Han’s Son is Not a Slave

The largest wealthy household in Xuzhuang, Hengli Town is the Zhao family whose ancestors were second in the Chenghua period. During the Wanli and Tianqi years, the Zhao family produced two jinshi, a father and a son, which is a popular story. In the year of Jiashen, the Zhao family took the initiative to shave their braids, and helped the Qing army arrest anti-Qing righteous people in Kunshan and Jiading. Therefore, after the Zhao family was restored to Dingwu, life became difficult.

When the debt was cleared last year, the Zhao family bore the brunt of the 34-year tax payment from the first year of Chongzhen to the present, which emptied most of the Zhao family's wealth. The original owner, Zhao Ruiping, was locked up by the county and taken to Nandu on the charge of "passing captives". I heard that in Nandu prison, Zhao Ruiping committed suicide by biting his tongue because he could not bear the punishment, but the Zhao family has not received any notice from the government so far. I haven't seen Zhao Ruiping's body, so whether the old family owner is dead or alive has become the biggest unsolved case in the Zhao family.

The Zhao family was owed, and the owner of the family didn't know whether to live or die. The Zhao family, the older one, fell overnight. Half of the Zhao family's property was reclaimed by the officials, and the remaining half was forcibly sold to former tenants at a low price. There were hundreds of people in the family, old and young, and life was very difficult.

Now the head of the Zhao family is Zhao Ruiping's eldest son, Zhao Xiangwei. Zhao Xiangwei went to the county to have a theory with the academic officer, but the academic officer said it was the intention of the mansion. Who let your father Zhao Ruiping pass the captives back then, and now he is tax-resistant. However, the academy said that you are lucky if you are only a scholar who has been revoked. It should be noted that there are hundreds of Juren masters in Songjiang who have been revoked and exiled to Annan.

The academy asked Zhao Xiangwei to stay home honestly, and don't come back to the county. This time, the court has made a real move. The second place and the tanhualang have been fired a few times. You are a little scholar and famous. It is absolutely impossible to think about it, and then bring disaster to the Zhao family.

How can Zhao Xiangwei be reconciled when his innocent family property was taken away, his father was imprisoned, and he was removed from his fame. But from the bottom to the top, the government is all under the orders of the King of Qi, and the soldiers who have cleared the debt are like wolves and tigers. In desperation, Zhao Xiangwei could only go home and wait for news. He didn't expect anything else, he just hoped that the government would release his father. With his father here, even if the tenants in the family divided his land, they would never be able to ride on the Zhao family.

However, more than half a year has passed, but there is no news of his father, there are many rumors, and Zhao Xiangwei doesn't know how to deal with it. Just after Zhengdan passed, a distant relative of Suzhou House came to tell Zhao Xiangwei that his father Zhao Ruiping had already died in prison in Nandu. The reason why the government did not inform the Zhao family was because too many people died in prison, and the government could not understand it at all, or simply did not want to pay attention to it.

The news of his father's death completely overwhelmed Zhao Xiangwei, and he had nothing to count on. But that distant relative told him that the Taiping army was persecuting the gentry scholars and scholars in the south of the Yangtze River. Don't look at the calm situation now, in fact, secretly Jiangnan, everyone with some knowledge and some backbone is secretly connecting together, waiting for the opportunity to join forces to drive out the Taiping bandits.

Zhao Xiangwei wanted to avenge his father, but he was not brainless. His distant relatives said that he was very skeptical, because there is an old saying that "a rebellious scholar will not succeed in ten years". Nowadays, the military and political power in Jiangnan is controlled by the Taiping Army. The tigers and wolves from Lingnan were killed from the dead. How could it be possible if the gentry alone resisted. At this time, the distant relative did not hide from Zhao Xiangwei, saying that although Da Qing had returned to the north, he never forgot to recover Jiangnan. What a smart person Zhao Xiangwei is, when he heard this, he knew that this distant relative of his family who had never been there before was probably the work of a Manchurian.

The remarks of the distant relative moved Zhao Xiangwei. The reason why the Zhao family has the current catastrophe is entirely the revenge of the Taiping Army, because the Zhao family had helped the Qing Dynasty. Therefore, if the Zhao family wants to return to the past and recapture their own industries and fields, they must help the Qing Dynasty to counterattack Jiangnan. Otherwise, if the Taiping army is still alive, the Zhao family will never be able to come forward. There was a lot of information about distant relatives, and he clearly told Zhao Xiangwei that there was a new regulation in the Taiping Army, that any case involving the "passing of prisoners" would not be allowed to the descendants of the imperial examination. This means that even if Zhao Xiangwei doesn't want to go home, he doesn't want to take revenge for his father, and he just wants to be an obedient citizen of the Ming Dynasty, his Zhao family will never think about "honoring their ancestors" from now on.

Breaking the road to the imperial examination is even worse than killing one's parents!

After a long night of suffering, Zhao Xiangwei finally made a decision that he was afraid of, that is, to join his distant relatives, serve the Qing Dynasty, and use his life's strength to fight with the Zhao family and the Taiping army to the end.

The day after the Lantern Festival, that distant relative brought a Manchu man to the Zhao family quietly. Since then, the Zhao family has become a secret contact point for Manchurian fine work in Hengli. No one in the outside world knew about this matter. Zhao Xiangwei didn't even dare to tell his wife about the news of his father Zhao Ruiping's death, except for revealing it to his two younger brothers.

It was just late that day, and Zhao Xiangwei went alone to a yard in the east of the mansion where no one had lived for a few years.

There was someone in the yard, it was the Manchurian man Zhao Xiangwei had mentioned. This person was from the Zhao family last night. Zhao Xiangwei didn't know his name, only that his distant relative called him "Lord Mingzhu".

Lord Mingzhu is the "Brother Nalan" whom Yu Baien bumped into at the Xilin Temple in Huating. He is a native of Zhenghuang Banner in Manzhou. His full name is Nalan Mingzhu. The ancestral emperor Nurhachna was the concubine Meng Gu Zhezhe, and this Meng Gu Zhezhe was the biological mother of Emperor Taizong Hong Tai of the Qing Dynasty. In other words, Hong Tai and Mingzhu's fathers were first cousins. Mingzhu himself also married the daughter of the British Prince Azige as his wife. In terms of seniority, he was the uncle of Emperor Kangxi, who now ascended the throne in Beijing.

Mingzhu sneaked to Jiangnan on the order of Emperor Shunzhi in July last year. He has been in Songjiang and Suzhou for the past few months, and he has privately contacted many gentry and landlords who were dissatisfied with the debts of the Taiping Army. Some Jiangnan gentry who fled to the north with their families also helped Mingzhu, and even under the organization of Mingzhu, these gentry and landlords who fled to the north also organized a group training, ready to cooperate with the Qing army to fight back to their hometown in the event of chaos in the south of the Yangtze River. . Pearl gave this group a very apt name - "Homecoming Group".

When Zhao Xiangwei was outside the yard, two shadows approached. After seeing him, the shadows quickly flashed to a dark corner. Zhao Xiangwei is not surprised by this, he knows that these two are the bodyguards who have been protecting Mr. Mingzhu closely. I heard that these two guards are the third-class guards in the Qing Palace, and Lord Mingzhu himself is the first-class guard.

The first-class bodyguard is a very important official position in the Qing Dynasty. Although it is a bodyguard, once it is released, it is a big man who can supervise all over the place. Lord Mingzhu is only in his twenties now, and he is young and promising. If he has made great achievements in Jiangnan this time, he may become an important minister in the DPRK when he returns.

Zhao Xiangwei has no doubts that the Qing Dynasty can cross the river again. Lord Mingzhu understood what he said to him, and he also understood that, for more than a year, although the Taiping Army defeated the Eight Banners of the Qing Dynasty on the battlefield, it lost their hearts. In order to extort floating wealth, what the Taiping Army did was similar to that of Li Zicheng's thieves. Since ancient times, the gentry has been the foundation of governance, and it is the core of governance. I have never heard of offending the gentry. If you lose the heart of the gentry, you can still sit firmly in the country.

Whoever wins the heart wins the world!

The thief Xiucai is doing the opposite, and the Jiangnan gentry dare not speak out. One day, they will attack in groups and tell him that the thief Xiucai will not die!

Zhao Xiangwei couldn't help feeling a little excited when he thought of the instructions given to him by Lord Mingzhu, and what kind of Manchu pillar he was holding after the Qing Dynasty restored the unification of the world in the future. He gently pushed open the courtyard door and came to Mingzhu, who was looking through in front of adults.

Nalan Mingzhu likes to collect ancient books and is a rare book collector among the Eight Banners in Manzhou. In addition to the activities in Jiangnan this time, he also did not forget to collect ancient books. In his hand, he bought it at a great price. There is still half of the copy he copied on the table. The font is correct and the writing is smooth. It is not bad at first glance. Zhao Xiangwei noticed that the three words "Xueyanzhai" were printed on the manuscript of Lord Mingzhu, and secretly thought that this might be the engraving of Lord Mingzhu.

"sit."

Nalan Mingzhu put down and nodded to Zhao Xiangwei with a smile. He was very satisfied with Zhao Xiangwei. In the past few months, Zhao Xiangwei not only provided him with a place to stay and contact, but also helped him collect a lot of information about the Taiping army garrison in Songjiang, which was very useful.

Seeing Zhao Xiangwei's expression hesitating, Mingzhu asked him, "Is there something wrong?"

Zhao Xiangwei hesitated for a while~www.NovelMTL.com~ hesitantly said: "The bamboo poles that the lord wants the villain to buy are all complete, but I don't know when the lord will use it?"

"Don't worry, although everything is ready, I still owe Dongfeng." Mingzhu smiled and shook her head.

"But I don't know when the east wind will come?"

Zhao Xiangwei was eager to know when the grand occasion of the Jiangnan gentry that Lord Mingzhu said earlier would come. He couldn't hold back his excitement and wanted to join this big event as soon as possible.

Mingzhu glanced at Zhao Xiangwei, smiled slightly, did not answer him, but murmured a word softly.

"The east wind blooms thousands of trees at night, and it blows down even more, and the stars are like rain. The carves of BMWs fill the road. The sound of the phoenix flute moves, the jade pot turns light, and fish and dragons dance all night. The crowd searched for him thousands of times, and all of a sudden he came back, but the man was there, where the lights were dim."

This is Xin Qiji's fault, Zhao Xiangwei doesn't understand why Mingzhu-sama chanted this word, and he is puzzled. Mingzhu didn't explain it to him, just smiled there, his face was full of radiance, and Zhao Xiangwei admired him as a god.

"I understand what you're thinking, don't worry, that day will come eventually." Mingzhu got up, patted Zhao Xiangwei's shoulder lightly, looked at the stars in the north, and said lightly: "Good life, I will live up to your Zhao family. , Daqing will not lose your Zhao family."

"Thank you sir!"

Zhao Xiangwei got up excitedly, and wanted to kneel down to the person in front of him, who was one round younger than himself. There was a slight sound from the courtyard door, and then a figure came over. This person Zhao Xiangwei didn't know, walked straight to Mingzhu, bowed and said, "The news leaked, Ma Dalong and the others moved ahead of time."8