In May, the summer harvest is in full swing, and it is finally over.

One early morning after the end of the summer busy, the ancestral hall of Lijia Village was noisy with gongs and drums, and the sound of firecrackers.

After the end of the farming work, according to the habits of the clans in the countryside, each family should choose an auspicious day of the zodiac and worship their ancestors in their ancestral hall to pray for abundant rain and abundant crops this year.

Ancestor worship is a Han tradition, and ancestor worship is also the most important custom of the Han people. Traditionally, only men of the clan are allowed to participate in the ancestral worship ceremony, and women are not allowed to participate. After all, the girl always has to get married, and she has to follow the surname of her husband's family, and after death, she also enters the cemetery of her husband's family. Although women are not allowed to participate in ancestor worship, the women of the village still gather curiously to watch the excitement.

As in previous years, Master Li, as the patriarch, presided over the entire ceremony as usual. There was no difference from the sacrifices of previous years, and the sacrificial text was recited and three sacrifices were offered. The men of the Li family in the village also bowed three times and bowed nine times to the ancestral tablet.

Compared with the old ancestor worship, the current sacrifice is a little solemn, when the ancestor worship ceremony is over, the men of the Li family did not disperse, when people are standing there, there are twelve young people silently walking to the front row, some of them are still followed by a two-year-old boy.

I don't know that since that year, there has been one more activity to worship ancestors in the countryside of Daming than in the old land - the second son leaves home.

In the Ming generation, the clan power in the countryside can be said to be deep-rooted, and it is also the basis for the imperial power to rule in the countryside.

However, all this was slowly disintegrated after the Xingqian year, and this disintegration was not the intervention of the government, but the natural retreat of clan power, and the root cause of this decline and disintegration was that a large number of young and strong men "left home and stood on their own" every year.

"Leaving home and becoming self-reliant" is not voluntary for the people, but is forced by the "primogeniture", and the adult second son must leave home and become independent.

Every year after the summer busy, all the second sons over the age of 18 in the clan have to participate in the ceremony of "leaving home and standing on their own" in front of the ancestral hall, they have to kowtow to their ancestors, and they want to express that they will not dare to forget the ancestral archway for the rest of their lives, even if they leave home, they will not do anything to shame their ancestors.

Of course, every time at this time, whether it is the eldest son who stays at home, or the second son who leaves home, he will hug his head and cry, and even worse, the eldest son will cry bitterly and can't help himself, and people are close to collapse.

People choose this day for their own purposes, leaving home in front of the ancestral shrine, so that the ancestors can be a witness, and let the ancestors bless the second sons who have left home to go well outside.

Over the past decade or so, people have gotten used to it all.

In front of the ancestral tablet, twelve young people who were about to leave home knelt there, and after praying for the blessing of their ancestors, the patriarch gave them the Li family's hall tablets one by one, telling them not to forget their own family and their ancestors. Those who are self-reliant young people, when they accept the hall card, also swear not to disgrace the clan.

After all this, it is naturally a big feast after the ancestor worship, and the men, women and children of the village gather together, in the past, this was the unity of the family, but now, this feast carries a few sorrows.

In this regard, people have long been accustomed to such a feast, the twelve young people who are about to leave home, always have to drink a few more cups, and the elders of the clan, the brothers of the clan, there will inevitably be someone to advise during the banquet, and finally, when the banquet is over, most of these young people are drunk.

Of course, during the banquet, people can also see the sad faces of these young people who are about to leave home when they are drunk.

It's not easy to leave your homeland.

What the future holds, no one knows.

At this time, the elders and brothers of the same clan often only persuade them to drink, but how can this wine hide their inner worries? And for many men who are close to adulthood, when they look at their fellow people who are about to leave, they think of themselves, and they are also inevitably worried.

At this feast, although many people were drunk, they could not hide their melancholy in their drunkenness.

At this time, the people who were drinking did not know that when they were numbing their mood with alcohol, Li Cunyi had already boarded a boat bound for Shanghai County with his wife, who had just married last year, and two small burdens on his back.

At the age of eighteen, he no longer cares about the affairs of the Li family's village, except for the wooden Li family hall card in the baggage, there is nothing to prove his relationship with the Li family. At this moment, his mind is full of longing for a new life in the future.

What will the new life look like?

Along the way, on the rickety Wupeng boat, with a yearning for the future, Li Cunyi and his wife followed the criss-crossing rivers of the south of the Yangtze River to Shanghai County, which is under the jurisdiction of Songjiang Prefecture. "Can't buy Songjiang cloth, can't collect Weitang yarn", although now machine yarn, machine cloth has replaced homespun cloth, homespun yarn, but Songjiang is still the most important cloth production area in the Ming Dynasty, hundreds of cloth factories here, the annual production of tens of millions of cotton cloth, not only for the Ming Dynasty, but also for a large number of exports overseas. Shanghai County in Songjiang Prefecture is not only an important cotton cloth production area, but also has become the most important export port of Songjiang cloth by virtue of its advantages along the river. Every year, ships from all over the world continue to transport Matsue cloth from here to all over the world.

This is also the reason why Li Cunyi came to Shanghai - it is not only a bustling and lively port city, but also an industrial city with dozens of yarn factories and cloth factories, so there are many job opportunities here, maybe Li Cunyi is only 18 years old, but through the newspaper, he knows that it is far easier to find a job here than in his hometown.

"Xiaoxi, don't worry, when we get to Shanghai, we will definitely be able to live a good life!"

Again, on the rocking Wupeng boat, Li Cunyi comforted the lady beside him.

It is not easy for an unemployed and propertyless second son to marry a wife, because the law stipulates that the second son must marry a wife for him first when he leaves home, so I don't know how many people often buy an overseas maid for him, but there are also people who do everything possible to marry a daughter-in-law for their son.

"Hmm."

Although Xiaoxi nodded, there was still worry about the future in her eyes, she was only sixteen years old, and she didn't know where the future was. Even the first time I heard about Shanghai, I heard about it from the mouths of men.

Finally, the Wupeng boat arrived in Shanghai, and the river was full of boats, although it was only a small riverside town, but it was a very different world from traditional villages and towns such as Lijia Village. Among the factories on the shore, towering chimneys spew soot, and steam engines drive yarn machines and looms, creating countless wealth for the factory owners.

All of this is unfamiliar to the newcomers Li Cunyi and his family.

"Xiaoxi, you hold my hand, can't you run away? There are so many people here......"

Li Cunyi, who was carrying the burden, held his head high nervously, holding the lady's hand in his hand, and carefully looked around the wharf, one building after another, very tall, these buildings are not seen in his hometown, even on the wall chart of social studies, it is rare, but here, one by one.

When he was on the small sampan just now, he had already seen that the wharf in front of the building near the river was full of busy laborers, carrying bags of goods onto the ship or moving them off the ship.

"Xiaoxi, you see, there is the wharf, I heard that when working on the wharf, you can earn at least two dollars of silver a day, and working for five or six days is enough to buy a stone of rice, if you work hard, you can earn six or seven taels of silver a month, which is stable!"

After that, carrying the burden on his back, Li Cunyi pointed to the chimney in the distance as he walked.

"You see, those big chimneys, that is, yarn factories or cloth factories, work in them, and the monthly salary is several taels of silver, and the two of us can earn at least 100 taels of silver a year, even if we plant dozens of acres of land, we can't earn so much silver......"

Like everyone who comes here, Li Cunyi is full of expectations for the future, and he is also full of plans, as if in his opinion, as long as he works hard, a good life is in front of him, and life should be like this.

In fact, it is true that as long as they work hard, they will always be rewarded, and every year, hundreds of thousands of young people like Li Cunyi come from the countryside to the city, and finally settle down in an unfamiliar city.

For Xianggong's words, Xiaoxi just nodded, her eyes were full of fear, and her expression looked a little uneasy.

Strange places always make people feel a little scared.

The two who came to Shanghai for the first time walked silently on the street, although they were unfamiliar with everything in Shanghai, but soon they settled down, rented a house, and soon Li Cunyi found a job, although it was only on the dock to help, but this job allowed him to fulfill his original promise, and he was able to let Xiaoxi eat and drink.

On this day, after a day's work on the wharf, Li Cunyi, who was about to buy a few catties of rice on the way home with the less than three yuan he had just received, saw many people gathered around the notice board outside the wharf. correct

"Look, look, the government is recruiting!"

"Recruiting? Who are you recruiting? ”

"Colonization, go to the northwest colonization."

"Obediently, look at what is written here, immigrants to the colony of Xinjiang, in addition to subsidizing road expenses, the government allocates 200 acres of land, and the five-year tax-free ......"

Talking nonsense, Li Cunyi exclaimed again and again. Although he had known for a long time that immigrants would be able to get a share of land, he was still surprised to see that he could get 200 acres of land.

"Xinjiang, that's too far, I heard that it is thousands of miles west than Shaanxi."

Someone on the side stared at the notice and said.

"No matter how far Xinjiang is, there can still be Nanyang Yuan, and taking the train is half a month's effort?"

Staring at the notice, Li Cunyi muttered to himself.

"Maybe it's an opportunity to go there."

Someone next to him immediately stretched his chin and said.

"That's not as good as Nanyang, in Nanyang, we grow rice and eat rice, and when we get to Xinjiang, can we grow rice and eat rice?"

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