The ninth

Since the death of her mother, Lilac and her grandmother have relied on each other for their lives, herding sheep and raising chickens and feeding ducks on weekdays, digging some herbs with her grandmother in her free time, and helping people to do some farm work when she is busy with the farm. I don't have a few dollars left over in a year, and I still owe debts to bury my mother, so I can only pay a little bit back year by year, but fortunately, I am all relatives and neighbors, and I know their difficulties, and I am not in a hurry.

The share of the clan is not to be returned, many years later, the eldest brother made a brown rope and sold money with the merchants, and when the clan renovated the ancestral hall, he was much more than others, which is regarded as repaying the help of the relatives in the clan back then! In the words of the eldest brother, when my family was in trouble, it was not the clan that pulled it, and the family had long been ruined and there was no place to stand, and at this time, I was sorry for a few human hairs on my head if I didn't do my part.

Grandma is in her early seventies, and although her health is better than that of the elderly of the same age, she still can't stand her old age, and she no longer has the physical strength she had when she was young.

In this way, three or two years have passed since the grandparents and grandchildren, Lilac and grandma are as tall as ever, and the patches of clothes can no longer hide the growing body, and the delicate figure has the appearance of the mother back then. The aunts and uncles and sisters-in-law in the village praised Lilac handsome when they met their grandmother, and they would be blessed to marry a good grandson-in-law in the future.

The eldest brother comes back three or twice a year, and his skills are already good. The eldest brother and master are kind-hearted, and seeing that Lilac's family is in difficulty, he broke the practice of three years of apprenticeship and three years of service for the teacher, and at the end of the year, he gave the eldest brother a lot of money to bring back to help Lilac and them. It's just that when the eldest brother went out, his grandmother handed it over to the eldest brother as it was, telling him to be more filial to the master, and if he had any money, he would store it all in the master's place, and he would have a place to use the money when he married a wife and had children in the future.

The second brother comes back once a year, his hair is unkempt, his patched clothes are dirty like a begga, and his black and thin body is not as tall as a lilac. When I went home to eat, I could eat several bowls, as if I hadn't eaten for a few days, which made my grandmother secretly sad.

Dad seems to have evaporated from the world, and at the end of each year, the waterwheel behind the house leaves the figure of the Lilac family on the avenue outside the village.

Around the tenth lunar month of the twenty-fourth year of the Republic of China, the closed Luoying Village suddenly ushered in a group of soldiers. Many years later, Lilac vividly remembers that it was a sunny day, when Lilac was driving her flock to graze. The team with the red flag came from the far away from the avenue outside the village, and the sheep were so frightened that they scattered in all directions, and the cloves were dragging the head sheep, and their faces were flushed.

At this time, the team stopped, and several soldiers went down to the field and drove the scattered sheep one by one to the mountain above the avenue, and one of them walked up to Lilac with glasses and said apologetically: "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I've surprised your sheep!" Fellow. ”

Lilac pursed her lips without squeaking, lowered her head and dragged the head sheep to the side of the road, her little heart trembling like a war drum. A few years ago, after seeing the soldiers in the ancestral hall hoeing people with hoes and knives, and the uncle leading the soldiers from the countryside to search from house to house, Lilac had a disgust and fear of being a soldier from her heart.

At this time, the chief of the glasses guessed the rejection in Lilac's heart, and hurriedly commanded the team to walk as far aside as possible, and then turned around and said to Lilac kindly: "Sister, don't be afraid, we are the Red Army, the team of the poor, specially serving the poor people." Only then did Lilac raise her head and excuse the commander and team in front of her. I found that the difference from the team I had seen before was that although all the officers and soldiers had different colors of clothes, they had the same red five-pointed star on their hats, and there was also a red collar badge sewn on the collar, which was different from the round collar badge on the hat of the county soldiers.

The soldiers in the team are also very kind, some of them are as old as Lilac, and their faces are still childish, and they smile and greet Lilac twice, although their clothes are shabby, they are in good spirits!

Lilac dragged the head sheep, looked at the long line and drove directly to the village halfway up the mountainside, the front has entered the village, and the back is still by the thatched house of Lilac's family, how to say that there must be more than 100 people!

After a while, my grandmother was in a hurry and came back from the bottom of the mountain. Seeing that Lilac was still stunned looking at the team that had entered the stockade, he asked eagerly: "Lilac, there were so many soldiers just now, you didn't hide, are you okay?"

"It's okay, these soldiers are different from the soldiers in the county, they are quite kind." Lilac stayed for a while before relieving herself and answering her grandmother.

"Oh, that's good!" Grandma muttered in disbelief.

After a while, the grandmother said thoughtfully to Lilac: "Sister, don't rush home when the sheep are full today, all rush to the Wulei Cave for a night."

"Why are you in the cave, Grandma?" Lilac asked her grandmother a little puzzled.

At this time, the grandmother put down the back basket on her back, held the hoe in her hand, and said slowly and earnestly to Lilac: "You don't know, as the saying goes, Xiucai meets soldiers, and it is unreasonable to explain, not to mention our people!" The old team has handed down a lot of things that soldiers and bandits have robbed things and forced them to buy and sell, and grandma personally saw it when she was young! You can't go wrong with being careful. ”

"Oh, I see." Lilac answered and drove the sheep up the hill.

In the afternoon, when the sun was about to set, Lilac was about to make dinner when two people suddenly came, one was the chief of the eyeglasses that Lilac had seen, followed by a soldier of the same age as Lilac. As soon as he entered the house, the soldier with a childish face hurriedly introduced to Lilac and said, "Sister, this is our Political Commissar Li, and we are here today to buy some materials from the villagers." I am Commissar Lee's guard. ”

When Lilac heard this, her heart suddenly tightened, and she didn't know how to answer, but the kindness revealed from the bright eyes of this childish soldier made Lilac not have too much fear.

At this time, the grandmother was hurrying back, and the chief of the glasses helped the grandmother take off the basket on her back, and then said to the grandmother kindly: "Old man, we are the team of the poor, and we are fighting for the vast number of toiling people to fight the world and the world. Passing by your place today, I disturbed everyone. There are two things I would like to talk to the villagers, one is that we introduce to everyone the truth that the peasants turned over and became masters and overthrew the reactionary rule and exploitation of the Kuomintang. The second thing is that the troops need the support of the vast number of peasant friends to fight and march, and only by selling some materials can we have the strength to help defeat the Kuomintang bandits! ”

Grandma calmly listened to the chief's words, and then said to the chief of the glasses without humility or arrogance: "Forgive the chief, don't be annoyed, we ordinary people only know how to farm and eat, and we don't understand the matter of being the emperor in the world." The team marched and fought to eat food and should be levied, but our men were not at home, and there was really nothing in the house. If it is really apportioned, it will be released, so it is convenient to wait until tomorrow morning to ask the neighbors and friends to promote. ”

Seeing that his grandmother had misunderstood what he meant, the chief of the glasses hurriedly explained: "Old man, you misunderstood, we will not collect grain from the common people, and if we want to levy it, we will also ask the landlords and tyrants to come out!" After beating the local tyrants, the landlords still have to distribute property and grain to the peasants and the poor masses! This morning, when we passed by your house, we saw your sister go to herd sheep, if it is convenient, sell one or two for us to have a celebration, and tomorrow we will go to the village to eat wine and eat together. The old man can rest assured that the ranks of the Red Army do not take a stitch from the masses, nor do they buy and sell strongly, and it is worth a lot of money. ”

Seeing Political Commissar Liu's sincerity and cordial speech, the grandmother didn't want to say anything, so she had to reply: "There are only three big sheep, and there are two ewes with cubs, so if you want to buy it, buy that ram." If you want more, you can visit other people's homes, sir, do you think it's okay?! ”

"It's great that the old man is willing to help, okay!"

Seeing this, the grandmother told Lilac to go to the cave to bring the sheep back, and Lilac looked at the grandmother and did not move. When grandma saw it, she hurriedly urged: "Go quickly, don't miss the affairs of the chiefs."

At this time, the childish guard next to him smiled and said, "The eldest sister is reluctant!" I had a dog when I was at home, and when my relatives were going to sell it, I refused to chase it for many miles, and I was scolded by my father for a long time before I returned! ”

Hearing this, Lilac reluctantly went up the mountain to lead the sheep.

When I went home with the sheep, I saw my grandmother and Political Commissar Liu sitting in the courtyard chatting about something, and they looked quite happy. Seeing Lilac coming back with the sheep, he hurriedly stood up, and Political Commissar Liu joked: "Old man, you see Commander Yang come back, everyone will come when we eat mutton tomorrow!" Commander Sheep has also worked hard to see the sheep, so he must eat a few more pieces of mutton! ”

After weighing the scales, the guard paid for it, and it was Koyo, which was more than he usually sold to other people. Later, he used the sheep money to pay off part of the debt, and the rest of the money was used to buy a ram of the same size.

Before leaving, my grandmother was a little reluctant and asked Lilac to catch a gelding chicken for them, but Political Commissar Liu refused to live or die, saying that it would break the discipline of the army.

Looking at the political commissar Liu who was leading the sheep away, the grandmother muttered thoughtfully: "The real teacher of benevolence and righteousness, maybe the world is really theirs?!"

The next day, Grandma took Lilac to the village. Since moving to the bottom of the mountain, Lilac rarely goes to the village, except for helping to do work or weddings and funerals in the village. Many years later, Lilac clearly remembered that the ancestral hall of the village was lively and crowded with people.

First, as usual, a stage was set up at the entrance of the ancestral hall for singing in the New Year. Political Commissar Liu spoke, to the effect that he should turn over and be the master, defeat the landlord Lao Cai, go north to resist Japan, and so on.

After finishing speaking, several rich landlords in the village were pulled to the stage, the uncle hid in the county seat and did not come back, those people who went to the countryside had already scattered as birds and beasts, and a few slow legs and feet were escorted to the stage, and Liu Sanye also rushed to the stage. Then Political Commissar Liu asked everyone to report and complain, and two or three usually mean landlords were criticized and wore high hats. On weekdays, they showed off their might in the village, their faces were pale, and those with trembling legs were almost unable to stand steadily. Liu Sanye is a good person on weekdays, and he accompanies the criticism and fights. There was no hoe under the big maple tree in the ancestral hall, and some people in the crowd muttered whether they would hit their brains with foreign bubbles, but no one was killed when the meeting dispersed, and they were escorted to the ancestral hall after the fight. Like Liu Sanye, who has a good reputation on weekdays, he just gave a few words of oral education, talked about some policies and the like, and let them go home on the spot.

The next step was to share the floating wealth and grain, and whoever the Red Army on the stage signed up for duty according to the roster would come to the stage to receive food and property. When he read about the Lilac family, he also emphasized that the Lilac family was a revolutionary mass, praised his uncle and father, and said that they were exemplary representatives of the resistance to the oppression of the corrupt class.

At that time, I received a carved washstand and a bag of food in my old house. However, when she went back, her grandmother secretly returned the washstand to Liu Sanye, and Liu Sanye gave it up before accepting it.

At noon, four marching pots were set up at the entrance of the ancestral hall, and after a while, the village was full of the fragrance of food, especially the aroma of the sheep sold by the Lilac family. According to the elders present, it is rare to see a scene of hundreds of people having dinner together in the village, especially this kind of gathering together regardless of the old and the young.

After the meal, he also sang a play. It was written and performed by the Red Army itself, and unlike the emperors, talented and beautiful women or filial sons and loyal ministers sung in the first month of previous years, they performed all modern dramas that fought against exploitation and turned over to be the masters. may be different from the performance sung in previous years, the red flag tumbling knife on the stage is back and forth, and the whole village of people can watch it with relish. At night, the torches were still playing, and the audience was still crowded. Decades later, that bustle is still passed on by word of mouth in the village.

About ten days later, the troops left, and at dawn people found that the inside and outside of the ancestral hall were clean, except for the slogans posted on the walls everywhere when the troops came, there were no other traces left by the Red Army, as if they had never been there.

After the liberation, the county annals of Anhua County recorded that in 1935, the Second and Sixth Army Corps of Helong Xiaoke Red entered Anhua from Yuanling, Guanzhuang, and Taoyuan. At the end of November, Xiao Ke led the 16th and 17th divisions of the Red Sixth Army into the southern slope of Anhua Lake, and on the 26th, he began to conquer Dongping, Yanxi, Pingkou and other places one after another. On the 27th, a mass meeting was convened in Pingkou to publicly execute the bully landlord Baiyishan. After a short stay of 15 days, he left Anhua and continued to turn to the border of Hunan and Guizhou to open up a new base area.

The day after the Red Army left, my uncle returned, and with him dozens of county officials and soldiers. At noon that day, my uncle had asked the elders of all ethnic groups in the village to summon the villagers to gather in the ancestral hall. In the afternoon, the whole village came one after another, and it was still the stage, and there were still crowds on and off the stage. Lilac and Grandma also went, and in the noisy voices they heard some worry from the villagers, especially the poor people who had shared the floating wealth and food, which was evident from their panicked looks and words.

When the soldiers on the stage were busy making a mess, they only heard an official wearing a Zhongshan suit and hanging the Kuomintang emblem signaling silence with his hand and loudly announcing: "Everyone be quiet, Director Yao has an important speech below."

At this time, the soldiers with spears on their backs were already standing in front of and behind the stage, and the crowd gradually calmed down. At this time, seven or eight people in Zhongshan official uniforms or long robes came out of the ancestral hall, and one by one they sat on the podium in the center of the stage. The uncle was the last to come out, wearing a Zhongshan official uniform and not taking a seat on the podium, and went straight to the front and middle of the podium. He stood still and glanced around the stage, then took off his top hat and bowed ninety degrees to the stage before he straightened up. There was no sound for another moment, and there was a dead silence in the audience, so quiet that even the mouth pin fell to the ground clearly.

The uncle put the top hat off again, coughed dryly, and said slowly: "Uncles and brothers, aunts and aunts, today I, the disloyal and unfilial son of the Yao family, have returned to the village. I'm ashamed, one is to lose the party-state, and the other is to be sorry for my ancestors! Since the 16th year of the Republic of China, the Communist Party has made trouble, and in the past few years, the villagers have been hindered by their feelings, and they have been accommodating from top to bottom. One wants to write poems and books to honor everyone, and the other is that the neighbors in the village have been together for hundreds of years, and it is not good for anyone to have something to do, so they can bring some and bring some of them, and they can help them - at least after the riots in the New Year, there will be people killed in the village, right? ! Compassion is heavy, and I thought that in the end, I would mistake the party-state. Take this time the bandits fled to our village, some people in the village are poor and short-minded, and they only see eyelashes in their eyes, and they can't see them in their crotches! Grabbing floating wealth and grabbing food is more ruthless than the other, and if you don't talk about national law, you can't talk about clan style! ”

At this time, the uncle's tone was excited, his hands were waving in the air, and his eyes glanced at the four patriarchs seated on the podium. The patriarchs all sat upright, and they didn't say anything.

"I want my ancestors to accumulate virtue and have been fortunate for several lifetimes, it is not easy to get rid of this family business, out of my ruined family, I am defeated in my hands, I see the money lightly, the poor relatives are difficult to neighbors, borrow a liter and a half of my surname Yao is still willing, Ming robbed, chilling! Several families in the whole village have been robbed, if it is my Yao family, it will be counted. The wind of the world is going down, this kind of crooked wind can not last, and the national law will not tolerate it! Today, when everyone said, the national law and family law will be implemented together, and the bandits' thoughts and behaviors and the poor ghosts who are lazy and lazy must be punished well, and it is imperative to clean up the source. ”

Speaking of this time, my uncle shed tears, and later my grandmother told Ding Xiang that my uncle's tears were heartache and family wealth, so it didn't matter what happened to the party and the state.

Next, the floating wealth and grain distributed by each family were piled up in front of the ancestral hall, and many people were also pulled onto the stage. At that time, when Grandma Lilac was about to be pulled on the stage, Liu Sanye was busy arguing at the officials and soldiers on the podium, arguing that grandma returned the carved washstand to him that day, and grandma was innocent. The uncle didn't look at it, and with a hum, the soldiers stopped pulling.

On that day, there was a long group of people kneeling on the stage, and the soldiers with whips behind them were beaten with their heads and faces, and the ghosts cried and howled very pitifully. When the sun was about to set, a descendant named Li Sanyanzai, who was usually poor and a little petty thief, shared the floating wealth, and was dragged to the river pit by the waterwheel behind the lilac house under the village in the name of insulting the wind. When he was tied down the mountain, Li San begged and cried along the road, and he didn't dare to cry anymore, so he was so annoyed that the escort pulled a handful of grass on the side of the road, opened his mouth, and forced it in.

According to the old clan rules, anyone who steals or a woman who does not observe Women's Day and destroys the house can drown in the clan if he does not observe the family rules. He just bumped into this stall, and Yao Zhipeng deliberately took him to sacrifice the flag, which was very majestic. He estimated that the trick of killing chickens and monkeys was the most cost-effective, and it was expected that the elders of the four clans in the village would not object. One is to purify the local atmosphere in the name of beauty, and the other is to destroy the hearts of the people that the Communist Party has taken down in the village, killing two birds with one stone!

Perhaps it was the cultivation of etiquette when he was young, coupled with the good relationship between the couple after marriage, so that Guiqiu was widowed for decades after his death, and Lilac never had anything to do with any man. After the ancient years, I talked to my grandchildren about the ancient etiquette, and some of them said with a melancholy expression, such as in ancient times, the imperial court had a reward for building a chastity archway for decades, and before the release, your Gui family still owes me a memorial arch!

On both sides of the river pit, the pits and valleys are crowded with neighbors watching the excitement. Under the patriarch's order, Li Sanyan, who had been firmly tied to the long ladder, put his head down and feet up into the depths of the river pit. The water splashes and bubbles were struggling on the surface of the river, and it took about a pillar of incense for the river surface to calm down.

When the uncle left, he also took a few former members of the agricultural cooperative back to the county.

Lilac didn't dare to go to the watermill for many days, and when she returned to her parents' house many years later, she never went there again.

Lilac said that the squeaking sound of the waterwheel was disturbing. When I hear that voice, I will not only think of Li San who drowned in a puddle, but also think of my poor mother who fell into the water and drowned.

End of the ninth round