Chapter 75 The weakness of the common people, the two enemies of the empire
Gejiazhuang is a natural village in Guanzhong area that is unknown to most people.
Since the establishment of the Ming Dynasty, there has been peace here for more than a hundred years, and the imperial court has always been light on wealth and wealth. Now there are hundreds of households in the small Gejiazhuang, and it has even gradually begun to have a phenomenon of ruins, which is a kind of becoming The phenomenon of regular markets in front of towns.
Gejiazhuang is a village inhabited by self-cultivating farmers. This kind of village is also the foundation on which the Ming Dynasty empire relies.
The central court of the Ming Dynasty could only collect money, grain and taxes from these villages to ensure the political and military operation of the entire empire.
However, the difference between Gejiazhuang and the private estates of the gentry group is that there are no village walls to defend against foreign enemies. What's more, a village like Gejiazhuang is still in Guanzhong rather than northern Shaanxi, so naturally there is no need to worry about Tatar intrusion.
Although it is the severe cold season of winter, Gejiazhuang is still very lively at this time. During the off-season, the villagers all stay at home making clothes or doing carpentry.
Some well-off farmers have begun to prepare to kill pigs. The large wooden barrels are being filled with buckets of boiling water. White steam is steaming out, shrouding the village in a lively atmosphere, while the big fat pigs on the side are making tragic noises. The howling sound made a group of village children watching the pig slaughtering giggle with their missing teeth exposed.
There are also some farmers who are preparing to marry off their daughters. The beating of gongs and drums in the snow-white world constitutes the most beautiful note in the peaceful and peaceful rural life, and the red sedan chair also constitutes the brightest color.
Needless to say, there are the sounds of chickens and dogs barking.
Before the arrival of Xiaobinghe, before the privileged and tax-free class of the gentry had completely swallowed up the empire, in the 18th year of the Hongzhi period of the Ming Dynasty, the lives of the common people were considered prosperous and peaceful.
However, due to human selfishness and the unstoppable desire to compete for profits after gaining power, plunder and killing are unavoidable.
The first to start massacring the village were the real Tatars, a group of Tatars brought in by Lu Zhonghe, the censor of Shaanxi Province. After they helped Shao Daxia and others kill the officers and soldiers escorting Wang Shu, they directly began to search for villages to carry out the killings. Their usual plan to get rich.
The first person to be slaughtered was Gejiazhuang.
The Tatars who were at the front galloped over and saw several Han children playing with making snowmen at the end of the village. Without saying a word, they cut three or four children into two pieces with a knife, and their blood immediately spilled on the piles. On the snowman's face, the white snowman turned into a bloody man.
These Han children from Gejiazhuang had no time to cry. Their white and tender little hands and legs were scattered on the ground like broken branches in winter, trampled into mud by the Tatar horse hooves on the snow.
More and more Tatars came on horseback. They bared their teeth like wild wolves. They rode their horses directly past the wheat stacks built by the Han villagers. They ignored the roar of the yellow dogs in the village and directly stopped Yidai at the door. The Han villagers were split in half, and blood was immediately sprinkled in front of the house. Only the widened eyes were left with shock and pain.
But a Tatar just smiled coldly, stepped on the villager's body and entered his home. When he saw wheat, he put it on his shoulders, and when he saw chickens, he grabbed them. When he saw there was a woman hiding in the bed He threw away the wheat grains and chickens and rushed towards the Han woman. Suddenly, the woman's screams could be heard in the room.
Countless tragedies began to take place, and the Han villagers who were preparing to enjoy the pig-killing feast were all hacked to death. They had worked hard for a year and finally waited until the end of the year to have a good meal, but they became the dead souls of the Tatars!
A sedan chair, which was about to be carried to a neighboring village for a wedding, stopped at the entrance of the village.
The four villagers carrying the sedan chair were all killed.
The groom, who had just married his sweetheart, only had half of his body left.
The bride was lying naked on the bloody snow. Half an hour ago she was a fifteen-year-old Han girl, looking forward to the groom who had grown up together like childhood sweethearts to pick her up.
At this time, she had been ravaged to death by five Tatars!
In less than an hour, Gejia Village became an uninhabited village!
There are hundreds of families, and every family is in ruins!
Men, women, old and young, no one is spared!
They may not understand until their death who they have offended, and what crime they have committed to deserve such a harsh punishment?
...coincidentally.
At this time, Shao Daxia and others are also carrying out his plan to make a fortune.
Although they were not Tatars but a group of bandits raised by the gentry, they were no softer than the Tatars in looting and killing, and were even ten times more cruel.
After all, traitors have always been more cruel to their own kind.
A place called Qili Village is a very ordinary village like Gejiazhuang. It also has dozens of villagers who live a relatively peaceful and prosperous life. It is also a self-cultivated village controlled by non-gentry forces.
After all, Shao Daxia and his group did not dare to go to the private estates of the massacre gentlemen, lest the matter escalate.
Shao Daxia was the first to rush into Qili Village. He only came to destroy the village and not to steal money, so he showed no mercy. When he saw a peasant woman coming out with hot water, he went over first and hacked the peasant woman to death in front of the threshold. The other village women in the house didn't know what was going on and were helping a young Han woman give birth.
When Shao Daxia came in with a bloody butcher knife, the young Han woman had just given birth, and a newly born Han baby had just been happily lifted up by a village woman and was crying loudly to announce his arrival in this world. He was cut in half by the knife in Shao Daxia's hand, and the village woman who was holding the Han family's new son was also killed on the spot!
The young Han woman who had just become a mother fainted from fright, but she still did not escape the fate of being ravaged by Shao Daxia.
After he killed all the Han villagers in a room, he went on to kill the next family.
One by one, they were wiped out.
If the pregnant woman is pregnant, she will be stabbed one more time. The reason is naturally to prevent the village from continuing to exist and have another villager.
In the end, the house was also burned down, and the cattle, sheep, horses, dogs, etc. were also driven into the house and burned.
Even farm equipment will be destroyed.
In this way, the entire Qili Village will become a truly uninhabited village, and the fields of these homesteaders will become truly ownerless fields, and the government's operations will become their fields.
Such tragedies continued to unfold before the government discovered it.
Just like every border disaster that the Ming Dynasty suffered in the past hundred years, villages composed of self-cultivated farmers were wiped out one by one. The credit for this was due to the Tatars and the gentry, bandits and thieves; there were many bandits and thieves who had nothing to do with the gentry. It is difficult to last, so the main credit is due to the Tatars and gentry.
Just as Mr. Gu Cheng said, the main reason for the demise of the Han Dynasty in the late Ming Dynasty was the collusion between the Han bureaucrats and the Qing military nobles. Those who benefit from survival are still the powerful officials and gentry among the Han people and the bandits outside the Great Wall.
They colluded together to devour the foundation of the empire step by step.
Perhaps in the long history, at most a few ordinary villages were massacred, but a hundred years later, what resulted was the rise of alien races, the central financial tension within the empire, and the sharp decline in the people's tolerance.
……
But this cruel method of land annexation will eventually end, and Shaanxi Governor Yang Yiqing, who represents the interests of the empire, has to send heavy troops to restore order.
But the robbers had escaped, and the Tatars miraculously disappeared outside the wall like the wind.
Lu Zhonghe, the censor of Shaanxi Province, had already gone to Yumen in the name of inspecting border towns. Here, he received a secret letter from his family: "We have acquired four villages totaling 24,000 acres." Tian!”
Lu Zhonghe felt very happy and felt the greatest benefit of being an official. What also made him happy was that he was about to be promoted to governor of Sichuan, which was promised by the cabinet Li Gefu.
Thanks to the book friend who suddenly remembered the 100 starting coin reward
(End of chapter)