A few months later, Ma Sufeng came to the northwest of Zhejiang, that is, he returned to the place where he was told at the beginning.

Hongcun is my hometown, I am from Hongcun, so I know these stories, and I also know, my great-grandfather is said to be a native of Anhui, his ancestral home is Anqing, Anhui, and he has been a Taoist priest for several generations.

My great-grandfather was not a disciple of a big sect, and there was no Taoist number in the countryside, let alone a Taoist temple. Working in the fields during the day, he also looks at feng shui fortune-telling for others when he is not working, and occasionally there is a funeral thing to do in the village, so he will be asked to do a dharma.

It is said that the generation of our ancestors who were the first Taoist priests was because they wanted a certain craft to survive, and the Taoist profession belonged to the "three religions and nine streams" in the past.

The so-called nine-rate is talking about: first-class emperors, second-rate officials, three monks, four fifth-rate doctors, six workers, seven craftsmen, eight prostitutes, ninth-rate scholars, and ten beggars.

In this way, at least in that era, Taoist priests used to be ranked ahead of doctors, and their social status was not very low. Chinese have believed in yin and yang feng shui since ancient times, and it is not uncommon for Taoist priests to be a profession, but a Taoist priest like his great-grandfather was a part-time job at best, and his main business was still a farmer.

According to the current statement, the great-grandfather is a person with brains, and in the past there was a lack of scientific support, and ordinary people did not dare to refute what the Taoist priest said.

It is said that my great-grandfather was most famous for his ability to look at the yin house, where there is a dragon, where there is a phoenix, and where the ground will come out of the water. With this ability, our ancestors were also good in the late Qing Dynasty, at least more than the upper than the bottom, the family's land was also planted, livestock was raised, and occasionally we could go out to get a few red envelopes to subsidize the family.

In the last years of the late Qing Dynasty, there was a lot of trouble with long hair, that is, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement, because the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom stipulated that the forehead should not be shaved and the hair should not be braided. The Qing Dynasty stipulated that men must shave their forehead hair and continue to braid it. Therefore, the Taiping army was also called Changmaozi by the Qing government.

Fortunately, in the early days, the Taiping army fought against the government everywhere under the guise of opposing the Qing Dynasty and restoring the Ming Dynasty, and also pulled a large number of troops. But in the later period, the Qing government gradually grasped the initiative, and the Taiping army gradually declined.

Because of the lack of food and grass supplies, those small leaders with soldiers began to connive at their subordinates to storm people's houses, using the slogan of robbing the rich and helping the poor, and doing the work of bandits and robbers.

In order to disturb people's hearts, these guys began to slaughter town by village with knives and guns, and in this way, great-grandfather and great-grandmother began to run away with the family.

This escape fled to the northwest of Zhejiang, which is now the junction of Zhejiang and Anhui provinces.

This is a mountainous area, and there are several villages at the foot of the mountain, and I don't know how many years of history, and by the time my great-grandfather arrived, the original people here had already fled from the dead, and the huge village was empty.

Because there were ready-made houses, ready-made land, and even farming equipment, my great-grandfather and many other people who fled with him chose to settle here.

In the following years, there were some people who fled the famine, your family occupied an empty house, my family occupied a few acres of vacant land, and slowly, the number of people in this village increased, and now there are more than 200 families. There is a memorial arch at the entrance of the village, on which the word "Hongcun" is written, so our hometown has become Hongcun people.

My great-grandmother is said to be a beautiful lady, very good-looking, there was no entertainment at night in those days, and when it was dark, I could only sleep with the lamp on, and I had to do something when I slept on a kang. It is estimated that the relationship between the great-grandmother and the great-grandfather is also good, and the great-grandmother gave birth to a total of eight sons.

My grandfather, that is, my grandfather is the third in line, and I heard my father say that the average height of the eight brothers of my grandfather's generation is more than 1.8 meters, and they are burly, especially amazingly powerful.

In those days, whoever had more labor could live a good life, and they were all outsiders, and they all relied on their strength to talk about status. The eight brothers of the old Xia family, each with a tiger's back and a bear's waist, it is said that they have to eat more than 20 catties of cornmeal for a meal.

As soon as the population was large, the family did not have enough food to eat, so the great-grandfather divided the family among his eight sons. Relying on their good physical condition, that era was a troubled time, the eight brothers gradually became a bully, bullying the neighbors is a matter of time, occasionally going over the Tianmu Mountains with high mountains and dense forests to Anhui to rob houses, but that is all in the past, there are friends in Anhui do not hold grudges.

My grandmother was snatched back by them, she was only fifteen years old at the time, and she was said to be a young lady of a landlord's family. The eight brothers drew lots, and my grandfather won the lottery, and she married my grandfather.

Later, the government began to crack down on bandits, and four of the eight brothers were shot, and three were arrested, leaving only my grandfather to hide in the ravine for seven days and seven nights, and survived by gnawing tree roots and drinking raw water.

When my great-grandfather saw that his son had become like this, he felt that he still had to let his grandfather learn a trade, and he couldn't go out to do evil anymore, so he passed on all the ways he knew to my grandfather, and in fact, he learned a little bit of fur.

My grandfather had my father, and my father had me.

When my father was sensible, it was the outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War, and there was chaos everywhere, but fortunately, Hongcun was located in the middle of nowhere, and he was able to get peace. It is said that the Japanese also fought in the past, and the nearest time it was only ten miles away from Hongcun, and it may be that the endless mountains confused the Japanese, and they could not have imagined that there would be a village in that kind of place, so Hongcun escaped in this way.

My father inherited my grandfather's physique, but he did not inherit my grandfather's business. In his words, my grandfather's set of things was feudal superstition, and their father and son had incompatible personalities since childhood, and my grandmother died very young, and my father was only nine years old that year.

My grandfather was a bandit bully when he was young, and his temper was naturally not much better, so neither father nor son refused to bow his head, and by the time my father was twelve years old, he had already begun to live.

Hongcun is rich in yellow clay, which is extremely sticky, and the locals use this mud to build houses, that is, adobe houses.

When my father was old enough to start a family, my grandfather gave him a piece of homestead, and at that time, Lao Tzu had to do two most important things for his son: build a house and ask for a wife. My father didn't let my grandfather worry about these two things, he went to the ground during the day and built a house by touching the moon at night.

My father felt that he wanted to get ahead, he didn't want to build an adobe house, he wanted to build a brick house.

Back then, when my great-grandfather came over, there was indeed a very beautiful house in Hong Village. The horse-head wall, the large courtyard, the two-storey building, the north and south three bays, the gate alone is magnificent enough, and the rivets on it are like the official yamen shining. The threshold children need to be carried by adults to pass, and at a glance you can know which landlord's house is in the previous dynasty.

Great-grandfather was one of the first people to go to Hong Village, and it is said that he should be able to choose such a house, anyway, the huge village is empty, and whoever robs it is considered to be his. But my great-grandfather didn't, he picked an ordinary adobe house, and he said that there were no people in the house, and whoever went in it was unlucky.

If there is such a "mansion" resting there, everyone will be red-eyed, don't you? Well, there are so many people who want it!

At that time, there was a family that moved from the current Xianju in Zhejiang, a couple plus three children, the man turned out to be a butcher, a craft of killing pigs, not afraid of heaven and earth, and he looked like five big and three thick, with a beard.

At that time, there were no laws and regulations, and in such chaotic years, it was natural that whoever was ruthless was the uncle. Great-grandfather with such a large group of sons was naturally a big family in the village, and he didn't want the house, so the pig killer naturally moved his mind.

A bloodletting dagger was thrust into the door, and two big knives for deboning and chopping meat were placed on the threshold, standing at the gate and shouting in his throat: "This house, I want the second child, if anyone has an opinion, pull out the knife and go in to reason with me." ”

In this way, the pig killer Qi Lao Er took the family into the house, and the great-grandfather shook his head and said: "This family is too long." ”

One day, there was a family in the village to have a happy event, and everyone went to join in the fun, and the people who had good things went to ask their great-grandfather: "What's wrong with that house?" ”

At the table next to my great-grandfather was the butcher Qi Er, who was the only one in the village who was a little scared of my great-grandfather, because the eight bastard sons of the Lao Xia family were famous. Qi Lao Er is a ruthless character at best, but the old Xia family are completely unreasonable villains, saying that burning your house tonight will definitely not be late until tomorrow morning.

Great-grandfather was not a troubled man, and after drinking a few more glasses of wine that day, he said to the man who asked him: "If you live in it, you will have to fight the corpse within three days, but he can last half a year." ”