PFC Chapter 302 Demon Cult Leader
Chapter 302 Demon Cult Leader
After the incident, Li Shimin was very generous. He rewarded all the meritorious buddies generously. Qin Qiong was also given the title of General of the Left Guard and a fief of 700 households.
It can be seen that Qin Qiong also made great efforts in the Xuanwu Gate Incident. But since then, Qin Qiong seemed to have disappeared from the martial arts world. Why? In fact, it was because of years of high-intensity combat that his body was exhausted.
Qin Qiong often told his brothers: "Look, I have been fighting on the battlefield since I was a child. I can't even count the number of battles I have been in with two hands. More than 200 of them are for sure. I always get bruises on my body in every battle. I estimate that the blood I shed could fill several large jars. How can my body not be in trouble?"
In the 638th year of Zhenguan ( AD), Qin Qiong finally died. When Li Shimin heard the news, he was so upset that he ordered Qin Qiong to be buried in Zhaoling Mausoleum.
The following year, he was posthumously conferred the title of Duke of Hu. In the 643th year of Zhenguan ( AD), Li Shimin remembered Qin Qiong's kindness and directly invited him to the Lingyan Pavilion. This made Qin Qiong even more glorious after his death than when he was alive.
Not only are they hung high in temples, but they are also widely revered by the people. The custom of posting door gods during the New Year in the Ming and Qing dynasties has a long history. The portraits posted on the door are Qin Qiong and Yuchi Gong. Over time, Qin Qiong's image in the hearts of the people has become more and more lofty.
Looking back on Qin Qiong's life, compared with the image of Qin Qiong in the novel, the bravery of Qin Qiong in the official history is no less inferior.
People often say that truly capable people are always low-key, because they don’t need to do anything to prove their strength, their existence is the best proof.
Qin Qiong may be just one of many historical figures, and we can no longer know his true appearance by crossing the long river of history.
But it is undeniable that he is a legend. Just like the word "legend", perhaps there is no need to judge it in a positive or negative way. Heroes can also be heroes. As a fierce general of the Tang Dynasty, Qin Qiong was not only brave, but also loyal and righteous. He deserves the title.
[Read all the historical facts about Han Tongshan, the real leader of the Ming Cult, in one go]
In Mr. Jin Yong's martial arts novel The Heaven Sword and Dragon Saber, the protagonist Zhang Wuji practices martial arts in various adventures. In the battle at Guangmingding, he becomes famous and becomes the leader of the Ming Cult.
After that, he commanded the heroes and led the Central Plains martial arts to resist the Yuan army and became the leader of the anti-Yuan army. However, in the end, Zhang Wuji gave the opportunity to become emperor to his subordinate Zhu Yuanzhang and retired with his beloved woman Zhao Min.
The protagonist we are going to talk about today is the prototype of Zhang Wuji - the real leader of the Ming Cult, Han Shantong. Speaking of the name Han Shantong, perhaps many people don't know it.
However, as the leader of the peasant uprising at the end of the Yuan Dynasty in history, he is also the prototype of Zhang Wuji in "The Heaven Sword and Dragon Saber" and the real leader of the Ming Cult in history.
Because it was he who ignited the fire of the peasant uprising at the end of the Yuan Dynasty. Even the establishment of the Ming Dynasty later had a huge impact on him.
The strange thing about the Yuan Dynasty as a unified dynasty is that only two emperors are relatively famous: one is the real founder of the Yuan Dynasty, Kublai Khan;
The other is Toghon Temur, the last emperor of the Yuan Dynasty in the Central Plains. The Yuan Dynasty lasted for 98 years, and these two people accounted for more than half of it.
During the rest of the time, the Mongols were mostly busy fighting among their brothers and relatives, and other emperors mostly seemed to have no sense of existence. The Yuan Dynasty's harsh policies on the people, high taxes, and the reality that the Han people were at the bottom of the social status caused great dissatisfaction among the people.
At the end of the Yuan Dynasty, when Emperor Shundi of the Yuan Dynasty was in power, the Yuan Dynasty was already in a precarious situation. The vast majority of working people who were in dire straits at the time were eager to be rescued. At this time, Han Shantong, the leader of the Mingjiao, stepped onto the historical stage.
Han Shantong was born into a White Lotus family, and his grandfather was the leader of the White Lotus sect.
Those who have watched the Huang Feihong series of movies should be familiar with the White Lotus Sect. The White Lotus Sect was originally a sect derived from Buddhism and was first established during the Song Dynasty.
This sect believed in Maitreya Buddha and was often followed by a large number of lower-class people during wartime because it instilled many beautiful ideas about the afterlife into its followers. From the Song Dynasty to the late Qing Dynasty, the White Lotus Sect was active for nearly 700 years.
So, what is the relationship between the White Lotus Sect and the Ming Cult? The real Ming Cult in history developed from Manichaeism. Manichaeism was founded by the Persian Mani in the 3rd century AD. It combines elements of Christianity, Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, etc.
During the Tang Dynasty, Manichaeism was introduced into China. The name "Mingjiao" came from the fact that its followers worshiped the direction of the sunrise during worship, so it was called "Mingjiao".
For a long time, the Ming Cult has been growing and developing among the people as an extremely secret organization.
By the end of the Yuan Dynasty, the Mongolian tyranny made folk religious groups such as the Mingjiao and the White Lotus Sect dissatisfied with the status quo and advocated changing the situation in the world.
At that time, Han Shantong, as the leader of the White Lotus Sect, founded a new Mingjiao by integrating religious ideas such as Mingjiao and Maitreya Sect.
Han Shantong claimed that Maitreya Buddha was born and the Ming King was born, and once Maitreya Buddha was born and the Ming King was born, the bright paradise would come. And he himself was the Ming King who overthrew the tyranny of the Yuan Dynasty and saved the world.
Under such historical conditions, religion was undoubtedly the most appropriate and realistic way to mobilize the vast number of peasants to fight.
According to the records in the New History of Yuan Dynasty, Han Shantong was actually well educated and was also a scholar. With his careful operation, a vigorous anti-Yuan uprising was about to begin.
In the 1351th year of the Yuan Dynasty (10), Emperor Shundi of the Yuan Dynasty issued an edict to recruit civilians to clean up the Yellow River. The Yuan Dynasty was a dynasty that did not even know how to calculate accounts. So many people were already resentful, and the management of the Yuan Dynasty was chaotic.
This is tantamount to actively looking for a group of people to gather at the doorstep to cause trouble. Looking at this situation, Han Shantong felt that he seemed to have got the script of Emperor Gaozu of Han, and Emperor Shun of Yuan was the second emperor of Qin. He thought, if the Mongols could take the throne, why couldn't he?
Therefore, Han Shantong and his confidant Liu Futong planned to actively learn from historical experience. He felt that he was following Liu Bang's script, but in terms of the way he did things, he learned from Chen Sheng and Wu Guang.
Back then, Chen Sheng and Wu Guang stuffed a piece of cloth into a fish's belly and wrote "Great Chu will rise, Chen Sheng will be king". Han Shantong first buried a one-eyed stone man in the Yellow River, and then composed a nursery rhyme: "Don't say the stone man has only one eye, once this thing is out, the whole world will rebel."
After the preparations were done, the next step was to start spending money to hype the matter up so that everyone would know about it. A few days later, the laborers really dug out the stone man in the river, and the news spread quickly, causing people on both sides of the river to panic.
The news that the one-eyed stone man instigated rebellion had the desired effect.
Han Shantong began his last step, which was to add an identity to himself and establish his position as a leader. Although the identity of the leader of the Ming Cult was very popular among the masses at the bottom of society, the intellectual class did not buy it.
So, Han Shantong claimed to be the eighth-generation grandson of Song Huizong, and raised the battle flag with "Three thousand tiger soldiers, straight to Youyan; the dragon flies to the ninth heaven, reopening the sky for the Song Dynasty", indicating that he wanted to restore the Song Dynasty.
It is obvious that Han Shantong had little to do with Emperor Huizong of Song. He just needed to use fabricated stories to call on more people to join his anti-Yuan team.
However, Han Shantong was very unlucky. He thought he had received Liu Bang's script, but his role was not even half of Chen Sheng's. Just when Han Shantong was gathering his men and preparing for the uprising, the Yuan army, which received the news, suddenly sent troops to suppress it, and Han Shantong was killed by the Yuan army.
It can be said that he went offline as soon as he finished adding fuel to the fire.
However, although Han Shantong died, the spark he had started had already spread like wildfire. Han Shantong's death did not affect the uprising, but instead the fire burned more and more fiercely. Facts have proved that the Mongols were not good at managing things, and the Central Plains was instantly in chaos.
The peasant army at that time all wore red turbans, so this uprising was also called the Red Turban Army Uprising. After Han Shantong died, his son Han Lin'er was supported by his old subordinate Liu Futong as the Little Ming King and became the new leader of the Ming Cult.
Afterwards, Han Liner ascended the throne and proclaimed himself emperor, named the country the Great Song, established the Dragon and Phoenix regime, and established the symbol of destiny within the anti-Yuan rebel army.
Although Han Lin'er had no real power, under the influence of religion, rebel forces from all over the country gathered under the banner of the Little Ming King, thus winning more support from the masses.
For a time, Han Liner became the emperor supported by various anti-Yuan forces. The Red Turban Army grew rapidly and became a powerful resistance force.
Although we know that in the end Zhu Yuanzhang conquered the world and had the last laugh.
But from a historical perspective, one of the important reasons why Zhu Yuanzhang was able to rise, and why the Ming Dynasty was able to overthrow the Yuan capital and unify the world so quickly, was that the Northern Red Turban Army under the leadership of Han Tongshan had almost exhausted the vitality of the Yuan Dynasty.
This was best reflected in the third year of Longfeng (1357).
The Han Song regime once divided its troops into three groups to attack the Yuan army, and even once entered the Mongolian grassland homeland and burned down the Yuan Dynasty's Shangdu. For a time, the Red Turban Army was everywhere in the north, and the Yuan Shun Emperor at that time almost moved the capital.
It was during this period that Zhu Yuanzhang successfully occupied Nanjing and Xu Shouhui also occupied Sichuan. It can be said that the fight against the Mongols was basically done by the Red Turban Army in the north, while these people in the south were busy making a fortune in silence.
However, as the Red Turban Army in the north grew too fast, the quality of its internal personnel also had great problems. The History of Ming Dynasty mentioned that after winning several battles, these people no longer obeyed orders.
As the Yuan Dynasty recovered, the three armies of the Red Turban Army in the north were almost completely wiped out by the Yuan Dynasty. As the emperor, Han Liner could only flee all the way, and finally had no place to go, so he had to surrender to Zhu Yuanzhang.
Although the Red Turban Army in the north suffered heavy losses, they tied down and consumed a large number of Yuan troops in the confrontation with them, allowing the rebel army in the south to develop steadily. In the end, the southern battlefield became the final battle site of the chaotic world at the end of the Yuan Dynasty, and the biggest winner was undoubtedly Zhu Yuanzhang.
According to Li Wenfu's viewpoint quoted in "A Brief History of Heroes at the Beginning of the Nation", the reason why the Yuan Dynasty could not move southward was because of the Song Dynasty as a barrier. The Han Dynasty's monarchs and ministers not only made contributions to China, but also played an indispensable role in the rise of the Ming Dynasty.
Relying on the strategy of "building high walls and storing abundant grain", Zhu Yuanzhang used Han Lin'er as a card to "hold the emperor hostage to command the princes", firmly occupying the moral high ground, and the balance of victory gradually tilted towards Zhu Yuanzhang.
With Zhu Yuanzhang's elimination of Zhang Shicheng and Chen Youliang, there was basically no one in southern China who could compete with Zhu Yuanzhang.
Seeing that the overall situation was already decided, Han Lin'er, as a "mascot", was no longer useful. In 1366, Zhu Yuanzhang considered again and again and decided to take action to get rid of this young leader who had brought him support.
After Han Lin'er's death, the era of the Red Turban Army was over, and Zhu Yuanzhang could finally step onto the throne legitimately. The person who ruled the world afterwards was Zhu Yuanzhang.
Later facts also proved that Zhu Yuanzhang did not like the Han Song regime. When he was compiling the "History of Yuan Dynasty", he directly portrayed the Northern Red Turban Army, which had caused the most bloodshed in the Yuan Dynasty, as villains, saying that these people were all bandits and the Yuan Dynasty was the orthodox one.
Zhu Yuanzhang once said: "I am a good citizen who was born in the Yuan Dynasty. The emperor of the Yuan Dynasty was besieged by a group of unruly people. By the time I was able to rescue him, the emperor had already fled to the grassland.
You said this matter. I can only wait for the emperor reluctantly. "Of course, if you want to come back, I will definitely not let you come back. The dead Yuan Dynasty is the good Yuan Dynasty.
We cannot use this incident to criticize Zhu Yuanzhang, because he was an excellent politician. Politicians are quite flexible when facing these problems. Although Zhu Yuanzhang cursed the Yuan Dynasty, it did not prevent him from using the Yuan Dynasty's legacy at the same time. The purpose was to strengthen the legal system of the Ming Dynasty.
Zhu Yuanzhang, as the King of Wu of the Han-Song regime, did not use the word "Wu" as the name of his country after he founded it, which shows that he did not want to inherit the Han-Song system. What is there to be proud of as a descendant of Song Huizong? Besides, the word "Wu" sounds like a word used by rats.
The name of the Yuan Dynasty comes from the Qian Gua in the Book of Changes, which reads, "Great is Qian Yuan, the source of all things, and the ruler of heaven." The Ming Dynasty is equivalent to the next sentence of this sentence, "The beginning and the end of the Great Ming, six emperors are established from time to time, and they ride six dragons to rule the sky."
What this means is that Zhu Yuanzhang was going to inherit the legacy of the Yuan Dynasty. This is also the reason why Zhu Yuanzhang later placed Kublai Khan’s tablet in the Temple of Emperors of All Dynasties.
In his eyes, the people of the Ming Dynasty included the Mongols in the north, but these people, like Liu Futong and his men, were now unruly people who could be dealt with easily.
As for Han Liner, who played a big role in the Yuan Dynasty at the end of the Yuan Dynasty, he was a "mascot" from the beginning. After completing his historical mission, he should naturally disappear reasonably.