Chapter 184: Coveting
Wen Huangci's actions confirmed Zhang Hu's earlier judgment: he must have suffered a great injustice before he decided to surrender! He quickly left his seat and picked up Wen Xiucai with both hands: "Mr. Wen, if you come to help Zhang, no matter what the reason is, you will do it for Zhang first. If you have any grievances, please tell Zhang. I don’t have any other abilities, but cutting off a few enemies’ heads for my husband is no big deal!”
Wen Xiucai paid his respects again before he stood up and returned to his seat. He told the whole story with tears: "Thank you, Marshal. Marshal Rongzhen. The student was Shangshui Nandun (today's Xiangcheng, Henan, Xiangcheng County in the Ming Dynasty was also in About seventy miles south to the south. Our hometown is not far from here, one hundred and twenty miles southeast of Xihua."
"Although our hometown is rarely seen in classics and history, it is also known as a land of outstanding people. Emperor Guangwu of the Han Dynasty lived in Nanton when he was young. Our clan is considered a big clan in the local area, with approximately 60,000 to 70,000 people surnamed Wen."
"Ah, there are so many people with the same surname in one town? Your ancestors of the Wen family must have accumulated great virtues to be so prosperous!" Zhang Hu sighed and interjected.
Wen Huangci nodded: "The commander-in-chief is right. The prosperity of our clan is indeed due to the protection of our ancestors. I dare not deceive the commander-in-chief. Our clan has an ancestral hall built by Yingshui. There is green water in front and green mountains behind. Fengshui It is excellent and has been here for more than 500 years. During festivals, the tribesmen worship their ancestors, have feasts and gather here happily. Behind the ancestral hall is an academy, which the tribesmen also funded and hired teachers, and the children studied and learned in the academy. The mountain breeze is gentle and the books are loud. Although there are only a few names on the gold medal list, there are many talented people, and most of the clan can be called heirs of farming and reading."
Zhang Hu was originally an orphan who didn't know who his parents were. Not to mention that he was so decisive and frightening in his daily killings. When he was alone against the lantern, why didn't he think that he could also have a large group of relatives sitting around the fire to share the family relationship? After listening to Wen Huangci's narration, she was filled with envy: "Oh, Mr. Wen's ancestral hall is well built. It should be cherished and the incense should be used to worship it."
Unexpectedly, Wen Huangci cried "Wow" as soon as she said this, which shocked Zhang Hu. After a while, he choked and said: "The ancestral hall is gone, it was burned to the ground..."
"Ah? Who did this? Could it be...do you have some sworn enemy?" Zhang Hu was really shocked this time. In his logic, if someone offends someone, it's no big deal if the other person kills someone in anger. If it's more ruthless, killing your whole family, well, that's it - destroying the ancestral hall of a clan. Oh, what a hatred this must be!
"Go back to the commander-in-chief. Our clan really has no enemies. We are just coveted by villains." Wen Huangci said with tears.
"Um... Mr. Wen is serious about what he said?" Zhang Hu was a little unbelievable.
"Commander, listen to the student and slowly start from the beginning." Wen Huangci paused for a moment, sorted out his thoughts, and said, "The matter started three years ago. Shang Shui changed his name to a new magistrate of the county, named Geng Libin. I heard that that The family life was quite rough: four of the five brothers and sisters died in infancy, and he gave birth to three sons. The eldest died just after he was born, and the second was quite talented. He was elected to the Imperial Academy at a young age, but he did not He also got violently ill and died for no reason in two months. The remaining one was extremely stubborn. He was eleven or twelve years old and had not even finished studying three hundred thousand*. Then Geng Libin saw it from an expert and said that it was The ancestral tomb was chosen in the wrong place, which would be detrimental to the descendants. When Shang Shui took office, he would know that the prosperity of our clan should be found in this ancestral hall, so he had the idea to tell others that he wanted to buy it. If you don’t want to, you can just sell your house and land. How can you be an unworthy descendant who sells your ancestral temple?”
"That's right. If you sell your house, land, and children, it's just a loss of yourself. But if you sell your ancestors, are you still a human being?" Zhang Hu responded.
"That's right. Although our clan has not produced many Hanlin scholars in recent decades, there are still a few scholars. The local Baojia Lizheng are all members of my clan surnamed Wen. Everyone argued according to reason. Although Geng Libin is one parent , but there was nothing he could do. However, his evil intentions persisted. In the past two or three years, he successively replaced the chief security officer with his surname and his cronies, citing various reasons such as insufficient autumn grain and poor river work. He also found various excuses to remove many clan members from their titles. It's easy to say that a scholar's reputation is easy to come by. If you apply to the school for being 'unfilial' or 'academic', you can often get what you want. The most hateful thing is that a student has an uncle who teaches "Southern China" to his nephews in the academy. "History", when it comes to Xue Yuan's story to teach the younger generations about righteousness, this guy actually reported it to the capital for the reason of "violating the taboo of the late emperor's name" and had his title revoked!"
"Who is Xue Yuan? What's going on? Please tell me first." Zhang Hu has also been very depressed these days. After hearing what Wen Xiucai said here, he already felt a little like listening to a storytelling, and he spoke with great interest interjected.
"Well, it seems to be fate. The story my uncle is telling is about the Northern and Southern Dynasties. At that time, the world was divided into the north and the south. The Northern Dynasties were later called the Northern Wei, Eastern Wei, Western Wei, Northern Qi and Northern Zhou; the Southern Dynasties were the Song, Qi, Liang, Chen .Xue Yuan's real name was Xue Daoyuan, and he was the nephew of Xue Andu, the governor of Xuzhou in the Song Dynasty. Xue Andu surrendered Pengcheng to Wei, and his relatives all moved to the north to enjoy their glory. Xue Daoyuan moved south alone and joined Xiao Daocheng, who was guarding Huaiyin. Xiao Daocheng Daocheng later became the Gao Emperor of the Southern Qi Dynasty, and Xue Daoyuan was unparalleled in loyalty and bravery, and was finally granted the title of Marquis of Jingling. Because his name was in taboo with the Holy Emperor, as both had the word "Dao", he had to change it to Xue Yuan, but later in the Tang Dynasty, "Yuan" The word '' violated the taboo of the great ancestor Li Yuan, so the historians changed his name again, and when it came to the person, they called him Xue Shen. When my uncle said this, he also laughed dumbly and said, 'If the historians of later generations After he died, he met Xue Yuan himself in the underworld, and he was called Xue Shen again. I am afraid that Marquis Jingling never thought that he was the one he was talking about. This sentence was caught by the dog official Geng Libin, who said that my uncle deliberately violated the constitution. The name of Emperor Zong Chenghua (Zhu Jianshen) was reported to the capital, and the reputation of this person was also lost."
Zhang Hu was dumbfounded by these words, and his eyes were as big as cow eggs: "The descendants change the names of the predecessors? Doesn't that mean that every dynasty and every generation has to read through the history books and change them again? Then you can't tell what happened. I have to change it again every year. Isn’t this too idle?”
Wen Huangci smiled bitterly: "The Marshal is right. For example, when Ban Gu wrote the Book of Han, Emperor Ming of the Han Dynasty was named Liu Zhuang, so Zhuangzi wrote 'Yan Zi'. It was not until the fall of the Han Dynasty that the name was changed back." What is even more interesting is that the famous official of the Song Dynasty, Wen Yanbo, had his ancestral surname "Jing". In order to avoid the taboo of Shi Jingtang, the emperor of the Jin Dynasty, he had to change his surname to "Wen". He finally changed his surname back to Wen in the Later Han Dynasty. Unexpectedly, he entered the Song Dynasty not long after, and the grandfather of Song Taizu My name is Zhao Jing, so I had to change my surname back to Wen. If others didn't tell me, it was the commander-in-chief's last name. If it were in the Tang Dynasty, it would never be called - the single name of the grandfather of Emperor Gaozu of the Tang Dynasty was "Tiger". Character……"
"My dear God, there are so many things to pay attention to when you dare to love! Then... if one day, I, Old Zhang,... that, that..." Before, Zhang Hu only wanted to be a giant bandit who could dominate the Ming Dynasty and no one could do anything about it. Really? I have never thought about plotting to overthrow the court and change the dynasty. To today's people, there is no difference as long as you kill officials and rebel. But for the ancients, there was a big difference between "rebellion" and "rebellion": the former can be recruited, Such as Song Jiang or Guan Shengyun, but the latter is a serious crime of genocide and belongs to the first of the "Heavenly Evils" (the main symbol is to establish a country's title and proclaim emperor)! Speaking of this, Zhang Hu looked fascinated, "Then no one will be able to say the word 'tiger' in the future? If someone gives birth to a fat son, and a friend comes over and praises him, 'This baby was born with a tiger head and a tiger brain', what should I say?" , did you say, 'This kid was born with a dog head and a dog brain'? Hahahaha."
Hearing this, Wen Huangci, who was looking sad, couldn't help but burst into laughter. Zhang Hu noticed it immediately and hurriedly said: "I'm so sorry! I am a straight-faced rough man. I can't stand it after listening to Mr. Wen's talk. Don't blame Mr. Wen! If you continue talking, what happened next?"
Wen Huangci continued: "The dog official refused to submit despite all the attempts to frame our clan, so he tried to be tough. He took several death row prisoners from the prison and taught them to escape into our clan's ancestral hall at night, and then took the archers and horses from the Yamen. They quickly called the soldiers from the Yingqi Institute to 'search' for the fugitives, and they kept saying that they would dig three feet into the ground of the ancestral hall that 'harbored the criminals' and raze them to the ground..."
"Bah!" Zhang Hu patted the cases next to him and said angrily, "You bastard, you are so vicious! Sir, don't worry, Zhang will gather his troops and knock down the merchant in a day or two." , dragged the dog official’s family to the husband’s ancestral hall to have his heart and liver sacrificed!”
Wen Huangci hurriedly left his seat and prostrated: "Student, please thank the commander in advance! Commander, please be patient and listen to the student. The destruction of our ancestral hall is not just this time. After all the trouble, the ancestral hall has been saved."
"Oh? Even the soldiers from Baihusuo were dispatched? No matter how many people you have, how can you possibly fight against the army? You are all good people, and it's not me... you obviously didn't rebel, otherwise I should have heard about it earlier Yes." Zhang Hu was a little curious.
"Yes. At first, many tribesmen were so angry that they thought that since their ancestors could not be saved, they might as well just fight with the dog officials, or risk death! But they were stopped by my uncle. My uncle was the one who was deprived of the title of Juren. One of the respected elders of the tribe. He said that it is impossible for our tribe to save the Wen family ancestral hall alone. Openly confronting the government and the army is rebellion. No matter how many tribesmen there are, how can we fight against the Ming Dynasty? Officers and soldiers? Even if today's resistance is in a hundred-household residence, tomorrow there will be a thousand-household residence, and a guard may be transferred the day after tomorrow... At that time, what is reasonable will become unreasonable, and a person will never be able to escape the serious crime of killing an official and treason. The entire clan will be slaughtered."
"So what? Is it possible to just watch the dog officers and soldiers demolish the house?" Zhang Huqi asked. After another thought, Wen Xiucai just said that this time the ancestral hall was still a false alarm, so he swallowed back the rest of the words and continued to listen patiently.
"My uncle said that it was that dog official Geng Libin who coveted the feng shui of our temple. Every injustice has its own owner, so we will only identify him! When we saw those brave soldiers from the village, the drums were beaten in the ancestral hall, and the tribesmen came enthusiastically to gather together. There were as many as 20,000 men who came. The human wall first blocked the officers and soldiers, and then, in full view of everyone, several elders of our tribe came out and asked the tribesmen to draw lots of life and death on the spot - the one who won the lot of death would be responsible for using it. Use all means to kill that dog official’s entire family!”
"Okay! That's how it should be!" Zhang Hu applauded.
"The number of people who are drawn to die is kept secret. It may be five people, it may be ten people, it may be twenty or thirty people. The people who are drawn are kept secret. No one knows which of the tens of thousands of clan members was chosen by the ancestors. The time for the death of the soldier and the completion of the task is tentatively set at three years. In other words, in the next three years, the whole family of the dog officer must be careful at all times. They may be killed by a stranger passing by at any time. But I don’t know when a disaster will strike, and as for the wives and children of the deceased soldiers, the whole clan will protect and support them!"
"Beautiful! After all, he is a scholar and a master of judging people. His knowledge is not even a bit higher than Zhang's!" Zhang Hu raised his big fingers and praised sincerely, "I guess that dog official is a coward, right?"
A smile flashed across Wen Huangci's face: "The commander-in-chief had expected it. When the dog officer heard this, he was frightened on the spot. He ran to the ancestral hall and bowed to apologize to everyone. He kept saying that it was a misunderstanding. I swear to the sky on my chest that I will never touch the idea of our clan’s ancestral hall again.”
"Hahaha, okay!" After listening to this narration, Zhang Hu suddenly felt breathless and indescribably comfortable. However, thinking of what Wen Xiucai said just now, the ancestral hall has now been destroyed into ashes, he hurriedly stopped his laughter and asked cautiously, "But...Mr. Wen just said...what happened next?"
*The collective name of "Three Character Classic", "Hundred Family Surnames" and "Thousand Character Classic". If you add "Qianjia Shi", it is called "Three Hundred Thousands", which are all introductory textbooks for ancient schoolchildren.
*Xue Zheng, also known as Xuetai and Xuexian. There is one person in each province, who is sent by the imperial court to those who are from the imperial family, such as Shilang, Jingtang, Hanlin, Kedao, and subordinates. In charge of the province's school policies and the annual and subject examinations. The term lasts for three years, and each person holds an original title during the term: that is to say, there is no fixed grade for academic administration. If one is taught academic administration by a minister, it is considered to be the second rank, and if one is taught academic affairs by a doctor, it is the fifth rank. Academicians must have a background of two-ranking Jinshi.
