Daming Yinghua

Chapter 191 The Female Lawyer of Ming Dynasty

When the woman got close, Zheng Haizhu could see clearly that her face was weathered, with a lot of white hair mixed in a bun, and the corners of her eyes and lips were covered with wrinkles, she was at least fifty years old.

"You, are you the lady who came to occupy the land in Songjiang?"

The old woman's tone was bad when she opened her mouth, and two sharp eyes shot straight at her.

Zheng Haizhu had a vague sense of familiarity, and when he woke up for a moment, he thought of Mao Wenlong and Ma Xianglin, those men who had a lot of power on the battlefield.

What the old woman spoke was not Chongming dialect, but Su Song's official dialect like the county magistrate, which Zheng Haizhu could understand completely.

She must not be an ordinary peasant woman in Chongming.

It's not right to be someone like the elders of the county and township. Jiangnan is not a matriarchal society like the aborigines of Taiwan. There are no women to be the elders of the patriarchs.

Zheng Haizhu speculated in his heart, but he did not hesitate to be polite, and owed the old woman a blessing.

"Greetings to senior, my surname is Zheng, and I came here today by boat from Wusongkou."

After she raised her head, she kept staring at the old woman, and she didn't return any harshness, only her eyes filled with more searching meaning.

At this time, the coachman who had put away the wood also rushed over, bowed to Zheng Haizhu and Wu Bangde, and introduced courteously: "This is Tang Grandma, the family member of Tang Minzhong, the prime minister of Guanglu Temple."

Zheng Haizhu was slightly taken aback when he heard the words, and then with a surprised and respectful expression on his face, he asked solemnly: "Mr. Tang Minzhong? But the magistrate of Tang County who was fighting against the Japanese here when Lord Jiajing was? households, entered the city unimpeded and burned and killed, it was Tang Gong who led the people to fight the Japanese pirates in the street and died heroically."

Aunt Tang's appearance of inquiring about the crime suddenly changed: "Do you know my father?"

In Wu dialect, Adie means "grandfather".

Tang Yicen, the county magistrate who fought bravely against the Japanese, has been martyred for 70 years. Grandma Tang never expected that this young woman from outside could explain her grandfather's deeds so clearly in a few words.

In fact, Zheng Haizhu knows that Tang Yicen is not a popular figure in history, and he also got it from Han Ximeng, who is full of poems and books and is familiar with the past.

Developing maritime trade is one thing, but remembering history is another. A few years ago, when Han Ximeng and Zheng Haizhu developed tobacco pouches and Ukiyo-e handkerchiefs for export to Japan, they also made every effort to complete the "Anti-Japanese Chronicle Map" ", one of which is the anti-Japanese scene in Chongming Island.

Chongming Island is not under the jurisdiction of Songjiang. Han Ximeng insisted on the battle of Chongming Island because he respected the magistrate of Tang County as a literati, but he was dedicated to his duty and fearless.

At this moment, Zheng Haizhu saw that the other party's hostility had subsided, and continued to offer compliments to ease the atmosphere: "The deeds of Duke Tang have been widely circulated in the Su-Song area. A few years ago, when I first arrived in Songjiang, I heard Mr. Shu talk about it. The eldest lady of the family embroidered the "Anti-Japanese Chronicle Picture" together, and felt the blood rush when the needle was dropped. By the way, grandma, I, the steward, Mr. Wu, the ancestor of his family, is a guerrilla under Qi Shaobao's command."

Wu Bangde stepped forward in response, clasped his fists and said, "This junior has seen my mother-in-law."

"Oh, so, so you and the old lady and I are both descendants of Zhongliang."

Granny Tang's tone finally softened, and she looked at Wu Bangde with a much more kind gaze than when she stared at Zheng Haizhu.

Zheng Haizhu understood that the old lady is always more lenient towards young and gentle offspring.

Just at this time, Hua Er, a girl from Liao people, came over with a bench in her arms, put it on the ground, and said timidly, "Mother-in-law, please sit down."

Granny Tang glanced at the bench, and asked curiously, "Why is it a half seedling?"

"Yangma" is a tool used by farmers when planting rice seedlings. A wooden board is fixed with a four-cornered bench-like seat, which looks like a horse's back and legs, so it is called "Yangma".

Zheng Haizhu pulled Hua Er, stroked her disheveled hair, sighed softly, and explained: "They are all poor people whose lives were picked up by the Tatars of Liaodong. They left their homes and came here to beg for food. One or two things from my hometown. Some brought a hoe, and some pulled out the stool of the rice horse. Like this little girl, she brought her mother's cotton ginning handle, and finally remembered it."

Grandma Tang's gaze rested on the wooden handle pinned to Hua Er's waist for a moment, and she muttered, "Sin, I lost my mother at such a young age."

He suddenly turned his head to look at the coachman who brought him here, and said angrily: "Are you still going? Standing here, are you spying for the county master?"

The coachman had a smirk on his face: "Let's go now, let's go, grandma and madam can talk about things properly, our master's heart will be put in his stomach."

……

Grandma Tang watched the mule cart go away, and said with a pooh: "Pretending to be a hypocrite, it's not proper to be an official."

When he turned his head, Wu Bangde was already holding a bowl of hot porridge.

"Grandma, at this hour, the cold air is coming up, drink some soup to warm up first."

Grandma Tang didn't show her politeness. She took the porridge bowl, drank a few gulps, wiped her mouth with her sleeve, and said, "The land you want to plant originally belonged to the owner. Twenty years ago, the Japanese invaded North Korea. , the Koreans asked me for help from the Ming Dynasty, the imperial court dispatched troops everywhere, and the Chongming Guard also dispatched hundreds of people to go north..."

Following Grandma Tang's narration, Zheng Haizhu and Wu Bangde roughly understood.

It turned out that the hundreds of acres of land they were on was originally the farmland of Chongmin military households who went north to serve as guest troops.

The nature of the land is different between the farmland and the civilian farmland in the Ming Dynasty.The military households cultivated fields inherited from the Weisuo system at the beginning of the founding of the country were called Tuntian.What ordinary people cultivate is the land of the people.

When Daming dispatched troops to North Korea, the Chongming Guard had nearly a thousand registered military households at that time, and the hundreds of people who were sent out by Mr. Qian were basically old and weak soldiers at the bottom, and most of them died on the battlefield.Those who survived may not want to go back to Chongming to be bullied by President Qian, so they stayed on the northeast border to do small business.

Twenty years later, several descendants of veterans returned to Chongming to inherit their father's military status and land, only to find that the land had already been taken by the latest Chongming Qianzong.

The old people in the Chongming guard instructed the children to find Grandma Tang.

"Madam Zheng, Mr. Wu, I'm not an old lady, I'm proud of myself. My litigation skills, not to mention Chongming County, even in Suzhou, may not be comparable to a few lawyers."

Female lawyer?
Zheng Haizhu and Wu Bangde did not hide the surprise in their eyes.

They were all thinking that at least they had traveled around the Ming Dynasty and seen the world a lot, and today they really knew for the first time that there was a female lawyer on the eastern island of Nanzhili.

The corners of Grandma Tang's mouth showed a little smugness: "What's so strange? My great-grandfather was a famous criminal clerk in Lingui, and later became a famous local litigator. My grandfather fought hard, passed the Jinshi examination, and left his hometown in Guangxi to become an official. My grandfather fought against the Japanese here. Martyrdom, my grandmother took my father and stayed in Chongming. Fortunately, the court gave my grandfather the honor of Guanglu Siqing, and my grandmother also has the same order as your Madam Zheng. The military households, as well as the civilians who participated in the anti-Japanese war, are grateful for my grandfather's kindness and kindness to my family. After my father was selected as a scholar, he failed to be admitted to Juren, so he has been working as a litigator, writing petitions to the villagers .”

When the old lady said this, she turned to Hua Er, a young girl standing by her side who was listening fascinated, and said, "When my father taught me to write the first petition, I was as old as you. I went to The petition submitted by the Suzhou government to the descendants of veterans fighting for land is the 730th and eighth petition I have written since I entered the industry for [-] years."

Zheng Haizhu was dumbfounded.

The gray-haired Chinese barrister in front of her really refreshed her understanding of the late Ming Dynasty.

(End of this chapter)