Chapter 368: Joining the Army - Joining the Army for a Substitute
The one who came was matchmaker Zhang, who was well-known in the four miles and eight towns. Because she had the same surname as Zhang, she recognized her family. The couple had asked her several times for their son's marriage, and this time she took the initiative to come to the door. It seemed like there was a chance.
The son is also good-looking, but because his father is a butcher, the people in the town are afraid of bad luck. In addition, their family is immigrants and they cannot get along with the locals. Therefore, they have not been married until they are nineteen years old. In the Southern Song Dynasty
, the man got married at the age of sixteen, and he was already a young man at the age of nineteen. His parents were worried about him and asked a matchmaker, but she said she deserved it but was slow to act. She didn't reply for two years.
The wife happily took a piece of meat to cook, and put a red paper on the other piece. She planned to make a thank you gift to the matchmaker when she left if there was good news. She also called her two brothers to the fields to call her brother back. The matchmaker was very good at talking.
Yan, chatting about family matters, chatted for a while, and after a big bowl of braised pork was served, the three of them sat down and started chatting. It turned out that a beggar from outside the town died and left a daughter behind, who was sold to bury her father.
, the matchmaker thought they were suitable, so she stayed and went to his house to find out more about him.
"This daughter is like a bean sprout and will fall over when the wind blows. But her nose is a nose and her mouth is a mouth. She has everything she needs. If you take her home and feed her meat, she will gain weight in a few months. She must be a
A beautiful girl." The matchmaker opened her mouth and boasted: "Looking at her filial piety by selling herself to bury her father, you can tell that she is a kind and good girl. She will definitely respect her parents-in-law after entering the house. There is no one else in her family, so she has no one to rely on.
Damn, you can listen to whatever your son says. What’s even more rare is that she can still read, and it was she who wrote about selling one’s body and burying one’s father.”
The two of them were moved by what they heard. The girl was an orphan and had many benefits. She was also literate. She might have come from a well-educated family among North Korean defectors who had returned to the South, and her family had made a lot of money.
"Matchmaking"
Zhang Jiaduan, Li’s parents,
Men should marry and women should marry.
The matchmaker opened her mouth,
Dogtail grass turns into peony.
The sky is full of flowers, which beats the Buddha,
It touches the hearts of poor children.
A beggar girl marries a butcher boy,
Two people become one family.
Defectors are a proper term in the Southern Song Dynasty, referring to Song people who could not stand the rule of the Jin people and fled to the south. At first, the south was deserted and undeveloped, and mostly rich people came, and everyone welcomed them. Later, the land was developed
, the North Korean defectors wanted to occupy the land of the first comers, and their interests were occupied, so the first comers began to resist. At that time, it had been fifty years since the Southern Song Dynasty moved the capital, and the North Korean defectors had become an unwelcome group in the south, with many scholars
He couldn't carry his shoulders, couldn't lift his hands, and was a beggar. The Song Dynasty governed the country by literature, and the people respected the literati in their bones. After the family concluded that the girl was a literati, her family status was higher than that of herself. But when she didn't see anyone, she was always uneasy.
So he said: "Auntie, can you let us meet? As long as there are no missing arms or legs, we are willing."
"Okay, okay, I'll ask her to come in." It turned out that the matchmaker had already brought her over and asked her to wait in the corridor at the entrance of the village. After hearing the reply from Butcher Zhang and his wife, they ran with three feet abreast.
He went out and brought her in. The clothes had been changed. Although they were old clothes, they were not beggar clothes. She was now as skinny as a stick, but she seemed to be more energetic. She was frail, but not afraid of life. She was not beautiful in appearance.
But there was a literary atmosphere. Butcher Zhang was born as a hunter. He had a lot of contact with animals and had some basic skills. He walked around her, looking at her like he was looking at an animal, and said: "Very good, very good."
Okay, I have a pretty good frame, so it’s good for me to have children, and I’ll be fine if I gain weight.”
They gave her some money, buried her father, and the marriage was decided. In a small family, the woman was an orphan, so they didn't engage in complicated wedding ceremonies. They looked at the almanac, picked an auspicious day, and married in two months.
Later, the woman also appreciated her kindness and stayed in their house, where she worked very efficiently. Although the butcher's meat was expensive, she was a little reluctant to part with it, but she could only eat a meal from a mountain away. At the same time, the pig intestines, lungs and other pig waste were not available every day.
No, with oil and water, after more than a month, I gained about ten pounds, my face became shiny, and I still looked like a beauty. My eldest son was so happy that he couldn’t open his mouth from ear to ear.
Because there were not many relatives and friends, just some former hunters and neighbors, there were only three tables for the wedding banquet. The food was very generous and it was a whole pig banquet. The main course was pork belly wrapped in chicken, with an elegant name called Phoenix Reincarnation.
"Breaking red plums, reincarnating a phoenix"
As soon as the rooster crows, the devil knocks on the door and loses his life. The hair is removed, the internal organs are dug out, and the whole chicken is stuffed into the pig belly. Astragalus Codonopsis, black pepper, Huaishan wolfberry, red dates and polygonatum, all kinds of nourishing, all yin and yang are matched.
Soup cooking.
Cook until it becomes mushy and you can stretch a chopstick through the meat. The heat is deep. Cut the belly in half and the chicken is like a phoenix. Cut into pieces and return to the pot. Use civil and military fire to cook again. The belly absorbs the chicken smell, and the chicken melts and the belly is fragrant. The soup is filled with
Thick and clear, the taste is better than that of phoenix marrow.
While everyone was having a drink and chatting, they heard the sound of horse hooves at the entrance of the village, and a government servant rode over. It was not common for a government servant to ride a horse, and there must be something urgent. Everyone stopped, and a few of them put down their chopsticks and ran to
He went to the village ancestral hall to inquire about what was going on. After a while, he came back and said: "I have declared war on the Kingdom of Jin. The government officials are here to announce the conscription order. If there are more than two adult men in a household, one will be born."
Everyone said in an uproar: "After decades of hard work, we have been living a stable life, and now we are starting to fight again. Are we crazy?"
At the banquet, there were many families with two adult men. After hearing the news, they could no longer sit still and left one after another.
The order said that they would leave for the county office tomorrow to report. The family was immediately in trouble. Could it be that they rushed to the battlefield just after getting married? Most of the Jin soldiers were cavalry, but they were much more powerful than the Song soldiers. Once they went to the battlefield, it was really a disaster. Zhang
The butcher looked at his son and daughter-in-law who had just entered the bridal chamber, thought for a while, and said to his wife: "Our family's incense must be passed down by our sons. Don't tell them. I will report to the county government early tomorrow morning. I
This old bone was hunted in the past and has been broken more than him. When your son asks, you can tell me that I went to visit relatives to return the gift because of his new marriage. The butcher shop was also run by my son, and my two younger brothers have to rely on him to support him."
What else could be done? Rich families could spend money to hire soldiers as soldiers, but ordinary families couldn't afford the money, so the wife had to agree with tears and collect her luggage.
"Join the Army for Your Son"
Government officials issued orders to recruit troops,
A small family is full of sorrow,
My son was newly married for just one day,
The incense has never been passed down.
My father once hunted wolves and leopards,
The battlefield may be full of life.
He gritted his teeth and joined the army for his son,
Maybe he will return with honor and glory.
The next day, on the way to the government office to report, I met two other hunters. Like me, they were reluctant to let their son go to the battlefield, so they cruelly went there for him. Poor parents in the world, the three of them found a common topic.
, the more we talk about it, the more excited we become, and we will try to be assigned to the same team when we meet on the battlefield. With the skills and cooperation we have learned during hunting, we might be able to make meritorious deeds and receive awards, thus honoring our ancestors.