The author of this book is Zhu Yuanzhang, followed by, Harry, Wei Zhongxian, Zhang, Wu Sangui and. Show the whole picture of the Ming Dynasty from seven angles.
The book focuses on the analysis of human nature, which makes us realize that heroes are also ordinary people. How would we feel if we reached that era through time and space? What kind of life will we live? Will men plow and women weave very pastoral?
1644 (in the seventeenth year of Chongzhen), on June 21st, the clearing outside Tongyuanmen, Chongqing.
You will see: 37,000 Ming troops gathered in a long line of hundreds of people, filed forward, reached the wooden box in front of the team, stretched out their right hands and put them on the box.
The soldier standing in front of the case fell down with a knife, his hand was broken, and blood gushed out from the broken arm like a fountain. The soldier with a knife kicked him away and shouted, "Next, hurry up!" " "
This is the Zhang department of the peasant uprising army in the late Ming dynasty dealing with the captured Ming army.
Chopping hands is Zhang's daily routine.
What about other places? It is even more chilling.
1635 (the eighth year of Chongzhen), on the sixth day of May, before dawn, Luzhou, Anhui suddenly became an uproar, and Zhang invaded the city, and everything was a mess. Yu Ruizi, a scholar, recalled, "My mother told me to run first, so leave her alone. My wife said the same thing. "
Later, he separated from his younger brother. Yu Ruizi, escorted by a soldier, walked in the street of the city. After passing a door, an old man guarded the door. The soldier asked, "Are there any animals at home?" Answer: "No" The soldier hacked the old man to death with a knife.
I happened to pass by my home on the road. Looking from the fire lane, I saw my grandmother standing on the back door frame and looking out. He was afraid to say hello to her. At this point, Yu Ruizi didn't know that her mother had sunk into the pond and her wife had jumped into the pond. Luckily, she has no neck.
16 16 (forty-four years of Wanli), Chen Qi, a juren from Zhucheng County, Shandong Province, went to Beijing to take the exam, passed by a famine-stricken place, and wrote a letter to the emperor based on his personal experience: "In the first month, he left home for the north and left the country for 20 miles. It is not surprising that he saw people scraping human flesh on the roadside, just like killing pigs and dogs. After walking for a long time, I saw the old woman holding a dead child and crying while cooking. Q:' I want to eat, why are you crying?' Yu yue said,' if you abandon it and eat it for others, you would rather fill your stomach and listen.' I can't eat or drink for days. "
Middle school history textbooks tell us that peasant uprising is the driving force of historical progress. However, a brief look at the history of the world will surprise us to find that the rule that "peasant uprisings are the driving force of historical progress" is only established in China.
There are few peasant uprisings in the west. In western Europe, during the 800 years from the 8th century to16th century, there were seven or eight peasant uprisings in dozens of countries. No dynasty in the west was overthrown by peasant uprisings.
As we all know, farmers in China are "the best people in the world", and they are the group that can bear hardships and social injustice most.
There is only one reason for such people to rebel: there is no way out.
(1) Farmers in China are the most strictly controlled group in the world.
China politicians invented the dual control system of "hukou system" and "Baojia system" from the very beginning, and everyone and every family were woven into the administrative network of the empire.
In these two thousand years, farmers in China were able to have enough food and clothes after the uprising and the establishment of a new dynasty. The rest of the time, I was struggling for food and clothing all my life. Facing the government, people are always afraid, evasive and tame, and there is only one choice: infinite tolerance.
(2) The living standard of farmers in China is far lower than that of European serfs. Some scholars have calculated that after excluding taxes, the per capita grain of farmers in China is less than 640 Jin. In medieval Europe, the annual grain consumption of a serf reached 1070 kg.
(3) The law of the development of authoritarian power can only be more and more greedy.
With the increase of population and the decrease of per capita resources, more and more people fall below the basic living standard.
(4) Western society has never developed to such a high degree of centralization and rigidity as China. Farmers often have various channels of resistance when persecuted by lords, such as uniting to petition the king. When internal contradictions develop to a certain stage, different interest groups will sit at the negotiating table to coordinate the relations between the parties, which is why there are not so many and so violent peasant uprisings in western society as in China.
In short, in such a society without the ability to correct mistakes, there is only one way left when officials enter the people and retreat to the bottom line of approaching survival: rebellion.
(1) Eliminating population has reduced the population pressure on this land and provided space for a new round of population growth.
Large-scale peasant uprisings in China ranged from a year or two to a decade or two. After every peasant uprising, rivers of blood flowed and thousands of miles were covered with bare land. The population decreased dramatically, leaving only five million at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty. The fruits of great sacrifice are generally gone for decades, and life returns to the original point.
(2) the destruction and deterioration of civilization.
Needless to say, the destruction of civilization
The deterioration of civilization means that aristocratic culture has been destroyed again and again in the great turmoil. With Liu Bang, Zhu Yuanzhang and other low-level figures rising to the highest level of society again and again, the low-level culture with pragmatism as its main feature is spreading continuously, and gradually taking "theft" as its face, making China politics more and more rogue.
(3) The autocratic thought is more and more strengthened, which makes the autocratic rule more careful and rigorous, and the institutional prison more unbreakable.
China's orthodox culture certainly contains all the intentions and genes of the autocratic system. However, different from the bottom culture, it is properly packaged in the face of great harmony, while the bottom culture cheers and affirms autocracy naked. In fact, farmers worship authority more than other classes and are more aware of imperial power. Once they have mastered the political power, their ruling methods are often more brutal.
In a word, the peasant uprising is only an adjustment mechanism for absolutism to release contradictions.
The book said: "The peasant uprising is like a prison break, and the newly-built prison after each escape is more scientifically designed and more resistant to violence. Farmers exchanged their blood and lives for tighter control, stronger prisons, better domestication and further degradation of national character. From the Han Dynasty to the Qing Dynasty, this law was the most obvious. "
This is the strange circle of China's history. The more peasant uprisings, the stronger and more perfect the autocratic power, which has not changed for two thousand years.
After reading this book, I appreciate and cherish my present life. We are much happier than the ancients. Why do we complain all day?