Daming: Brother, there is no future for monks, let's rebel

Kong Mingde nodded: "That's right, even Confucius said that people are the most valuable! The learning of the sages is important, but what matters is the righteousness of the sages, not a book composed of a few pieces of paper!"

"The Four Books and Five Classics, everyone sitting here today, including me and Xiangdong, who didn't recite them backwards? Even if these books are missing, as long as we are still alive, we can re-record them!"

"We can talk about these Confucian classics and engrave them on stone walls, furs, bamboo slips, and even on tortoise shells and animal bones! As long as we live, the learning of saints will not perish! On the contrary..."

"If we are dead, and even the prisoners who have been exiled here all freeze to death tonight, will there be any sages in this barren land? No! It is a real and complete severance!"

The more Kong Mingde spoke, the more intense he became, and the more he spoke, the more superior he became.

Everyone, including Yan Xiangdong, was silent, but they still held the scroll firmly and did not make any move.

Seeing this, Kong Mingde took a step forward, held up the Spring and Autumn Annotation in his hand, and said loudly: "Today, burning books to keep warm is what I, Kong Mingde, said alone. If the ancestors blamed them, I, the head of the family, will bear it all and burn them!"

After Kong Mingde finished speaking, he was the first to throw the book into the fire!
boom!
The bonfire, which was already about to go out, got something to fuel it, and a new flame suddenly burst into flames.

That warm feeling brought comfort to people for a short time, but soon, this book will be burned out, and the temperature will drop again.

Seeing this, everyone didn't care about anything, and hurriedly threw the books in their hands into the bonfire!

Yan Xiangdong stared blankly at the Analects of Confucius commentary in his hand, kept rubbing the outer cover, and finally gritted his teeth and closed his eyes, and threw it into the bonfire.

As of now, it can only be so.

As the Confucian classics were slowly burning, the fire became brighter and hotter, and the sense of comfort became stronger and stronger, but the confusion on their faces was also increasing.

On the edge of the port, Daming's fleet is still parked here.

Hu Dahai was in the cabin of the coach ship, sipping mutton hot pot with a large pot of rice wine on hand.

The wind and snow were howling outside, but his place was steaming hot and had plenty of food, which was in stark contrast to the Nankong people who were struggling to survive in the woods at the moment.

When Hu Dahai was eating and drinking happily, suddenly a lieutenant boarded the cabin against the wind and snow.

Hu Dahai grinned when he saw this: "I'm back, sit down quickly and have a drink with Bendu!"

The lieutenant quickly thanked him, sat down, picked up the wine glass, poured himself a glass of wine, and drank it down.

Hu Dahai, the lieutenant general, was getting hot, and then asked about the business: "How is it? The spies who went to investigate these prisoners, do you have any news?"

It turned out that after the [-] family members of Fan Guan who had been exiled here scattered away, Hu Dahai did not ignore them.

This person is rough on the outside and fine on the inside, and when he came, Zhu Han specifically told Hu Dahai that these 1 people are of great use and should not be wasted at will.

Therefore, Hu Dahai took it to heart. On the boat, after seeing the 1 people divided into hundreds of small groups and separated, he also dispersed hundreds of spies, followed these people from a distance, and kept track of their conditions. to report.

The deputy general picked up his chopsticks and prepared to pick up the meat slices. Hearing Hu Dahai's question, he quickly replied: "Back to the governor, the spies have bitten the master of these hundreds of families of criminal officials, and they all sent the news half an hour ago. came back!"

Hu Dahai suddenly became interested, drank the wine in the glass in one gulp, and asked curiously: "Let's talk about it!"

The lieutenant general replied: "These family members of the prisoners either went to the depths of the mainland alone, or several families joined together and started looking for a place to camp and rest..."

"Some of them have already died of freezing and starvation, and some of them are dirty and infighting among the families, fighting each other for the only supplies..."

The deputy general hadn't finished speaking when he saw Hu Dahai slamming the wine glass on the table with a sullen face.

"Hmph! These unworthy things came to the Yinzhou mainland at this time of year. They didn't want to report to the group for warmth and help each other. Instead, they started internal strife. What a waste of His Majesty's benevolent heart!"

Looking at the enraged Hu Dahai, the general was terrified, fearing that he would be in trouble, so he racked his brains to divert Hu Dahai's attention from this matter.

Suddenly, his mind lit up, but he remembered an interesting thing, and hurriedly said: "To the Governor, those spies also reported an interesting thing."

Sure enough, Hu Dahai was attracted to him: "Huh? Interesting thing? Tell me about it."

The deputy general secretly breathed a sigh of relief, and immediately lifted his spirits and said, "Does the governor remember Nan Kong Kong Mingde?"

Hu Dahai patted his thigh: "Of course I remember, I almost didn't recognize it during the day."

"The Nankong family is now camping in an old forest fifteen miles away from where we landed. Now they have started to burn books to keep warm, and what they burn are all Confucian classics annotated by their ancestors. !"

Hu Dahai was stunned when he heard that, and then he started laughing, the laughter became louder and louder, he was out of breath from laughing, even his stomach hurt from laughing, tears came out from laughing.

"Hahahaha... Nankong...haha... Nankong's gang of rotten scholars actually started to burn their own books, no, no, these rotten scholars have their day!"

The deputy general was also very happy: "These rotten Confucians, in the Ming Dynasty, spoke uprightly and strictly, obstructing the emperor and His Highness the King of England to reform the imperial examination system, but once they really faced life and death, they immediately put away the books of their saints. It was burned to keep warm..."

Having said that, the lieutenant shook his head.

At this moment, Hu Dahai also recovered, and saw him smiling and waving his hands: "Hey, this is a good thing! If they are willing to burn books to keep warm, it means that they are not too pedantic, and they know that the world is the greatest..."

"If it's really so pedantic that he would rather freeze to death than burn books, wouldn't it be a waste for His Highness the King of England to waste so much effort and get them to Yinzhou?"

Having said that, Hu Dahai changed the subject again, and asked, "Are there any natives around here who refuse to surrender to the Great Tomorrow Army?"

Hearing this, the lieutenant general's face became gloomy: "Many! There are about seven or eight tribes. The few tribes have hundreds of people, and the large ones have about two or three thousand!"

The so-called aborigines, that is, the Indians, at this time the Indians already have the embryonic form and consciousness of a country, but these are just the beginning, so it is quite difficult to subdue them.

Hu Dahai nodded: "Later, you will ask people to take hundreds of large knives and spears that are not needed on this ship, and send them to Nan Kong tomorrow, and then instruct them to pick a small tribe and wipe them out!"

After hearing this, the deputy general hesitated for a while, and couldn't help asking: "The people in Nankong are all nerds who have read too many books. Are they really going to suppress the natives of Yinzhou?"

Hu Dahai stared at him suddenly: "If they don't go, let you go?"

The lieutenant immediately smiled.

Fighting natives is a real chore.

It's not to say how strong the natives are in combat, it's just that this job is so disgusting.

Firstly, these natives were familiar with the local terrain, and when they confronted the Ming army, seeing that the momentum was not right, they turned around and ran to the dense forest and mountains. It would take a lot of energy for the Ming army to fight down such a place.

Secondly, even if we make great efforts to exterminate these tribes, we can't get anything decent, not even big animals, and we can only pull carts of cocoa beans, corn cobs and other things.

But what can the Ming army do with these things?

Over time, the Ming army turned a blind eye to these natives. This is really a loss-making business.

In this way, the Ming army stationed in the Americas and the local aborigines became a kind of strange balance. If you don't die, I won't trouble you.

Of course, if these aboriginals overestimated themselves and took the initiative to send them to their door, the Ming army would not mind cleaning them up.

But the Ming army wanted to digest the vast land of America without eliminating the indigenous people, that would not work.

Therefore, Hu Dahai put his mind on the family members of the exiled prisoners, and of course this was also Zhu Han's intention.

"That's the matter, you go back and prepare... By the way, the other dependents can't relax their inquiries, pick some guys who have become weapons, and send them more weapons!"

……

The north wind was tight overnight, so it passed.

In the early morning of the next day, Yan Xiangdong woke up in the glaring white light and cold, and other members of the Kong clan got up one after another.

This night, although difficult, but by burning books to keep warm, I finally survived.

At the thought of burning books, Yan Xiangdong's mood fell, and he smiled wryly at himself.

Shouting to revive and promote Confucianism in Yinzhou, overseas, and then burning the saint's book to keep warm that night, what is this?
Looking at the other members of the Kong clan, they were also depressed, probably because of what happened last night, and the psychological impact on them has not passed yet.

Yan Xiangdong subconsciously glanced at the big wooden box behind Kong Mingde, and saw that there were only a shallow layer of books left in it.

Even if the remaining books and the big wooden box were burned tonight, I'm afraid they wouldn't be able to survive the cold tonight!
When Yan Xiangdong was worried about how to spend the night, he heard Kong Mingde gather everyone together.

Kong Mingde didn't talk nonsense: "Everyone, we made it through last night, but what should we do today? Do you have any countermeasures?"

As soon as this statement came out, the members of the Kong clan immediately stared at each other and stared at each other without saying a word.

Usually at home, they are masters who don't touch the spring water with their fingers. Now they are suddenly asked to survive in the wild. If they survived last night, they have exhausted all their strength.

The "problem" that Kong Mingde is throwing out now is really difficult for them to alter.

Seeing that no one spoke for a long time, Yan Xiangdong sighed secretly, and then coughed lightly: "The most important thing now is to keep warm!"

As soon as Yan Xiangdong said this, everyone immediately cast hopeful glances at him. Obviously, Nan Kong now put all his hopes on him.

Yan Xiangdong was helpless, thanks to himself going with them, otherwise, it's hard to say whether Nankong and his group can survive.

Kong Mingde also saw the embarrassment in this, coughed and said: "Xiangdong, if you have any plans, just tell me, these young and strong are at your disposal."

Up to now, Yan Xiangdong is not polite, and directly assigned three things: "First, to collect firewood, let the old and the weak go to the forest to pick up as many dead branches and leaves as possible, there should be a lot in the forest!"

"The second is to fetch water. Yesterday, Nahu Dahai once said that there is a river near here, and the female relatives can go to the river to fetch some drinking water."

"The third is hunting. Let me wait for the young and strong to hunt some prey such as roe deer, hares, and wild pheasants in the depths of the dense forest to satisfy our hunger. After all, there is not much dry food, and it won't last long."

Yan Xiangdong talked eloquently, and the surrounding Kong clan seemed to have found a backbone, and they all moved closer to him and listened carefully to everything he said.

Soon, Yan Xiangdong finished his opinion, and then looked at Kong Mingde with some embarrassment.

He is the head of the Kong family, so what's the matter with him shouting and drinking?
Unexpectedly, Kong Mingde nodded in agreement: "Xiang Dong is right, everyone should do as he said!"

With Kong Mingde's support, things will be much easier.

Soon, the more than three hundred members of the Kong clan were divided into three parts.

Some people went to pick up branches, some people went to fetch water, and the last ones went to hunt in the deep forest. Yan Xiangdong and Kong Mingde were also in this team.

Going hunting, naturally the spears and broadswords distributed in front will be used.

But none of you has ever hunted in the old forest, and now you are blind again.

Everyone subconsciously turned their attention to Yan Xiangdong...

This Yan Sheng has always had a lot of ideas, so of course we still have to count on whether he can come up with a good idea at this moment.

Even Kong Mingde looked expectantly at Yan Xiangdong.

For a moment, Yan Xiangdong only felt his scalp tingling.

Yes, he is indeed in a bad family.

But no matter how bad it is, you can still earn a living by selling calligraphy and paintings, and being a teacher for others. At most, you just do housework at home. When did you ever do farming, fishing and hunting?

But now being forced into a corner, he can only rack his brains to think of countermeasures.

Suddenly, his eyes lit up. Although he didn't know how to hunt, he remembered that there were many hunters in his village back then.

Sometimes after I bought some wild game from those hunters, I also listened to them tell some interesting hunting stories, which naturally included how to hunt.

After thinking for a moment, Yan Xiangdong finally made a decision.

He led the crowd to the depths of the dense forest, first dug a big pit, and then inserted two spears and three steel knives vertically into the pit with their sharp edges facing upwards.

Then some branches were used to set up a frame on the pit mouth, and then covered with withered leaves, and finally sprinkled with a layer of white snow, this huge trap seemed to have never appeared before.

Everyone who didn't understand at first, no matter how stupid they were, knew Yan Xiangdong's intentions at the moment, and they couldn't help but praise him for his astuteness.

Yan Xiangdong said with a wry smile: "The trap is done, but whether it can trap the prey is another matter!"

As soon as this remark came out, everyone's originally high mood fell down again, Kong Mingde frowned, and said loudly: "Xiang Dong has already solved the most troublesome matter for us, what do you still have to be dissatisfied with?"