Chapter 96 200 Years of Underworld

Where there are people, there are rivers and lakes. The rivers and lakes to be discussed here is a secret organization. Its name, perhaps people who have seen it will have some impressions - "The earth shakes the high hills, and the streams and mountains are beautiful through the ages; the gate faces the sea, and the Sanhe river flows for thousands of years", the codeword of the martial arts chief rudder Chen Jinnan, Wei Xiaobao who has taken the position of hall master... That's right, it is "Tiandihui", also known as "Hongmen". The Tiandihui has done a good job of keeping secrets. Even now, no one can explain its origin clearly. We only know that it probably appeared in the early Qing Dynasty. If there is resistance, such a powerful underworld armed organization will emerge anyway.

Fortunately, all of this is not too important, what is important is that it has a strong vitality. Although the rulers of the Qing Dynasty have always been very guilty, they always feel that they are a small tribe outside the Great Wall, with few people and little strength, and they always resolutely ban illegal organizations that have rebellious intentions.It is a pity that the Qing Dynasty, like all traditional dynasties, did not centralize power in place, had limited capabilities, and could not reach the lowest level of the countryside, and the actual power holders in the countryside—the country gentry—were not very destructive to this kind of civil society. Organizations don't have much enthusiasm to curb.

Therefore, the Heaven and Earth Society has always been like a weed, returning from the dead. The imperial court's suppression not only failed to annihilate them, but made them rebellious for no reason. Under the instigation of a very few guys with political ambitions, whenever they had the opportunity, they would really fight against the Qing Dynasty and restore the Ming Dynasty.As a result of this going on, the banner of anti-Qing and Ming-ming will become more and more popular. For example, the White Lotus Sect and the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom uprising have their shadows. Here I want to give special praise to Zeng Guofan, as the hero who turned the tide of the late Qing empire from its collapse, he also contributed to the development of the Tiandihui.

As mentioned earlier, Zeng Guofan, as a cautious person who knows how to advance and retreat, was very worried about being suspected by Cixi after he became famous, so he took the initiative to cut down his direct descendant, the Hunan Army. Except for some personnel who were reorganized into the Yangtze River Navy, a large number of Hunan Army were dismissed . But Zeng Guofan did not expect that people who were used to being soldiers would not be able to return to their hometowns to farm, so a large number of Hunan troops had to scatter among the people, and many of them joined the Tiandihui, and the Tiandihui became stronger and stronger.

It is difficult to manage a big family and a big business, so later on, there was a situation where the "Triad Society", "Qing Gang (Qing Gang)" and "Ge Lao Hui" stood up against each other. There are also countless small branches such as "Small Knife Club" and "Dagger Club". In fact, whether it is the Triad Society, the Youth Gang, the Gelaohui, or even those small gangs, they still belong to the big system of the Tiandihui.It's just that the gangs in various places no longer have affiliation. Even the gangs in one province and one place don't buy into each other.

If the power is too scattered, the power to hit is not strong enough. Therefore, after the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Uprising, the gangs of Tiandihui never achieved any decent results.Because they don't understand this truth: intensity always wins over breadth, just like finding a rich mine to dig, far better than digging a piece here and a little bit there among various poor mines. Unexpectedly, times have changed, and the opportunity will come again decades later.At the end of the Qing Dynasty, with a series of defeats and the signing of unequal treaties, not only the status of the common people became lower and lower, but also the indemnity apportioned made everyone's quality of life lower and lower. People were increasingly dissatisfied with the rule of the Qing Dynasty.

At this time, some elites stood up and advocated revolution everywhere. However, although these elites were powerful, they were all unarmed "three noes" scholars: no power, no money, and no soldiers.Sun Yat-sen, Kang Youwei, and Liang Qichao are all like this. Therefore, uniting various anti-Qing forces to form a united front has become the only choice for elites.Naturally, uniting the ready-made anti-Qing forces—the Tiandihui system—was on their agenda.After all, gangs need money and people, and the most important thing is that they have penetrated into all levels of society, and their power is very good and strong.

Chen Duxiu, the king of Yue, once conducted an investigation on the Green Gang.He said: The Green Gang is the most powerful and powerful group in Shanghai. It penetrates every corner. The orders of their old man (leader) are more effective than the government. The order and tranquility of Shanghai are also controlled by them...Shanghai has only three million people However, the Green Gang has more than 500,000 members. Fortunately, from the Warring States period when Su Qin and Zhang Yi made long-distance and near-distance attacks, to Zhuge Liang of the Three Kingdoms of the Later Han Dynasty allied with Wu to resist Cao, politicians have always been very eloquent.With Sun Yat-sen's language ability and organizational ability, it is still easy to get the gang.

Therefore, Sun Yat-sen later publicly joined Zhigongtang, a branch of the Tiandihui organized by overseas Chinese, and Huang Xing also became the leader of the Gelaohui.As for Chiang Kai-shek, although he was just an ordinary member of the Green Gang, he was surrounded by his brother Chen Qimei who was the leader, and his teacher Jinrong. Since the revolution and the gang have had a close relationship, the gang has a special name "huidang".The Hui Party paid generously to support the revolution, and it was able to charge and break the enemy during the armed uprising.I don't know if Sun Yat-sen and the others can turn the Huidang into an iron-blooded division?