Chapter 8 Chapter 7 The Terrible Adversary

These two people are heroes of the time. If they appeared in different dynasties, they should be able to achieve great things. Unfortunately, history is destined to make this era more lively. This is a knockout game, and only those who persist until the end can win. According to Gu Kaizhi's theory of eating sugar cane, let's introduce the weaker one first: Zhang Shicheng, male, born in 1321, is a smuggler of salt, from Taizhou. Here I will first talk about the industry of salt smuggling, which has existed for a long time in the feudal era.Salt is an item controlled by the state, and it cannot be sold without permission, but the seawater is stored there, and it will not be dried or sold, so many people are interested in this way of making money.

According to the theory of economics, monopoly will inevitably lead to the degradation and bureaucratization of the industry, and the ancient salt industry is no exception. The common people only need to pay one-third of the price to buy private salt that is much better than official salt.In order to strictly control the interests of this industry, the feudal governments of all dynasties, whether it is the Han, Wei, Southern and Northern Dynasties, Sui and Tang, Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, Song and Yuan, and regardless of whether their governance methods are Taoism, Confucianism or Legalism, have dealt with this issue. In fact, they all followed Han Feizi's theory.

This theory holds that: the common people know that going to the river to fish for gold will be punished by death, but they still do it because there is a fluke mentality, so the punishment should be increased. The punishment for selling illegal salt has also been increased. In the Sui and Tang Dynasties, selling one stone (about one hundred catties) of illegal salt was punishable by death. Everyone knows that Cheng Yaojin is a private salt dealer. Judging by his size, he should sell more than one stone. It is really puzzling that a hundred catties of private salt can still be released from prison through amnesty.

Then Zhang Shicheng's personality is very clear. First of all, he should be a person who is not afraid of death. If he is afraid of death, he can't do this. In addition, he should be a relatively rich person. If he is rich, he can make many friends. Finally, he He should have a deep-seated hatred for the rule of the Yuan Dynasty, because this government did not allow him to sell private salt and executed many of his friends. In the thirteenth year of Zhizheng (AD 1353), Zhang Shicheng revolted in Taizhou. He was a private salt dealer, so most of his uprising brothers were also in this business. He did not belong to the Red Scarf Army sequence mainly composed of poor peasants. It paved the way for the long-term conflict between him and Zhu Yuanzhang.

As one of the many insurgents at that time, Zhang Shicheng determined his historical status through a arduous battle. In the thirteenth year of Zhizheng (AD 1353), after Zhang Shicheng raised his troops, he successively captured Taizhou, Xinghua and other places, and established the capital in Gaoyou. He was called King Cheng, and the country was named Dazhou. Now it seems that the name of Tianyou is really good. Before Zhang Shicheng sat on the throne for a long time, the Yuan Dynasty sent troops to attack. In fact, the officials of the Yuan Dynasty also accepted death, and they would fight whoever claimed the title of king. Zhu Yuanzhang took advantage of this.

The famous official Tuotuo of the Yuan Dynasty we mentioned above led an army of one million (note, this is a real number) to attack Gaoyou. His courage and determination. At that time, many people suggested to give up Gaoyou. Zhang Shicheng thought for a long time and said a word: "Where else can we go?" Yes, where else can I go. To die here is to die! The Yuan army attacked the city with various weapons, including various types of artillery. Zhang Shicheng and his two younger brothers Zhang Shiyi and Zhang Shide stood guard on the tower, and all the soldiers could see them.More importantly, these insurgents had such a belief in their hearts.

Surrender is also death, resistance is also death, it is better to resist and die!At least die tragically! So, with the support of this spirit, Gaoyou, a seemingly weak town, resisted the million yuan army for three months. This is the strength that dares to fight. When Gaoyou was about to be captured, problems arose within the Yuan government. In previous history books, we always see many treacherous officials. These people only care about themselves and disregard the country. They are the objects of everyone's hatred. For example, Qin Yi, such as Jia Sidao, always come at critical moments and ruin the country's major affairs.Facts have proved that there are also treacherous ministers in minority regimes, and they will do the same.

The content after that was clichéd, the villain slandered the emperor, the emperor was worried that the generals outside would rebel, and ordered him to come back immediately, so Tuotuo evacuated Gaoyou, and his efforts to save the Yuan Dynasty were in vain. With God's blessing at the critical moment, the name is certainly good, but if you can't persist for those three months, you won't have the final victory. Therefore, what determines Zhang Shicheng's fate is not a good year name, but his courage. After this battle, Zhang Shicheng became famous all over the world. He continued to conquer the fertile areas of Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and became the richest person who did not occupy the largest area (as expected of a private salt business).

However, since then, Zhang Shicheng has changed. He has always been a small businessman, and suddenly he has the richest land in the country, no longer has to sell salt, has money, has a house, and holds steamed buns. White sugar is dipped in white sugar, and I want to dip brown sugar into brown sugar. Zhu Yuanzhang has an accurate evaluation of him, and he is small. This man does not have great ambitions, but he is indeed a good man, a very good man, he was born taciturn, he treated others leniently, exempted the taxes in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and the people in Jiangsu and Zhejiang received his favor and built ancestral halls for him one after another .But his too tolerant and lack of opinion also made him unable to become a hero, but only a hero.

The Chen Youliang we are going to introduce below is a real hero. But before introducing him, we must introduce his original boss, Xu Shouhui. Xu Shouhui, whose date of birth is unknown (the date of death is very accurate), was born in Luotian, Hubei. He was a cloth vendor. It is said that the young man was very energetic and upright. He was the most beautiful man in Luotian. Dissatisfied with the Yuan Dynasty, in the eleventh year of Zhengzheng (1351 A.D.), Liu Futong's uprising passed through his hometown. Xu Shouhui's long-term accumulated anger finally could not be suppressed, and he prepared to rebel. His method was still to propagate feudal superstition, this time it was Mingjiao.

In order to carry out propaganda, he also found two helpers, one is Zou Pusheng (a strong man) who worked in Macheng, and the other is Jiangxi monk Peng Yingyu (you should be familiar with it). After a few months of promoting Mingjiao, he launched an uprising in the Dabie Mountains. Conquering Luotian in one fell swoop, he was a branch of the Red Scarf Army, so he also wore a red scarf. The rebel army fought continuously, conquering Huangzhou and Xishui successively, and finally set their capital in Xishui County. His country name is worth mentioning. It can be called the most peculiar since ancient times. It is called Tianwan (not the year name). How did this year name come about? If you remove the above, you can find that it is Dayuan. This cloth dealer was afraid that his country name would not be able to suppress the Yuan Dynasty, so he came up with such a bad idea to get cheap on the words.Every time I see this year name, I always feel that it means that it will be over in a few days. At that time, Xu Shouhui's territory was very small, only Huangzhou and Xishui, but his ostentation was very large. He had all the institutions in the Yuan Dynasty, with only a few thousand people, and set up the Marshal's Office of the Commanding Army and the Ministry of Zhongshu. , the Privy Council, and the six departments of the Central Committee. I really don't know if he still has soldiers under his command. It is estimated that they have all gone to be cadres.In addition, Zou Pusheng was the grand master and Ni Wenjun was the leading marshal. At this time, a person joined his team. This person had an extraordinary appearance and a good handwriting. It was Chen Youliang. Among the rebels in the last years of the Yuan Dynasty, many leaders failed to withstand the sugar-coated shells of the Yuan Dynasty and were recruited. Even Zhu Yuanzhang had secretly communicated with the Yuan Dynasty. Only this person resisted the foreign rule of the Yuan Dynasty from the beginning to the end, and dared to act. Perseverance, persistence to the end, is a hero! Chen Youliang, male, born in 1320, originally surnamed Xie, worked as a fisherman, from Mianyang (now Xiantao, Hubei), and once worked as a clerk in the county. When Xu Shouhui's uprising army came to his hometown, he joined Xu Shouhui's army , because he was very educated and resourceful, he quickly gained the trust of Xu Shouhui and then Prime Minister Ni Wenjun. In the thirteenth year of Zhizheng (AD 1353), because Xu Shouhui had already proclaimed himself emperor (ignorant of current affairs), the Yuan ruler mobilized troops from several provinces to encircle Xu Shouhui and break through the capital. Peng Yingyu died in battle. Xu Shouhui woke up and led the troops Withdrew to the Huangmei area of ​​Hubei to fight guerrillas, and at the same time rectified the army.Then the Red Scarf Army counterattacked aggressively, recaptured Jiangxi and Hunan, and re-established the capital in Hanyang County (now Hanyang, Wuhan), changing the year name to Taiping. At that time, Xu Shouhui organized his troops really well. He wrote a word of Buddha on the back of each soldier, and said that this would make him invulnerable. This lie seems to be exposed easily, because soldiers will find it is not true when they arrive on the battlefield (don’t believe it) Try to shoot you), there is still the second half of this lie, if you are unfortunately killed in battle, it is not because the word is not effective, but because your heart is not sincere.In other words, I didn’t die because I wrote the words. If I die, I blame myself. Who made you dishonest! This kind of absurd logic similar to the Catch-22 was very marketable at the time, so his soldiers had to chant scriptures before going to the battlefield, which made many government troops of the Yuan Dynasty baffled, thinking they had run into a monk. The opposite is his generals. These people are not vegetarians. They are all first-class famous generals. Under Xu Shouhui, they are known as the so-called Four King Kongs. They are Zou Pusheng (commander in chief), Ding Pulang (madman, The reasons will be mentioned later), Zhao Pusheng (two swords are invincible), Fu Youde (never lost a battle).These four people led the troops to sweep the Yuan Dynasty army and established the Tianwan regime. In Xu Shouhui's army, brotherly loyalty is valued. If anyone betrays a brother, he will be despised and punished by everyone. This kind of organizational system can easily remind us of the famous Hongxing Gang, but there is loyalty There will definitely be people who don't speak morally.There have been no exceptions since ancient times. Prime Minister Ni Wenjun is such a person. He has been by Xu Shouhui's side all the time. He knows very well that this person has no outstanding talents other than being handsome. Xu Shouhui usurped the throne.However, he was stabbed and had no choice but to flee from Hanyang to Huangzhou, because Huangzhou was Chen Youliang's old nest. Ni Wenjun has always believed in Chen Youliang. He is not only Chen Youliang's leader, but also promoted Chen Youliang, making him a senior cadre in the army, and he can be regarded as his master. But he forgot an old Chinese proverb, there are students like the kind of teacher. What kind of person is Chen Youliang? You can use eight words to describe him. He is ruthless and bold. Judging from his later behavior, there is really nothing he dare not do. Others value loyalty more than anything else. But he treats loyalty like shit. Others dare not kill their bosses or brothers, but he did it without hesitation, and admitted without hesitation after finishing it, that I did it, what can you do. To analyze this character, we need to start from his childhood. He was originally a fisherman, and he was still the lowest kind of fisherman. In the Yuan Dynasty, this kind of fisherman generally did not go ashore. He lived and ate on the boat, and the villagers did not deal with them. Because they always have an inexhaustible fishy smell, Chen Youliang grew up in such an environment. He has been discriminated against and scolded by others since he was a child, as well as the kind of actions and eyes that hide away when he sees him, which makes him have a deep sense of inferiority in his heart. For him, the only way to change his destiny is to rely on himself! He studied hard and finally found a job writing documents in the local county government, but this job did not bring him dignity. Those who looked down on him still looked down on him, and the whispers and discussions that he often heard drove him crazy. It turns out that reading can't change one's identity. After thinking for a long time, Chen Youliang seems to have finally found a way to make others respect him. Climb up, keep climbing until the highest peak, those who look down on me will finally bow their heads in front of me. Therefore, when Xu Shouhui's rebel army came to his hometown, Chen Youliang, who was originally a civil servant of the Yuan Dynasty government, participated in the uprising, targeting the Yuan Dynasty who paid him his salary. His motivation for participating in the uprising was obviously different from that of the poor peasants. It was a signal that in Chen Youliang's heart, faith and loyalty did not exist. In his heart, the only important thing is power and status, and when he is high above, no one dares to despise him anymore! Among the things Chen Youliang studied, the Four Books and Five Classics and the Classics and History Collections are not important. The best he mastered are life philosophies such as "killing people to kill people", "cutting grass and roots", "no poison and no husband". Ni Wenjun admired his expertise, but what he didn't expect was that one day, Chen Youliang would use this trick on himself. When Ni Wenjun ran to Chen Youliang with a different nose and a different face, Chen Youliang still received him kindly, prepared a room and a change of clothes for him, and talked with him. The inside story was revealed, and the more he talked, the more angry he was, and tears were shed. Chen Youliang looked at him calmly, and asked a key sentence: "How about Zhao Pusheng and the others?" Hearing this, Ni Wenjun felt even more sad, "You don't know them, they are all Xu Shouhui's best friends, but if we work together, we can definitely defeat them." Well, that's enough, I don't have to ask any more. A day later, Xu Shouhui of Hanyang received Ni Wenjun's head.