Chapter 56 bloody record

Regarding the information revealed by Liu Rushi, although both Yu Huai and Shen Shizhu felt dubious, but as far as Qian Qianyi was far away in Beijing, the desire to return to Jiangnan was indeed becoming more and more urgent. Originally, in the more than three months after arriving in Beijing, the Qing Dynasty treated him quite favorably. Not only did he confer official positions according to the ranks of the Chongzhen period, but also agreed to his request to let him participate in the "History of Ming Dynasty" as a vice president. revision.As for daily life, try to give care as much as possible.As a demoted official who has committed the crime of "arrogation" and has passed the age of sixty, this is probably the best ending that can be expected. What's more, as long as he is determined and conscientious, it should not be difficult to spend the rest of his life.In fact, Qian Qianyi, who had always been worried, was indeed relieved at first, and was very grateful for the "magnificence of the emperor's grace" of the new dynasty.However, people are so strange that when the imminent crisis has passed, those thoughts that have been repressed and retreated to the depths of the heart often resurface.Gradually, Qian Qianyi began to feel that life was not so comfortable.Although the compilation of "History of Ming Dynasty" is still in the preparatory stage, and the affairs are not busy, and there is no shortage of friends who exchange poetry and wine in Beijing, he still feels empty all day long and cannot be happy.

Of course, if you want to talk about the reasons, there are naturally reasons, for example, Liu Rushi is not around - this is probably the most important.To be honest, although it has only been more than four months since we broke up, in Qian Qianyi's feeling, it seems that I don't know how many years have passed.And Beijing and Nanjing are separated by thousands of miles, and the exchange of letters can be as fast as one and a half months, and as late as nearly two months.Therefore, so far, he and his family have only passed two letters, and the second letter has not yet received an answer.Then, Qian Qianyi has no way of knowing their current situation and Liu Rushi's situation.Among them, Liu Rushi was naturally the most concerned about Qian Qianyi.It's true that this little woman's capriciousness and heartlessness, and her resolute refusal to accompany him to the north, did annoy Qian Qianyi quite annoyed at first.But after a few months, when he thought about the matter over and over again, he gradually felt that the other party's stubbornness seemed understandable.Because when Emperor Hongguang fled and the left-behind ministers in Nanjing decided to open the door to welcome the surrender, Liu Rushi had already made up his mind to die for the country, but he begged repeatedly and took Chi Shui as an oath, saying that he would continue to work for the restoration of the Ming Dynasty. It was only because of his effectiveness that he kept her.If this is the case, then there is really no reason for her to accompany me to Beijing to make a fool of herself and humiliate her.It was precisely because he understood the ambition and mood of the concubine that Qian Qianyi finally dispelled his resentment towards her and the hope of letting her go north, and wrote such a letter to his family.It's just that the meaning was passed back, whether or not he could get out of the South Return smoothly, and how to get out of the South Return, to be honest, Qian Qianyi had no idea at all.Because of this, his mood has become even more depressed in recent days...

Right now, it is the twenty-eighth day of the twelfth lunar month, and there are only three days left before the New Year.Since Qian Qianyi didn't have any family members by his side, he didn't have much to do. It was nothing more than cleaning the house, shaving his head, and preparing some festive items as usual.A few personal servants started to get it done quickly.Therefore, this afternoon, in the National History Museum of the Imperial Academy, although there was a message from the superiors that the class could be dismissed early so that everyone could go back to take care of the New Year's affairs, Qian Qianyi still stayed in the editing room, continuing to read The various historical materials there are not in a hurry to leave.

He didn't want to leave so early, because even if he returned to his "home" outside Xuanwumen, there was actually nothing to do.In addition, when this kind of New Year's Eve is approaching, seeing the neighbors and their families get together and prepare for the New Year lively, I feel even more lonely and deserted.It would be better to simply avoid the hustle and bustle of the world, not seeing or hearing, and feel better.What's more, as early as the pre-Ming Dynasty, this place was already the "National History Museum". After more than 270 years of accumulation, the historical materials stored in it are rich, complete in categories, and detailed in records, which are far beyond Qian Qianyi's original imagination.If it is said that as early as when Changshu was idle at home, he had thought of compiling the "History of Ming Dynasty" by himself, and collected a lot of materials for it; Compared with the collection, the little information I have is probably not even a drop in the bucket, it is too insignificant.Therefore, right now he has been hesitant to leave, and it is also because he is completely fascinated by the priceless treasure in front of him, and always wants to look through it more.

Of course, among these voluminous edicts, memorials, inscriptions, proclamations, genealogy, sacrificial texts, court tickets, residence newspapers, pond newspapers, various archives, daily life notes, time constitution books, and even Qingci, recipes, medical records, etc. Among other historical materials, Qian Qianyi is most interested in those secret files that have never been made public in the past.Especially in the entire Ming Dynasty, there were several major events that shook the government and the public, but the origin of the incident was different from each other, and it was never clear. Qian Qianyi was very eager to find out some clues from these secret files.For example, at the beginning of the founding of the Ming Dynasty, the so-called "Battle of Jingnan" in which Zhu Di, the king of Yan, the later Emperor Chengzu, marched south from Yanjing, invaded Nanjing, and seized the throne from his nephew Emperor Jianwen, was later There have always been rumors that Emperor Jianwen did not die, but escaped from the tunnel by taking advantage of the fire in the palace.These days, Qian Qianyi searched through the files at that time, but found no record of such signs, so it can be generally concluded that the folk rumors are not credible.For another example, during the reign of Tianqi, the three major cases—梃打, Hongwan, and Yigong—were used by Wei Zhongxian’s eunuchs to cruelly persecute the Donglin Party members. The joints are still indistinct.As one of the parties involved, Qian Qianyi naturally paid special attention to this.This time, after searching carefully, I actually got a lot of results... However, there are too many historical materials in the library, and because of the age, they have not been systematically sorted out, so it takes a lot of time and effort to find them.At this moment, Qian Qianyi wanted to find out what caused the big explosion that occurred in Beijing in the sixth year of the Apocalypse. As a result, the sky outside the window was clearly It darkened, reminding him that it was getting late and it was time to think about going home.

"However, the unitary hour has not yet arrived. It's always because the winter in the north gets dark early. Then, maybe it's not too late to leave half an hour later?" Qian Qianyi put the file in his hand back to its original place, and turned around Looking at the clear evening sky outside the window, hesitantly thought, at the same time, he heard light and hasty footsteps coming from the corridor outside the door, and then, the door was pushed open with a sound of "ah", and a young official stepped in. Come in.However, that person obviously didn't expect that there were people in the room, so when he saw Qian Qianyi standing in the dark, he was taken aback.But then he let out an "oh", quickly put a big bundle in his hand on the table, took a step back, saluted and said:

"The low-ranking king seeks benevolence. Because I don't know that the adults are here, I have offended you. I pray for forgiveness!" Qian Qianyi had already recognized that the other party was an editor in the courtyard, so he waved his hands and said, "That's all! The students stayed here just to check the archives. Well, why did Xiongtai not return?" Wang Qiuren still clasped his hands and replied respectfully: "My lord, I will be on duty in the library today as a rule. I just received a batch of newly received miscellaneous documents at the door in the duty room. I am afraid that they will be lost, so I sent them in for storage."

Qian Qianyi nodded: "In that case, please do what you want, brother." As he said this, he couldn't help being a little curious in his heart: "Newly received miscellaneous files? I don't know what is there?" Therefore, waiting for the young editor to be attentive He lighted the lamp for him, said goodbye, and after turning around to leave, he walked to the table of the Eight Immortals, took the big bundle, unwrapped it, and found that there were scrolls, letters, and some other texts in it. Miscellaneous, varied, and unorganized.It seems that I don't know which yamen collected it, and they probably thought it had some historical value, so they forwarded it here.However, there is a list attached to it, which lists all the items one by one.Qian Qianyi picked it up and flipped through it. He felt that it was quite normal, and was about to throw it away. Suddenly, as if touched by something, his heart moved slightly, so he raised the list to his eyes again.At this moment, his eyes were caught immediately, because there was such a title written on the list: "Ten Diaries of Yangzhou".

"What? "Ten Diaries of Yangzhou"! There is such a thing!" Qian Qianyi thought in surprise.When he was still in Nanjing, he heard that after Yangzhou fell and Shi Kefa was martyred, King Duoduo of Yu cruelly ordered the city to be massacred for ten days in order to avenge the people of Yangzhou who had defended the isolated city and refused to surrender.As a result, it is unknown how many innocent people died tragically under the sword of the Qing army.When the news spread, the whole Jiangnan was shaken.It can be said that the reason why Qian Qianyi and his colleagues decided to sacrifice the city and surrender was not unrelated to the fear that Nanjing would suffer the same fate.However, since they were put under the strict control of the Qing army immediately afterward, and were brought to Beijing later, he still knows very little about the specific circumstances of the massacre.Now that he suddenly found such a thing in front of him, Qian Qianyi was really surprised, and couldn't stop his heart from beating so fast that when he stretched out his hand, he was trembling all the time.

He finally controlled himself and found "Ten Diaries of Yangzhou" from the pile of miscellaneous files.It turned out that it was a text transcribed on ordinary paper, bound into a thin volume, and judging from the spine, it should have about forty or fifty pages.However, probably because of poor preservation and the passing of time, there are quite a few incomplete pages, either with damaged or incomplete pages, or with entire pages lost.Can't find the author's name on it either. "Well, the writing is still clean. It looks like a copy. I just don't know where the original is, and who is the author who took the risk to write this kind of text?" Qian Qianyi thought, his hands trembling again, and finally, I had no choice but to spread the book on the table and flip through the pages by the light.Since the opening part had disappeared, the first thing he read was this passage:

Qian Qianyi thought to himself: "It turns out that the author lived by the city wall, so he saw clearly the situation when the Qing army entered the city. Then in the first few pages, there must be records of the situation when the city broke down. It’s a pity that it’s lost.” He thought regretfully, so he continued to look down—— If, when reading the first paragraph, Qian Qianyi still felt that after the city was broken, it was expected that the soldiers took advantage of the disorder to extort money, so he was not surprised, then after reading all the way, his heart gradually It tightened, and the cold hairs also stood up.Undoubtedly, based on his familiar reading history, coupled with what he has seen and heard in recent years, he can be said to be very familiar with the tragedy of human life in wars and disasters; When shaken, there is a feeling of being breathless.Even so, he couldn't help but continue to read—— In wars, the most tragic fate is always women.They are not only inevitable to die like men, but also often suffer all kinds of humiliation and ravages.As for the situation mentioned in the article, this kind of situation where groups of people are in front of their relatives and are played by the conquerors at will, in Qian Qianyi's memory, although it is not unique, it still makes him unable to stop his blood. Chung, there is a feeling of overwhelming resentment.However, the article scolded the middle-aged garment-making woman for being shameless and trying her best to flatter the Qing soldiers when her compatriots were brutally raped. ... These two feelings were mixed together, so that for a moment, Qian Qianyi became quite disturbed.In order to get rid of the trouble, he tried his best to restrain his mind and continued to read.Unexpectedly, I just read the sentence "the west room of the hall behind the house", and several pages are missing after that.As a result, after escaping from the front hall, what dangers the author experienced and how he escaped became unclear.And the next thing is already recorded on the second day, that is, the twenty-seventh day.On the contrary, it seems that the author unexpectedly found his wife and children again, which makes people somewhat relieved. After reading this, Qian Qianyi found that the handwriting below became blurred, and because the pages were damaged, the reading was intermittent and often incoherent.He has spent a lot of effort, but he can only get a general idea. What follows is that after the author and his wife escaped, they first hid in the straw pile, and then fled into the dung cellar, and suffered a lot.It was so hard to survive until the fifth day, just hoping that the Qing soldiers would seal the sword and amnesty, when suddenly there was news that the whole city would be bloodbathed again, so the surviving common people became even more frightened, and one after another fled the city desperately in the dark night, and as a result, countless People died under the walls.The author didn't run away because he cared about his elder brother whose life and death were uncertain, but the experience was tragic enough.First, his wife was brutally beaten by a hawk-headed Qing soldier and almost died. Then his lost brother tried his best to find him, but was stabbed in the chest by the chasing Qing soldier, exposing his lungs. ...In addition, the article also mentioned that the He family grave where they took refuge was set on fire by the Qing soldiers, and countless thatched cottages were instantly reduced to ashes, and the people who fled in panic were brutally intercepted and killed by the Qing soldiers. Almost none of them survived...Finally, When the Qing soldiers, who had killed enough and robbed enough, retreated back to their camps, those scoundrels, bandits and grass bandits followed and followed, causing the people who survived the catastrophe to be ravaged again... The content of the text is roughly the same.As for the epilogue of this tragic massacre, it is described in the last two pages that are still well preserved: ...