RNP Page 7
Page 7
Zhao Yan and his men went ahead, and Zhao Hao disguised themselves as traveling merchants and peddlers. They arrived near the village where Wu Zifu had been arrested. After making some inquiries, the two breathed a sigh of relief.
Wu Zifu and his gang have not yet been drowned by the villagers. It is said that the village elders are planning to hold a meeting today to deal with Wu Zifu and his group in front of everyone.
Zhao Yan was thankful that the God of Wealth hadn't been sunk. If the rich young master from Guangzhou had been sunk, the loss would have been enormous.
Zhao Yan complained inwardly, "Why didn't this kid say he had this background sooner? Even Fatty Liu Shangsheng was blunt. If your family is rich, just say so earlier, and we'll make you the Vice Minister of Finance!"
When we met this rich young master at the tavern, he and Wang Dingyun were the only two without braids. I had previously thought he was a poor student who had shed his progressive ideas and was not afraid of death. I never expected him to be such a hidden rich young master. I really misjudged him.
Zhao Yan was determined that after this matter was over, he would definitely conduct an internal party background investigation to find out how many rich young men there were. These people had to be treated well!
The division of labor within the Party must be planned rationally and scientifically in the future. Wealthy young masters should be kept close by, and if that doesn't work, they can be assigned to internal affairs. Those poor, reckless men should be sent out to do fieldwork.
Just as Zhao Yan was figuring out how to raise funds in Guangzhou, Liu Shangsheng arrived with a massive army of eggs.
Zhao Yan instructed Liu Shangsheng that he was about to unleash his persuasive skills, but to make the farmers listen to him, he needed an invaluable tool: delivering eggs!
Zhao Yan said the more eggs the better, but Liu Shangsheng, that pig teammate, started to imagine things, thinking that the more eggs the better, it meant the more people listening to the president's speech the better.
Liu Shangsheng took it upon himself to start distributing eggs immediately after collecting them. He went around distributing eggs as he went, spreading the word to farmers in the surrounding villages that Zhao Yan, the president of the Revival Party, was going to speak.
Then the villagers spread the rumor that a theatrical troupe had come to Luxi Village to perform, and that going to listen to the opera would not only be free, but would also give each person an egg.
Now look what's happened! The original plan was just to rescue people from Luxi Village. All we needed to do was talk our way out of Luxi Village, but now people from all around have come!
Chapter 12 Rural Publicity
"Minister Liu, you're still determined to destroy me!" Zhao Yan looked at the vast sea of people behind Liu Shangsheng, his teeth almost grinding to powder: "Liu Shangsheng, am I doomed to die? If you want to be the president, just say so. Can't I step down and give way?"
"The internal party struggle doesn't have to kill me, does it?"
Liu Shangsheng looked completely innocent: "President, what makes you say that? I am utterly loyal to you, as the sun and moon can attest!"
Zhao Yan helplessly covered his forehead. He finally understood why he wasn't afraid of bad guys going to great lengths, but rather of fools coming up with a clever idea!
With such a commotion, tens of thousands of villagers from the surrounding area came to Luxi Village, each holding an egg in their hand. Many more without eggs were also staring longingly at the oxcarts behind Liu Shangsheng, which were loaded with eggs.
The people of Luxi Village were not blind, and they were certainly alerted as well. The clan elders even forgot about their meeting and quickly led their people out as well.
After making some inquiries, they discovered that a theatrical troupe was going to perform in their village. Not only would the performance be free, but they would also be given eggs.
The people of Luxi Village were dumbfounded. How come they didn't know about such a good thing in their own village?
So, following the crowd, the people of Luxi Village also came over. But when they saw Zhao Hao, the people of Luxi Village immediately recognized that this group of people were rebels!
"Fellow villager, please calm down and listen to me!" Zhao Yan immediately launched his persuasive speech.
"Help! This group of people is rebels!" The people of Luxi Village ignored them and immediately started shouting.
Zhao Yan immediately unleashed his ultimate move: "I'll give you eggs! Two each! Two for each person!"
The old clan elder from Luxi Village, who had been shouting at the top of his lungs, immediately shut up, then his eyes darted around and he said, "Three!"
Zhao Yan said, "Deal!"
The old man who was in charge of the group was still not satisfied and said, "Then you said you'd put on an opera for us, is that true?"
Zhao Yan glared at Liu Shangsheng with eyes blazing with anger. Liu Shangsheng looked completely innocent and shrugged helplessly, saying, "President, I told you you were going to give a speech, but these villagers don't understand at all. They only came because I said you were performing opera."
You taught us flexible and adaptable publicity and mobilization techniques, and here I am putting them to use right away!
Helpless, Zhao Yan turned to the clan elder and said, "I'm just putting on a show for you, but please release those young men you arrested a few days ago, okay?"
The clan elder immediately shook his head: "No, they are rebels who have cut off their queues. What if they implicate us if we let them out?"
Zhao Yan said, "No, stay by my side. We're all here. This is your territory. Do you think we'll grow wings and run away?"
"After I finish my performance, we'll all be at your disposal, how about that?"
Before the clan elder could say anything, the impatient villagers around him quickly said, "Don't worry, clan elder, we're keeping an eye on things. Let's get the eggs first, then we'll watch the opera. After the opera, these people won't be able to escape!"
People from other villages echoed the sentiment, and villagers from all around came, not just to see Luxi Village sink in the pond, but also to hear the opera!
Otherwise, why would so many people need to come just to collect eggs? It's just that there aren't many entertainment options in the countryside, so everyone wants to come and see if there's anything fun to do.
Faced with the wrath of the masses, the people of Luxi Village had no choice but to quickly release Wu Zifu and his group. However, they merely untied them and delivered them to Zhao Yan's side, while many villagers still kept a close eye on them.
The farmers in the countryside are poor, but they are not stupid. On the contrary, they are even overly shrewd in many things, to the point of being stubborn.
After they reunited, Wu Zifu and the others were beaten black and blue and looked disheveled, but they still honestly reported the situation to Zhao Yan without daring to hide anything.
The reason these young lads were arrested was very simple: they were showing off. They had just been hyped up by Zhao Yan and were full of energy. After receiving their mission, they couldn't wait to get away and started thinking about conning others as well.
Just because rural areas are poor doesn't mean they're easy to fool. Don't treat poor people like idiots! The lower the social class someone is, the harder it is to change their perception!
What's more, you don't even give out eggs, yet you dare to hold lectures in rural areas. Who the hell do you think you are?
Wu Zifu tried to give a passionate speech like Zhao Yan, but in the end it was like talking to a brick wall. Few people listened. What peasant could understand his talk about revolution, national independence, and country independence?
In his excitement, Wu Zifu took off his hat, revealing his chicken feet. When the villagers saw that he didn't have a braid, they all understood immediately: "Oh, so he's a traitor!"
After a brutal beating, Wu Zifu and his men were locked in the ancestral hall of Luxi Village. The people of Luxi Village dared not report to the authorities, because soldiers were like combs and bandits were like hairpins. As long as they were associated with rebels, Luxi Village would suffer a heavy blow even if they took the initiative to report them!
In the end, Luxi Village decided to follow the old custom and simply hold a meeting in the village to kill the person, thus avoiding any trouble.
Fortunately, Zhao Yan arrived in time with his men; otherwise, they would have had to search for cages in the nearby ponds tomorrow.
"Alright, alright, young people just can't keep their tempers up. How many times have I told you to be low-key and to plan carefully before you act!"
"Sigh, I'll take charge this time. I'll give you another lesson, a practical lesson on how to launch a rural revolution!"
There's no other way; I have to clean up the mess I made by my own rebellious disciple!
Just then, the grain storage yard in Luxi Village was also cleared out. There was a drum platform in the center of the grain storage yard, which was used to gather villagers during busy farming seasons.
Now that the drumming has been removed, there's just a small platform, surrounded by nearly ten thousand villagers, three or four layers deep.
In order to hear the opera clearly, the crowd was completely packed together!
Liu Shangsheng found Zhao Yan an iron megaphone for amplification. More than ten people, including the action team, were all monitored and guarded by the people of Luxi Village, and they all sat below the stage as temporary listeners.
Zhao Yan, carrying a megaphone, refused the benches and tables and stood directly on the high platform to begin his performance.
"Fellow villagers, my name is Zhao Yan, president of the Revival Party, and also a revolutionary!"
"I know you don't understand what the Revival Party or revolution is, but that's okay. You'll understand once I've finished speaking!"
"I came in a hurry today and didn't bring any costumes, so I can't perform for you. I can only tell you stories instead!"
Zhao Yan spoke very slowly, each word a forced shout. Fortunately, his years of swindling had given him an iron voice, allowing everyone present to hear his clear, deliberate shouts.
Even those further out who couldn't hear it heard it being passed on by word of mouth from those in front, and so on, circle by circle. That's how simple and unpretentious listening to opera is in the countryside.
When they heard that Zhao Yan couldn't sing opera, the audience became unhappy, but when they heard that Zhao Yan was willing to tell stories, they immediately became even happier.
Storytelling is much more interesting than listening to opera. Rural people can't read books, but they can listen to them. Some people go to the city to hear a short segment of Journey to the West, and when they return to the village, they become celebrities.
Being able to listen to storytelling live is something that rural people rarely experience in decades, because proper storytellers would never come down to the countryside to cater to these poor folks.
If you cultivate a couple of scholars in the countryside, they'll be well-versed in the classics and wouldn't deign to tell stories to these illiterate bumpkins. Even a proper scholar like Kong Yiji wouldn't come to the countryside. That's the attitude of contemporary intellectuals—aloof and arrogant!
These days, no one ever pays attention to the power of rural areas, and no one cares about the lives of farmers. Everyone thinks that rural areas and farmers are the poorest and most useless groups.
The greatest role of peasants is to tend the land and pay taxes. Apart from that, they are mainly responsible for guarding against peasant uprisings and rebellions, but throughout history, no peasant rebellion has ever succeeded.
Others may look down on them, but Zhao Yan never underestimates the power of farmers. These people, born of the land, toiling on the land, and dying on the land, are the most silent group in Chinese civilization.
But as the saying goes, "Either erupt in silence or perish in silence." This group will always be disdained to be recorded in history books, and they are also the group that those in power like to oppress the most. In any era, they are always the ones who suffer the most.
But once their silence erupts, it will be more terrifying than a volcano. Even if they cannot replace those kings and generals, they can drag them down to the dustbin of history!
Today, Zhao Yan planned to teach these young men a lesson so that even if he made money and ran away in the future, he could leave them with some skills to rely on!
Chapter 13 Let the flame be passed on, young man!
Zhao Yan stood on the stage for a moment, then made his decision: to use the past to satirize the present! He couldn't directly talk to these peasants about revolution and rebellion, otherwise they would kill him immediately to avoid being implicated.
Therefore, a roundabout approach is necessary. The core principle of fraud is to first empathize, then evoke emotions, and finally implant emotions!
"It is said that the Eastern Han Dynasty was divided into the Three Kingdoms, but today we will not talk about what happened after the division of the Three Kingdoms, nor will we talk about Liu Bei, Guan Yu, Zhang Fei, Wei, Shu, and Wu. We will only talk about the story before the division of the Three Kingdoms, the story of a group of pitiful people who just wanted to survive."
Their story is your story, and even more so, the story of every oppressed person—that is the Yellow Turban Rebellion!
Throughout history, scholars, officials, and nobles have always liked to call it the Yellow Turban Rebellion, but I say it was the Yellow Turban Uprising!
"At the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the emperor wanted to carve the classics of sages on stone and place them at the gate of the palace so that all scholars in the country could see them. Did everyone think this was a good thing or a bad thing?"
On stage, Zhao Yan suddenly asked a question, which startled everyone below. However, due to the illiterate people's worship of knowledge, most of them said it was a good thing. Many village elders also nodded in agreement, thinking that reading was such a sacred thing.
Zhao Yan continued, "But each stone must be transported from a thousand miles away. Each stone weighs a thousand catties. Each stone can only be used to carve a thousand characters. It would take a thousand stones to carve all the books. Do you still think this is a good thing?"
Everyone was puzzled, and no one dared to nod anymore.
"To transport a stone, a thousand people would die of exhaustion on the way, and each person would need to eat a thousand catties of grain. The stone is chiseled out of the mountain, and then people like you carry and drag it all the way. The thousand people who die of exhaustion are chosen from among you, and the thousand catties of grain consumed on the way are harvested from your fields."
Finally, there are a thousand characters carved on each stone, each one requiring your own blood and sweat to carve, stroke by stroke.
Are you still willing? Do you still think this is a good thing?
Everyone fell silent, but anger could be seen in their eyes.
"But those high-ranking officials and the emperor thought you were willing because it was a sacred thing, and it was precisely at that time that famine and plague broke out, and all the farmers like you were starving to death."
But the government still wanted to carve the stone, to harvest their last grain, and to take away their last copper coin!
For every word removed from those stones, ten lives could be saved; for every stone removed, tens of thousands could be saved.
And now, here, at this very moment, all of you listening to me, if you were all combined, you would only amount to a single stone. A thousand words—would you accept that?
Anger blazed in everyone's eyes; the men clenched their fists, and the women closed their eyes, trembling with fear.
“All the farmers who cultivated the land lost their last grain of rice and their last copper coin, but the government still had to collect taxes and labor, and make them continue to cultivate the land and hand over grain and copper coins again next year!”
"The farmers were so hungry that they started eating tree bark and chewing wild vegetables. Eventually, there wasn't a single tree or blade of grass left for miles around, and even the rivers dried up!"
"The farmers could only start eating dirt, and even began to return their children to their families, kill other people's children to eat, and even eat the corpses of those who had starved to death, and eat their own neighbors and fellow villagers!"
Everyone stood up. No one was relaxed anymore, and no one took the speech lightly. They had all experienced what Zhao Yan was talking about: hunger, famine, taxes, forced labor, and death. These were not stories to them, but experiences!
"At this time, a man named Zhang Jiao stepped forward. He cured your illnesses, gave you a bowl of talisman water that made you crave rice porridge, and told you that everything could be changed."
He stood up, raised his hands, and led those who were starving to death in a rebellion!
Zhang Jiao was originally a deity worshipped by the imperial court. As long as he did not rebel, he could enjoy the incense offerings of the people and sit high in the temple. However, he still led those who were about to starve to death in a rebellion!
He shouted: "Great man, please die!"
"Do you think we should believe that the imperial court will provide disaster relief next year and continue to starve in the same place, or believe Zhang Jiao's bowl of talisman water and the saying 'The blue sky is dead, the yellow sky shall rise'?"
"Will you choose to continue eating other people's children and the corpses of your neighbors, continuing to be the oppressed; or will you become a rebel following Zhang Jiao, to revolt, to fight for that last glimmer of hope?"
The elder of Luxi Village raised his aged hand, clenched his fist, and shouted with all his might: "The Blue Heaven is dead, the Yellow Heaven shall rise!"
Upon hearing this, Zhao Yan completely ripped off his mask of composure and immediately became hysterical. He raised his hand and began his signature shouting speech!
"Yes! That's exactly it, that's revolution!"
"It is not the rebellion that the princes and nobles talk about, it is a righteous resistance! Why should we starve to death while they live in luxury? Why should we create everything but have nothing?"
The land is ours, but the food is theirs!
The river is ours, but the fish are theirs!
We are the ones who break a drop of sweat into eight pieces, we are the ones who shed tears, and we are the ones who bleed!
The palaces and pavilions belong to them, their names will be etched in history, and all the wealth and glory will be theirs!
"Can you accept this?"
Countless people shouted, "No! Those bastards, kill them!"
Zhao Yan continued, "Have you ever thought about how you work from dawn till dusk, facing the yellow earth with your backs to the sky, bending over and digging, planting rice seedlings, and weeding?"
They worked tirelessly from spring sowing to autumn planting, until one day they were so exhausted that they could no longer move, fell ill and were bedridden, unable to afford medical treatment, medicine, or even a bowl of egg drop soup.
Have you ever wondered why, after a lifetime of farming, you've never even had a single meal of white rice, let alone a full meal of meat?
"Because you dare not resist, much less stand up. They know you dare not resist. You are used to kneeling. You are all just slaves."
"A single glazed tile on the palace where the emperor lived in the Forbidden City cost ten taels of silver, and a palace required tens of thousands of glazed tiles!"
"The Empress Dowager Cixi eats more than a hundred dishes in one meal, which costs more than a thousand taels of silver!"
"And then there's the Summer Palace, where a single golden nanmu pillar costs 500,000! 500,000!"
"All of you who farm your whole lives can only lay a few hundred tiles for the emperor, feed the Empress Dowager for a few days, and add a few stones and artificial hills to their gardens!"
"This is the Qing Dynasty, this is the imperial court! They are carving words on stones right now, but not a thousand stones, but a hundred thousand or even a million stones. Can you finish carving them all? Or, after you finish carving them all, will you and your children still be alive? Will you still have food to eat?"