With the continuous development of modern social economy, the transportation is in a highly developed state, and there are now a variety of transportation modes to achieve fast speed, which is tantamount to the teleportation superpower of gods and monsters in the imagination of the ancients. Because of such convenient transportation conditions, traveling has long become a popular pastime for modern people.
Thousands of years ago, although the degree of transportation convenience was far less than now, but in ancient times, there were also today's travel bloggers in general, such as Xu Xiake, a traveler who was known as the "Traveling Saint", different from the modern choice of planes, trains and other modes of travel, in ancient times, travelers relied on a means of transportation in addition to livestock such as mules and horses, only their own legs.
But even if the conditions are difficult, Xu Xiake's geographical achievements in his life are also beyond the times, but such a great geological pioneer who has been famous for thousands of years, the situation of his family descendants is completely different, not only did he not climb the peak in the achievements of his ancestors, but he was wiped out 4 years after Xu Xiake's death, and the reasons are hidden under the plot of "Under the Prosperous City......
Aim high, travel all over the world, and die without regrets
Xu Xiake was born in a wealthy family in Jiangyin, and his ancestor was once a local wealthy.
Although the descendants of the descendants of the family are in the middle, they still have a lot of family background, and their ancestors have raised people and the ancestors are illiterate.
It can be said that the Xu family was a well-known scholar at that time.
In the generation of Xu Xiake's father, Xu Youmian, who regarded himself as an upright and clean stream, did not take the imperial examination career that scholars in feudal society dreamed of, but was a maverick, far away from the staggered of officialdom, and was intoxicated with the joy of natural landscapes.
As a child of a big family, under the influence of his father and family style, Xu Xiake had only two ambitions to fall in love when he was young, one was to read thousands of books, and the other was to travel thousands of miles.
Xu Xiake also took the exam with his peers when he was fifteen years old, but failed in the children's test.
In this regard, Xu Xiake did not feel sorry for himself, and his father Xu Youmian also encouraged his son to be a learned scholar if he had no intention of becoming famous.
Xu Xiake also lived up to his father's expectations, he read a lot of books, never forgot the content he had read, and was rich in heart under the nourishment of books and literature.
Over time, the accumulation of culture made him more and more eager to explore the unknown parts of the world, which also laid the ideological foundation for his later travels.
Four years later, Xu's father died, and after the mourning period expired, Xu Xiake, who wanted to go out to explore the mysteries of the landscape, hesitated.
In feudal society, the concept of family order of filial piety is deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, and the idea of "parents are not far away" has always restrained Xu Xiake's footsteps, especially when his parents become single parents, and the heavy responsibility of supporting his mother falls on Xu Xiake's shoulders.
Knowing her son Mo Ruo's mother, Xu's mother Su Xiao Xu Xiake has great ambitions, and she doesn't want to break her son's wings because of herself, she took the initiative to do Xu Xiake's ideological work and encouraged him to do what he wanted to do.
Xu Xiake, who has no worries, officially started his travel career in his early twenties.
Until his death at home at the age of 54, Xu Xiake devoted himself to the career of travel recording that he loved for more than 30 years.
Xu Xiake has traveled all over the country, exploring the headwaters of major rivers in China, inspecting the limestone landforms of the Yunnan-Guizhou region in the southwest, and visiting the famous scenic spots of mountains, rivers, lakes and forests in the southeast and northwest......
Whether it is a rich place or a remote borderland, there has been a figure of him, Xu Xiake thinks that he has no regrets in life and death.
In ancient times, social security was not as good as now, and Xu Xiake's adventures were mostly inaccessible places, and he was also in danger many times, although he finally broke his fortune and saved his life, but it left some physical and mental trauma to him.
In the long run, coupled with the perennial running around, Xu Xiake became ill from overwork, and his feet became seriously ill during the long-term trek, and he even faced a state of disability with his feet unable to move in the later period.
But no matter whether he fell into the scourge of bandits, or suffered from diseases such as near-waste of his feet, he did not exhaust Xu Xiake's steely and firm will, even in modern times, such persevering hikers throughout the ancient and modern times are also a drop in the ocean.
The end times are turbulent, and Jiangnan slaves change
Xu Xiake was born in the fifteenth year of Wanli in the Ming Dynasty, and this year was a major turning point in the society of the Ming Dynasty.
The emperor's neglect of government, the corruption of the imperial court, and the constant wars of foreign enemies, the Ming Dynasty faced a situation of internal and external troubles but had no ability to adjust, and was bound to decline and perish.
During this period, the land of fish and rice in the south, which has been known for its wealth since ancient times, was affected by wars and disasters, and more and more people at the bottom were forced to become slaves of the rich for their livelihoods.
In the feudal society with a strict hierarchical system in ancient times, once a slave was a slave, it was difficult to get rid of slavery for life, and even future generations were the private property of the master's family.
The fate of these slaves, like Lu Zhi in the hit drama "Under the Prosperous City", is determined by the preferences of the master.
In the play, Lu Yuan, who is the master, favors Lu Zhi when he is happy, and drives, beats, scolds, and sells at will when he is angry.
Literary and artistic works are always based on reality, and Lu Zhi, the culprit of the tragedy who was humiliated by the head of the family and blackened to take revenge, also has a prototype in history, that is, the famous slave struggle in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties.
More than 50 years have passed since Xu Xiake was born, and he died in the 14th year of Chongzhen at the age of more than half a hundred.
In this year, the rule of the Ming Dynasty was even more stormy, and the peasant uprisings in the late Ming Dynasty represented by Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong broke out on a large scale and frequently, and the war between the Ming and Jin Dynasty also entered a white-hot stage.
During this period, the attitude of the wealthy households, who ruled the exploiting class, in the face of peasant uprisings and Qing invasions, was to maintain the rule of the Ming Dynasty, because only in this way could their existing interests be preserved.
As exploited low-level slaves, their humiliating and painful lives during the war were tantamount to a chance to turn over.
Just three years later, the Ming Dynasty, which was already at the end of the crossbow, ushered in a complete demise with man-made disasters accompanied by famine and natural disasters.
Encouraged by the growing peasant uprisings in various places, the oppressed slaves responded to the collapse of the edifice of the times, tying up their masters, seizing the rich lords' fields and belongings, and distributing their grain to the low-level victims who had been suffering from famine for a long time.
The most important is to kill the rich to vent their anger, and even to slaughter their entire clan, the unsolved case of the Lu family in "Under the Prosperous City", which has been sealed for many years and needs to be solved, is based on this apocalyptic social phenomenon full of blood and killing.
Xu Xiake, who died three years before the destruction of the country, avoided the disaster of the troubled times and preserved his name before and after his death.
But his relatives and friends suffered tragically, the Xu family in Jiangyin was almost wiped out, and there were very few descendants of the Xu family who were lucky enough to survive this disaster, which can be called the liquidation of the extermination.
It is precisely because of this difficulty that Xu Xiake's handwritten manuscripts, which should have been sorted out and revised, have also been lost, and some of the works that have been handed down to this day only account for less than half of what he recorded back then, which is really a pity.
Xu Xiake is admired by all generations because of his unprecedented achievements in geographical travel, leaving a large number of research documents for later generations.
However, after all, man is a product of society, and the wheel of history rolls forward, never changing because of the excellence of any individual.
At the end of the Ming Dynasty, the society was in turmoil, and the slaves rose up to resist the oppression and exploitation of their rich masters, and the general trend was inevitable, and a senior rich family like the Xu family naturally could not escape the difficulties.
Xu Xiake's great achievements naturally did not save his family's descendants from disaster, dozens of people from the Xu family died, and there were few survivors.