Chapter 43 Chapter 42: Stone Man with One Eye

One afternoon more than 600 years ago, under the scorching sun, countless peasants were working hard with shouts, and the strong soldiers of the Yuan Dynasty waved their whips, mercilessly beating the peasants' peeling and red bodies. There was only a burst of screams, and from time to time someone fell down and couldn't get up again. With ropes tied to their bodies, the peasants took a deep breath, sank to the bottom of the Yellow River, filled baskets with sand, and slowly surfaced.The water of the Yellow River flows through the high slopes of the loess, washing down a large amount of silt, which is abnormally turbid. As the Yellow River continues to flow, the silt is deposited continuously. As time goes by, the water level of the Yellow River becomes higher and higher, so that the Yellow River floods year after year.

Therefore, the Yellow River must be dredged on a large scale every year to prevent the riverbed from rising and causing floods. The ancestor of Maojindao, General Liu, was originally named Liu Jing. A small foreman or something.At the end of the Yuan Dynasty, the imperial court was decaying, and the people were in dire straits. Those who captured the Yellow River were generally the lowest-ranking "Han people" (the Han and other nationalities in the original Jin-ruled areas) and "Southern people" (the former Southern Song-ruled Han and other nationalities). The people have long been unbearable due to the continuous high-intensity labor and years of famine. They are looking forward to a legendary thing to give them mysterious power and guide them to resist the ruler at that time.

Although Liu Jing is a small foreman, he has to do the work himself. This time he floated to the surface again, poured out the basket full of sand, and took a deep breath. Before he could take a few more breaths of fresh air, the A shadow of a whip floated over again: "Hurry up and get down! Everyone who delays the construction period will be beheaded!" Liu Jing was whipped and continued to dive into the water angrily. Together with several other people, holding their breath, they scraped the sand at the bottom of the Yellow River and packed it into baskets.Suddenly, Liu Jing felt that the shovel for digging sand hit something hard, and he couldn’t dig it out after a few more strokes. The water in the Yellow River was very turbid, and the underwater visibility was very low. Liu Jing could only vaguely see that the other people who came down also stopped. He moved, looked closely at the thing, and groped along the outline.Liu Jing groped around and was basically sure that it was a statue of a stone man. His heart skipped a beat immediately, because at that time there was a saying among the peasants who governed the Yellow River that it was about stone figures. Really surprised.But under the water, I still couldn't see the appearance of the stone man clearly, so I could only float to the surface to take a breath. At the same time, more people were called, with ropes, groping to tie the stone man to the rope, and everyone shouted to work Shouting the chant from time to time, he hurriedly carried the stone man ashore.

The stone man was covered with a layer of sand, and he couldn't see his face clearly. He only felt that his body was extraordinarily strong, his limbs were fine and thick, and he seemed to possess extraordinary strength.In fact, it is not surprising that something was dug out in the Yellow River. In the past, countless ships sailed through the Yellow River, and countless of them sank to the bottom of the river due to various reasons. The bottom of the Yellow River, which has been going on for a long time, seems to have become a large natural warehouse with everything. In the past, people often dug antiques, stone figures, stone lions, etc. at the bottom of the Yellow River.

But everyone felt that this stone man seemed to be a little different. Although they were both stone men, this would always make people feel strange. Combined with the words that were circulated at that time, everyone felt a little excited.Several people hurriedly scooped water from the Yellow River with bamboo hats, basins and other utensils, and washed the stone man. The face of the stone man was immediately revealed when the water rushed through. The crowd couldn't close their mouths, and they were stunned by the sight in front of them: the stone man actually had only one eye, which grew on his forehead. One eye, provoke the Yellow River to rebel against the world"!This is exactly the saying that has been widely circulated by the people who govern the Yellow River. The one-eyed man and the strange prophecy are not bad at all, and all of this has been verified.More and more people saw it with their own eyes, and they believed even more that all this was arranged by God.Things quickly spread around, and soon spread throughout the Central Plains.

Soon afterwards, Liu Futong, Han Shantong and others slaughtered white horses, cattle and sheep, and all the heroes swore blood to form an alliance. I listened to Mao Jindao talking vividly, and the scene at that time seemed to be reproduced in front of my eyes, and the strange one-eyed man kept shaking in front of my eyes.Er Xia said: "It's common sense. The stone man must have been buried in the Yellow River in advance by Liu Futong, Han Shantong and others, and then spread this sentence to everyone. How could the farmers at that time have such a high awareness and understanding as we do now? I guess I was suffocating in my heart, and I wanted to go against it a long time ago. When I saw that the rumored stone man and the prophecy were completely in line, I believed in God's will even more, so I couldn't do it otherwise, and I couldn't stop it! "

I also feel the same way, this rebellion is not an easy thing, once it fails and is caught, it will be cut to death, and no one is willing to do it unless it is urgent and there is no way out.So even if they rebelled, at first they relied on the prestige of others to get everyone's response. Chen Sheng and Wu Guang used the banner of Xiang Yan, a famous general of the Chu State, and Liu Futong also claimed to be a descendant of Emperor Huizong of Song Dynasty, to unite everyone and restore our Han nationality. . The ancient people were more superstitious about some things, so it was very common to absorb religious people to launch uprisings in the form of religion. The most typical ones were the Yellow Turban Army uprising at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, as well as the White Lotus Rebellion in the Qing Dynasty and the God Worshiping religion in the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.Liu Futong and Han Shantong were also leaders of the White Lotus Sect. They used religious forms to carry out propaganda and secret activities, and finally launched an uprising, which is also in line with the ancient uprising form.

I just said that rebellion is a very dangerous thing, and no one is willing to do it unless it is absolutely necessary. In ancient times, as long as the common people had something to eat and land to cultivate, no one would rebel at all.Years of disasters in the Central Plains at the end of the Yuan Dynasty, starvation on the way, people have no way of life, but even so, no one will boldly resist the tyranny tomorrow, what is the reason?It is the arrangement of God. Common people are generally unwilling to do things that do not conform to God’s will. What they can do is to pray all day long for a god to help everyone get out of trouble and come to a peaceful world. As long as this god gives an order, They will do it without hesitation.The common people hated the corrupt bureaucrats and landlords deeply, and they were desperately eager to destroy them. I think many insurgents took advantage of this, and created some signs of conforming to God's will in the eyes of the common people, leading them to participate in the rebellion.Therefore, I also think that this one-eyed stone man is something that Liu Futong and Han Shantong prefabricated, and the prophecy was passed on among the people, just to make people believe that this is the arrangement of God.

I also said my thoughts to Mao Jindao, Mao Jindao shook his head with a wry smile and said: "Maybe that's the case, but the records left by Liu Jing to future generations are not the case. This stone man Far from being that simple!" As soon as I heard his words, I knew that there must be something hidden in it, so I asked: "Is there some kind of connection between the one-eyed eye of this stone man and the ghost eye of the blood slave?" Zhang Shicheng, Shen Wansan and other relevant figures we inferred to be involved all jumped out, but what does the appearance of the one-eyed man have to do with this stone man?

Mao Jindao said: "Liu Jing and everyone will soon spread the news of the discovery of the stone man. Soon Liu Futong's leader launched an uprising. Liu Jing joined Liu Futong's uprising army and became a small leader all the way. At that time, the Yuan Dynasty government They were very shocked and strangled the rebel army. For a while, the rebel army faced great difficulties. Most of the troops led by Liu Jing were peasants who dug sand and dredged the bottom of the Yellow River. Because they were good underwater, the rebel army So they arranged to salvage some things from sunken ships in the area where the accidents of the Yellow River were frequent in the past to raise military pay. Later, this army stopped fighting at all, and finally gradually evolved into an army that was looking for graves. Liu Jing once led the army into I found an ancient mountain tomb of unknown age, found the inner and outer coffins, and finally opened the coffin lid to see that the corpse inside was actually wearing a mask, and then uncovered the mask, and found that the person buried inside the coffin was not a real person, but a stone On the carved figure, if you take a closer look, you will find a few words engraved on the left chest: The stone man has one eye, stirring up the Yellow River to rebel against the world!"

I was shocked when I heard it, and immediately thought of the one-eyed stone man mentioned just now. In doubt, Er Xia asked: "Why is the stone man buried in this tomb? What happened to Liu Jing after he found the stone man." Mao Jin Dao said: "Liu Jing was also surprised at that time, because the location of this tomb happened to be in the lower reaches of the Yellow River. When they found the stone man, they immediately sank the stone man into the river again in order to avoid being discovered by the Yuan army and causing death. In the end, he suspected that this stone man might have been washed up to this location along the Yellow River, and was finally discovered again, but he couldn't figure out how this stone man was buried by everyone!" I was also confused. I had never heard that the tomb was built to bury a stone man before. I shook my head and thought to myself: This strange tomb of the ancients is really troublesome. Mao Jindao said again: "Liu Jing thought it was strange at the time, but he didn't dare to act rashly. At that time, he didn't touch anything in the coffin. He came here later for convenience, so he drew a map of this place and then retreated. "Later, Zhang Shicheng was bought by the Yuan Dynasty court and attacked Liu Futong's rebel army. Liu Futong was killed in Anfeng. Thanks to their ability, they saved their lives. Zhang Shicheng recruited them and continued to work for him. As the other larger ones were excavated one by one, Liu Jing gradually forgot about the stone man tomb , until one day, he captured a general under Zhu Yuanzhang in a war, that is, the one-eyed man mentioned earlier. He found that the appearance of this man was so strange that he looked like a dug out Yellow River Stone Man. The stone man was not an ordinary thing. He killed that man under the instigation of his subordinates. One day after that, he suddenly felt that his eyes were swelled up, and the two eyeballs seemed to be squeezed by something. Together, he seemed to feel that his energy had become much stronger, but this feeling made him very scared. "Just when he was very helpless, he found a bronze treasure letter in Liu Wushang's jade coffin in the Temple of Heaven, but he couldn't open it. When he fell asleep with it, he suddenly had a dream, a mysterious People told him that you will become a one-eyed person under the evil curse of the ghost eye of the blood slave, but there is a treasure that can save you, that is the treasure letter you have now, as long as you put it back in its original place, you Naturally, this curse will be lifted."