The Han culture is spreading strongly in Southeast Asia

Chapter 382 Braids and Fists

Wang Wubing and Chen Lian were leading the military operation to recover Fujian, while I, Mo Zibu, was watching people fight in Guangzhou with a bit of evil interest.

After Emperor Mo Da restored the Han Dynasty, he did not rush to promote the restoration of clothing among the people.

Because for the common people at that time, both clothes and pants were very important properties, and the changes in clothes and pants of the lower-class people were not particularly great.

As for hair, even a haircut is an expense that can feed an adult with a meal.

Moreover, the Qing Dynasty had been shaving heads and changing clothes for so many years, and there were not so many people in the folk who knew how to tie their hair into a bun.

Moreover, if it is enforced by force, you can't guarantee that some people with ulterior motives will take the opportunity to extort the people, just like what happened during the Republic of China. Originally, restoring the Han Dynasty was a good thing, but in the end it was the people who suffered.

Another important reason is that currently in the army, especially in the hot south, tying hair is indeed not a good choice.

In the past, when we were in Southeast Asia, there was an incident where a soldier fainted from the heat while his hair was tied up. During the battle, his hair was ignited by gunpowder and he almost burned himself to death.

Therefore, Mo Zibu only stipulated that civil officials and nobles, to be more precise, all officials and nobles who were not in military positions, must restore their formal attire and tie their hair as the first criterion for appointment to official positions, and no other requirements were imposed.

So now the hairstyles in Dayu are so weird.

Most soldiers have short hair or are even bald, and the same is true for civilians. Some even grow their hair long but are too lazy to tie it up, so they just tie it up casually. Some also just cut their braids, giving them a completely yin-yang look.

Of course, more people still have long braids. This has been going on for more than a hundred years, and many ordinary people have become accustomed to this look, and even their aesthetic sense has been distorted.

In their opinion, Emperor Mo Da's Xing Tang Army had short hair and bald heads, which was really ugly. As for tying up hair, ordinary people would never have the energy to do that.

This situation lasted for half a year, and Mo Zibu became a little impatient.

While he does not wish to harass the people by making a fuss about their hair, he also feels that there is no need to politicise the hair issue among ordinary people.

But it was quite uncomfortable to watch. Whenever Mo Zibu saw the city full of braids on the West Mountain, he felt so upset!

Has China been restored or not?
So, after thinking for two days, Mo Zibu came up with a brilliant plan, which was to find some people from the army to deliberately fight with the civilians.

Just look at this: at Xiaoximen, a short soldier successfully fought with a civilian who was about the same size as him.

Then the other people who were watching the excitement discovered a scene that they had often seen in Guangzhou recently.

The two men are of similar build and both look like they have never practiced boxing, but the one with bald head or short hair always wins.

Look, the bald soldier grabbed the fisherman's braid by the pigtail, like pulling a pig's tail, and dragged the fisherman all over the ground, making him scream in pain.

The fisherman finally broke free, but was caught by the braid again a short while later. He didn't even see the bald soldier's face before he was severely beaten.

At the beginning, a group of old Cantonese people with braids were watching the fun, but as they watched, their faces turned green.

Damn it, having braids in a fight is such a disadvantage. If you grab someone's hair, at most you can scratch their scalp until it turns red, but if they grab your braids, they can beat you up.

"Damn it, there are more and more bald people and people with short hair in Guangzhou recently." Someone touched his braid and looked at the fisherman who was beaten with a bruised face by pulling his braid, muttering under his breath.

"I'm going to go back and cut my braids right now. Otherwise, if I get into a fight with someone one day, I'll get beaten half to death!"

But now, the fisherman had been defeated. He lay on the stone slab in the corner of the street with his back to the sky, completely losing the desire to fight. Only his mouth could moan "ah, oh, oh".

The soldier chuckled, threw out a few silver coins, and said with a deliberate laugh, "Hahahaha, don't bother reporting me to the police. I had a great time fighting today. Take this five cents as medicine."

After laughing, he deliberately stepped on the fisherman's braid and laughed mockingly, "If it weren't for this braid, I would have almost lost to you today!"

Damn, after saying this, the faces of the group of people with braids around them turned even greener.

Mo Zibu, protected by several guards, had a wicked grin on his face. Only I, King Mo, could come up with such a sinister idea.

"Okay, that's good. The army should try to select as many soldiers as possible from Guangnan, Rinan, Jiaqing and other provinces so that they won't be recognized. Also, increase the compensation a little, giving 6 to 8 cents of silver depending on the situation."

The area must also be expanded. Not only the people of Guangzhou will be beaten, but also those of Huizhou, Chaozhou, Fogang, and Zhaoqing. Beat them hard, beat them until their noses and faces are swollen, and beat them so that they dare not wear pigtails anymore."

Even several secret agents from the Palace Security Department were speechless at this bold move, but they had to admit that the effect was quite good. At least there were fewer people with braids in Guangzhou recently.

. . . .

Hakka people are actually not very easy to get along with.

Whether at this time or in later generations, the biggest characteristics of the Hakka people are conservatism, arrogance, strong patriarchy, hot temper, and a strong love of sticking together. Even their conversations sound like quarrels, and they are also criticized for their preference for boys over girls.

This is caused by their living environment.

The history of the Hakka people is actually a history of the suffering of the Han nationality.

Whether it was the Yongjia Rebellion, the Anshi Rebellion, or the Jingkang Incident, they were all extremely tragic events in the history of the Han people. During these periods when Han people fled south from the Central Plains on a large scale, the vast majority of the gentry went to the south of the Yangtze River to establish themselves.

But don’t forget that the Han people are not just well-dressed aristocrats, there are also a large number of ordinary people.

But at that time, Jiangnan, mainly consisting of Nanjing, Yangzhou, Suzhou and Hangzhou, actually did not have much land. Many places were still full of swamps, and the land available for population settlement was relatively limited.

This resulted in these places being able to accommodate only the nobles who had fled south, and at most a few strong northerners and tenants who were dependent on them.

Other poorer people at the bottom of society could only move upstream to the south of the Yangtze River. Most of these people eventually settled in southern Jiangxi, western Fujian and other places where the Hakka people now live.

They merged with the Han people who were recruited by the government to pacify the Baiyue people during the pre-Qin and Han dynasties, and struggled to survive in these mountainous areas.

The harsh living environment, difficult enemies, relatively closed geographical conditions and lack of culture have made the Hakka people develop a conservative, united and somewhat fierce character.

Among the major branches of the Han ethnic group, many characteristics of the Hakka people are actually the most similar to the ancient Han people before the Han Dynasty and the most like their ancestors.

Yin Chengfang strode along a not-so-wide road. This was in the southwest of Ningdu Prefecture, at the foot of Lotus Mountain.

Although Mr. Yin almost led my Emperor Mo into trouble, that was only because he had never been in the high-level positions of the Qing Dynasty, which led to his incomplete understanding. This does not negate his ability and prestige among the Hakka people.

Although he was already the governor of southern Jiangxi appointed by Mo Zibu, Yin Chengfang still did not change his character. He wore a coarse linen blue Taoist robe and a pair of straw sandals. His hair had grown a lot longer and could be tied into a simple bun.

The people walking around him were all Hakka soldiers wearing coarse clothes and straw sandals. They talked loudly and walked very fast. From time to time, some people came to see Yin Chengfang, a very famous scholar among the Hakka people.

This was the case at that time. Confucian scholars were criticized in later generations, but at that time, they still held the right to speak from the court to the countryside. The more illiterate the people were, the more they respected them.

This kind of heartfelt respect for knowledge runs almost throughout the Chinese people's history.

Not long after the troops arrived, they were not far from the city of Ningdu. On the top of the city wall, a large flag with a red background and a golden sun, symbolizing Dayu, was already flying.

The Qing Dynasty's military strength in Jiangxi was extremely weak. There were only two generals in Nan Gan and Jiujiang, as well as four associates in Yuanzhou and other places, plus the navy camp in Fuzhou. The total military strength of the entire province was only 13,000 people.

Moreover, Jiangxi was one of the few provinces without a Green Camp governor, whose governor also served as military commander. Without a governor, it meant that the elite Green Camp governor-general battalions, which were considered elite in other provinces, were also gone.

What's even worse is that during the Battle of Beihe, the only Green Camp in Nangan Town in southern Jiangxi was also conscripted there, resulting in a direct loss of nearly a thousand people.

At this time, there were only 5,000 soldiers in Nangan Town. More than 1,000 of them were idle soldiers, leaving more than 3,000. The thousand or so people lost in Beihe were almost all the elite and mobile troops of the Nangan Green Camp.

Therefore, Yin Chengfang deliberately avoided attacking Ningdu Prefecture City, just to see whether the Green Camp in Nangan Town could still withdraw troops.

As a result, more than ten days passed, and not only did the Green Camp in Nangan Town not move north, but the Ganzhou prefect withdrew the Green Camps in several nearby counties, and even the garrison troops, to defend Ganzhou City to the death, for fear that Yin Chengfang would attack Ganzhou.

This also embarrassed Yin Chengfang. He thought that although the force was quite powerful, there were not many regular troops!

The only group that could be considered very combat-effective was a battalion of 600 people led by Ye Xianchun. The rest were all Hakka men who came down from various mountains, about three to four thousand people.

"General Ye, my army only has 4,000 to 5,000 men right now. I'm afraid we don't have the strength to attack Ganzhou. The Green Camp in Nangan Town won't go north either. What can we do?"

Yin Chengfang looked at the Hakka warrior in the Xingtang Army and asked, as a great scholar with high prestige among the Hakka people in southern Jiangxi and western Fujian, Yin Chengfang could speak various dialects.

This dialect is not a dialect like Cantonese or Hokkien, but a dialect of Hakka.

Even though they are all Hakkas, the languages of the Hakkas in southern Jiangxi and western Fujian are very different. There is also a certain language barrier between them and the Hakkas in Jiaying Prefecture in northern Guangdong.

Even among them, there are more than a dozen different accents, and Yin Chengfang is one of the few people who can fluently speak all these dialects, which is also an important reason why he has prestige among the Hakka people.

Ye Xianchun pondered for a while, "Then release the Ningdu Prefecture governor and have him go to Nanchang Prefecture to report the news. The Jiangxi Governor still has 1,500 Fu Biao soldiers, 5,000 Jiujiang Town Green Camp, and 1,500 Fuzhou Auxiliary Green Camp, a total of about 8,000 people.

If we can mobilize them and eliminate them, there will be no more troops to mobilize in the entire Jiangxi Province, and the Qing Dynasty will need to draw troops from Jiangnan."

What Ye Xianchun said was their purpose of launching the Hakka uprising in southern Jiangxi and western Fujian. They used a feint to the east and attacked in the west to transfer the Green Camp in Jiangnan to Jiangxi, making the Qing Dynasty think that Mo Zibu was preparing to go north from Jiangxi.

He also consumed the Green Camp in Jiangnan in Jiangxi, because Mo Zibu actually wanted to attack Jiangnan from the north by sea, and he was unwilling to fight a battle of attack and defense of Nanjing with the Qing Dynasty.

But if the Qing Dynasty did not intervene, Ye Xianchun would grow up and go north to cut off the Yangtze River near Jiujiang, further forcing them to send people to Jiangxi to block it.

Yin Chengfang nodded after hearing this, "Your Majesty has abandoned the debate between Chinese and barbarians and put the world for the public good. Those many Jiangnan scholars who were accused of being traitors are very likely to be more inclined towards the Tartars, at least not as many as we originally thought towards Dayu.

Therefore, transferring the Governor's Biao, the Governor's Biao, and the River Biao in Jiangnan to Jiangxi to eliminate them would be of great benefit to the main force in taking Jiangnan, but the Ningdu prefect alone might not be enough.

We also need to divert troops northward to attack Guangchang, Nanfeng, Jianchang and other prefectures and counties, and threaten key areas like Fuzhou, forcing the Qing Dynasty to mobilize troops."

"Mr. Kezhai is right. I will immediately have the Xiaodao Society in Fujian Province send a batch of artillery here. With artillery, it will be easier to attack the prefectures and counties."

(End of this chapter)