Zhang Yanghao, a songwriter of the Yuan Dynasty, once wrote the famous poem "Hillside Sheep Tong Cares for the Ancients" in Tongguan, which said, "The people are suffering, the dead people are suffering", which has exhausted the hardships of the ancient people's lives and has always been praised by people. Zhang Yanghao can be said to be very dare to say, a word to break the true face of the feudal dynasty.
Feudal dynasties follow a hierarchical system, placing a very small number of people at the top of the hierarchy, exploiting many people at the bottom, when the dynasty is prosperous, it is indispensable to scrape the people's fat and people's anointing to satisfy the ruler's selfish desires, and when the dynasty declines, the war will also affect the people and displace people.
Human nature cannot withstand the test, and in the midst of disaster, people's bottom line will fall to infinitely low. In difficult times, in order to survive, people can do such things as changing children and eating, completely abandoning ethics and morality, and the so-called human nature has given way to survival. However, between the crises, there are also people who still do not change their original intentions.
In the last years of the Tang Dynasty, the Huangchao Rebellion swept across the country, and in order to stay away from the flames of war, the people, as soon as they heard that the army was coming towards their hometown, they firmly cleared the wilderness and hid in the mountains.
On the way to escape, a Taoist noticed a strange scene in which a woman in the fleeing crowd behaved strangely, taking two children with her, but holding the older child in her arms and letting the younger child walk on her own. The Taoist priest felt very strange, and when he asked, he was greatly touched by the woman's answer.
Yellow Nest Uprising
Although Huang Chao was the leader of the peasant uprising, strictly speaking, he was not a farmer, but was in the landlord class, because their family had been selling private salt for generations, and at that time, the sale of salt was controlled by the government, and selling private salt became a profiteering industry, so the Huang family became rich for generations.
The family is rich, naturally will be more attentive to the education of Huang Chao, Huang Chao since childhood will be swordplay, equestrian and archery, pen and ink, Huang Chao can not be said to be proficient, otherwise it will not be repeatedly named Sun Shan. Although he was a little poor in reading, Huang Chao actually had a talent for poetry, and he joined poems with his grandfather when he was five years old.
The imperial examination was the best way for ordinary people to get ahead at that time, and Huang Chao was naturally full of ideals, but unfortunately, the day did not go according to people's wishes, and Huang Chao participated in the imperial examination several times after he became an adult, but they were all famous and fell into the sun mountain.
In frustration and bitterness, he wrote the famous poem "No First Hou Fu Ju", after which he did not set foot in Chang'an again, but returned to his hometown to inherit the family business and became a leader of the Salt Gang.
According to the relevant records in the history of the wild, Huang Chao did not lose heart after repeated attempts, but considered that he had shortcomings in literature, but his martial arts were strong, so he participated in the martial arts of the imperial court, all the way smoothly, and finally became a Wu Zhuangyuan, but when he faced the saint, something went wrong, Tang Xianzong was an emperor who looked at his face, and Huang Chao looked very sorry.
There was a precedent for this matter, Pang Tong had the great name of Feng Chi, and was also despised by Liu Bei because of his appearance, Pang Tong defected to the past, only got a small official position, he was sent, the nameless and powerless Huang Chao was even more miserable, and his title of Wu Zhuangyuan was directly deprived, but this record only exists in the wild history.
It seems that in the last years of the dynasty, there will always be natural disasters and man-made disasters. In the first year of Qianfu (874), there was either drought or flooding throughout the country, and at that time, when it was in a time when there was no connection between green and yellow, there was no way to fill the stomach, the peasants naturally thought about changes, and the state capitals in various places had not yet done a good job of appeasement, and even reported the disaster, so in the end, man-made disasters also struck.
In June of the second year of Qianfu (875), Wang Xianzhi led the rebel army to attack several places in succession, and the momentum was fierce, and Huang Chao, who had long been in turmoil, heard the wind and led eight sons and nephews to gather thousands of people to respond to Wang Xianzhi.
At that time, the Tang Dynasty's wanton conquests and tyranny brought a heavy burden to the people, and the people were miserable, so their uprisings had a broad mass base and defectors continued.
When Huang Chao and Wang Xianzhi attacked Huangzhou, Shi Peiwu, the assassin of Puzhou, was unable to resist, and in order to seek an armistice, he agreed to seek an official for Wang Xianzhi. Soon, the imperial court compromised with Emperor Tang and made Wang Xianzhi the "Left God Strategist Army", and after Wang Xianzhi received this sugar-coated shell, he had the idea of seeking stability, planning to accept the imperial court's invitation and enter the dprk as an official.
However, Tang Xianzong did not do this very beautifully, only gave Wang Xianzhi an official position, but did not give Huang Chao an official, Huang Chao was naturally not angry in his heart, he reprimanded Wang Xianzhi who planned to give up the struggle, and the two of them fought even more, because of the opposition of Huang Chao and most of the rebels, Wang Xianzhi finally had to refuse the imperial court's recruitment, but this also caused a rift between him and Huang Chao, and later the two fought separately.
The road meets the woman
At that time, the rebels of Huangchao invaded the Central Plains, and there was a saying at that time: "Huangchao shook his knife across the mountain, and the head fell to the ground!" "The people heard of Huang Chao's reputation for indiscriminate killing, and fled in the wind.
In a family in the Central Plains, there was only one woman and two children, the smaller child was born to the woman, and the larger one was the orphan left by her sister-in-law.
The woman, with her two children, also fled with the other residents, and on the way, she held her nephew in her arms and let her own biological child walk on the ground. A Taoist saw it, knew that there must be something strange in it, and asked her why she did it.
The woman told him the truth, and the Daoist was extremely touched when he heard it, and said to her, "Between life and death, you have not forgotten that Renyi has broken the sword of the Yellow Nest." You don't have to flee, as long as you insert wormwood in front of your door to show that the family is a benevolent and righteous person, the yellow nest will not move your home. "After saying that, the person disappeared.
The woman thought that this man was extraordinary, and according to him, she returned home and planted wormwood, and asked the other residents to do the same, because this woman was a good person in ordinary days, and everyone thought that she was blessed and willing to believe her words.
Unravel the mystery
The trick worked, the Yellow Nest army crossed the border, and all those who had wormwood planted in their homes were not disturbed, and at the same time, the woman's experience was widely spread, and people planted wormwood in their homes.
So what is the truth, that Daoist is actually Huang Chao's strategist, the imperial court in order to avoid Huang Chao's army to absorb the people into the army, the strength of the growth, it spread the Yellow Nest indiscriminate killing of innocent rumors, this counselor in order to explore the truth, dressed as a Taoist, mixed among the people, after informing the woman of the words, he flashed to the tree, to create a mysterious image.
This strategist's ingenuity broke the rumors of the imperial court and encouraged the people to do benevolent and righteous things in disguise, and after this, the Dragon Boat Festival became a custom to plant wormwood.
brief summary:
"A gentleman who has no final eclipse violates benevolence, and the turbulence will be so, and the creation of the second will be", this is the remark in the "Analects", Confucius earnestly taught, hoping to impress the world, the woman in the story may not have read the "Analects", and may not even be illiterate, but she undoubtedly implemented this view of Confucius.
She promised her sister-in-law to take good care of the orphans, usually doing her best, as if she were her own, and what was even more rare was that she withstood the test, did not forget this promise in times of crisis, and even vaguely had the idea of sacrificing her children to save her nephew, this woman was a well-deserved gentleman.