The Han culture is spreading strongly in Southeast Asia

Chapter 481 A dead Taoist friend is not dead but a poor Taoist

Xuzhou (Xuchang) under the night sky, illuminated by the dim moonlight, appears eerily calm.

Obviously, things are turbulent inside, but on the surface it seems as if nothing has happened.

There were not many Xing Tang troops outside the city, only one Zhenjun army, with more than 2,000 people.

However, this garrison army, whose combat effectiveness was lower than that of the Imperial Guards and the Beijing Camp Army, only needed more than 2,000 people to scare away tens of thousands of rebels in the city of Xuzhou.

They did not dare to leave the city to resist, nor did they dare to escape, because some people said that the Xing Tang army had already circled around Changge in the north and were waiting for them to leave the city so that they could capture them one by one and avoid attacking the city.

Under the dim moonlight, Jiang Xiangchi looked at his elders with some anger, "I will never listen to you again. You still want to run away? Where are you going? To Kaifeng, then to Zhili, to Shanxi?
We are from Hubei, why would we go to the north? Don’t you understand that people are less valued when they leave their hometown?

I won't leave. I'm going to welcome Master Wang here, and then return to Tianmen to wait for the imperial examination. As long as I can pass, our Jiang family can prosper again."

Jiang Xiangchi's uncle, who always acted like the clan leader, did not come out and point at him for the first time. He even moved the stool under his butt forward, allowing him to emerge from the shadows into the moonlight.

"Our Jiang family organized young men to participate in the siege of Zhongxiang. With such a serious crime, you still want to return to Tianmen and take part in the imperial examination?"

"So we must make achievements." Jiang Xiangchi glanced at his uncle and said, "There are tens of thousands of Hubei gentry who have fled north in Xuzhou City, and they are a serious threat to the court.

I opened the city gates and let the Tang army in to capture them. With this merit, it shouldn't be difficult to get away with it."

The uncle suddenly laughed sarcastically, "Imperial Examination, you want to take the exam yourself, right? My Jiang family moved to Tianmen during the Shunzhi period. Four generations of hard work have built this family business. You want to go back and take the exam alone and revive the Jiang family? That's just wishful thinking!"

Jiang Xiangchi stood up suddenly and said, "If I can't do it myself, I still have my son. If my son can't do it, I still have my grandson. But if Jiang continues to follow you, uncle, I'm afraid that no one will have sons or grandsons anymore."

Jiang Xiangchi said, looking at his uncles and brothers sitting around him, "We must know that this is not just a simple escape.

If we have to flee, there will always be a place for us to stay.

We are rebelling against the imperial court. When Dayu unites the world and the throne is intact, where will we be able to stay? Do we really want our descendants to be accused of crimes and hide everywhere?"

This sentence hits the nail on the head. The general trend of the world is already very clear. There is no point in continuing to resist. It can only be said that the Chiang family chose the wrong path from the beginning and boarded the pirate ship of brothers Chen Huizu and Chen Yanzu.

For a moment, even Jiang Xiangchi's uncle fell silent, and the air was eerily quiet.

After an unknown amount of time, someone in the darkness asked, "Since we are all desperate, can betraying such an accomplice redeem us?"

"Yes!" Jiang Xiangchi was overjoyed and said firmly: "Although we are at the end of our rope, we still have a lot of money.

For example, our Jiang family hid 2,000 taels of silver and 100 taels of gold in a cave behind the Tianmen Ancestral Hall.

I think the imperial court is now engaged in wars year after year, and the annual revenue must be insufficient to cover the expenses. Even if there is no shortage of money, who would complain about having too much money? "

"Hiss!" Jiang Xiangchi's father gasped and looked at his son with some unfamiliarity.

"We were all in the same boat, and many of them were close friends. Is it a bit too much to sell them out like this?
What if the emperor gets angry and kills them all?"

"It's better for other families to cry than for our Jiang family to cry!" Jiang Xiangchi became very unhappy when he heard his father still saying this at this time.

"Besides, the imperial court is short of people right now. We are all Han Chinese. His Majesty will never be willing to kill us. He will just exile us to Nanyang Nanji Province."

Well, this doesn't seem to be much better than beheading. The straight-line distance from Hubei to Java Island is almost 5,000 kilometers.

"That's good, that's good, Amitabha!" Father Jiang, who was a Buddhist, chanted the Buddha's name and did not object.

"Your Majesty's Fuxing Company produces three miraculous medicines: Hexianshi Powder, Dingfu Powder, and Quzhaoshui. Two years ago, I had persistent diarrhea, and I only drank one of the three, and it worked instantly. With these three miraculous medicines, I'm in a situation of eight lives and two deaths. That's not too bad."

Dingfusan is allicin, Qumiashui is quinine water, and together with Hexianshisan (montmorillonite powder), these three are not only indispensable in Southeast Asia, but are also regarded as miracle drugs on the mainland.

"You are very kind." Uncle Jiang sighed softly to Father Jiang, which sounded like both praise and sarcasm.

Father Jiang didn't care at all. He looked at his brother and said, "Brother, after making a mistake, don't make the same mistake again.

If you lose your land, you can buy more. Now that the new dynasty has been established and needs people everywhere, why bother clinging to those family properties? If you lose your people, then everything is lost.

As for the one hundred and fifty militiamen who came with us, they are all distant relatives and neighbors of our Jiang family. Even if our family has done them a great favor, there is no reason to drag them down with us to the grave."

"That's right, second brother. There is always a way out. Let's go home. We can write and count, and our lives will be better than those of the peasants who dig for food in the dirt."

"It's better for me to die than for my friend to die. Don't hesitate. If someone else gets there first, we will be the ones in trouble."

Uncle Jiang looked at Jiang Xiangchi, who was as tall as jade and full of confidence, and listened to the voices of approval everywhere. He knew that he had not only taken the wrong path, but also caused dissatisfaction among most people.

Then he sighed deeply and said, "Forget it, forget it. The world is yours now. It's all up to you."

. . . .

In the early morning, Chen Guangdong, who was stationed more than six miles outside Xuzhou City, was stunned.

He actually just came to scare people, because the main force of the army, led by Wang Wubing, was already heading from the west to the Ruzhou-Luoyang line.

However, when he arrived outside the city of Xuzhou, waves of people from the city came to him, all claiming to be seeking refuge.

Jiang Xiangchi was also stunned. There were quite a few smart people. The three groups of people around him with embarrassed expressions knew each other and all of them wanted to let their friends die rather than let themselves die.

"The barracks are closed. No more will be accepted. Set out at five o'clock in the morning. Raise a fire as a signal to capture Xuzhou City. Then have breakfast inside the city!"

Chen Guangdong made a quick decision. If he waited any longer, everyone in Xuzhou City would surrender.

. . . .

On the fifteenth day of the second lunar month, Mo Zibu rushed to Xuzhou, then rested for a day, left Liang Guozhi behind, and continued to rush towards Kaifeng.

Along the way, too many familiar place names kept flashing through Mo Zibu's mind: Guide, Xuchang, Chenliu, Kaifeng, Zhongmu, Zhengzhou, Xingyang, Luoyang, Nanyang, Xinzheng.

Regardless of the name, it has been passed down for hundreds or even thousands of years and is a frequent visitor in history books. Countless stories of emperors, generals, talented men and beautiful women took place on these lands.

This place is also the cradle of the entire Chinese culture. The only place that can compete with it is Guanzhong, but Guanzhong is much smaller than Henan. The rest of the lands of Qi and Lu, Yan and Zhao, and the Three Jins are slightly inferior.

This cultural situation is very obvious in the two provinces of Fujian and Guangdong, which are Mo Zibu's core base.

More than 90% of the big families in Fujian and Guangdong, whether true or false, have their ancestral home in Henan as long as they produce their family tree.

This ancestral land that nurtured Chinese civilization is like a microcosm of the suffering of the entire nation in later generations.

For more than two hundred years thereafter, you can see an ultimate small China on this land, with a large population, mainly engaged in farming, and extremely inward-looking, so much so that China has become the king of involution among the kings of involution.

In terms of public opinion, Henan is more like China on the outside Internet. Various bad images, such as backwardness, unsophisticated, poor, crowded, and low-quality, are the synonyms of this province.

Admittedly, many stereotypes do have their origins, and there are indeed many people in Henan who have low quality or even commit crimes, but compared with other provinces, the number is not much higher.

This inherent impression is often magnified through discrimination and entertainment.

Mo Zibu always remembered a sentence from his boss before he traveled through time. This small-town test-taker from a poor family in Henan said:
“If one day, when people mention Henan, they will no longer think of it as poor, backward and uncultured, but as gorgeous, elegant and rich in cultural heritage.

Only then will China be truly strong, and its economy and culture will be restored to their rightful place."

However, Mo Zibu discovered along the way that in this era when the paper tiger of the Chinese Empire had not yet been exposed, the people's livelihood in Henan was already extremely difficult.

With a registered population of 30 million, or possibly even more, the amount of land tax grain and land tax silver to be paid is only less than that of Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shandong.

Mo Zibu didn't even have the interest to rush to Kaifeng to take charge, and simply walked and inspected along the way.

Then when he arrived in Kaifeng on the third day of March, Dong Jinfeng, the commander of the Huaibei Cavalry Regiment, had already captured Luoyang without encountering any resistance at all.

On the contrary, as the Xing Tang Army continued to advance, more and more poor people in Henan learned two things.

First, the Han emperor is back, and good days are coming for the Han people.

Second, the emperor distributed land to poor people throughout the south, and when he came to Henan, he would definitely distribute land to them as well.

Well, most of it was fine, the details might be a bit off, but Mo Zibu immediately sent the Imperial Guards down to dispel the rumors.

Having witnessed many rumors that became increasingly outrageous in later generations, Mo Zibu knew that if he did not dispel the rumor, it would definitely be spread as the emperor wanting to give ten acres of land to every Henan citizen.

This won't do. If we whet everyone's appetite and then there isn't that much land to go around, it will be a serious blow to people's morale.

At the gate of Kaifeng Prefecture, although the rumor had not yet spread, it had already attracted the attention of a large number of people.

The poor people around Kaifeng City came to welcome him, bringing their elderly and children with them, hoping to hear the news that the emperor would distribute land to them as soon as possible.

Despite the people's support, Mo Zibu's brows did not relax.

After a simple investigation along the way and reviewing a large amount of data obtained by the Jinyiwei Northern Pacification Division, the situation in Henan is very grim.

Mo Zibu probably knew the reason why Henan could not organize a strong militia. Not only were the people in Henan poor, but the powerful were also poor.

Because the imperial examination system had become highly mature by the Qing Dynasty, and most of the official hats were taken by the bannermen, the emergence of large landlords and powerful people in the countryside was positively correlated with the imperial examination system.

Although Henan has produced many Jinshi, most of them have low ranks and their reputations are entirely due to population growth.

At the same time, the bannermen in the Qing Dynasty took away 70% of the official hats, resulting in the prospects of Jinshi being much lower than in the Ming Dynasty.

Therefore, a large number of Jinshi scholars with lower rankings in Henan were basically sent to poor areas to serve as county magistrates for one or two terms before returning home.

This kind of official career cannot help a Jinshi accumulate a lot of wealth and official network. If he has a better conscience, he may even lose money if he becomes a county magistrate in places like northern Shaanxi, Gansu, Yunnan, and Guizhou.

But when I returned to my hometown, I found that there were too many people from Henan. While causing great unrest in the countryside, it also supported a large number of very united poor villagers. Henan is mostly a vast plain, making it easy for poor people to gather together.

These helpless poor people usually use various White Lotus sects as a bond, and it is very common for them to take advantage of the rich when they can't make ends meet.

If a refugee wave really forms to prey on the rich, that would be the time when the rich would be devastated.

In the movie 1942, the blind man who went to take the medicine of Zhang Guoli's rich family was the contact person or leader of the villagers who took the medicine of the rich family.

Therefore, in Henan, landlords cannot exploit the people too much, so as to avoid forcing them to the point where they cannot survive.

They also could not send poor people to Sichuan like Hunan and Hubei did, which would disperse the people's power and allow them to develop a large number of landlords.

Well, Mo Zibu sighed, Henan is still really a headache!

The common people are poor, and the rich are also poor. If the land is distributed equally, it seems that each person may have about two mu. However, given the water and heat conditions and per mu yield in Henan, people still grow wheat.

On average, one acre of land weighs a little more than one old stone, which is about 130 to 140 kilograms.

Each person has two acres of land, which is less than 300 kilograms of wheat. A family of six has twelve acres of land, which is a total of 3,600 kilograms of wheat.

Even if you can mix in some beans, vegetables, etc., it will be difficult to survive.

It seems that the people of Henan have to be allowed to enter Guandong before the people of Shandong.

Fortunately, we now have Nanyang, the Tangjiang Plain and the Mingxiang River Plain, that is, the Chao Phraya River Plain and the Mekong River Plain have been well developed. We can continuously use sea ships to transport food to Liaodong, and there is no need to worry about large-scale starvation like in the historical incident of crossing the Guandong.

　I have to go on a business trip tomorrow, and it will be at least three hours by bus. I will try to ensure that I update once.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)