In the late summer and early autumn of the 44th year of Wanli in the Ming Dynasty, the southern section of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, the Sujia Canal.
The moonlight shines down, making the water town at night no longer as dark as ink.
Those ponds separated by reeds and mud weirs are like many empty eye sockets without eyes, silently facing the sky as if resigned to their fate.
The silence is occasionally broken.
There was a gentle sound of waves, and a boy of twelve or thirteen years old swam across this large body of water and finally touched the riverbank.
He climbed up the bank, supported the ground with his hands, stood up through gritted teeth, wiped the smelly and dirty river water from his face, took a few breaths, and ran along the river embankment towards the town with numerous houses in the distance.
At the turn of Xuhai, the noisy streets during the day had now returned to silence.
The young man stood in the middle of the stone road, listened carefully to hear the sound, and then turned around a small temple, and finally saw the old man Dageng, who was draped in moonlight.
"Inspection Department, where is the Inspection Department?" The young man ran up and asked eagerly.
The old man was startled by the sudden appearance of the figure at first. After he looked closely and saw that he was a young man, he scolded him with a stern face: "You are a little devil, how can you live in a small house?"
This is the dialect in Suzhou Prefecture. The old man asked which family in the town the baby was from.
The young man's name was Zheng Shoukuan. He was not originally from Jiangnan. He had lived with his aunt in nearby Songjiang Prefecture for more than half a year, so he could understand Wu dialect.
He talked and gestured, and finally made the old man understand his origin and the disaster that suddenly happened today.
After hearing this, the old man's face turned solemn, and he changed his pace to a trot. After leading Zheng Shoukuan around two alleys, he pointed to the high-walled house with torches in the distance and said, "That's the inspection department of this town."
Zheng Shoukuan hurriedly thanked him and ran towards the brightly lit torch.
The old man looked at the young man's back, hesitated for a moment, and sighed.
"Everyone thinks that Jiangnan is good, but I see the people in Jiangnan are resentful. Officials become thieves, and thieves become officials. How have you ever seen them? I see them every month. How pitiful, pitiful..."
The old man hummed softly, and his hunched back quickly disappeared into the boundless night.
…
An hour ago, when Zheng Shoukuan was pushed off the boat by his aunt, his aunt clearly told him that the nearest town was Qiandun, and there must be an inspection department that maintains local security and he could ask for help.
Ever since he followed his aunt Zheng Haizhu north from Zhangzhou Prefecture in Fujian Province, Zheng Shoukuan had already discovered that his aunt seemed to be quite familiar with the Jiangnan area.
He thought that this was all because his aunt had been literate since she was a child and read the various books in the ancestral home, so he began to admire his only relative even more.
I was in danger today, and my aunt's advice at the critical moment was indeed correct.
When young Zheng Shoukuan rushed into the Qiandun Inspection Department, deputy inspector Chen Aliang and several archers on duty had already played the "horse tag" for several rounds.
"Master, Master, help!" Zheng Shouguan cried out.
Chen Aliang was just gambling for fun when he glanced at the young man holding the door frame and said impatiently: "I can't understand the birds singing from other places."
Zheng Shoukuan hurriedly held up his hands and tried to make his accent closer to the local dialect of Wu: "Master, my aunt and I encountered lake bandits outside the reed marsh in the north on a passenger ship. The bandits kidnapped my aunt. The leader was very tall and fat. But I’m blind in one eye. Please help me, Master..."
As soon as he uttered the word "rescue", Chen Aliang let out a cry and said to his archers: "Did you hear that, in this world, it is better to be a soldier than to be a bandit? Hey, can you marry me next year?"
Chen Aliang pointed at a skinny young archer and asked.
The thin man shook his head sarcastically: "Deputy Si Zun, my dear, my father-in-law has not yet paid out the money he owed me last year. How can I have the financial resources to get married?"
"If you don't have money to marry, just take it away, haha." Chen Aliang waved the horse tag in his hand, pointed the side with 'Hu Baoyi Songjiang' printed on it toward his subordinates, and teased, "Imitate the heroes from Liangshan if you are far away, learn from the heroes of Liangshan if you are close. , just learn from me, the Ming Dynasty water bandit, you don’t have to spend half a penny, just take the young girl away.”
All the archers laughed obscenely and cheerfully.
The young man Zheng Shoukuan's anger surged up, but he tried not to lose control of his emotions. Instead, he bowed again, took out a silver ingot from his arms, took a few steps forward, and opened his palm to Chen Aliang.
"Buy some drinks for the military master and some uncles."
Chen Aliang's eyes lit up, he threw the cards and took the ingot.
Under the dim yellow oil lamp, although the boat-shaped ingot is small, its outline is quite beautiful, and the central inscription is clear.
This is not broken silver, but official silver.
The lazy pig-like look on Chen Aliang's cheekbones was replaced by fox-like cunning and vigilance.
He squeezed out a few traces of kindness and asked Zheng Shoukuan: "Does your family receive a salary from the imperial court?"
Zheng Shoukuan was already very talented. He had followed his aunt for two years and was much more mature than his peers. He keenly discerned that Chen Aliang's change of attitude was not just due to the management of money itself.
He then composed himself and replied: "My father is a county official."
"Which county?"
"Longxi County, Zhangzhou Prefecture."
"Oh, it turns out you are from Fujian. How did you and your aunt come to our Jiangnan?"
"Visiting relatives."
"Visiting relatives? From Fujian to Zhejiang and then to our southern Zhili, your aunt is the only one taking you and a young man like you? Is your aunt out of the government? How can you get a guide?"
"Returning to the military master, my aunt is a self-combed girl, and the governor of the government and county allows the self-combed girl to travel far away."
Chen Aliang said "Oh".
He does know about women who comb themselves.
That is a new custom in Fujian and Guangdong. It is said that some women there, either because they do not want to find a man for some reason, or in order to get out of the boudoir to do some work, they put their hair up in a bun like that of a married woman and vowed never to marry. , the freedom to move around locally or travel far away alone will be much greater than that of ordinary unmarried girls.
Chen Ah had a good conscience.
In this case, the kidnapped woman had no support from her husband's family, and her brother was just a minor official from another province.
Afraid of its eggs!
