Forty-eight years of Qianlong

Chapter 467

Liu Zhixie, a native of Taihe, Anhui, was born in the fifth year of Qianlong (1740). He was proficient in writing and could recite poems. He was engaged in cotton trading and cloth business. He wandered around all the year round and made extensive contacts in various places.

This person is like a ghost in the history of the White Lotus Sect in the Qing Dynasty. He never stepped onto the front stage, but only secretly manipulated it behind the scenes.In history, many leaders of the Sichuan-Shaanxi White Lotus Sect Rebellion were his disciples. Many people in the Sect had only heard of Liu Zhixie's name, but few had met him.

His master is Liu Song from Henan, Liu Song's master is Wang Huaiyu, and Wang Huaiyu's master is Fan Mingde, the founder of Hunyuan Sect.In the 40th year of Qianlong, the missionary activities of Hunyuan Sect in Henan were interviewed by the Qing government, and troops were immediately arrested.The head leader Fan Mingde was tortured, seven people were executed, more than 80 people were exiled, and his wife and children were sentenced to slavery in the family of heroes.

The government found scriptures such as "Hunyuan Enlightenment" and "Small and Small Questions" from Fan Mingde's home, in which there were words such as "Change the universe, change the world, and fight against the chaos at the end of the year", as well as "Bo Mitian" and "Bo Mi Pour". Wait for Lingwen.Fan Mingde confessed that it was taught by a person named Yang Ji, so it can be seen that this Hunyuan religion also has its origins, but Yang Ji died early, and the above origins have not been verified.

This arrest was a serious blow to the Hunyuan Sect. Liu Song and his son were dispatched to Longde, Gansu Province, but his apprentice Liu Zhixie was not taken seriously by the government and escaped safely.

Liu Zhixie secretly went to Gansu to visit his master six times, but Liu Song was unwilling to fail and intended to make a comeback.

In the 53rd year of Qianlong, after several secret discussions between the master and the apprentice, considering that no one believed in the "Hunyuan Sect" and had to establish a different Christian name, they changed "Hunyuan Sect" to "Sanyang Sect" and changed "Hunyuan Sect" to "Sanyang Sect". "Hunyuan Dianhua" was changed to "Sanyang Liaodao Jing", and "Lingwen" was renamed "Mouth Jue".

Thinking back to Zhao Xin's whim, he played the banner of "Ming" when he first attacked Ninggu Pagoda.After more than a year, the news gradually spread into the pass, and Liu Zhixie also heard about it, so he told Liu Song.

Afterwards, he had an idea and suggested that Liu Song find someone to pretend to be "Niu Ba" and make up the character "Zhu", pretending to be a direct descendant of the former Ming Dynasty, and referring to Liu Song's son Liu Si as "Maitreya Buddha", and he would protect and assist Niu Ba. .

Because it was difficult for Liu Song and his son to move around in the military distribution station in Gansu, Liu Zhixie was sent to various places to recruit believers.After Liu Zhixie returned to Anhui, he bought an 11-year-old boy in Bozhou for ten taels of silver. He changed his name to Wang Shuangxi and called him "Niuba".

Since the Northern Navy's victory over Tsarist Russia and the capture of Kyakhta, the news of Zhao Xin's "self-proclaimed King Zhao" has been continuously transmitted back to the pass from Outer Mongolia along with Shanxi businessmen.Although there are rumors among the people, many people don't care because it is too far away.

When Liu Zhixie heard about it, he simply fabricated that Niu Ba was King Zhao's younger brother. One of the two brothers dug Manqing's lair outside the pass, and the other echoed each other in the pass.

Liu Zhixie was full of enthusiasm for the "great cause of preaching", and developed a group of capable disciples in Henan and Hubei, including Song Zhiqing who was recruited in Xiangyang.And Song Zhiqing was Sun Guiyuan's third disciple, who had been preaching in Hubei and Henan under the name of "Shouyuan Sect".After this person converted to the Sanyang Sect, because of his excellent agitation ability, he soon had a prosperous career and a lot of money, so Liu Zhixie promoted him to be the second disciple.

Because the various sects of the White Lotus Sect have always followed the practice of concealing the way of preaching and opening altars at night to recruit disciples; Well, on Xuzhuang's side, no one knew that Zhao Xin had an extra "brother".

Last year, because the Beihai Navy approached Dagukou and bombarded it, the news spread everywhere along with the merchants returning home from Tianjin for the New Year.Although the Qing government announced that the local governments would ban it, such rumors could not be prevented at all. After two or three months, it reached Liu Zhixie's ears, and a group of core believers were very excited.

After the fifteenth day of the first lunar month this year, Liu Zhixie asked his big apprentice Liu Qirong to take people to Shandong, intending to find a boat to land in Liaodong from there, inquire about news, and wait for the opportunity to contact Beihai Town.He had coveted Shouyuanjiao for a long time, so he asked Song Zhiqing to look for it in many ways, intending to annex it in the name of Niu Ba.

Master Liu didn't know at this time that Beihai Town hated people like them extremely, and the usual way was to throw them into the Beiquanzhou Coal Mine in Ezodi, so that they would never come out again.

At the end of March in the 54th year of Qianlong, Liu Qirong, the chief disciple of the Sanyang Sect, led two subordinates, and went all the way northward, arriving at Qingjiangpu, north of Huai'an Mansion.According to the rumors they heard along the way, they learned that the big ships from Beihai Town had haunted Jiaodong and attacked Wendeng and Rongcheng, so they decided to go to Haizhou and take a boat to Rongcheng first.

They found a flat-bottomed sand boat in Qingjiangpu to Haizhou. When they boarded the boat, they saw that the cabin was almost full. The three of them found seats and sat down. They thought it was just right, and they had to leave immediately when it was full Boat.

In the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the waterway from Qingjiangpu to Haizhou was the Yanhe River. After arriving in Haizhou, you can change boats and take the sea route from Dapukou.As the name suggests, the Salt River is a river that transports salt and a tributary of the Grand Canal.Huai salt, one of the four major salts in the world in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, actually refers to the salt produced in Haizhou.

When Liu Qirong boarded the boat, because he was too hasty, he didn't pay much attention to the other passengers in the cabin. After the boat started, he realized that most of the dozen or so passengers in the cabin were wearing thick bamboo hats.It was stuffy and hot in the cabin, but none of these people took off their hats, even if the sweat was streaming down their cheeks, they just wiped it with their sleeves.

When he took a closer look, he noticed more things that were wrong.Apart from the three of them, there were 15 other passengers in the cabin. Among them, only one man with thick eyebrows and thin eyes and a beard was leaning against the bulkhead and taking a nap.Beside him was a thin, fine-looking man, wearing a cap who looked like a footman.

As for the other thirteen people, they were all strong and healthy, and they didn't look like ordinary people at first glance.Each of them has a thick cloth bag next to their legs, and they are all placed on their legs.The contents of the bag seemed to be very heavy, and when the ship shook, those people put their hands on it to prevent it from falling over.

"Could it be a sword?" Liu Qirong was startled.Xin said that he was really stupid, and boarded the boat without saying a good look. Thinking of this, he winked at the two subordinates respectively.

During the next half-day voyage, Liu Qirong noticed that except for the bearded man in the melon cap who sometimes went to the stern of the boat to talk to one of the young men, the others hardly spoke much, and even the conversations were in whispers, as if something needed to be done. Keep it secret.

From this, Liu Qirong concluded that these people might be private salt dealers, and they should have gone to Haizhou to do private salt.So he took advantage of the time when he got up and went to the stern to stretch his body, and explained to his two subordinates, don't mess with these people.

Those who are engaged in smuggling salt these days are all numerous, and the amount of salt sold can be tens of thousands of catties at least, and can reach 10,000+ catties at most.If you encounter officers and soldiers who are inspecting on the way, as long as there are not many officers and soldiers, you will draw your knife and slash directly, killing people to silence the incident; because once you are caught, you will be punished with a stick of one hundred, and it will take three years if it is light, or it will be confiscated nearby.

The reason for this is that Qianlong became more and more tired of governing in his later years, which caused officials to become slack and corrupt, and the whole society was soaked in a sick official system.

As far as the salt industry is concerned, the government's unlimited demand for the salt industry and the extortion of salt merchants by salt officials at all levels have led to increasing floating fees.

In other words, judging from the changes in the wholesale price of Huai salt in Hubei and Hunan, Huai salt has risen from 6 taels of 8 cents and 2 cents of silver per quotation in the seventh year of Qianlong to now as much as 12 taels and 4 cents and 9 cents per quotation. For more than 40 years, it is enough doubled. (During the Qianlong period, the amount of salt consumed in the Huaihe River was 344 catties. In June, it consumed 15 catties, in July, it consumed 10 catties, and in August, it consumed 5 catties.)
If the consumption is not taken into account, the average price of salt per catty is 40 cents and [-] per cent of silver, plus shipping costs, losses, and road taxes. When it is sold at the store, it is about [-] yuan per catty when it is converted into money.

A strong laborer needs to eat five catties of salt every year, which costs more than 200 yuan.A year's salary is one or two yuan, less than [-] pieces of money, and the expenditure on salt alone will account for one-sixth.

Someone said why there is a need to sell private salt, can we get more pickled salted fish instead of private salt?

Hey, the ancient government has been guarding against this for a long time. They have special fish salt; in order to distinguish the salt of pickled salted fish from the official salt, the government dyed the salt with lower purity red with olive vegetables, and then dyed it dry.

At the same time, the government clearly stipulates that all fishermen who return from fishing at sea must truthfully report the number of fish caught and the amount of salt needed to the government.The government will send special personnel to check, and after confirming that the situation is true, the fishermen will be issued vouchers, and fishermen can also rely on the vouchers to receive fishing salt.

The matter of salted fish is basically a catty of salt and ten catties of fish. How small do you want to deceive the court?Still tender.

Liu Qirong didn't know that among the people on the same boat, the guy with the beard and the melon skin hat did have something to do with salt. This person had also salted salted fish in Beihai Town for several months.

In the afternoon, following the order of a young bearded man, those people took off their bamboo hats and wiped the sweat from their heads.When Liu Qirong saw this posture of prohibition, he couldn't help but secretly startled, and he was even more sure that these people were not good.

When it was time for dinner, when the boatman brought the food, the three of Liu Qirong suddenly lost their appetite.They recruited disciples in Xiangyang City and Jingzhou, and they ate delicious food and spicy food all day long, so they were very happy.It has been more than 20 days since I came out, and I have been eating and sleeping in the open, hurrying and rushing, every day on the boat is either vegetables, tofu or fish, and I am tired of eating.

At this moment, I heard the man in the melon skin hat scolding: "Why are you eating fish soup so f*cking, I almost vomited!"

The boatman saw that the man was well dressed and speaking rudely, so he accompanied him carefully and said: "My lord, we are a small business, and there is only vegetables and fish and rice on this boat, nothing else, I'm really sorry."

"I'm not talking about you. These days, it's not vegetables, tofu, or fish soup, and my mouth is really dull." After the man finished speaking, he said to the boy next to him: "Take out the wine and meat in the backpack and share it with everyone."

The young man gave a crisp "hmm", then took out a big bag from under his feet, and then took out a wine gourd and a few packets of meat bought in Qingjiangpu from inside.

The man in the melon cap said to someone in the cabin: "Xiao Zhang, would you like a drink?"

The person called "Xiao Zhang" shook his head and said: "The wine is free, and the meat is divided."

So the boy hurriedly handed over two large oiled paper bags for everyone to share. As the oiled paper bag was opened, a scent of soy sauce filled the air. It turned out to be a soy sauce chicken and a bag of braised pork. Liu Qirong and The two subordinates swallowed unconsciously.

The man in the melon skin hat opened two small paper bags by himself, and the boy and the boy each ate a piece of meat, opened the wine gourd and took a sip, sighing in satisfaction.And the young man was holding a rice bowl, constantly pulling vegetables and tofu into his mouth, and occasionally sipping fish soup.

"Are you still bored?"

"It's good to eat something, brother Xu, when I was in my hometown, I didn't even eat green vegetables and tofu."

As soon as the voice with Shu dialect came out, Liu Qirong and the three of them were taken aback for a moment, and only then did they realize that the servant was a woman.

The man in the melon cap shook his head and smiled, raised his eyes and saw the appearance of Liu Qirong and the three of them, and said loudly: "How about these brothers, how about having a drink together? Drinking alone is really boring."

Liu Qirong was overjoyed when he heard that, the alcohol bug in his stomach had already started to attack, his heart itched unbearably, he quickly changed seats with someone, and got together with that man.After two glasses of wine, the conversation naturally increased.

The man surnamed Xu said that his name was Xu Wuyong, and he was in the cotton cloth business in Chongqing. This time, he planned to take his brothers to Haizhou to buy a batch of soybean oil.

Liu Qirong said in his heart, do we need to bring weapons to buy soybean oil?I'm afraid it's still a business with private salt in it.Of course he couldn't say that he belonged to the Sanyang Sect, so he said that he came from Xiangyang, because the government was arresting people everywhere recently, and there was a lot of noise about it, so he took two fellow villagers and planned to go to Shandong to seek refuge with relatives.

Not to mention that it was okay for the government to arrest people, but Xu Wuyong was also annoyed when he mentioned this matter.It is said that in addition to arresting the trackers, the damn Chongqing government even arrested the prisoners in the cell and the beggars in the city, and they caught up with the boats and shipped them out of Sichuan.

In the beginning, Liu Qirong was careful when he spoke, but when he finished drinking half of the gourd wine, Liu Qirong also talked more, chatting with Xu Wuyong was quite speculative.Xu Wuyong would occasionally scold the government a few words during his speech, saying that sooner or later someone would have to deal with these guys, and they would all have to be beheaded.

During the conversation, Liu Qirong saw that these people were quite capable, and more than a dozen of them looked like Kong Wu, so he wanted to recruit them.Those who dare to be private salt these days are masters who are not afraid of officers and soldiers. He thought that if he could develop these people into disciples of the Sanyang religion, his master Liu Dajiao would be very satisfied.

"Brother Xu, have you heard of Niu Ba?"

"Niuba?" Xu Wuyong shook his head slightly, expressing that he didn't know him.

After drinking another glass of wine, Liu Qirong was heartbroken and said in a low voice, "Have you ever heard that Maitreya descended to earth?"

"Huh?" Xu Wuyong narrowed his eyes, then opened them wide, and said with a smile, "Then please trouble Brother Liu to talk to me?"

Liu Qirong didn't directly talk about the Sanyang religion, but picked up the words in the "Hunyuan Dianhua Jing" that persuaded people to be good, and the man surnamed Xu couldn't help nodding his head in agreement.

"Let's say that the ancestor of Wuji bowed his head and pondered for a while. The eldest son came to the world, and the article is alive, and he is also famous. The second son established the universe and both made contributions. The third son stood up and waited for a long time to test his children and grandchildren. Only the source of chaos floats high, I have encountered the world for the first time, and I have turned into a true believer, and I have been proving the teachings of ancient Buddhas. Today, I am coming to the world with me, and I will follow you to find the people of the earth."

"Ask Brother Liu, what is a Dadi Yuanren?"

"Brother, you can know that in the past, when the Lantern Buddha was teaching, he had converted 92 million people. Now when Sakyamuni Buddha is teaching, he has converted 4 million people again, and there are still 92 billion people who will be the Buddha Maitreya who will teach in the future. The people who have been saved will return to heaven. The original people of the earth, that is, the ancestors of the Hunyuan and the old mothers who have no birth, will go to save the [-] billion people other than the [-] million people who have been saved in the Qingyang and Hongyang periods, so that they can get rid of The sea of ​​bitterness in the world, Yongdeng's hometown of vacuum."

After hearing this, Xu Wuyong couldn't help but slapped his thigh and exclaimed: "Oh! What a supernatural power!"

Liu Qirong suddenly remembered something he heard in Qingjiangpu, and asked, "Brother Xu, have you ever heard of Xuzhuang, Sheyang Lake?"

Xu Wuyong shook his head and said: "My little brother has been doing business in the south, and there are not many acquaintances in the north of Jiangsu. Brother Liu, tell me again."

In the next two days, Xu Wuyong dragged Liu Qirong to the stern of the boat to talk in a low voice. The more they talked, the more speculative they became.Occasionally, Xu Wuyong would scold the current emperor and the court ministers severely, saying what a bastard would add three catties, so that Liu Qirong's doubts disappeared immediately; if the other party was a soldier of the imperial court, he would never dare to scold the emperor.

On the afternoon of the third day when the boat arrived in Haizhou, when disembarking, Xu Wuyong said that he still wanted to listen to Liu Qirong's advice, so he invited the three of them to stay in the same inn, all the expenses were paid by himself.When he arrived at the inn, he specially rented a small yard for Liu Qirong and the three of them, and then ordered a banquet to be delivered to the room, and invited two of Liu Qirong's companions to come and drink together.

The four of them ate a lot, drank a few catties of wine, and when their eyes were dazzled and their ears were hot, Liu Qirong felt that the other party had fallen into a gu, so he took advantage of the drunkenness to reveal his identity, saying that he was a member of Sanyang Sect, and that he was ordered by his teacher to travel and cross Hua Destined person.Then he threatened with some words about the three calamities and calamities, which made Xu Wuyong sweat on his forehead.

After that, Xu Wuyong asked the three of them to wait a while, and went back to the house to take a hundred and ten taels of silver and put it on the table.He said that he was not interested in becoming a teacher, cultivating immortals, or getting out of the sea of ​​suffering, and only wanted to be a master when the catastrophe came.This money is his offering, if Mr. Liu thinks it is not enough, he can offer it along with the concubine he bought in Chongqing.

The three of Liu Qirong were ecstatic, knowing that this guy is definitely not short of money.Feeling complacent, he couldn't hold it back for a moment, so he told the purpose of the trip of the three of them.

After hearing this, Xu Wuyong blinked, then suddenly he laughed, and shouted in a low voice, "Come in, everyone!"

As soon as he finished speaking, the dozen or so men who were on the boat with him suddenly pushed open the door and surrounded Liu Qirong and the three of them.Liu Qirong was shocked, most of the drunkenness disappeared at once, and he said in a trembling voice: "Brother Xu, you, what do you mean?"

"Master Liu, don't you want to meet people from Beihai Town? Then come with me!" After Xu Wuyong finished speaking, he raised his hand, and the dozen or so men rushed up like wolves like tigers. When Liu Qirong yelled, he tied the three of them tightly and gagged their mouths.

"Let me tell you the truth! From the moment you said something stupid, I knew that you were not good birds! How dare you find someone to pretend to be Zhao Wangye's younger brother, what a fucking daring!"

Liu Qirong stared at Xu Wuyong with terrified eyes, and made a whining sound, which meant who are you.

Xu Wuyong laughed and said, "Didn't you ask Xu Zhuang of Sheyang Lake? I am the owner of Xu Zhuang, Xu Dayong!"

　In history, it was not until the 30th year of Daoguang that Tao Shu carried out the reform of the salt administration, and the price of Huai salt in the Lianghu area fell back to seven or eight taels of silver per quotation.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)