Follow Zhu Yuanzhang to conquer the country

Chapter 136 The Role of Literary Writers in Opposing Foot Binding
According to Zhu Yuanzhang's original intention, he wished that Xu Huan could knock his head to death.

But now that he has accepted the philosophy of Datong Society, he can no longer humiliate others for no reason, nor can he sit back and watch Xu Huan die in front of him because of this matter.

Therefore, Zhu Yuanzhang said: "Get up! We rebels are strictly prohibited from kneeling at will. Don't you know?"

"Yes!"

Xu Huan agreed and had to stand up for a while, but because he was too scared, he couldn't stand firmly and fell to the ground again.

In the end, it was Wu Liang and others who helped him up.

Zhu Yuanzhang said to Xu Huan at this time: "Can you admit that you insulted others for no reason?"

"admit!"

Xu Huan didn't dare to deny it, so he answered truthfully.

Zhu Yuanzhang said: "Then sign the confession and accept the punishment."

"Yes!"

Song Lian was a little resistant at first. He didn't want to offend the world's scholars about foot binding, so he said to Zhang Cheng:

"The little girl has her feet bound alone."

After all, Song Lian only resisted because he was afraid of offending the scholars in the world, and it was not really easy to say that foot binding was the right thing.

Zhu Yuanzhang said: "Now the province has issued a strict order prohibiting foot binding, so those who have bound feet must be liberated! Otherwise, if the head of the family is a scholar, he will be imprisoned, and if he is a commoner, he will be punished with twenty canes!"

"I just ask the Prime Minister to spare my life!"

Xu Huan replied.

Xu Huan replied with a hint of air at the corner of his mouth.

After hearing this, Zhu Yuanzhang was furious: "You have been tampering with other people's feet since you were three years old. Is this something that a father can do?!"

"Yes."

"Now that foot binding is prohibited, wouldn't it mean that the daughters of scholar-bureaucrats are like poor women, and they can come and go as they please, making it difficult to strictly maintain their chastity? This is simply immoral!"

Zhu Yuanzhang had no intention of pursuing the matter further, and only asked him: "How many people in your family have feet bound?"

"If I don't bind my feet, wouldn't it make my daughter as lowly as the daughters of common people?"

"Thieves are thieves!"

"Three years old?"

"Without foot binding, who would want to believe that my daughter is chaste?"

In fact.

"If this is not considered a violation of etiquette, then where is the love and kindness in the world?"

Many scholar-bureaucrats were more resistant than Song Lian to the prohibition of foot-binding.

"I dare not disobey the order!"

"What's wrong?"

Zhang Cheng therefore questioned Song Lianlai.

The ban on foot binding has indeed been issued.

Xu Huan replied.

"How old?"

"Xiaosheng is not a human being."

Song Lian couldn't refute, so he had to accept it and agreed to write such an article.

"Calm down your anger!"

After reading the content of the ban on foot binding in the China Newspaper, he gnashed his teeth and said:
"Parents binding their children's feet is a matter of course for God to keep their children's chastity intact so that they can marry well in the future!"

"Mr. Zhang, this foot-binding is just a temporary custom. Isn't it inappropriate to directly use this as an opportunity to criticize the current reform of ethics and to use this to say that many scholar-bureaucrats in the world are hypocritical people?"

Zhang Mian was quite angry about this.

So Xu Huan signed a document admitting that he had insulted others without reason, and was slapped twenty times by Zhu Yuanzhang's order.

Influenced by Zhang Cheng, Ma, who admitted that footbinding was indeed harmful to fertility and the healthy growth of women and children, personally selected a group of strong women from the families of the Yangji Department and various rebel officers who had seen swords, guns, and even actual combat to form a women's picket team and recommended them. Later, Guo's daughter, who had grown up with him and had a good relationship and was also skilled in bowing and horsemanship, managed the picket team on his behalf and began to picket the foot-binding situation everywhere in the city gate.

Zhang Cheng also asked Song Lian to write an article and publish it in the "China News". The content was to attack the bad habit of foot-binding from all aspects, and to be able to alert the world enough to raise the issue of foot-binding to a theoretical level related to the survival of the rebels and the survival of China.

in this way.

Xu Huan replied.

"Yes!"

Such a ban was also published in China Daily.

"My disciples of Neo-Confucianism have spent several generations working hard to get the daughters of officials to be willing to keep their chastity in boudoir, so that the desire of the people in the world will gradually disappear! Now this thief Zhu Yuanzhang wants to destroy my achievements in Neo-Confucianism just for the sake of his own wife. It is really The harm is great!”

"some."

"Parents bind their children's feet and force them to do unfilial and immoral things. Isn't such behavior considered a violation of etiquette?"

Therefore, many pedantic or far-reaching scholar-officials secretly cursed this ban.

After Zhu Yuanzhang spared his life and returned home, Xu Huan breathed a sigh of relief. He thought that Zhu Yuanzhang had punished him severely because he laughed at Ma's big feet, and he became angry.

"Damn thieves!"

Xu Huan couldn't help but gritted his teeth and cursed.

In this era, Yuan Ting was still considered orthodox by many people.

Xu Huan is now even more willing to believe that Yuan Ting is the orthodox one, so he scolds Zhu Yuanzhang like this.

"I just hate that I'm just a weak scholar and can't kill thieves for the imperial court!"

Xu Huan said, seeing his daughter, he thought about Zhu Yuanzhang's refusal to bind feet, and thought to himself: "If you can't destroy the thieves, why can't I bind my feet to resist the thieves?"

What Xu Huan meant was that for a bandit like Zhu Yuanzhang, the more he was asked not to do something, the more he would do it, in order to vent his inner dissatisfaction with Zhu Yuanzhang.

This is a deformed mentality of "I dare not directly retaliate against the bandits, but I dare to retaliate against the bandits by abusing my own daughter." It is the same mentality as "I dare not bully foreigners but dare to bully common people" in history.

Therefore, Xu Huan pointed at his daughter who had been let go under the supervision of the people from the Guards Department, and ordered to his family:
"Bind her feet! Not only do they have to be bound, but they have to be broken and bound!"

"Yes!"

Soon.

Xu Huan's daughter began to cry. Xu Huan is an extremely selfish and indifferent person, otherwise he would not ridicule her in public.

Therefore, he has no feelings for his daughter, and most of the time it is just a tool for him to vent his emotions.

thus.

The harder his daughter cried now, the more excited he became, and he smiled proudly, thinking:

"I want to see what Zhu Yuanzhang, the leader of the thieves, can do to me. Unless he has a clairvoyance, he will never be able to control my daughter if I pester her!"

……

"Who said we can't control it!"

Xu Huan obviously underestimated Zhu Yuanzhang.

Zhu Yuanzhang has always been very serious in his work.

Therefore, not only did he just ask Xu Huan to give his daughter some slack, he actually asked Wu Liang to secretly bribe the people around Xu Huan.

Zhu Yuanzhang found out about this not long after Xu Huan broke his daughter's feet and bound her feet, so he said this with a serious face.

"Mr. Zhang said that the obedience of the large Jin gentry households to the government orders of the rebels can be seen from the ban on foot binding, and that this can be used to establish authority and avoid the failure of the government orders when it comes time to adjust grain and mobilize people's power."

"Now it seems that in order to establish this power, imprisonment and a royal staff are not enough. Human life is required."

"You should go too far in correcting things, and be strict in troubled times."

Zhu Yuanzhang then spoke something else in a stern tone, with murderous intent beginning to appear in his eyes.

Ma who was standing by saw this and came over and held Zhu Yuanzhang's hand:
"Chongpachi, for the sake of our unborn children, don't commit murder easily!"

Zhu Yuanzhang was silent.

after awhile.

Zhu Yuanzhang added: "But sister, if we don't deal with people like this strictly, they don't know that our rebels' orders cannot be violated, and they will just turn a deaf ear. Moreover, they are not worthy of being parents. How can they force their children to suffer like this?" If we don’t take strict measures, I’m afraid this trend won’t be stopped!”

Ma said: "But you can only control it for a while if you are strict."

Zhu Yuanzhang fell silent again after hearing this.

Later, Zhu Yuanzhang said: "What the sister said is that we have a new idea. For the sake of the children, we will not kill anyone, but we can't let them have another chance to be parents, and we have to let them suffer the pain of foot binding." Take it! Let footbinding become a despicable thing!"

"Therefore we would like to issue an order that all the violators of the ban on foot binding by the scholar-bureaucrats will be castrated and sent to the Merit Garden for punishment on the grounds that they know it is unkind and unkind, and they will also be punished with foot binding. The violators by the common people will be imprisoned for the crime of following the wind. Dispose of it! The female family members who have their feet bound will be adopted by the government instead, and their unscrupulous parents will not ask questions about their marriage!"

"In addition, footbinding is a despicable act that makes people unfilial and unvirtuous and reduce them to playthings. Therefore, any family with footbinding will be regarded as having a corrupt family tradition and will not be allowed to serve in official positions for three generations!"

Ma didn't say anything after hearing this.

Zhu Yuanzhang had already compromised by not killing people.

Therefore, Ma will not really ask Zhu Yuanzhang to forgive these people too much.

And because of this.

Not long after, Xu Huan was arrested again by people from the Guards Department.

"do not want!"

"No, I don't have a son yet!"

When Xu Huan learned that he was going to have his feet bound and castrated for disobeying the order, he couldn't help but struggle.

But his struggle was useless, and soon, a small knife went underneath him.

By the way, when Zhu Yuanzhang increased the punishment for illegal foot-binding bans, many landlords and bureaucrats were even more shocked.

to this end.

Song Lian hurriedly found Zhang Cheng and said, "Mr. Zhang, is this too much for the Prime Minister? A scholar cannot be killed and cannot be humiliated! How can we remove the roots of his descendants?!"

"Lack of strictness will not stop the unscrupulous scholar-officials from destroying the etiquette of saints!"

"It is unethical and unfilial behavior to force a daughter to bear the consequences of her body, hair and skin. It is an unethical and unkind act. Therefore, such a person can no longer be a parent, and it is not appropriate to have children, otherwise it will be bad. It’s the whole world!”

"In the article, I want you to deeply analyze the correctness and necessity of what the Prime Minister did, and you must praise the Prime Minister's behavior of correcting ethics!"

"What's more, such a person who violates the saint's concept of loyalty and filial piety and forces his daughter to bind him is no longer a scholar, and such treatment cannot be regarded as an insult."

Zhang Cheng spoke at this time.

Song Lian couldn't help but said: "Is it necessary to take it so seriously?"

"Is this what a learned scholar like you should ask?"

"This kind of bad moral behavior is not serious, so why is it serious?"

"As a great scholar in the world, my stance cannot be skewed!"

Zhang Cheng asked Song Lian in return, criticized Song Lian, and then asked: "Don't you have a foot-binding fetish of watching people's natural feet being wrapped very small?"

"How could I have?!"

Song Lian blushed and denied it, then explained: "I just think this would be too strict and not conducive to fighting for the world?"

"I knew you were a moral gentleman and wouldn't have such an unkind and unkind habit of corrupting human relations."

Zhang Cheng replied with a smile, and said: "As for fighting for the world, don't worry, sir. If the people of Jinzhen under our rebel rule are unkind and unjust people who can't even seriously cooperate with the foot-binding order, then how can we condone such People, on the contrary, are not conducive to fighting for the world, and they do not affect the heroes who know the current affairs and are willing to join our rebel army!"

As Zhang Cheng spoke, he asked Song Lian again: "By the way, I asked Gong to write an article criticizing footbinding as a bad and indecent habit. Has Gong finished it?"

Song Lian said: "I haven't figured out how to write it yet. This is really a bit difficult to write."

"Don't find it difficult, sir!"

"I have already told the Prime Minister that your article, Song Gong, is unparalleled in the world and has clear principles. So we decided that as soon as you write this article, we will let him be the censor Zhongcheng and supervise the academic affairs. However, he has not yet taken the title. Come out, what a disappointment!”

"No matter how you put it, it is impossible for a southerner like Gong to become the Yushi Zhongcheng in Hu Yuan. How can it be like here, where you can get the title of Yushi Zhongcheng with just one article."

"Also, sir, don't let future generations think that Song Hanlin also likes to bind his feet!"

"It's okay that I misunderstood you. It's hard to prevent bad writers from writing articles in newspapers saying that because you, Song Lian, also like small feet, you didn't want to write an article to support the ban on foot binding!"

After Zhang Cheng said that, he stared at Song Lian.

Song Lian was suddenly startled after hearing this. His face looked as if it were painted white, and he glanced at Zhang Cheng with a complicated expression.

Subsequently.

Song Lian could only grit his teeth and said, "Don't worry, Pingzhang! I'll go back and write it right away. Song should support the Prime Minister's act of protecting the ceremony!"

(End of this chapter)