Riding the wind of rebirth

"However, Gong Xianming was unlucky. His family suffered a disaster and his parents died. He moved with his clan from Gong Village, Gaotian, Nanchang, Jiangxi Province. On the way, he encountered bandits and was separated from his clan. He also fell seriously ill. He attempted suicide twice in a dilapidated temple but failed. Finally, he was saved by Liu Qiqian."

"When Gong Xian was young and his family was still prosperous, he studied and practiced martial arts, thus gaining some knowledge of both. After talking with him, Liu Qiqian found this young man to be quite good, except for his astonishing appetite, capable of eating a whole table of food in one meal. However, he was also incredibly strong. In addition, his age was comparable to that of Shui Yourong, Shui Yougui, Shui Youlu, and Xian Shen. Therefore, Liu Qiqian had him teach the four martial arts, which led to the record in the Ming Dynasty history of Liu Xian: 'Born with extraordinary strength, he had some knowledge of literature. When his family was poor and destitute, he went to a shrine to attempt suicide, but the gods protected him and he did not die. He secretly traveled to Sichuan and became a tutor to children.'"

"So he changed his surname to Liu after Liu Qiqian?"

“That’s not it yet,” Zhou Zhi said. “Because it was a life-saving grace, Professor Gong Xian’s disciples of the same age were very dedicated. In the year of Bing Shen of the Jiajing reign, the master took his disciples to Luzhou for the children’s examination, and Shui Yougui won first place. In the year of Ji Hai of the Jiajing reign, Gong Xian, along with Shui Yourong and Shui Youlu, participated in the imperial examination. In order to participate in this examination, Liu Qiqian recommended him to the envoy Liu Min, who took him in as a boy soldier and trained him in martial arts with the army.”

"Liu Min initially didn't take Gong Xian seriously. Until one night, he dreamt of a black tiger entering the hall. When he woke up and went outside, he found Gong Xian sleeping on the porch. He felt this young man must be extraordinary, and that's when he started to take extra care of him," Zhou Zhi said. "Gong Xian was grateful to Liu Min and became his adopted son, changing his surname to Liu. To secure his future, Liu Min arranged for him to impersonate someone from Sichuan. This led to him achieving first place in the imperial examination, with Shui You Rong and Shui You Lu also ranking highly."

“You’re starting to tell stories with a flair that’s just like mine now,” the godfather laughed. “Is this the beginning of Liu Xian’s journey into the military? The History of Ming says that he ‘falsely registered as a military student.’”

"No, the bad luck wasn't over yet. This time, because of the issue of impersonating someone else in the imperial examination, Liu Xian was reported and exposed, and ultimately he was not admitted. However, this matter came to the attention of Zeng Shengwu, the governor of Sichuan. Because of Liu Xian's outstanding martial arts skills, although he was not admitted, he still left a deep impression on him." Zhou Zhi said, "After that, Liu Xian served as a military officer under Liu Min. If it weren't for the later events, Liu Xian might have spent his whole life as a minor soldier in the Yibin-Luzhou area, living an unknown life."

"The result was the Miao rebellion in Yibin in the thirty-fourth year of the Jiajing reign. How old was Liu Xian that year?"

"In the thirty-fourth year of Jiajing's reign, Liu Xian was exactly forty years old. The Jiusi barbarians in Yibin rebelled, and Governor Zhang Nie quelled the rebellion." Zhou Zhi said, "That was the battle in which Liu Xian's fame spread throughout the south. He charged into battle, wielding two large guillotines, killing more than fifty people and capturing three leaders. He became famous for this, and after the rebellion was quelled, he was ranked first in merit and promoted to deputy commander of a thousand households. Then he spent a sum of money to promote himself again and became a commander-in-chief."

"As the saying goes, 'murderers and arsonists wear golden belts,' and after this battle, Liu Xian finally became truly wealthy. He bought land in Banchengcao in Jiachuan, and only then did he officially become a registered resident in the Ming Dynasty. By the way, godfather, where is Banchengcao?"

“Banchengcao is in Rongshan Town, which is Rongyou Township where your aunt lives,” Godfather said. “You can turn around there to get to Fubao. From Fubao, you can enter Guizhou through Hongqianzi via the ancient road. Before, it was difficult to even have a penny, but now buying land and registering your household registration is a very simple matter.”

"After that, there were many more stories about Liu Xian. He and his son were both given separate biographies in the History of Ming, and there are countless anecdotes in Ming dynasty notes."

"From a modern perspective, Liu Xian's greatest achievement was certainly not suppressing rebellions in minority areas, even though he expanded the Ming Dynasty's territory by thousands of miles, but rather resisting Japanese pirates," Zhou Zhi said. "The four famous generals who resisted Japanese pirates at that time were Qi Jiguang, Yu Dayou, and Tan Lun. Tan Lun made an interesting observation. He highly praised Yu Dayou, using a strategy of first criticizing and then praising him, saying that Yu Dayou was inferior to himself in terms of self-control and shrewdness, inferior to Qi Jiguang in terms of rewarding and punishing, and inferior to Liu Xian in terms of skill and bravery. However, the three of them were only superior in terms of petty wisdom, while Yu Dayou was truly capable."

"Yu Long and Qi Hu, Liu Xian is quite formidable to be able to argue with them," the godfather said. "Like father, like son. His son, Liu Dadao, later lived up to his father's legend of Black Tiger, and was later popularly known as the 'Black Tiger General' during the Qing Dynasty. By the way, the Ming Dynasty history says he was also a good poet, is that true?" "Yes, after he pacified Bozhou, he temporarily stationed his troops in Ganshui Town, Qijiang, and carved a poem on a stone: 'The royal army passed through here after pacifying Bozhou, and carved this poem on the cliff to commemorate the victory. The ancient moss-covered stone will last for ten thousand years, and many people will look up and touch it.' It's in the county annals."

"Really? I'm very familiar with the 'Arts and Literature Records,' but I don't recall it."

"You have to look for it in the 'Records of Martial Arts'."

"Not bad, not bad, I understand the general situation now. Send me the information in a bit," the godfather said. "By the way, how did you manage to compile and uncover all this detailed information? You've really read a lot of books and studied very thoroughly these days!"

"That's not true. When I study now, I follow Zhuge Liang's example, only grasping the general outline and getting a general impression." Zhou Zhi chuckled mischievously. "As for the other details, I can just use a search engine in the database when I need them."

"For example, regarding the Liu family, I first searched for 'Jiachuan County Annals' in the system and found the Republican, Tongzhi, and Qianlong editions. Then, while reading through them, I discovered Liu Xian and his son in the Wugong Annals. So, I entered Liu Xian and Jiachuan into the search engine and found records in the database such as 'Jiachuan Tax Clan Genealogy,' 'Jiachuan Xian Clan Genealogy,' Liu Danian's 'Selection of Careers,' 'Shao Min's Collected Manuscripts,' 'Shao Min's Collected Manuscripts,' 'Southern Sichuan Annals,' 'Jiangxi Annals Draft,' and 'Gong Family Genealogy of Nanchang, Jiangxi.' Finally, I pieced together these clues to arrive at this discovery."

“I can understand compiling local chronicles and literary works,” the godfather said in surprise. “After all, your digital library has been working on Chinese digital classics such as the ‘Confucian Classics’ and the ‘Taoist Classics’. You’ve already finished those two major works? How come you’re now even working on local chronicles and genealogies?”

"This can be considered as being in a favorable position. We are still working on the 'Confucian Collection' and the 'Taoist Collection,' but with computing power and storage matrix, the security and capacity of the database have been greatly expanded, and the performance has reached a new level. Therefore, in addition to major partner universities and the National Library, we have opened the digital library interface to libraries at the provincial and municipal levels, and everyone can scan and upload their own collections."

"In order to refine this engine, we first chose to cooperate with the Sichuan Provincial Library. They were very cooperative and contributed their very distinctive local collections, especially local chronicles and genealogies."

"Then how did you manage to complete the proofreading?" the godfather asked. "Even with the most powerful engine, the people at the provincial library couldn't possibly handle it all, could they?"

“We are now also trying to open it up to readers for a fee, but they can earn points by proofreading the books.”

"When reading online, the left side of the screen displays the scanned document, and the right side displays the automatically recognized electronic version. Readers can format and proofread the electronic version to earn points, which can then be used to borrow books from the digital library, creating a virtuous cycle." (End of Chapter)