Han Daring met Lan Ban Chi on the Appraisal Street, and on the auction brochure in his hand, there was a photo of Yuan Qiao Mirror Core, which reminded Han Daring of a memory a few years ago, when he had just graduated and had not yet become a policeman.

The so-called imperial meeting is actually a flower meeting. Every year on March 23 of the lunar calendar, it is the birthday of the Queen of Heaven, and the people of Tianjin must hold a flower party to celebrate the birthday of the Queen of Heaven.

The people will worship the queen of heaven for several days, and they will carry the statue of the mother to parade around the city, scattering blessings to thousands of families. Of course, it has to be a statue of a god tied with mud and grass, not the huge statue of the queen of heaven enshrined in the temple, or the statue of the god that is not so heavy, if you don't finish patrolling the city, the person who carries the statue will be crushed to death.

Every year on this day, Tianjin Wei hundreds of flowers will show their talents behind the parade statues. Each flower meeting, the eight immortals cross the sea, each showing its ability.

In the old days, there were many guards in Tianjin, what imperial meetings, temple fairs, dragon meetings, and countless sacrificial activities, among which the imperial meeting can be regarded as an entertainment project here. At this time, Tianjin Wei merchants are closed, thousands of people are empty, competing to watch the flower party, the atmosphere is jubilant, so lively.

But why is the Flower Club called the Imperial Society?

It is said that Qianlong went down to the south of the Yangtze River and passed through Tianjin, just in time for the birthday of Tianjin Weitianhou on March 23. Qianlong Lafayette was happy to see it, so he gave all Taoist associations, dragon flags, gold collars, and yellow coats. The people have been rewarded by the emperor, and the annual flower meeting will be more energetic, and each Taoist will be more energetic than the hard work, and it will be able to toss year by year. Because the flower club was sealed by the emperor, the Queen of Heaven Niangniang Patrol City Flower Club is also called the imperial meeting.

Speaking of the imperial meeting, we have to mention the Niangniang Temple, after all, this imperial meeting is to celebrate the birthday of the Queen of Heaven, in fact, the Queen of Heaven is the Mazu of the South, and the worship of the Queen of Heaven is called the Mazu Temple in the south, and Tianjin is called the Niangniang Temple or the Tianhou Temple, the Tianfei Palace.

There are two Niangniang temples in Tianjin in ancient times, one east and one west, and later the East Niangniang Temple of Dazhigu was destroyed in the war, only the West Niangniang Temple of Xiaozhigu has survived to this day, it is now the Tianhou Temple of Tianjin Ancient Culture Street. In the old days, there was a custom of "tying dolls", which was in the temple of the harem Niangniang.

In the old days, when the young couple got married and had no children a year later, the old man in the family took the little daughter-in-law to the Niangniang Temple to tie a doll brother back, pointing to the doll brother to bring a younger brother, so that the family could have an heir. It sounds strange now, but at the time, it was commonplace.

In Beijing, I generally go to the Niangniang Temple of Miaofeng Mountain in the west of Beijing to tie the doll, Miaofeng Mountain Niangniang Temple is the head of the five tops and six temples in the capital, it has a history of six or seven hundred years, the incense is prosperous, it is Bixia Yuanjun who is enshrined, and the full name is "Dongyue Taishan Tianxian Jade Girl Bixia Yuanjun" is a goddess of Chinese Taoism. Because the main temple is in Dongyue Taishan, the folk also respect the title of Taishan Niangniang.

In Tianjin, I went to the Niangniang Temple by the Haihe River to tie the doll. The Niangniang Temple was built very early, and now it is impossible to test, and it was expanded during the Qianlong period. The current gate was expanded at that time, and the original gate became the second gate. Earlier, the lintel of the gate had the words "Ejian Tianhou Temple" on it, which was carved from large whole bricks. Ejian means that the emperor ordered the construction to be built.

Tianhou Niangniang, known as Mazu in the south, is said to be a fisherman woman "Lin Mo" on Meizhou Island in the Song Dynasty. She is proficient in water, often goes to the sea to save people at the seaside, and after her death, she becomes a god and becomes the god of the sea who blesses the river and the sea. When I arrived in Tianjin, the old lady of Wei not only blessed, but also came to ask the old lady for blessing, when she was sick, she also came to ask for the blessing of the old lady, and even if she had no children, she came to ask the old lady, the old lady was responsive, and the people took the old lady as the Wong Tai Sin of all the souls.

There is a workshop for making mud dolls in front of the palace, specializing in the mud dolls placed in the main hall of the Niangniang Temple, that is, those mud dolls used to tie dolls.

The little daughter-in-law who asked for a son came to the front of the main hall, first inserted three large incense sticks into the big incense burner of the copper tripod, and then entered the hall to sincerely bow down to the old lady, and then looked at the various clay dolls placed on the table, and saw which one was handsome, so she tied it with a red rope and secretly put it in her arms, even if she took the big brother of the doll away.

In fact, there are special people in the temple who are staring at the money, and the mud doll for two cents a piece cares about eight cents, but in order for Tujili to get a noble son early, this money has to be spent. When he really has a child, this mud doll is the child's eldest brother, and the child is the second.

When the child grows up, he wants to marry a daughter-in-law, and he has to come to the Niangniang Temple to wash the doll again, which is to increase the age of the doll brother to marry a daughter-in-law. You think, my brother and daughter-in-law are about to enter the door, and the eldest uncle can't still wear a butt curtain. In fact, washing dolls is not washing, or changing to a mud doll with a beard and a coat, and then a female mud doll, which was originally behind the workshop that had been thrown away a long time ago.

This is all the superstitious old tradition of Tianjin Wei, and after liberation, there will be no more, otherwise why would you have to specialize in infertility hospitals, you just have to tie up the dolls.

Let's get back to business, three or four years ago, after Han Daring just graduated from the church school, his family asked him to learn to do business, but he didn't want to do this, he didn't become a policeman at that time, and he was bored all day long.

That day is the 23rd day of the third month of the lunar calendar, the sky is not dawn outside the east gate is already crowded, if you come to see the emperor on this day, but there is no car to sit in a sedan chair, people are crowded one after another, there is a car and a sedan chair you can't pass.

When Han Daring and the three of them crowded into the square in front of Niangniang Temple, they saw that the storefronts around the square had already been vacated, and they specially dressed up the people of the Taoist Association. In front of each shop, there are Qiluo umbrella covers, gongs, drums, musical instruments, and all kinds of objects, which are very beautiful.

When the sun was rising, all of a sudden the drums and trumpets sounded in unison, and the crowd rejoiced, and it was time to go out of the meeting. There were crowds of people surging in all directions, all of them squeezing towards the Niangniang Temple. Many people are crowded in the crowd every time they arrive at the square, stuck there and can't move, the tall ones are good to say that they are on tiptoe, and they can see the front, and the short ones are unlucky, just hearing the movement, jumping high can not see the grand occasion of the meeting.

At this time, the old lady was about to get up, holding the iron pot to accumulate merit approaching the crowd, only to see that the common people had taken out their pockets, more to give less to throw less, all to the iron pot still copper, saying that this is merit money, throwing into the pot is to accumulate public virtue and blessing for themselves.

When the emperor went on patrol, there were a total of five old women, in addition to the queen of heaven, there were also vision mothers, spotted mothers, children and grandchildren, and birth mothers.

The queen of heaven is Mazu, and the full name of the Eye Niangniang is the Lady of Vision, Hui Illumination Yuanjun, also known as the Bright Eye Yuanjun, and the Virgin of Vision. She is a fairy who is responsible for healing people's eye diseases. Spotted Niangniang, also known as smallpox Niangniang, is the goddess of pox, the medical conditions were not developed in the old days, and children often died of pox, so generally the children in the family have pox, and the adults will go to worship the spotted Niangniang. The children and grandchildren are in charge of the heirs, and the birth is in charge of the production.

The team out of the meeting marched forward mightily, the front Qiluo umbrella covered with gongs and drums to open the way, two rows of people, red scarves wrapped heads, hands playing cymbals, followed by a big drum, beating the earth, suona copper horns on both sides of the sky and sounding in unison. More than a dozen people wore tasseled hats, robes, and silk around their waists, carrying the five maiden shrines and drove forward slowly. The treasure umbrella on the sedan car covers the sky, the pearl is embedded in the top, the silver line is fed with gold edge, the tassel of yellow velvet tassel falls, and the light gauze curtain is pulled down. If you want to say that the largest portable shrine will be driven by Niangniang's Luan a few days later, the old lady has a golden body, wearing a yellow robe and sitting in it, and the people around the flag and sail are holding the moon in the stars, which is indescribably sacred and solemn.

When the old lady passed by, the surrounding people and believers, or the gods hung yellow cloth bags, wrote the blessing of the queen of heaven, or held long incense to help the old and the young, all bowed down, praying for the old lady to bless the family house and prosperity. On both sides of the road out of the meeting, many big men wearing shoulders and yellow scarves wrapped their heads pulled a thick yellow rope to separate the crowd from both sides and keep maintaining order. When he saw someone squeezing up, he shouted back.

After Luan drove the pennant, the pennant fluttered, followed by each Taoist meeting to show its own powers. Stepping on stilts, running dry boats, Dharma drums, shoulder drums, lion dances, one or two hundred to the meeting, what "bangs play golden toad", "eight immortals across the sea", "white snake legend", "Wu Song fights tiger" everything you can see can not be seen. There is a big fork here, a harrier turns over there, there is a one-legged jump here, and there is a back roll over there, which is dazzling to watch.

Some wealthy and powerful people from high-ranking families do not crowd with the poor people, but directly set up a high platform on the side of the road to the meeting, build a ceiling, put up a tea table and a chair, sit there to eat snacks and drink tea, and watch the meeting. There are silver money dim sum on the side of the stage, and the various Taoist meetings passing by, if the performance is good, you will directly reward the money and dim sum.

Han Daring's family is also doing business, and in previous years, he would book a seat on the second floor in the teahouse on the street, but this year he came to see it by himself, and he was only followed by the two foreign buddies, Lao Bai Xiao Jew, so he could only squeeze into the teahouse and go to the window on the second floor to watch the meeting.

Han Daring was tall and strong, and he squeezed his hands forward for a minute, and squeezed out a vacant seat from the crowd, and the three of them hurriedly came to the window.

There was a person next to Han Daring, who was squeezed and staggered, and almost fell, Han Daring pulled this person back, and then looked closely, but there were few dogs!

After Gou Shao lost all his family property, he had moved to three dilapidated houses in Xiaoxiguan, and Han Daring was studying in a church school again, so the two of them hadn't seen each other for a while. Looking at the dress of the dog, he has long lost the style of the rich young master of the past, but has a kind of smelly dog rotten appearance.

The dog looked at Han Dada'er in a dress, full of Western style, on the other hand, he was not as good as a day by day, and he was just messing around on the street on weekdays, but now he saw that he was small, and he looked down, and he was a little disgusted, so he wanted to leave.

Who knew that Han Daring grabbed the dog and said:

"Don't go, don't go! I haven't seen you anymore, let's Zhongyuan at noon in a while, I'll please! ”

Han Daring knows that Gou Shao's nature is not bad, it is the mistake of making friends and losing the family property, Gou Shao is a few years older than himself, and he was very good to himself when he was a child, and Gou Shao's hometown is also a good person, and he hurts himself a lot, and the relationship between the Zhang family and the Han family is also good and they often move around. It was only later that the dog was less likely to learn badly, and Han Dada'er's father got up with the idea of sending Han Dada'er to study in foreign books and boarding at school.

Han Daring said that the dog was indeed sincere when he saw that the dog was down, and he really wanted to help, unlike the fox friends and dog friends that the dog had made before, and some had to take the opportunity to ridicule a few words.

Cold and warm know people's hearts, since they beat themselves down, relatives and friends saw themselves, and walked around from afar, but this hair in front of him is small, don't look at the fighter's black mouth and mouth damage, but today I can say this, the dog is very content, and my heart can't help but feel warm.

While the two were talking, the gongs and drums outside the window were beating from far and near, and the various Taoist associations had already walked downstairs to the street. The streets are full of people on both sides, the scarf flags in the middle of the road are waving, and the flower clubs are crowding the front team, dancing and dancing forward.

At this time, two women stepping on the high bridge passed under the window. One of these two people was dressed in green clothes, wearing blue flowers inlaid with beads, and the other was dressed in white, with pompoms on their heads and a trembling pearl embedded on the top of the white flowers. Both of them are thick fat powder, eyebrows and sideburns, beautiful posture, face like peach blossoms, it is the white snake and green snake that is full of water, it turns out that this will be the legend of the white snake.

At this moment, a gust of wind blew, raising a lot of colored paper flowers, by the window on the second floor, the golden light flashed, and Han Da'er's eyes were full of flowers, as if someone was using a mirror to reflect the light in front of his eyes.

The dog rarely saw a reflection on Han Da'er's face, and when he looked back, he saw an eight or nine-year-old child, leaning out of the window, reaching out to the crossbar of a banner flag, enough for something.

The child had leaned forward, most of his body had leaned out of the window, and a small piece of copper the size of a palm hung around his neck, one side was uneven, the other was smooth as a mirror, and a red rope was tied around his neck. It was this small piece of copper that flickered, and a beam of sunlight was reflected on Han Da'er's face.

At this time, most of the child's body has leaned out of the window, and suddenly a hairy yellow shadow is outside the window, running under the child's neck, as if it is a small copper piece hanging on the child's neck.

Under the window are a few flag-bearers, passing by with flags, the tip of the flagpole in their hands is as sharp as the tip of a spear.

Han Daring'er was so illuminated by the reflection of the copper sheet just now that his eyes were dazzling, and when his eyesight slowed down a little, he saw clearly, the child had already turned out of the window, and Han Daring wanted to rescue him again, but it was too late, and he saw that the child was about to pounce on the tip of the gun and pierce a transparent hole.