Dominate the Country

[The first day of July, 4500 words]

Suzhou Prefecture, in front of Hushu Pass.

Wu Xiongguang looked at the tens of thousands of refugees inside and outside, and the refugees who filled the streets and alleys and every open space. The pity on his face had unconsciously turned into indifference.

No matter how much sympathy there was, it would be worn out by the endless refugees. There were too many people, beyond his imagination. After a period of crazy influx of refugees, Suzhou City has now closed its doors and refused to accept these refugees. Many refugees returned to Hushu Pass, at least there are so many empty houses here.

Wu Xiongguang, an 18-year-old handsome young man [already a juren], had pity on the refugees from the beginning, because these people were loyal and good people of the Qing Dynasty, otherwise they would not have fled madly, they all left their homes to avoid the tyranny of Chen Ze’s B government.

Wu Xiongguang hated the Fu Han Army from top to bottom, not because he had passed the imperial examination of the Qing Dynasty, but because he regarded the Qing Dynasty as the orthodoxy and the current period as a prosperous and peaceful era, and the rise of the Fu Han Army messed up all of this. He regarded the Fu Han Army as bandits who could not coexist.

What is anti-Qing and restoration of Han? They are all inciting ignorant and stupid people. Don't you know the saying "If a barbarian is Chinese, then he is Chinese; if a Chinese is a barbarian, then he is a barbarian"? The Qing Dynasty entered the pass for 120 years, respecting Confucius and Confucianism, which is the orthodoxy. The Fu Han Army, which is a collection of officials from several dynasties, is out of place, absurd and ridiculous, and is an outlier.

Regardless of whether the ordinary people who occupy more than 90% of the world think so, Wu Xiongguang himself thinks so, and the majority of the cynical scholars in the world think so. Anyway, the people who occupy an absolute advantage in number are numb and have no thoughts, and have no right to speak in public opinion. They don't need a say. The common people who are busy all day long for food, clothes and other necessities of life can't see hundreds of years ago. At most, they know that their fathers were born with money rat tails. They have seen many ugly things and have been influenced by them. They think it is natural and right.

The common people know more about history from opera and storytelling. The huge influence of the Three Kingdoms opera among the people and the Qing Dynasty's repeated conferring of Guan Yu are complementary.

Zhu Ming crippled himself, and the Qing Dynasty's entry into the Central Plains completely broke the backbone of the Chinese nation. With the end of the Lü Liuliang case in the Yongzheng Dynasty, the anti-Qing color has completely faded in the "literati" class in China. In their hearts, the Qing Dynasty is China.

Seeing the "anti-Qing and restore Han" banner raised by the Fu Han Army, it was very stimulating to the cynical literati. Because they finally forgot their unbearable past in the long river of history, the Fu Han Army poked their healed scars alive and pulled out their ancestors to whip their corpses. Therefore, all the scholars who were touched by the pain scolded and denounced the Fu Han Army.

The knife has not been put on their necks yet.

…

As the leader of the young talents of Jiangsu local scholars, Wu Xiongguang called on local gentry to donate money and grain, organize militia, defend their hometowns, and be loyal to the court after Nanjing was besieged. For the local rich landlords in Suzhou, loyalty to the court is of course necessary, but defending their hometowns is more important. There are so many officers and soldiers in the world, and these officers and soldiers should be loyal to the court first.

But the forest is big, and there are all kinds of birds, but there are some people who are loyal to the Qing Dynasty. Relying on his reputation, Wu Xiongguang really got a lot of money from some gentry and merchants who were loyal to the Qing Dynasty and organized a militia of four or five hundred people. During the attack of the Fu Han Army on Suzhou, this militia played a little role. After the war, this "excellent" militia was praised by the Suzhou government as a model. Wu Xiongguang's militia also rose, and the number of people was about to reach the 1,000 mark.

Hushuguan is located in the northwest of Suzhou City and the northeast foot of Nanyang Mountain. It is 25 miles away from Suzhou City and sits on both sides of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal.

As early as the Ming Dynasty, Hushuguan was a prosperous place on the Grand Canal. "It connects Guabu in the upper part, Dajiang in the middle, and Wuhui Jujin in the lower part, and enters the sea." It is known as "the thoroughfare of fourteen provinces." Cotton, wheat, and grains from the north, seafood from Fujian and Guangdong in the south, silk, cotton fabrics and other handicrafts from Suzhou, Hangzhou, Jiaxing and Huzhou all pass through here, so merchants in the town gather together and trade is prosperous. "Every day, there are thousands of groups, and all merchants from all directions trade here, and guests and travelers passing through the pass must also buy here."

Hushuguan is a golden land with abundant natural resources and outstanding people. It is the first town in Wuzhong.

Such a place was devastated during the attack of the Fu Han Army on Suzhou. The war turned large areas of houses and streets on both sides of the canal into white land. When the war ended, the Suzhou government had not had time to breathe, and refugees fleeing from inside and outside Jiangning poured in one after another. Wu Xiongguang's militia was transferred to the outside of Hushuguan to maintain public security and order. The recent increase in the number of his militia is also related to this aspect. Too many refugees are used in Hushuguan, and the strong men who are willing to eat military rations are the best source of soldiers.

The "pure" Wu Xiongguang matured rapidly under the impact of the cruel reality day after day. In addition to hating the Fu Han Army that disturbed the world even more, he was numb to the misery of the refugees.

"The country has supported people of our generation for 120 years. Now that the emperor is in danger, we should repay him with all our heart and soul." Wu Xiongguang's father was just an ordinary scholar in Suzhou. He had failed to pass the imperial examination for half his life. His son had passed the imperial examination at a young age, and Wu's father was extremely proud. "We call ourselves scholars, so the outline of the "Great Learning" is the most important thing for us to establish ourselves in the world. We need to understand it. From my own perspective, there are only two things that can make us successful: studying things and being sincere. Studying things is the matter of gaining knowledge. Being sincere is the matter of practicing." Wu's father felt that his children should not waver in their determination because of some setbacks and darkness. Body, mind, will, and knowledge, family, country, and the world are all things. All things in the world, and the things we do every day, are all things. And studying things to the end, knowing the origin, end, beginning, and end of things, and creating a place where we can get it, is the meaning of studying things. This is "understanding the principles", and in the end, to achieve success, we must be sincere and practice.

My son should have a thorough understanding of the hardships of the world and the darkness of society. There is a very good saying in "The Story of the Stone": "Knowledge of worldly affairs is learning, and understanding of human nature is writing."

In the future, my son will be an official and a high-ranking official. He must have a clear understanding of the hardships of the world and the darkness of society. How to behave in the world is as important as your essay in the imperial examination.

If the officialdom is a big examination hall, then that is your exam paper.

The "essentials of being a person and being in the world" that Wu Xiongguang got from the "Four Books and Five Classics" is to be loyal to the court and do his best to help the government army to suppress bandits and rebellion. Therefore, the "hardships of the world and the darkness of society" he saw, in Wu's father's view, is to enable him to better understand this society, but not to be frustrated by it. If the belief is shaken because of this reason, how can it be sincere in practice?

"Father, the pain in my son's heart is not about the present, but about the future. Although Liangjiang Gao Zhitai and Jiangning General were defeated by the bandits in Jurong and their troops were greatly defeated, the bandits were few in number and captured few [really? What about the ones killed?]. The defeated soldiers and civilians in Jurong fled to the countryside, some of them went to Yixing and then to Huzhou, but more of them went to Suzhou along the Grand Canal.

There are hundreds of thousands of refugees between Hushuguan and Suzhou City. Many refugees have no money left and can only eat rice soup and wild vegetables every day. When they see kind and wealthy families giving out porridge and food, they all worship them as Bodhisattvas. Just because the government treats the people the same, the refugees obey. But if the bannermen and bannermen arrive, they will definitely be respectfully welcomed into Suzhou City by Su Fantai [Sulde]." Wu Xiongguang's eyebrows are full of sorrow and bitterness. Su Fantai Sulde is a Han Chinese. At this critical juncture, even an ordinary bannerman will be served respectfully by him.

But what do the 200,000 or 300,000 refugees in Suzhou think? "It's not the lack of people that is worrying, but the inequality... If there are spies among the refugees, and they are slightly incited and agitated, and the public sentiment is agitated, this will be another disaster."

The privileges of the bannermen are the mark of the Qing Dynasty that those cynics who lick the Qing Dynasty cannot cover up no matter how much they whitewash. As long as the bannermen come to Suzhou, as long as Suzhou is still under the rule of the Qing Dynasty and the Qing Dynasty officials are in power, they must be properly taken care of. They must not be like the hundreds of thousands of Han refugees who are imprisoned outside Suzhou City. Most of the time, they don't care about their lives, as long as they maintain a general peace.

The Manchus and the Han have never been one family. No matter how shameless the cynics are, they dare not say publicly that the Manchus and the Han are one family, because this is not flattering the Qing Dynasty, but asking for trouble. The emperor sitting in the Forbidden City does not think so.

The impact of millions of refugees rushing down on the Qing Dynasty in southern Jiangsu is absolutely huge. Suzhou Prefecture, the capital of Jiangsu Province, is the place where the essence of Jiangnan gathers. This paradise has been struggling to operate under the impact of hundreds of thousands of refugees.

The Fu Han Army that retreated from Suzhou City only left a battalion in Changzhou, and the Qing army has not yet dispatched troops to take it down. Changzhou is obviously a frontier position of the Fu Han Army. As long as the Qing soldiers kill the city, the Fu Han Army defending the city will definitely not fight hard there, but retreat to Danyang and defend the south gate of Zhenjiang.

Chen Ming is now recruiting soldiers in Nanjing City. Boatmen and sailors in Jiangnan, bankrupt farmers, unemployed handicraftsmen, and even some ruffians and gangsters, from all walks of life, as long as they are willing to cut off their braids, they can become a member of the Fu Han Army.

The strength of the Qing Dynasty is still there. Chen Ming's isolated army really has no confidence to defend Nanjing. He is also unwilling to be trapped in an isolated city and fight a deadly battle with waves of Qing troops. What he wants to do is to cause chaos in the entire Jiangnan. And to cause chaos in Jiangnan, the best way is of course to burn the war all over every inch of land in Jiangnan.

The captured prisoners were also divided and reorganized into volunteer battalions, and with the new recruits, Chen Ming's team had more than a dozen battalions. However, the battalion officers of these battalions were not as good as the officers of the main force of the Fu Han Army.

Since the Fu Han Army attacked Wuchang, it has successively seized a lot of y**, and many more were found in Nanjing. Along with these y**, there were also four foreigners who were reported to Chen Ming, that is, foreigners, all of whom were Jesuits. They lived in Nanjing, dealing with the dignitaries in Nanjing and building relationships, in order to be able to preach in Nanjing officially. But so far, the wish has not been fulfilled.

Chen Ming had no interest in personally "receiving" these foreigners, but just asked the logistics department to come forward and chat with this missionary. If these four missionaries could deliver a full ship of granulated gunpowder or sulfur and saltpeter to the Fu Han Army, they would be good friends recognized by the Fu Han Army. Of course, it was quite strange for Chen Ming to catch a few missionaries in Nanjing City, especially when he learned from them that these missionaries had their roots in Hubei and Gucheng. This really shocked him a little, and made Chen Ming admire this group of missionaries in his heart.

…

Outside the north gate of Changzhou, dozens of large pots were placed on a crude stove, with a blazing fire underneath, boiling white porridge in the pot, and crackling sounds of wood bursting from time to time from under the pot.

Not far from these large pots, large wooden barrels that were washed clean were placed on the ground, and behind the barrels stood a cook wearing white pants and a white coat, a white headscarf and a white mask. Yes, this man is a soldier, and he has a knife hanging on his waist.

In the entire area of ​​the stove and the wooden barrel, there is a team of Fu Han soldiers wearing iron armor and holding swords and guns guarding.

The Fu Han Army in Changzhou is distributing porridge and food. They don't care whether the people who are surrounded outside will take the food and continue to go south to Suzhou after filling their stomachs. The Fu Han Army in Changzhou doesn't care about this. Their only task is to distribute porridge and food.

The Fu Han Army, which has captured Zhenjiang, Wuxi, Nanjing and other places, has too much food in its hands. Chen Ming thinks that these things are useless. There are too many and too heavy, and it is inconvenient to carry. It is better to turn them into something more meaningful.

The battalion officer in charge of the Changzhou camp is Jiang Tianfang, who has been promoted again. Jiang Tianfang sneered at Chen Ming's decision at first. Even if the Fu Han Army gives away all the one or two million dan of food on hand, how many people in Jiangnan can they win?

Who is disturbing Jiangnan? Who broke the lives of these millions of people? It is the Fu Han Army. If there were no Fu Han Army, they could live their own lives in peace and happiness, and they would not have to wait for the Fu Han Army's charity here.

Jiang Tianfang felt that Chen Ming's decision would eventually be in vain. Of course, he would not tell this to outsiders. This was what he thought in his heart. If others knew it, he would die.

But as the crowd heading south gradually showed signs of returning north, and as Jiang Tianfang learned about Suzhou City's actions, he fell silent.

He suddenly remembered a sentence Chen Ming said: The common people are "forgetful", and the common people are easy to surrender...

Isn't this the case now?

The Qing government locked them outside the city and did not allow them to enter the city. What is there outside the city? It is April now, and there is nothing to eat in the paddy fields. When the old surnames returned to the city of Changzhou, Jiang Tianfang believed that the people were grateful to the Fu Han Army. They may have forgotten that it was the Fu Han Army that pushed them into the fire pit, and now they are just pulling a small number of them out of the fire pit.

…

In the militia camp outside Hushu Pass, Wu Xiongguang seemed to be drunk, and his whole body was light when he walked. Wu Xiongguang could feel that his future was infinitely bright, because he had already caught the eyes of the governor.

Moreover, he had already made meritorious contributions in the battle to defend Suzhou. After the chaos was quelled, he might be directly appointed by the court.

However, Wu Xiongguang must take the imperial examination, because the status of an imperial scholar is not only a qualification, but also a network of people.

The same subject and the same list, this kind of relationship is comparable to classmates and fellow townsmen, which is a very reliable network of people in the officialdom.

He led the civilians to patrol during the day, and encountered refugees looting in Wangting Town, and stepped forward to rescue the victims. He never thought that the victims were the bannermen he regarded as a big threat, and they were quite prestigious bannermen. Then in the evening, he received a handwritten thank-you letter from the governor.

Wu Xiongguang's inner troubles were swept away. Forget all your worries. This is a handwritten letter from the governor. Although Wu Xiongguang is known as a talented person in Jiangnan, he is only 18 years old and has a humble background. He is just a minor scholar.

I am honored to be part of this. How lucky I am!