The Rise of Ming Dynasty 1646

Chapter 444 Han People Will Never Be Slaves
"Grassmen pay respects to the Admiral!"

In Sanatunli in the north of Long Beach, two strong men, one tall and one short, were about to bow down and kneel down, but they were supported by Zheng Chenggong, "You two strong men don't need to be polite. Damengtun, you have made great contributions, but I want to thank you on behalf of the imperial court."

Zheng Chenggong originally thought that Liaodong was the lair of Jianlu, and going deep into the hinterland of Liaodong would be a hard battle, but he didn't expect that this battle would be very easy.

Sanatun is located on the official road north to Shenyang. It belongs to the camp guarded by Jianlu heavily armed forces. There are more than 400 bannermen stationed there, equipped with firecrackers and cannons.

The day before yesterday Liu Guoxuan led his troops to attack the village, and just after a round of rushing, he saw the enemy's village burst into flames, causing chaos in the village, he took advantage of the situation and concentrated his firepower to break through the south gate, and captured the village in just an hour.

It turned out that there were no more than a thousand decent Manchus in the village, and among them the adult men were the four hundred bannermen.When the Ming army attacked the stronghold, the Han slaves in the village were immediately left unattended. Two brave slaves set fire to escape from the evil den, but they helped Liu Guoxuan a lot.

Afterwards, the Han people in Tunzhong were very excited when they learned that it was the Ming army that had attacked.Many of these people were captured by the Ming army when Jianlu entered the customs a few years ago, and the two people who set the fire were even military officers, but one of them was originally under Li Zicheng's command.

Immediately, they volunteered to lead people to attack two nearby villages and rescue the Han slaves.At first Zheng Chenggong did not agree, but unexpectedly the two men led hundreds of people out of the village overnight, and returned at noon the next day, saying that they had broken through the two villages, and there were nearly a thousand people behind them.

The tall man was originally a Baihu from Yizhouwei, named Zhao Gongwei, and he had been arrested in Sanatun for seven or eight years.He smiled and cupped his hands and said: "The grassroots dare not take credit for it. There are only a few thousand slaves nearby, but they deceive me into slaves of more than ten thousand Han people. The grasslanders only shouted 'Ming army is attacking' in Bokatuo Village, and there were immediately Hundreds of coat-coated Aha picked up the poles and farm tools and fought against the slaves with me!"

The short Shen Zizhen also clasped her hands and said, "The same situation is true with the Caomin. As soon as the Caomin led the people to Tunxitou, someone from the east came and said that the family of Jiannu Niuluzhangjing had been destroyed."

After Jianlu occupied Liaodong, in order to facilitate the enslavement of Han people, he promulgated the "Regulations on Supervision and Arrest", the core of which is the law of shaving hair, changing clothes, enclosing land, throwing people into custody, and fleeing people.

Among the last three articles, the land enclosure law means that the Manchu dignitaries can race to enclose the land and take the land of the Han people as their own, while the Han people on the original land are unconditionally driven out of their homes.

However, the Tou Chong Law pretended to be benevolent and righteous, stipulating that if the Han people were homeless, they could voluntarily attach themselves to the Manchus, and in fact they became slaves.This seems to be to take care of the Han people who have no livelihood, but in fact, combined with the land enclosure law, the Han people who lost their land can only "voluntarily" become slaves of Jianlu in order not to starve to death.

The last law of escape is that all slaves shall not flee without authorization.Get away with tattooing on the right cheek once, and return one hundred lashes to the original owner.The left cheek was tattooed twice, and one hundred lashes were returned to the original owner.Three times he was executed immediately.In addition, those who dared to take in escaped slaves would also have their property confiscated or exiled.

With these three "sharp weapons", Jianlu could "mass-produce" Han slaves as he wished, and ensured that they could not escape.

In Liaodong at that time, there were at least seven or eight Han or Korean slaves in a Manchu household with a decent standard of living. Even for ordinary Manchu peasant households, two or three slaves were not too many.Therefore, in any village, the number of Han people who are Yi Aha, that is, slaves, is several times that of the Manchus.

Many people in later generations misunderstood that the Manchus themselves often called themselves slaves, and they treated the Han people equally.

In fact, this is caused by unfamiliarity with Manchu.Manchus with high status will be covered by Manchus with low status, which translates to "family members", which can be regarded as a kind of patriarchal system.Although these coats call themselves slaves, their status is actually quite high, especially the coats of royal clansmen, who can even reach the level of generals.

Han Chinese slaves are mostly "Baoyi Aha", although they all start with Baoyi, it means "slave", which is far from the situation where Manchu Baoyi and the master are "family".

In real life, Baoyi can even manage accounts for the master, while Baoyi Aha can only do the hard work of plowing and grazing.Of course, many Han Chinese who surrendered earlier made coatings, but after all, they were only a minority.

Zhao Gongwei said again: "It's just that the grass people only have hoes and other things in their hands. If you give me some knives, bows and firecrackers, I will gather the people of Ming Dynasty along the way, and it will not be difficult to fight to Shenyang."

Zheng Chenggong thought for a while, nodded and said, "I do have weapons here that I can distribute to you, but the Liaodong captives are powerful after all, but they should not be taken lightly."

A lot of weapons were seized in Zhigu before, and two small cannons were even seized in the battle of Sanatun the day before yesterday. These things are also luggage, so it is better to distribute them to Zhao Gongwei and Shen Zizhen.

In fact, Zheng Chenggong also knew that even though the number of Han Chinese slaves was extremely large, many of them had lived in Liaodong for a long time, and the majority of them were willing to fight with Jianlu.But only some weapons are invested, if one or two resistance forces can be created in Jianlu's lair, it will be very beneficial to fight against the great cause of the prisoners.

"Military weapon?!" Zhao Gongwei excitedly said, "If there is someone who can take advantage of it, the grassroots will definitely disturb Jiannu's chickens and dogs!"

Zheng Chenggong asked again: "I don't know what Zhao Yishi plans to do in the future?"

"Caomin heard that the Mongols are building a rebellion against the barbarians recently. I plan to make a fuss in Liaodong first, and then try to take everyone west to Monan."

Zheng Chenggong nodded slightly, "It's okay to go to Monan, but there is a lot of risk in passing through Horqin. If you really intend to resist the captives, you can go east to find North Koreans in times of crisis.

"Even if they don't dare to block the Jian captives, they can surely do so by sharing some food and grass, or pointing out a way out for you. I'll send someone to bring you weapons later, and you'll have to rely on yourselves in the future."

Zhao Gongwei and Shen Zizhen looked at each other, bowed and said, "Thank you admiral!"

The next day, a scout reported to Zheng Chenggong, saying that about [-] soldiers from Shenyang and Fushun were heading south, and it was estimated that they would arrive in the Long Beach area at the earliest tomorrow morning.

Zheng Chenggong knew that the Shenyang garrison was the elite of Jianlu, and the navy infantry suffered a lot in the battle of Zhigu, so he didn't plan to fight this enemy force recklessly, so he said to Shi Lang immediately: "Send the order, immediately break out of the camp and go south."

He also ordered Zhao Gongwei and Shen Zizhen, "Go east or west, only attack small villages, don't move to build important towns, and the captives will not chase you."

"Grassmen remember!"

At noon that day, the Daming Navy returned to the ship, turned into the Taizi River along the Sancha River, and went straight to Liaoyang.

Two other rebel armies composed of Han Chinese slaves swept up the food in Jianlu village and headed towards Monan and North Korea respectively.Each of their teams has nearly a thousand people, but their equipment is almost equivalent to that of the Eight Banners Han Army.

(End of this chapter)