Tang Dynasty woman

Chapter 2

Flesh and blood of the people digging the Grand Canal
Li Yuan's wife Dou is a very knowledgeable woman. Her mother is Princess Xiangyang, the sister of Emperor Wu of Zhou. Later, Yang Jian usurped the Zhou Dynasty. When the young Dou heard about it, she cried and fell to the ground, saying: I'm not a man, so I can't save my uncle's family!" Her father, Dou Yi, was so frightened that he quickly covered her mouth.But I didn't want God's will to be unpredictable, this little person who hated himself as a man was able to get revenge in the future, and her husband Li Yuan finally took over the Sui family, although it was inevitable that he would be usurped.When she was choosing a son-in-law, Wang Sun Guixu almost stepped through the threshold of the Dou family, and finally fell into the Li family. This good relationship made Li Yuan have four sons and one daughter: the eldest son was named Li Jiancheng, the second son was named Li Shimin, and the third son was named Li. Xuanba's fourth son was named Li Yuanji; their only daughter was married to Chai Shao, a young hero with extraordinary achievements and many legendary stories.

Li Shimin is also a young hero. He also has many legendary stories. He has assisted his father in several beautiful victories at a young age.In the year when Emperor Sui Yang visited the north, he drove out of Yanmen, and suddenly met a large group of Turkic soldiers who robbed his father. In the critical situation, Li Shiminzhi, who was only 16 years old, retreated from the Turkic soldiers.However, after Emperor Yangdi finally got rid of the siege for dozens of days and returned to Dongdu safely, he did not give Li Shimin any benefit.Li Shimin, who had made a great contribution in vain, soon heard that Emperor Yang had traveled to Jiangdu again, and he was dissolute sooner or later, ignoring the government. , Fooling the emperor, making the state affairs worse and worse. Alas, this is not counted. Since ancient times, there has been a saying that "the people are the foundation of the country, and the foundation of the country is peaceful", but now those people suffer more than those who fall in Eighteen floors of hell. I am afraid that the Sui Dynasty will not last long if people are ruined like this! If the Lord is so confused, what can I do under his command!"

The disaster that Li Shimin was deeply moved by the people stemmed from the digging of the Grand Canal.This artificial Grand Canal, which lasted six years, recruited millions of people, and has a total length of more than 4000 miles, can be described as thrilling and earth-shattering.The excavation of the Grand Canal required about 5000 million laborers. On average, nearly 5 laborers were required for each household at that time.Many migrant workers digging canals even died of exhaustion in the river, but just because a section of the river was dug shallower, Emperor Sui Yang ordered [-] officials and migrant workers digging this section to be tied up hand and foot and buried alive on the bank.

Of course, the Grand Canal, which started from Zhuozhou (now Zhuoxian County, Hebei Province) in the northeast and went to Yuhang (now Hangzhou City, Zhejiang Province) in the southeast, was completed with the blood and sweat of countless working people. Communication, is conducive to the important role of national unity.Avenues are opened on both sides of the Grand Canal, elms and willows are widely planted along the road, and a palace for the emperor to rest is set up every two post stations on the bank. From Luoyang to Jiangdu (now Yangzhou City, Jiangsu Province), there are more than 40 palaces in total.

Since Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty visited Jiangdu for the first time, although he returned to the capital, he never forgot the beautiful scenery of the south of the Yangtze River in Yangzhou day and night. The second time I traveled to the south of the Yangtze River.Afraid of being lonely on the road, he decided to take all the concubines in the palace with him so that he could be by his side.Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty also felt that the road from the capital of the Sui Dynasty to Yangzhou was a dry road, and it was hard to travel, so he planned to walk by water.But from the capital to Yangzhou, there is no river. If you want to go by water, you have to cross the sea.However, it is a risky thing for the supreme emperor to take his concubines across the ocean. Emperor Sui Yang was extremely daring in other things. Tricks, such as framing his elder brother who had already become the crown prince, and killing him himself, let his old emperor father swallow that breath earlier; but Emperor Sui Yang was always cautious when it came to matters related to his own life. So right now, this matter really made him difficult.

Originally, Emperor Yang of Sui only knew that he had Empress Xiao who tried every means to please him, and did not hesitate to personally find many beauties to make the lustful emperor's husband happy. His method is not inferior to that of his close relative, Empress Xiao, of the same clan. It seems that the Xiao family has good genetics in this regard.Uncle Xiao Guo finally came up with a so-called good idea to make fun of: there was an old river in the northwest of Daliang.It is a pity that due to the passage of time, it is now blocked.But it is easy and easy to reopen, at least in Xiao Guoshu's mouth, it is too easy and too simple: "Now we only need to recruit more husbands, starting from Daliang, starting from Heyin, Chenliu, Yongbing, Ningling , Suiyang and the area will be re-excavated, the Mengjin River will be diverted, and the Huaihe River will be connected to the east, but the distance is only a thousand miles, so that His Majesty can go directly to Yangzhou by boat."

Such a clever plan immediately made Emperor Sui Yang elated, and immediately ordered people to set up the Kaihe Office in Bianliang.Documents were issued everywhere to call for husbands.In less than half a year, 360 million people have been recruited; many young, intelligent and well-educated people have been selected to serve as festival-level captains and supervise the project.

These festival-level captains carry gleaming steel knives, leather whips and wooden sticks that can beat people to pieces, and watch around all day long, forcing these migrant workers to work hard day and night to keep up with the progress of the project.Those migrant workers have to dig down with their lives every day, shovel after shovel, and they dare not be lazy for a moment.If there is a slight delay, they will either be tied up and beaten, or tied up and beheaded.

Although the poor migrant workers were exhausted, they had an unconcealable look of panic on their faces as they worked hard.Every day before dawn, the work will start, and the digging will not be stopped until it is as dark as pitch.There are no houses to live in at night, so they can only settle down in the grassland by the river.On sunny days and warm days, they can barely survive; if it rains and snows, they have to sleep in the open in the storm.Because these coolie migrant workers are so exhausted, they can sometimes fall asleep even under the heavy rain.But as soon as he opened his eyes, he found that his whole body was covered with mud, like a loach.After all, they were all flesh and blood, and it didn't take long for the migrant workers to fall ill one by one.I hate those foremen who are extremely vicious. The sicker they are, the more powerless they are to work, the more they beat them hard. When the whips go down, there are bloodstains one by one, making those migrant workers who are seriously ill and have a high fever cry. Howling fiercely, the screams almost tore apart the sky.If this continues, migrant workers will fall down and die every day in the river, and the corpses of migrant workers will be scattered all over the place.

The group of supervising officials only cared about the official projects and ignored the lives of the people; although many people had a bad conscience, they thought that their black hat was important, so his heart was in a mess, and the heart of a child was under the weight of the black hat. Gradually degenerated into a hard and cold black heart.

When these migrant workers died, they recruited another batch.The more people died, the more migrant workers were recruited.How many strong men can there be in one place?Seeing that there was no more money left by the men, they dragged the elderly, children and women to the official construction site. In addition to forcing them to carry mud and earth, they had to cook, carry water, sew clothes, and wash clothes. repair.Pitiful for these old and weak women and children, they couldn't bear it more and more, and countless died in a few days.Those corpses filling the streets and alleys were crying everywhere.Some officials who still retain their true colors, although they can send people to transport the corpses to the wilderness for burial in time.But in the end, there are still fewer buried and more dead.On the construction site of the entire canal, from Heyin in the north to Yongqiu in the south, those who carried the dead and those who carried the soil accompanied them all day long.

(End of this chapter)