In a small remote village in the State of Lu with only two dozen or so households, a dozen or so people escorted three mule carts of grain away from the village, and a burst of suppressed cries came out from the village.
"My son's father, how can we survive until next spring when all the grain has been taken away from the family?" A woman in her forties cried as she wrapped her arms around a three-year-old boy.
At the open door of the broken down house, there was a man with a wrinkled forehead, holding his head and not saying a word. A thin woman of about twenty hid in the corner of the house and looked at them blankly.
"Is this everyone Zhou?" A tall, thin man in nice clothes looked around in front of the family's broken gate.
"I am Zhou Da, who are you looking for, proprietor?" The man squatting in the doorway lifted his head and stood up listlessly.
"My name is Hu, entrusted by Zhou Cheng to find his family." This tall, thin man is the Hu trader who was commissioned by Zhou Cheng to come to Lu to look for Zhou Cheng's family and take them to Nambu.
"Sung-er? Master knows my Cheng'er?" The woman holding the child stopped crying and her face turned to surprise.
"Your family Zhou Cheng is now a Huben, as the Huben of the Nambu Councilor, is the famous Lok Yan Zhizhi, Lok Yan Zhizhi you know?" Hu trader sat on a stone stool Zhou Da moved over for him, said stone stool is actually a relatively flat stone, can be used as a bench kind of.
"Falling Knowledge? Don't know." Zhou Cheng's parents shook their heads in unison. The name of Zheng Yuming's Falling Geese had already spread to the state of Lu, but it was only circulated among the aristocrats of the capital of the state of Lu, and Zhou Cheng's home here was just a small remote village, so not to mention the matter of the two of them, or what major events happened in the state of Lu, these villagers of the small village who did not often move with the outside world also did not know about it.
Hu vendors immediately crackling Zheng Yuming and Chu Chao Hui in the Wu Wangdu interpretation of a pass, is talking gleefully, Zhou wife in the arms of the child cried.
"Kiss the milk, eat eat eat, little treasure want to eat eat eat!"
Mother Zhou looked down at the child with an embarrassed face. "Little Treasure be good, wait for kissing milk to make corn for you to eat."
"No, kissing milk, little treasure is hungry, little treasure wants to eat now." The toddler ignored Zhou's wife's coaxing monks and still cried out for food.
Seeing that she couldn't coax the young child, Zhou's wife could only turn to the Hu vendor, with hope on her face, "My Zhou Cheng has become a Huben, has he ... Did you ask the proprietor to bring money and silk back?"
Next to Zhou Da heard, eyes also immediately brightened up, the village people's food has just been given to the fiefdom nobles sent people to search away, the Zhou family in addition to a urn of corn buried in the soil of the backyard, and then there is no other food, the family of four facing starvation, if the second son entrusted people to send money and wealth back, they will not starve to death.
"Oops! I forgot about business, you guys pack up and go to Zhou Cheng's with Mister Hu." The Hu trader slapped his head, he had just focused on talking about the Falling Geese Knowledge and forgot about Zhou Cheng's commission.
"Where is my son?" Chow Tai and his wife looked at each other.
"In Wu, in the south port of Wu, that is a good place, where people eat dry rice and meat, wear brocade, and live in brick houses."
Zhou Da opened his mouth, "Eat dry rice and meat?" He choked on his spit, "Does it fill you up?"
"Why don't you care if it's full! Of course!" Hu vendors looked at this room gulping Zhou family, raised his head: "Your family Zhou Cheng to take you to enjoy the blessings, you in the end to go or not, in order to come here a little message, in the next riding a mule walked two days before arriving at this boil, this time to not go, no one will come to lead you to go in the future."
"Go! Go! Definitely go!" Zhou Cheng's parents promised with a stack of voices.
"Alright then, you guys go to the Hu Family's Merchant Shop in Lin Cheng in four days and look for Mister Hu." Hu trader see half of the task completed, stood up and ready to leave, but after seeing the Zhou family penniless house, and then look at Zhou Cheng's parents' eyes, they took out a cloth bag from their arms and put it into Zhou Da's hand: "This is Zhou Cheng let Hu Mou bring you, remember, Hu Mou in Lin Cheng waiting for you for six days, six days don't come, Hu Mou may not wait for the end of the year before you still have to seize the time to run Nangbu to do a trip business."
"Dongjia, I definitely won't keep you waiting." Zhou Da gripped the cloth bag tightly to assure him.
"This is for your children to eat." The hu vendor pulled a yellow paper packet from his coat pocket and handed it to Zhou's wife, who shoved it at the still-crying toddler.
After standing in the doorway and watching the hu vendor leave, the couple hurried back to the mud hut, closed the broken door behind them, and opened the cloth bag to check it out.
"Ah! It's gold! So much gold!" Zhou's wife exclaimed, with ten gold wrapped in a cloth bag.
"It's really gold!" Zhou Da took a gold and put it in his mouth and bit it hard with his teeth, realizing that he couldn't bite it.
"Master Child, we have so much gold, can we not leave?"
"Foolish woman! We still owe taxes to His Excellency, if we don't go can we keep this gold?" Zhou Da split his mouth and scolded his wife, not to mention that the place in Nambu is so rich, just the fact that his son has become a Huben, they are sure to go and defect. Here, year after year, year after year, year after year, year after year, year after year, year after year, year after year, year after year, year after year, year after year, year after year, year after year, the food to be handed over to the lord of the feudal lords, but not at all can not be reduced, by the lord of the feudal lords, all the food is only enough to be half the number of the tax to be handed over to the lord of the feudal lords, if not, next year is a bumper harvest, the Zhou family can not be the delinquent payment of the taxes to be paid up, not to mention how to live to next year's summer harvest is a very difficult problem.
"Oooh! It's not good!" The toddler next to him suddenly let out a cry.
Zhou's wife looked back and saw that the toddler's mouth was spitting out yellow paper, and the paper bag that was in the toddler's hand had already reached the hands of the skinny woman, who was biting the paper bag.
"Silly girl! How dare you grab something to eat from your son, Xiao Bao?" Zhou's wife snatched the paper bag with a split hand.
"Bah! Yuck! Mother! This stuff is not good." The skinny woman also spat yellow paper out of her mouth just like the toddler, which was a rough paper produced in Dacheng and used exclusively for wrapping things, well, the villagers of Nambu also used it to wipe their asses.
"Really not good?" Zhou's wife was suspicious, she tore some of the yellow paper and put it in her mouth, and sure enough, it had a bitter flavor.
"What's in here?" Zhou Da took the paper bag from his wife's hand and found that the paper bag was bulging and there seemed to be something different inside, he opened the paper and found that it was long little sticks of the same color as the paper, he carried a little stick and put it into his mouth and chewed it, and found that it was soft and sweet.
"Yummy!" Zhou Da picked up one and stuffed it into the toddler's mouth, the toddler chewed it a few times and felt a flavor that he had never had before, similar to a wild sweet fruit in the wild, yet ten times sweeter than a wild sweet fruit.
Cho's wife ate a small stick before realizing she had just eaten the wrong thing.
"Yummy! Yummy!" The silly girl was obviously not dull when it came to eating, she stuffed her mouth full and both hands were going to grab it when she was slapped hard by Zhou's wife.
Hu vendors handed to the young child of the yellow paper bag wrapped in dried sweet potatoes, is a delicious snack unique to Nambu, Hu vendors especially like this snack, although the dried sweet potatoes pricing is very high, but Hu vendors every time you go to buy a few pounds to bring, see the Zhou family children crying, Hu vendors hand on the dried potatoes did not finish handing the young child, the Zhou family has never seen the paper of this thing, the mistake of the paper as a food to gnaw up and make a big mess.
"Child's Nurse, let's quickly pack up, we'll be on the road early tomorrow morning, and go to Cheng'er's place early." Zhou Da wiped his mouth, the dried sweet potatoes left behind by the Hu vendor was only about half a kilogram, the four members of the Zhou family divided it, one person did not have much, Zhou Da ate it with great interest.
"Silly girl, come with me to pack!" Zhou's wife stood up straight.
"Where to?" Silly girl two eyes staring straight at the hands of the young child a few dried sweet potatoes, the young child eat slowly, Zhou Da divided to the young child's dried sweet potatoes portion is also the most, the three adults finished eating, the young child only ate half.
''Pah!'' Zhou's wife slapped the back of the silly girl's head. "Dumb bitch! No salivating over your son's stuff. We're going to go where there's this good stuff."
The silly girl's head shrunk after being slapped by Zhou's wife, she was afraid of Zhou's wife, but when she heard that she was going to a place with dried sweet potatoes, she immediately smiled again. This silly girl was the wife of Zhou Cheng's elder brother, her brain was a bit wooden and not very bright.
Zhou Da and his wife had six children, only the second and the third survived, and the third was Zhou Cheng. The state of Lu was at war with the state of Qi for many years, so it did not have enough troops, so it summoned the nobles of all the fiefdoms to join the war, and the nobles took strong men from all over their own fiefdoms to serve as auxiliary soldiers, whose status was just like that of slaves, and they had to carry provisions when they marched, and they had no protection when they fought, and were just cannon fodder when they went to the battlefield, so their losses were very great, and the nobles had to take strong men to replenish them after a battle. Five years ago, Zhou Cheng's brother was captured and never came back. Zhou Cheng's parents were afraid that their second son, who had just reached adulthood, would also suffer bad luck, so they let Zhou Cheng flee out of the state of Lu.
Zhou Cheng's brother was arrested when just married to silly girl, silly girl in her husband left a year after the pregnancy, counting time, of course, the child can not be Zhou Cheng's big brother, in the end is who, silly girl themselves do not know, perhaps the village bachelor, perhaps the walking side of the goods.
Silly girl pregnant with wild seed before, Zhou Cheng has fled, Zhou Cheng elder brother died in the battlefield news just happened to come back, Zhou big couple of grief, the child in the belly of Silly girl as a treasure, hope that Silly girl for their Zhou family to give birth to a baby boy, after all, Zhou Cheng did fleeing from the Ding is not to come back, Silly girl if the birth of a boy baby, will be the only fragrance of their Zhou family. After the birth of Xiao Bao, Zhou's couple will be Xiao Bao as the life of the child to raise, silly girl also because of the son, not be transferred away.
The original Hu trader will transport some Lu country specialties from Lincheng to the south port, specialties transported to the south port sales profit is very thin, can only earn back a little road fee, and the Zhou Cheng family members transported to the south port, Hu trader can earn a hundred gold, which is equal to the number of goods from the south port to the south port once sold out of the profits of the Lu country, so the Hu trader this time simply did not purchase the specialties, the main profit of his business is the trafficking of the south port of the goods in the sale of the Lu country.
Five days later, Zhou Da led thirty or so people, large and small, to find the Hu trader.
"It's... This... This is all the Zhou family?" The Hu trader remembered that Zhou Cheng told him that there were four people in the family, his parents and brother and sister-in-law, he didn't see Zhou Cheng's elder brother when he went there five days ago, there was just one more child, how come after five days, the Zhou family had thirty more people?
"This is my cousin's house, this is my two uncles' house, and this is my cousin's aunt's house." Zhou Da's face was bitter, he had no choice, he had gone to say goodbye to his relatives, these relatives were very eager to go to a place where there was dry rice and meat when they heard that Zhou Cheng was still working as a Huben in that place, they offered to go with them, as their lives were just as hard in the Ludi.
The hu vendor wiped his chin and had a difficult face, so many people, the road fee is going to increase a lot.
"This is for you." Zhou Da took out the road fee that Zhou Cheng had sent back and handed it to the Hu trader, in Zhou Da's mind, ten gold was a very large amount of money, enough for so many of them to go to their son's place, Zhou Da had no idea how far it was from Lu to Wu and how much they had to travel.
The Hu trader looked at the ten gold handed to him by Zhou Da, his heart suddenly stirred, the agreement between Zhou Cheng and him was to help Zhou Cheng bring back one of his relatives, he would give him twenty gold payment, Zhou Cheng counted his elder brother and thought that the family had at most five members. Now Zhou Cheng has thirty more relatives, but that's an extra six hundred gold payment ah!
Finding it profitable, the hu merchant graciously agreed, hiring two more mule carts for ten gold to carry the ragged group on, so that these people could save themselves the pain of walking.
From Lu to Tang, from Tang to Wu this business road, Hu traders have been walking for six, seven years, the road joints have long been opened, in Lu has been no problem, but after arriving at the Tang, found that the Tang barriers began to check the personnel of the Tang tight, the Tang aristocrats, finally found the impact of the loss of population in the land on them, began to block the farmers to leave the land. Hu traders this team of people because they are Lu people, the number of people recorded on the customs ultimatum, the Tang Huben soldiers did not stop them, some spontaneous want to go to the south port of Wu Tang people, found by the Huben, were stopped, some resistance to the civilian was arrested to the mines to dig ore.
Zhou Da tight holding his grandson sitting in the mule car trepidation, for fear of being stopped by the Huben not to let go to his son, from Lu to Tang, all the way to the desolate, the roadside all over the fleeing victims of the endless stream of victims, these victims are blocked at the barrier, the barrier at the cries shook the sky.
Hu traders also wiped sweat, he came back from the south port, the road barriers have not been so strict check, back to the state of Lu but only a month, the Tang country's road barriers to check the atmosphere has changed.
Hu traders have the original foundation in the point, all the way to the South Port in the Tang rented cove without danger, to the cove, Hu traders to find the person in charge of the wooden boat moored there, requesting the person in charge to help. The Hu traders' own wooden boat was too small to carry more than thirty people, so they had to ask the big wooden boat in Nanbu to carry them. The person in charge of the big wooden boat happened to be a valley slave, know Zhou Cheng, immediately agreed to let Zhou Cheng's family relatives to take the wind boat, this time the south port big wooden boat to transport the strong man, because of the strict inspection of the Tang Dynasty, the number of people is much smaller, open the back door to let Zhou Cheng's family and relatives to take the wind boat, will not be overcrowded.
Zhou Cheng winter solstice morning in the south port pier lookout, carrying his parents, silly sister-in-law, cheap nephews and relatives of the big boat just happened to sail back, Zhou Cheng was informed by the hu vendor, was told three years did not meet the relatives to come.
Although Zhou Cheng knew that his relatives had come, he could not meet them, because the refugees on the wooden boat had to check and register in the refugee camps, and also had to eliminate the parasites in the camps and make up a group before they were allowed to come out, and usually it took ten days for such a procedure to be completed, and although Zhou Cheng had now become the leader of the 500 soldiers, he could not take it upon himself to claim his relatives, and Zhou Cheng had to follow the rules in order to be reunited with his parents.
Zhou Cheng did not have the right to take his parents out of the camp first, but had the privilege of going to see his parents, and in the parlor of one of the camps, Zhou Cheng and his family hugged and cried.
"Call Uncle!" Zhou Da carried Xiao Bao to Zhou Cheng.
"Uncle, Xiao Bao eat eat eat!" Little Treasure could not forget the flavor of sweet potato fries, and although he was small, he understood that there was something very delicious in this place now.
"Well, uncle will go buy it right away, Xiao Bao wait for a while." Zhou Cheng touched Xiao Bao and realized that his nephew's facial features did not look like a Zhou family member anywhere.
"Buy more of those little yellow striped sticks." Zhou's wife first asked this of her son, but she was afraid that he wouldn't have any coins: "Not too many, it's good if one person can have three."
"Mother! Your son now has more than ten gold per month, so he can afford to eat whatever he wants." Zhou Cheng waved his hand brashly, Nambu's economy was more prosperous than elsewhere, but the prices of goods were not much different from the poorer areas, Zhou Cheng's salary was enough for a family of five to live comfortably.
Zhou Cheng went to the store to buy a large pile of food sent to the refugee camp for his family, then rode the war horse back to the valley, today he came to the south port is on official business, must return to the valley before dark. Riding in the war horse Zhou Cheng heart surging, has not been able to calm, longing for the future peace and prosperity of life, heart full of satisfaction, he decided, with the remaining savings to pay the down payment of the valley building, the future family will live in that kind of high-grade house.
Mr. and Mrs. Zhou were so excited to see their son that they forgot to tell him that thirty other relatives had followed them. After Zhou Cheng paid the hu trader as agreed, not only would he have no savings in the future, but he would also have to carry a debt of five hundred gold, and Zhou Cheng would be the poorest one in the valley.