Chapter 1271: Capital Is a Deep Pit, Feudalism Is a Cage

Some people longed for the Roving King, and others longed for a Ming king.

Those who longed for the Roving King had already fallen into the deep pit of loss-making capitalism, and of course dreamed that the Roving King would come and pull them out.

And those who longed for a Ming king were imprisoned in the feudal cage built by the Roving King, saw no hope at all, and could only dream of a Ming king coming to smash the cage.

The land of China now seemed to be a scene of demons dancing in chaos. The Great Ming side had already reached the primary stage of capitalism — an era that encouraged striving, but was full of deep pits everywhere!

Most strivers would fall into all sorts of deep pits, and in the end it would all come to nothing, like drawing water with a bamboo basket, and they would sink into the proletariat selling their labor. This situation was even more common among small and medium-sized owner-peasants in the countryside and small handicraft workers in the cities!

In the end, only a very few people could stand out in this era.

And on the Great Shun side, it was inevitably transforming into a feudal military state!

If the Great Ming side was a place full of deep pits, where one had to advance cautiously and carefully, then the Great Shun, having become a feudal military state, was more like a cage! If one had not been born into a fubing household, then one was basically locked inside the cage, without even the qualification to go out and move around, so there was no need to worry about falling into a deep pit and being unable to get out — heh, one side had the qualification to fall into deep pits, and the other did not even have the qualification to fall into a pit!

It truly put the working people of Great Ming and Great Shun in a difficult position!

Of course, no matter how difficult, it was still better than the Great Qing in history.

Because now, when this year 1667 arrived, the toiling masses under the rule of Great Ming and Great Shun numbered as many as over two hundred million, while in the historical year 1667, the population under Great Qing rule was only a few tens of millions!

The remaining two hundred million could not even go to the cage or the deep pit! Because they no longer existed!

In the countryside of Shizhu Prefecture on the side of the Great Shun Empire, the news of "welcoming the Ming king" spread everywhere as if it had grown wings, by the time the first month of the first year of Dongping Daxing arrived. And it spread with such vivid detail, as if a perfectly fair world where everyone was content was about to arrive at once.

"The heavens are about to turn! The Ming king has come! Grab your weapons and head up the mountain!"

Li Jinxue, a Shizhu peasant who was carrying a hoe along a path between terraced fields, suddenly heard someone shouting on the mountain. His heart began racing, and his whole body froze — had the Ming king really come? Had the rebellion really begun?

Li Jinxue, now twenty-eight years old, was originally from Chengdu Prefecture. His family had been modestly well-off, and in his youth he had even studied. If the Great Xi's Old Ten Thousand Years Zhang Xianzhong had not stormed into Chengdu, he might have followed the path of the imperial examinations toward advancement, like his father and grandfather. He might not necessarily have passed the jinshi examination, but passing the xiucai examination to protect the family estate would not have been too difficult.

But the Great Xi, and later the Great Shun dynasty, had turned Li Jinxue's dream into nothing, leaving only the name his grandfather had changed for him on his deathbed, "Jinxue," to carry the old man's dying wish that his grandson pass the xiucai examination — Li Jinxue's father had been killed by the Great Xi army, and he had been raised by his grandfather through every hardship, and his grandfather had also passed on to him everything he had learned in his life, hoping that one day he could pass the xiucai examination.

But Li Jinxue knew very well in his heart that he could never pass the xiucai examination, because he was not a fubing, and could never become one. In Great Shun, one had to first become a fubing, and only then could one take the imperial examinations, and only finally could one become a civil official.

Without fubing status, one could only farm, trade, or do manual labor. These were not three options, but were decided at birth, and very difficult to change.

For Li Jinxue, he was destined in this life to be a peasant with his face to the yellow earth and his back to the sky — unless the heavens changed!

And would the heavens... possibly change?

"The heavens are about to turn! The Ming king has come! Grab your weapons and head up the mountain!"

Another shout!

Li Jinxue jolted awake! The day he had longed for day and night had finally arrived!

At this thought, he hoisted his hoe and sprinted up the mountain. As he ran, he heard more and more people shouting: "The heavens are about to turn! The Ming king has come! Grab your weapons and head up the mountain!"

Just now it had been one person shouting, and now it was many people shouting!

Li Jinxue had never been as excited as he was today. He practically ran up the mountain in one breath. There really were quite a few people on the mountaintop, all holding swords, javelins, bows and arrows, and wearing blue clothes!

Why were they wearing blue clothes?

Li Jinxue was completely stunned. What was going on? Wasn't blue clothing something only fubing households could wear? Why were the people welcoming the Ming king also wearing clothes of that color?

"Teacher Li, have you also come to welcome the Ming king?"

Suddenly someone spoke up to ask, and it was a young girl, with a coquettish voice, and in Sichuan dialect.

Li Jinxue did not think much and nodded: "That's right, welcoming the Ming king."

The moment the words left his mouth, he felt something was wrong. He looked closely, and the girl who had spoken was someone he knew — a Mizhi girl, surnamed Du, named Mulan, only thirteen or fourteen years old, as beautiful as a flower, and especially alluring. Every frown and smile was unforgettable.

The bachelor Li Jinxue had dreamed of her more than a few times!

But to Li Jinxue, this girl could only ever be a dream lover, because her father was a fubing, and a company commander at that.

"Miss Du, Third Miss Du, what are you doing here?"

This Du Mulan was now smiling like a flower, holding a sharp blade!

That look... seemed a bit chilling!

Li Jinxue looked again at Du Yulan's left and right. Half of them were familiar faces, all second-generation fubing from Shizhu City who had not yet come of age — Li Jinxue was learned, so he had taught elementary studies at the fubing academy in Shizhu City. He had no formal appointment (he was not a fubing, after all), but these second-generation kids still called him Teacher Li.

Originally he could have kept teaching. Although there was no formal appointment, it was still better than farming. But he kept leering at the fubing families' young girls, and in the end he was sent back to the countryside to farm.

"What do you think?" Du Yulan was still smiling. "Of course it's to lure the snake out of its hole. Teacher Li, are you the snake?"

"I, I, I..." Li Jinxue suddenly felt as if he had fallen into an ice pit. He wanted to swing his hoe to resist, but looking at the group of young fubing before him holding sharp blades, his courage instantly vanished.

Don't be fooled by their young age — they had all practiced martial arts since childhood!

When he had been a teacher at the elementary academy in Shizhu City, he had known that these kids all followed the path of both civil and martial cultivation. Although their literary studies were not deep, their martial skills were all excellent.

Du Yulan was still smiling: "Teacher Li, don't be afraid. No heads will be chopped. Just a change of place to farm."

The meaning was: no execution, just exile and conscription. Tears welled up in Li Jinxue's eyes. He threw down his hoe, sat down on the ground with a thud, and began wailing.

As he cried, he shouted: "You lied to me, you lied to me! There's no welcoming the Ming king! There's no Ming king to welcome... wuwuwu..."

What he did not know was that the matter of welcoming the Ming king was real, and the uprising had already broken out — but not in Shizhu, rather at Dajian Mountain in Baoning Prefecture, on the great mountain beside Jiange Pass.

This uprising had been launched by the civilian laborers transporting grain to Hanzhong. The organizers behind the scenes were none other than the White Lotus sect forces in Sichuan, but these demonic people had not openly raised the White Lotus banner. Instead, following the ballad "Welcoming the Ming King," they had shouted the slogan: "Welcome the Ming king, pay no grain tax, serve no corvée, equalize the land!"

According to the later investigation by the Great Shun court, the White Lotus demonic people who planned the uprising had mingled among the civilian laborers. When passing Jiange Pass, they set fire to the grain, forcing the grain-transporting laborers to bear the "crime of losing grain." They then spread rumors that the Great Shun court was going to behead them all! Then they seized the opportunity to rise up, first capturing Jiange Pass, which had only a small garrison, seizing the remaining stored grain and some weapons, and finally going up Dajian Mountain.

This was an enormous matter!

In the twenty years since Great Shun had established its state in Sichuan, there had never been a peasant uprising!

So Tian Jianxiu, who had just returned to Chongqing to take command after attending Li Guo's funeral, immediately ordered the military governors' offices in Chongqing, Kuizhou, Shunqing, Luzhou, and other places to strictly search for and arrest the demonic people and Zhu Ming spies within their territories.

When the order reached Shizhu Prefecture, the prefect of Shizhu came up with this insidious scheme of luring the snake out of its hole. Those tricked into going up the mountain were not just Li Jinxue alone — there was also a large crowd of suffering people hoping for rebellion, called up the mountain one after another. In the end, in Shizhu alone, more than two hundred "foolish rebels" were captured, and all were exiled to Burma to farm.

Heads were indeed not chopped, but going to Burma, that miasmic and pestilential land, it might not be nine deaths out of ten, but six deaths out of ten was still unavoidable!

(End of Chapter)