The second is (seafood) is divided into four, six or eight styles, all kinds of styles and quantities depending on the man's economic situation, of course, like the Ming Riding Captain, the son of the four official family of the central government, naturally chooses the eight styles, and each standard selection is usually divided into two packages.

Among them, fat cabbage is the necessary first ingredient to take its meaning of wealth, and other seafood have; Abalone, oysters, scallops, shiitake mushrooms, dried shrimps, squid, sea cucumbers, shark fins and fish maw, etc.

The next is both; Two pairs of chickens, two males and two females (if the parents are incomplete, one pair of chickens is enough), and three to five catties of pork from double fly (like only fly), that is, one piece is connected to open two, in order to express rich and sincere respect.

There are also (fish) selection of big fish or dace, which is intended to be fishy (sound), and also means that there is a head and a tail every year, and (coconut) two pairs (parents are not all available for a pair), that is, there is a father (coconut) has the meaning of a son, and (wine) four cans, indicating that love is strong.

This is followed by fruit gifts (Sijing fruit); Dried longan, dried lychee, dried peach and shelled peanuts are used to bless the newlyweds to be prosperous in the future, and also contain the meaning of perfection and blessings, as well as the meaning of (fruit) meaning that life is vigorous and violent, of which (four-color sugar) both; Rock sugar, orange cake, winter melon candy, and golden cocoon mean sweet and white-headed to old.

In addition, it is equipped with (tea, sesame) because seeds must be used to grow tea, so tea is used as a gift, which is a metaphor for a woman once she signs a marriage contract, she must be trustworthy and have no regrets, implying "oil hemp tea ceremony".

Finally, (the gift box) contains; lotus seeds, lilies, green wisps, cypresses, betel coconuts, sesame seeds, red beans, mung beans, red dates, dried walnuts, dried longan, as well as red bean rope, lai see, bride gold, ornament gold, dragon and phoenix candles and a couplet and incense cannon bracelet gold, both; Incense (boneless stealing feet green), cannon (firecrackers and artillery), bracelet (dragon and phoenix pairs of bracelets), but also equipped with two buckets of rice, the man also has to prepare twelve catties of glutinous rice, three catties of two taels of sugar, which is for the woman's family to make glutinous rice balls to eat, in order to take the meaning of the family's complete sweetness.

After the things are prepared, the Shaoqing of the Ming Xing Taifu Temple will take these dowry gifts and a pair of male and female (wild geese) into Beijing to visit His Majesty the Emperor's family, because the dowry is too much, so the sedan chair is parked in front of the Zhou Mansion to hold gifts, and fifty family members and one hundred and twenty sedan chair men are sent to carry the sedan chair to the You'anmen outside the city of Beijing.

Along the way, the family members of the Zhou Mansion and the sedan chair drivers walked on the street, and were pointed at by a small number of people, saying, "Look, there is a sedan chair in the Zhou Mansion?" Do they still dare to come out and walk? ”

The onlookers carefully counted the number of sedan chairs, there were fifteen, and each sedan chair was carried by eight people, and they walked through the market to the city gate before they were waved down by the guards and asked, "Stop!" Which official's sedan chair is you? Please show the token? ”

After being stopped from the sedan chair, Shaoqing of Mingxing Taifu Temple hurriedly lifted the curtain, walked out with a token, and said, "This is the old man's sedan chair, why do you have to check it?" ”

The guards of the Ming army saw that it was the official token of the fourth grade, so they let them go and let them enter You'anmen, but they detained half of the family members! Only ten family members were let in, and Shaoqing of Mingxing Taifu Temple knew that the rules of the capital were not pursued.

They followed the corridor of the capital from the Daming Gate to the Chengtian Gate of the inner city, and then officially entered the Forbidden City Palace from the noon gate of the imperial city, and went straight to the palace of the heart of His Majesty to give a dowry ceremony.

At this moment, a young eunuch outside the Heart Cultivation Hall hurriedly ran over and knocked down the palace maid who was sweeping the floor, so frightened that the palace maid hurriedly got up and scolded secretly: "This little pure son, what's wrong with this today?" Running as fast as hell? It also hit my back to death! ”

I saw this eunuch running to the Yangxin Hall to open the door, and as soon as he broke into the palace, he was commanded by the Ming Wuxiang left guard who was standing guard: Xu Ji and Ming Tengxiang's right guard commander: Chu Changding, the two of them pulled out their sabers and stopped him with the rest of the guards, and His Majesty the Emperor, who was alarmed, asked at the bend below the hall, "Why is it so noisy?" ”

The young eunuch shouted, "Your Majesty, the little slave has something to report!" ”

On the top of the main hall, Ming Yi Zongxuan, who was wearing a black gauze crown and a hairpin, announced that he came in, and the eunuch who strode up to the hall said: "Long live the Emperor, Lord Shaoqing of the Taifu Temple brought the dowry with the family and the palanquin men and put it in the side hall!" Long live the Lord, do you want to meet Lord Shaoqing of Xingtaifu Temple? ”

This can be said to have gone to the heart of His Majesty the Emperor, he has long wanted to see how this in-laws are doing? Will you contribute? Then he put down the fold and got up and said, "Let's go with me, go and see Zhou Qing's house!" ”

But the eunuch said, "Your Majesty, as the king of a country, you still have a lot of things to deal with, so should you leave it to the little slave?" ”

It just so happened that Ming Yizong also had some twists and turns that were not approved, so he asked the eunuch to go out of the palace instead of himself to go to the Zhou Mansion, and the young eunuch went all the way out of the imperial city, the inner city, and the outer city to the market outside the Jingshi, looking at the people coming and going, this eunuch was a little excited! Thought; Since entering the palace when he was ten years old, he has never seen a lively scene outside! This sight made him miss it very much.

Because this eunuch did not leave the palace alone, he was accompanied by some eunuchs with gifts, and there was a task in leaving the palace this time, so he didn't dare to delay time, so he grabbed a random person and asked: "Our family asks you, how to go to the mansion of Lord Zhou of Shaoqing of this Taifu Temple?" ”

The people who were questioned saw that he was a man of the palace? A little scared, he pointed to the front tremblingly and said, "From here, go straight and turn left, and you will arrive." ”

Knowing where the Zhou Mansion was located, the eunuch let go of his hand and strode towards the Zhou Mansion, and when he walked to the door, the gatekeeper saw that a eunuch was coming? hurriedly stepped forward and saluted, "The little one has seen my father-in-law, I don't know why my father-in-law came?" ”

The arrogant eunuch pouted and said, "Our family is at the behest of His Majesty the Emperor and came to give back the dowry to the Zhou Mansion. ”

The family hurriedly ran into the mansion to inform the Zhou family's son, Ming Riding Captain: Zhou Xian, before coming out of the mansion, the eunuchs waiting here saw a tall and mighty man, walked out and saluted very politely, "Riding Captain: Zhou Xian, I have seen my father-in-law!" Everyone, after a hard journey, please come in and have a cup of tea and rest. ”

Seeing that the son of the Zhou family was so polite, the eunuchs had to go into the mansion to hand over the dowry to the family, sit down in the lobby and taste tea for a while, and handed the appointment slip over to the Ming Riding Lieutenant to watch.

After taking the order, he took a closer look at the dowry on it, including half of the things sent by his own house, as well as a lot of tea and fruits, and; A pair of lotus root, taro, and pomegranate.

And equipped with (He Wei scarf trousers) means longevity, (a pair of rich shoes) means the same (shoes) to old age, and cypress, ginger, tea fried pile, muffin cake, betel coconut (one each) means Yilang to the end.

Looking at the appointment list on this, the commander was very satisfied, and informed the eunuchs of the date of marriage, and said, "Please also ask your father-in-law to go back and tell Your Majesty, and then the general will definitely greet Her Royal Highness the princess with the most solemn ceremony." ”

The eunuchs clapped their hands and praised: "Her Royal Highness the princess and the captain of the cavalry are really a natural pair!" Let's go back and report to Your Majesty and the Queen Mother, and say goodbye! ”

In this way, the Ming Cavalry Captain sent the eunuch out of the Zhou Mansion with a smile, and after the eunuchs left, the Ming Cavalry Captain continued to be busy.

Until noon, the sky began to have a little fog to block the sun, Ming Taifu Temple Shaoqing sat in a sedan chair is going back to the house in the second passing by the market, because the sedan chair is very comfortable, so Ming Taifu Temple Shaoqing closed his eyes and began to sleep, the sedan chair drivers walked about twenty steps or so, and suddenly the sedan chair stopped moving?

The sedan drivers in the back also asked, "What's wrong with you?" Get up, get up! ”

Shaoqing, who was woken up by this shout, said, "What's going on outside?" Why didn't the sedan chair go? One of the accompanying family members came over and replied, "If you go back to your lordship, there is a sedan chair driver here who seems to have eaten something bad?" Vomiting all the time, you see this? ”

Hear someone vomiting? Ming Taifu Temple Shaoqing felt that something was wrong? "When did this happen?" he asked. The palanquin drivers around him said, "In the morning, we saw that he was tickling all the time and had chills, and he thought it was a disease of wind chills?" We didn't notice that he was like that now! Do you want to find another sedan chair driver? ”

Shaoqing of the Ming Taifu Temple, who was sitting in the sedan chair, felt a little unlucky, so he said, "Okay, I'm looking for one!" Give him ten coins of copper. ”

The family walked over and took out ten copper plates from his chest and threw them on the ground, but the sedan chair man who was squatting and vomiting suddenly raised his head, his face was pale and his head kept shaking, and he said in his mouth, "Ah! It hurts, it hurts! Feeling uncomfortable. Then he lay down on the ground and rolled around.

The more you look at it, the more scary it becomes! The palanquin man next to him said, "Don't you look unwell?" It's a bit like the epidemic circulating in the county next door, quite similar? ”

The rest of the palanquin drivers asked, "Really?" I saw the sedan chair man say solemnly, "I heard from the residents of Fangshan County next door who fled to our Liangxiang County that an official in their county was drinking tea with his colleagues one moment ago, and then died suddenly the next moment?" It is even said that the two people rode and chatted one after the other, and the person behind had just finished talking a few words and asked the person in front, only to find that this person had died in the saddle! ”

Of course, the most chilling thing is the strange death of two thieves, there is a rich family in Quyang County, Zhending Prefecture, Beizhili, whose whole family died in the epidemic, and two thieves in nearby counties passed by here to make a windfall, the two agreed to answer on an eaves, and one went down to the room to hand over the stolen things, but the person below suddenly died suddenly with the bag, and the person above was also infected with the plague when he was killed, and the two thieves were still holding the stolen burden in their hands when they died.

This can't help but remind a Zhou family member that on the wedding day of the cousin of Taiyuan Fuxing County, the secretary of the Chengxuan Political Department in Shanxi Province, the newlyweds died suddenly at the wedding when they were married.

Then the palanquin man continued: "I also heard that Wu Yansheng, the magistrate of Qingxian County, Hejian Prefecture, Beizhili, because someone in the court promoted him to Zhizhou, and when he was just about to go to Wenzhou Mansion, the secretary of Chengxuan, Zhejiang, one of his servants died mysteriously? He ordered another servant to go to the coffin shop to buy a coffin, but he did not return for a long time, and when he inquired, he learned that the servant had died in the coffin shop. ”

Another palanquin driver said, "This thing seems to have happened once, too?" There is a newlywed couple in Qingdu County, Baoding Prefecture, Beizhili, it is my nephew After their wedding, the couple sat in the tent for a long time and did not come out, and the next people went to open the tent to see, only to find that the two of them had died at both ends of the bed! I was amazed when I received the letter from my eldest brother! ”

Listening to what they said, it made the Shaoqing of the Ming Taifu Temple and the Zhou family feel that this sedan chair man was suffering from the epidemic? Although I am not sure, the sedan chair drivers still left far away, and some even ran away on the spot without rewarding the silver!