The Yangtze River meets the Han River in Wuchang, creating two cities on the two rivers.
Wuchang is to the east of the Yangtze River, and Hanyang is to the north of the Yangtze River.
Hanyang had already become a prefecture in the Yuan Dynasty. In the early Ming Dynasty, it was placed under Wuchang Prefecture. In the late Ming Dynasty, Hanyang Prefecture was restored to control Hanyang and Hanchuan counties.
From ancient times to the present, all cities near the water have been prosperous, not to mention military towns like Wuchang and Hanyang. Boats and boats come and go on the river. Outside the city, there are even more villages and towns along the river with markets dotted all over. They are three miles apart, one village and five miles away.
One city.
There is a large river called Fu River twenty miles north of Hanyang City. It flows eastward into the Yangtze River in Xiaogan. There is a village at the mouth of the river, with dozens of families in various sizes.
Most of the villagers make a living by fishing, and although most of them live in poverty, they live in harmony with their neighbors. If any family has a problem, they will do their best to help. Of course, if a family has a problem, the entire village will soon know about it.
For example, a few days ago, Lao Zhangtou's nephew from the east end of the village near the river came to stay for a short stay from Hanyang. In just half a cup of tea, the news spread throughout the village, and the villagers were also very curious about the affairs of Lao Zhangtou's family because the old man
Zhang Tou is a legendary figure in their eyes.
To put it bluntly, they are people who have experienced hardship.
To put it more bluntly, he is a soldier.
After the founding of the People's Republic of China, Lao Zhu came up with a dirty trick to save trouble. He changed the household registration of ordinary people into military households and craftsmen households, and they were all tenured for life. They would either die in war or die of old age. After death, your son would have to take over. There was almost no talk of retirement.
Moreover, being a military household is quite difficult. To put it simply, you will die. You want to run but don’t want to feed the grass. Moreover, joining the army is not local. You have to go to a military camp thousands of miles away to sign up, and you have to pay for the travel expenses yourself.
Therefore, many people never came back from the day they joined the army and left.
Obviously Lao Zhangtou is lucky. It has been more than thirty years since he left home to join the army at the age of fifteen. He is still alive, but he has only come back less than ten times. During this period, his parents died and his sister got married.
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Then he didn't go home for six or seven years, and even his house collapsed, so that the villagers thought he had died outside. But who knew that a year ago, Lao Zhangtou came back, limping with one leg, and said he was retired from the army?
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The so-called retirement in this era actually means that you are old or injured and can no longer work hard for the court and waste food, so the court will send you home.
The soldiers were all poor, disabled, old and widowed, so when Lao Zhangtou came back, although the villagers were happy that he came back alive, they also sighed and worried about him, how they would live in the future.
But within a few days, Lao Zhangtou built a house with three main rooms and two side rooms. The villagers were stunned: Lao Zhangtou actually still had something left.
Lao Zhangtou shook his head and said, "You can't even get enough to eat as a soldier. How can you get any surplus? This is the money given by your sister in Hanyang City. My sister does some business in the city to make a living and have some family business."
Only then did the villagers suddenly realize. Someone asked, why are you back here instead of enjoying the blessings with your sister in the city? Lao Zhangtou shook his head slightly. No matter how nice it is in the city, it is still his sister's in-law's house, and he is not as comfortable as his own.
This is true.
So Lao Zhangtou lived a quiet and lonely pastoral life. He rented three acres of thin farmland and planted vegetables in a yard beside the river embankment. He went to the city every ten and a half months to sell vegetables and so on. His days were peaceful and boring.
Until a few days ago, a carriage entered the village and then went to Lao Zhangtou's house. This attracted the attention of the villagers, who came to inquire. Then they saw Lao Zhangtou's face looking happy, saying that his nephew in the city was going to attend the Autumn Festival (
Rural Examination) felt that the city was too noisy, so he came to the countryside to find a quiet place to study hard.
The rural examination is usually held in the eighth month of the lunar calendar, and those who pass the examination are the candidates, so the villagers are very happy when they hear it. It turns out that Lao Zhangtou's nephew is still a scholar. In fact, in addition to the scholar, there are also supervisor students, tribute students, and official students who participate in the township examination.
wait.
But no matter what, a scholar in this era is enough to arouse the enthusiasm of the villagers. After all, some people may not be able to become a scholar after taking the exam for a lifetime, and the social status of a scholar is much higher than that of ordinary people.
But when the villagers took a look, hey, that girl must be a maidservant. As for the two men, a young man and a young man, which one is the scholar?
Because both of them are dark and strong, they don't look like weak scholars at all, but the villagers guessed that it must be the young man, after all, young scholars are rare.
Sure enough, Lao Zhangtou introduced the young man Wang Zhengnan as his nephew who was a scholar, and he was good at both civil and military arts. The villagers suddenly realized, no wonder he is so strong, and he is also an all-rounder in both civil and military affairs. It seems that Lao Zhangtou's sister is really doing well in Hanyang City.
That's right. When my son returned to the countryside, he sent a maid and a servant to take care of him.
Since the scholar is called Wang Zhengnan, the young servant is Chang Yu, and the maid is undoubtedly Qing Yi.
What the villagers didn't know was that Lao Zhangtou had indeed been a soldier for more than thirty years, but he had served as a sergeant in Jinyiwei for at least ten years. He had indeed retired, but he was still a secret agent of Jinyiwei.
Lao Zhangtou didn't know the true identities of Chang Yu and the others. He was neither curious nor inquiring. He just played the role of an uncle with peace of mind. He would work at sunrise and rest at sunset. He would go to the market to sell goods every day, but there would be many people around him.
Got a helper.
Wang Zhengnan reads and practices martial arts in the yard every day, almost never leaving the house, but Chang Yu is different. He either hangs out in the village and has a great time playing with a group of children, or goes to the ground to pull weeds and remove insects with Lao Zhangtou.
, they will also dig the soil to grow vegetables, or go fishing with them.
Of course, what he loves most is going to the theater.
There is a town on the Fu River three miles away from the village, which is also a market. A few days ago, a large boat turned into the Fu River from the Yangtze River and stopped on the bank of the market. Soon, a stage was set up to perform operas, which attracted thousands of people.
People from Pat Heung come to watch the opera. No matter whether it is a festival or not, there are always crowds of people here. Sometimes even after dark, there are still people who are still interested and reluctant to leave. They come early the next day to wait for the performance before the sun comes out.
After all, there are not many entertainment projects these days. For ordinary people, watching and listening to theater is the happiest entertainment experience, and watching such performances is almost free.
Chang Yu also likes to listen to dramas. Although sometimes he can't understand them, he still likes to listen to them. After all, these days, even he can only listen to them to comfort himself.
The boat is huge and so is the troupe.
The earliest origin of this kind of opera boat is unknown, but it was most prosperous in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, when local operas spread out and were performed all over the country, from Guangdong and Guangxi in the south to the capital in the north. Some drove by land and others by boat.
, wherever you go along the Yellow River and Yangtze River Grand Canal, you can hear singing.
This kind of opera boat was called the red boat in the Qing Dynasty, but it specifically refers to Cantonese opera.
When they reach a place, a stage is built around the river to sing operas. People can buy tickets with money or exchange food for tickets. But more often than not, local gentry rents the stage for a few days and invites local people to watch.
Chang Yu went there with the children in the village. It cost money, but it was still crowded.
They are a Yiyang Hui opera troupe.
This was also a mainstream drama at that time. It is said that the predecessor of Peking Opera was Hui opera. Chang Yu stood in the crowd and listened with gusto. Although many times he couldn't understand what was being sung at all, he just liked listening to it and the feeling.
And I became addicted after listening to it. Although I didn’t wake up early or stay late at night, I would listen to it for a while or a few paragraphs almost every day, and then I would come back satisfied and do other things.
Weeding, growing vegetables, listening to operas and fishing have almost become Chang Yu’s daily compulsory courses.
He was happy with it, and no one interfered.
Wang Zhengnan reads and practices martial arts behind closed doors at home every day. Qing Yi reads scriptures and practices swordsmanship and occasionally wanders around the village, but he never goes to the market with Chang Yu, let alone to the theater.
The days passed peacefully and comfortably.
Outside the yard of Lao Zhangtou's house is the river beach, which in later generations would be the river view villa.
There was an unknown big tree outside the yard. Chang Yu always liked to sit on the chair under the tree and watch the river view. When he got tired, he would lie there and take a nap.
"Brother Chang, Brother Chang, go to the theater quickly." Queer, the little grandson of the old Sun family, the slug in the village, ran over from a distance, sweating profusely.
This seven-year-old child is Chang Yu's new friend. They often play together, catch fish and go to the theater together.
"I went there before noon, and I'll go back tomorrow." Chang Yu looked at the little bird's nose and was very worried that it would be thrown into his mouth.
"I'm not going to see that show, I'm going to see a good show." Xiao Que'er snorted and finally shook off the two streams of clear water, and then wiped his hands on his pants: "The beggar gang and the theater troupe are going to fight."
Chang Yu was startled and raised his eyebrows, why did the beggar gang want to fight with the troupe?
The so-called beggar gang is really not the so-called beggar gang. To put it bluntly, it is a gang formed by local beggars. It is closer to the evil forces and can be found in almost every place. Especially in the war years, there may be several people in a group.
Or they may be a group of dozens of people. Call them thieves. People are beggars. Call them beggars. They also do many evil things, as mentioned before.
"My second uncle said that colleagues are enemies, and the troupe will always stop taking away the business of their playboys."
Since the beggar gang is no ordinary beggar, it is an organized and disciplined gang. Begging for food also involves a technical level and requires performing a show.
That's right, the lotus falls.
The commonly known blind man's play has been around since the Song Dynasty. It is said that the two-person dance came from this lotus fall.
In an era when entertainment programs are scarce, this blind opera is also very popular among ordinary people. However, compared to listening to big operas, ordinary people still love the theater troupe more.
This troupe sang for ten days and a half, so they certainly took advantage of the Hanako Gang's cake.
Regardless of whether it is the Huazi Gang or the theater troupe, they are actually people from the Jianghu. A fight between two gangs of Jianghu is really more beautiful than singing. How could Chang Yu miss it? He quickly ran over there with Xiaoqueer, for fear of being late.
Missed the show.
The two of them were sweating profusely from running for three miles on a hot day. When they got there, they saw, oh my God, there were so many people.
The two of them squeezed in hard, but thanks to Chang Yu's strength and strength, he pushed his way to the front of the crowd with Xiao Que'er. Then they looked at dozens of men in ragged clothes and armed with sticks and fierce faces standing outside the fence of the stage. Needless to say,
This is someone from the Hanako Gang.
And inside the fence was a group of troupe members, both men and women, in colorful clothes with angry faces on their faces. Although they didn't have anything in their hands, there was no fear at all on their faces.
"It's hard for the troupe to do well today if a strong dragon can't suppress a local snake," someone in the audience commented, and others echoed.
"Why haven't we started fighting yet?" Xiao Que'er frowned, and an adult next to him couldn't help but pat him on the forehead and said with a smile: "They all go out to make a living in the world. Who is willing to fight unless it is absolutely necessary?"
Chang Yu felt that what this person said was reasonable. The saying that there are many rivers and lakes is due to the sophistication of the world. How can there be so much fighting and killing, especially those of them who are seeking to make a living in the rivers and lakes.
But looking at the angry faces of those in the troupe, it seemed that the price the Hanako Gang was asking for was too much.
"Isn't there anyone who wants to make peace with this matter?" Chang Yu asked curiously. Usually when encountering this kind of thing, a local gangster or a country squire would come to help make peace.
"Of course there is. Chen Yuanwai in the town is making peace with the leaders of the two parties in the theater right now. Otherwise, there would have been a fight outside..." Someone next to him interrupted. Chang Yu didn't know who Chen Yuanwai was.
Whoever wants to intervene can resist the problem.
Those who watched the excitement were not afraid of causing trouble. After watching for a long time, the onlookers started to make noises and encouraged the two groups to fight. Chang Yu also liked to watch the excitement, but disliked these instigators, so he dragged Xiao Que'er
Squeeze out the crowd: "Stop looking, we can't fight anymore."
Xiao Que'er was very disappointed: "Brother Chang, if there is a fight, can the opera singers win? Those Huazi Gang are very fierce."
Chang Yu smiled: "What's the use of looking fierce? If we really fight, those Huazi Gang will really be beaten into the Blind Gang."
Ah, the little bird was startled: "Are the opera singers so good? My second uncle said that those opera singers are all just show-offs."
Chang Yu laughed loudly: "Go and let your second uncle try it."
I don’t know if the opera singers in later generations were just showy performers, but the opera singers in this era all had real skills, especially those who sang martial arts, they were all powerful characters.
For example, Wong Po Wa of Wing Chun was a Cantonese opera actor in the Red Boat, and Leung Er Di was a boatman on the same boat as him.