Three days later, Ma Li, another friend of Sealand who had lived and died with Cai Wei, also rushed all the way from Quanzhou, Fujian.

Cai Wei saw that these good sisters of hers gathered around her at the most difficult time in her life, accompanied by each other, talked and laughed, and was moved to understand their worries about herself, which was afraid that she would be too sad and blindly depressed.

The best panacea in the world that can heal heartache is neither plants and trees, nor Dan stones, but the love of relatives, husband and wife, and friends.

Cai Wei felt how unfortunate she was, she had worked so hard and risked her life to give birth to her baby daughter, but she lost it in a blink of an eye. But how fortunate she is that she has not only a wishful husband who loves each other, but also such a group of close friends who are like sisters.

The wound in her heart finally gradually calmed down, maybe the residual pain of the wound will always be there, but her eyes finally no longer only see her wound, only feel her personal pain, because in these days, she has heard more of the wounds of women in this world, and felt more pain of women in this world.

Her body began to improve day by day, and the speed of her recovery amazed all the imperial doctors, only Cai Wei knew in her heart that in addition to the careful diagnosis and treatment of her by the imperial doctors, the love and support given to her by Qin Fei and her friends, there was another thing that stimulated her to recover as soon as possible, that is, responsibility - the responsibility of being the mother of a country.

She was Qin Fei's wife and the empress of Emperor Yuan Jia; She is the mother of Pearl, and the mother of all the subjects of the world. And now in this land where she was born, raised, and respected her, not only is there still half of the land and the people of the land have fallen into the hands of foreign races, but even those who have not been enslaved by the Tartars, the women among them are still enslaved and oppressed by men, and they have experienced hardships but cannot be relieved.

Cai Wei has long been dissatisfied with the status quo of male superiority and inferiority in this country for thousands of years, and when she was a little girl, she was angry that women were not allowed to study like men, and fantasized that one day she could change this unfair world.

Now, she is no longer the orphan girl who has no father and mother, who is helpless, she is the queen of this country, and she can use her identity and status to do something for the subjects of this country. While helping Qin Fei completely drive the Tartars out of this land, he can also let the women of this land break free from the shackles that have bound them for thousands of years, and they are no longer lowly concubines who are always inferior to men, but can live in this world with their heads held high as a person with a capital letter.

Therefore, when her best friends saw that her body was finally healed and came to say goodbye to her, Cai Wei smiled and left all the girls behind, and did not allow them to leave.

Geng Yu said strangely: "I said the queen mother, we were originally here to visit the sick, you are all cured, why don't you let us go?" ”

Cai Wei coquettishly played with them, "Good sister, we have been separated for many years, and we have only been together for a few days, where can we?" Would you like to stay a little longer? ”

When Ma Li heard this, she said: "Wei, we have been together for so long before, and Fusang has been there together, and it has only been less than a year since we were separated, so I will go back to Quanzhou first." ”

didn't want to Cai Wei but still smiled and refused to let go, Zou Qing said helplessly: "Queen Mother, we naturally want to accompany you more, but several of us have a mess of things to do, aren't Niang Niang afraid of delaying our business?" ”

Cai Wei smiled: "I kept you just to carry forward what you have done. You are going back at the moment, but you are just running a few women's halls in Meizhou and building a few women's academies in Quanzhou, and the women you can help are limited after all. But if you stay, assist the mother of a country, and be the dog-headed military advisor of me, the queen's mother, let's come up with some ways to build an ann nu hall in every state and county in this Great Qin, a college for women to study, wouldn't we be able to help more women? ”

Ma Li immediately clapped her hands and cheered when she heard this, and Zou Qing and the three of them, although they were also happy, there was still a trace of worry between their eyebrows. It's good to enjoy the shade with your back against the big tree, don't they know about this reason? Using the identity of the queen's mother to help them do the work of saving women and helping women, they have not had this idea, but it is precisely because of Caiwei's identity as the queen, although she is the mother of a country, but there is also the king of a country on it.

Therefore, out of concern for their friends, although they have been with Cai Wei for nearly three months, they have never mentioned a word asking her for help. I'm afraid that if I get her in trouble. I didn't want to do it at this time, but Cai Wei offered to help them make the cause of loving women and helping women bigger and stronger, and carry it forward, so she couldn't help but blurt out: "It's good if you can do this, but ...... But Niangniang is not afraid of His Majesty xià he ......"

Cai Wei knew what they were worried about, so she took out a stack of silver tickets and put them on the table, "If you are worried about this, just rest assured, although His Majesty is the king of a country, he listens to me at home!" Last night, I said that I wanted to set up more Ann Nu Hall and Girls' Academy, which can shelter and rescue abandoned girls and girls, and he sent me the money early this morning. ”

In fact, Cai Wei has been mentioning in Qin Fei's ears these days the tragic experiences of those abandoned girls and girls that Zou Qing and they told her about, those who were drowned as soon as they were born are still less guilty, and some little girls are even more pitiful, they can't do any work at a young age and can't give food, they can't stand to steal a bite of pig and chicken food, and they will be ulcerated by their mothers and grandmothers with needles, and their arms and legs are broken by their fathers, and I don't know how many girls were beaten to death by their fathers and mothers.

Cai Wei leaned on Qin Fei's arms and said sadly: "Ah Fei, you said that if our Zhu'er didn't give birth to our daughter, but was born in the people, or she was still a daughter when she was reincarnated, and she went to those who only like her son and hate her daughter, then wouldn't she be treated cruelly like this." As long as I think that our pearls will be abused in every way like those girls, and life is worse than death, I can't do it in my heart. At night, I always dreamed of many babies and girls sitting on the ground in tattered clothes, covered in blood, with their eyes looking at me, crying out: 'Mother, please me!' Mother, please! 'I look at it and feel that they are all my pearls, and they are all asking me for help, Ah Fei, all the girls and girls in this world are also our daughters, shall we save them? ”

Qin Fei naturally agreed, he had been worried about how to pull Cai Wei out of the pain of losing his daughter these days, and he had also used a lot of ways to divert her mind, but why didn't he think of such a method of "loving my daughter and the daughter of people"? Since they don't have their own daughters to love, they might as well share their love for their daughters with those baby girls who are not loved by their parents. If the beloved wife is busy with such good deeds and good deeds, she will no longer blindly indulge in the pain of losing her pearls.

In fact, when Qin Fei took these silver tickets to Cai Wei in the morning, his face was quite embarrassed, he originally thought that it would be rare for Ah Wei to make a request to him, he naturally spent a lot of money to meet it, not to mention such a good deed as saving a weak girl, even if Ah Wei asked him to build a wine pond meat forest to comfort her heartache, he would also nod and pay for the silver immediately without saying a word.

It's a pity that although he really wants to take out a bunch of silver tickets to hold it to his wife, it's a pity that he has no money in his pocket, Yan Qin's treasury has long been empty, and the tax revenue can't be counted on.

Although Qin Fei took out a sum of money for Cai Wei to run An Nutang, if you have to study it carefully, this money cannot be regarded as the pocket money that his husband gave to his wife at all, but to return his wife's dowry and silver to her. Since Cai Wei married him, in order to help him, she gave him all her dowry silver, whether it was the income from the dowry field every year or the large amount of treasure left to her by her father-in-law who was later discovered. Even Cai Wei's tens of thousands of taels of dowry silver that were greedy by An Yuanbo's Mansion were also given to his own pocket by him with various ingenious means, although he didn't tell his wife, he had already helped her get the dowry silver back, but in the small account book in his own heart, he clearly remembered every amount of money he received from his wife.

After careful calculation, not only did he not pay his wife to support the family in the past few years, but he was actually relying on his wife's dowry to support the country. Therefore, when Qin Fei gave the money to Cai Wei, he was a little afraid to look at her eyes, and swore in his heart that when he had money, he would repay his wife a thousand times over.

Cai Wei didn't think that the money he gave was too little, and she didn't return all her dowry money, she knew that this thing of saving women and helping women should be done little by little, and if she made a big splash at the beginning, she was afraid that it would not be good. At present, for them, the most important thing is not how many women's halls and girls' academies can be built, these are just palliative methods, but according to the current national conditions of Yan Qin, they should come up with some methods that can fundamentally change the inferior and subordinate status of women, and change the fate of all women from the bones, which is the root cause.

"I wonder if my sisters have any good cures for the root cause?" Cai Wei asked.

"I don't think women have status nowadays because they don't have any money in their hands." Geng Yue said first. When the sisters and Zou Qing were in Meizhou, they didn't know how many times they talked about it, and they began to talk endlessly.

"As the saying goes, 'If you have money in your hands, you don't panic in your heart', women have no money in their hands, and they rely on their husbands for food and clothing, so they naturally can't speak in front of men, and they are at the mercy of men. But how come we women don't have money? ”

Geng Yu said: "My mother's land and real estate daughter can't inherit it, at most when I get married, my father and mother can give a dowry, although this Daqin law is written there in black and white, saying that the woman's dowry is her private property, but the husband and in-laws reach out to you to ask for it, can you not give it?" Even if you don't give it, people can rob it, you go to sue the official, sue the husband with your wife, no matter whether the official takes your case or not, you will be dragged to a beating board first. If you can't keep your dowry, let alone the property of your husband's family, if you give birth to a son, it can always fall on your son's head, and if you give birth to a daughter, the family's property would rather go to your nephew than to your own daughter. ”

Geng Yue continued: "That's why I will give birth to a son as a treasure, give birth to a daughter as a grass, and call my daughter a loss of money, because the women in the family are not qualified to share the land, although they have not done any less farm work, but all the land and land are not their father's brother's, or their husband's son's, and they will never belong to them." If a family has no men, it is a dead end, and no matter how rich it is, it is also at the mercy of the clansmen in the township. So it's no wonder that people in the world would rather have sons than daughters, and they dislike giving birth to daughters and wasting rations to pay for the dowry, so they simply drown them when they are born. ”

Geng Yu spread his hands, "The property of my mother's husband is not a woman's share, and women are not allowed to study, become officials, do business and work, but all the jobs that can earn money to make a living, all are only allowed to be done by men and not by women, oh, except for spinning and weaving and embroidering women, but how many women can support themselves by relying on these?" Even if you can support yourself, you can only make ends meet, and you can't be like a man, or be an official or a rich businessman, and you will always have no wealth and power, and you will still be bullied. ”

"Therefore, if you want women to have status and be on an equal footing with men, the first one is to have money in your hands, and in order for women to have money, you must first let women have the right to inherit and share the family's property like their brothers." Geng Yue said.

"And to let women also study, even if women can't be allowed to participate in the imperial examination and become officials for the time being, at least women should be allowed to go out of the house and do some business that can make a lot of money, like doing business or something."

These two sisters, you and I, are connected smoothly. They are twin sisters again, not only are they extremely difficult to distinguish in appearance, but even their voices are exactly the same, and they sound as if they are alone there without stopping for a moment, and they say such a long paragraph in one go.

Ma Li wanted to answer several times, but she was always a step late, and she couldn't snatch the pair of twin sisters who cooperated tacitly, but Zou Qing and the Geng sisters played from childhood to adulthood, and after so many years of practice, they could still grab one or two conversations in ten times.

I heard her say: "It's easy for us to say this, but how to do it?" If she encounters some bad people again, or is humiliated or abducted and sold in another country, there should be a bunch of people who jump out and say that this woman does not abide by women's morals and does not stay at home honestly, and she has to run outside the house to snatch jobs with men, so that she will get into trouble, and she will blame herself for her own bad and self-inflicted. ”

"Besides, now that the trend of foot binding is prevalent, many people's daughters, unless they are poor and can't open the pot, will bind their daughters' feet. Take our Meizhou as an example, eighty or ninety percent of ten women are bound to their feet, and that pair of spiky three-inch golden lotus, in addition to being able to get a man to look good, what use can it be, so that women can't even walk 200 steps, so how can they go out of the house to do all kinds of business? ”

The Geng sisters were so asked by Zou Qing that they couldn't answer for a while, and said depressedly: "Sister Qing, you came to pour cold water on us again." "When they talked about this in Meizhou before, they didn't know how many times they were poured cold water by Zou Qing, but what made them even more depressed was that they still hadn't figured out how to refute Zou Qing, or how to realize their two propositions - giving women the right to inherit and the right to go out to earn money like men.

"Therefore, it is necessary to change this situation from the institutional point of view." Ma Li, who finally grabbed a chance to speak, said with a stern face.

"Our Sealand country was originally similar to your Great Qin's system, the king's ministers and the members of the upper and lower houses of parliament can only be held by men, and the women in our country have no status at all, and must be absolutely subordinate to her father and husband, the only one who is better than you is not allowed to take concubines, although there can be countless lovers and countless illegitimate children, but only the children born to wives have legal inheritance. Therefore, our first king, King Henry, although he had a large number of illegitimate children, in order to give birth to a son who inherited the throne, he divorced two queens successively, and killed two queens so that he could marry a new queen and come back to have sons. Because King Edward had no heir, after his death, several wars broke out over the throne, and finally King Edward's sister Eliza ascended the throne and became the first queen of Sealand. ”

Ma Li held back for a long time, and it was easy to finally express what she had seen, and the speed of speech was so fast, without a pause in the middle, for fear that if she stopped for a while, the conversation would be snatched away by the twin sisters.

"At first, those noble ministers and lords thought that she could not be the king of a country by a woman, and in the end she did not have to hire an imperial husband and hand over the responsibility of governing the country to her imperial husband, and she returned to the back house to raise children. But our Queen Eliza is not only shrewd and capable, but even in order to better protect our Sealand country, she rejected a bunch of marriage proposals from kings and princes, and never married. During her reign, she not only made our Sealand country stronger and richer, but also improved the status of our women to a certain extent. ”

"She managed to amend the law so that aristocratic women, especially those noble widows, reserved some rights, stipulating that the election of members of the House of Representatives only had clear property restrictions and no gender restrictions, and women also had the right to inherit estates and territories, so that some aristocratic women with property could participate in the nobles' discussions on political and economic issues, and even acted as judges and legislators in the courts, in an effort to establish more laws to protect women's rights and interests."

Ma Li gasped, "So, Empress Niang, you can persuade His Majesty the Emperor to amend your laws, prohibit women from binding their feet, give daughters and sons the same inheritance rights, and allow them to study the imperial examination and do business and work like men." ”

Cai Wei sighed and said: "I don't understand what you said, but at the moment, if you want to directly change the law in Daqin to protect women's property rights and certain independent status, I'm afraid it won't work." There have been several empress dowagers in our country before, and there was even a female emperor, but why did they not implement such a law in the end? Because they don't want to? No, it's because there's so much resistance to doing so. Even if they are the queen mothers and hold great power, they rely on either their own fathers, brothers, sons and nephews, or important ministers in the court, and they are still all men. ”

Although the Tianshun Empress also appointed some female officials, only men could participate in the imperial examinations, and the large and small official positions and more real power from top to bottom were still in the hands of men. Even the Empress Tianshun herself, she did not inherit the throne from her father as a daughter, but as a mother, she took charge of the country for her son. In the final analysis, she still relied on the support of her husband and son to ascend to the supreme position, if she was not the emperor's wife and mother, I am afraid that she would have been overthrown by those men. ”

"In a country where all power and property are in the hands of men, it is impossible to change the law overnight to give women and men equal status, we can only try it slowly."

Cai Wei's words made the Geng sisters nod their heads, didn't they think about changing the law? It was precisely because they felt that this possibility was really difficult to get to the sky, so they didn't bring this method out and said.

"But how do you do it?" The sisters asked together.

"Instead of asking for the law to be changed to give women the right to inherit as soon as they come up, it is better to think of ways to make women earn more money even if they do some business without leaving home, and when more and more wealth is created and controlled by women, women will have power and have the right to speak to men."

"But—" Zou Qing began to pour cold water again, "even if a woman can make money, or even make more money?" The money she earns cannot be at her disposal, and the financial power of the family is still firmly in the hands of men. Because in the eyes of the world and according to the law, once a woman marries a wife, then she is the private property of the man, and she has to live dependent on her husband, and he regards him as heaven. Even she is the property of a man, not to mention the dowry she brought and the money she earned? ”

"It can be seen that there is still a certain guarantee in the system first!" Mary quickly re-emphasized her philosophy through the cracks.

"Now that the system is going to be guaranteed, those men will definitely not agree. Besides, if the law is really changed, it must be possible to do it in this land? Cai Wei asked rhetorically.

The other four were all silent, even Ma Li, a foreigner who had only been in Daqin for two or three years, had already seen and understood, this Daqin's law, looking at the clear and clear writing in black and white, in fact, many times it was just a piece of paper, not to mention that the countryside and towns far away from the Emperor of Heaven did not act according to the law at all, it was the boundary of the capital at the foot of the Son of Heaven, and there were still few things that violated the law and discipline?

What really works in this Great Qin State is the word power, as long as you are powerful enough, then any laws and regulations are just a piece of paper, and they can't help you at all.

"And what does Awei mean?" Zou Qing wondered.

"Why does a woman have to find a man to marry nowadays, because she wants to find someone to support herself, but if she can earn a lot of money by herself, enough for her to live well, then will she marry a man again, become his vassal private property, and go to her husband's house as a slave and a maid?"

The Geng sisters' eyes lit up, but Zou Qing immediately thought of a new question. "But Awei, sometimes women don't marry all for food and clothing, but people are terrible, always saying that men should get married, women should marry, if they don't get married when they reach the age, I don't know what they will be ridiculed and ridiculed by the neighbors. It's that the girl herself doesn't want to marry, but can her parents and brothers agree because of face? After all, there are not many sensible parents in this world like her father and Uncle Geng.

Cai Wei took a sip of red dates and wolfberry tea, and said slowly: "Sisters know that Jiangnan is not only the land of fish and rice, but also rich in silk. Many daughters in Jiangnan can earn 12 taels of silver a year by raising silkworms and weaving, and the profits from renting 10 acres of land are only 2 taels a year. Slowly, some girls don't want to get married anymore, and the men they marry don't earn as much money as they do, and they have to put on an uncle like an uncle waiting for them to serve the family, and they have to be beaten and scolded at every turn. ”

They felt that they were much happier than marrying even if they were alone, and there were not one, but many people who had this idea, so these girls who did not want to marry got together, built a house and named it Jingnu Hall, and lived with their sisters. They combed their hair into a married woman's bun, called themselves pure women, and swore in front of their family and friends that they would never marry in this life, preferring to live in groups with their self-combed sisters and die celibate. If one of them is forced to marry by his family, then all the self-combing pure women will rush over with sticks and rob relatives on the day she is forced to marry into the man's family, and many of them will even prefer to fight to the death. The fierce struggle of these women finally won them a small world in which they could live freely, not as a wife, as a mother, but as a human being. ”

"Ah Wei, are you thinking about ......" The Geng sisters thought of a possibility, and couldn't help but ask in unison.

Cai Wei nodded, "Yes, that's what I thought. If more women can support themselves by raising silkworms and reeling silk, we will build a series of Annu Halls in those states and counties where the silk weaving industry is developed, and shelter those women who do not want to marry because they can be self-sufficient. When more and more women choose not to marry and have children, perhaps the men of this country will realize that it is time for them to make some changes. ”

Zou Qing finally nodded and said, "This method sounds feasible, but if it really works, I'm afraid that we will still encounter all kinds of resistance, right?" ”

Cai Wei said with a smile: "If this method wanted to work ten years ago or ten years later, it would naturally be difficult, but now it will not be smooth sailing, but it is just in time for a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for us, which can help us get twice the result with half the effort!" ”