In the long river of history, there are all kinds of legendary stories, and some failed endings have created an extraordinary life. Just like Fang Guozhen of the Yuan Dynasty, although his uprising ended in failure, it ended with an unexpectedly good ending. The history of the Ming Dynasty commented that he was "the first chaos of the country, repeated without faith, but he actually got a good death", such an ending is emotional. So, how did Fang Guozhen go through this extraordinary journey?
Fang Guozhen did not have the ambition to subvert the imperial court from the beginning. He was born in Huangyan, Zhejiang, and originally lived an ordinary life. However, the family formed a grudge over the sale of illegal salt, and the enemy accused him of being a bandit, forcing him to leave his homeland. In a fit of rage, he killed the informant and fled to the sea with his brothers. In the local area, he has a lot of prestige, like a local snake-like existence.
After that, he became a pirate, plundering the wealth of the sea. At the end of the Yuan Dynasty, when the people were struggling to make a living, and the people were living in difficulty, Fang Guozhen quickly gathered the power of thousands of people. The imperial court sent troops to suppress it, but it suffered a big loss under Fang Guozhen, and even the main general was captured. Fang Guozhen used the captives to make conditions to the imperial court and became Dinghai Wei, an official of the Yuan Dynasty.
But he didn't stop there. He constantly changed his position between rebellion and surrender, and gradually grew in power, rising in official positions, and finally became a provincial government and controlled a series of territories. Perhaps, he is not greedy for power, or maybe he just wants to protect his own pure land, which may also be the key to his good death.
When Zhu Yuanzhang was rising, he tried to reconcile with him, and even offered to sacrifice his territory and his son as a hostage, but he was refused. With Zhu Yuanzhang's offensive, he could only flee to the sea with the remnants of the defeated army. Under the powerful offensive of the Ming army, his generals surrendered one after another, and finally he had to surrender to the table, and was given leniency, was awarded an official position, and settled in Nanjing. He lived honestly for the rest of his life, dying in the seventh year of Hongwu at the age of 55. Zhu Yuanzhang even personally set up a sacrifice for him, and Fang Guozhen was finally able to die a good death.
Fang Guozhen's story makes us think a lot. He is not a gifted leader, nor does he have the ambition to change the dynasty, he is just an ordinary person who has been forced to go to Liangshan. However, after going through the storm, he chose to settle for the status quo and protect his territory and not fight for more power. Perhaps, this wisdom is also a kind of courage to some extent.
This story teaches us that being content with the status quo is not weakness, but a wise choice. Perhaps, not everyone can become a hero for eternity, but everyone can write a wonderful life in their own way. Fang Guozhen's life may be just a ripple in the long river of history, but his choice and ending are thought-provoking. On the road of life, sometimes complacent with the status quo may not be a failure, but a different kind of success. History has left too many inspirations, and Fang Guozhen's story is one of them.