Chapter 1445: A thinker ahead of his time

"Not following the secular world is madness in your eyes. Scholar Du, your sect is no good; the doctrine is shallow, how can you attract followers? Spreading the faith, you are just a half-bucket of water; you are not even as good as me!"

Chen Guanlou was extremely mocking.

A half-bucket of water level, yet daring to show off in front of him.

Ignorant!

Self-righteous!

The true master of spreading the faith is Zhang Daohe. But even Zhang Daohe shouldn't think about convincing him to believe in a religion.

Du Xiuwen suddenly changed from manic to serious. He grabbed the prison bars and said solemnly, "Warden Chen, are you full of questions, very curious why I disbanded the team, why I led the militia to attack the county seat, and why I sat and waited for the imperial court to arrest me without any resistance?"

"Yes, why? If you die, you can't spread the faith! May I ask Scholar Du, how do you intend to carry forward your sect? The Bai Lian revolting is a tradition, what is your revolt, a joke?"

This person, Du Xiuwen, has too many contradictions, is weird, crazy! The drama queen is on, and he's addicted to acting!

Du Xiuwen giggled, laughing extremely harshly.

He was like a mental patient, saying solemnly, "Do you know what the essence of hunger is? Too little food is indeed an important factor. The essence is that there are too many living people! There are too many poor people and too many rich people!

War can only consume a portion of the population, but it can't withstand them being too good at reproducing. Once night comes and there's nothing to do, they ponder that little thing on the bed. A woman has about twenty-five to thirty years of reproductive period; if they let go and reproduce, it's unimaginable how many children they can have.

The fields at home are more than enough to support the couple and two children. Yet they keep reproducing, keep reproducing, giving birth to seven or eight children. It's equivalent to fields only enough to support four people having to support ten people. Added to the poll tax, the burden is unimaginable!

Were they originally very poor? Not so! They were originally a small wealthy family, with savings at the end of every year, and the tax burden was not heavy. Just because they kept reproducing, kept giving birth, they became poorer and poorer, and the poorer they were, the more they reproduced. Food rations, taxes, poll tax, corvée labor... can completely crush a family! They clearly had a good life, but they didn't cherish it, insisting on reproducing children without stopping. The result of giving birth to so many is that when they get sick, they don't dare to see a doctor and die of illness!

They say, the more they give birth, the more they will enjoy happiness in their old age. But the vast majority of people, the more they give birth, before they can even wait until they can't work and start to retire, they have already died of illness due to years of toil. Where does the happiness in old age come from?

Using the examples of a few people enjoying happiness to convince the majority to follow suit, the result is that in famine years, they are hungry to the point of exchanging children to eat, human tragedies, humans becoming beasts, even worse than beasts.

If there weren't so many people, with the same amount of land and the same yield of grain, even if they encountered famine years, they could at least mix a three-tenths full to survive!"

After listening, Chen Guanlou frowned deeply, greatly shocked.

This kid, his brain is ahead of his time!

In this era, the concept of "more children, more happiness" is deeply rooted in people's hearts, yet the other party had the preliminary idea of family planning.

He is not a high official of the imperial court and cannot implement family planning.

Could it be because of this that he launched an absurd revolt, using the imperial court's knife to artificially reduce the population!

Crazy!

A proper lunatic!

Too manic!

"Because there are too many people, and many are even a burden, so you led the militia to revolt? Can I understand it this way?"

He asked calmly, not wanting to stimulate the other party, lest the other party start talking nonsense again.

Du Xiuwen smiled, "Do you think I'm crazy? My thoughts are rebellious?"

Chen Guanlou shook his head, "No! Regarding reproduction, my stance has always been: if you can afford to raise them, have more; if you can't afford it, have fewer, or even none! This thing of passing on the family line is, in the final analysis, a religious belief! It's the same principle as believing in Amitabha or immeasurable longevity.

The fanatical belief of those Bai Lian followers in the Unborn Mother is essentially the same as those who are obsessed with passing on the family line and having many children. Both are a kind of spiritual sustenance, using the fantasy of a beautiful life twenty or thirty years in the future to soothe the hardships of the present, achieving spiritual solace and satisfaction!"

Hahaha...

Du Xiuwen suddenly laughed loudly, his expression agitated as he gripped the prison bars, his eyes burning, as if he were about to burn up.

"I never expected that the person who understands me best would be you! No one understands me, and everyone thinks I'm a lunatic. Only you, you actually coincide with me, and our thoughts are the same.

A bunch of poor ghosts, so poor they don't have food to eat, yet they are obsessed with having children. Giving birth to one or two is fine, but they keep giving birth to five, six, seven, or eight. In a harvest year, they are hungry, let alone natural and man-made disasters.

When natural disasters arrive, the ones who first break the human bottom line are this bunch of people who have given birth to a large group of children. Exchanging children to eat, exchanging children to eat! They care so much about their children, but when a survival crisis hits, they abandon their children without hesitation. Beasts, beasts, they are all beasts..."

He was full of anger, hating heaven, hating earth, hating everyone. The anger was about to burn him up!

He was in agony!

Every moment he was tasting the taste of pain.

"At the moment of life and death, the human instinct is to survive!"

"To survive, can they break the bottom line and exchange children to eat? Warden Chen, where is your bottom line? If one day you fall into a desperate situation, will you eat human flesh? Tell me, will you?"

"I have a bottom line, I won't!"

"Good! Very good! I hope you can remember today's words and never eat human flesh. In that way, you are still a person! Not a beast, not a monster!"

Du Xiuwen was agitated, spitting saliva, his eyes crazy.

Saying he has a big illness, it makes too much sense.

"When others encounter similar situations, they only say heaven is blind, say the imperial court is immoral, the government is immoral, the wealthy are immoral. The wealthy should die, officials should die, the imperial court should perish! And you, you are different from everyone else, you blame it on too much reproduction, the poorer they are, the more they reproduce. Why?"

Du Xiuwen sneered, his teeth chattering; one can imagine how strong the anger in his heart was burning.

"Blaming the government, the imperial court, and the wealthy is the easiest; you don't have to bear any responsibility, you just need to open your mouth and say a few righteous words, and you can gain the following of countless people. I relied on this to win over those militia.

Why has no one ever scolded this bunch of starving people, especially the starving people with large families and limited land? Because, in the eyes of the world, these starving people are victims, who should be cared for and comforted, and should receive relief. Scolding the starving people is equivalent to being rebellious and not worthy of being a person.

I don't want to scold them either; I am actually the same as them, I was also born into a poor family. However, my personal experience tells me that things are not like this.

For example, my family, I am the second child. I clearly remember that when I was young, there were only me and my eldest sister in the family, and we could wear new clothes every year.

I studied, and at first, it was also with the family's money. Later, the third child was born, the fourth child was born, the fifth child was born, the family's income didn't decrease, but life changed because of the increase in population.

At first, it was one meal of dry rice a day, then one meal of dry rice every two days. From new clothes every year, to mending and patching, and never being able to wear new clothes again. Then later, even the tuition couldn't be paid.

But because I showed talent for reading, I received sponsorship, so I could continue to study. The younger brothers below didn't have such good luck and had no chance to walk into the school hall at all!

By the time the sixth and seventh children were born, my family had become the poorest in the village. Guess what my parents did at this time? They gave birth to the eighth child! Hahaha..." ===== CHAPTER 1446 =====