Today's Kaifeng City in Henan Province was called Daliang 2,300 years ago and was the capital of the Wei State.
A Chinese's surname usually indicates the place of his hometown or the occupation of his ancestors. For example, Zheng Anping's surname is Zheng, which means that his hometown is the state of Zheng, or that his ancestors have done work related to the sacrificial wine (Zheng).
Zheng Anping was a soldier of Wei State.
Zheng Anping seems to be a member of the family. According to the rules of the time, only the eldest son was qualified to inherit the family property and was called the "eldest son" - this is where the successors of later emperors were called "Prince". The other sons, whether they were born to the eldest wife or the younger wife, all had to leave home to make a living. They were collectively known as "庶子", meaning "other sons". In later generations, bastard was only used to refer to the son born by the younger wife, and was distinguished from the "legitimate son" born by the older wife. But that was long after Zheng Anping.
So the concubine Zheng Anping left his home in the state of Zheng and came to the nearby Daliang, the capital of the state of Wei, to look for work.
Zheng Guo was only two hundred miles away from today's Xinzheng, Henan Province. At that time, it was only three to five days' journey, and it could be reached by carrying dry food on the back. It is common for people from Zheng to go to Daliang to look for work.
At that time, the people who occupied Zheng State were no longer Zheng people, but Koreans. The people of Zheng are the same clan of the Zhou Dynasty, and they are clearly related to the prince; while the ancestors of the Koreans are the retainers of the Jin State. They have been tepid in the Jin State for hundreds of years, and later they became the Jin Dynasty by secretly protecting the "Zhao Orphans". of wealthy families. After the three families were divided into the Jin Dynasty, Han destroyed the Zheng Kingdom and occupied the magpie's nest.
Zheng Anping's ancestor must have been a son of Zheng State - otherwise his surname would not be Zheng. Oh, wrong, to be precise, Zheng Anping is the Zheng family. If he is indeed a descendant of Zheng Guogong, his surname should be Ji. But this is irrelevant: when Zheng Anping was born, it had been nearly a hundred years since the fall of the Zheng Kingdom. He was already very indifferent to his origins, and he had never mentioned his surname. The surname is related to finding a wife: the ancients emphasized "no marriage with the same surname". If Zheng Anping's surname is really Ji, then he must not marry a girl named Ji, whether it is Zheng Ji, Wei Ji, Yan Ji, or Cai Ji. He could only marry a certain Jiang from the Qi State or a certain son from the Song State; of course he could also marry a certain Ying from the Qin State or a certain Mi from the Chu State, but they were barbarians and most people would not dare to marry: it would feel a bit like marrying a "someone" today. Foreign daughter-in-law".
The military soldier system was born in the era of Wei Wenhou and is a concrete embodiment of the military strategist Wu Qi's idea of elite soldiers. As long as a person meets certain selection criteria, he can become a soldier; and once he becomes a soldier, his social status will immediately change: the state will exempt his family from all taxes; if he has no family or job, he will also be given land and family property. Being a soldier was once a very honorable and glorious thing.
Time is like a butcher's knife. Any good thing will always lose its beautiful color after time, leaving its true character. By the time Zheng Anping arrived in Daliang, martial arts had become a relatively common profession, and it was not that popular yet - after all, there were thousands of ways to make a living, so why not just keep your head on your belt and make a living? Unless absolutely necessary, don't do it.
Zheng Anping is also tall and powerful. According to the regulations, he put on a three-layer leather waistcoat (leather armor), carried a halberd in his hand, a powerful crossbow on his right waist, two pots of 100 arrows on his left waist, and three to five kilograms of grain on his back. He did not feel any strenuous. After running a hundred miles in half a day, even though I was sweating and out of breath, it was just a warm-up. Passed in one try.
But now, Zheng Anping is not undergoing a test, he is flying towards the beam as fast as possible. He only wore a layer of leather armor and did not bring a crossbow. He only carried a half-man-high halberd in his hand. This was called a "hand halberd". At that time, its status was equivalent to that of later generations of swords. It was a kind of It is a self-defense weapon, and more importantly, it is a symbol that shows that one is performing official duties.
Since there was no weight on his body, Zheng Anping ran much faster than during the test, with an anxious look on his face. People who happened to pass by on the road quickly stepped aside to make way for him: Although Zheng Anping was not wearing any clothes, the halberd in his hand and the galloping pace clearly told everyone that he had urgent military affairs. At this time, it is best for no one to seek misfortune.
When Zheng Anping had run so far that his vision was almost black, Daliang City was finally in sight.
Generally speaking, we always say that Daliang is today's Kaifeng. This is true in a big way, but it still makes sense when we look closely.
Today's Kaifeng was a desolate land before the Wei State established its capital. There was only a small village nearby called Qifeng, which was a grain station built by the Zheng State. After the Han Dynasty, people gave the place name Kaifeng to Daliang, and in order to avoid the taboo of Liu Qi, Emperor Jing of the Han Dynasty, it was renamed "Kaifeng"; and the real Kaifeng, after several name changes, is today called "Zhuxian Town". The most famous story is probably the "Eight Hammers Make Trouble in Zhuxian Town" in "The Legend of Yue Fei". Unfortunately, that is fictional.
I don’t know why, after the three families were divided into the Jin Dynasty, Wei State, which had the most resources and the strongest national power, took a fancy to this place and spent great efforts to build a tall city on the plain wasteland by the river; it also diverted water from Jishui through the city. It facilitates waterway transportation; it also diverts water from the Yellow River to form a garden, which irrigates a large area of land outside the city, making Daliang a metropolis with vast hectares of fertile land and convenient transportation. This was less than ninety years ago. Since then, although Kaifeng has been buried under the mud of the Yellow River many times, it has been rebuilt on its original site many times, and it is still one of the representative cities in the Central Plains today.
According to research by historians, the urban layout of Kaifeng today is no different from that of Daliang more than 2,000 years ago. From Jinming Avenue to Iron Tower Park, it is roughly the scope of Daliang City, and today the Old City of Kaifeng is roughly the palace of the King of Liang. The best fields around Daliang City were Putian. In today's Zhengzhou, the place name is still called Putian. Outside the garden, the Wei State built a long river embankment, which was waterproof in peacetime and could serve as a defense in time of war.
It is about ninety miles from Changdi to Daliang City. In the middle is the hunting place of King Wei, which is today's Zhongmou County. It is still a long way from Yanzhong to Daliang, and there is a post station in the middle. Zheng Anping worked as an errand at this post station and was called "post soldier".
Being a postman is a job that is neither big nor small. We have to do everything from greetings to guests, conveying messages to others, delivering official documents, etc. However, in ancient times, the land was vast and the people were sparse, so there were few things to do, and there were many times when I was free as a postman.
A post station is usually equipped with five people, which is equivalent to a corps in the army. One of them is a post official, that is, the station master, and the other four are post soldiers, who take turns to be on duty. The person on duty today is Zheng Anping.
He still remembered that when the soldier who took over from the gate ran into the post station, he was out of breath. As he took out a talisman carved out of bamboo, he was breathing heavily and could not speak a sentence: "It is passed..., Mangmao... General... is defeated, the Qin army... the Qin army is coming!"
The post official took the talisman and inspected it briefly, thinking it was correct. That is to say, Zheng Anping was ready to leave. Zheng Anping hurriedly put on his straw sandals and leather armor, carried a water gourd (gourd) on his shoulder, picked up his halberd, took the talisman from the post official, and ran towards the west gate of Daliang.
It is about thirty miles from the inn to the west gate of Daliang. Zheng Anping must run this distance within an hour.
It should be said that Zheng Anping has not run around like this for a while since he became a postman. But since the new king came to the throne last year, something seems to be going wrong. Last year, news came that Qin general Bai Qi was attacking Wei Bian County. He ran like this to deliver documents. However, the Qin army did not enter the vicinity of Daliang City, and the military situation was not so urgent. It was just that several cities were broken and there were some losses. But this time it's different. General Wei Mangmao has been defeated, and the Qin army will appear at Daliang City almost immediately.
"How far away is the Qin army? When will it arrive? Will it attack Daliang? Or will it sweep all around Daliang? Will I also have to fight with the Qin army?" Zheng Anping couldn't help but think in his mind as he ran. He was thinking wildly, and questions popped up one by one, making him both funny and annoyed. Especially when he thought about the possibility of fighting the Qin army in person, he felt unspeakably anxious.
"Boy! You are a soldier, and the Qin soldiers are just farmers. What's so scary!" Zheng Anping comforted himself in his heart, but this could not suppress his fear of the Qin army. The legendary Qin army was not afraid of death, and their merits in battle were calculated based on the heads they chopped off. A brave man might have several heads hanging on his body, which makes people shudder just thinking about it. He imagined in his mind that a group of desperate people were swarming up, and he could block a few blows with his martial arts.
"No matter how many times I can block it, I will die in the end." His final conclusion was pessimistic. Then he saw the tall city walls.
