amaotonovel Chapter 1109: It is imperative to eliminate gangsters and evil
Chapter 1109: It is imperative to eliminate gangsters and evil
Chapter 1109: It is imperative to eliminate gangsters and evil
The news that Zhu Yuanzhang intended to move the capital to Shuntian was quickly sent to Yingtian. At the same time, the preliminary construction work of Shuntian Prefecture and the construction of Shuntian School also began in full swing.
Li Qi, Duke of Han in the Goryeo-Han area, cooperated with the Liaodong Regional Commander to send more than 5,000 Goryeo captives.
After Li Shanchang pacified Han, there were still scattered remnants of Goryeo who resisted one after another. After all, Goryeo was also full of powerful families. After Li Qi gained a firm foothold, he adopted the governance method of the Ming Dynasty, distributed land to the people, promoted the centralization of the Three Han, and continuously seized power from the local powerful families. Naturally, these Goryeo powerful families were unwilling to sit and wait for death.
Li Qi was no longer the benevolent young man he once was. Over the years, the bloody purges in the Three Kingdoms of Korea had never stopped. Li Qi had the support of the people of the Three Kingdoms of Korea who had been given land, and the military power of the Liaodong Commandery of the Ming Dynasty. This powerful dragon that crossed the river had made drastic reforms along the way, and he had not encountered any major obstacles that he could not overcome.
These 3,000 people are the families of the local nobles who rebelled. Most of them still have a certain influence in the local area. If they stay in Korea, there will inevitably be some hidden dangers. It is better to send them to Daming to repair the city, which can be regarded as a waste utilization and a permanent solution.
Yingzhou also sent over 4,000 Japanese prisoners. After the assassination of Zhu, those daimyo who intended to rescue the Japanese emperor were soon liquidated. The Ming army stationed in Yingzhou moved out in all directions and killed all these daring daimyo at lightning speed. After the execution of the chief culprit, the remaining prisoners were sent to Shuntian as coolies by Zhu's order. Together with the grassland prisoners sent by the Xu family in Wei, the number of prisoners gathered in Shuntian Prefecture exceeded 10,000.
These prisoners of war were extremely evil, and they were just the right consumables for the construction of the new city of Beijing. Shuntian Prefecture was originally a large military town, with more than 50,000 elite Ming troops stationed on both sides. It was not difficult to guard these more than 10,000 unarmed prisoners.
And they soon found out how to manage these prisoners of war: among these people, the Japanese prisoners of war were the most rebellious and vicious, and they often overestimated their own abilities and tried to attack the supervisors. The Koreans, on the other hand, seemed to have no moral integrity and were very submissive to the Ming army, and often tried to please them.
Therefore, the Ming army gave a small number of Koreans the right to supervise, and let them hold wooden sticks and help manage these working prisoners of war: As a result, these Korean prisoners of war who were given wooden sticks were grateful to the Ming army soldiers who were originally their enemies, and they also fought back against the Japanese prisoners of war, and even a small number of their fellow Koreans who were not given wooden sticks.
They treated these prisoners of war even more fiercely and cruelly than the Ming people who were ordered to serve them.
They seemed to find a false sense of superiority in abusing their fellow prisoners of war.
It can be said that this is an extreme case of the fox borrowing the power of the tiger to bully others.
The soldiers of the Ming Dynasty lamented the inexplicable mentality of the Koreans, but because of these Koreans, the hatred of the unruly Japanese captives soon shifted to the Koreans... This made it a lot easier for the Ming army to manage these prisoners of war.
As for later, because this incident was widely spread, these Koreans who were accustomed to taking advantage of the power of others and deceiving themselves were simply called "Bangzi", but that is a story for later.
"Your Majesty, King Zhou, I sincerely wish to..."
On Qipan Street in Shuntian Prefecture, in Qingfeng Tower, Liu Sanwu looked solemn and bowed to Zhu Su.
The matter of building a school in Shuntian Prefecture was handed over to Zhu Su in accordance with the principle of not letting Zhu Su idle when there was something to do. Liu Sanwu thus got in touch with Zhu Su. He was determined to restore his reputation, so he was very warm to Zhu Su.
After all, Zhu Su was also a "founder of the new school", and Liu Sanwu was a great scholar of the new school, so he often came to Zhu Su in the name of discussing the Dao. Zhu Su was not disgusted by Liu Sanwu, an old scholar who knew the current affairs, and the two of them seemed to be "friends regardless of age" these days.
However, Liu Sanwu came today to seek help from Zhu Su.
"The city's foxes and rats, the gossipy women, are rampant. They hide in dark places and are difficult to punish."
"There are also many foolish men and women who hide for them. We preach to them the harm of such people, but some people don't know what is good for them and gather together to make trouble and beat us out..."
"The government is powerless in this matter. How can we enlighten the people when such bad apples are lurking among the people?"
"That's why we have come to find Your Highness and ask Your Highness to report to His Majesty the Retired Emperor and ask him to issue an edict to severely punish these lawless criminals..."
It turns out that this matter started when Zhu Yuanzhang ordered Liu Sanwu and others to purge the foxes and rats in the city of Shuntian in order to change the customs and habits of the people.
Shuntian was once the capital of the Yuan Dynasty. Strictly speaking, it could be called the imperial capital. However, the Yuan court had been plagued by internal strife for a hundred years, and the governance of the capital was just to get by, completely ignoring the chaos among the lower-class people in the city.
Therefore, there were all kinds of gangs and swindlers in Shuntian City. Some wealthy Yuan people even raised swindlers and thugs to make money. In addition, the Yuan rulers of all dynasties were religious, so there were many swindlers who used religion as an excuse.
At that time, the whole world was in chaos, and this capital city was a microcosm of the chaos. Even after the Ming Dynasty was established, there were still many people and things in the world who made a living by cheating and deceiving.
It goes without saying that the Ming Dynasty was a powerful military city, and there was basically no place for those brave and aggressive people to survive. And because of the popularity of storytelling such as "The Legend of the Condor Heroes", the concept of "the greatest heroes serve the country and the people" was also widely spread among the gangs.
With the Ming Dynasty's policy of "exploring and advancing, opening up overseas territories", many ambitious heroes spontaneously went to various border areas to do their best for the country and seek a way out. Many of them also joined the "Qin Gang" founded by Zhu Chong.
As for religious scammers, Zhu used to be a monk in his early years and he knows the inside story of those religious scammers. Since he came to power, he has vigorously suppressed various religions, headed by Buddhism, and has now made remarkable achievements.
However, in addition to these gangs and religious scammers, there is also a group of the most difficult scammers and villains in the Ming Dynasty. Most of these people are women. They use folk customs to hide among the people, causing chaos among the people and making it difficult to control them. These people are also the main target of Liu Sanwu's change of customs this time. These people are - gossip girls and six grandmas.
The so-called gossip girls are nuns, Taoist nuns, fortune tellers, matchmakers, fortune tellers, medicine women, midwives... These people go from street to street, cheating Mr. Li and defrauding Mr. Wang, and they specialize in stirring up trouble, cheating people of their money, and buying and selling people. They do not do good things.
For example, Wang Po, who helped Ximen Daguanren get married, was one of the matchmakers.
If they were just ordinary matchmakers, how much money could they make? Just enough to buy a pair of shoes.
Wang Po disdains such low-end games!
If the man is not married and the woman is not married, there is no challenge at all. The only thing is that the man has a family and the woman has a husband. It is more exciting and profitable to challenge the principles of nature and morality!
In order to help this pair of wildest mandarin ducks be together, he would not hesitate even to poison the innocent Wu Dalang!
This is the boldness and madness of the matchmaker!
Liu Sanwu was frustrated this time because of a matchmaker. The reason was that there was a Liujia Village 30 miles east of Shuntian City. Most of the people in the village were surnamed Liu, and only a few were surnamed Li. However, there was a family named Li Jiusi, who was originally an ordinary tenant in the village. Later, the Ming army came and recruited soldiers. Li Jiusi joined the army and later died in the battle between Jizhen and Nahachu that year.
Li Jiusi's family had only his widow Fang and a young daughter. Because of his military merits, his family was given more than ten acres of farmland, plus a pension from the court. Although the family lost its pillar, they were not unable to survive.
However, the rich man Liu in the village fell in love with Li Jiusi's daughter and wanted Li Jiusi's wealth, so he found a matchmaker named Zhang to act as a matchmaker for him. Zhang, the matchmaker, coveted the large sum of money promised by Liu and harassed the Li family several times. Li's widow Fang refused several times, but Zhang still refused.
Li Jiusi had a younger brother who was idle and lived by taking bribes from Fang. When matchmaker Zhang found out about this, she colluded with Li Jiusi's good-for-nothing younger brother, and took advantage of Fang's absence to go to the Li family, and went straight to Li's house with Li Jiusi's younger brother, deceived Li Xiaoniang and left, thus helping Liu Caizhu to do his "good deed".
Afterwards, he instructed Liu Caizhu and Li Jiusi's brother to come together and demand the land and pension left by Li Jiusi.
Fang's family was broken up overnight. They happened to meet Liu Sanwu and other Hanlin scholars who came to the village to preach about changing customs and habits, so they cried and told them about this.
Although Liu Sanwu valued his reputation, he was still an old Confucian who had studied Confucianism all his life. How could he not be furious when he heard about such a cruel and inhumane thing? He immediately took people to the Liu family to ask for an explanation.
Unexpectedly, the Liu family was fearless and insisted that they had arranged a formal marriage through three matchmakers and six engagements. Moreover, Li Jiusi had no children, and his widow was just an outsider. The marriage of Li Jiusi's daughter should be decided by Li Jiusi's younger brother, the only male in the Li family.
And the Li family's wealth should naturally be inherited by the "son-in-law". He even said shamelessly that he would not be afraid of being at a disadvantage even if the lawsuit went to the throne.
Who is Liu Sanwu? He is a scholar who has been good at talking all his life, but these villagers are talking nonsense, and he, a great scholar, can't find a chance to speak. Occasionally, he finds a chance to quote scriptures, but how can these villagers understand these sages' knowledge? He only said that he didn't know where Zhang the matchmaker and Li Jiusi's brother had gone. It was clear that just a moment ago, Zhang the matchmaker was still cracking melon seeds and watching the jokes of Liu Sanwu and others.
In the end, the red-hot Liu Daru decided to let the accompanying government officials search and arrest the person by force. However, he did not expect that the Liu family members rushed forward and beat the officials. In the meantime, several former Hanlin Academy members who came with Liu Sanwu were also injured.
After hearing the story of Liujia Village, Zhu Su also frowned. Liu Sanwu and others were indeed a bit pedantic, and they lost the opportunity by rushing forward to ask for help. However, the people of Liujia Village openly attacked the imperial officials without any legal responsibility, which was a matter of some importance. The important thing was that after such a commotion, if the news spread, these folk swindlers and gossips would be more confident in their fraud and evildoing, and they really needed to be deterred by thundering means.
"Mr. Liu, what do you want me to advise my father?"
"Your Highness, after this, these people will definitely hide that evil woman and Li Jiusi's brother who has forgotten his ancestors. What I, this old minister, think about is whether you can ask Jinyiwei Commander Jiang to send people to arrest the evil woman and her gang. After all, Jinyiwei has the power to investigate worldly affairs, and the Liu family is extremely vicious and cruel. Ordinary government officials may find it difficult to resist them..." Liu Sanwu said.
Zhu Su thought about it, shook his head and said:
"These people are said to be evil, but they always pretend to be good people. For example, the gossip girls and the six grandmas are not because of their industries, but because these people simply use their industries as a cover."
"They spread gossip and instigate trouble, even resorting to deception and fraud, and resorting to all means possible."
"They use matchmaking to get money from people, or persuade people to donate money to temples to exorcise evil spirits, pray for blessings and eliminate disasters, and save their ancestors... In short, they use all kinds of methods to cheat people out of money."
"How many families have been torn apart and destroyed by them."
"If you want to deal with them, these old pious women are just matchmakers and midwives, and they are doing good things... and they often adopt some godchildren. With these people stirring up trouble, it is often difficult to convict them. Even some ignorant scholars will be deceived by them and regard them as ordinary good citizens."
"The incident in Liujia Village was not accidental, but a common occurrence among the people. Letting the Royal Guards take action can certainly settle this incident. But how should we deal with the thousands and thousands of other evil deeds among the people? Should we let the Royal Guards be responsible for this matter?"
"This..." Liu Sanwu was somewhat speechless. Even he knew that letting the Jinyiwei do this full-time was really overkill.
"We should still rely on the local government officials. These people are the main force in governing the people." Zhu Su said. "But before that, we need to first characterize what these gossip girls are doing and uncover the cover of "good citizens" they are wearing."
"As in the Liujia Village incident, what the matchmaker did was not matchmaking, but blatant human trafficking and the seizure of other people's wealth. We must expose the evil deeds of such evil people in the open."
"Then, we can legitimately arrest him according to the law. If the people of Liujia Village dare to take action again and continue to seize the property and daughter of the Li family, they will be blatantly hiding a wanted criminal and gathering people to rebel. In this way, the official troops of the garrison can destroy them. Let's see how courageous this rich man Liu is!"
"These evil forces have been harming the people for so long that the people have become accustomed to them. If Mr. Liu wants to change the customs, he should first explain the evil of these women and girls, and then use the law to bring them to justice..."
"As long as the people know the harm they cause, and eliminate these evil people, a great force will naturally emerge."
(End of this chapter)