The Ming Dynasty: Starting with the border troops, it was overthrown and the Qing Dynasty was destro

Chapter 268 Reflections and Corrections on Peasant Uprisings
The news of Hong Chengchou and Lu Xiangshan's withdrawal of troops quickly reached Jiang Han's hands.

"They just withdrew their troops like that?"

Upon hearing the news, Jiang Han found it hard to believe and quite absurd.

He had already deployed a large force at the treacherous Qutang Gorge, ready to fight Lu Xiang-sheng.

In the end, not a single battle was fought, and the matter was simply dropped.

"Good heavens! It seems Zhang Xianzhong and Gao Yingxiang have really angered Emperor Chongzhen..."

Jiang Han shook his head. With Fengyang captured, he guessed that Gao and Zhang's next target would be Southern Zhili, or even Nanjing.

Otherwise, Lu Xiang-sheng wouldn't have been in such a hurry to withdraw; he would have at least submitted a memorial to persuade Emperor Chongzhen.

However, this was for the best. Zhang Xianzhong and Gao Yingxiang indirectly helped him out of his predicament by diverting the attention of the government troops.

I just don't know if the two of them can withstand Lu Xiang-sheng's pursuit...

Now that the government troops that were besieging him have withdrawn, he should take over Sichuan as soon as possible.

With this in mind, Jiang Han immediately summoned Zhao Sheng and explained the upcoming battle plan:

"The government troops have fled, so let's not waste our time in Kuizhou Prefecture."

"Important matters must be taken care of. You must immediately return to Baoning Prefecture to take charge and coordinate the allocation of grain and supplies for me."

"I plan to first send troops to Chengdu and take this provincial capital first."

As he spoke, he unfolded a map and pointed to places like Chongqing Prefecture and Luzhou.
"As for these prefectures in southern Sichuan, according to the old custom, let's start by setting things ablaze!"

“Organize the people in various places and let them overthrow the parasites that are sucking their blood.”

“Once the people have calmed down enough, we can clean up the mess and take over the territory in a natural way.”

"Let's follow the model of the uprising in Sichuan."

Jiang Han spoke eloquently about his plan, but Zhao Sheng, who was standing to the side, hesitated.

He stepped forward and hesitantly suggested:

"General, I have no objection to sending troops to Chengdu."

"However... I humbly request that the Commander-in-Chief postpone the matter of inciting the people in various places to continue their uprisings..."

"Ok?"

Jiang Han's gaze sharpened, and he turned to look at Zhao Sheng.

Why is it being postponed?

"Isn't the chaos in various places just what makes our operation easier?"

"Do those landlords and rich folks think they can turn the world upside down?"

Zhao Sheng sighed and slowly began to explain:

"General, they can't turn the tide, but... things are getting out of control in various parts of Sichuan right now."

"You are on the front lines in Kuizhou defending against the government troops, so you may not be very clear about the situation in the heart of Sichuan."

"Previously, in order to guard against the government troops entering Sichuan, our main force and elite troops were stationed along the Baoning and Kuizhou line."

"Only a portion of General Li and General Shao's troops are operating in the heart of Sichuan, which is simply not enough to manage the situation!"

He took a deep breath, pulled out several letters from his pocket, and began to read them aloud one by one.

"According to General Li Laowai's urgent report, things have completely fallen into chaos in Chengdu Prefecture, including Hanzhou, Deyang, and Luojiang."

"At first, the people were eliminating the five evils, killing corrupt officials, tyrants, and powerful gentry, but now things are starting to look a bit off."

“Many good people have been implicated.”

"In Luojiang alone, General Li verified several wrongful convictions."

“Some families with only a hundred or so acres of land were identified as powerful and wealthy households.”

“There’s something even more absurd!”

Zhao Sheng's face showed reluctance.

“Some students were surrounded in the street simply because they were wearing the long gowns of scholars.”

"When the rioting people saw that he could read, they concluded that he was a scoundrel who colluded with the government, monopolized lawsuits, and preyed on the local people."

"result."

Zhao Sheng couldn't continue speaking and let out a heavy sigh.

"General Shao Yong also discovered similar situations in Tongchuan Prefecture and Shunqing Prefecture, which is by no means an isolated case."

As Jiang Han listened to Zhao Sheng's report, his expression grew increasingly grim.

He tentatively asked:
"Since this isn't an isolated incident, does that mean someone is causing trouble behind the scenes?"

"Could it be that those powerful and corrupt gentry who were punished are deliberately stirring up trouble in the shadows, using the rioting people to create chaos?"

This was Jiang Han's first reaction as commander: the class enemies were determined to destroy him.

However, Zhao Sheng refuted Jiang Han's guess:

"General, that was my initial thought as well."

"But later, after I carefully analyzed the intelligence from various places, I found that the situation was not so complicated."

"Now, the officials and gentry in various parts of Sichuan are all in dire straits, barely able to save themselves."

"In my opinion, this is an overly aggressive behavior."

"The people of Sichuan have been exploited for too long by the lackeys of the Prince's Mansion and the corrupt merchants and gentry. Now that they have been given free rein, it will be difficult for them to stop easily."

"Moreover, many people have tasted the sweetness of striking down powerful figures, and coupled with the pleasure of venting their anger in crowds, their behavior can get out of control."

He raised his head and looked earnestly at Jiang Han:
"General, now that the government troops have retreated, we don't need to focus our efforts on northern Sichuan."

"The most urgent task is to immediately stop the out-of-control people in various parts of central Sichuan and restore basic order and production activities."

"Otherwise, if we allow this evil trend to spread, our reputation will be ruined by this mob."

Jiang Han remained silent for a long time after hearing this.

The news Zhao Sheng brought kept pounding in his mind.

When the people in various parts of Sichuan spontaneously started their uprising, Jiang Han subconsciously overlooked the potential chaos that might occur.

In addition, the imperial court's two-pronged attack tied up most of his troops, which led to a lack of leadership in the uprising, which gradually evolved into a rebellion.

"You have a point."

Jiang Han suddenly turned around and looked at Zhao Sheng.

"Pass on my orders!"

"First, immediately assign the reserve troops stationed in Jianzhou to Li Laowai, Shao Yong, and the generals in charge of troops in various parts of Sichuan."

"Tell them that once the manpower is in place, they must immediately stabilize the order in various parts of central Sichuan."

"Have them send out patrol teams to go deep into every township and county, leaving no one out."

"Stop the problem immediately if it is discovered!"

"Second, send people in disguise to blend into the rioting crowd."

"Investigate carefully and see if there is a mastermind behind these people."

"For those who are instigating this, be sure to bring them back for a thorough interrogation."

"I want to see if anyone dares to take advantage of this situation to cause trouble."

Soon, the generals in various regions received clear instructions and began to take action.
In particular, Li Laowai and Shao Yong, whose forces were stretched thin, immediately organized patrol teams to quell the rioters after receiving a large influx of fresh troops from Jianzhou.
Luojiang, Zhaojiapo.

The clouds hung low, and the air was so stuffy it was hard to breathe.

The once peaceful village is now shrouded in a frenzied atmosphere.

Dozens of villagers, armed with hoes, carrying poles, and machetes, were gathered in front of a small courtyard on the north side of the village.

The gate to the courtyard was tightly closed, but the door panel was covered with pits and dents and yellow mud.

"Open the door!"

"Zhao Bin! You heartless, bastard landlord! Get out here right now!"

"Don't think you can get away with hiding. Hand over the land deeds and the grain!"

Foul language and angry slogans intertwined, like surging waves, constantly crashing against the rickety door.

Seeing the surging crowd, the owner of the house could no longer sit still and opened the door a crack with a creak.

A man in his forties, wearing a coarse cloth jacket and with mud stains on his trousers, leaned halfway out.

It was Zhao Bin, the owner of this place.

He looked at the familiar yet unfamiliar faces of his fellow villagers outside, their expressions twisted with anger, his own face filled with terror and confusion. His voice trembled as he tried to explain:
"Fellow villagers, it's a misunderstanding!"

"Don't you all know who I, Zhao Bin, am? What kind of wealthy family do I come from?!"

“My family only has a few dozen acres of poor land, and I still have to carry a hoe and work in the fields every day.”

"Look at the calluses on my hands, and look at the mud on my body; what kind of master would do the work himself like I do?"

He stretched out his calloused hands, with black mud between his fingers, trying to prove his innocence.

However, his explanations seemed so pale and powerless in the face of the surging crowd.

"Pah! What are you pretending for!"

"I saw with my own eyes that your family hired tenants to farm the land, and you still say it's not true?!"

"Exactly! If you dress better than us and have a bigger house than us, then you're a tycoon!"

"Stop wasting time talking to him, charge in!"

"Search out his land deeds and divide his family's money and grain!"

In the crowd, several men with particularly loud voices were hiding in the crowd, desperately fanning the flames.

Their incitement was like adding fuel to the fire, further igniting the rioting crowd.

boom!
A fist-sized rock slammed down at Zhao Bin's feet, startling him so much that he jerked his head back.

Immediately afterwards, more stones and clods of earth rained down on the gate and walls of the courtyard.

"Break down the door! Charge in!"

"Drag everything out of there!"

The irrational crowd erupted completely; some began ramming the gate with their bodies, while others took a different approach, climbing the low courtyard wall.

The door latch groaned under the strain, and tiles on the courtyard wall were pulled off and smashed to pieces.

boom!
The courtyard gate was finally smashed open, and the irrational mob surged into the small courtyard of the Zhao family like a flood bursting its banks.

In an instant, chaos erupted, leaving a complete mess.

Zhao Bin and his wife desperately protected their two terrified, crying children as they were pushed and shoved by the surging crowd and squeezed into a corner.

Tie him up! Parade him through the streets as a public spectacle!

"Kill them all! Distribute the food and the money!"

Amidst the frenzied shouts, some people pulled out rough hemp ropes, while others grinned and pulled out machetes.

Zhao Bin looked at the faces twisted by greed and violence before him in despair, including those of neighbors he had helped and day laborers he had hired.

A feeling of sadness came to my heart.

"Zhao Laowu!" Zhao Bin suddenly stood up, pointed at a thin man in the crowd, and shouted hoarsely.

"Last year, when your mother was dying, who lent you two strings of cash to buy her medicine?"

"Huh?! You haven't forgotten?!"

Upon hearing this, the villager named Zhao Laowu trembled, lowered his head in shame, and dared not look Zhao Bin in the eye again.

"Zhao Ergou!"

Zhao Bin then pointed to another young man carrying a carrying pole.
"Two years ago, when the grain was being conscripted, your father was so hungry he couldn't walk. Who took pity on you and hired you to work as a day laborer in my house, giving your family enough food to survive?!"

"That carrying pole you're holding, I lent it to you, and now you're using it to hit me?!"

Li Ergou's hand holding the carrying pole trembled, a struggle flashed across his face, and he was about to say something.

"Don't listen to this guy's nonsense, he's just trying to win people over!"

A sharp voice immediately interrupted him.

"These people are the best at pretending to be good people; they're actually wicked behind the scenes!"

"Don't fall for it! Tie him up!"

The shrill voice rang out again, instantly drowning out Li Ergou's faint hesitation.

The nascent spark of conscience was immediately drowned out by the surging crowd.

The rope mercilessly looped around the necks of Zhao Bin and his wife, and the two children were also roughly pulled along.

Despair instantly overwhelmed Zhao Bin's family.

"Wait!"

"Stop it, all of you!"

Just at this critical moment, a thunderous roar came from not far away.

The rioting crowd stopped what they were doing and turned to look in the direction of the shouts.

A group of about a hundred people was seen rushing towards Zhao Bin's courtyard.

The group of people were dressed in uniform red jackets, with half-body leather armor over them, and they carried spears and had knives at their waists.

It was the patrol team sent by Li Laowai.

The head constable Zhang Feng and his personal guards, riding tall horses, quickly surrounded the courtyard.

The rioting crowd was stunned by the sudden arrival of the army, and the momentum of the attack came to a halt.

"Who are you? What right do you have to tell us what to do?!"

Zhang Feng was taken aback upon hearing this and angrily retorted:
"Nonsense, in Luojiang territory, besides our commander's troops, who else could it be?"

"fart!"

"I think you're all government officials in disguise, here to protect these landlords and rich people!"

Amid the chaos, voices stirring up trouble rose again from the crowd, deliberately trying to confuse the situation.

"Don't be afraid, folks!"

"The rebel army is nearby, and the government's lackeys dare not touch us!"

"Fellow villagers, tie them all up and take them to the authorities!"

Under deliberate instigation, some irrational mobs, with bloodshot eyes, actually charged towards the patrol team, brandishing their farm tools.

Seeing that the situation was about to get out of control, the gunmen behind Zhang Feng immediately raised their rifles and fired three shots into the air in an attempt to intimidate the mob.

boom! boom! boom!
Three deafening gunshots pierced the sky, and acrid gunpowder smoke instantly filled the air.

The sudden loud noise and flash of light caused the mob at the front to instinctively stop in their tracks, their faces showing terror.

The deterrent power of firearms is enormous.

But after a brief pause, several voices mixed in with the crowd started shouting again:

"Don't be afraid, folks!"

"These lackeys are bluffing. The rebel army will come as soon as they hear the gunfire!"

The incited mob, led by a few desperate individuals, charged forward again with howling cries.

Some people even grabbed sticks and swung them at the patrol team!

"Stubborn!"

Zhang Feng snorted angrily, his face no longer showing the slightest hesitation.

"Everyone! Disperse the crowd and arrest the ringleader!"

"Anyone who dares to charge the enemy lines with weapons will be killed without mercy!"

Upon receiving Zhang Feng's order, the patrol soldiers immediately drew their knives and rushed forward, stabbing the leading thugs to the ground.

He easily deflected the flying farm tools and stones with his rattan shield and effortlessly rushed into the crowd.

The mob was no match for them; they were overwhelmed and thrown into chaos in a single encounter.

The crowd cried out in despair and scattered in an instant.

Team leader Zhang Feng, mounted on his horse, kept his eyes fixed on the few figures who were jumping around in the crowd, stirring up trouble.

Seeing that things were not going well, the group tried to take advantage of the chaos to make a run for it.

But at Zhang Feng's command, several quick-witted guards immediately surrounded them and swiftly pinned the fleeing men to the ground.

"Sir, spare my life! Sir, spare my life!"

"We all work for the righteous army; the flood washed away the Dragon King's temple..."

The men who were being held down were so terrified that they soiled themselves and begged for mercy.

Zhang Feng walked straight up to the group, stepped on one of them in the chest, and said in an icy tone:
"Speak! Who instructed you to incite the people?!"

"No...no one ordered me to do this, sir!"

The man cried out.

"I...I was just jealous of other people taking things...I wanted to get some benefits too."

"I saw that the Zhao family was doing well, so... so I thought of encouraging everyone to divide up their property... There really was no one instructing me, sir!"

"Please spare my life!"

The other arrested men also kowtowed repeatedly, their confessions being largely the same:

They are either idle people looking to make a fortune in the chaos, or victims who were bullied by real powerful people in the past and are now psychologically twisted and can't stand seeing others do well.

Others are simply madmen who want to vent their anger and enjoy manipulating others.

After a round of questioning, no evidence was found that they were instructed by someone behind the scenes.

Looking at the few cowardly people in front of him, terrified and crying, and then at the Zhao family's courtyard that had been smashed to pieces, and the Zhao Bin family huddled together, trembling and covered in tears, Zhang Feng felt a mix of emotions.

He waved his hand:
"Tie up all those who led the assault and instigated the incident, and take them away! Deal with them according to military law!"

"The rest of you, disperse and go home!"

"The Zhao family's losses will be registered and reported later."

Similar scenes are playing out across Sichuan.

In Tongchuan Prefecture, Shao Yong's patrol team arrived in time and rescued several young students who had been stripped down to their undergarments and were about to be humiliated by a mob.

These students, who had studied diligently for years, were nearly destroyed simply because they wore long gowns and were considered academic pests.

In Shunqing Prefecture, several lowly clerks who were responsible for copying documents in the yamen were surrounded by a mob and falsely accused of being "lackeys of the government" simply because they were dressed as clerks.

Fortunately, the timely arrival of the patrol team prevented another tragedy.

With Jiang Han's strong intervention, a large number of patrol teams were dispatched to various places to suppress the uprising, which started in Sichuan due to the "removal of the five vermin" but almost turned into a riot, was finally forcibly contained.

Although the riots in various parts of Sichuan gradually subsided, a series of shocking reports forced Jiang Han to begin to think deeply.

Why does this overcorrection occur?
How come the kind-hearted people who were originally oppressed suddenly started to oppress others after they suddenly gained a little bit of power?
After thinking for a long time, Jiang Han slowly came to a conclusion.

Firstly, it's due to the inertia of hatred.

Once long-suppressed anger is ignited, it's like a flood bursting its banks, difficult to control by force.

When labels like "powerful figures, officials, and academic scoundrels" are amplified to an extreme degree, anyone associated with them can become a target for venting anger.

Hatred blinds the eyes and also blurs the lines between right and wrong.

In addition, the slogan "Down with the landlords and distribute the land" naturally carried a huge material temptation.

When some people discover that they can legitimately seize other people's property and even easily decide their life or death under the guise of "justice," their greed and evil intentions are amplified infinitely.

They will soon degenerate from resisting oppression to pursuing unearned profits and the pleasure of venting primal desires.

Most of the common people were illiterate, and in the fervent atmosphere of the uprising, they were easily incited and blindly followed.

A single statement like "His family has hired tenants, which is exploitation" or "Those who wear long gowns are academic parasites" can easily ignite mass violence.

Finally, there is the vacuum of order and the lack of guidance.

When Jiang Han's main force was tied up by the imperial court, the manpower in the heart of Sichuan was reduced, making it impossible to effectively maintain order and guide the direction of the uprising.

Without constraints and guidance, such spontaneous behavior can easily escalate into chaos and destruction.

This incident also served as a reminder to Jiang Han.

One must be cautious when starting an uprising and make preparations in advance, otherwise it is easy to hurt others and oneself.

People like honest and law-abiding families and ordinary students are the people Jiang Han needs to unite with.

We must not allow them to misunderstand the rebels or even develop resentment because of some atrocities.

With this in mind, Jiang Han specially summoned Zhao Sheng and had a special set of rules drawn up.

From now on, any troops under his command who wish to incite the people to revolt must comply with this order.

The core principle is only one: an uprising must have a leader, actions must be unified, and there must never be a situation where things are left to their own devices.

In areas where uprisings are planned, a sufficient number of commanders and junior officers need to be dispatched in advance to secretly establish peasant associations or similar organizations.

The organization needs to understand the local situation, identify good families, and find and cultivate reliable local leaders.

Before each uprising is launched, it must be directed by the responsible general and commander.

Those small and medium-sized landowners with good reputations and philanthropy, as well as students from poor families with good character, should all be included in the scope of protection.

In addition to notifying them in advance to stay home and guard their property, it is also necessary to send people to protect their home security when necessary.

The confiscated property was mostly used to provide relief to the local poor or as military funds. Looting, private distribution, and especially the unauthorized seizure by the people were strictly prohibited.

The uprising must have a well-organized militia as the core force and maintainer of order, participating in and leading key battles and purges throughout the entire process.

This is to prevent ordinary people from facing possible armed suppression unarmed, and also to prevent them from acting arbitrarily with armed forces.

After the uprising succeeds, the main forces in the vicinity must arrive immediately to take over the post-war reconstruction work.

Multiple elite patrol teams, equipped with clear markings, were dispatched to continuously patrol the area and given on-site handling authority.

Those who violate discipline, attack the public, or incite riots may be stopped, arrested, or even killed on the spot.

Patrol teams need to be equipped with horns or signal arrows so that they can quickly summon nearby main forces to suppress large-scale outbreaks of control.

Rebellion is not a dinner party, but it is also not about indiscriminate killing.

Only strict discipline can win the support of the people, gentry, and students.

(End of this chapter)