future library.

Chapter 10 ancestor worship

The great affairs of the country lie in sacrifice and garrison.The same goes for aristocratic families.

I don't know when, the city's troika has been routinely participating in the Cheng family's ancestor worship ceremony. When the Cheng family was at its most prosperous, people from the state capital would even come to participate.

Of course, the current Cheng family no longer has the splendor of a wealthy family, but its power in Shaonan City is still the same. Participating, the day of worshiping the ancestors has almost become a public holiday for the temples of the yamen.

Like most people in this city, Cheng Jinzhou crawled out of his warm bed when it was still dark.

The four servant girls who got up earlier helped him dress up as quickly as possible. In addition to the normal dressing and boots, they also had to put every strand of hair in the right place. If Cheng Jinzhou didn't like it, his face would be damaged. They will also be covered with face cream made of white powder and animal oil.

There are red lanterns hanging outside the door of each room. The soybean-sized wick emits a dim light, covering the peeling walls.

When the family prospers, it is almost customary for the self-confident patriarchs to make large-scale construction projects. They always think that this prosperity can continue—or, in other words, they hope that this prosperity can continue, but in fact, one day, they The future generations and grandchildren will not even be able to pay for maintenance.

The Cheng family's situation is not bad, some family members with jobs can provide some subsidies, and they can probably make ends meet. However, it is still impossible to maintain the house that stretches over a thousand acres of land. Especially the back house where guests won’t notice.

Fortunately, this will not affect the daily life of the whole family.

Cheng's mother got up earlier than Cheng Jinzhou. It took 16 minutes to put on the 30-part costume. In order to ensure that the seven-piece headdress would not make annoying and impolite jingling sounds, the maids needed to be hidden. More supports were inserted into her hair, and even the girl who was waiting for her to participate in the ceremony was wrapped in new clothes. Together with the umbrella and replacement items, she was equipped like a World War II American soldier.

Cheng Jinzhou secretly laughed twice, obediently followed behind his mother, and peeked up at Cheng's father, who was supposed to be sick.

Judging from the appearance, the magistrate Cheng Yun'an is a very dignified man. He just passed the age of 30. He looks in the prime of life, and his cheeks are more mature after growing a beard. Fortunately, otherwise, Cheng Jinzhou's thinking would be difficult to change.

After traveling for more than a month, Cheng Jinzhou didn't have many chances to meet his so-called father. The magistrate Cheng Yun'an was obviously a person who put more emphasis on career than anything else. This might be the norm in the aristocratic world, but in Cheng Jinzhou's view, it was quite a boring life.As the top leader of the government who is also a senior city official and the mayor, Cheng Yun'an is too low-key, and he doesn't have much gray income in his pocket. This may indicate that he still has a strong enterprising spirit, but even he only has one concubine. , Some of the nobles can't show their hands.

Moreover, Mr. Cheng Yun'an's only concubine is also Cheng's mother's dowry girl. In this regard, apart from Cheng's mother's clever means, it is probably more because of Cheng Yun'an's super self-control.

Of course, what makes Cheng Jinzhou most dissatisfied is that Cheng Yun'an does not care enough about his son. As one of the city's civil servant leaders, Cheng Yun'an's cultural level is unquestionable, but he cannot even guarantee the continuity of the most basic inspection courses, let alone Speaking of serious teaching, Cheng Cheng's academic performance lags behind others, and he is more or less responsible. To this day, Dr. Cheng Da has to learn from scratch.More importantly, as the son of a prefect, he didn't have many opportunities to show off his power, which was unbearable for the traveling public.

Cheng Yun'an looked more and more calm today. When he saw Cheng Jinzhou, he nodded slightly and said: "Be concise when answering, don't look around, you know?"

Cheng Jinzhou gave a dissatisfied "En" in the tone of a lesson, and had no interest in fighting him.

Seeing that Cheng's father had nothing else to say, Cheng's mother smiled and took Cheng Jinzhou's hand and said, "It's getting late, let's go."

After speaking, Cheng Yun'an was still the leader, and the three of them sat in a four-wheeled carriage together, while his concubine followed in the second-wheeled carriage.

According to the rules of the Great Xia Dynasty, two horse-drawn chariots, or sedan chairs with more than two people, can only be ridden with meritorious titles, with very few exceptions.

What Cheng Yunan owns is not a light carriage. To be precise, it is a ceremonial carriage. The whole body is made of hardwood. In addition to the carriage of more than 10 square meters, the sturdy and spacious interior space brings a heavy and slow speed.Although people at this time did not understand the importance of shock absorbers, the flat road paved by the Cheng family can fully guarantee that the wooden tires with excellent craftsmanship will not bump.

In fact, at slow speeds and with well-made wooden wheels, a horse-drawn carriage is far more comfortable than a 21st-century rom-com.

Perhaps, it is the pursuit of excellence in craftsmanship that slows down the upgrading of ancient Chinese science and technology.Craftsmen who represent the top level of society make up for technical defects with craftsmanship.

The two strong white horses started to walk slowly, the coachman only yelled, but stopped talking. Cheng's mother tidied up her clothes a little, and then began to explain to Cheng Jinzhou the things to pay attention to, from the steps to the position of kowtow. Explain one by one.These were all taught in the etiquette class, and Cheng Jinzhou listened carefully to a few sentences. The memory of the sick child is not so perfect.

The road is not far away, and the carriage is more about ostentation. When the voices outside were noisy, Cheng's father said softly: "You are already 12 years old, and you have to make decisions on many things."

After finishing the endless sentence, the butler's panting voice came from outside the carriage: "Young Master, Young Madam, Third Brother, you're here."

Cheng's mother was also stunned for a moment, and followed Cheng Yun'an inexplicably.

Cheng Jinzhou stepped out of the carriage in doubt, and the light in front of him immediately made him cover his eyes.

It was still dark, but the lit candles illuminated the whole main house like a football field under the dark night.

"At least a few hundred taels of candle money." Cheng Jinzhou thought to himself.

Back in the Western Jin Dynasty when King Shi was fighting for wealth, one of Shi Chong's proudest things was "replacing salary with wax", but the Cheng family's grandeur at the moment is even worse than that.

"This way, please." The servant standing in front of the cotton tent began to greet the guests from the door.

Along the stone-paved road, there are two-horse four-wheeled carriages and rare eight-carried sedan chairs.Farther away, there were sedan chairs and two-wheeled carriages carried by two people parked. There were very few guests who came alone on horseback, which made the stables in the school yard seem empty.

The Cheng family's ancestral hall moved to the city very early, which proved the Cheng family's long history on the one hand, and on the other hand, it also represented the shift of the Cheng family's focus.

In the first days, the ancestors in the ancestral hall wanted to work hard in the capital. As a tradition of resettlement and relocation, the ancestral hall was naturally left in the village outside the city.

It's a pity that today, the current Cheng family has long given up the idea of ​​becoming a wealthy family in the capital. Coupled with some security emergencies, the ancestral hall has finally moved into the city, but it is not in the capital, but in Shaoxing, thousands of miles away. In Nancheng.

Cheng Jinzhou imitated his father's pacing, and now all the members of the Cheng family were present, talking quite casually, and Cheng's mother was also smiling.

As for Dr. Cheng, he focused on observing the boy who was about the same age as him. No matter what, he would stay in Cheng's house forever, and whether he stayed happily or not depended to a large extent on the competition from his peers.

At this point, Cheng Cheng, the sick child, has nothing left but his identity as a direct grandson.

(End of this chapter)