This poem of Fengyang Flower Drum, named Fengyang Song, is widely circulated among the people because it is easy to understand.
But its meaning is puzzling: since Fengyang was originally a good place and Zhu Yuanzhang, the founding emperor of Daming, was originally better, why did it become "ten years and nine years"?
To solve this mystery, we need to look at what Zhu Yuanzhang did to his hometown after he proclaimed himself emperor, and what made Fengyang once a place of frequent famine.
Zhu Yuanzhang's ancestral home is Pei County, Jiangsu Province, and he is an out-and-out fellow villager with Emperor Gaozu Liu Bang. Later, the ancestors moved to Jurong and Sizhou, to their parents, and then to Haozhou Zhongli.
In 1328, Zhu Yuanzhang was born in Dongxiang, Zhongli. Soon, his family moved to Xixiang, which is Taiping Township, Fengyang County. Here, Zhu Yuanzhang spent his childhood and adolescence. Although his family is poor, his life should be full of joy under the care of his parents and elder sister-in-law.
However, when he 17 years old, Huaixi suffered a catastrophe, followed by a plague. Zhu Yuanzhang, whose parents died, could only become a monk in Huang Jue Temple under the care of his mother next door, and then began a three-year vagrant and beggar career.
Zhu Yuanzhang spent the most simple and happy days in Fengyang and was full of deep feelings for it. So, in the second year of becoming emperor, he immediately announced the construction of Ming Zhongdu in Fengyang and began to build the imperial city.
It turned out that in his mind, Nanjing was not an ideal capital, while Kaifeng in the capital of song dynasty was in ruins, and most areas of the Yuan Dynasty were far away from the hinterland of the Central Plains. His hometown Fengyang seems to be the right place to build the capital.
Although Zhu Yuanzhang failed to realize his wish to move the capital to Fengyang for various reasons, the plot of his hometown has not changed, and various policies beneficial to Fengyang have surfaced one after another.
First, set up Fengyang House.
Fengyang was called "Li Zhong" in ancient times. During the Spring and Autumn Period, Li Zhong left this country and later changed to Haozhou. In the seventh year of Hongwu, due to the Phoenix Mountain in the north of Haozhou, Zhu Yuanzhang changed his name to Fengyang, which is still in use today.
Phoenix is an ancient divine bird, just like the dragon, which is exclusively used by the royal family. Zhu Yuanzhang regards his hometown as a treasure trove of geomantic omen, and of course he should take such an auspicious and noble name.
Fengyang Prefecture was under the jurisdiction of 9 states 18 county when it was first built, but later it was under the jurisdiction of 4 states 14 county due to inconvenient management. Fengyang mansion has a vast territory, and the area under its jurisdiction was only a handful in the whole country at that time, which shows Zhu Yuanzhang's concern for his hometown.
Second, the corvee tax is exempted.
Exempting from taxes and levies is a tangible benefit that Zhu Yuanzhang brought to the people in his hometown.
In the sixteenth year of Hongwu, Zhu Yuanzhang said on the monkey:
"Fengyang, my hometown, the tomb. In the past, Gao Zu was born in abundance, started in Pei and became an emperor, while the people of abundance and Pei finally benefited from Han. Today, Fengyang and Linhuai counties are sealed, and grain servitude will be exempted forever. "
Zhu Yuanzhang was born and raised in Fengyang. His hometown elders here also gave him the earliest and probably purest warmth. Therefore, he followed the example of Emperor Gaozu Liu Bang and exempted Fengyang tax corvee forever.
How much does Zhu Yuanzhang love his hometown elders? We can take the landlord Delai Liu as an example.
At that time, Zhu Yuanzhang went to beg Liu De, the landlord, because there was no place to bury his parents, but he refused mercilessly. Later, Zhu Yuanzhang did not retaliate against Liu De. Instead, out of his hometown affection, he returned good for evil and gave his former club 30 hectares of land, exempting the corvee 10 years!
Third, immigration increases the population.
In the early years of Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang carried out large-scale immigration measures which were rare in the history of China. Among them, the migration from Shanxi, Jiangsu, Hangzhou and other places to Fengyang is one of the most critical links.
According to historical statistics, during the Hongwu period, more than 480,000 people immigrated to Fengyang, including more than 300,000 soldiers180,000.
These immigrants mainly played two main roles:
The first is to provide manpower for the construction of Zhongdu. Among the immigrants at that time, there were more than 90 thousand craftsmen all over the country. Zhu Yuanzhang also set up 25 guards for Zhongdu in Gong Wei, including 6,543,800 sergeants in charge of farming and guarding.
The second is to reclaim wasteland and develop the economy. In the war at the end of Yuan Dynasty, the land to the west of Huaihe River was devastated, the fields were abandoned and the population dropped sharply. In order to quickly restore the economy of his hometown, Zhu Yuanzhang also implemented a large-scale support policy on the basis of immigrants: each immigrant not only rewarded 20 taels of silver as a resettlement fee, but also provided cattle, grain seeds and housing to relieve their worries.
It is precisely because Zhu Yuanzhang implemented a series of measures to revitalize his hometown that Fengyang House began to show economic and population prosperity in the early Ming Dynasty.
It can be seen that "there has been famine for nine years in ten years since Zhu Yuanzhang appeared" is not in line with the historical truth at that time. So, where did this ballad come from? It is necessary to trace the origin of this flower drum word.
The earliest version of this word comes from A Qing Zhao Yi's Congkao. In the book, he mentioned:
"In every county in the south of the Yangtze River, Fengyang people come every winter, and the old women go to the villages to beg, and they won't come back until February and March next year."
The focus is on the following parts:
Song said, "I live in Fengyang, Luzhou, which used to be a good place. Since Ming Chengzu Zhu, there have been nine years of famine in ten years. "
From the above introduction, we know that Fengyang was the ancestral home of Zhongdu and the royal family in the Ming Dynasty, and was especially favored by Emperor Zhu. Therefore, it is impossible to have the tragedy of "ten years and nine famines" in the late Ming Dynasty.
Zhao Yi lived in the middle and late Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty, which was also a period of rapid decline of the Qing Dynasty. At this time, natural disasters and man-made disasters are the main reasons for the decline of Fengyang area.
Therefore, the "Ten Years and Nine Famines" is not a historical story of the Hongwu period in the Ming Dynasty, but a true portrayal of the Qianlong period!
However, due to the extremely strict control measures during the reign of Kang, the victims could not directly complain to the rulers of the dynasty. So, they took the most influential Emperor Zhu in Fengyang's history to "criticize people"!
But after this change, this ballad became more famous, so that it spread to later generations and was believed by countless people. Zhu Yuanzhang's blame, not back also not line!