"Sister Aya, are you at home?"
The early morning smoke had not yet cleared, and while the hoarders were weeding and composting in their fields one after another, the carpenter Ah Shan asked loudly from outside the fence.
Aya came out to open the door with her baby in her arms, and let Ah Shan into the yard with a smile.
Naturally, the passing households and neighbors living nearby saw it.
It dawned on them in a clever way.
No wonder that when girls from Chongming came to watch plays and sideshows before, Ashan was nowhere to be seen. Logically speaking, this hot-blooded young bachelor shouldn't be so cold-blooded. Isn't it a good idea to keep his dead wife alive?
In recent days, everyone finally got a clue. It turns out that this guy is very smart and he has taken a liking to Mrs. Zheng's men.
Although this Aya was young, she was able to organize a boatload of people to land on Chongming Island, and healed the rotten hooves of several mules and horses as soon as they arrived. Mrs. Zheng and Manager Wu didn't talk to her like they did to their servants. tone.
Thinking about it, Ashan is skilled and smart. If he marries the young widow Aya a little higher, he will be more likely to be valued by Mrs. Zheng.
Ah Shan calmly pushed the chai door, blocking the meaningful glances of fellow villagers. When he turned around, he was already smiling and said, "Xiao Doubao, come and see something fun."
Xiaodoubao is Aya's daughter, more than two years old. The baby girl was born early, and Little Dou Bao has been running around with her mother since she was a baby. She has a good sense of security and knowledge. At this young age, she already has some tricks up her sleeve when dealing with adults.
She glanced at her mother's face, then stepped forward with determination, happily dragging the wooden pony with wooden wheels, ran up a few steps, then turned back to Ah Shan, and picked up the wooden pony from the hollow frame on the horse's back. Each wooden mechanism came out, and he asked Ah Shan in a sweet voice: "Uncle, what are these? How to play?"
Ashan squatted down, grabbed four curved wooden crutches, aligned the tenons, and clicked a few times to form a perfect circle. As it slid to the ground, the wooden circle rolled up, and Doubao hurriedly chased after it, giggling. Dehuan.
Aya said softly: "These tenons are so interesting."
Ah Shan raised his eyes and looked at her: "Yes, the ancestor Lu Ban rewarded him with food, and carpentry has been passed down for two thousand years. Now in our Ming Dynasty, there are dozens of types of mortise and tenon joints, and nothing can be done. If I take out a disciple in two years, we can connect the master and the disciple with tenons and build a bridge over the small river outside, so that it will not collapse for a hundred years."
Aya's face was relaxed, but her mind was in a state of high reception of information. She was memorizing every word Ashan said, and then quickly made a preliminary judgment and looked for doubts.
Zheng Haizhu gave her the task of exploring Ashan and helped her get started. A few days ago, Zheng Haizhu and Ah Shan casually talked about Xiaodou Bao as his goddaughter, and asked Ah Shan to make some wooden toys for her to make her children happy, which was better than the dull and fragile clay dolls in the county. .
Aya then sent Ah Shan several meals in the name of gratitude, took the opportunity to chat, and asked a lot of questions with a woman's natural curiosity and compassion.
According to Miss Zheng, if Ashan made up his source, he might give different details to different people at different times on the same question.
But after chatting several times, Aya wrote down the answer and went to report it to Miss Zheng. She saw a slightly disappointed look in Miss Zheng's eyes.
Obviously, there is no inconsistency in Ah Shan’s remarks.
At this moment, Aya came into the room and brought out tea and handed it to Ah Shan. She sat down and watched the man show the doll how to connect the mortise and tenon.
In this pleasant atmosphere under the sun, Aya said harmoniously: "It's not simple. People in Liaodong are good at blacksmithing, but there are very few skilled carpenters."
A hint of pride flashed in Ashan's eyes: "Famous teachers make great disciples. My master is a famous carpenter in his hometown in Shandong. He makes furniture for wealthy families."
"Then why did you go to Liaodong and outside Kuandian Pass?" Aya asked suddenly.
Ah Shan's movement of building a bridge for the bean buns never stopped: "The master is fond of wine. He hurt people when he was drunk. After being punished, he could not be bullied. He escaped from the prison and settled in our village."
He spoke very naturally.
This is the truth, Ashan thought to himself. If there had not been such a Shandong master, he would not have been doing carpentry since he was a child, he would not have learned Chinese with a Shandong accent, and he would not have been involved in the plan to come south this time. Four Baylor has been entrusted with important tasks.
Aya asked again: "Then your master is still in Liaodong?"
Ah Shan sighed: "Master is dead."
"He was also killed by Tatars? Dog Tatars!"
"No, my heart hurts, it hurts like hell," Ah Shan's face suddenly turned cold, and he stared blankly at the wooden bumps in front of him, then he spoke again after a moment, "But you are right, Tatars are dogs, no, even dogs are Not as good as that. The Tatars killed my mother. When she was alive, my mother could also build mortises and tenons. She also told me that when she has grandchildren in the future, she will accompany them to build small bridges, cars, small tables and chairs."
Aya stared at Ah Shan, unable to find any flaws in the way the other person was not looking at her, because it was not because he was dodging, but because he was crying.
The man's tears are not ripples, but they are still tears, falling on the tenon one by one.
Xiaodoubao, who was playing so enthusiastically, quickly stopped his hand, tilted his head to look at Uncle Ah Shan's eye sockets, then wiped away the scattered sawdust in his palms, and raised his hand to stroke away the tears hanging on Ah Shan's cheekbones.
Ah Shan's heart moved.
He recalled that when he was a child, Amma was not good to E Niang and allowed Fu Jin to bully E Niang. He also helped her wipe away her tears like a little bean bag countless times.
Ah Shan touched Xiao Doubao's furry little head, grinned and said, "Come on, let's continue building this little bridge."
Then, he raised his head again and looked deeply at Aya: "Sister, Doubao is so sensible. You are so lucky."
Ah Shan mastered the tenderness of a man towards a woman, which was not difficult for a Beizi like him who was married in Hetuala.
On that day, Zheng Haizhu suddenly appeared in the workshop. Although he encouraged him to work hard on the cart and showed no signs of suspicion, Ashan looked back and reflected on himself, remembering that Sibeile had said when he and he were hunting together that the traps must be covered. The grass, leaves and dead branches should be similar to those around them, otherwise they will arouse prey's alertness.
He then realized that he was a legitimate young bachelor, how could he show no interest in finding a wife.
Therefore, the day Aya appeared next to Zheng Haizhu, he pretended to peek several times.
But at this moment, the quiet mother and lovely daughter in Chaifei's small courtyard made Ashan feel that the pretense of acting was not so clear.
He even thought carefully about Aya's accent, and finally understood why he felt a strange sense of familiarity after only a few interactions with this Nikan woman (the Jurchen name for the Han people).
A certain final sound in Aya's Chinese dialect is particularly similar to the accent of Concubine Meng Guzhezhe, and the latter is Ye He Jurchen.
Ashan and Aya, both of whom have Jurchen tribe blood but are their own masters, were secretly harboring different thoughts when the sound of gongs was heard outside the courtyard, accompanied by Tang Po's loud and powerful voice.
"It's been vaccinated, it's been vaccinated. Everyone at home should go to the entrance of Mrs. Zheng's house to be vaccinated. The doctor has come over from Songjiang."
After Ashan heard the shouting clearly, he asked Aya: "What kind of vaccination?"
Aya said: "This is the way to prevent smallpox."
When she arrived in Chongming this time, Zheng Haizhu asked her if her daughter had had acne. If not, it would be a good time to get vaccinated.
Zheng Haizhu met Boss Fang, the leader of the Yiyang opera class. His hometown is Yiyang, Jiangxi Province. It is the place where Ming Dynasty is best at blowing acne. The serous fluid from chickenpox caused by smallpox patients was diluted with well water and blown into the nasal cavities of healthy people to exert an immune effect. Many doctors in Yiyang were well versed in this.
But after Zheng Haizhu asked about this method, he told a local doctor in Songjiang recommended by Huang Zunsu to extract the acne scab that was about to dry up. Although it was less active, the immune effect was not bad, and it might be safer. Moreover, it is best to use the "pox-receiving method", that is, to extract the crusted chickenpox powder from patients who have been vaccinated but still develop flowers. After five or six times, the symptoms of high fever in the vaccinated patients are reduced, and the risk is further reduced.
Before the emergence of the cowpox method in later generations, starting from the Longqing period of the Ming Dynasty, people in the area from Jiangnan to Ganzhou in the Ming Dynasty were no strangers to the methods of vaccination and smallpox prevention, and therefore they did not resist them.
After the Liao residents came, in addition to Granny Tang's personal testimony, Zheng Haizhu also invited several students from Chongming County who had gone to Suzhou Prefecture to take the exam to teach the hoarders about the vaccination method and dispel the doubts of the northerners who did not know the whole story.
But Ah Shan still didn’t believe it.
He remembered that Sibeile had said many times that many Jurchen and Mongolian warriors were infected with smallpox and died by Ming people who went out to do business.
How can you take the initiative to get dirty things from people with acne!
So, when Aya picked up her daughter and asked Ah Shan why he didn't get vaccinated, Ah Shan said, "I had acne when I was a child."
"Oh?" Aya stared at him, "What's happening on your face..."
"Why are there no pockmarks, right?" Ah Shan touched his cheek, "I came out early, and my mother tied my hands to prevent me from scratching them. After the acne scabs fell off, I didn't fall into the pit."
