In the late summer and early autumn of the forty-fourth year of Wanli in the Ming Dynasty, the southern section of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, Sujia Canal.
The moonlight shines down, making the water town at night no longer as dark as ink.
Those ponds separated by reeds and mud weirs are like many empty eye sockets without eyes, silently facing the sky as if accepting their fate.
The silence is occasionally broken.
There was a gentle sound of waves, and a boy of twelve or thirteen years old swam across this large body of water and finally touched the river embankment.
He climbed up the bank, supported the ground with his hands, stood up through gritted teeth, wiped the smelly and dirty river water from his face, took a few breaths, and ran along the river embankment towards the town with numerous houses in the distance.
At the turn of Xuhai, the noisy streets during the day had now returned to silence.
The young man stood in the middle of the stone road, listening carefully to hear the sounds, and then he heard the sounds again. He turned around a small temple and finally saw an old man wearing moonlight.
"Inspection Department, where is the Inspection Department?" The young man ran up and asked eagerly.
The old man was first startled by the sudden appearance of the figure. After he looked closely and saw that he was a young man, he scolded him with a stern face: "You're such a brat, how can you live in a small house?"
This is the dialect in Suzhou Prefecture. The old man asked which family in the town the baby was from.
The young man's name was Zheng Shoukuan. He was not originally from Jiangnan. He had lived with his aunt in nearby Songjiang Prefecture for more than half a year, so he could understand Wu dialect.
He talked and gestured, and finally made the old man understand his origin and the disaster that suddenly happened today.
After hearing this, the old man's face turned solemn, and he changed his pace to a trot. After leading Zheng Shoukuan around two alleys, he pointed to the high-walled house with torches in the distance and said, "That's the inspection department of this town."
Zheng Shoukuan hurriedly thanked him and ran towards the brightly lit torch.
The old man looked at the young man's back, hesitated for a moment, and sighed.
"Everyone thinks that Jiangnan is good, but I have seen the people in Jiangnan complain. How have you ever seen officials become thieves, and thieves become officials? I see you every month. How pitiful, pitiful..."
The old man hummed the lyrics softly, and his rickety back quickly disappeared into the boundless night.
…
An hour ago, when Zheng Shoukuan was pushed off the boat by his aunt, his aunt clearly told him that the nearest town was Qiandun, and there must be an inspection department that maintains local security and he could ask for help.
Ever since he followed his aunt Zheng Haizhu north from Zhangzhou Prefecture in Fujian Province, Zheng Shoukuan had already discovered that his aunt seemed to be quite familiar with the Jiangnan area.
He thought that this was all because his aunt had been literate since she was a child and read the various books in the ancestral home, so he began to admire his only relative even more.
I was in danger today, and my aunt's advice at the critical moment was indeed correct.
When young Zheng Shoukuan rushed into the Qiandun Inspection Department, deputy inspector Chen Aliang and several archers on duty had already played the "horse tag" for several rounds.
"Master, Master, help!" Zheng Shouguan cried out loud.
Chen Aliang was just gambling on his excitement. He glanced at the young boy holding the door frame and said impatiently: "I can't understand the birds singing from other places."
Zheng Shoukuan hurriedly held up his hands, trying to make his accent closer to the local dialect of Wu: "Master, my aunt and I encountered lake bandits outside the reed marsh in the north on a passenger ship. The bandits kidnapped my aunt. The leader was very tall and fat.
But I’m blind in one eye. Please help me, Master..."
As soon as he uttered the word "rescue", Chen Aliang let out a cry and said to his archers: "Did you hear that, in this world, it is better to be a soldier than to be a bandit? Hey, can you marry me next year?"
Chen Aliang pointed at a skinny young archer and asked.
The thin man shook his head sarcastically: "Deputy Si Zun, my dear, my father-in-law has not yet paid out the money he owed me last year. How can I have the financial resources to get married?"
"If you don't have money to marry, take it away, haha," Chen Aliang waved the horse tag in his hand, pointed the side with 'Hu Baoyi Songjiang' printed on it towards his subordinates, and teased, "The ones who are far away will learn from the heroes of Liangshan, and the ones who are close will learn from the heroes of Liangshan.
, just like me, the Ming Dynasty water bandit, you don’t have to spend half a penny, just take the young girl away.”
All the archers laughed obscenely and heartily.
The young man Zheng Shoukuan's anger surged up, but he tried not to lose control of his emotions. Instead, he bowed again, took out a silver collar from his arms, took a few steps forward, and opened his palm to Chen Aliang.
"Buy some drinks for the military master and some uncles."
Chen Aliang's eyes lit up, he threw down the cards and took the silver collar.
Under the dim yellow oil lamp, although the ship-shaped silver collar is small, the outline is quite beautiful, and the central engraving is clear.
This is not broken silver, but official silver.
The lazy pig-like look on Chen Aliang's cheekbones was replaced by fox-like cunning and vigilance.
He squeezed out a few traces of kindness and asked Zheng Shoukuan: "Does your family receive a salary from the imperial court?"
Zheng Shoukuan was already very talented. He had followed his aunt for two years and was much more mature than his peers. He keenly discerned that Chen Aliang's change of attitude was not just due to the management of money itself.
He then composed himself and replied: "My father is a county official."
"Which county?"
"Longxi County, Zhangzhou Prefecture."
"Oh, it turns out you are from Fujian. How did you and your aunt come to our Jiangnan?"
"Visiting relatives."
"Visiting relatives? From Fujian, through Zhejiang, and then to our southern Zhili, your aunt is the only one taking you and a half-year-old to travel? Has your aunt left the government? How can you get a road guide?"
"Returning to the military master, my aunt is a self-combed girl, and the governor of the government and county allows the self-combed girl to travel far away."
Chen Aliang said "Oh".
He knew about the self-combing girl.
That is a new custom in Fujian and Guangdong. It is said that some women there, either because they do not want to find a man for some reasons, or in order to get out of the boudoir to do some work, put their hair up in a bun like that of a married woman and vowed never to marry.
, the freedom to move around locally or travel far away alone will be much greater than that of ordinary unmarried girls.
Chen Aliang knew it well.
In this case, the kidnapped woman had no support from her husband's family, and her brother was just a minor official from another province.
Afraid of its eggs!
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(To all readers who are preparing to read this book: Due to the various malicious "detoxification" and "thunder stepping" customs in today's Internet environment, the author simply tells some of the key points in advance to prevent some people from fabricating the book just by reading the beginning.
Trolls of content mislead potential readers.
This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading! 1. There is no CP in this book. There are many good men, but they all belong to the female protagonists. The female protagonist has no emotional drama.
2. This book is a real historical background, but there will be deductive elements. Regarding the whitewashing of Dong Qichang who was criticized, the author has the Chinese picture classification number K29 "Looking at the truth about civilian copying Dong Huan from the warning record" (Shanghai Local Chronicles 2019 Issue 4
) is based on this paper. The trolls believe that Dong Qichang is a member of the evil forces. Please also provide the paper to prove it. Don't tell me that your evidence is just another online novel.
3. The heroine of this book is not a slave, a concubine, or a concubine. She only signed an employment contract with the Han family at the beginning. She cooperated happily and did not sell herself. In the first volume, the author criticized the author for writing the heroine as a slave girl without dignity. You see
It should be someone else's novel.
4. A considerable part of this book involves the excellent intangible cultural heritage of our country. If you only want to read sweet pet articles, or if it involves history and culture and feel that your money is wasted, please do not subscribe.
5. This book will have a lot of plots about fighting against the Jianzhou Jurchens (later rulers of the Qing Dynasty), and the prince Beile in the idol drama Yushu Linfeng will be faithfully written with a pockmarked face. Fans of Qing palace idol dramas should be careful.)
6. This book will recognize and imitate Western cannon technology and heavy matchlock technology, and will praise the Japanese ukiyo-e art that inspired Van Gogh. You can use stones from other mountains to attack jade, and you can learn from foreigners to learn skills to strengthen yourself. Let alone art.
The knowledge of history itself has nothing to do with traitors, not to mention that "Zheng Zhilong married a Japanese wife, and Zheng Chenggong is half-Japanese. It is a historical fact." Any reader who leaves a message in this book and criticizes the author for advocating foreigners and being a traitor will be offended by the author.
