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Chapter 24 Qingming should worship ancestors

Before and after the Qingming Festival, it is the most busy, the spring flowers are blooming, and the spring plowing is ready for planting. Li Jiagang is like this, in the fields, buffaloes, farmers, busy sowing seeds.

Li Feng's family is better, and there is a paddy field on the left and right, which has been planted two days ago. Yesterday when he was free, Li Feng ordered Li Shan, went to the street to buy paper and firecrackers, and prepared to go up the mountain to sweep the grave the next morning. Qingming tomb sweeping, called the ancestors of the "respect for the time", Li Jiagang does not say tomb sweeping, more to do Qingming, what to do, but to prepare in advance, one is to do the "standard" and the other is to do the "package". The day in advance, ready, the "standard" is a special paper flower, red, yellow, green and white four-color paper, cut into a copper coin-shaped. It is about 10 centimeters in diameter. The legend of "standard" is a flag of the underworld, and a flag corresponds to the identity of an ancestor, just like today's ID card. There must be a flag during the banquet in the underworld, just like identity verification, the ancestors of the Qingming Festival look forward to the descendants to plant the "mark" with the flag before they can drink. Of course, the money burned by the descendants is also claimed by the flag.

The "package" package, as a postal treasure sent by the Yang world to the "underworld", Li Jiagang no longer makes a large package, and uses bamboo cards to make thin slices, on which the names of the ancestors are written. It's much simpler, for example, in the past, Qingming was prepared several days in advance. After Li Feng bought the paper, Zhang Lan took out the scissors to make paper money, put it on the bamboo one by one, and made it well, paper money. began to do "standard" for more than three generations, Li Feng can be described as four generations of single heirs, "standard" made six, "bag" only made three, one for each family, husband and wife card.

Li Feng watched from the side, rarely intervened, worshipping ancestors, now it is not complicated, but it is simply done. On the contrary, Li Feng looked at it and felt very interesting, learning to do it.

Early the next morning, Li Feng carried large and small objects, accompanied Li Shan up the mountain to worship his ancestors, Li Jiagang's grave is mostly in the hump, a hill with a small slope. Lijiagang has few mountains and many mountains, so a mountain is set aside as a cemetery. In Li Feng's opinion, the ancestors were very wise, so they didn't look messy, otherwise they would be all over the mountains, and there would be graves everywhere, and it would not look like a seepage.

Li Feng stopped and walked to pick some wild chrysanthemums, and heard that his grandmother liked chrysanthemum tea when she was alive, but Li Feng remembered it in his heart. Li Feng's grandfather had a son in his forties, and Li Shan gave birth to Li Feng in twenty-seven or eight, when the two old men were already in their seventies. Li Feng only remembered his grandfather, and led himself to play when he was a child, as for his grandmother who went earlier, Li Feng had no impression. I listened to what my mother Zhang Lan said, picked a handful of chrysanthemums, picked a willow branch, and tied it up.

It rains a lot during the Qingming Festival, the weather is a little gloomy today, Li Feng follows Li Mountain closely, the Hump Ridge is some distance from Li Jiagang, the three or five roads look like, here is not like other mountains and mountains with many rattans, trees, some desolate, there are not many trees on the left and right, the weeds are messy, it seems that someone cleans up every year. Along the mountain road, Li Feng followed Li Shan, from time to time to watch Li Shan clean up some small saplings, there are already people in the mountain, looking at familiar people in the village, there are strange outsiders, how many years in the village. Some people don't know each other, or live outside, but Li Shan knows a lot, and from time to time he comes to say hello, Li Feng follows behind, uncle, uncle shouts.

There is not much land in his own mountains, less than two acres of land, Li Feng looked at it, the feng shui is not bad, but he is blind, looking at the big river from afar, and his back is against the big mountain. Li Feng took out the offerings and put them on the ceramic plate with his eyes, there were fish and meat, rice, and a pot of peach blossom wine brewed by his father Li Shan.

"Don't pour the wine yet, don't be cheap, the wandering ghost." Li Shan watched Li Feng pour wine, immediately stopped his son, took out the tools, handed them to Li Feng, and the two began to clean up the weeds and saplings on the grave. After cleaning up, I began to dig some dirt and wrap the grave, and the most strange thing is to make something like an official hat and put it on the grave, of course, only put grandpa, grandpa, grandpa. Li Shan looked at Li Feng's puzzled look, and said with a chuckle, the Li family lineage was passed down more than three hundred years ago, when the war was chaotic and the disaster was avoided again, and the ancestor was a big official. These are traditional customs left over hundreds of years.

Li Feng really doesn't know much about these, I don't know if there is anything like a genealogy, Li Feng thought, watching the weeds and branches on the left and right cleaned up. Inserting the "mark" is to mark the identity in advance, Li Shan, began to incense, two bunches of incense to worship the mountain god and the earth god to bless the peace of the ancestors' homes.

The incense in Li Feng's hand is what his old man uses, incense, pouring wine, burning paper money, and putting two stacks of paper money on each grave, Li Feng follows Li Shan's appearance, drawing a circle, indicating that there are people here, and the ancestors went to the underworld government to receive money with the "mark", and the "bag" has been burned.

Another meaning of the circle is to protect money from leakage, so as not to worry about lonely graves and wild ghosts, which is also a reason why mountain people attach importance to the continuation of incense. There are no descendants to worship, and they make "marks" and "bags" that they are just lonely graves and wild ghosts in the underworld, and they don't even have an identity.

Li Feng understood a little at the moment that every time the second mother talked about her ancestors, the gloomy look on her face. People, my heart is uneasy, and it may seem a little superstitious today, but if I can find peace in my heart, why not do it? Li Feng's expression became more and more serious at the moment, the cultural traditions left by the ancients actually had a good and beneficial side.

Li Feng picked up the wild chrysanthemums he picked and gently placed them in front of his grandmother's grave, although he couldn't remember his grandmother clearly, but from what Zhang Lan said, it can be seen how much the old man loved him before his death. It is not only the reluctance that has passed away, but also the nostalgia of relatives.

After incense and paper, Li Feng helped Li Shan untie the firecrackers and set off the firecrackers, and the people in the mountains were excited. It's not much at this age, and Hump Ridge is originally a little wooded, but I don't care about this. Li Feng formed a circle along the graves of his grandfather and grandmother, kept wine and food, and lit firecrackers.

The green smoke rose, the mountains startled the birds, crackled for a while, and turned into calm, Li Feng respectfully kowtowed three times with his father Li Shan, patting the dust on his body. Qingming was done, the branches were split, the road was opened, the signs were inserted, the offerings were made, the incense was burned, the paper money was turned into money, the firecrackers were set off, and the heads were kowtowed. In the Qingming of his own family, Li Shan took his son and continued the incense of the Li family. came back, Zhang Lan made breakfast early, rice porridge, steamed bread and vegetables, stuffed beans, simple and refreshing, Li Feng's family quickly finished breakfast.

Zhang Lan got busy again, tomorrow is the Qingming Festival, also known as the Cold Food Festival, according to legend, in the Spring and Autumn Period, when the Duke of Jin Wen was in exile in another country, he was hungry once, and the minister Jie Zitui cut off the meat from the leg and roasted it for Chong'er to eat. After all the hardships, Duke Wen of Jin rewarded the courtiers who were in exile with him, but forgot Jie Zitui. When people mentioned it, Jin Wengong was very uneasy in his heart, and sent someone to invite him, but Jie Zitui had already hid in Mianshan with his old mother on his back. Jin Wengong searched for the mountain to no avail, and listened to a bad idea: set fire to the mountain. I didn't think that the fire burned for three days and three nights, and I didn't see Jie Zitui escape. The fire was extinguished and went up the mountain, and I found Jie Zitui and his mother hugging the tree and burning them to death under a big willow tree. In the second year, Jin Wengong sacrificed Jie Zitui, and the charred willow tree was resurrected, and Jin Wengong set this day as the "Cold Food Festival".

The actual "Cold Food Festival" originated from the fact that the ancients used different trees to drill fires due to different seasons, and there was a custom of changing the season to change the fire, and when the new fire was changed, when the new fire did not arrive, people were forbidden to make fires. All in all, the main custom of this festival is the prohibition of fire, and people can only eat prepared cooked and cold food. With the migration of time, the custom of cold food was gradually moved to Qingming. What do you eat on the Cold Food Festival? Most of the foods in history have profound meanings and rich types, including cold porridge, cold noodles, cold syrup, green rice and glutton. Cold food offerings include swallows, snakes, rabbits, jujube cakes, barley, etc.; There are dozens of kinds of beverages, such as spring wine, new tea, and sweet water. Most of the food from the Cold Food Festival has been lost to this day, but some have been passed down to this day.

Now, Zhang Lan is going to be the must-eat Qingtuanzi for the local Qingming Festival, which is not complicated to make, but it is quite good at kung fu. The Youth League is also called Ai Tuanzi, and the wormwood is commonly known as Qing, and all the dumplings made of wormwood are called Qingtuaner or Qiba'er. Li Feng helped take out the tender mugwort leaves that had been soaked for a few days, washed them and chopped them. Zhang Lan boiled water, put the chopped mugwort leaves in it, and added brown sugar to cook into a batter.

Put it in the porcelain basin and prepare it, add firewood to the pot again, simply add glutinous rice flour, and evenly, form a ball, wrap it with mugwort leaves and steam it in the pot. If you are not satisfied with such a simple taste, you can wrap it with bean paste and jujube paste, according to your personal taste. Li Feng doesn't have glutinous rice flour at home, so he has some trouble, he has to cook glutinous rice, and it's not good to cook these well. Li Feng took advantage of the time to cook the rice, and began to clean up his own stone bowl, after a while the glutinous rice was cooked, it had to be made like an adult cake, and it was a little troublesome to mix with the wormwood paste prepared earlier, but the taste was a little different, which was also the characteristic of the local Youth League.

To do this, Li Feng waited eagerly, and watched, originally, it was the best to grind glutinous rice flour from a small mill, and it was very easy to mix it, and it was okay to eat it when you wanted to put it aside, steam, or bake it. Li Feng's mill is down, and it is a little troublesome to press it, and it has to be cleaned up, so it is better to cook it like this and beat it into a cake.

Zhang Lan couldn't resist Li Feng, try to make some, whether it is delicious or not, who doesn't know. Li Feng was full of strength, but within a few minutes, the mallet couldn't pick up, although his physical strength has grown a little these days, but this is like beating rice cakes, it is really tiring work. Really, I bought some glutinous rice noodles in the town yesterday and regretted it.

Li Shan watched from the side, snatched the mallet from Li Feng's hand, stepped forward, and fought. Li Feng was a little speechless, his physical strength was quite good in college, but now it is not half a star, although he has recovered a little in the past few days, but the fact that his body is weak has not completely changed.

At noon, I tried a different kind of Qingtuan, and the taste was indeed a little different, but it was also very good, and it was stronger than it. It made Li Shanye and his wife not busy in vain, and ate several more dumplings.

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