Wucheng is the easternmost county of the Zhao State, close to the Qi State, and was once given by the King of Zhao to the fourth prince of the Warring States Period, Meng Weijun Tianwen, as a fief, which can also be regarded as a rich land.

It's just that in recent years, the wars between the Zhao and Qi countries have continued, and adult men have to be conscripted from here for military service every time.

No one planted the crops in the field, and the people could not survive, so they fled with their families to other places, and the rest of the people lived even more hardship.

Maogou is a li of Wucheng, where hundreds of families lived in the past, and it is the largest li in Wucheng, and now most of the walls and doors have been crawled with vines and weeds.

There are less than twenty families left, and the men in the family are killed in battle, and those who are fighting outside are fighting outside, and they have no ability to move.

It is located on the border of the two countries, and there are often bandits, Zhao sent troops to encircle and suppress bandits and fled to Qi, Qi sent troops to encircle and suppress bandits and fled to Zhao, and finally both countries did not care.

Even in broad daylight, the doors of each house are closed, and they dare not open the door unless an acquaintance knocks on the door.

Qiang lives in the easternmost part of Maogou, which is an extremely dilapidated house.

The wooden door is low, and there are many cracks in it under the erosion of time or bandits. The thatch at the head of the house is exposed, I don't know how many years have not been repaired, the earthen walls on both sides are full of traces of rain, and they have long lost their original appearance, and the broken walls are overgrown with weeds.

Qiang sat in the courtyard struggling to hold the soles of her shoes, looking up at the western sky from time to time, her thin cheeks covered with sorrow.

Looking at the size of the sole, it is obviously for men.

The yard is relatively large, and almost all the people in Maogou have moved away, leaving a lot of wasteland, and no one will care if they want to build as big a yard as they want.

The officials above never bothered them except when they were collecting taxes and sending labor.

Two mulberry trees were planted in the yard, and the leaves had been plucked, leaving only a little of the treetops, which had begun to turn yellow before they had fully grown under the ravages of the autumn wind.

Mulberry tree is a good thing, almost every family here grows mulberry, mulberry leaves can raise silkworms, the era of male ploughing and female weaving, silk is one of the few sources of income for ordinary people.

Mulberry can be eaten, sweet and sour, it is one of the few snacks for civilians, mulberry can be used as a medicinal material, mulberry has high strength, good elasticity, and can also be used as a bow and agricultural tools.

Even in disaster years, mulberry leaves and bark can be used to satisfy hunger, although it is not delicious, but it will not starve to death.

At this time, not long after the silkworms had just ascended the mountain, Qiang had already exchanged the silk woven from raw silk for kudzu cloth and rice.

Those who are everywhere are not silkworm breeders.

Ordinary civilians could not afford to wear silk, so they could only exchange it for kudzu cloth and linen cloth.

Kudzu and linen cloth were rough and uncomfortable to wear, but they were more wear-resistant and more suitable for commoners who often worked on the farm.

It's winter soon, her husband is still on the front line and hasn't come back, Zhao Guo has a cold winter, and if you continue to wear straw sandals, you will freeze your toes.

Qiang plans to use the exchange of Ge cloth to make a winter coat and a pair of shoes for her husband, and help bring them when someone from the countryside goes to the front to deliver winter clothes.

Two little broken children sat under the mulberry tree and played with the sand, the eldest was about five or six years old, and he was a son.

The youngest is about three years old and is also a son.

All barefoot, bare-assed, dirty, looking up from time to time, grinning at their mother, revealing their big faces covered with dirt.

Suddenly, there was a loud voice outside, followed by a sharp knock on the door.

As soon as the eldest baby wanted to get up and open the door, Qiang hurriedly grabbed him, "Take the second baby into the house, stay with the eldest mother, plug in the door bolt, I don't call you, don't open the door." ”

"Mother, be careful." Dawa said worriedly, pulling her younger brother towards the house.

Qiang picked up a wrist-thick wooden stick from the ground, grasped it tightly with both hands, and cautiously walked towards the gate.

"Eagle's house, it's me, don't be afraid, open the door quickly, it's a good thing." An old voice came from outside.

Qiang breathed a sigh of relief and walked quickly towards the door: "It's Lizheng, you wait a minute, I'll go open the door." ”

When he got close to the door and saw through the crack in the door, he saw that it was indeed Li Zheng and did not look coerced, and then he left the wooden stick on the ground and opened the door.

Rizheng is an old man in his sixties, kind and kind-eyed, and on crutches.

The reason why Maogou can remain in this kind of robber-infested place is thanks to this Lizheng.

Whenever a robber robbed, Li Zheng threw away his crutches, ran to the robber, went to the ground, or rolled around the robber's thigh, and the robber had no choice but to go around.

The status of the elderly in this era is very high, fifty raised in the township, sixty in the country, seventy in learning, up to the princes.

Respect for the elderly is not only morality, but also written into the law.

If the old man really wants to splash and roll, even the monarch will have a headache when he sees it, let alone these robbers who talk about "righteousness".

Although it is not decent, he has saved Maogou a few times with the correct and practical method, and everyone respects him very much.

"Who are these?" Qiang looked at the few people behind Li Zheng, a wary look in her eyes.

"This is a villager from the countryside and You Jiao, and he came here to deliver the letter." Li Zheng stroked his little beard while pointing to the old man next to him and said happily.

Qiang breathed a sigh of relief.

"You're Qiang?" The villager took a step forward, looked at Qiang and asked.

"I am." Qiang nodded

"Your man's name is Eagle, and he is a soldier in Changping?"

"Yes."

"This is a letter from your man." The villager took out a tied bamboo slip from the back basket and handed it to Qiang.

"A letter from home? True...... Are you sure? ”

Qiang took it in disbelief, and before she could open it, an old woman quickly walked out of the house, "But my son has a letter, show me quickly." ”

Qiang hurriedly put the bamboo slip into the old woman's hand.

"Mother, mother, I want to see it too." The two children hugged their eldest mother and shouted.

The old woman opened the bamboo slip tremblingly, looked at the dense words on it, although she didn't recognize it, but she seemed to hear her son talking in her ear, her eyes instantly turned red, and two lines of turbid tears dripped from her eyes onto the bamboo slips, and quickly wiped them away, for fear of blurring the handwriting.

The old woman held the bamboo slip and looked at it for a while, and then reluctantly put it into Qiang's hand.

"I ...... We can't read......" Qiang said with some embarrassment as she looked at Li Zheng and the villagers.

Li Zheng also looked at the village elder, he was also illiterate.

"I'll read it to you." The villager took the letter, and Qiang hurriedly picked up the big baby, who stared at the letter intently.

The villager read slowly: "My wife is good, I miss it very much......"

Swish!

Qiang's tears gushed out in an instant, and she couldn't finish wiping them.

The villager didn't stop, he didn't know how much he had seen this scene these days.

Qiang was crying, and the villager was reading.

The villager was reading it, and Qiang was crying.

The letter was short, and it was read quickly.

After reading, the village elder handed over the family letter to Qiang.

"Thank you to the villagers, thank you Lizheng." Qiang took the letter, held it tightly in her arms, and bowed non-stop.

"If you want to thank Ma Fuzi, by the way, there is news from the front line that Ma Fuzi won the Qin army, and there is a great possibility that your man will come back alive. Okay, go back, we're going to the next one. The villager turned around and left with a group of people.

"I heard that this letter was written by Ma Fuzi himself, and your man has a future." Li Zheng whispered, and then chased after the village elder.

Qiang returned home, closed the door again, bolted it in, took out the letter, and looked at it repeatedly, a blush appeared on her face.

Now even if she is given 10,000 gold, she will not change this family letter.

After a while, she picked up the baby and asked in a low voice, "Do you remember these words?" ”

"Remembered." Dawa nodded.

"Okay, from today onwards, you will learn these words, remember how to read them, how to write them, what they mean, understand?" Qiang put the bamboo slip in the big baby's hand.

"Understood." Dawa said obediently.