On April 20, the thirteenth year of Hongzhi, it was a good day for more than 500 men, women and children in Hejia Village, and after nearly 90 days of hard work, the reservoir was finally completed.

A stage has been erected on a vacant lot next to the dam of the reservoir, where a ceremony for the completion of the reservoir will be held today. After the ceremony, the troupe will be invited to sing a big drama for a day. Next to this stage is a huge stele, and on its back is a stone tablet hunched over, covered with a red silk cloth.

Just after the hour, adults and children came here one after another holding benches and futons. The adults were all smiling and greeting each other happily, while the children chased and ran under the stage, playing and laughing. Today, there is a special day off in the school hall, and there are a lot of children.

He Shaoyun and He Zhiyuan, father and son, both changed into new clothes today, He Shaoyun was wearing a brand-new gray cloth robe, and a new "six-in-one hat" was on his head; He Zhiyuan wore a blue Confucian shirt and a black hat.

Today is also an important day for He Zhiyuan, on the seventh day of the first month, he has been waking up for more than three months, and in these three months, the reservoir has been repaired, a new soap workshop has been built, and production has begun, and the 100-person escort team has been trained with small achievements. The school started teaching mathematics to the children, and received support from everyone.

Each of these things was brought about under his influence, and there are his merits. For more than three months, the village has undergone new changes every day, and there is a thriving scene everywhere. Everyone is full of gratitude and trust for He Zhiyuan.

At two o'clock, the father and son sat down at the long table on the stage, and there were seven or eight people sitting on the stage, all of whom were village elders, except for him, a fourteen-year-old child.

The patriarch who presided over the ceremony saw that the villagers were almost here, so he walked to the stage, coughed twice, and said, "Fellow villagers, after three months of construction, the reservoir in our village is about to be completed. Now, please go to the dam and fill in the last shovel of soil. ”

At this time, seven or eight clan elders and He Zhiyuan all came to the dam with a shovel. A small pit has been reserved at the top of the dam with some soil next to it.

Old man He Sen took two scoops, one scoop was half a scoop of silkworm chrysalis, and the other scoop was half a scoop of millet. First, the silkworm chrysalis is poured into the soil pit, and then the millet is poured into the soil pit, which means that the dam is eternal, and then everyone shovels the soil together, fills the pit, and then shoots it with a shovel. At this point, the dam was officially completed, and then, firecrackers rang out and gongs and drums were loud to celebrate the official completion of the dam.

When the firecrackers stopped, everyone returned to the stage. Patriarch Wang walked to the stage again and said: "This time to build the reservoir, He Shaoyun and his son He Zhiyuan have made a lot of contributions, without He Zhiyuan's original idea of the flood ditch, there would be no current reservoir." Later, in order to speed up the progress and expand the scale, the He family took out more than 6,000 taels of silver and hired Ding Zhuang to build the reservoir, which was a great achievement and a great benefactor of our village. Now please ask Old Man He Sen and He Lichang to unveil the merit monument together. ”

He Sen and He Shaoyun walked off the stage again, came to the monument, the two stood on both sides, and gently pulled the red silk cloth, and the merit monument was revealed. I saw that the full text on the stele is as follows:

Hejia Village, my hometown, Zhong Lingyu is beautiful, and the folk customs are simple. Generations of hard work, diligent and sluggish. However, there is water in the east neighbor of the township, and its nature is strange and unpredictable, and the drought and flood are unbalanced, and it is often a disaster to the acres of land. The villagers have been suffering for a long time! My ancestors tried to raise funds to build a dam on it, in order to straighten out the flood, but there was no half of the effect, alas, painful! It is the long-cherished dream of our ancestors and the vision of a hundred generations to rejuvenate the livelihood of the villagers and restore the livelihood of the villagers.

Panlong Wu Township, outstanding people; In the prosperous era, the tiger roars and the dragon roars. The wise man, He Zhiyuan, is talented, wise and wise, and proposed to build a reservoir and a flood discharge ditch on the side of the dam, so that the flood can be cured. His father, Shaoyun, received more than 6,000 taels of silver, and 2,132 Zhuang Ding, and slept at night, which lasted more than 80 days, and the reservoir was completed. Since then, floodgates have been opened for irrigation and floods have been lowered to store floodwater. Flood cure!

My township is a virtuous He father and son, thinking of its benefits, and its benefits to the neighbors; On its merits, its merits are in the contemporary, and its benefits are in the future.

Drinking water and thinking of the source, its grace dare not be forgotten. In order to show the virtue of virtue for the benefit of the people, and praise the wisdom of the people to remove the flood. The inscription of Nale stone, describing its affairs, carving its name, showing its merits, and showing its deeds, for future generations to admire!

The thirteenth year of the Ming Dynasty

After the unveiling was completed, Patriarch Wang continued: "Next, I would like to invite the birthday star of our village, the elder surnamed He to say a few words to you." ”

Old man He Sen walked to the front of the stage and said loudly: "Folks, the He family moved from the eighteenth village of Haidong, Jiangsu Province to settle here in the third year of Hongwu, and there were only seven or eight families at that time. A full 130 years have passed now. The village is short of water almost every year, because the harvest in the fields is not good, and almost every family is starving. For as long as I can remember, dolls have starved to death almost every year. Speaking of this, He Sen choked up for a while, and some people in the audience couldn't help but cry silently.

After a pause, He Sen continued: "Building the reservoir has become the dream of four or five generations of people in our village. More than 60 years ago, it was Shaoyun's grandfather's generation, Shaoyun's grandfather took everyone to repair a whole winter, and after the New Year, he repaired a spring, and finally built a reservoir, but that year the rain was heavy, and the water overflowed the dam embankment at night, the dam collapsed, the village was flooded, and seven or eight people died. Since then, it has been repaired several times, but the result has been unsuccessful, and it has caused flooding. ”

"It's finally been fixed this year! The reservoir is more than twice as large as it was 65 years ago, and the embankment is tall and thick. It is guaranteed to withstand the rain this summer. Our village will have a good harvest in the future, and we will hopefully never go hungry again! This is all thanks to the blessing of the Shaoyun family! Everyone should tell the children about this, so that the children and grandchildren of our village will remember Shaoyun and Zhiyuan, father and son! ”

Next, Patriarch Wang invited He Shaoyun to speak in front of the stage. Last night, He Zhiyuan's father and son had already discussed the content of the speech.

He Shaoyun walked to the front of the stage and said to everyone: "Fellow villagers, thank you for your love for our father and son, He Mou just did such a small thing for the village, how can He De let everyone erect a monument to praise...... I would like to take this opportunity to tell you two more things. First, the soap workshop will be expanded so that other laborers in our village, including women, can work in the workshop. Each has a salary of at least three taels of silver, so that every family can ensure that they have no worries about food and clothing even if they do not farm. The second thing is that the school hall in our village will be relocated to the west of the village in the future, build a few more houses, and invite a few gentlemen, so that the children in the village can go to school and have books to read. As for the fees, only the book fee will be charged, and the other expenses will be borne by our He family. ”

Hearing these two good news, the villagers in the audience cheered again. Then the royal patriarch announced: "The ceremony is over, and now the troupe is invited to perform on stage." ”

Suddenly, the whole village was once again plunged into a sea of joy......

In the evening, He Zhiyuan and his father began to discuss the construction of a new school hall at home. He Zhiyuan said: "Dad, now that Miss Zhou has been teaching in the school, should she also invite him to come over to discuss the new school?" ”

"Miss Zhou is a young woman, and it is a little inappropriate to invite her to come and discuss together in the evening."

"It doesn't matter, Miss Zhou is an enlightened woman, she can be a bookkeeper and a husband, how can she be so polite. If you don't think it's right, you can ask Vanilla and Yueji to come together. ”

After He Shaoyun agreed, He Zhiyuan got up and went to invite Zhou Fuliu.

After everyone sat down again, He Shaoyun said: "I invite my niece to come here today to discuss the new school hall together. You are all already teaching in the academy, what do you think, talk about it and discuss it together. ”

He Zhiyuan first said: "Dad, I think we will build a bigger school hall this time, our village now has more than 100 children who need to go to school, and the workshop will be expanded in the future, it is estimated that a large number of other villagers will move to live, so that the population of our village will continue to increase in the past two years." Naturally, the more children will need to go to school, and this will have to be built at least three times the size of the current one. ”

"Three? How much silver does it cost to build? That's too big, isn't it? He Shaoyun exclaimed.

"Father, it's not a big deal. If you build a house with earth and stone, it doesn't cost much. I calculated that it would take about ten acres of land. Build five classrooms, two gentlemen's offices, you can. If you add teaching utensils, tables and chairs, etc., it will cost about five hundred taels of silver. ”

He Shaoyun heard that it only cost five hundred taels of silver, but he didn't think it was too much. But if this was more than three months ago, he wouldn't have dared to think about it, let alone say yes. But now soap is in short supply, and the daily profit is more than five hundred taels, so this amount of money is really not much for him, and he can accept it.

Zhou Fuliu said: "There are more students, and the number of gentlemen who teach also needs to increase, if it is divided into five classrooms, at least one gentleman should be hired in each classroom." ”

"But now Mr. is not easy to invite, since Mr. Wang left, no one has come to be Mr. anymore." He Shaoyun sighed.

"That's because we have less money and high requirements, since Li Huaicai's incident, who still comes here to teach? If you want me to say, if you are willing to spend silver, there will definitely be gentlemen, generally gentlemen are two taels of silver per month, let's simply mention five taels. In addition, I hired a curator who was responsible for supervising and the daily affairs of the museum, and gave ten taels of silver every month. In addition, this gentleman doesn't need to be all talented, I think it's okay for children. ”

"Well, five gentlemen and a curator are more than 400 taels of silver a year, and the red envelopes for the New Year and festivals will not exceed 600 taels of silver at most. If so, there will definitely be a rush of applicants. But I don't have to find a gentleman who teaches mathematics. He Shaoyun said worriedly.

Zhou Fuliu said: "This matter is also easy to do, it will take at least three months from the construction of the new school to the opening of the museum, we might as well start recruiting gentlemen now, and when they come, they will learn mathematics first, and then choose the right gentleman to teach mathematics." ”

"Yes, that's the way to do it." He Zhiyuan said. He thought about the time in his previous life, when the teacher took advantage of the vacation to train. You might as well learn this method and train your sir beforehand.

"Also, the question of the selection of the curator." He Shaoyun said.

"Dad, I have a very suitable candidate, but I'm afraid that people won't come."