Chapter 10 1. Natural disasters and man-made disasters, cutting hair for livelihood

The first half of the fourth year from Yuan to Zhengzheng (1344) was the most difficult time for the people in the Huaihe River Basin: drought, locust plagues and the spread of plague.First, the seedlings withered, the fields were cracked, and locusts were everywhere under the hot sun, and then there was a terrible plague. People in Taiping Township, Zhongli, Haozhou (now Fengyang, Anhui) area, every household was dying of the plague, but the government remained indifferent to this and continued to extort money from the people.In less than half a month, three members of Zhu Wusi's family in Guzhuang Village died, leaving only the 16-year-old youngest son Zhu Chongba and second son Zhu Chongliu.This Zhu Chongba was Zhu Yuanzhang who later established the Ming Dynasty.

Looking at the dead relatives, Zhu Chongba and his elder brother were in great pain, and what was even more embarrassing and painful was that they had no money to arrange funerals for their relatives.The Zhu family, who had no money and no land, didn't even have a place to bury people. In desperation, Zhu Chongba begged the landlord Liu De to borrow money to help, but he was scolded bloody.Zhu Chongba was really angry to the extreme, and hated these rich and heartless people. With the help of poor neighbors, Zhu Chongba had a burial place to bury his parents.The pain in Zhu Chongba's heart is the loss of his loved ones, but the real pain is the lack of material needed for survival. In this day of natural disasters and man-made disasters, food can only be grass roots and bark.After Zhu Chongba's parents died, there were only thirteen rice seeds left in the family's grain, which fell on the ground when officials robbed them, and Zhu Chongba's father picked them up one by one.Looking at the thirteen rice seeds, thinking of the insult of the landlord and the cruelty of the officials, the young Zhu Chongba was filled with anger, and he secretly vowed that one day he would become famous.Originally, he only wanted to be a self-supporting farmer, but this most basic right was squeezed out by reality.

Depressed Zhu Chongba thought about it, full of ambitions but had nowhere to go.His family originally moved here, but now his parents are both dead, and he has no relatives or friends. The more Zhu Chongba thinks about it, the more depressed he becomes, and he sleeps in the empty earthen house all day long.After wandering around like this for several months, his childhood playmates like Zhou Dexing and Tang He were all older than him, and they had already gone out to make a living, and there was no one to talk to.Seeing September, Zhu Chongba, who was hungry and depressed, decided to bid farewell to his second brother and go out of Guzhuang Village to wander alone.Hearing that Zhu Chongba was going to go out, the neighbor Aunt Wang was very worried. She said that Zhu Chongba's father made a wish in Huangjue Temple and asked Chongba to be a disciple of Master Gao Bin.It's better to be a monk than to go out and wander. Even if you have fulfilled your wish, you can still get a meal.

In this way, in desperation, Zhu Chongba went to Huangjue Temple and shaved his hair to become a monk. Zhu Chongba was not having a good time in Huangjue Temple.He never thought that he wanted to be a monk. Being a monk was just a temporary occupation, just for those few bowls of rice.Although he has shaved his hair and put on cassocks, he is formally a monk, but he still has all kinds of mundane world in his heart.Listening to the sound of bells, drums, wooden fish, and chanting scriptures every day, Zhu Chongba felt lonely in his heart. These sounds were helpless for him. Warm. When he was a child herding sheep and cattle for the landlord, Zhu Chongba always had a lot of ideas, his brain turned quickly, he had his own opinions in doing things, and he became the leader of his friends.At that time, Zhu Chongba's favorite game to play with his companions was pretending to be the emperor.Although he was dressed in rags, he was really proud to sit on the throne made of dirt and watch his companions pretending to kneel and kowtow three times and shout long live.What Zhu Chongba likes most to reward his little friends is food. He often rewards them with steamed buns generously. In the heart of little Zhu Chongba, the advantage of being an emperor is to have steamed buns to eat, so that others can also eat steamed buns.

Zhu Chongba is still the most responsible child.Once, he and his friends grazed cattle for the landlord, and they were very hungry when they herded the cattle, especially Zhou Dexing, Tang He, and Xu Da, who also complained that they were hungry. How, all of them are drooling.Chongba shouted loudly: "Yes!" Tang He, Xu Da and others asked in surprise, "What happened?" Zhong Ba laughed and said: "Meat, I will let you eat meat!" The partners were even more stunned in surprise, there were no steamed buns, where did the meat come from. Chong Ba didn't make a sound, and led a calf over, tied the calf's front and rear legs with a rope, picked up the ax for chopping wood, and slashed at the calf's neck.The friends immediately understood, laughed and hugged to help.Chongba asked Tang He and Xu Da to peel and cut the flesh, and asked other children to collect firewood.After a while, the group of children started a fire and ate delicious roast beef.

After eating the last piece of roast beef, Xu Da suddenly exclaimed, "How will the landlord explain after eating the calf?" Everyone looked at each other, complained to each other, and quarreled wildly, and a few younger ones were so frightened that they cried. At this time, Chongba patted his chest like an adult and said: "The idea of ​​eating cattle is my idea. Don't worry, everyone. I won't hurt you. I have a way." Chongba calmly buried the calf's skin and bones, covered the bloodstains from the cow cutting and stripping with soil, then picked up the calf's tail and walked towards the mountain crevice covered with weeds and thorns.

Friends, you look at me and I look at you, all inexplicably stunned, not knowing what Chongba is going to do. Chongba climbed to a higher place, thrust the calf's tail into the crevice of the rock on the mountain, and said loudly: "Let's tell the landlord that the calf has gone into the cave by itself, and it can't be pulled out. Only the tail is left." Stay here." The boys all applauded excitedly. Although the landlord was suspicious, he couldn't figure out what to do, so he beat Chongba and drove him home. Although Zhu Chongba suffered a lot this time and even lost his job, his courage won the trust of the boys and he became a supported king of children.

Whenever he thinks of these, Zhu Chongba in Huangjue Temple feels that he has found himself and the meaning of life.Because in Huangjue Temple, Zhu Chongba's status was the lowest, and he was often accused of making people around, doing all the dirty work, and he was full of anger.Fortunately, Zhu Chongba was smart and capable by nature, and he was appreciated by the abbot. After cleaning every morning, he would go to the abbot's room to learn how to read.Zhu Chongba is studious and has a good memory. When he has nothing to do during the day, he writes on the ashes of the Buddhist altar by hand, and he also recites words when he walks. , "Thousand Characters".In less than two months, Zhu Chongba knew hundreds of characters and learned some principles of life from the book.Reading and literacy has become the greatest joy in Zhu Chongba's temple career. However, before Zhu Chongba took root in Huangjue Temple, he was kicked out of the temple because of financial constraints within two months of becoming a monk.

After leaving Huangjue Temple, Zhu Chongba wandered around aimlessly.First, it went south all the way to Hefei, then went west to Gushi and Xinyang, then went north to Ruzhou (now Linru, Henan), Chenzhou (now Huaiyang, Henan), and east to Luyi, Bozhou, Yingzhou (now Fuyang, Anhui) and other places.Yunyou's life is actually begging for food in the name of a monk. Compared with being in a temple, it is much more difficult. Along the way, he has no fixed place to live, no food to eat, dogs chasing people, the world is cold and warm, and the world is hot and cold.After more than three years in this way, in the eighth year from Yuan to Zhengzheng (1348), I heard that someone in his hometown rebelled against the imperial court, and there were many changes, which caused Zhu Chongba to feel homesick.He went back and forth again, wearing a broken hat, holding a clay bowl, and holding a wooden fish, and returned to Huangjue Temple.

Not long after returning to Huangjue Temple, Zhu Chongba heard all kinds of information about the Red Turban Army: the Red Turban Army occupied Xiangyang, and the Yuan soldiers suffered heavy casualties; another Red Scarf Army captured Nankang, and the Yuan soldiers were defeated without a fight ; Sesame Li occupied Xuzhou, Xu Shouhui proclaimed himself emperor... These messages kept disturbing Zhu Chongba's heart. The wandering life in the past few years not only increased his experience, but also broadened his horizons.What's more, he didn't want to be a monk in the first place, but the emergence of these heroes in troubled times has stimulated his mentality to stand out even more.The hardships he has experienced in these years are nothing. What he can't forget is that he was insulted and ridiculed by the landlord. The pressure of survival is not terrible, and the dignity of life is inviolable.These days, Zhu Chongba's heart has been greatly disturbed. Looking back on the past and thinking about the future, he tossed and turned, unable to sleep.

When Zhu Chongba was in a state of confusion, he received a letter. This is written by his childhood friend Tang He.It turned out that Tang He had followed Guo Zixing's Red Scarf Army over the years and had established a thousand households. Now he occupied Haozhou, not far from Huangjue Temple.Hearing that Zhu Chongba was still in the temple, he wrote to invite him to join the army in Haozhou. This letter strongly impacted Zhu Chongba's heart.He paced back and forth in the temple, thinking over and over again, but still couldn't make up his mind to leave Huangjue Temple. Worried that the matter would be exposed, the careful Zhu Chongba burned the letter first.A few days later, the brother in the same room told Zhu Chongba quietly that someone already knew about the letter and they might report it to the police to let him escape quickly.Now Zhu Chongba was even more panicked, and secretly consulted with his childhood friend Zhou Dexing who came back from the outside not long ago. There is no way out for people.Zhu Chongba was in a trance, quietly went back to the temple, and decided to do a divination first to decide whether to stay or not.However, before reaching the mountain gate, he smelled a strong smell of fireworks. When he entered the temple, he saw that the courtyard was in a mess and all the monks were not there.It turned out that the soldiers of the Yuan Dynasty thought that Maitreya Buddha was enshrined in the temple, and suspected that the monks were in collusion with the Red Turban Army and burned all the nearby temples.Seeing this situation, Zhu Chongba felt that there was no place to settle down, and the temple could no longer stay, so he made up his mind to go to Haozhou to find Tanghe. From entering Huangjue Temple to leaving Huangjue Temple, being a monk is just a means for Zhu Chongba to make a living. It should be said that he has never been willing to be a monk.Although he has been hesitating and contradicting in his heart, in fact, his departure is doomed, and his determination is also made.However, it was during the time in Huangjue Temple that Zhu Chongba learned to read and understand things; it was also those days of wandering around that enabled him to increase his experience, see the world, broaden his horizons, and deepen his understanding of the world. The understanding of the society also exercised his strong physique; especially the familiarity with the customs and customs of Huaixi area laid the foundation stone for his later success.