"Official, I heard from Supervisor Qiao that many people died in the Fushun Tieling rebellion. I have been in a mess these past few days."
"Qiao Yiqi is really talkative and talking nonsense! Madam, don't worry. It's not a rebellion. A few refugees are beating flower drums and spreading rumors. With Mrs. Gaoming here, there will be no chaos. I have asked Sun Chuanting to lead the troops back. This man, Taoist and military strategy will definitely be able to properly Disposal."
"That's good...Official, from now on, you should do more good deeds and kill less people."
"I know that I will go to Qufu tomorrow to do a good deed. During the few days I leave, you can raise your child in peace in Wendeng and don't use swords or guns anymore."
Wendeng County Yamentang, the wing where the county magistrate's family previously lived, is now the residence of Ping Liaohou and his wife.
The two chatted for a while, and then Liu Zhaosun covered Jin Yuji with a quilt, got up and blew out the candles, and comforted his wife to sleep.
Jin Yuji was pregnant and soon fell asleep.
Liu Zhaosun gently hugged his wife, looked up at the subtle lights of the street outside the window, and the little guy in his belly kicked Ping Liaohou violently.
"It's a boy. Don't go back in time again in the future."
The little life grew up little by little, and Liu Zhaosun felt that his life had become more complete, and there was a very soft place deep in his heart.
“Do more good deeds and kill less.”
Jin Yuji fell into sleep, and he stood up carefully, walked to the window, looked at the southwest, and murmured in his heart:
"Mr. Yansheng, are you okay? I'm going to see you."
~~~~~
Duke Yansheng lived a good life.
Confucius family in Qufu.
Kong Yanzhi, the 64th generation Yanshenggong, looked at the row of thin girls standing in front of him, took the cup of Longjing from the hand of the pretty maid next to him, rinsed his mouth, and said with some displeasure.
"Why are there so many this year? I am in Dingyou, so I am not allowed to get close to women."
The head of the Confucius family quickly bowed and said with a flattering smile on his face:
"Master, in June and July, the Wenxiang Cult in Yanzhou revolted, and Qufu was also hit by a disaster. Many fields were destroyed, and the tenants handed over more women than in previous years. These were all carefully selected, and their appearance and figure were the same. Excellent."
After hearing this, Kong Yanzhi became slightly interested, picked up the fly whisk on the table, and walked up to the girl with a big belly.
The head servant shouted loudly:
"When you meet Duke Yansheng, why don't you kneel down and salute? You don't want to get a stick!"
A group of thin girls knelt down timidly, not daring to raise their heads.
The fat and greasy Mr. Kong in front of them only appeared in their dreams and nightmares.
Kong Yanzhi nodded with a lewd smile, and his eyes suddenly fell on a girl in the middle. The girl was petite, dark-skinned, but somewhat pretty. She stood there and did not even salute to Duke Yansheng.
The head servant said angrily: "Why don't you kneel down!"
After that, he stepped forward and hit the girl.
"You forced my father to death, and I want to avenge him!"
After saying that, he rushed over to Master Kong, grabbed Master Kong's collar, and bit Mr. Yan Sheng's neck.
Yan Shenggong pushed the girl away, and the head servant stepped forward and pushed her hard on her knees. With a click, her calf broke. The girl fell to the ground and wailed, cursing in her mouth.
"It ruins the master's mood. I deserve to die. Let me bury this woman alive first."
Duke Yansheng gently twirled his beard, shook his head and said:
"In the shadow of the green cloud, bright clouds are woven with thousands of layers of embroidery. People in the Song Dynasty called bamboo Green Cloud. This woman is indomitable and has some integrity, which I like. Since her personality is the same as that of bamboo, she named her Green Cloud. Take her down, heal her legs first, lock her in the dungeon and starve her for a few days, wait until she figures it out, and then come and serve her."
~~~~~
Ten miles southeast of Qufu is Liujia Village.
All the villagers in Liujia Village are tenants of Yanshenggong Kong Mansion.
It was Liu Laosan who was forced to death by the Kong family, and so was Liu Laosan's daughter Liu Yue'er, whose legs were broken by Yan Shenggong.
The Confucius family in Qufu has lasted for thousands of years. With continuous rewards and seals from successive dynasties, the Confucius family has reached the peak of its power. Only Zhang Tianshi from Jiangxi can barely compete with them. Although both of them are the same thing.
Emperors take turns and dynasties change at will, but the Confucius family in Qufu is an iron-clad camp that will last for thousands of years.
The secret to the Kong family's survival is actually very simple. There are roughly two points.
First, respond to the situation by not falling, so that you can never fall.
To put it bluntly, whenever there is a change of dynasty, the Kong family in Qufu can immediately express their loyalty to the winning party (or the party they think is the winning party).
No matter whether the opponent is the Mongols, the Manchus, the Japanese, or even the Germans (at the end of the 19th century, the German army occupied Qingdao, and Shenggong Yan immediately hung a portrait of the Kaiser in the Confucius Mansion).
Secondly, the Kong family squeezed the tenants around Qufu desperately and used the people's fat and anointing of the entire Qufu to buy off various forces and make themselves invincible.
The descendants of Saint Kong have already occupied all the fertile farmland near Qufu.
Living under the shadow of the "Holy Master", there are no private schools or houses in Liujia Village, and the villagers all live in shacks.
No one knows how long the villagers of Liujiacun have lived here, but Liu Yuer has known that she is a tenant of Duke Yansheng for as long as she can remember. There are not many people in her family, there is a father and an older brother, and then there is a younger brother, and then there is no more.
Liu Yue'er's mother contracted typhoid fever the winter before last year and had no money to buy medicine. She survived for two days and then died.
After her death, she was wrapped in a straw mat and buried in the ground. A few days later, it rained heavily, and Liu Yue'er saw her mother's toes...
Shandong is densely populated, especially Qufu, and the surrounding cemeteries are occupied by others.
There is a big mountain in the north of the village. No one in the village can name it. Later, Liu Yuer found out that the mountain was called Konglin.
Until there is a great disaster, the villagers will never dare to go to the mountains to collect fruits and hunt, let alone bury dead people.
This mountain with a radius of dozens of miles, together with hundreds of thousands of acres of fertile farmland and forests around it, all belong to the Kong family.
Master Kong was Duke Yan Sheng. This gentleman was kind-hearted. When he encountered villagers who went into the mountains to hunt without permission, he would only break their legs and beat them to death the second time.
~~~~
There was a riot in the Wenxiang Sect this spring, and it lasted until summer. The leader of the Wenxiang Sect was a literate man who respected Sage Confucius very much and did not let his men come to rob the Confucius Mansion.
Just when everyone was relieved, Tian'er changed again.
In August, a group of soldiers came from Dengzhou. They were beaten until Wenxiang taught him to cry for his father and mother, and fled all the way north.
A group of Wenxiang Cult rebels passed by Liujia Village when they were escaping, and Liujia Village suffered a disaster.
The Wenxiang Sect rebels robbed several farmers in Liujia Village of food and killed two families. They were followed by soldiers who were chasing them. They did not dare to stay and fled westward in a hurry.
At the end of August, women's cries were heard in the village. The families whose food had been robbed could not afford to pay rent and might not survive the winter.
For a whole summer, Liu Yue'er followed her father and brother to harvest crops under the scorching sun, bundle the wheat, carry it on her shoulders and back under the strong sun, take the grain back from the field, and put it on the drying field to dry.
She was completely tanned by the sun. She was not tall and looked more like an ape.
When the Wenxiang Sect rebels broke into the village, the Liu family's food had just been put away and hidden in the cellar without being discovered by the Wenxiang Sect.
The pursuers followed closely behind them as if urging them to do their best, and they only robbed a few pieces of food before escaping in a hurry.
After the Wenxiang Sect rebels left, the pursuers who frightened them followed closely.
Just after being harmed by the Wenxiang Sect, they were about to be harmed by the military.
The villagers of Liujia Village huddled in their homes, the women smeared their bodies with mud, and the men carefully looked at the passing troops outside through the cracks in the door.
A whistle that the villagers had never heard suddenly sounded on the road east of the village.
Then, the soldiers wearing armor and holding spears lined up neatly, passing by Liujia Village one after another. Smoke and dust rose up from the road, war horses neighed, and drums sounded. The scene was even worse than when Liujia Village went to the New Year market. Be lively.
After a while, dozens of soldiers walked out of the team, all holding bulging cloth bags and walking towards the village.
"Dad, what are they going to do?"
Liu Yue'er leaned behind the broken door and asked her father in a low voice.
She didn't smear black and gray sludge on her face because she felt she was dark enough.
Liu Laosan looked back at his two sons, tightened his grip on the pole, and shook his head.
A sturdy soldier walked quickly to Liu Jiachai's door carrying a blunderbuss they didn't recognize and a cloth bag.
He raised his head and looked around, and after making sure there was no danger, he quickly put down the bag and turned around to leave.
The moment the soldier turned around, Liu Yue'er saw that his face was covered with dust. The dirt road to the east of the village was not easy to walk.
Liu Yue'er felt an inexplicable warmth and couldn't help shouting in a low voice:
"What's your name?"
The soldier with the gun on his back looked back at Chai Fei, and through the gap in the door panel, he met Liu Yue'er's eyes who were hiding behind.
He hesitated for a moment and was about to speak when he suddenly remembered something and just gave Liu Yue'er a silly smile.
"My name is Liu Yuer, and I have been to Qufu County."
Liu Yue'er wanted to speak, but his father slapped him away.
"I'm desperate for my life, you wild girl!"
At this time, there was a rapid bamboo whistle from the other side of the road. The soldier quickly turned around and ran away. He ran out for more than ten steps and looked back at the dilapidated firewood door in front of him.
After the bamboo whistles and flying tiger flags disappeared on the dusty dirt road, Liu Laosan pushed open the door and picked up the cloth bag placed at the door.
It's heavy, weighing at least thirty kilograms.
"Dad, what are you pretending to be?"
"Food, what kind of soldier is this?"
Liu Yue'er covered her beaten face and stared blankly in the direction where the soldier disappeared just now. She didn't even feel any pain.
~~~~
"Hand over all the food!"
Two days later, several fat middle-aged men wearing silk and satin walked into the village, followed by a group of fierce servants.
Under the command of Fatty, the servants went door to door and started collecting rent.
Soon half of the food in Liujia Village was taken away.
When it was the Liu family's turn, Liu Laosan stood in front of the cellar. Liu Laosan asked timidly:
"Mr. Bai, why did you collect so much this year? Last year it was only 30%."
After hearing this, Fatty Bai looked disgusted and said impatiently:
"This year is not about causing trouble for Wenxiang Cult. The Master of the Kong family suffered a disaster. You are used to living a good life. It's time to pay back the rent you owed during the famine in previous years!"
After that, two servants came up and pushed Liu Laosan away, and went down to carry the food.
Liu Laosan quickly stopped him and begged:
"Master, if you say it's going to go up, it's going to go up. You have taken away so much food. What will we eat this winter? My family of three has been burned by the Wenxiang Cult this year, and we have only harvested two kilo of food..." "
Mr. Bai kicked Liu Laosan down and directed his servants to open the cellar door. Seeing that the food hidden by the Liu family was about to be taken away, the servant suddenly staggered and fell to the side.
The servant looked at Liu Laosan who was pushing him behind him. In anger, he kicked the old farmer twice, but his boots were held by the old farmer.
He was furious and whipped out his sword.
"You bitch, you're looking for death!"
Liu Laosan fell in a pool of blood. Before he died, he dragged his servant's legs to prevent him from opening the cellar.
The two brothers were so frightened that they ran away. Fatty Bai glanced at the food on the ground, curled his lips and said:
"That's all you have? Not enough, far from it. Take this girl back!"
~~~~
On the country road outside Liujia Village, Liu Zhaosun, escorted by a group of guards, rode his horse forward slowly.
A soldier from the 1,000th Headquarters followed the Central Military Order Flag and marched forward in a hurry. The coconut scoops and chelon belts on the soldiers' bodies rubbed and knocked as they ran, making a crisp sound.
Kaiyuan soldiers were scattered across various places, either chasing the Wenxiang Sect thugs or guarding Wendeng County. Some of them were brought back to Liaodong by Sun Chuanting to suppress the rebellion of unruly people in Liaodong.
These more than 900 people were the largest force that Ping Liaohou could mobilize.
Liu Zhaosun will lead this group of troops to join the more than 8,000 soldiers of the Three Thousand Headquarters who are besieging Qufu. At that time, he will personally command the Kaiyuan army to complete the cleanup of the Confucius Mansion and the remnants of Wenxiang.
After all, such a powerful and powerful family, which is "the teacher of all generations" and "their hereditary successor", needs a certain amount of courage to eradicate the Kong family.
Deng Changxiong couldn't do it, and Wang Erhu couldn't do it either. Only Ping Liaohou personally participated in the battle, so that Kong Yanzhi could successfully become the last Duke Yansheng.
Entering Qufu, Liu Zhaosun led his soldiers through villages one after another.
Everything you see before you is the same poverty and filth - piles of garbage, dilapidated thatched houses, sunken roofs, collapsed walls, rotten thatch...
From time to time there were some naked children playing in the smelly mud.
There were blue-purple, semi-rotted corpses floating in the ditch. They were abandoned babies whose parents could no longer feed them.
The farmers in the village looked like they were from hell. Their mouths were filled with yellow rotten teeth, their hair was unkempt, they were all skinny and emaciated, their bodies smelled bad, and their eyes were full of numbness and despair.
This is a typical portrayal of the northern countryside in the late Ming Dynasty, and it is also a scene of the life of tenant farmers under the rule of Duke Yan Shenggong.
"Mr. Yansheng, are you okay? I'm here."
