Since ancient times, the imperial court could only govern the prefecture and county, and the vast countryside below the prefecture and county level was governed by the gentry.

The five-level structure of the imperial court, the magistrate, the squire, the patriarch, and the patriarch constituted a strict patriarchal system, which also made the society extremely stable and unchanged for thousands of years.

This Fan Tieniu incident is a conflict between the Fan family and the Lu family, which is related to the two families, so it is up to the squire to mediate.

There are two modes of squire mediation, one is to find a squire who is mutually agreeable.

The other model is to find a few squires on each side, and everyone sits together to judge.

If you are in the same village, most of them choose the first mode, but if you are in different villages, or even different towns, they generally follow the second mode.

Tanbaiwan Village belongs to Hengtang Township, and Jiangwan Village belongs to Mudu Township, and the two families can't find a squire who is jointly recognized, so they can only choose the second model.

Since Fan Tieniu is in Baiwan Village, the mediation place can only be in Hengtang Township, in Lizheng Zhou Shuigen's house.

There were several large tables in the courtyard, several benches were arranged in a circle, and several old men wearing fur hats and satin jackets sat on the benches and chatted, and tea, melon seeds and snacks were placed on the table.

A chubby middle-aged man who looked quite lively was holding a plate of good snacks and sweets, and invited several old people to enjoy it with a smile on his face, and talked to them from time to time.

This lively chubby middle-aged man is Fan Tieniu's father-in-law, Lu Yuanwai, who has 600 acres of land and seven or eight cows in his family, and is the landlord of Tanbaiwan Village, and his family is very large, and there are relatives of their family everywhere in Hengtang Township.

Lu Yuanwai's family has a lot of property, and the only regret is that he has no son, only one daughter.

In rural areas south of the Yangtze River, this kind of family usually recruits sons-in-law.

Lu Yuanwai has been paying attention to his son-in-law since ten years ago.

In a rush, he happened to meet Fan Tieniu who helped him carry the burden home, and he fell in love with Fan Tieniu at a glance, he was honest, had a good personality, and was relatively easy to control.

What's more, Fan Tieniu is strong!

A person carried a two-hundred-pound burden and walked a few miles to send him home, and he didn't breathe for a while.

Lu Yuanwai found Fan Dachuan, Fan Dachuan happened to be worried about his youngest son's going to school in the county, the two sides hit it off, Lu Yuanwai took out a dowry of two hundred taels of silver, and the two parties made a marriage contract, just like that, Fan Tieniu came to Lu's house to be a son-in-law.

In the countryside of Wu County, there are really a lot of sons-in-law, but there is a characteristic of recruiting sons-in-law, the two sides must not be the right person, generally the woman is rich and the man is poor, and the economic foundation determines the family status.

Therefore, the son-in-law will generally bow his head honestly, and the father-in-law will beat him twice, and the mother-in-law will scold a few words, which is also commonplace.

The problem is that the Fan family is also a small landlord, Fan Dachuan has 80 acres of land, and there is a big Fan family in Mudu Town, although Fan Tieniu is honest and weak, but he also has the dignity of a child of a big family in his heart.

So he couldn't stand the kind of discrimination from his son-in-law, and he couldn't stand the fact that his father-in-law always yelled at him and beat him, and fled home two times in three days, and then the Fan family sent him back again, and negotiated a few words by the way.

After a long time, the Lu family also felt that they had no face, and Lu Yuanwai was a mean person, and the small family was very angry, so it was usually enough to find a son-in-law with fifty or sixty yuan, but the Fan family asked him for two hundred taels of silver, which made Lu Yuanwai very unhappy.

Lu Yuanwai has been thinking about the more than 100 taels of silver he spent, and he wants to earn his money back, so he calls Fan Tieniu like a cow.

In this way, contradictions accumulate day by day.

The fuse of this contradiction is that Fan Tieniu wants his daughter to have his surname, he thinks that his son is already surnamed Lu, and what his daughter's surname is is not important to the Lu family, but for himself, it is a way to regain his dignity.

In order to coax Fan Tieniu to plant 200 acres of land, Lu Yuanwai agreed to him, but when the autumn harvest came, Lu Yuanwai found that Fan Tieniu could plant another 100 acres of land, so he repented and did not admit that he had promised Tie Tieniu.

The honest man was enraged, and the contradictions accumulated over the years broke out.

On the other side of the courtyard, Fan Dachuan was sitting precariously, and his four sons stood behind him, they didn't say a word, their faces were serious, in stark contrast to the lively Lu Yuanwai.

Patriarch Fan Dazhi sat on the other side, looking very uncomfortable, he actually didn't want to come, but for the sake of face, he didn't want to come.

He thinks that Fan Dachuan is to blame for this matter, why should the dignified Fan family be a son-in-law for others, and it will also affect the reputation of the Fan family.

At this time, Li Zheng Zhou Shuigen came out, Li Zheng was mainly responsible for collecting taxes from the government, but if there was a conflict between the villagers, he would make a match, ask the squire to mediate, and then sign as a witness.

Zhou Shuigen clapped his hands and said, "Since everyone is here, let's start!" ”

He looked at the two families, there were too many Lu families, dozens of men's, women's and women's football players came, while the Fan family only came four or five people, which seemed very asymmetrical.

Zhou Shuigen smiled and said, "Both sides have invited the squire!" ”

What he meant was that the matter was judged by the squire, and no one else should intervene.

Lu Yuanwai hurriedly got up and introduced the squire he invited, "This is Li Yuanwai, this is Wang Yuanwai, and Zhao Yuanwai, all of whom are highly respected squires." ”

Several old men nodded slowly, and the shelves were fully arranged.

Zhou Shuigen asked Fan Dachuan again, "May I ask ..... the squire invited by Fan Yuan?"

Fan Dachuan pointed to Fan Dazhi next to him, "This is our patriarch, and he came to mediate for the Fan family." ”

As soon as the words fell, Lu Yuanwai's brother jumped up, "It's not okay to do this, our Lu family invites foreign surnames, and there is a conflict between the two families, how can there be a reason to ask your own people to judge." ”

It really makes sense, and the Fan family looked at each other, and they found that they had made a mistake.

At this time, Zhou Shuigen said to the patriarch Fan Dazhi: "Outside of Fan, let's take a step to speak." ”

The two went to the side and muttered for a while, and Fan Dazhi came over and said to Fan Dachuan: "Second brother, it is indeed inconvenient for me to come forward to be a mediator, but I can help you talk about it, just take it as the opinion of the Fan family." ”

The situation changed abruptly, and the three squires in charge of mediation were all invited by the Lu family, and the Fan family lost the right to speak.

Fan Tiezhou frowned, and said to Zhou Shuigen: "Otherwise, we will come to mediate tomorrow." ”

Fan Dachuan waved his hand, "No, just today, solve the matter, and we'll go back!" ”

Fan Dachuan was a little impatient, he also thought that his third son was too squeamish, and he ran home at every turn, not like a door-to-door son-in-law.

Especially last night's Fan Ning's analysis, he understood that the Lu family did not want to divorce, and if the other party's request was not too much, he was ready to agree.

Zhou Shuigen said with a smile: "Since both sides agree, let's start, this mediation was proposed by Lu Yuanwai, and Lu Yuanwai will say first, what is the attitude of the Lu family?" ”

"We insist on a divorce!"

The one who spoke was Lu Yuanwai's brother, called Lu Ashui, who was originally a lawyer, and now works as a clerk in the Wuxian County Government, who can speak well and is very shrewd, and the list that the Lu family took out was drafted by him.

"We feel that Fan Tieniu doesn't have the heart to be the son-in-law of the Lu family, and he runs back to his parents' house at every turn, our Lu family is talked about, as if we abuse Fan Tieniu, we are also cheeky people, we can't afford to lose people, since Fan Tieniu doesn't want to be a son-in-law, then divorce."

Zhou Shuigen nodded, and said to Fan Dachuan again: "What about the attitude of the Fan family?" ”

The Fan family is dealt with by the fourth Fan Tongzhong, he is a showman, he reads the most, and he is more able to speak.

In fact, the second Fan Tiege felt that it was better to let Fan Ning come forward, but Fan Dachuan and Fan Tiezhou disagreed, Fan Dachuan felt that the child would be laughed at, and Fan Tiezhou did not want his son to be involved in this matter.

Fan Tongzhong walked out and said unhurriedly: "Being a door-to-door son-in-law has the rules of being a door-to-door son-in-law, I didn't say that casually beating and scolding and not giving food should be borne by the door-to-door son-in-law, my third brother was abused by the Lu family, this is a fact, and the Lu family cannot deny this." ”

Lu Ashui snorted, "The son-in-law is half a son, since he is raised as a son, when he is disobedient, isn't it normal for his mother-in-law to scold a few words?" Which door-to-door son-in-law is not scolded, since Fan Tieniu can't stand a few words of scolding, then don't be this door-to-door son-in-law, divorce! My brother and sister-in-law are both old, and they can't stand such a strong son-in-law. ”

The Lu family's strategy is very clear, which is to force the Fan family to divorce and seize the weaknesses of the Fan family.

Zhou Shuigen looked at Patriarch Fan Dazhi, "What about Patriarch Fan's opinion?" ”

Fan Dazhi said slowly: "I also agree to divorce!" ”

Fan Tiezhou glanced at his father in surprise, how did his father talk to the patriarch, talk about divorce before he has the upper hand morally, and he will suffer a big loss in the end.

Fan Dachuan didn't say anything, in fact, he and Fan Dazhi had a quarrel this morning, he blamed the family for not caring about him, and Fan Dazhi blamed him for messing around, giving his son to others as a son-in-law, and losing the face of the entire Fan family.

So Fan Dazhi also came with anger, he only had one attitude, divorce, dissolution of this marriage, as for the price of dissolving this marriage, that is Fan Dachuan's business, and it has nothing to do with him.

Fan Dachuan also sighed and said: "Since this marriage makes everyone unhappy, it's okay to leave." ”

Lu Yuanwai and his brother exchanged a look, they were proud in their hearts, everything was implemented according to their steps, there were a few squires behind to support, this time their Lu family won.