"It turned out that there was a big field in the southeast of Changbai Mountain, named Emo hui, and there was a village in the wilderness, about dozens of hundreds of families, and within these dozens of hundreds, there were only three surnames, and they had strong habits and were fond of fighting with weapons, so they killed each other for many years." ——Cai Dongfan The first time in the History of the Qing Dynasty
In June 1911, the Qing Dynasty was about to end! At this time, far from the heart of the empire, putian Matsusaka Village, the lives of the common people did not change much. One day in June, a theft occurred in matsuzaka Village. A family surnamed Xiao in the village lost a lot of property, and the villagers (surnamed Xiao) helped to hunt down the thieves and recover the stolen goods.
In the process of hunting down the thieves, everyone found that a stranger from Chongqin Village in Beigao Town had a stranger from Chongqin Village in the village. In ancient Chinese villages, everyone knew each other well, and everyone was well known. Although there is no evidence, everyone agrees that the "thief" is this "stranger".
The "stranger" hid in the home of the villager surnamed Liu, and the villagers surnamed "Xiao" insisted that the villagers surnamed Liu were sheltering the "thieves", which must have been an attempt to demand that the villagers surnamed Liu must hand over the "thieves". The villagers surnamed Liu are difficult to argue with, but they cannot rush to "hand over people." Because once you "hand over", you admit to the "theft". The dispute gradually escalated, and the two villagers with the surname gradually formed a confrontation situation, and the swords were fierce, and armed clashes could break out at any time.
At that time, There were three major surnames in Matsuzaka Village: Xiao, Liu, and Ke. Xiao surname belongs to the Wuqi faction, Liu and Ke belong to the White Flag faction, and the two factions are evenly matched, getting along harmoniously when there is nothing to do, and intolerable when there is trouble.
In the early days of the development of the clans in the Putian area, the various clans would form a similar alliance relationship, this clan alliance was called the "Seven Realms", one realm was equivalent to the sphere of influence of a clan, and there may be more than seven clan boundaries within the Seven Realms Alliance, but it was collectively called the Seven Realms. In the middle and late Qing Dynasty, the Seven Realms were divided and reorganized, becoming the Black Flag and the White Flag. All clans that fly black flags in ancestral halls belong to the black flag, and those who hang white flags belong to the white flags.
The Xiao surname and the liu and Ke surnames have not been in harmony for generations, and after years of constant grievances and armed struggles, the government and the people are not surprised. The Xiao and Liu and Ke clans clashed physically in a fierce quarrel, which soon escalated into armed combat. The scene was chaotic, violent and bloody, and after a fight, some people of the Xiao clan were killed, and some people of the Liu clan were cut down. At this time, the focus of everyone's attention is no longer on the "thief", but on the win or loss of the "weapon fight".
Simply popularize the knowledge of the clan, the clan is the product of the development of human society, the early stage of civilized society, in the face of the harsh natural and social environment, the productivity is low, primitive humans in order to survive, can only report to the group for warmth, and gradually form a family with blood relations as the link.
Later, with the continuous development of society, the development and growth of the clan was no longer simply for the purpose of "survival", but was mixed with other interests. After the Spring and Autumn Warring States period, the population of a clan could often reach several thousand; during the Wei, Jin, Sui, and Tang dynasties, there were even tens of thousands of people with individual rich surnames, for example, in the Six Qings of the Jin Dynasty during the Spring and Autumn Period, there were six families of zhao, han, wei, zhi, fan, and zhongxing.
The clans of the magnates often contain many families, and various forces are intertwined and the relationship of interests is intricate. However, when the clan faces external threats, it is often very united, and in the feudal era, the binding force of the clan family rules on the clan can exceed the decrees of the imperial court, and even affect the lives of individuals, such as "soaking pig cages".
Who are the makers or "speakers" of the clan rules? Generally, they are people with high moral standing or powerful families, and clans with certain meritorious names or who have held official positions in the imperial court are the main group of clan "high moral and prestigious". Seeing that the armed struggle would cause a larger-scale bloody conflict, some elderly people in the village thought of asking the highly respected Jiang Chunlin to mediate.
Jiang Chunlin (1855--1918), zi zhongmo, yizi zhongran, xingcun, late meiyangshan, fujian putian, guangxu twenty years (1894 AD) jinshi, successively served as the review of the Hanlin Academy, the revision of the Wuying Temple, the assistant repair of the National History Museum, the official to Xinjiang Province, and also the inspector of Liaoshen, Henan, Sichuan, and Jiangnan Provinces. Visiting officials and ruling, do not avoid the powerful.
In the six years before and after, more than sixty cases were fought against Prince Qing, Yuan Shikai, Xu Shichang, Sun Baoqi and other powerful people, and the sound was tremendous. In the second year of Xuanun (1910), he was deposed and returned to Li.
After Jiang Chunlin returned to seclusion, he became a well-known squire and was highly respected by the locals. Everyone has high hopes for his "mediation", as the saying goes: "It is difficult for a clean official to break the family affairs." Jiang Chunlin's mediation opinion is more like "peace and thin mud": the Xiao people first compensate the Fruit Trees of the Liu people, and then the Liu people and the Ke people must give a reasonable explanation to the Xiao people (dead people).
Jiang Chunlin's plan is no problem in rationally analyzing, and it follows the principle of "easy first and then difficult," hoping that someone can give way first and ease the tense atmosphere, so that everyone can better sit down and "talk about peace" and resolve contradictions.
However, Jiang Chunlin's identity is both a "squire" and a "in-law" of the Liu clan, that is to say, There is a marriage relationship between Jiang Chunlin's close relatives and the Liu clan. In addition, in Jiang Chunlin's mediation plan, "human life" actually did not have the high priority of "fruit tree", and the dual factors caused the people surnamed Xiao to be very dissatisfied with Jiang Chunlin's mediation plan.
The two sides took the lawsuit to Yi Jian in Zhixian County, and the Xiao people incidentally sued Jiang Chunlin in the complaint. Zhixian Yijian was a sleek bureaucrat, and after receiving the complaint, he was embarrassed, according to the Great Qing Law, the human life lawsuit could not be ignored, but he did not want to offend Jiang Chunlin. After much deliberation, he took one approach: drag.
Even if Xiao Jun, a member of the Xiao clan who moved out of his own clan, accused Jiang Chunlin, Yi Jian ignored it. "Dragging" made Yi Jian quiet, but the contradictions between the two major clans were heating up day by day, and since there was no reason to reason, they resorted to force. The armed struggle between the two clans was unfolding brightly, and the time was as long as half a year, and the villagers who had not looked up and looked down before were carrying deadly weapons and fighting day and night.
In the course of the armed struggle, 27 people were killed and the hatred deepened. In order to vent their anger, the two sides actually tortured and tortured the captives, some of whom were unloaded in eight pieces, executed by Ling Chi, dismembered corpses, and died without a whole body, the scene was bloody, and the means were cruel, unimaginable! People can't help but think of the famous sentence in the "Seven-Step Poem" of the poet Cao Zhi in the Three Kingdoms period: "The original is born from the same root, and it is too anxious to fry each other." ”
In order to stop their endless armed struggle, the clan patriarch of the nearby village called on his own people to donate money and materials, and then came forward to mediate. The brawl was finally put to rest.
The brawl was a lose-lose situation with no ultimate winner. The reasons for the emergence of Chinese armed struggles are complex, but the most important reason is that ancient society was ruled by man, not by the rule of law. If in a society with sound laws and the rule of law, law enforcers can enforce the law fairly and honestly, they can assert that armed struggles will never occur frequently, or even disappear.
Counter violence with violence, and hatred will continue! Force is not the only way to resolve conflicts, but a sound legal system is the cure.