Lin Gao Qiming

Chapter 2084 Zhaoqing Recovery ([-])

The explosion not only wiped out the crew on No. 41, but also caused heavy casualties on several gunboats rescued around it. One gunboat probably had its captain injured. The ship lost control and drifted sideways.

Several nearby gunboats immediately hooked the boat with pennies, and several sailors jumped on it desperately to control the gunboat.

Schneider felt that he was a little reckless today. If he knew that there were so many fire attack ships, he should retreat first and deal with them in the open area of ​​the river.Rather than rushing into the narrowest part of the canyon to forcefully break into the formation of fire boats.

Annoyance is annoyance, the matter has come to this point, and there is no room for him to back down.

"Pay attention to keep the distance between the ships!" He ordered, "The ship on fire discards the ammunition box!"

The fireworks began to dissipate, and the Pearl River took the lead, rushing out of the fireworks array first, Schneider took off his mask, took a deep breath, and saw that Ruan Xiaowu's face was already black, and he thought he was not much better.

Looking at the fleet behind them, except for the loss of two gunboats, they are generally safe and sound, but they are all pitch-black from the smoke and fire, and the signal flags and military flags have been burned to pieces by sparks.

"Okay, the officers and soldiers are done singing, it's our turn to sing." Schneider's face sank, "All ships are advancing at full speed! The front main guns are ready to fire!"

Upstairs in Yuejiang, Xiong Wencan put down the binoculars, his hands trembling slightly.Chang Qingyun said in a low voice: "My lord, it's not too late..."

Before the words were finished, there was a loud roar on the river, and the Pearl River's main gun shot a puff of smoke into the sky, and a shell rose into the air, and with a sharp whistling sound, it fell towards Zhaoqing City.

"Empire Spring and Autumn" April 1735 "Guangdong Liberation 100th Anniversary Special Issue"

The sound of cannons on Lingyang Gorge——The recovery of Zhaoqing I experienced

Editor’s Note: This article is an excerpt from the memoir “The Baton Under the Star Fist” written by Comrade Liu Xing, a former army major general. It contains records about the mental outlook of the old Ming army, and the description of the impact of the Fubo army on the thoughts of the people of Guangdong and the recovery of Zhaoqing after entering Guangdong. With the value of precious historical materials, the editorial department of our journal, with the consent of Comrade Liu Xing’s descendants, published some excerpts of them in the "Special Issue Commemorating the 100th Anniversary of Guangdong's Restoration" for readers, and this publication is slightly abridged.

I was born in Gaoyao County, formerly Zhaoqing Prefecture, Guangdong Province. I was the second child, so my nickname was Liu Erzai.My family is a military household, and my grandparents have been soldiers for generations.Now the young comrades probably don’t know it anymore, thinking that the military households are soldiers from the family’s ancestors, and joining the army is glorious and majestic.Not really, comrades.The glory of joining the army is our pioneering Fubo Army. In the old society, good iron was not nailed, and good men were not soldiers. Soldiers are the same as farmers and craftsmen. They are looked down upon by others, and even oppressed than ordinary people. Deeper.

In the Pseudo-Ming Dynasty, military households were also divided into three, six, and nine grades, such as commanders of hundreds of households, of course they were majestic, delicious and spicy, and their official positions were passed down from generation to generation.And what about ordinary military households?To put it bluntly, they are long-term workers of the lords, but in fact they are the slaves of the lords. They are also exploited and oppressed, and they are also the liberated objects of our Fubo Army.

My family is better than other families, because my grandfather was a servant of a hundred families and took care of the grandson of a hundred families.Because of this relationship, the Sun family remembers the fireworks relationship with my family very much, and treats my family very differently.So my family suffered less oppression, but others were not so lucky. Most of my childhood playmates were military households, but their families were very poor. They worked hard for Sun Shiwan all year round, and what they got was only a few hundred catties of grain. , Even making ends meet is difficult.Therefore, ordinary civilians are unwilling to intermarry with ordinary military households-who would like their daughters to suffer from poverty?As long as ordinary people don't go to the city and don't see officials, they will suffer less oppression.Military households worked hard every day under the watchful eyes of the superiors, exhausting their lives, and they would be "disciplined by military law" by the officers if they disobeyed even a little.They were beaten to death and dragged and buried in the fields—worse than the servants of rich families.

So at that time, many military households fled. It is said that there were more than 100 military households in our garrison, and each household had more than 100 soldiers.But when I was born, there were only twenty or thirty military households in the village.A scene of depression and dilapidation.In addition to hundreds of grandsons and hundreds of thousands of families, even "officials" like Zongqi and Xiaoqi lived in poverty.

The life of the military households is embarrassing, broken pots, and military discipline is extremely corrupt. Those who are recruited to serve as battalions see foreign enemies flee like the wind, but they bully their own people, but they are aggressive like fire. They have no steel guns in their hands to defend the people. consciousness.It's okay to be in my hometown. After all, the folks in the village don't look up and look down, and don't dare to go too far.But what about the troops from other places?Those who are not familiar with the place of birth will rob and harass the people.I was "fortunate" to see it once.

I have a childhood friend named Hou Haisheng, and I call him Brother Hai.His mother's surname is Hou, his father's surname is Hai, and he came here as a married woman.My grandfather's family lived in the ancestral pork shop in Zhaoqing. It was a pity that his mother was a gambler, so she lost all the family property and hanged herself. My father was also sick in bed. He barely managed to make ends meet, let alone go to school.However, Brother Hai, who was so difficult, was also entangled by the guest army from Guangxi.That year, the Fubo army had just won a great victory in Chengmai, and when the news spread back to Zhaoqing, people were very panicked.At that time, the governor of Guangdong and Guangxi in the Ming Dynasty was Wang Zunde. He obviously started the war, but he was afraid of the liquidation of the Senate and the people, so he transferred the garrison in Wuzhou to assist in the defense of Zhaoqing.The Guangxi soldiers showed no signs of fighting against the enemy, and they did not train at ordinary times. When they arrived in Zhaoqing, they took to the streets to rob shops and harass women.Especially the wolf soldiers inside, not only robbing things, but also killing people at will, everyone was in danger for a while.

At that time, it was often heard that someone's shop was smashed, someone's daughter-in-law was bullied, and the guest army killed someone again-for a while, the city was filled with smog and chaos.Several younger sisters in my family also smeared black ashes on their faces all day long, hiding at home and not daring to move.That day I went to deliver some firewood to Brother Hai's house, and just after chatting with Uncle Hai, a neighbor rushed in, saying that Brother Hai was fighting with Guangxi soldiers.I only found out later that when three Guangxi soldiers went to the streets to harm the common people, they cut off Brother Hai's pork and did not give him money.Brother Hai is also strong, he must grab the Guangxi soldier's collar and give it to him.The Guangxi soldiers said: "I'm going to the court to prostitute women who don't pay me, so I'll take you a few catties of pork as fart!" The two sides fought like this.

I was anxious at the time, for fear that Brother Hai would be killed by Guangxi soldiers, and these guest soldiers would kill without blinking an eye.He hurried home and called his friends, and arrived at the scene with a gun.Brother Hai was fat and strong, and he still had the upper hand when he hit three.We hurried over to "struggle".Arm in arm, the three Guangxi soldiers were pulled away, and the three were beaten cracklingly through the confusion.When the Guangxi soldiers didn't come back to take revenge, they hid Brother Hai and his father in my house.The Guangxi soldiers couldn't find the right owner, and they didn't dare to go to the local guard to make trouble, so they had to smash Haige's pork shop to vent their anger.Later, Wang Zunde was frightened to death by the Senate, and the Guangxi soldiers withdrew to Wuzhou, and the matter was over.

Later, Brother Hai and I joined the army and made a lot of contributions to the Senate and the people. It's a pity that he died in the battle to liberate Manila and failed to see the final victory with his own eyes.Unexpectedly, a farewell to Guangzhou has become forever!

Although military households are looked down upon by the common people, dangerous and poor, and have no honor at all, it is not so easy to get rid of them.The Ming government has very strict management of the household registration of military households. Although they say that you can leave the military households anyway, it is an illusory thing after all. It is the same as cultivation. Although I have heard that the old Zhang Ge of the Wanli Dynasty was born in a military household He took the imperial examination and became a high-ranking official and got out of the military, but he had never seen it with his own eyes. The only thing he had seen with his own eyes was a civilian who committed a crime and became a "benevolent army" and returned to the military household.

My family is also dreaming of such an illusory Qingqiu dream.At that time, my family was still living relatively well, so I wanted to let the boys in the family go to school to be enlightened, and then the whole family would be expelled from the imperial examination.I was originally ranked second, and I had an older brother in front of me, but unfortunately passed away when I was five years old.Now the family pinned all their hopes on me, and my grandfather interceded with Sun Shiwan, and after many kowtows, Sun Shiwan let me study with the "young masters" at home.It is agreed to serve "Mister" for his family without paying, and also provide two meals and one night.

My grandfather and my father were so grateful to the Sun family that they dragged me to kowtow to Sun Shiwan.Since then, I have been studying at Sun Shiwan's house.

The children of Sun Shiwan's family specially invited a "Mr." to teach at home, which was called "family school" at that time.I went to accompany him to "study" in fact, I was a servant who gave him money for nothing.In addition to cleaning the family school every day, I also have to serve this so-called "Mr."

Speaking of this gentleman, he was already in his fifties at the time. He had read a lot of so-called "poems and books" and passed the examination of a scholar, and he has always been proud of it.But, apart from reciting a few words and writing a few nonsensical stereotyped articles, there is no real talent or learning at all.At first I thought he was a learned person, but when I encountered something I didn't understand and asked for advice, I was always scolded by him bearded and stared.I know he doesn't regard me as a student, but treats me as a slave.Calling me around to work all day long, I have no time to go to class or study.After half a year, the children of hundreds of families have all started to read the "Book of Songs", and I haven't even mastered the names of hundreds of families and the thousand-character prose.But this scholar always said that I was "unbelievably stupid" and "dumb as a chicken".Sun Shiwan's sons and grandchildren also often make fun of me, treating me as an object of their amusement.But for the sake of studying, for the sake of the so-called "glory of the ancestors", I endured all these bullying, and imagined that one day I would be able to raise people and Jinshi in high school, and feel proud of myself.

　PS: Section 270 of Volume [-] - Guangzhou Governance will be updated next time

　　
　
(End of this chapter)