"Frost" is coming, and the croppers are busy again after enjoying the simple autumn leisure. The golden millet in the paddy field must be harvested and returned to the warehouse in the next few days, otherwise, after the "frost" season, the millet will begin to fall off the rice stalks. As the saying goes, "If you don't beat the grass after the 'frost', the mu of land will drop a basket overnight" is what it means. Rice is like this, the camellia peach on the mountain is also seasonal, a few days before the "frost" is the best time to pick the camellia peach, after this best time, the tea peach shell will burst by itself, and the tea seeds will fall from the tea peach shell one by one, rolling all over the ground. It takes much more time to pick tea seeds from the ground than to pick tea peaches from tree branches. Therefore, the croppers generally pluck the tea peach back from the tree before it cracks. Immediately afterwards, it is necessary to dig the sweet potatoes in the dry land home when the solar term of "the beginning of winter" is coming, so as to prevent the sweet potatoes from being stained with the rain and snow after the "beginning of winter". Once the sweet potato is stained with the rain and snow after the "beginning of winter", it is not easy to store and is easy to rot, especially the seed potatoes reserved for the next year, which must be dug back into the cellar before the beginning of winter. After the harvesters have finished digging the sweet potatoes, they often have not had time to sit down and take a breath, and the winter sowing of wheat is about to start again. This late autumn and early winter! Farming is always coming one after another, and the croppers are very busy!

The "frost fall" of 1922 came particularly early. As if he was deliberately working against the croppers, it was drizzling for days, and the autumn wind blew the temperature of the earth down a lot, and people began to feel the slightest coolness. But this did not affect the sense of urgency of the croppers to pick camellia peaches. Several major oil-producing towns in the west of Yuanzhou County are crowded with people all over the mountains, and the animals are frightened and the birds are flying. Men, women and children, pouring out of the nest, carrying bamboo baskets, shuttled back and forth between the tea trees. They pluck from small trees to large trees, from low branches to high branches, from the foot of the mountain to the top of the mountain, and from the top of the mountain to the bottom of the mountain. When the tea tree branch is long, it pulls the branch to the chest, but the bamboo basket on the back is placed under the tea branch, both hands are used, the thumb and index finger are like a hen pecking, and the tea peach is pecked into the basket one by one, and some even use their hands to pluck the tea peach and tea tree leaves from the branch together. The tea peach fell into the basket and came out of the "bang...... Boom...... The collision sound of "......" is like an elegant and beautiful melody, which dispels the fatigue and soreness of the croppers from time to time.

Picking tea peaches seems to be a simple farm work, but in fact, it also contains a strong technicality, some people can pick a grain basket of tea peaches a day, ten barrels for a grain basket; No matter how hard some people try, they can only pick a grain of tea peaches. During the harvesting period, many people go out early and return late with black heads, and some even bring lunch up the mountain to eat. There is a busy scene everywhere outside the village.

At noon, Chen Kesan put a handful of snot and tears, and ran to the house of his father Chen Jiangwan sadly, he also ignored the rules and etiquette of the Zhuang family, and knelt down in Chen Jiangwan's hall when he entered the door, crying and shouting: "Father-in-law! It's amazing, you have to make decisions for me, how will I live in the future! Chen Jiangwan's family was having lunch, and Chen Kesan knelt down and shouted, which made their family and the second monk confused and didn't know what was going on. At first, I thought it was Chen Kesan's family that died, and his parents died! Because only parents who are dead in the family can do this. Chen Jiangwan had to hurriedly drop the rice bowl in his hand, and while walking forward quickly to help Chen Kesan up, he asked, "What's wrong?" Something to say slowly".

"Father, it's terrible!" Chen Kesan still shouted vigorously, and didn't say anything for a long time.

"It's so old, why are you so anxious, why are you so calm? When you enter the door, you kneel in the hall of the house, and you don't talk about the rules at all, the one in your family has passed away? Is it the father? Or mother? A man has gold under his knees, how can he kneel so easily if his parents are not dead! "Chen Jiangwan is indeed a little angry, in broad daylight, kneeling in the living room when he enters the door, which is somewhat unlucky! While counting him, he helped him up, let him sit on the bamboo chair, and then dragged a square stool and sat opposite Chen Kesan, waiting for Chen Kesan's explanation.

"Old nephew, don't worry, don't worry, drink saliva." Chen Jiangwan's wife, Chen Yanshi, said as she handed over a bowl of half-lukewarm boiling water.

Chen Kesan was not polite, took the boiling water and drank it all. After a while, I finally took a breath and slowly told the truth of the matter.

This morning, their family went to pick tea peaches on the big cloth, just picked for a while, they met another group of people picking his tea peaches like picking their own tea peaches in the mountains, he and his family quickly stopped, the group not only did not listen, but forced the words, saying that this tea mountain belongs to them from this year. So, one side wanted to forcibly pick tea and peaches, one side refused, so the two sides pulled and pulled and fought, this group of people came with a lot of people, and they didn't put their family in their eyes at all, in the process of fighting, the other party took advantage of it, and Chen Kesan's family suffered a big loss. Later, I learned that this group of people was from Yanjiatang.

As soon as Chen Kesan finished speaking, his second brother Chen Kewu also came in a panic, and the reason was the same as Chen Kesan's. Then came another cousin of his, and they were also bullied by Chen Kesan.

"Isn't that too much of a deception?" Chen Jiangwan also felt a little indignant after hearing this, so he scolded himself.

"The people of Yanjiatang forcibly picked your tea seeds and said that the mountain is theirs, there must be a reason, right?" Chen Jiangwan's eldest son, Chen Caifa, couldn't help but interject.

Then, Chen Kesan told the ins and outs of the matter as it was.

"My old woman is from Yanjiatang, and her mother's family was a well-known big family in Yanjiatang at that time, with a strong family business and a lot of fields, mountains and forests. According to legend, there are nearly 100 acres of fertile land in the four towns and eight neighbors, and there are more than 50 Camellia Oleifera Mountains. When my old woman got married, her parents gave my old woman the camellia mountain on the big cloth as a dowry for the bride. Since then, this camellia mountain has belonged to my grandfather. Later, my old woman's maiden family was down, and they wanted to go back to this camellia mountain, but my old woman never agreed when she was alive, and they had no choice. At that time, my grandfather took into account the family affection and wanted to let them take back a part of it, but the camellia mountain was divided into the names of the brothers when my grandfather and brothers split the family, and several other brothers of my grandfather stood up against my grandfather's proposition and resolutely disagreed to return the camellia mountain to them. This year, my grandfather's last cousin passed away, and their juniors thought that without the obstacles of their elders, they could go back to that camellia mountain as they pleased. So, he tore his face and took this practical action. ”

Speaking of this, Chen Kesan stopped, licked his dry lips with the tip of his tongue, and looked at Chen Jiangwan for a long time, with a bit of helplessness and pleading in his eyes.

Chen Jiangwan's home, located in the middle of the upper back house of Chenjiafang Village, is a six-fan and five-straight civil tile house, closely connected to other houses of the same clan and room. In a moment, Chen Jiangwan's house was crowded with a room full of people, and everyone talked nonsense after hearing it.

"The soldiers will block, and the water will cover the earth. This is the common sense of soldiers, everyone has ridden on our Chenjiafang people to and pee, and what kind of face do they talk about. The rusty second sister-in-law, who has always been quick to talk, opened the conversation.

"Yes! Yes! Tomorrow we will gather people to snatch those tea peaches back! The four old men of silver echoed without thinking.

Several young students are even more gearing up and proposing to solve the problem by force. Or the people of Yanjiatang still don't know how powerful our Chenjiafang people are?

……。

Chen Jiangwan saw that everyone said everything and me, and it was difficult to choose which one for a while, so he coughed loudly twice, cleared his throat and said: "You all have a point, but I'm afraid it's not as simple as you imagined, please go back first!" Let me gather a few elders to see if I can come up with a foolproof plan to turn the conflict into a peaceful solution. ”

Everyone saw that the patriarch said this, and although the words were still unfinished, they had to disperse one after another.

In the evening, Chen Jiangwan summoned the elders of the upper fifth, lower and fourth rooms of Chenjiafang to the Chen ancestral hall to discuss the dispute between the three Chen Ke brothers and the Camellia Mountain.

Several elders expressed their opinions and unanimously agreed: Yanjiatang people are too much, they can't swallow their anger like this, and let them take back Camellia Mountain without resistance, otherwise, people from all over the country will feel that the people of Chenjiafang are useless.

After some debate, Chen Jiangwan finally decided to adopt the method of saluting first and then soldiering to resolve the dispute.

Celebrants, send messengers first, to deliver a message of peace. That is, the five brothers Chen Kesan and Chen Ke personally came to the door to deliver the opinions and views of the people of Chen Jiafang, and strive to solve the problem by peaceful means.

A soldier is a soldier who prepares to "fight". Organize personnel, mobilize forces, prepare money and food, ensure logistics, and ask for support from Chen Jiashan people when necessary.

The next morning, Chen Kesan and Chen Ke, the five brothers, came to Yanjiatang with a letter written by their father-in-law Chen Jiangwan to their father-in-law in Yanjiatang.

Yanjiatang, located in the south of Beiqiao Township, is a beautiful small mountain village more than eight miles away from Chenjiafang. The village is surrounded by mountains on three sides, and faces the largest river in Beiqiao Township, Beiqiao River, to the west. Between the mountains and the river, there is a field port of more than 100 acres, and the shape of the field port resembles a pond. In the middle of the Yuan Dynasty, a person surnamed Yan in Baisha Town, upstream of the Beiqiao River, fished and caught shrimp along the Beiqiao River, discovered this place, and soon came here with his wife and children to settle down, and named Yanjiatang according to the terrain.

"One generation of relatives, two representatives, and three generations of family affection are natural." This is the basic law of rural in-law relations. Generally, there is no contact with the third generation. The in-laws of the Chen family and the Yan family had no contact with Chen Kesan's father's generation.

It is said that after the three Chen Ke brothers arrived at Yanjiatang Village, they didn't know that they were closer to the family in the village, and they didn't know who their parents were and what house they lived in. I was a little overwhelmed for a while, because there was a fight in the mountains yesterday, and the two of them were nervous and scared. So they didn't ask the adults, but the children, and after some tossing, they finally found out the address of the Yanjiatang patriarch near noon, and the two brothers walked into the Yanjiatang patriarch's house.