Chapter 442: Same Body, Different Lives
Niu 100-year-old mother-in-law gave birth to triplets for him, when the news was spread all over Niujiazhuang, most of the young people in Niujiazhuang who were the same age as Niu 100 years old were very envious. [Full text reading]
Of course, Niu Baisui himself also feels that he is a great blessing. Niu, who was a father for the first time, had heard of twins before he was 100 years old, but triplets, and triplets were all kids, and it was really a rare thing.
Unlike Niu Baisui, most of the elderly people in Niujiazhuang are not very optimistic about Niu Baisui's family having three sons at once. The family has less than 20 acres of land, and the 100-year-old Niu has suddenly added three people, which is not a happy thing.
It is not without reason that the middle of Wanli is called a prosperous era in history. In the early Wanli period of Gao Gong's administration, because Gao Gong, who presided over the political situation of the Ming Dynasty, had the courage to clean up the bureaucratic system, to a certain extent, suppressed the arrogance of the vested interest groups of the Ming Dynasty at that time, so that in the early stage of Wanli, the politics of the Ming Dynasty appeared a relatively rare Qingming atmosphere.
You must know that under the condition that the productive forces are imprisoned and the total amount of social wealth is relatively fixed, the convergence of vested interest groups means that part of the distribution of social wealth will be released to the middle and lower strata of society. This makes it possible for ordinary people to have a better life in such an era when the momentum of vested interest groups is more arrogant.
Unlike the social environment in which there were almost no yeoman farmers in the era of Tianqi Chongzhen, in the middle and early stages of Wanli, the life of yeoman farmers, who were the main source of tax revenue in the Ming Dynasty, was still passable.
Niu's 100-year-old triplets are even luckier. They did not die in the severe malnutrition, infectious diseases, infections and various plagues that were common in feudal agricultural society, nor were they affected by serious natural disasters and various man-made military disasters and other vicious disasters, but they grew up so peacefully.
Of course, the hundred-year-old triplet son of the cow, the eldest cow has wealth, the second cow has Lu, and the third cow is blessed, and when he is fifteen or sixteen years old, the Ming Dynasty has begun to enter the era after the reform of Zhang Juzheng, who does not allow the existence of yeoman farmers. After the death of Niu Baisui and his wife, the three brothers were forced to sell the last bit of land in their family and began to go their separate ways.
A characteristic of feudal agrarian society is that under the condition that land, the means of production, cannot be rationally distributed, and under the production relations of feudal land ownership, due to the excessive concentration of land caused by land annexation, a relatively serious relative surplus of labor will be formed in the whole society.
Taking Shaanxi as an example, in a historical period, the Chinese's impression of Shaanxi was that there were 30 million lazy people in Qinchuan for 800 miles. The reason for this situation is not that the people of Shaanxi are unwilling to work and are willing to be lazy. However, because of the harsh natural environment, the local agricultural production materials are scarce, and when the whole society lacks the ability to digest such a huge labor force, it is inevitable that tens of millions of people will become a relatively surplus labor force.
The same can be said in Sichuan. Since ancient times, there has been a saying that "less is not into Shu". The ancients believed that the lazy and depressed folk customs in Sichuan were not conducive to the growth of young people. The fact is that even if there is a country of abundance created by Dujiangyan, under the condition of feudal land ownership, tens of millions of Sichuan people have also produced tens of millions of relatively surplus laborers, and in the absence of a large number of jobs, it will become inevitable that the whole society will embody a lazy and slow-paced state. After the reform and opening up, tens of millions of Sichuan migrant workers filled the southeastern coastal areas.
In the feudal agricultural society, after more than 200 years of reproduction, the total population of the Ming Dynasty by the end of Wanli had already exceeded 150 million and approached 200 million. In the case of increasingly fierce land annexation, the relative surplus labor force was filled in all corners of the Ming Dynasty.
The three Niu brothers were lucky enough to avoid countless disasters when they were born and grew up, and when they grew up, they began to attack them overwhelmingly.
Niu Youcai, Niu Youlu and Niu Youfu all made a living in the Shangluo area after leaving their hometown.
However, due to the backward means of communication, the three of them did not have any contact even though they lived in the same area.
Niu Youcai first took a carpenter in a town as a teacher and apprenticed the carpenter for five years. Before the carpenter died, because of the virtue of the feudal handicraftsman, Niu Youcai did not learn a full set of carpenter skills from his master, but accepted the carpenter's daughter and became a two-knife carpenter with a family.
When Niu Youcai, who was making a living with his wife in Shangluo County, was struggling to make a living with his two knives and carpenter's skills, an extremely unlucky thing happened to him. Zhang Xianzhong, who raised troops in Shaanxi to break through Shanxi, and returned to Shaanxi after the defeat of the battle, led his troops to break through Shangluo County.
Niu Youcai's wife was killed in the turmoil, and Niu Youcai himself became a member of Zhang Xianzhong's cannon fodder army.
However, it must also be said that the luck of the cow is very good. In the process of Zhang Xianzhong's frenzied attack on Huguang, Zhang Xianzhong's regular troops were annihilated on the spot by the First Army Corps in the Northwest of the Fuxing Army, and Zhang Xianzhong himself was only spared. However, Niu Youcai, who was a member of the lowest cannon fodder unit, became a production and construction soldier under the rule of the Baath Party after being taken over by the Baath Army.
Although he accepted a lot of torture and pain that Niu Youcai thought, Niu Youcai finally lived the life he had always dreamed of. After receiving a lot of training and education, Niu Youcai became the backbone soldier of the Baath Party's Northern Railway Production and Construction Corps.
Unlike Niu Youcai, Niu Youlu is a person who is enterprising and ambitious. Unlike his own brother, he hated the landlord of his village who forcibly bought his family's last land and broke up the three brothers who depended on each other for their lives.
After leaving his hometown, one of the things Niu Youlu did was to go directly to the nearby Shangzhai to become a small bandit.
With his innate intelligence and cleverness, Niu Youlu first found that the cottage where he was located was actually the power supported by the landlord's family in his village. After discovering this, Niu Youlu figured out the personnel and materials of the village, and was very talented in finding out the topography of the surrounding area, and then secretly escaped from the cottage with these materials and took refuge in the opponent of the village.
It took three years for Niu Youlu to go from an ordinary small bandit to a low-level leader with a position in the new cottage. Niu Youlu, who had gained the trust of most people in the cottage, only revealed the information he had at this time, and finally led the forces of the cottage to successfully break through the original cottage and slaughter the mountain king who had always colluded with his enemies.
However, what Niu Youlu didn't expect was that the new bandit leader who occupied the cottage was an experienced old bandit. He did not lead his troops and horses to attack the landlord and gentry who had enmity with Niu Youlu at the instigation of Niu Youlu, but sent people to contact the landlord and tyrant, and was willing to re-establish a new relationship with the landlord and gentry at the original price.
At this time, Niu Youlu finally discovered that there is no distinction between good bandits and bad bandits, and any bandit is a natural thug and lackey of the landlords and tyrants, and any bandit cannot survive in the local area without relying on these local tyrants and inferior gentry without abundant logistical supplies. It turns out that there is a natural blood connection between the local tyrants and the gentry and the bandits and bandits.
Niu Youlu, who has been tossing for five or six years, finally decided that his father and mother are not as good as his own, and his father and mother are not as good as his own relatives, and if he wants revenge, he can't rely on others, and only when he has absolute strength can he achieve his goal of revenge.
In this way, Niu Youlu, who redefined the goal, spent six years in this small cottage with only more than 100 people and more than 30 horses to successfully stage a life inspirational drama "How the King of the Mountain is Made". In the end, he relied on the methods of befriending, co-opting and dividing to control the main forces in the cottage, overthrew the king of the old mountain, and sat on the throne of the boss himself.
But just as Niu Youlu was about to take revenge, his small cottage was annexed by a larger peasant rebel force. After that, Niu Youlu went through several setbacks in the peasant rebel army from all walks of life, kept his life, and finally became a low-level officer under the command of Gao Yingxiang, the king of Chuang.
After going to Shaanxi, attacking Shanxi, breaking Henan, and entering Shandong, countless battles and countless bloodsheds, after experiencing the most thorough tempering and tossing, this surviving low-level officer of the Chuang Army was finally promoted before Gao Yingxiang invaded Beijing and became a middle-level officer.
However, unfortunately, before Niu Youlu could enjoy the life of a middle-level officer, he was accidentally hit in the chest by a Liaodong soldier hiding in a small alley in the process of suppressing the riot in Beijing, and died silently in a major event that changed the dynasty.
Unlike his two older brothers, Niu Youfu, who had the worst ability to survive, was robbed shortly after leaving his hometown. Niu Youfu, who lost all his money and materials, immediately became a homeless.
Reduced to a homeless person is nothing, and the cow that appears to be in better physical condition has become a target for human traffickers who specifically target homeless people. He was first deceived and then sold to a large landowner as a serf. Although the serfs are miserable, they are a hundred times stronger than being homeless, although they are not well fed and clothed, and they are beaten and scolded by the steward, but after all, a life can be saved.
But before Niu Youfu's "happy" serf career had completed a year, this large family was broken by a local peasant rebel force. Niu Youfu, who was lucky enough to hide in the cellar and escaped, became a homeless person again without a master's family.
The second time he became an outcast, Niu Youfu had full experience. He had become hard-hearted in the course of his wanderings. He can safely watch the last bit of food in the hands of the old, weak, sick and disabled people be snatched away and remain indifferent, he can watch the women around him be raped and turn a blind eye, and he can make full use of the stones and sticks in his hands to kill all his companions who dare to compete with him for the bark of grass roots.
Niu Youfu is really blessed, and fate actually favored him again. Niu Youfu, who barely ensured his physical fitness in more than a year of wandering, was favored by a landlord who recruited a family to care for the home. This time, he became a member of a landlord's family with a high courtyard wall.
Niu Youfu, who has a wealth of experience, has mastered the knack of surviving in the last days. Unlike those local families, Niu Youfu knew that no matter how high the courtyard wall was, it could not stop the rebels, and no matter how strong the family was, it could not stop the wave of hungry people.
He learned to steal J and play slippery. He learned to be diligent and conscientious in the presence of the Lord's house. He learned to be faithful in front of the Lord's house. Privately, however, he kept an eye on every place in the large courtyard where he could hide, and he took every opportunity to stock up on food and supplies around him.
Opportunities are for those who are prepared. In the case that the courtyard wall was broken again and the main house was destroyed, full preparations had already been made, and Niu Youfu, who was the first to hide after seeing that the big thing was not good, actually survived under Gao Yingxiang's army, and escaped the fate of becoming cannon fodder.
Niu Youfu didn't know that while he was lying motionless in the pit he had carefully prepared, his own brother had passed over his head three times.
Niu Youfu, who escaped for the second time, fully realized a problem, that is, as long as he was in the countryside, no matter how powerful and powerful the landlord Lao Cai was, he could not resist the attack of the rebel army.
Niu Youfu, who had fully learned from experience, resolutely fled into Kaifeng City.
Niu Youcai, who has no savings, no craftsmanship, no job opportunities and means of livelihood, has no hardships and hardships to live in Kaifeng City. He rummaged through the garbage heap during the day and sheltered from the wind and rain in the ruined temple at night. Accepting the exclusion and oppression of local beggars, Niu Youfu, who desperately wanted to find a safe living environment, really persisted in Kaifeng City for more than a year.
However, it seems that God can't get along with him, and Niu Youbless, who just felt that he has a sense of security, was once again besieged by the peasant rebels. And this siege is two years.
However, the siege seems to be a good opportunity for the cow to be blessed, who has been completely reduced to beggars. The big families in Kaifeng City were unwilling to send their families to the city wall of Kaifeng City to die, so the beggars in Kaifeng City had a new way to live. They were hired by these large families at a very low price, just to be able to eat enough every day, to replace the family members and manpower of these large families, and walked on the Kaifeng city wall to guard.
Niu Youfu feels that he is safe. Although the endless crowd outside the city frightened him from the bottom of his heart, looking at the huge city wall more than ten zhang thick and dozens of zhang high, Niu Youfu still felt that he no longer needed to hide this time.
For him, if a huge city like Kaifeng City can't give him a safe and stable place, then there is no place in the world that is safe.
In the past two years, Niu Youfu has continuously strengthened his belief. However, two years later, the smoothbore cannon that Gao Yingxiang purchased from the Baath Party used a flowering bullet to awaken Niu Youfu's dream.
Just before the army attacked Kaifeng City, Niu Youfu, who was miraculously not injured at all, jumped off the Kaifeng city wall dozens of feet high in despair.
Niu Youcai, Niu Youlu, and Niu Youfu, these three names entrust the dreams of all ordinary Chinese people, the triplet brothers, who have exactly the same body, but have completely different lives.
However, the three of them had the same experience as countless Chinese in the late Ming Dynasty, and they were about to be rewritten.
At the end of 1631, when the hustle and bustle in Beijing was about to subside, Gao Yingxiang strode into the gate of the Forbidden City. A neat team is starting from Hubei and quickly marching towards the center of North China.
The real change is about to happen in China.