Qing Yao

Chapter 301 Investigating Niu Ba, Zhu!
In an abandoned house in Longshan Town, Bozhou, dozens of naked men sat around a campfire. For some reason, several of them had long, dyed red beards on their faces, which looked extremely strange.

Since the drought, the disaster situation in Bozhou has been very serious. Half of the people in the area have fled to other places, and tens of thousands of people who were unable to flee have starved to death due to lack of food. As a result, a large number of uninhabited villages have been created in Bozhou.

The people who starved to death at home were left unattended. In the sweltering heat, their corpses rotted, causing a stench that spread for dozens of miles. Not only did the government officials avoid them, but even wild animals steered clear of them.

However, these villages, which the government considered absolutely uninhabited, have become a "paradise" for a mysterious force since March. These people are not afraid of the stench or the disease. They go out early and return late every day, sometimes in groups of ten or more, sometimes in groups of dozens, and sometimes in groups of hundreds.

They are scattered throughout Bozhou, Mengcheng, Suzhou, and other places. Whenever they go out, they always travel in groups. If they encounter government soldiers who question them, they will attack if there are few soldiers, and flee far away if there are many soldiers.

Because most of these people were from northern Anhui, the local government called them "Nianzi," which is a dialect term from northern Anhui meaning a group or gang.

Last month, the Bozhou government unintentionally captured a group of more than 20 people. According to their confession, as early as last year, a master craftsman from another place contacted them and taught them to make paper and burn it with oil to perform a ritual, saying that doing so could drive away diseases.

Because these master monks were not only willing to perform rituals to ward off disasters for the victims, but also occasionally gave them some food to survive, many victims in northern Anhui followed these master monks. Under their guidance, they would go to the homes of wealthy and powerful families to demand grain. The master monks would not keep the grain they forcibly obtained, but would distribute it to the victims.

Over time, these master chefs took root among the disaster victims and deliberately recruited them. Although outsiders always called them "Nianzi," these master chefs actually came from an organization called Hunyuan Sect.

This sect, along with other folk secret societies such as the Yuan Sect, the Western Heaven Mahayana Sect, the Bagua Sect, the Wuwei Sect, and the Baiyang Sect, are all branches of the White Lotus Sect.

At this time, the core members of the Hunyuan Sect who were active in northern Anhui gathered in the abandoned house in Longshan Town.

Besides the leader Liu Zhixie, there was also Liu Xier, who claimed to be the reincarnation of Maitreya Buddha. This Liu Xier was the adopted son of Liu Song, the former leader of the sect. Liu Zhixie openly claimed that Liu Xier had descended to earth to protect "Niu Ba," a character similar to Xu Da or Chang Yuchun.

Niu Ba, when combined with the character Zhu, signifies the legitimate succession of the Ming dynasty and its direct lineage.

The White Lotus sect in various regions all called for the restoration of the Ming Dynasty. However, unlike the anti-Qing uprisings during the Kangxi era, which were mostly led by Zhu San Taizi, the "Niu Ba" leader mentioned by the White Lotus sect members today is mostly a descendant of Zhu Liu Taizi.

Where did this Zhu Liu Taizi come from? He was actually created by the White Lotus Rebellion in Caozhou, Shandong during the reign of Emperor Yongzheng.

From the Yongzheng era to the present, dozens of anti-Qing uprisings have broken out in various places in the name of Zhu Liu Taizi's descendants, most of which were led by the White Lotus Sect.

Gradually, supporting Zhu Liu Taizi and restoring the Ming Dynasty became the "politically" correct thing for all branches of the White Lotus Sect.

The Hunyuan Sect was no exception.

However, there is no consensus on who the successor of this sixth prince of Zhu was, resulting in each branch establishing its own "Eighth Prince" and no one submitting to the others.

No one outside of Liu Zhixie knew where "Niu Ba" was, and no one dared to inquire, because it was the top secret of the Hunyuan Sect.

In Liu Zhixie's words, Niu Bafang will only be able to appear on the day the Lotus of Calamity descends.

When the Lotus of Calamity will descend is also a secret of Heaven.

Very profound and unfathomable.

Today, Liu Zhixie gathered key members in Longshan Town to convey an important message about reform within the church.

"I met the old leader in Longde three months ago. In accordance with the old leader's wishes, our Hunyuan Sect will be renamed Sanyang Sect from today onwards. The sect's classic text, Hunyuan Dianhua Jing, will be renamed Sanyang Liaodao Jing. The old leader will remain the head of our Sanyang Sect. I will take charge of the sect's affairs on his behalf. I hope everyone will prioritize the important matters of the sect, work together, and jointly revive the Ming Dynasty."

According to Liu Zhixie, who is 53 years old, the old leader Liu Song was captured by the Anhui government in the 45th year of the Qianlong Emperor's reign and was later sent to Longde to serve as a slave to the armored men. He is now an old man in his seventies.

Although Liu Song was old, he was not young at heart. During his time as a slave in Longde, he kept in private contact with believers in various places. Knowing that another senior disciple, Song Zhiqing, was at odds with Liu Zhixie, he wrote a personal letter to persuade Song Zhiqing to cooperate with Liu Zhixie to jointly strengthen the Hunyuan Sect.

Song Zhiqing has now recognized Li San the Blind from Henan as his master, established the Western Heaven Mahayana Sect, and appointed Li San the Blind's son, Mao'er, as "Niu Ba". The number of Mahayana followers has reached 100,000, and it has already rivaled the Hunyuan Sect. In addition, due to Li San the Blind, Song Zhiqing can no longer turn back to Liu Zhixie to take charge of the Hunyuan Sect.

However, Song Zhiqing still gave his master Liu Song face, saying that if Liu Zhixie started an uprising against the Qing, his Mahayana sect would definitely respond in Henan.

Therefore, Liu Song could not make things difficult for Song Zhiqing, so he sent other people to Sichuan and Hubei to contact the White Lotus branches in various places and agreed to launch a joint uprising in the fifty-eighth year of Qianlong's reign.

The reason why the uprising was scheduled for the year after next was that Liu Song believed that the Hunyuan Sect's influence in Anhui alone would be insufficient to achieve significant results. Therefore, it was necessary for followers in Sichuan, Anhui, Hubei, and Henan provinces to rise up simultaneously in order to create momentum and destroy the Qing government's rule in these provinces in one fell swoop.

This also reflects the lessons learned from the failure in the 45th year of Qianlong's reign. At that time, although Liu Song had developed tens of thousands of followers and secretly manufactured a batch of weapons in the deep mountains, before he could formulate a plan for the uprising, he was betrayed by his followers and wiped out by the county government's three shifts of yamen runners.

Ultimately, an uprising cannot be succeeded simply by raising an arm and calling for action; first and foremost, one must build an elite force that is absolutely obedient and fearless of death.

There need to be at least three to five thousand people, otherwise it is simply not enough to rely on ordinary believers alone.

Liu Zhixie agreed wholeheartedly and secretly returned to Anhui at the end of last year to gather the remaining followers. He actively took advantage of the disaster in Anhui to develop believers. However, the only force that could be mobilized for the uprising so far was the Nian Rebellion. Although there were hundreds of Nian Rebellion groups, only the leaders dared to rebel, and the total number of people gathered was only about a thousand.

Even if Liu Zhixie were incredibly stupid, he wouldn't have dared to think he could overthrow the Qing Dynasty with just a thousand or so fearless "armed followers."

His plan with his mentor Liu Song was to re-establish a foothold in Anhui, spend two years developing followers and secretly training troops to accumulate sufficient strength for the uprising.

For the previous ten years, Liu Zhixie had been active in Hubei. Unlike his master Liu Song, who focused on developing the poor, Liu Zhixie paid great attention to recruiting local powerful families.

As a result, local landlords Nie Jieren and Zhang Zhengmo became followers of Liu Zhixie. With the support of these two disciples, who claimed to be the richest men in the area, Liu Zhixie secretly trained "divine soldiers" in the mountains of Hubei.

The specific training is being overseen by Nie Jieren and Zhang Zhengmo. Currently, the two have selected over 600 young men from among the followers to begin training, and they are calling it the "Tianyun Army".

Zhang Zhengmo was selected as marshal, Nie Jieren became the head of the Hubei division, and another disciple, Liu Hongduo, served as strategist.

Before Liu Zhixie returned to Anhui, he instructed his three senior disciples in Hubei to train 5,000 Heavenly Fortune Divine Soldiers within two years. He also trained several thousand divine soldiers in Anhui. With the addition of divine soldiers from Henan and Sichuan, the number of divine soldiers from various sects gathered under the White Lotus banner at the beginning of the uprising was at least 20,000 to 30,000, which would definitely make the Qing army cry out in despair.

Furthermore, in Xiangyang, Liu Zhixie also recruited Qi Lin, the local chief constable, as his disciple. Qi Lin was a very brave and heroic man, and his concubine, Wang Cong'er, was extremely beautiful and intelligent. Liu Zhixie adopted her as his goddaughter. Chief Constable Qi Lin transformed into the son-in-law of the sect leader and gained great prestige among the sect members in the Xiangyang area.

Before the formal uprising, Liu Zhixie instructed his disciples not to act "high-profile," which was called "stockpiling grain, building high walls, and delaying the declaration of kingship."

In addition to announcing the change of the church name today, Liu Zhixie will also preside over the initiation ceremony for several new disciples.

Those were the burly men with long, dyed red beards on their faces. These men were either local strongmen from northern Anhui or desperate criminals who dared to lead disaster victims in robbery and extortion.

Any one of them could pull out a "Nianzi" team of hundreds of people. Among them was a man named Li Jie whose clan numbered over ten thousand. After the drought, Li Jie led his clan to build a fortified village for self-protection. They were quite powerful and could mobilize hundreds of mules and horses.

The horse Liu Zhixie is currently riding was a gift from Li Jie, which is why Liu Zhixie values ​​this powerful disciple highly.

In order to make these powerful local figures willingly submit to his command, Liu Zhixie promised that once they started an uprising, they would all be granted the position of general leading troops, and that he would not hesitate to bestow upon them the titles of dukes and marquises after the restoration of the Ming Dynasty.

"Bring me the wine!"

As several new disciples rose and came to the center of the group, several bowls of strong liquor mixed with cinnabar were brought out. Liu Zhixie glanced at the new disciples, then slashed his palm with a dagger, and blood instantly dripped into the bowls, creating dark red ripples.

Seeing this, the new disciples did not hesitate to cut their palms with daggers and drip their blood into several bowls.

Liu Zhixie picked up the wine bowl in front of him and murmured, "Let's drink this wine of unity, and grow old together in life and death!"

He drank the blood wine in one gulp.

"Let us drink this wine of unity, and grow old together in life and death!"

Several new disciples also drank it all in one gulp, and then, under the guidance of their senior brothers, they went through three tribulations.

The so-called "Three Tribulations" are: the first is the Fire Tribulation, which requires walking barefoot through a pile of burning coals to "cleanse away the dust of the mortal world"; the second is the Water Tribulation, which requires diving into an ice cave and holding one's breath for a moment to "communicate with the spirits and see the gods"; and the third is the Knife Tribulation, which involves cutting one's arm with a sharp blade to write a blood talisman to "carve a protective mark on the body".

This would be a calamity of crossing water in the height of summer without an ice cave, so a basin of clear water and holding one's breath would be used instead.

Only after the "three tribulations" are completed is the entire ceremony considered finished.

Everyone stood up and addressed each other as fellow disciples, introducing themselves to one another.

The current situation in northern Anhui is very dire. Although the government has begun to actively provide disaster relief, it takes time to transport food from other places. It is impossible for food to arrive in various places tomorrow after disaster relief is provided today. Therefore, in order to ensure the survival of its members and to develop its followers, the various factions led by the Sanyang Sect will inevitably clash with the local government. They will either extort grain from wealthy households or rob disaster relief grain from other places.

As a result, the Sanyang Sect has clashed with the local Green Standard Army in Bozhou several times and has been blacklisted by the Bozhou government.

The newly developed followers in various places are of varying quality, with a very poor sense of "secrecy". In some places, they openly promote the idea that the calamity of the lotus is coming and the Ming Dynasty will be restored. Some radical believers are even preparing to coerce disaster victims to attack county towns and kill wealthy families.

These are all things Liu Zhixie does not want to see, because the Sanyang Sect currently lacks the strength to confront the government head-on. Therefore, in addition to asking its members to avoid conflicts with the government as much as possible, it also sends people to Fengyang to contact the salt bandits it had previously developed, asking these salt bandits to provide some financial support to the sect.

The reason was that Liu Zhixie planned to bribe local officials to "classify" the activities of the Sanyang Sect as mutual aid and relief for disaster victims, rather than gathering crowds to rebel.

As long as the local officials don't really intend to kill the Sanyang Sect, they can buy the sect two years.

Local officials are all corrupt and incompetent; they don't care whose money they're taking, they only care if the money is enough.

Therefore, he sent his disciple Liu Bao to Fengyang to collude with the salt bandits, and ordered the key members present to restrain their followers, with the red line being that they must not touch the city.

In other words, it is absolutely forbidden to openly display flags and organize manpower to engage in direct conflict with officers and soldiers.

However, to Liu Zhixie's surprise, while he was trying his best to restrain his followers from acting recklessly, the local government troops in Bozhou suddenly intensified their crackdown on the Nian Rebellion, and it was said that government troops from other places were on their way to Bozhou.

It seems that the local officials in Bozhou intend to exterminate the Sanyang Sect.

The three thousand taels of silver that he had sent to the prefect of Bozhou were returned intact.

A shocking piece of news came from an inside source in the prefectural government: the elite Green Standard Army under the governor's command had entered Bozhou. It seemed that the governor's government had given the prefectural government a death order: to completely eradicate any cults or Nian rebels within Bozhou.

When August arrived, the Nian rebels, who had been a major headache for the government troops in Bozhou, faced a choice: they had to flee eastward.

Because more than 6,000 Qing troops had been transferred to Bozhou from other places, and with the addition of local militias, the Nian rebels had no room to survive.

In order to preserve his strength and to ease relations with the government as much as possible, Liu Zhixie had no choice but to lead his core members to flee eastward to Suzhou, where there was not much military pressure.

A rumor spread in Bozhou at some point, saying that the government in Suzhou had stockpiled a large amount of grain and that a righteous official named Zhao was in charge of disaster relief there, and that as long as the disaster victims went there, they would have food to eat.

As the rumors spread, coupled with the fact that the Sanyang Sect was also making a collective "eastward exodus," tens of thousands of disaster victims rolled eastward to Suzhou like a locust army in just a few days.

The road was packed with people, a dark mass, it looked terrifying.

What's even more frightening is that there were no soldiers or officials stopping them along the way, which made the rumor seem like a fact: that there really was an inexhaustible supply of rice and flour for the disaster victims in Suzhou.

At the same time, a secret memorial from Suzhou was also sent to the capital by fast horse.

The secret report was written by Zhao Anfa. In addition to truthfully reporting to the court that the White Lotus cult was actively developing followers in northern Anhui and was taking advantage of the ignorance of the disaster victims to spread various anti-Qing ideas, intending to incite great chaos, the secret report only mentioned one thing: "After my secret investigation, the so-called Niu Ba is Zhu."

(End of this chapter)