The First Great Ancestor of the Five Dynasties

Chapter 348 Zhu Wu’s Family
There is Banqiao Village fifteen miles southwest of Jiangning City, which is under the jurisdiction of Shangyuan County, Jiangning Prefecture.

Banqiao Village is close to the official road from Jiangning City to Dangtu County in Taiping Prefecture, so there are many business trips. And because there are many shops, warehouses, and restaurants on Zhuangzi for traders and footmen to rest, it is also called Banqiao Village by the merchants. Bridge store.

More than twenty miles west of Banqiao Store, there is a narrow ferry that can accommodate several river boats. They cross the river every day and transport people on both sides of the river back and forth.

Banqiaodian is densely covered with water networks and has flat terrain. Since ancient times, it has become an important rice producing area in Jiangning due to its fertile soil.

In Jiangning City, there are many high-ranking officials and noble families who have purchased land here. Rice fields, large and small, have long been carved up by the powerful. Most of the farmers can only become tenants of the officials, and there are only some scattered fields in the corners. It remains in the hands of the local people.

The terrain to the south of Banqiaodian is low-lying, and water easily accumulates during the rainy season. It is muddy everywhere. Those who have the conditions have moved to the north and east of the higher ground early. Most of the people left behind are out-of-town households and poor tenants, as well as some who have moved around. The hard work of merchants.

There are shabby shacks built everywhere here, and there are only one or two mud houses with thatched roofs. They are already considered wealthy households in the south depression of Banqiao.

In early summer, there is a continuous drizzle. Nanwazi is like a tidal flat on the river bank. There is mud everywhere. You can make a puddle with one step. It makes a "chirp" sound when you walk. If you don't pay attention, your feet will slip and you will fall all over. Body in mud.

The poor people living in Nanwazi, regardless of whether they are men, women, old or young, always have yellow mud marks on their bodies that cannot be washed away.

The so-called mud-legged people are a true portrayal of the people in Nanwazi.

The rain is getting heavier, and the poor households in Nanwazi are huddled in their homes to take shelter from the rain. There is an unfortunate roof leak, and the whole family is busy repairing the roof, getting wet all over.

There were also naked children rolling around in the mud laughing, while their parents’ curses with Jiangnan slang accents could be heard behind them.

A stout man carried a huge banana leaf and ran into the narrow alley of Nanwazi. His big feet wearing straw sandals stepped in the mud and slurry, causing mud to splash everywhere.

Passing by several mud-walled courtyards, an old man who was repairing roofs in the rain saw him and shouted: "Zhu Wu! Where did you get the banana leaves? Use them to build a roof for my house!"

Zhu Wu turned around and grinned: "I won't give it to you! I want to take it back and give it to my kids to play with!"

The neighbor next door heard this, opened the window, stuck his head out, and laughed loudly at the old man: "Old deaf man, you even want to rob Liangwazi and Daya's things, how embarrassing!~"

The old deaf man lying on the thatched roof wiped the rain off his face, grabbed a handful of thatch and threw it over: "Fuck you!"

The fat, deaf-headed woman stood under the house, holding on to the ladder, turning her head and cursing. The neighbor's man shrank his neck, retracted his head and closed the window angrily.

The fat woman was a well-known shrew in Nanwazi. She once used a clothes-beating stick to beat two green-skinned gangsters who came to collect debts and escaped from Nanwazi.

I don’t know how the old deaf man, who is as thin as a stick, can resist the fat woman with a waist like a bucket at night.
Carrying the banana leaves, Zhu Wu arrived at an earthen courtyard at the end of the lane, pushed aside the bamboo fence and ran into the courtyard.

This is Zhu Wu's home in Nanwazi.

The courtyard wall made of yellow soil was only half a person's height. Half of it collapsed at the corner, revealing a half-foot-wide crack. People couldn't get through, but dogs and raccoons could run in and out. A few chickens were lost during the night.

"Mom, I'm back!"

Zhu Wu ran into the main room, and an old woman with gray hair in a wavy skirt hurriedly came forward with a cloth handkerchief.

"Look at this wet body, wipe it off quickly, don't get a cold!~"

The old woman felt sorry for her son and hurriedly wiped away the water stains on his body.

"Take off your gown and let me wash you off."

"Don't worry, Mom, I'm strong, I'll be fine if I get wet in the rain, just treat it like a shower."

Zhu Wu smiled honestly, but still took off his armless short coat obediently, revealing his red and dark upper body.

The two muscular arms have distinct black and yellow marks on the shoulders, all traces left by the wind and sun all day long.

"Oh~ This gown is frayed and torn. It needs to be mended with a few stitches to tighten the threads. My mother's eyesight is not good. I'll ask your wife to clean it up tomorrow."

The old woman muttered as she clutched her son's sweat-stained linen jacket.

"Mom, where are Qiaolian and the two children?" Zhu Wu asked.

The old woman murmured at the partition in the north corner of the hall: "Inside, Da Ya is asleep, and your wife is forcing my eldest grandson to read!"

Zhu Wu smiled, tiptoed close to the compartment, opened the straw curtain, and saw that in the narrow hut, his daughter Daya was sleeping soundly on the wooden bed, and his wife Yang Qiaolian was fanning a cattail leaf fan and supervising her son Zhu Liang lying on the bed. Zhang Aoji can read the writing on the case.

Seeing Zhu Wu poke his head in, Yang Qiaolian rolled her eyes at him angrily.

Zhu Liang, who is only eight years old, has a tiger-like head and two horn buns. He kneels and twists in front of the table. He holds a thin wooden pen and, under Yang Qiaolian's scolding, puts a piece of fine sand on the side of the pen from time to time. Plate a few times.

Zhu Liang was smart and looked at his father for help with a sad face.

"Ahem~ Liangwa, dad brought back a bunch of banana leaves and threw them in the yard. You go and trim them. When the weather gets hot, spread them on the ground for you brothers and sisters to use as mats."

Zhu Wuya muttered in a low voice. Zhu Liang's eyes lit up when he heard this. He stood up and ran out, but Yang Qiaolian grabbed his arm.

"You can't leave until you finish writing these [-] big characters!"

Yang Qiaolian pinched her son's buttocks hard. Zhu Liang held his mouth in frustration and could only sit down obediently.

"A father like you?" Yang Qiaolian was angry at her husband, "It's fine if I don't study and have no knowledge, but why don't you allow your son to study? Do you want him to work hard in the fields like you when he grows up?"

Zhu Wu touched his son's slippery head and said with a smile: "Back then, my family was poor and could only send one child to school. My younger brother has a better brain than me, so naturally I let him go."
I. I am also quite literate, so I am not uneducated at all.”

Zhu Wu argued a few words without confidence.

Yang Qiaolian poked Zhu Liang's head with hatred, and whispered: "This literacy book was reluctantly given to me by the housekeeper after I begged him several times. If you don't treat me well, If you learn, your mother’s face will be wasted!”

Thinking of the bitter grievances she suffered at her employer's house, Yang Qiaolian's eyes turned red.

Zhu Liang was startled when he saw his mother's voice choked with sobs. He shook his mother's arm and whispered: "Mom, don't cry. My child must study hard and stand out in the future and respect her mother~"

Yang Qiaolian sniffed, patted her son's forehead gently, and pretended to scold him: "You idiot, you have a very sweet mouth, and you know how to trick me. Your father is a fool, but you are smart, and you don't know who you follow."

Zhu Liang puffed out his chest and said proudly: "Grandma said I would follow my uncle!"

Yang Qiaolian laughed through her tears and slapped her son on the buttocks: "If your brother-in-law were still here, he might have been working in an official position long ago, and our family would not have to live in Jiangning, a place we are unfamiliar with."

After a pause, Yang Qiaolian couldn't help complaining: "It's a pity that your brother-in-law is not very lucky. The whole family saved money to support him in studying. In the end, he didn't even have time to pass the state school entrance examination, and he was gone. A lot of money and food were wasted."

Zhu Wu frowned and said unhappily: "Why are you saying this so politely? My mother will be upset if she hears it!"

Zhu Wu patted his son on the head: "Take Da Ya and go out to play by yourself!"

Zhu Liang cheered and woke up his sister Zhu Fang. The brother and sister ran to the small courtyard to play with banana leaves.Yang Qiaolian also had no patience to urge her son to read. She was the daughter of a concubine of the Yang family, a businessman in Dingyuan County. When she was young, she went to private school for several years under the support of the Yang family. When she was older, the Yang family did not allow her to stay in school. Treating her as a commodity for sale in the Yang family, they are planning a marriage everywhere.

It happened that the Dalang of the Zhu family in Dingyuan County also asked people to find matchmakers, and Yang Qiaolian married Zhu Wu as soon as they went there.

It stands to reason that the Yang family can be considered a well-known and wealthy family in Dingyuan County, but it is inappropriate for the Zhu family, who has been farming for generations.

But it happened that during those years, the young man from the Zhu family had a reputation for being smart and studious, and he was also a disciple trained by the county school. It is said that the articles he wrote were even praised by several officials in the state government.

Everyone in Dingyuan County said that the young man from the Zhu family must be an official in the future.

The Yang family originally fell in love with a young man from the Zhu family and wanted to match up with a girl of the same age. The two families decided to get married first, but the Zhu family disagreed, especially Wu Youdi, the mother of the two Zhu brothers.

Although Wu Youdi is a peasant woman, she is also a little distracted.

My youngest son is a successful scholar and will take the imperial examination and become an official in the future. He will definitely marry a lady from a eunuch family. How can the Yang family take advantage of this in vain?

Wu Youdi used the excuse that her eldest brother was not getting married and it was against the rules for a younger brother to be engaged first, so she did not agree to marry her younger son to the Yang family.

The Yang family retreated to the next best thing and married the concubine Yang Qiaolian to Wu Youdi's eldest son Zhu Wu.

Anyway, Yang Qiaolian is just the daughter of a concubine of the Yang family. Even if the young man of the Zhu family cannot become an official in the end, there will be no loss if the investment fails.

When Yang Qiaolian got married, the always stingy Yang family gave some generous dowry, which was considered a good relationship with the Zhu family.

With the help of the dowry brought by Yang Qiaolian, the Zhu family had a smooth life for several years.

Unexpectedly, when the Khitans invaded southward, they would fight all the way to Huainan, and Haozhou was really in turmoil for a while.

Unfortunately, Xiaolang of the Zhu family fell into the hands of the Khitans, and his whereabouts are unknown since then.

His hometown was destroyed, Zhu Wu could only take his wife, children and mother, and fled southward with the refugees into the territory of the Tang Dynasty. After being displaced, he finally settled in Banqiaodian.

Thinking of the suffering they had endured over the years, the couple remained silent.

Zhu Wu sighed and said, "It's because I have no ability, so you three ladies have to suffer with me!"

Yang Qiaolian wiped the corners of her eyes, punched the man's chest gently and softly, and whispered: "Silly melon, if I didn't like you, I wouldn't have married you and had a baby named Da Ya with you. In the years of war and chaos, which family would not die a few people? Our family has been able to live in peace and stability until now, thanks to the blessings of the Bodhisattva!

Look at the old deaf man, three of his four sons died on the battlefield, and the remaining one has a broken leg. He is half-crazy and half-stupid, so he still has to live his life as usual!

Compared with others, our family is much luckier."

Zhu Wu scratched his head and said with a naive smile: "Why did you comfort me instead?"

Yang Qiaolian gave him a fierce look: "You idiot!~"

Zhu Wu grabbed her hand and said softly: "Don't talk to me about my little brother, lest my mother be sad."

"I know! It's not like you are a fool, dumb and can't speak!"

Yang Qiaolian slapped the man and leaned into the broad and warm chest.

The couple were tender for a moment, and they didn't leave until Wu Youdi's voice calling for dinner came from the main room.

Set out a square table, with a bowl of brown rice, a bowl of soybeans boiled with wild vegetables, oily foam floating on the surface of the vegetable soup, and a bowl of pickles, it's dinner for the whole family.

The old woman Wu Youdi took out three incense sticks of different lengths from under the dark altar table, lit them with firewood under the stove, and uncovered a black cloth under the Buddhist niche, revealing two crudely made spiritual tablets.

One is the spiritual tablet of Wu Youdi's husband, Zhu Wu's father, and the founder of the Zhu family, and the other is the spiritual tablet of Wu Youdi's youngest son, Zhu Wu's younger brother, whose name is obviously Zhu Xiu.

"Brother Xiu, mother is sorry for causing you to be taken captive by Khitan barbarians. Once you get down there, you won't suffer any more."

Wu Youdi muttered something in her mouth, put in the incense, and carefully wiped the two spiritual tablets. She felt sad for a while before returning to the table and picking up the bowls and chopsticks.

Smelling the smell of meat, Zhu Liang, who couldn't hold back for a long time, picked up the bamboo chopsticks and put them into the basin, picked up a piece of fatty skin and stuffed it into his mouth.

"I want to eat meat too!" Zhu Fang, the eldest daughter, imitated her brother and stretched out her chopsticks, but Wu Youdi slapped her on the back of her hand rudely.

Da Ya's mouth tightened and her eyes welled up with tears. Zhu Liang wanted to extend his chopsticks again, but was frightened by Wu Youdi's sharp eyes and retracted his hand.

Wu Youdi unhurriedly picked up the largest piece of fat skin and put it into Zhu Wu's bowl, and said calmly: "Da Lang does hard work, and oily meat is indispensable. Of these four pieces of meat skin, the two big ones are for Da Lang to eat. You guys Two little things eating the little one.”

"Mom~" Zhu Wu was reluctant to eat, looking embarrassed.

"Eat!" Wu Youdi said without any doubt, picked up the bowl and chopsticks and took a few bites.

Zhu Liang and Zhu Fang did not dare to disobey their strict grandma and immersed themselves in eating.

Zhu Wu wanted to secretly give half of the meat skin to Yang Qiaolian. Wu Youdi's face darkened, and Zhu Wu had to smile bitterly and stuff the meat skin into his mouth, chew it and swallow it.

Yang Qiaolian felt a little aggrieved and couldn't help complaining: "Mom, I really feel sorry for people named Zhu. I am not named Zhu, and I don't even deserve to eat the meat and oil at home."

Zhu Wu tugged at her cuff, and Yang Qiaolian broke free, the more she thought about it, the more she felt wronged, and secretly sulked.

Wu Youdi was eating alone without saying a word.

After a while, Yang Qiaolian sniffed, picked up the bowl and chopsticks and took a mouthful of rice, then suddenly her eyes widened and she was stunned.

The brown rice she put into her mouth actually smelled like meat and oil.

"Mom, this is Mili." Yang Qiaolian blushed.

Wu Youdi chuckled and said: "Today, Mrs. Wang came to take away two pieces of wood. She said she was taking them back to build the foot of the bed. She gave me a small spoonful of meat oil. Just eat it and don't talk, so as not to be attacked by our family. The dog’s nose smells it.”

"Mother~" Yang Qiaolian's eyes were red and she was choked with sobs, not knowing what to say.

Wu Youdi said calmly: "You all have to work outside to earn money to support your family. How can you have strength if you don't eat some greasy meat?"

Yang Qiaolian sobbed, and Zhu Wu looked at each other, smiled, and silently lowered their heads to eat.

Zhu Liang suddenly raised his head and sniffed his nose: "It smells so good! It smells like meat!"

Wu Youdi slapped her grandson on the forehead and said with a smile: "You little monkey really has a dog's nose!"

(End of this chapter)