Zhou Xueren did not return to Xikou Village that day. He had drunk too much and could not walk. He had also played too much. His body was too weak and he really could not get up. He could only lie beside the silver phoenix and have a good sleep.
Of course, even if he had time to go home that night, Zhou Xueren did not dare to walk at night. He was afraid that bandits would cut off his path. The coachman might not be afraid. He often traveled in the Jianghu and knew a few faces among the bandits. Usually, he would provide a few meals of food, wine, and tobacco. The loyal bandits were willing to give them face.
However, the coachman might not help Zhou Xueren to pull some connections and beg the bandits to show mercy and not to take his money. The bandits and the coachman were both grassroots people, but their way of living was different. When they met the rich Zhou Xueren, everyone wanted to squeeze all the money from him, including his family, so as to reflect their instinctive idea of equality.
If Zhou Xueren wanted to walk safely at night, he could only pay the coachman a higher price and turn a blind eye to it, allowing him to negotiate with the bandits. No matter how they mingled, they were still trying to make a living. Since they could earn money safely, coupled with the face that the coachman had accumulated, the bandits were willing to let Zhou Xueren go. At least he knew his place and did not go to the extreme. He took the money to eliminate the disaster, and everyone was safe.
If Zhou Xueren happened to meet a coachman who was not good at dealing with bandits, it would be a waste to spend a high fare. He would have to be forced to stop by bandits on a certain road with guns and knives. He would obediently take off all his money and goods, not even leaving a piece of clothing. Rich people were particular about their clothes. Most of them were silk. Other than underwear and vests, the rest of their clothes would be stolen.
If Zhou Xueren had a woman by his side, he would be humiliated by the bandits. Coincidentally, the woman was pretty, and the bandits might not be able to satisfy their lust for a while. They might even have to kidnap her to the stronghold to have fun for a few days. They might even stay behind to be the wife of the bandit chief. Zhou Xueren would only accompany his wife and lose money. It could be considered bad luck on his life journey.
Fortunately, Snowman Zhou was sensible. He knew that he could not dissuade the bandits and did not dare to go out at night. He simply lay in the warm bed of the silver phoenix and had sex to his heart's content. After his body was tired, he would sleep with his head tilted and sleep until the time. Anyway, he was not a national civil servant, so he was not afraid of being late for work.
The problem of bandits among the people had been a difficult problem since ancient times. Countless emperors faced the endless phenomenon of grassroots bandits, and their original intention was to govern. However, their wisdom was limited, and their methods were simple. They could not eradicate such ugly human nature. Most emperors could only leave it at that.
Moreover, history had proven that although the basic-level bastards in society had poor humanity, they did not object to those who supported them in their evil deeds becoming emperors. Moreover, the reason why the bastards were bastards was that most of them acted recklessly and made most of the people who lived a stable life timid. Therefore, the bastards were in an advantageous position in all aspects of life.
Therefore, some scoundrels with bad consciences also wanted to be emperors, so they needed to contact heretic heroes like them to help them achieve their dreams of becoming emperors.
Therefore, since ancient times, many bastard emperors had more or less had connections with the bastards at the bottom level. They used each other and at the same time, they fought with each other to maintain their bastard lives. They tortured normal good people in deep water and were actually the dregs of human waste.
The social governance of the Qing Dynasty relied on the spread of Confucian civilization in the early stages. The enlightened people of the Manchu nobles hoped to use the legacy of Confucius and Mencius to educate millions of people to consciously live as humans. Unfortunately, there were too few self-conscious people in reality, making the enlightened gentry unable to do anything.
Since the people couldn't realize it, the Manchu nobles would implement severe punishments and threaten them with beheading, but it didn't work. It wasn't that the bandits weren't afraid of death, but that the officials and bandits colluded to kill innocent people, oppressing and tricking them into testing the law. They then slandered the innocent people as bandits, causing the Manchu nobles to treat the people like bandits and treat them cruelly. They artificially created a conflict between the people and the emperor, thus making the Manchu nobles break away from the masses and become isolated rulers in the air.
Thus, during the late Qing Dynasty, the Manchu regime could only rely on the bandits and bandits in the officialdom and various links of the people to control the people. They imperceptibly allowed them to openly commit crimes against the people. The entire society presented a mafia management model, and the people could not help but resist the ruling order of the Manchu Dynasty.
The Taiping Country uprising happened when the government and bandits ran amok. In the early stages of the uprising, the poor peasants raised their poles in response, as if justice had descended upon them, bringing a breath of fresh air to the gloomy and moldy Celestial Empire.
The people of Zhejiang were looking forward to the uprising, hoping that the uprising army would break into Shanghai, Zhejiang, and other places as soon as possible to free everyone and start a new life.
However, most of the Taiping Country rebels were short-sighted villagers. In addition, there were a lot of people mixed in. Some of the bastards with gang backgrounds wreaked havoc, causing the Taiping Country to deviate from their original intentions and become a bandit group that occupied the mountains. Just like the Manchu bastards, they treated the people like grass and only wanted to show off. They didn't care about the lives of the people and even killed them.
As a result, the people of Shanghai and Zhejiang, who had resisted the tyranny of the Qing Dynasty, no longer had hope for the Tianping Kingdom. Instead of calling Hong Xiuquan a bastard, they hoped that the tyrannical Qing government would suppress them. Their anger was evident.
Zhou Xueren was influenced by his relatives and the villagers. Initially, he also hoped that the Taiping Country would attack immediately to overthrow the existence of the Tartars. This would allow him to pay less land rent and have more economic freedom. At least, he did not have to spend money to buy a license to sell official salt, and he did not have to worry about being killed.
Later, he heard from the villagers that they had seen the Taiping Army and found that many of them were purely bandits. They would burn, kill, and pillage the people they saw. There was no justice or humanity to speak of.
Zhou Xueren was frightened and quickly withdrew his worship of the Taiping Army. He hoped that the Tartars would wipe out the Taiping Army as soon as possible. Although the Tartars were bad, they were familiar with them. For the sake of their reputation, the villagers could live under the tyranny of the Tartars. According to the point of view that it was better to live than to die, it was better to live under the Manchu Tartars than to be killed by the Taiping Army immediately.
After all, as long as a person's life existed, they would have time to find a better way of life. If they were to give up their life before it was time for them to meet God, but they could not leave a trace in the historical records, it could not be said that they were regretful in life. It was just a waste of the human body's reproductive cells.
This book comes from：m.funovel.com。