stubborn thief

Chapter 35 The Coffin
Despite being away from home for three days, the atmosphere in the village is very different.

On the hill road into the village, there are checkpoints set up by Min Zhuang carrying spears and crossbows.

When I asked them what happened, no one could tell the reason. I only knew that yesterday, when outsiders entered the village, Master Liu sent them to set up several posts in the mountains and valleys.

Putting Yang Dingrui at home, Liu Chengzong flinched, his parents and brothers were not at home, and after looking at the house and the stables, his brother, armour, armour and horses were not there, which made his heart throb.

He hurriedly placed Yang Dingrui's family into the wing, and heard someone stumbling in from outside the door. When he went out to take a look, the little bald-headed Sixteen ran in, but Liu Chengzong grabbed him by the neck and lifted it up, with short legs. Still pounding in the sky.

"What do you want to go to?"

When the little bald head was lifted, it was like waking up from a dream, and his jujube eyes narrowed: "Brother Lion is back! The master is arguing with someone, let me get the cigarette bag."

Get a cigarette pouch?
Liu Chengzong knew that his father had a copper smoke pot.

This side is different from the north and south of the Weihe River. The other side is rich and affordable for such novelties. Jingyang is the largest tobacco cutting distribution center in Qindi, and it is also accessible.

The soil in northern Shaanxi is thin, and it is not enough to grow crops. Tobacco was planted on a large scale in the early years. At that time, tobacco had just flowed into the Central Plains. People believed that it had the effect of keeping out the cold, and sold it to the frontier troops in the three towns of Yansui, Guyuan and Gansu.

A few years ago, I started to owe salaries, the military men had no money, and tobacco gradually disappeared in northern Shaanxi. Now I can buy it if I want to buy it, but it is much less.

For the old man, he did not have the habit of smoking. In fact, most people in northern Shaanxi, including Cao Yao, were not addicted to smoking at this time. At best, it was a prop.

Hearing that the old man asked Xiao Shiliu to come back to get his pipe, Liu Chengzong was very happy, put him down and asked, "Where are you arguing?"

Sixteen said, "Uncle Liu's house is surrounded by many people."

Uncle Liu?
Seventy or eighty households in this village at the foot of Heilongwang Temple Mountain are all surnamed Liu.

"There are a lot of coffins in his house."

Got it, the coffin maker in Xingpingli.

Coffin makers, like pig butchers, masons, travellers, matchmakers, oil presses, weavers, veterinarians, witches, opera troupes, sellers, and tofu makers, are essential roles in villages and villages.

In some places, the coffin maker is also a carpenter, but in Xingping, there is another coffin maker because the carpenter was expedition by corvée in the early years.

The elderly in the village usually start preparing their own coffins at the age of 40. Sooner or later, their ultimate ideal in life is to have a better house to sleep in for thousands of years when they finish their lives.

After buying these coffins, the family will put them in their own homes. If there is no space, they will be temporarily sent to the coffin maker, who will be maintained and painted every year.

Therefore, there must be a coffin maker who has many coffins at home.

Hearing that his father was arguing with the coffin maker, Liu Chengzong was not in a hurry, and instead asked, "What about my brother, who is arguing there too?"

"Liu Guan team went to Cao Guan team yesterday, yes!"

The little bald head suddenly remembered and hurriedly said: "The management team said, Brother Shishi came back to the ancestral hall. There was an injured outsider in the ancestral hall. He said that you will know what happened when you see him."

Co-authoring without mentioning Liu Chengzu, Sixteen forgot about it.

Liu Chengzong turned around and left. He just took two steps and stopped and waved his hand: "Okay, you can go get me a cigarette bag. I'll go to the coffin maker's house to have a look first, and then I'll go to the ancestral hall."

Xingpingli is not very big, and you can see the coffin maker's house just a few turns out of the door. From a distance, Liu Chengzong can see a lot of people around the door of the coffin maker's house, all of them are elderly people.

The old people here are not just talking about age. In the Ming Dynasty, they had more responsibilities. The people who changed every year and did not change were the elected village elders.

In the villages of the Ming Dynasty, as long as it was not a serious crime such as murder or treason, and all the trivial matters such as family marriage, fights, fights, etc., it was not necessary to go to the county seat at every turn.

Before he squeezed into the crowd, Liu Chengzong had heard his father arguing with others. In fact, this was not a quarrel with the coffin maker, but a quarrel with the village elders.

"Today, where else can we go to collect wood? The thieves are in the north, and I don't know when they will attack. If the thieves kill them, will they still put us in the coffin?"

Liu Chengzong heard that his father was trying to persuade the elderly people in Lizhong to give up their coffins, which made him frown.

Coffins are very important to the existence of the elderly. The older a person is, the less he sees life and death, and he only cares about the cemetery and the coffin after death.

In the past two months, they built a city in Liujiamao. The clan brothers fell forests for wood and dig mountains for rocks. Logically, there is not a big shortage of wood materials. If this method is carried out step by step, they will be able to build an earthen fence on the mountain this fall.

The situation he understood was not urgent enough to require the elders of the clan to sacrifice their coffins.

You Qi, the townsman, held on his crutches and agreed to take out the coffins under fifty, because the old man over fifty would probably use the coffins at some point, and his father still couldn’t, so he had to take out all the coffins.

Liu Chengzong, who was wearing armor, squeezed in to the innermost part of the crowd. The old people picked up any age they wanted to beat them and they could only accuse them everywhere as they walked.

After walking into the middle, he asked Liu Xiangyu, "Da, what happened?"

When Liu Xiangyu saw his son, he was overjoyed and hurriedly said: "You came just in time, the old temple village in the north was attacked by thieves, you have been to the old temple village, and tell the elders how many people there are in the old temple village and what the village is like. ."

Laomiaozhuang was breached by thieves?

Liu Chengzong didn't have time to think about it, so he bowed his hands to the elders around him and said, "Elders, I went to the north last month. There are seventy or eighty households in Laomiaozhuang, and two brothers surnamed Lu are in charge of them. They have a grudge against Dingjiazhan. , All those who have built walls, young men and women have weapons."

"The junior just came back from Ansai City. On the way, I saw a broken hand in the river in Panlongchuan. I expected something to happen upstream. I thought about coming back and taking two horses to the north to see it, but I didn't expect such a thing to happen."

"Yes, it's Dingjia Station."

Liu Xiangyu took the words and said, "Lu Bin of Laomiaozhuang escaped from death, but the people at Dingjia Station cast the Big Thief King Zuohang and slaughtered Laomiaozhuang."

"The old temple village with seventy or eighty households can't stop the thieves. Could it be in Xingpingli? We have to build up the soil around the mountain as soon as possible, not to mention the coffin, even if the door is unloaded."

Someone said, "Then go to Fucheng to invite officials. If you can't stop it, why do you build a siege?"

"It's okay to invite the official army. The Yan'an guard officers are familiar with each other, and I don't think it will be difficult to get food, but Xingping has to pay attention to the cost of food and clothing, let's say less than a hundred people, not to mention that the official army will come and the bandits will not attack, don't they? We have been raising it, how much food and grass are there in Xingping?"

"In the end, it's up to you."

　Good morning!

　　
　
(End of this chapter)