Chapter 81 262 The Heroine Wang Conger

When Heshen was in power, the Qing Dynasty was very corrupt, local officials were rampant, and the people complained.At that time, in Hubei and Henan, the White Lotus Sect became popular again.Liu Song, a native of Anhui, went to Henan to preach. He took advantage of the opportunity of treating the common people to persuade them to join the religion. Later, he was discovered by the government and exiled to Gansu. Liu Song's apprentices Liu Zhixie and Song Zhiqing fled to Hubei and continued to preach.They propagated that the Qing Dynasty was about to perish, and that a new world would emerge in the future, and those who joined the religion would be given land.The local poor peasants were fed up with the exploitation of the landlords and longed for land. After hearing this propaganda, they joined the White Lotus Sect one after another.

The news that more and more people joined the White Lotus Sect alarmed Emperor Qianlong.Emperor Qianlong ordered the provincial palaces to arrest believers.Some officials were veterans of extortion, so they took the opportunity to send servants to check from door to door. Regardless of whether you are a believer or not, you have to spend a sum of money to "honor" them.The rich paid for their lives, while the poor who had no money were arrested and tortured in prisons, and even died.There was an official in Wuchang who tried to extort money from the common people, but failed. He made accusations, and thousands of people were implicated.Whether believers or non-believers, they were persecuted until their families were destroyed, and they hated the government even more.

Liu Zhixie, the leader of the White Lotus Sect, arrived in Xiangyang and called a meeting of believers to discuss.Everyone said: "In this world, the government is really forcing the people to rebel! Why don't you simply rebel." After some discussions, it was decided to use the slogan "The government is forcing the people to rebel" to start a mass uprising, and sent believers to various places to contact. In 1796 AD, the year when Emperor Jiaqing came to the throne, the Bailian believers held uprisings in Yidu, Zhijiang and other places in Hubei.Qi Lin, the leader of the White Lotus Sect in Xiangyang, originally planned to revolt on the Lantern Festival, but accidentally leaked the news, and was attacked by the government. Qi Lin and more than a hundred companions were killed.

Qi Lin has a young wife named Wang Cong'er, who was originally a performer in the Jianghu. She has practiced martial arts since she was a child.Determined to avenge her husband and fellow rebels, she worked with Qi Lin's apprentice, Yao Zhifu, to reorganize the rebel team. Within a month, an insurgent army of 40,000 to 50,000 was organized.Wang Cong'er led the team with other leaders to attack the government everywhere and punish corrupt officials. When Wang Cong'er revolted in Hubei, the Bailian believers in Sichuan and Shaanxi also raised troops to respond.The flames of the uprising spread across the vast areas of the three provinces, and some poor people and refugees joined the uprising team.

When Emperor Jiaqing saw that the uprising army was getting bigger and bigger, he panicked, and quickly ordered the governors, governors, generals, generals and other officials of all sizes to send a large number of people to suppress it.But those high officials and generals only know how to embezzle military pay, they don't know how to fight. Wang Cong'er divided his troops into three groups, fighting from Hubei to Henan.The rebel army was not only brave but also flexible in fighting.When they were marching, they didn't form a team, they didn't meet the officers and soldiers head-on, and they didn't take the flat roads, but chose the mountain trails, looking for opportunities to attack the officers and soldiers.They also divided the soldiers into many small teams, hundreds of people in one team, divided and combined, going south and north, making the officers and soldiers who surrounded and suppressed them dizzy and exhausted.

Wang Cong'er's rebel army fought mobilely in Hubei, Henan, and Shaanxi, attacking the official army.In the second year, he joined forces with the uprising army there in Sichuan. Seeing the failure of the encirclement and suppression by the army, Emperor Jiaqing was so angry that his eyes were red. He cursed Wang Cong'er as the chief culprit, and issued another edict to severely reprimand some generals who led the troops. , and strictly urged generals from all over the country to concentrate their forces to encircle and suppress Wang Cong'er's rebel army. The general of the Qing army, Ming Ming, proposed a vicious strategy to Emperor Jiaqing, asking landlords everywhere to organize armed militias and build blockhouses.As soon as the rebel army came, they drove the people into the bunkers, so that the rebel army could not find help from the masses, and could not get food and grass supplies.This approach is called "hardening the wall and clearing the wild".Emperor Jiaqing ordered all regions to adopt this strategy, and the activities of the rebel army became more and more difficult.

The Qing army besieged Wang Cong'er in northern Sichuan.Wang Cong'er got rid of the siege of the Qing army and personally led 20,000 troops to attack Xi'an. Unexpectedly, he was blocked by the official army in Xi'an and was defeated. When he returned to Hubei, Mingliang led the official army to pursue closely.The rebel army was surrounded by government troops at the back, and was intercepted by the armed landlord militia in front, and finally fell into the enemy's encirclement at the Sancha River in Yunxi (in today's Hubei Province, Yunyin yun). Fearless in the face of danger, Wang Cong'er commanded the rebel army to retreat to the forest of Maoshan, preparing to organize a breakout.When the officers and soldiers found out, they surrounded Maoshan again, and crowded up from the front and back of the mountain.After tenacious resistance, the rebel army finally failed.Wang Cong'er and Yao Zhifu saw that they could not break through, so they retreated to the top of the mountain, jumped off the steep cliff, and sacrificed heroically.

After the death of the heroine Wang Cong'er, rebel armies from all over the country continued to fight against the government.It took the Qing Dynasty nine years to suppress the uprising.However, after this severe blow, the Qing Dynasty never recovered. After the death of Emperor Jiaqing, his son Minning (Minmin) came to the throne, that is, Emperor Xuanzong of Qing Dynasty, also called Emperor Daoguang.After Emperor Daoguang ascended the throne, the Qing Dynasty declined more and more. Western capitalist countries took the opportunity to intensify their aggression, and the national crisis became more and more serious.In 1840, the twentieth year after Emperor Daoguang ascended the throne, the Opium War broke out.Since then, China has gradually changed from a feudal society to a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society. In order to oppose the aggression of capitalist imperialism and feudal rule, the heroic Chinese people have launched an indomitable and arduous struggle.Chinese history has entered a new period - the period of modern history.