Chapter 117 The head can be broken, the blood can flow, and the hair can't be shaved
Jiaxing.
Fucheng Xiushui.
The weather in leap June is still hot, like a furnace baking the earth.
Tu Xiangmei, wearing a red scarf on her head and holding a steel knife, was limping in the suburbs. Looking at the defeated rebel soldiers in front of them, everyone's eyes were distracted and uncertain. They were sitting or lying in various places. What should they do next?
At a loss.
Think about it just a few days ago when they decided to wear red scarves and raise the flag of righteousness, the soldiers and the people were so enthusiastic and enthusiastic, but everyone succeeded and failed so quickly.
He still remembered the scene when he led his men into the Yamen, dragged out the fake magistrate Hu Zhichen, who was selling medicine in front of the temple, and beheaded him in the Yamen.
Pull off the red scarf and pull up your hair.
This Jinshi in the fourth year of Chongzhen's reign had served as a reviewer in the Hanlin Academy, lectured in the East Palace, and was summoned by King Lu to serve as a military officer. The local gentry in Jiaxing stroked his hair and sighed to himself, "I can save my life from the dock!"
The former military officer had just bandaged the wound on Li Yuxin's left arm, and came over, "You can cut off your head, but you can't shave your hair."
When they decided to revolt, Li Yuxin persuaded the gentry and officials in Jiaxing to revolt together on the grounds that shaving their heads was a minor matter and that you and your wives could not be saved after shaving.
So Li Yuxin and Tu Xiangmei swore an oath on blood and cut down trees and raised poles.
They jointly visited Xu Shiqi, the former Minister of the Ministry of Civil Affairs in Jiaxing, and asked him to be the leader of the alliance. Xu Shiqi refused to be the leader of the alliance because he was old and did not understand military affairs, but he also personally drafted a message to conquer the Qing Dynasty and used his family wealth to support him.
Qian Yu even spent all his money on funding and called on his descendants to join the army to fight against the Qing Dynasty.
Tu Xiangmei forged an edict from the King of Yiyang to supervise the country, ordering each household in the 24 neighborhoods inside and outside the city to send one soldier to join the war. Within a few days, more than 30,000 people were gathered to persuade the wealthy gentry to raise funds. They received a lot of money and food, and the momentum was huge.
Kill the fake prefect and fake county magistrate.
All at once, all parties responded.
Ni Qingwei, Lu Qingyuan and others in Pinghu County killed the puppet magistrate of Pinghu County and raised troops to respond. Qian's uncle and nephew divided their troops to attack Jiashan County, joined forces with Jiashan squires Sun Zhang, Ni Fu and others to break through Jiashan County and executed the puppet magistrate Wu Pei and others.
After conquering three cities in a row, the rebel army was strong.
Even the great thief Wang Youqian came with more than 2,000 people to respond. Immediately afterwards, someone claiming to be the chief military officer Chen Wu arrived with a thousand people. Tu Xiangmei and Li Yuxin, who did not know soldiers, handed over the command of the rebel army to Chen Wu.
Ask him to lead the volunteers.
It's just that Tu Xiangmei and the others didn't expect that this commander-in-chief Chen Wu was not the commander-in-chief Chen Wu they had heard of. They had heard the name of the former Jiaxing deputy general Chen Wu, but Chen Wu had not been in Jiaxing for a long time, and these local squires had no idea at all.
I've seen myself.
Little did he know that the real Chen Wu went south to Ningbo and was killed by Lu Jianguo. In fact, this Chen Wu turned out to be a monk. He was a rogue at first. Later, when the world was in turmoil, he shaved his head and became a monk to escape his enemies. Finally, he was captured by Chen Wu.
The able-bodied men joined the army and later became Chen Wu's personal soldiers.
When Chen Wu went south to eastern Zhejiang, this scoundrel and a group of Chen soldiers were ordered to escort Chen Wu's concubine behind him. Later, when he heard that Chen Wu was killed in Ningbo, he simply conspired with a group of companions and boldly pretended to be Commander-in-Chief Chen Wu.
Wu also took possession of Chen Wu's concubine.
Hearing about the uprising in Jiaxing, he rushed there with thousands of people recruited along the way.
Tu Xiangmei and others didn't know it, so they also gave him command of the army and made him the leader of the alliance.
The fake Chen Wu was originally a scoundrel. Taking advantage of the chaos and pretending to be Chen Wu, he just wanted to fish in troubled waters. Tu Xiangmei and the others wanted to protect their lives and fight against the Qing Dynasty, but the fake Chen Wu just wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to make money. In the name of the fake rebel army, he went around asking for pay and donations.
.
It's so full of smoke and atmosphere.
Some gentry were unwilling to resist the Qing Dynasty, but now they were repeatedly forced to donate money, so they secretly communicated with the Tartars and sent their servants to lead the way to lead the Qing army into the city.
The fake commander-in-chief Chen Wu slept with his real Chen Wu's concubine in his arms in the middle of the night. He was completely unprepared. Although there were tens of thousands of rebels, they were all ordinary people. They were unprepared and were rushed in by Li Yuchun who came from Haiyan.
In the city, after a random killing, tens of thousands of rebels were defeated like an avalanche.
They ran away in panic, and many people were trampled to death in the dark night.
Tu Xiangmei and other defeated troops reluctantly reunited at Maqiaodun on the outskirts of the city, gathering thousands of remaining soldiers. When the uprising occurred, there were tens of thousands of troops, but now there were only a few thousand left in the blink of an eye.
At this time, Chen Wu was nowhere to be found, and he found several of his men. After questioning, he finally found out that this General Chen was actually a fake. During the military rebellion, he had long since fled without any trace of gold and silver, and there was no resistance at all.
.
Tu and Li looked at each other in disbelief.
"Go to Jiashan and vote for Mr. Qian. They still have an army."
Tu Xiangmei sighed repeatedly, "Who betrayed us?"
"We will always know, and we will settle the matter together when the time comes!" Li Yuxin said. At this time, he also regretted a little. The two of them fought with blood before, but they were not convinced by each other, so they finally asked Xu Shiqi to be the leader of the alliance, but Xu declined.
Finally, the fake Chen Wu was given a chance.
If the two of them didn't have any secret differences, whoever could be the leader would probably be better off than they are now.
·····
Jiaxing Fucheng, Xiushui.
After a night of chaotic fighting, Li Yuchun rode around the city with some pride. He remembered that before Yan was summoned to Hangzhou, he had always warned him to be careful and not to underestimate the enemy. It was best not to rush into Jiaxing, let alone take the risk of attacking the city.
, it is best to wait for him to come back and surrender.
Originally, he planned to wait for Yan Wogong to come back before planning to capture Jiaxing, but who knew that the squires Liu Lu, Ding Yishan, Chen Hongfan, Wang Risheng, etc. in the city were vying to come and be willing to lead the way and open the door. After all, Li Yuchun couldn't resist such an opportunity.
.
He came with his troops half-confident and dubious. Who knew that Jiaxing City was unprepared and the city gate really opened. He first sent a group of soldiers to test carefully. After sending back a signal and indeed occupying the city gate, he boldly led the troops with confidence.
Fight into the city.
After a wild and random attack, victory was achieved.
"Send the order and all the men in the city shall shave their heads, whether they keep their hair or not, and whether they keep their hair or not!"
"Anyone who dares to disobey the order and refuse to shave will be killed without mercy!"
Li Yuchun touched his bare forehead and felt uncomfortable looking at the Ming Dynasty people who still had hair on their heads in Jiaxing City.
I've lost all my hair, so why do you keep your hair?
Looking at these hairs, he felt that they were mocking him for being a traitor.
If you want to shave your head, just shave it together. If I shave my head, what qualifications do you have to keep it?
Once everyone is clean and shaves their hair, everything will be the same.
An order was given to shave off one's hair, and the whole city was in commotion.
Liu Lu and other squires who secretly cooperated with the captors to surrender took the initiative and took the lead in shaving their heads. After shaving their heads, they even wore pigtails and walked on the street.
Ye Shuzhan, a student from the county, was a disciple of Xu Shiqi, the Minister of Civil Affairs. He also participated in the Jiaxing Uprising. There was a chaotic fight last night and he was unable to leave.
Faced with the arrogant attitude of the puppet soldiers, Ye Shuzhan publicly shouted the slogan that he would never shave his hair. As a result, as soon as he shouted a few slogans, he was knocked to the ground by several puppet soldiers and was imprisoned. He was going to make it public in a few days.
execution.
Ye Shuzhan's uncle, Ye Shiyan, went to Li Yuchun to plead guilty. Finally, he offered fifteen dan of grain as redemption and promised to shave his nephew's hair before Li Yuchun released him.
It was because there were so many people who refused to shave their heads that they arrested countless people at once and the prisons were full. Li Yuchun was happy to go along with the situation when he saw some people were willing to offer money and food to redeem their people. It would be of no use to cut them down directly. Although he captured
Fucheng, but he did not forget the agreement with Zhu Wu that the redemption fee for Fucheng would be 20,000 taels of silver.
This money had to be collected first, not to mention that he had to earn more himself.
Killing is just to establish prestige, and making money is the real purpose.
After Ye Shuzhan was brought home by his uncle, he still refused to shave his head and would rather die than shave his head.
The uncle asked his family to prepare a table of food and wine, and drank with his nephew. Originally, Ye Shuzhan was able to worship Xu Shiqi because he was very smart and a good scholar. He would definitely be able to pass the Jinshi examination in the future, so the Ye family also treated their nephew
Various resources are tilted.
Who would have thought that in today's troubled times, he had to find a way to save his nephew's life so that in the future he would have the opportunity to take the imperial examination of the new dynasty and serve as an official to bring glory to the Ye family.
After the defeat, Ye Shuzhan drank to drown his sorrows and became very drunk.
"My dear nephew, you don't have any hair after you wake up. Don't blame your uncle. Your uncle is doing it for our Ye family. The change of dynasty is also an inevitable trend. We are just a small family that cultivates and educates. How can we stop it?
As for the general trend, it’s better to go with the flow.”
Ye Shiyan asked the housekeeper to call someone to shave his hair.
Starting from him, all men in the Ye family, young and old, had their heads shaved.
Strands of hair fell off, and Ye Shiyan couldn't help crying as he sat there. But as a parent, he felt that his choice was not wrong. He had to consider the whole family.
People like Tu Xiangmei, Li Yuxin, and others only want to have a moment of happiness, and even maintain the name of loyalty and filial piety for a while, but have they ever thought about family?
Ye Shuzhan's hair was shaved off while drunk.
the next morning.
Heartbreaking shouts came from the east courtyard of Ye's house.
"Hair, my hair, give it back to me!"
"I sent it back!"
When Ye Shuzhan woke up and saw his ugly, naked head, he could hardly believe it.
He touched his head and found only a small money rat tail. He was angry, confused and helpless. He felt that he had lost the most precious thing.
This is not just a head of hair, it is the loyalty in the hearts of the Ming Dynasty scholars and the righteous persistence of the scholars. Now they have been shaved off.
He became a descendant.
"I sent it back!"
Ye Shuzhan roared in pain, but the door was locked and no one paid attention.
Angry, he finally grabbed the braid, gritted his teeth, and cut it off without hesitation, and finally shaved off all the small pieces of hair.
So he became completely bald.
When the servant came to deliver the meal at noon, he opened the door but saw no one. He only saw a letter on the table.
After Ye Shiyan read the letter, his face was filled with despair.
The nephew could not accept his family's decision to shave his head, so he smashed the window and jumped over the wall. He went to look for Tu Li and others, rejoined the rebel army, and vowed to resist the captors to the end.
Even if he loses his hair, his will to fight against the invaders remains unchanged.
He also said that he would fight back sooner or later. Even if the Jiaxing rebels could not defeat the Tatars, they could go south to eastern Zhejiang and join the Lu Jianguo.
"Hey, this idiot."
Ye Shiyan sighed a few times, then took the strand of hair and ordered his family, "Prepare a coffin, set up a mourning hall, and tell the public that Shu Zan committed suicide by hanging from a beam after my hair was shaved yesterday."
The butler comes in.
"Sir, General Li sent people to solicit donations and raise funds."
"How much do they want?"
"One thousand taels of silver, plus one hundred stones of grain."
