this Tartar to be so cruel. I, Jiangnan, are really in trouble this time!"
After listening to Xia Yunyi's description of the scene in Suzhou after the massacre, everyone here felt sad. Xu Guangqi also sighed repeatedly, "...are there any Tartar soldiers and horses in Suzhou Prefecture today? In your opinion, Do the Tartars have plans to invade Songjiang? ”
"...As far as the students have found out, due to the sudden death of the Tartar chief Huang Taiji, all the soldiers have withdrawn from Suzhou Prefecture."
Xia Yunyi replied, "...However, if the Beibei soldiers and horses come again next time, Songjiang will definitely bear the brunt!" Faced with this bleak prospect that had been expected, everyone in the church was silent. After a while, Xu Guangqi spoke again, "... Chuyang (Sun Yuanhua's cousin), how are your two thousand volunteer soldiers doing now? Can they go into battle to kill the enemy?"