Chapter 167 Good and Evil
On the way Cai Yong arrived, Zhang Chong was also thinking about the handling of Guo Siyi's case. In his position, he no longer only considered the specifics of the case, but more importantly, some of the things reflected in the case made Zhang Chong feel that this matter could not be done casually.
There was also some information during the investigation in Beiqi that made Zhang Chong shudder. He had previously suspected that someone like Zhang Qing could be so unscrupulous just for a meal of beef, drinking some honey water, and having a woman by his side. This shows that he is so unscrupulous. Things are not individual cases. Sure enough, in the follow-up investigation, Zhang Qing successively killed seventeen people in the six months before dividing the land. Except for a few who were really powerful, the others were land-owning people like Guo Si, but they provoked A tough fight. They were all beaten to death by public trials in Zhang Qing for deceiving the people.
From this point of view, Zhang Qing must die. Guan Yu hanged him to relieve the people's anger. But this reflects the random killing without investigation during the process of dividing the fields. Zhang Chong also knew that there was a problem behind this. Originally, the Taishan Army had few field officials and a lot of field work, so it was natural for him to simply follow the regulations. Anyone with serious public grievances at the conference will be beaten to death. This kind of regulation is inherently helpless. Sure enough, in several practices, the people from the field division team and the local tyrants quickly seized on the loopholes and caused unjust and wrongful killings.
Another thing is that since Ying County Magistrate sent the letter, the case of Guo Si's death has rapidly escalated. Many village officials have written letters of complaint, saying that Meng Qi was indeed a good person in the local area and that he bought Guo Si's land. It's forced. On the contrary, Guo Si had a bad reputation in the countryside for spreading rumors and being greedy for gain. Although his death was undeserved, it was mostly his own fault. After all, it was the Guizhou leaders themselves who wanted to take revenge. Moreover, the current situation requires the use of good officials like Zhang Qing and Meng Qi. If they are killed indiscriminately, wouldn't it hurt the relatives and make the enemies happy? Even a few county officials still didn't understand why Guan Yu had the power to kill a county official and six Guizhou leaders indiscriminately without trial? Does he have this power?
The above rumors were all caused by Guo Si's case, which can be said to be pulling out the carrot and bringing out the mud.
So what does Zhang Chong think?
In fact, in his opinion, these things were all because our army was about to face a major encirclement and suppression by the Han Dynasty, so people's hearts were floating. As for Guo Si himself, he does not think that dividing the land is wrong because of this, but thinks that there is something wrong with the person doing it. Therefore, the field allocation must be stopped for a while, and the various farm division groups must be sorted out first, and those with bad morals and conduct must be eliminated. As long as those who implement the policy are in charge, the policy will not be distorted.
The Taishan Army has developed so far that it has indeed absorbed many young people who were originally powerful to serve as civilian officials. On the other hand, it has indeed expanded too fast and it is too late to train them. On the other hand, these people did take the initiative to join the army, and their families had more or less contributed to the expansion of the Taishan Army. Using them would have the effect of reducing the attack surface.
But although these people are in the Taishan Army, their behavior and style are the same as those of the Han Dynasty. Officials hide from each other, officials use power for personal gain, and treat the people like grass. These rural officials must be purged and rectified, otherwise the longer they stay undressed, the worse the atmosphere will be.
In addition, Zhang Chong does not have much ideological baggage regarding the issue of excess in struggle. He knows that human nature always swings directly from one extreme to the other. If he wants the vassals in Guizhou to stand up against the powerful, then don't expect it to be as elegant, as leisurely, gentle, as gentle, courteous and thrifty as treating guests to dinner, writing articles, painting and embroidering. He will inevitably involve revenge, bloodshed, and impulsiveness, but only in this way can tens of millions of Guizhou leaders be encouraged to form a big storm of resistance. After all, if you want new life, you must destroy it.
It can also be seen from the fact that Guo Shibi was able to fight against Guo Si, a poor man like them, that the current views of good and evil in the countryside still remain on personal morality and ethics.
In their eyes, even though Guo Si is a poor person like them, he is a bad person if he is indolent and indolent. As for the rich, as long as these people show their gentleness, courtesy and frugality in front of others, they will be regarded as great good people. On the one hand, this is the simple morality of the Guizhou leaders, which is good, but on the other hand, it is easy for them to be influenced by these superficial things.
For example, for Guo Si, the important reason why he is a lazy man is that he obviously has a hundred acres of land, but most of it is abandoned. In the simple morality of the countryside, this is completely lazy. But they didn't know how he could cultivate all this when he was the only adult member of the family and had no plow oxen.
The Five Tigers of the Zhang family, who are also members of the same family, are considered to be able to help people in times of need because they have a large number of people and can lend surplus grain to households at high interest rates. In fact, the way Zhang's Five Tigers started their business is a typical example of rural tyrants. Do you think the households who later borrowed their grain can still afford it? How long will it take to save more than one year's worth of taxes and rations when the weather is good? And in this process, there will be more and more food for future success. In other words, for households in Qianshouli, as long as they borrowed grain, there was no hope of paying it back. The next step was to sell their fields and the Five Tigers, and then to become tenants, and then to live with mediocrity for generations.
And these Guizhou leaders can't see this far, so they need Shi Jiajun to tell them and do it for them. Until now, there are still many people in the Shi Jiajun who only regard the division of land as a thankless task and deal with it passively. They still don't understand that this is the foundation of their army and the real key to their victory over the Han Dynasty. To divide the fields is to compete with the powerful people for the countryside. Only by firmly grasping the powerful rural leaders in Guizhou, the hundreds of thousands of powerful people in the Han court are nothing more than thatch, which will fall down if they are blown. And in this process of dividing the land, we must rely on the poor people who have nothing. Under the leadership of the Shi Jiajun, their lives have improved, so they will trust the Shi Jiajun and be willing to follow the Shi Jiajun. Rich people? What can Shi Jiajun give them? Therefore, there is no victory without poverty.
Zhang Chong planned to use Guo Siyi's case as a comment attached to the case and pass it on to military officials and civilian officials above general level for study. It’s time to deepen your understanding of subdivision.
At this time, Cai Yong came. He also took the case of Guo Si's death very seriously. After all, the matter involved a county magistrate in his hands. He was now responsible for two counties. Wen Yu was recommended by him, so Naturally, I fell in love with it.
Originally, after reading Wen Yu's letter, he had concluded that the matter was caused by the excessive tactics of Guan Yu's troops stationed in Ying County. Although he and Guan Yu had not had any military encounters before, they had a certain fate.
When Guan Yu participated in the Northern Expedition to Xianbei in the sixth year of Xiping, Cai Yong wrote a letter to oppose it. In June of that year, he wrote a letter "Nan Xia Yu Shang Yan Xianbei Still Violates the Counties", which directly pointed out the need for troops. Behind the scenes, the general at that time bribed the eunuch Wang Fu to get it done. At that time, Cai Yong's reason for objecting to sending troops was: "The Xiongnu fled, and Xianbei was strong. According to his hometown, he had an army of one hundred thousand. ... The barriers were not strict, the forbidden nets had many leaks, and the fine gold and iron were all owned by thieves. The Han people fled, He planned a master plan for him, and his troops were more powerful than the Huns."
In fact, since the beginning of this dynasty, although Xianbei invaded repeatedly, which undermined the majesty of the Han Dynasty, it did not cause serious problems. "The troubles of hanging edges are scabies on the hands and feet; the troubles of China are also whitlows on the chest and back." That's it.
However, the Northern Expedition in the sixth year of Xiping directly caused great damage to the vitality of the Han Dynasty. The division was lost and the brigade was defeated, tens of thousands of soldiers and horses were killed and wounded, and many archers were scattered. At that time, the foundation of the people's livelihood and the defense preparations could not be relied on. The people were lost in mourning and died in the ravines. Bandits and thieves arose in large numbers, but they could not stop the attack. The chief officials were cold-hearted and did not watch the day and night.
In short, Cai Yong pointed the cause of the Han Dynasty's great loss of vitality directly at Wang Fu and other eunuchs. In the future, he would be in trouble with the Jin Shang family, and his whole family was sent to Shuofang, which was also caused by this discussion.
So when he saw Guan Yu, a veteran who survived the war, he had mixed feelings in his heart. After meeting several times later, I also admired Guan Yu's conduct.
But this time Guan Yu's behavior made Cai Yong very unhappy. But Cai Yong's unhappiness soon disappeared. As soon as he entered the hall, he heard Zhang Chong talk about Fei Jun's investigation of Guo Siyi's case.
When I heard that Zhang Qing was threatening Guo Si to kill Guo Si, and Ying County Magistrate Wen Yu deliberately protected him, and even wrote a sophistical letter to exonerate himself, I felt even more ashamed.
Finally, Zhang Chong gave an order to Cai Yong, ordering the entire army to complete the work of dividing the fields in Fenggao, Yingxian and Mouxian counties. The main purpose of the next stage is to organize and train the field guards. Then each field group will conduct self-examination to see if there are any cadres like Zhang Qing who seek personal gain with power and care about human life. If they find any cadres, they will deal with them. This matter will be led by Zhao Da of Military Law Cao.
As soon as he heard that Zhao Da, a cruel official, came to investigate, Cai Yong wanted to dissuade him, but Zhang Chong stopped him. He understood what Cai Yong meant. He was worried that Zhao Da would act cruelly and expand the scope of the investigation, making the officials unstable. After all, The enemy is coming. Therefore, Zhang Chong asked Cai Yong and Zhao Da to take charge of this matter.
In addition, Zhang Chong also asked Cai Yong's two new students, Lu Cui and Ruan Yu, to write biographies for Guo Si. Put all the work together and then distribute it to each field division group for study. It is important for each group to raise their awareness and understand what our division of fields means and what is the basis for it. This story also needs to be told to the propaganda team, let them tell it to the Guizhou leaders, and must tell the rebellious spirit of Guo Si.
As for whether Guo Si is really lazy and does not conform to the simple moral values of the village, this is not important in Zhang Chong's opinion. What is important is that Guo Si's complaint is what Zhang Chong wants to publicize.
Then Zhang Chong called his second father over again. Since joining the army, Zhang Ernan has been mainly responsible for the situation of the Zhang clan in Dasangli, and he can be regarded as a Zongzheng. As for his father, he works in the fields all day long as a civilian husband. As soon as the second father came, Zhang Chong briefly explained the death case of Guo Si to the second father and told him to find out the clansman who wanted to stand up for Zhang Qing and find him out so that he could avoid trouble.
The second man was a little hesitant, but seeing Zhang Chong's determined expression, he still hesitantly agreed.
Looking at the retreating figure of his second father, Zhang Chong knew in his heart that this matter would be difficult to handle. In Dasangli, a society of acquaintances, human relationships are complicated and they often help each other, just by saying something to each other. Maybe the tribesman who wanted to help Zhang Qing didn't even realize that this was a problem. Now that he was dealt with, it would inevitably be cold to the hearts of the tribesmen. This will definitely make it difficult for the second father.
But so what? Zhang Chong's clan members have no rights but only responsibilities, so it's no wonder that he is Zhang Chong's clan relative. In his place, there is no such thing as a person attaining enlightenment and chickens and dogs ascending to heaven.
(End of chapter)