Han’s Son is Not a Slave: Chapter 1 worship

During the Qingming Festival, it rained heavily, and the pedestrians on the road felt heartbroken.

Ming Qian flew a white butterfly, and the human voice cried like a bird.

There are still a few days before the Qingming Festival, but the Cold Food Festival is approaching. The Cold Food Festival is the first major sacrifice for the Han people. During the festival, there is no smoking and only cold food. There is also the custom of worshiping the deceased. The pile will gather countless people to burn paper money to express the thoughts of ancestors and deceased relatives.

Yesterday, the Xinhui County Government in Guangdong issued a notice asking the people to go out of the city to worship and sweep today. Once the day is over, the city gate will not be opened again, so as to prevent the old thieves from retreating and returning.

The so-called old thief refers to Li Dingguo’s Ministry of Southern Ming Dynasty. In the tenth and eleventh year of Shunzhi, Li’s attacked Guangdong, and almost captured Guangzhou and occupied the whole of Guangdong. Fortunately, the destiny was in the Qing Dynasty. , has returned to Guangxi a month ago.

However, although Li Dingguo's army has returned to Guangxi, there are still some troops in Guangdong. This Xinhui county is also the gateway to Guangzhou, with convenient water and land transportation. In Guangdong, the focus was on capturing Xinhui, and they surrounded the county seat for eight months. Now, although the main force of Li’s army has retreated, the Qing army in Xinhui still dare not take it lightly, and the city gate will not be opened lightly for a moment.

However, with the cold food approaching, the magistrate Huang Zhizheng was trapped in the county seat for eight months, and the residents in the city were killed and injured countless times. Therefore, he specially asked the generals of the garrison to open the city for one day, so that the people could go out of the city to worship their relatives. The generals of the garrison agreed after careful consideration. ask. After obtaining the consent of the defender, Huang Zhizheng immediately had someone posted a notice, and organized some people to maintain order. The Qing army defending the city sent a team of soldiers to guard outside the city, and made corresponding arrangements in the city.

After the city gate was opened, thousands of people came out one after another to scavenge outside the city. From a distance, the people were all plain and sad, and they looked at the Qing army guarding the city with hatred. They all dared to be angry and did not dare to speak, and just hurriedly passed through the city gate. Looking at the Qing army guarding the city again, all of them were silent, turning a blind eye to the hatred in the eyes of the people. Rarely, they did not speak ill of the people, let alone whipping them wantonly, and they did not even dare to speak. Great, it is really strange for people to see it.

After the people left the city, some people began to float paper money along the way. The paper money that fell with the wind was accompanied by the whispers in the crowd, which made the scene of worshipping out of the city even more solemn and bleak.

Most of the crowd is mainly male, and few women are seen, and there are a few who are elderly women or girls who have not yet reached the age of marriage.

There are people from the county government who are maintaining the team, and Qing soldiers with swords and guns can be seen from time to time on both sides of the road. Like the Qing army at the city gate, most of these Qing soldiers are reluctant to look at these people directly, and some are even more Just turn your face away and pretend to look in the other direction. Only when the paper money scattered by the wind fell on them or at their feet, would these Qing soldiers inadvertently twitch their cheeks and move slightly.

The deceased residents in Xinhui City were buried together in one place. It was said to be burial, but in fact it was just random digging and burying. Most of the corpses were buried with incomplete corpses, and some even had no corpses at all. The clothes of the deceased before their death, and many large graves piled high, you can see that not only one person is buried, but also how many people are buried below. Compared with the graves known to relatives, there are more solitary graves without owners, accounting for almost half of the mass graves.

Feeling timid near the hometown, panicking near the grave.

When the worship team finally came to the mass grave, the uncontrollable grief in the crowd could no longer be held back, and it was unknown who started to cry first. After a while, the mass grave was already crying. became a piece. The cry was heart-wrenching, making people listen to it like a knife.

As the saying goes, men don't shed tears easily, but what I saw in front of my eyes were thousands of men weeping together, which is really heart-stopping.

The Qing army who heard the crying in the distance did not dare to come and take a look at it. The officers who maintained order also had their relatives killed. At this meeting, they all had grief in their hearts, or stood there silently mourning, or knelt on the ground and cried. After shouting a few times, only a few officers brought by the magistrate Huang Zhizheng from their hometown did not have the grief of the death of their relatives, and stood aside and said something in a low voice.

"The old thieves have surrounded the county town for several months, and the people in Xinhui City are almost dead, alas." A sergeant named Huang Si sighed deeply while looking at the scene in front of him.

Another officer nodded and said in agreement: "No, I heard the county magistrate say that there are more than 70,000 people who eat meat alone. In addition, the soldiers under King Pingnan and King Jingnan also kidnapped thousands of women. There are only one or two thousand people left at the moment, and the people in Xinhui City are not dead!"

Hearing this, Qi Er, the officer standing at the very edge, couldn't help but said, "The soldiers of the two princes are really soldiers of tigers and wolves. How can they look like soldiers of the imperial court, they were made by evil..."

"Be quiet, you can't talk nonsense." Huang Si is an experienced man, and after hearing Qi Er's words, he immediately glared at him, and then looked around before saying: "If you want to talk about sin, the old man is more sinful. Heavy, if he doesn't come to the Xinhui, can the people in this city be so miserable?"

"Yes, yes, it is the old thief who perpetrated the sin."

Knowing that he had said something wrong, Qi Er quickly nodded in agreement. When he was about to scold the old thief again, he heard someone from the grave exclaimed: "Master Wu passed out crying!"

Qi Er asked in surprise, "Which Master Wu?"

Someone on the side said: "The one in the east of the city teaches."

"Oh," Qi Er suddenly realized, showing a look of sympathy, "I'm afraid that his wife is too sad."

Huang Sichao looked in the direction he called just now, shook his head and said, "Ms. Li is also a really good woman, the soldiers were originally going to capture Master Wu, but she said that her husband had not yet had a son in his fifties. After the Wu family was doomed, I begged the soldiers to catch her and eat her, so as to save Master Wu's life, now that I think about it, this woman is really fierce!"

Everyone nodded in unison when they heard it, and Qi Er immediately thought of something, and said a little strangely: "Didn't Mrs. Li be called to eat, so is it buried in the grave?"

Huang Si's cheeks twitched, and he said in a low voice, "Li's head was left by those soldiers. The old thief retreated, and Master Wu was buried here."

As he was talking, he saw a familiar figure not far away, so he put his finger down and said to everyone: "Well, that is Lin Xiucai, his wife Mo Shi is also a good woman. The soldiers went to arrest her Gu Pang that day. She came to eat, but she said that my aunt was old and the meat was not delicious, but she was young. The meat on her body was tender and could be chewed by the soldiers. No head was left behind... This grave is buried with Mo's clothes, which is a memory that Lin Xiucai left for himself." (Author's note: aunt, mother-in-law)

"The worst thing to say is the daughter of Liang Xiucai's family. At the age of eleven, she knew how to replace her father with her body at a young age. It is really admirable."

"I heard that the soldier thought that the girl was small and had little meat, and did not want to kill her, but the girl said to the soldiers, do you think I am small and the meat is not enough for you to eat? Then he grabbed the knife and wiped it. When the soldiers saw this, they released Liang Xiucai and boiled his daughter's body."

"The students of the county school, Wu Shirang's wife Huang, also asked her husband to die. I heard that when the soldiers killed Huang, they all cried and killed Huang, and they ate Huang's stomach with tears. ."

"..."

When one after another sensational tragedy was told, no matter how hard-hearted people heard it, they couldn't bear it. The expressions of the officers had already changed, and their hearts were full of sighs.

No matter how sad people cry for a long time, they can't stand it anymore. The cry on the grave has gradually subsided. There are fireworks burning paper money everywhere in sight, and the mourning sticks placed on the grave are particularly attractive. Eye-catching, one is connected to one, and it is impossible to count.

Huang Si stood for a while, looked up at the sky, and instructed everyone: "It is estimated that we will be able to return to the city in half an hour, everyone should use more snacks, and we will go to see who needs help later, if you can help one. Just give it a hand."

"Hey, I see." The officers responded in unison.

Seeing that Huang Si had nothing to say, he turned around and inadvertently saw a young man standing in front of the two new graves in the northeast corner. Because his back was facing Huang Si, UU couldn't read www.uukanshu.com for a while. This guy looks. What surprised Huang Si was that there was no sacrifice in front of the young man's grave, not even paper money. This young man did not kneel on the ground like the others, but stood there straight, not to cry. Now, I can't even hear the choking sound.

"Who is that person, why did he come here empty-handed, do you recognize him?" Huang Si looked back and asked the officer beside him out of curiosity.

Everyone followed his line of sight and shook their heads, but they didn't recognize any of them. It just so happened that a native officer from the county came over, and everyone stopped him to ask, the officer glanced at the young man but recognized it and told everyone, "That's Zhou Xiucai, his parents, wife and children were all eaten by the soldiers. He is the only one left in the whole family, which is very pitiful." After a pause, he said, "The two tombs are empty tombs, and there is nothing in them."

Hearing what he said, everyone immediately felt great sympathy for Zhou Xiucai, and after saying a few pitiful words, they dispersed.

Zhou Shixiang, who had been standing in front of the grave, did not hear the comments of the officers in the distance. Even if he heard it, he would not respond to the words of pity for him. He should have cried long ago, and the tears should have been shed long ago. Flowing, at the moment, except for revenge, Zhou Shixiang has no other thoughts in his heart.

Parents, wife and children are the food for others. These sensational tragedies shocked Zhou Shixiang, who was a human being in the second generation, and made him, who completely inherited the emotional memory of the owner of the body, suffer from it. This kind of pain is unforgettable. , is the pain that he will never forget, the pain that he will wake up for all his life!

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Author's Note: Hanshi was originally the first major sacrifice of the Han people, and later generations merged with Qingming and changed it to Qingming.