Amidst the roar of cannons, Anlu talented man Peng Ziqin, Peng Daju and others, just like everyone else, put aside their ambition of "expedition to the north of Xianghan and regained Xianling" and just ran for their lives holding their heads. His hat was gone, the two kitchen knives he was carrying were also missing, and even the shoe he was wearing was missing, but he didn't even notice it.
Because the cannon mounted on Guishan was aimed at the tower of Hanyang Gate and fired, causing rubble to fly under Hanyang Gate. Therefore, a group of scholars who "aimed for the Northern Expedition" did not dare to enter the city through Hanyang Gate, so they had to run along the bank of the Yangtze River, hoping to enter the city through Wusheng Gate in the north of Wuchang City.
But when they ran outside Wusheng Gate, they found that the city gate was under martial law! A large group of model officers and soldiers with tenacity and determination have set up sentries at the open city gate and blocked the entrance into the city with anti-horse guns.
Wushengmen is located in the north of Wuchang City, not too far from Guishan. Although it has not been bombarded, no one knows when it will be bombarded by rogue bandits!
So everyone wants to get to the city quickly!
However, the new officers and soldiers blocking the city gate refused to let them in. The reason was to prevent chaos in the city!
Now the rogue bandits are shelling the city. Strictly speaking, the offensive and defensive battle of Wuchang City has begun. It is natural to strictly control access at this time...
Peng Ziqin was relatively strong among a group of talented people, so he ran very fast. He was the first group to arrive outside Wusheng Gate. Seeing that he was facing a formidable enemy, he went up to explain.
"I am Peng Ziqin, a member of the Anlu Judicial Committee. My family members are all in Wuchang City. Please make way quickly..."
The new officers and soldiers guarding the city gate were not willing to listen to him. They leveled the blunderbuss with bayonets in their hands and said viciously: "Stop! Do you see the white line under your feet? Take a step forward and you will be stabbed to death immediately!" "
Stab to death?
Peng Ziqin was angry: "I am Juren!"
The person on the other side was not angry either: "How can you prove that you are a judge? And you are holding a murder weapon! You don't look like a good person, you must be a spy!"
The murder weapon? Peng Ziqin was stunned and realized that he was still holding a rusty kitchen knife in his right hand!
He quickly threw away the kitchen knife and explained: "Don't get me wrong, I hold the kitchen knife to fight with the bandits... I am really a hero!"
Hahaha......
The new troops on the opposite side all laughed.
One of the junior officers who spoke with a Tianjin accent said: "Why do you want to lift people up? How can you still lift people up because you have such an idiot?"
That’s right! He just wanted to hack Li Zicheng to death with a kitchen knife. How could he still be fooled? This must be a spy!
Peng Ziqin became anxious and stamped his feet and said: "I am really a great person... I am Peng Ziqin, an important person in Anlu!"
The new army on the opposite side asked again: "How to prove it?"
how to prove? There seems to be no way to prove it!
Peng Ziqin even cried! He didn't bring his luggage out of the city, so he had no way to prove himself, and he was penniless... If he couldn't enter the city, he wouldn't need Li Zicheng's bandits to kill him, and he would starve to death.
His crying seemed to be contagious, and soon everyone outside Wu Sheng's gate was crying. Whether it was a scholar or a scholar, everyone seemed to understand a truth at this moment.
In this era where the sword rules the roost, those of them who read the books of sages are nothing!
The Qing Dynasty wanted to defeat Confucius!
Li himself wants to equalize the fields of scholars!
Daming was a little more polite, but they didn't take them too seriously... Enke last time was proof! Now the prince's new army is blocking them outside the city and preventing them from entering, which is also proof!
...
"Your Highness, these are the seeds of Huguang's education!"
"Your Highness, are you really not going to give them any way to survive?"
"Your Highness, I beg you, old minister, to let them enter the city?"
At this moment, Zhu Cihong had already climbed onto the Wuchang city wall near Wushengmen. Like Li Zicheng, he did not display a banner, but only brought a hundred guards, as well as Yuan Jixian, Qiu Yu, and Fang Gongyue.
Of course the three old men felt sorry for these scholars who had lost their family fortune, and they asked Zhu Cihong for mercy.
Under the city wall and outside Wusheng Gate, hundreds of thousands of extremely down-and-out scholars were weeping in each other's arms. Zhu Cixiang just watched their performance quietly... I don't know how long it took before he turned to look at the three old men who were sweating profusely with anxiety, and smiled: "Don't worry, I will let you." They enter the city, but they have to make their own way to survive!"
Yuan Jixian didn't quite understand Zhu Cixiang's words and asked: "Your Highness, what do you mean..."
Zhu Cixiang looked at the sky, sighed and said: "The sky has changed! The world has also changed! They have to change too... If you are poor, you will think about change, if you change, you will be successful, and if you are general, you will be successful! I hope the lessons learned this time can help They really understand this sentence. If they understand and change, they may be able to survive, and some of them can become successful!"
This passage "If you are poor, you will want to change" comes from "Yi". Of course, anyone who has read the level of scholar and scholar knows it.
But it’s easier said than done!
And even if you know it and choose to change, there are still only a few people who can successfully change, adapt to the new era, and become prosperous... And the new era is not easy for everyone!
Who would think that the Age of Discovery and the primary stage of capitalism were easy? If life were easy, who would go sailing or engage in capitalism?
Zhu Cixi already knew that he had brought China into the Age of Discovery and the primary stage of capitalism - because entering the Age of Discovery and welcoming capitalism is the only way forward to get rid of the periodic collapse of Chinese civilization?
How else could it be done?
There is no doubt that the current Ming Dynasty can survive in the southeast half. Neither Dorgon nor Li Zicheng has the ability to destroy the Ming Dynasty.
But for the tens of millions of Chinese people crowded in the southeastern half, life in the future will not be easy and comfortable. Because while Zhu Cixi stopped the total collapse of the Ming Empire, he also gave more than 100 million Han people a chance to survive.
This means that the sharp contradiction between man and land has not been alleviated, and with the consolidation of Zhu Cixi's "Nanming regime", the contradiction between man and land in the southeast will become even more acute - because China is still in an agricultural society. , once stability is restored, the population will continue to grow.
A population of 200 million or even 300 million will inevitably appear in Zhu Cihong's lifetime.
At the same time, the Little Ice Age is not over yet! The war with the Qing Dynasty in the north may also last for many years.
Therefore, what Zhu Cixiang could bring to the 100 million people of the Ming Dynasty was just an opportunity to move forward arduously. Live and move forward, but it is likely to be more miserable than the people who lived in the early years of the Qing Dynasty.
Because there was not that much population in the early years of the Qing Dynasty in history!
Of course, there is strength in numbers! Once it breaks into the wild world of the Age of Discovery, it becomes an unstoppable behemoth.
In this wild and undeveloped world, there must be a share of 100 million to 230 million miserable Chinese people! And it’s a big portion!
"Your Highness," Yuan Jixian certainly didn't understand how much suffering Zhu Cihong would bring to the billions of common people in the Ming Dynasty, "What exactly do you want to do?"
Zhu Cixiang smiled: "I just want everyone to have a way to survive... After all, it is better to live than die!"
"This..." Yuan Jixian was speechless.
But what Qiu Yu and Fang Gongyue thought about was how those scholars outside the city could survive?
Zhu Cihong paused and then said: "Let them stay outside the city for one night... I will send someone to register their names, place of origin, titles and family property. If everything is correct, they can enter the city and be with their families." Reunion.
In addition, starting from the day after tomorrow, Xingyuan will resettle and rescue the Jiangbei scholar-officials who have been exiled in Wuchang... We must give them a way to survive! However, I only give them one way to survive. What kind of life they can live in in the future depends on their own destiny. "
After listening to Zhu Cixiang's words, Qiu Yu and Fang Gongyue already understood. Prince Zhu is going to take action on the scholar-bureaucrats - all the benefits that the ancestors of the Ming Dynasty gave to the scholar-bureaucrats may be taken back by Prince Zhu.
