Xu Jianian in this article refers to the thirty-three years of Qing Emperor Kangxi, namely 1694. At this time, it has been 50 years since Emperor Chongzhen hanged himself in 1644, 32 years since Emperor Li Yong was killed in 1662, and1683 since the last regime of the Ming Dynasty was destroyed1/kloc-0.

The people in Yushan, Zhai Yi and Qin Dynasty are all Xu Fang's names, which are also the names claimed by the ancient people in China.

When writing his last words, Xu Fang was 73 years old and his family had disappeared. Only his daughter-in-law Fahrenheit and his four-year-old grandson Xu Xiaguan accompanied him. After Xu Fang's death, Fahrenheit and Xu Xiaguan died one after another, and Xu Fang's direct blood line was cut off.

Xu Fang himself was born in a bureaucratic family in the Ming Dynasty. Xu Jia has been an official for generations since his sixth ancestor. Xu Fang's father was born as a scholar, changed to Jishi Shu, and was promoted to You Chunfang, a right bastard. In the Ming dynasty, this was the qualification to join the cabinet, and he also participated in the political struggle to unify the society. After the establishment of Nanming, Xu Xun was enabled as a junior James in the James House and a bachelor of imperial academy.

Due to the superior family environment, Xu Fang has been in contact with scholars and celebrities in the south of the Yangtze River since childhood. Among them, there are many celebrities, such as Zheng Fujiao, Zhu, Yang and others. These are Xu Fang's friends and Xu Fang's elders and teachers. The academic environment in Jiangnan also made Xu Fang grow rapidly. In the fifteenth year of Chongzhen (1642), Xu Fang, 2 1 year old, has already passed the provincial examination, so it can be said that a bright future is just around the corner.

However, at this time, the Ming Dynasty had reached a dead end. Natural and man-made disasters in the north caused a large number of peasants to overthrow the rule of the Ming Dynasty. Li Zicheng has grown and developed in 1642, and the Manchu dynasty outside the customs coveted the Central Plains. In A.D. 1644, Li Zicheng invaded Beijing and Emperor Chongzhen hanged himself. Later, at the invitation of Wu Sangui, the Qing army entered the customs and defeated Li Zicheng to seize Beijing. In the same year, the Hong Guang regime was established. In A.D. 1645, the Qing army went south, and after Nanjing, the capital of Hong Guang regime, was captured by the Qing army, Suzhou and Changzhou fell one after another.

This was a double blow to Xu Xun, a senior official of the Ming Dynasty. 1644, Chongzhen hanged himself, and many officials who encouraged themselves committed suicide. Xu Xun did not commit suicide, but joined the Hong Guang regime, naturally hoping for national rejuvenation. However, the Hong Guang regime was defeated in 1645, and the Ming regime collapsed again. As a senior bureaucrat, Xu Xun can neither serve the country nor save it. On the contrary, he saw the demise of this country, which was naturally painful. Coupled with his own Confucian honor thought, Xu Xun chose to throw himself into the water at Xintang Bridge in Huqiu, Suzhou on June 12 to be martyred for the Ming Dynasty.

Xu Xun's suicide is recorded in Master Fan's "Friends of Old Letters", which is a Confucian believer's persistence in faith and a senior official's persistence in national subjugation;

According to the practice at that time, many officials would commit suicide with their families, but Xu Hao didn't do it, probably because he felt sorry for his 24-year-old son. At that time, Xu Fang was still ill, and he wanted to commit suicide by drowning with his father, but Xu Fang was ordered before he died:

This edict says three things: Xu Xun committed suicide by his own choice, but he wanted his son Xu Fang to live, and at the same time let Xu Fang choose to be a farmer for life.

Many people may not understand. Isn't it good for them to be farmers? In fact, I didn't understand the real meaning of Xu Hao. At this time, Xu Fang was already a juren, and Xu Jia was a noble family in Jiangnan, which was exactly what the Qing rulers needed to win over. We should know that in the early years of the Qing Dynasty, due to the lack of officials, talents were badly needed, and even people were sent to forcibly detain secluded Ming officials. Xu Fang himself can be recruited as an official by the Qing Dynasty and fight for Jiangnan scholars for the Manchu Dynasty. Xu Xun didn't want his son to work for Manchu, so he asked Xu Fang to become a farmer and break away from Manchu regime.

But for Xu Fang, this is another kind of suffering. Because the scholar's family under the imperial examination system is not engaged in agricultural production, the scholar is a foster intellectual of the country and has no survival skills for serving the country. As a scholar, Xu Fang spent the first half of his life as an official by studying for the imperial examination, and he himself could not farm. Xu Fang's failure to be an official means that his life will be poor and difficult, but how to be a farmer will be nearly 50 years later.

Shortly before Xu Xun's death, the Qing Dynasty issued an order to shave his head, which is commonly known as shaving his hair into a pig's tail. Shaving hair is very common in modern society, but it was a great event in ancient times. Many people like to use the customs of the Han nationality to illustrate the insolence of Manchu rulers. In fact, this is only one of the reasons.

The deeper reason is that the Han people, as a developed civilization, although defeated by Manchu militarily, still regard themselves as civilized people and superior nations, and the emperor shunzhi and Dourgen as barbaric tribes outside the customs. Therefore, in the eyes of Han people, their living habits are naturally a civilized way of life. The emperor shunzhi and Dourgen were very aware of the psychological state of the Han people, so they forced the order to make suncus murinus's pigtail a symbol of the conqueror, to eliminate the self-esteem of the Han people, and to let every Han people know that they were conquered when they saw their hair. This symbolic sense of humiliation naturally aroused the resistance of the Han people. So there happened the "81 difficulty" in Jiangyin, the "Three Tufu" in Jiading and so on.

And Xu Fang's elders also died in this anti-Qing uprising:

Xu Fang himself was humiliated by shaving his head. About four months after his father died, Xu Fang hid in Songling to avoid shaving his head. As a result, the Qing army arrested him and knelt in the lobby and refused to get up. As a result, Xu Fang was cut off by the Qing army. For scholar Xu Fang, this is a great shame. Many scholars couldn't stand this humiliation and committed suicide. At that time, Xu Fang chose to live because he remembered his father's last commandment: to live.

On the other hand, his father's anti-Qing spirit inspired young Xu Fang very well. Later, he also devoted himself to the anti-Qing struggle. He once participated in the linkage of adherents of the Ming Dynasty and tried to secretly hold anti-Qing actions. On the one hand, he moves around. Of course, there are other reasons for life here, and there are also secret contacts for the reasons of anti-Qing and regaining sight at that time.

However, Hong Chu, a monk, supported the anti-Qing movement, and Xu Fang, as a "cloth disciple" of Hong Chu, secretly contacted the adherents of the Ming Dynasty, when a large number of adherents of the Ming Dynasty held a rally. In addition, Xu Fang has a close relationship with his brother-in-law, Wu Zuxi, who worked for Li Yong and Lu Jianguo and worked under Zheng Chenggong and Zhang Huangyan. Xu Fang contacted Wu Zuxi, apparently for the purpose of clearing the party and regaining sight. However, the anti-Qing dynasty and the restoration of Ming dynasty gradually dissipated due to the stability of the Qing dynasty, so it became Xu Fang's choice and became a adherent.

When Xu Fang was a believer, his predicament came from the poverty of life. The Xu Fang family itself, because it is a noble family, usually has land, and the Xu family also has six hectares of land, but they are all owned by the family. Xu Fangjia can get some land rent from the six hectares of land collectively owned by the Xu family. However, in 166 1 year, in order to subdue Jiangnan's resistance to the Qing Dynasty, Emperor Kangxi ordered Jiangnan's land tax to pay off all tax evasion in the past decade, which led to cases such as cracking down on sales and crying temples. Because Xu Fang is the master of the Xu family, he takes full responsibility and chooses to flee. In the end, Xu Fang lost all sources of livelihood.

After losing their source of livelihood, the adherents of the Ming Dynasty developed their own means of livelihood. Huang Zongxi taught in an academy. His nest was filled with seeds and made into a small box to sell. Xu Fang can't farm, but the means to maintain food and clothing is to sell paintings, but his paintings are not signed, because he doesn't expect to make a fortune, and he only sells them when he has to.

In fact, Xu Fang, as a adherent, gained a great reputation in Jiangnan area after Kangxi Dynasty. Many people admire his solar terms and raise money to buy Xu Fang's paintings. In addition, many rich people want to buy Xu Fang's signature calligraphy and painting to show off their identity, so it is actually easy for Xu Fang to maintain food and clothing by selling paintings. But he didn't choose to be a painter to survive. Only when he had to, did Xu sell his paintings to survive. After all, he saved his life The poverty of life led to the death of Xu Fang's family, and Xu Fang's four sons also died of malnutrition and physical injury caused by years of hunger. The only daughter died at the age of 3 because of lack of warm clothes and cold disease in winter.

Xu Fang himself is constantly sick:

In fact, Xu Fang's desire for prosperity is also very simple. The Qing Dynasty did not stop appealing to the adherents of the Ming Dynasty, especially Kangxi, who claimed that "the world has been the best since ancient times". Kangxi recruited adherents of the Ming Dynasty in nine years (1670), twelve years (1673) and thirteen years (65438+). Finally, in the seventeenth year of Kangxi (1678), Kangxi became a scholar, but only 100 people took part. In the 42nd year of Kangxi (1703), Kangxi sent an envoy to xi 'an, hoping to meet CoCo Lee, a adherent of the Ming Dynasty, but CoCo Lee only asked his son to take two books written by himself to see Kangxi.

As a Confucian official in the Qing Dynasty, on the one hand, he recruited adherents of the Ming Dynasty instead of Kangxi, on the other hand, as a Confucian scholar, he also wanted to get to know these upright people. As the "three adherents of China", many honest officials admire Xu Fang and want to help him or meet him.

As a adherent, Xu Fang fought against the world with his own way of life. Although he suffered a lot, he still didn't give up.

In the thirty-third year of Kangxi (AD 1694), Xu Fang wrote his last words and passed away. Only his daughter-in-law, Fahrenheit, and grandson, Xu, survived. His good friend Yang and his disciple Pan Lei did not go home and became orphans. The Xu family fell out with Xu Fang because of the tax investigation in 166 1 year, and Xu Fang was refused to enter the ancestral grave. On the one hand, daughter-in-law Fahrenheit refused the donation from Jiangsu Governor Luo Song; on the other hand, she wanted to sell the thatched cottage and bury Xu Fang, but was stopped by Pan Lei.

Pan Lei found the funeral expenses for Xu Fang himself. Zhou Maozao also raised money for Xu Fang among the adherents, but everyone was poor and couldn't raise money. Finally, Dai Yi, Xu Fang's good friend, won more than 40 gold by selling words. Then Pan Lei raised more than 70 gold and bought a piece of land to bury Xu Fang. Later, Dai Yi sold words to raise more than 30 kinds of golden pine and cypress, and Xu Fang's funeral was held.

As for Fahrenheit and Xu Xiaguan, after Xu Fang's death, they went through many difficulties and eventually died one after another.

The reason why Xu Fang's last words moved people to tears was because Xu Fang's life was a symbol of honesty in the history of China. On the historical stage in the late Ming and early Qing Dynasties, countless literati, military commanders and nobles made a lot of gaffes for the sake of wealth. For example, Hong Chengchou and Wu Sangui did not hesitate to act as traitors, brandishing butcher knives and slashing their own people to work for the rulers of the Qing Dynasty. However, a group of people fought against the Manchu rulers for the sake of national spirit. They witnessed the slaughter and oppression in advanced civilized areas, so they rose up to compete with the Manchu rulers. Xu Fang is just one of the representatives, and in a sense, this is also the embodiment of China scholar spirit. These Confucian scholars explained a truth with their own lives: what is honesty.

As an orphan of the Ming Dynasty and a scholar who opposed "national integration", Xu Fang seems to have gained nothing in his life, leaving only his integrity and fame.