Chapter 1005 Misguided Customs

The next day, the boat started, and the people on the shore drifted away, and the man seemed to have not returned yesterday, and was still asking for ghost stories in the street. I couldn't see the person's face clearly from a distance, but I felt that in the morning light, the back of the dew-covered and crazy man looked very lonely and desolate.

For the rest of the journey, Zhao Xing had been thinking about the arrangement of his identity, and when he returned to Chengjiaao, he only remembered that during the whole journey, the most impressive thing was the lonely back, and the scenery on both sides of the strait could not be remembered.

It was noon when the boatmen sailed into the makeshift dock. The eager boatmen insisted on sending the children home, in fact, they wanted to see the legendary Cheng Jiaao. Zhao Xing was stunned, ignoring the opposition, the children had no heart, jumped happily, and led the boatmen onto the mountain road.

Turning over the mountain, under the strong midday sun, on the opposite col, rows of brand-new brick houses stretched from the halfway up the mountain to the col, and the boatmen let out an inhalation sound, which woke Zhao Xing up in horror. He glanced at the children, and the children came to their senses and quietly surrounded the boatmen.

"Tut-tut, okay...... What a big house...... Ah, the house where the county master lives is nothing more than that. The master stood on the ridge and sighed, and suddenly realized that something was wrong.

In the Song Dynasty, the transportation was not developed, and the common people pursued the concept of "the voice of chickens and dogs heard each other, and the old and the dead did not get along", and many people did not set foot in the small village they lived in for the rest of their lives. Although the boatmen traveled from south to north, they had never seen such a whole village of brick houses. I didn't expect that in this remote and poor mountain pass, there was such a rich village hidden.

Cheng Jiaao must also be hidden now, because now that it is registered, the state government will send a squire to manage it. Only Cheng Jiaao himself became a gentry, registered with the official government, and returned to the government to be cost-effective. At the same time, Zhao Xing was reluctant to let people discover Cheng Jiaao too early, because he didn't have a suitable identity yet.

After the penny master finished sighing, he saw that Zhao Xing had already shown a fierce light, he went south and north, and his ability to observe words and emotions was not ordinary people, so he immediately got closer: "Little old man Huo Xiaoyi, that neighbor...... Ah, I once said that Cheng Jiaao's teacher knows everything about astronomy and geography - look at the ship, it's too stable! …… Do you need boatmen? The old man has been boating for 20 years and is planning to find land to live in. ”

In fact, the penny master was not old, but the wind and rain made him look like an old man.

However, compared to Zhao Xing's youth, he is qualified to call himself an old man.

Zhao Xing stared at him for a while, then suddenly beckoned, called Cheng Xia, and admonished, "Lead them to see your father." ”

With that, he took his hand and asked the master to move forward.

This is a gesture of escort, but the penny master cannot refuse.

Walking to Chengjiaao, Zhao Xing seemed to have forgotten the existence of the boatman, and walked home by himself. Cheng Xia paused for a moment, then came to his senses and escorted the boatman to the ancestral hall.

In mountain houses, the door is generally unlocked, because the people living in the village are all people with the same surname, and there will be no theft. In this environment, Zhao Xing's door was never locked. But Zhao Xing remembered that he closed the door before going out, and now the door was open, and there was a sound of sweeping in the courtyard, he stopped in surprise, listened for a moment, and walked into the courtyard without a clue, and then he saw Cheng Azhu sweeping the floor sweating profusely.

It's all from the same village, and of course he used to see Cheng Azhu. It is said that this girl is the most beautiful unmarried girl in the village, because she wants to marry a city person, Cheng Laoqi trained her very early to learn the etiquette of city people. Therefore, in a group of wild girls in the countryside, Cheng Azhu is particularly quiet.

Cheng Laoqi has no heirs, so he is in an awkward situation in the village. According to Song Dynasty law, his share of the land would be shared by Cheng Azhu with his nephew. But because Cheng Azhu was going to marry into the city, the land in the village was useless to him, Cheng Laoqi handed over the land to his nephew early to take care of, and the father and daughter lived on part of the land rent handed over by the nephew. With this money, he also had to save money to buy a dowry for his daughter, so life was a little tight.

When the village was fully converted into a brick house, Cheng Laoqi didn't even have the ability to follow the trend, but Zhao Xing couldn't look past it, so he instructed Cheng Xia to lead his classmates to rebuild Cheng Laoqi - this move alarmed the patriarch Cheng Tong.

His own people need outsiders to have mercy, which is a very humiliating behavior for Cheng Tong. Besides, his son is young, Cheng Tong is still counting on the child to be lifted in school, how can he let him do heavy physical work, so Cheng Tong gave an order, and the whole village went out to help Cheng Laoqi complete the reconstruction of the new house.

Zhao Xing had several contacts with Cheng Azhu in the old house renovation project, although in the end the clan made a lot of effort and the favor fell to the patriarch, but without Zhao Xing's reason, there would be no new house for them, so in order to thank him, Cheng Azhu made a few pairs of new shoes for Zhao Xing.

Zhao Xing didn't have a good impression of the handmade cloth shoes, and his only impression was that the stitches on the soles were very even. Considering that Cheng Laoqi's family is poor, a few pairs of uppers may have cost part of the little girl's dowry, and Zhao Xing's return gift was also very generous. For this reason, Cheng Laoqi personally came to the door to thank him several times. After going back and forth, the two sides came into contact.

Cheng Azhu is a quiet girl, Zhao Xing takes into account the other party's status as a wife, and the contact between the two parties is polite. It was from Cheng Laoqi that he learned that women in the Song Dynasty also had the right to inherit and could participate in the distribution of their father's property.

The women of the Song Dynasty were divided into maids, married women, and returning daughters. A maid is a woman who is not married, and who has equal inheritance rights with the male heirs in the distribution of property. A returning daughter is a widow who returns to her mother's house after marriage due to the death of her husband, and she is slightly inferior to a maiden in inheritance. And the number of married women is even lower, almost none.

The women of the Song Dynasty had complete control over the dowry, and after her death, if there were no children, the dowry would be returned to the mother's family, so the Song people married daughters, and the dowry was particularly rich. Many clan princes and high-ranking officials of the imperial court even borrowed money to marry daughters.

Cheng Laoqi began to accumulate dowry since his daughter's engagement, and the people in the village were very poor in the past few years, so his money accumulation was slow. After Zhao Xing brought the deep processing technology of agricultural products, Cheng Jiaao's wealth began to explode. Cheng Laoqi has more leisure time because he has no land to take care of, coupled with Zhao Xing's "policy inclination", he also quickly prepared a dowry for Cheng Azhu in this frenzy of getting rich.

In fact, Zhao Xing is quite contemptuous of Cheng Jiaao's current so-called "rich". The villagers are used to being poor, and when they suddenly have surplus money in hand, they are easy to be self-satisfied. For example: Cheng Xia is the son of the patriarch and the head of the child, so he has shares in any industry in the village, and even took his father to enjoy his success and became the richest man in the village, how much is the richest man's family wealth - 240 yuan.

As for the "second rich" Cheng Lao's second family, the wealth is even more pitiful, less than 100 yuan. At present, Cheng Laoer's new income every month is about 2 to 7 when he is full. The two richest people in the village are still like this, as for Cheng Laoqi's so-called "rich dowry", the value is 30 yuan......

In terms of days, this girl is about to get married. She and the shopkeeper have already made an appointment to get married after the autumn. Cheng Laoqi plans to go to the city to enjoy happiness after the autumn harvest.

The bride-to-be appeared in his courtyard, and Zhao Xing felt a little uncomfortable. He opened his mouth, ready to persuade Cheng Azhu to stop his busyness, but immediately found that Cheng Azhu's dress was a little wrong.