How can a
dead
man make a stranger willing to die for himself?
This is the biggest problem faced by ancient nobles in the process of selecting and raising dead men. It is a routine operation to
select outlaws with felonies in the first place.
As the saying goes, “Those who invite death will hide their lives.” Only ferocious outlaws will do desperate things and be willing to exchange their lives with the devil.
But what if the outlaw refuses and “just wants to be a good man”?
These nobles also have a set of mature, scientific and underbelly recruitment and attraction methods.
It can be called the most noble and despicable performance art in ancient times. Nie Zheng, an assassin in the late
Spring and Autumn Period, killed people in his hometown. In order to avoid his enemies, he went to other places and became a butcher, killing dogs for a living.
Not only Nie Zheng, in fact, many of the dead were butchers before they were employed, more precisely, dog butchers. Because slaughtering dogs is the best choice for outlaws.
The outlaw abandoned his family and business, left his ancestral home, and became self-reliant outside. But starting a business requires capital, which requires finding a business that doesn’t cost much. If you have studied meat shops, you will know that it takes a lot of money to slaughter cattle, sheep and pigs, but not dogs. Even in the countryside today, the dogs running all over the streets will disappear in less than half a month and turn up in butcher shops with the words “collect dogs.”.
This kind of professional dog thief is the “dog thief” of the pre-Qin period, which is called “sitting dog” among the people. They and the dog slaughter, both have the coincidence, also has the cooperation, the cost is low, is ashamed, is caught to the death to hit, how does not have the capital ten thousand profits. Dog slaughter is a very important part of this business, which is deeply loved by exiled entrepreneurs. The
same is the dog slaughter, and Jing Ke’s friend Gao Jianli. Gao Jianli was originally a highly skilled musician, but later became a butcher, specializing in killing dogs. Dog meat is not on the table, dog slaughter is not popular, artists like Gao Jianli, if not committed a major case in the middle, will never run to kill dogs.
One day, butcher Nie Zheng was found by Yan Zhongzi.
Yan Zhongzi, a Korean nobleman, was forced to go into exile, forcing him to flee for his life.
Along the way, Yan Zhongzi has been looking for a suitable person to avenge him, but not very good. When he arrived in Qi, he heard about Nie Zheng’s deeds and saw Nie Zheng himself. At that time, he was sure that this was the person he was looking for. Nie Zheng is in line with most of the characteristics of outstanding dead men, but there is a hard flaw: he is not a bachelor.
In ancient times, the term “bachelor” had a slightly different meaning than it does today. It refers to a person who is alone, who has no parents, no wife and children, who loiters all day long and makes trouble.
Nie Zheng is not a bachelor, there is a mother, there is a sister in the middle, they are not married, the whole family live together, life is hard, but happy. Such a person with ties can not become a dead man.
Knowing that he could not do it, Yan Zhongzi went to find Nie Zheng with a gift. Nie Zheng learned the purpose of his visit and declined. Naturally, the reason is that there is a mother to take care of, and a sister, sister is not married, living together, if something happens, she will be implicated. I won’t go even if you give me a big gift. I am not afraid of death, but if I die, my family will not be taken care of and bullied.
Several times, Yan Zhongzi was shut out, but he did not give up. During this period, it was impossible for him not to be anxious, but soon, he found Nie Zheng’s weakness: filial piety.
Filial piety, of course, is the reason why Nie Zheng has the courage to take on family responsibilities, but refuses to die. But this is precisely the reason for his death, his mother’s happiness is his most persistent desire, then, can make his mother happy, he will fall in love with me. Yan Zhongzi decided not to find Nie Zheng, but to find his mother.
On this day, Nie Zheng’s mother celebrated her birthday, and Yan Zhongzi came again with a gift. Birthday celebration, the total is not easy to send, so eat together. When the wine was drunk, Yan Zhongzi suddenly came out of the tray, which turned out to be a hundred gold coins.
Nie Zheng saw, repeatedly refused. He said in all earnestness, “I took my mother and sister out on the street, killing dogs for a living, so that I could be with my family sooner or later.”. I can support them myself, and I really don’t dare to accept your big gift.
Yan Zhongzi’s next words reflect his superb art of speaking. Hold Nie Zheng in your hands first. “I have a grudge.”. But when I went all over the world, I couldn’t find anyone who could avenge me. When I got to Qi, I heard about it. He also asked Nie Zheng to rest assured that when he came to give gifts, he really had nothing else to ask for. He just wanted Nie Zheng’s family to live a better life. “This one hundred gold is the cost of your mother’s coarse rice.”. I just admire your nobility and want to be friends with you, that’s all!
I don’t mean anything else. Why do you say you have a grudge?
Nie Zheng knows this. No matter how hard it is, he is willing to live a better life for his mother. Accepting the gift money, he could naturally achieve his goal directly, but he also understood that although his mother wanted to live a good life, the last thing she wanted was to see her son die. The money still could not be accepted, so he repeatedly evaded it and did not accept it.
For Nie Zheng, Yan Zhongzi was willing to bend down to make friends with him, but he had repeatedly refused. This time, he came to honor his mother, but it touched his heart. Although the money was not collected, he still intended to make this friend. He later said that in this matter (to make his mother happy), Yan Zhongzi knew me very well.
It can be seen that Nie’s mother was really happy on her birthday. After
that, they went back and forth like friends.
Nie Zheng loves money, but is not greedy for money. He has an urgent desire to get a better life, but out of morality, out of dignity, out of life, and the attitude of standing upright between heaven and earth, he refused Yan Zhongzi’s hospitality. However, as long as you decide to make friends with him, even if you don’t take a penny, you should be anxious.
This is the original meaning of chivalry.
However, most of the dead soldiers at that time did not have this kind of backbone. They live under the door of the strongmen, eat the food of the strongmen, and act as the thugs for the strongmen.
In the Ming Dynasty, Yan Shifan kept hundreds of dead soldiers, all of whom were hooligans, local ruffians, and local tyrants from all over the country, who usually brought disaster to the countryside. These are employed in the rich and powerful families, directly under the command of the nobility of the senior dead, as well as unknown ordinary dead. They are forced by life and are willing to earn any kind of money. The vast majority of people in
ancient times were poor. This kind of poverty was not due to the so-called “inability to enjoy a high-end life,” but to the inability to maintain a basic life.
In ancient times, 80% of the people were peasants, and they had no rest all the year round. In a family of five, at least two of them were burdened with heavy corvee, and they had to pay a lot of taxes and apportionments at ordinary times. There were floods and droughts, but money and grain had to be paid. Many people sold their fields and houses, and some even paid back the money to their descendants. The land was further annexed by the powerful families, and the people lived in dire Straits.
Many people become a blind stream, wandering in the city, hoping that one day they can eat a bowl of rice with princes. Because death is really a very profitable job. An ordinary task is comparable to the income of a family of five for several years.
Because there are too many people who want to be dead, the dead market is very lively, and there is a dead agent. In Luoyang in the Eastern Han Dynasty, there was a “family of assassins,” which was actually an alliance of assassins, specializing in helping nobles and rich people kill people. The organization receives money from customers, usually one hundred thousand (Wen), and gives thousands to the dead, which is enough for the dead to work hard.
Of course, part of the money was used to manage officials and monopolize the market. But there is no doubt that the dead men who earned thousands of words by working hard are still in a situation of serious exploitation, and their efforts are disproportionate to their returns. Because the dead have their own professional ethics and operational norms, in the alliance to do things, must be duty-bound to ensure customer satisfaction, otherwise it is difficult to receive live. Those who can’t be killed should continue to be killed until the task is completed.
Therefore, that year’s Luoyang, unexpectedly appeared the scene of the dead at every turn. The dead were mainly officials coming home from work. From the evening on, the dead and wounded were all over the street. The sirens kept ringing, but there was no way to stop them. Pick this time to start, because after a while it will be dark, and there are many people on the road in the evening, the murderer is easy to hide in the crowd, it is very difficult to catch. Most of the assassins and martyrs on the streets of the
Han Dynasty were young people, who are often referred to in history books as “young scoundrels.”.
Problem teenagers have a bad relationship with their family members. They are rebellious and hostile. What is rare is that they all advocate loyalty. They are easy to commit crimes together and fight fiercely.
In the Western Han Dynasty, there was a knight-errant named Guo Jie, who was short and pithy, never drank, and was very vicious in doing things. When he was a teenager, he committed countless crimes. He killed people if he didn’t like them. Too many people were killed by him. As an adult, he turned over a new leaf and became a famous warrior. But sometimes they get angry, and when they see someone who doesn’t bow his head, they want to kill him in private. The young people in the
village all envied him and took him as an example.
When it comes to fighting, teenagers are more ruthless than adults, regardless of the consequences, and love to kill. Although it is difficult to do big things, the good news is that they are cheap to hire. Sometimes you don’t even need money, you just need to say hello and you can call people. Beneath the “dead men,” there are really dead men. Under the cannon fodder, there is still cannon fodder.
This group of troubled teenagers also have a division of labor, and they usually draw lots to decide what to do. Those who get the red pellets will kill the military officials. This task is the most dangerous and easy to kill. Those who get the black pellets, kill the civil servants. Civil officials are weak and easier to kill. Get the white one. Take care of the funeral. Some of the people on the mission died, and the person who drew the white pellet had to be responsible for the funeral. Clear division of labor, willing to gamble and admit defeat, to a large extent, the young man’s chivalrous mood, can easily be used, become the victim of interests, layers of subcontracting under the scapegoat. Those who
take advantage of these troubled young people are the “professional dead men” in the gang. If they don’t go to die, they are businessmen who sell their lives. After accepting money from customers, teenagers are called to do it to earn the difference.
Of course, you can’t hire a teenager for an important task. If their prices are cheap, they must have the disadvantage of being cheap. First, the physical strength can not keep up, and second, the brain is not very good, emotional excitement, easy to expose identity, leak information.
S-level tasks, of course, must be completed by S-level killers.
Brave and invincible, cautious and wise adult dead soldiers are the most commonly used by nobles, while those like Nie Zheng are the objects that princes and nobles strive to cultivate.
Nie Zheng is an outlaw, this is one of them. Life is relatively poor, this is the second. But he has a family burden, so there is no third. However, those who do not want to die because of filial piety will eventually go to righteousness because of gratitude.
Yan Zhongzi did not ignore Nie Zheng because Nie Zheng did not agree to avenge him. On the contrary, he really treated him like a friend and went to play with Nie Zheng when he was free, which moved Nie Zheng very much. Murderers, exiles, dog butchers, everyone is afraid of them, but a gentle aristocrat actually respects him for years and gives him the highest courtesy. Such an unequal relationship is beyond the other party’s sacrifice and can not be repaid.
A few years later, Nie Zheng’s mother died. After the funeral, he immediately thought of his friend Yan Zhongzi.
He wants to avenge Yan Zhongzi.
He found Yan Zhongzi and asked, who is your enemy?
Yan Zhongzi said that the prime minister of Korea, the father of the king, was chivalrous and tired. He also said that over the years, he had sent many assassins to assassinate him, but without success, because the chivalrous clan was prosperous and heavily guarded. He said, if you want to go, please let me give you a ride and a strong man to help you!
Nie Zheng said, no. He was not acting on impulse, and the reason he gave was simple: the more people there were in this kind of assassination, the worse it would be. A group of outsiders approaching the prime minister is bound to attract people’s attention. Many people, but also bother to manage, do not which revealed the news, let the prime minister know is Yan Zhongzi to kill him, not finished?
So Nie Zheng went to Korea alone.
As for how he sneaked into the prime minister’s mansion, how to deceive people, close to the target, the history books do not record, it is a pity. But this is very real, no one knows how Nie Zheng did it, only he knows, and he “disappeared” after the successful assassination.
However, we can guess what the assassin needs to do to get close to the target from the story of Yu Rang, another assassin in the Historical Records.
Zhao, Wei and Han conspired to destroy the state of Jin and divide up the land of Zhi Bo. Zhao Xiangzi was most resentful of Zhi Bo and used his skull as a flagon. Yu Rang, Zhi Bo’s favorite servant, fled to the mountains and vowed to avenge his master.
So he became a eunuch in the palace and tried to win the task of cleaning the toilet. This place is dirty, hidden, small space, and a good place to start. The most important thing is that the king also has to go to the toilet. In this way, Yu Rang completed his first assassination.
Come to think of it, Nie Zheng mixed into the prime minister’s office, should also have their own set of methods.
In short, at that time, Xia Lei was sitting in the house, surrounded by a lot of people. Nie Zheng rushed in directly and stepped on the steps. In a flash of lightning, the chivalrous man was tired to death. About this just react to come over, the hall unexpectedly rushed in an assassin, all to kill Nie Zheng.
Nie Zheng roared to fight, a time of flesh and blood flying, and dozens of people died. Risk
alone, after the completion of the task, a dozen dozen, really brave and invincible! This is the reason why Yan Zhongzi decided that this must be done by Nie Zheng. In the face of strict guards and dozens of masters, Nie Zheng used his strength to crush them in terms of technology and strength.
However, the guards kept coming, and Nie Zheng was too seriously injured to escape. Suddenly, he began to cut his face with a dagger, then peeled off his face, gouged out his eyes, cut open his stomach and picked out his intestines. People can not stop, in the consternation and confusion, watched Nie Zheng died.
Close, turn over to look, all people one face is confused circle, look at each other: Who is this person?!
No one knows.
In order to find out who the man was, the Koreans threw Nie Zheng’s body into the street and offered a reward of one thousand gold for the citizens to recognize it, but no one recognized it. A long time has passed, and still no one knows Nie Zheng’s identity. When the
news reached Qi, Nie Zheng’s sister Nie heard that a man had killed the Korean prime minister and killed dozens of guards with his own strength. She immediately knew that it would be no one else except her brother.
The younger brother had disappeared for a long time and only said that he would go out for a long trip. However, Yan Zhongzi, a doctor from Korea, was a friend of his younger brother, who always said he wanted to help him revenge.
At this moment, she understood that Nie Zheng was going to kill people.
His final disfigurement was not only to protect Yan Zhongzi, but also to protect her.
A dead man cannot have a family!
If there is, we must make everyone confused about their identity. He destroyed his face and opened his stomach for the sake of those who were still alive.
She decided to let down her brother’s kindness, so she suddenly went to Korea and went to the place where the body was exposed.
In the street, she recognized the body as Nie Zheng at a glance.
She lay on her brother’s body, crying until she almost fainted, and kept calling his name so that everyone could know the identity of the deceased. Pedestrians in the
street stopped to watch and said, “This man is the killer of our prime minister. Haven’t you heard of him?”? How dare you come to recognize your relatives?!
She said loudly, just don’t want to drown my good brother’s reputation!
As a result, he cried three times and finally died crying beside Nie Zheng.
Scholars so, the world can have a few people?!
What Nie Zheng and his sister Nie did shocked the world. When the people of
Jin, Chu, Qi and Wei heard about this incident, they all sighed with emotion and praised their heroism. But they all said that if Nie Zheng knew that his sister was not the kind of person who forbore, he would not promise Yan Zhongzi to help him revenge in any case. Now his sister crossed thousands of miles and died with him in the street market of Korea, which was not what he wanted to see!
Nie Zheng’s assassination of Han Xiangxia was carefully planned by Yan Zhongzi from the very beginning. He tried to buy his life with a hundred gold, but Nie Zheng refused until he found the right way to unlock Nie Zheng. He used Nie Zheng’s filial piety and loyalty to make friends, which made Nie Zheng take the initiative to revenge.
In fact, the best dead can only be obtained by heart-to-heart communication, and there is no other way.
As for the nobles who raised a large number of dead soldiers in history, it is generally difficult to compare with the four princes and Yan Zhongzi. Their time is tight, the task is heavy, and the number of dead soldiers they need to raise is too large, so they can only take the form of flood irrigation.
For example, the dead soldiers raised by Lu Bu and Wang Yun were actually the family members of the criminals who became slaves in the palace, and the training place was the basement (cave room). The dead men raised by
Yan Shifan were powerful bachelors recruited by taking advantage of the large-scale construction of the mansion. Usually idle to raise, give the treatment is so high that people are ashamed, anxious to repay. So, what the master said, everyone did. Even if it’s a rebellion, follow suit. As a matter of fact, the strongmen never tell their subordinates that they want to rebel. Their reasons are more “just” than anyone else. They will only give very specific instructions to the big men, just as they are allowed to carry out their tasks in peacetime.
Lombardi like to raise the dead, generally is to let a few dead put a look, what is the name of the person to do, dead of course, as usual. For another example, Sima Shi secretly kept three thousand dead soldiers scattered among the people. During the coup, he was only informed where to gather, and when he arrived at the place, he continued to act according to the order. I thought it was the same as usual, but it turned out that the armory was occupied.
Dead, as a group, the composition is complex, most of them are poor outlaws, have their own rules, their own beliefs, or for love, or for money, to act as killers, in order to achieve the goal, by hook or by crook. Among them, those who can sing and cry are all righteous people who do not die for money, which has touched countless people. At that time, the
reason why they valued death and righteousness and sacrificed their lives was that they were born to be human beings, simple and heroic moral sentiments. But we should also be soberly aware that the vast majority of the dead are outlaws on the run, those who are exploited by blood, and scapegoats after aristocrats commit crimes. Most of the things they do are just hatchet men who take people’s money and eliminate disasters for others.
People should strive for a noble cause and not become a tool for private desire. Those who are able to bear heavy burdens for the sake of the rise and fall of the country and the happiness of the people, and who do not regret even if they die, are the real “chivalrous men.”.
