Brocade tears

Mencius has not stopped reading for a day since he first learned to read.Not letting go of the book has become a habit engraved in his bone marrow.He studied history at the age of eight, the first thing he knew was the history of the Three Kingdoms, and his favorite character was Xun Yu and Xun Lingjun.When he was ten years old, he set Xun Yu as his role model in life, hoping to become like Ling Jun.

The imperial court was established for Kuang Bi, for Juren, for planning, and for conspiracy.A husband is a virtue, and he is loyal and trustworthy, filial and friendly, emphatic to solidify it, gentle and kind to publicize it, honest and prudent to take responsibility, and benevolent and forgiving to observe people. There is no respect or humiliation in accepting rules and regulations, and there is a secret nature in love.

This is a true gentleman with both talent and virtue and unparalleled wisdom, which is really fascinating.

However, since he was born, he has been suffering from illnesses, and he often feels powerless. At the age of 12, the departure of the enlightenment teacher Liang Jiyu also gave him a big blow.Before Mr. Liang left Yunyou, he gave him a sentence: "For the current state of affairs, there is no panacea for salvation, and there is no way to return to heaven. It is difficult for Kunpeng to spread its wings in this world."

At first Mencius could not understand Mr. Liang's blow to his ambition.In his eyes, the court situation is not as unbearable as Mr. said.But after thinking about it for a long time, he gradually understood that what Mr. Liang said was to dispel his unrealistic ambition as soon as possible, so as to avoid greater setbacks and depression in the future.

Mr. Liang is the teacher of Guozijian, but his official career has been hindered, and he has given up on officialdom.He was deeply influenced by Li Zhuowu, and he believed that the corruption of the court was hard to change.He especially hated the Taoists who took Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism as their standard, as well as countless corrupt officials in the court.It is extremely hypocritical to think that they "are called Shanren, but they have the same heart as merchants, talk about morality, and their ambition is to penetrate the wall (the second tone of yu means to cut through the wall, and by extension refers to thieves)".

However, he was not as radical as Li Zhuowu, and he still had faith in the teachings of Confucius and Mencius in his heart.He agrees with Li Zhuowu in denying the orthodox status of Confucianism, denying that Confucius and Mencius is the "theory of eternal success" that "corresponds to the past and the present", and believes that it should not be used as a dogma and applied casually.However, Li Zhuowu's evaluation of "Six Classics", "Analects of Confucius", and "Mencius" as "the mouth of Taoism and the source of fake people" is too much, and he has reservations about this.

In his mind, he believed that Confucius and Mencius were the right and wise way to stand upright but not enter the world, otherwise it would be very easy to turn into hypocrisy and ruin the government.He taught Mencius the study of Confucianism and Mencius, and let him master the imperial examination method because he was very realistic and understood that most of the scholars in this dynasty studied to be able to enter the court as an official and shine on their families.Others invited him to teach, but also to make the children in the family stand out.He can't break the root of the master's family, and ruin the thinking of the children in the family.Therefore, he will still teach how to teach, and his children will study with him, and the scientific examination will not be delayed.He has a very high level, and if he meets a talented student, he can produce excellent students.

Meng Zixiu is such a talented student that Liang Jiyu is so reluctant to let him enter the officialdom in the future and be polluted by mud.He would rather hit Meng Zixiu's ambition as soon as possible, let him see the reality clearly, so that he can still retain his pure heart.But he also hoped to see him stand upright, and the status quo has changed after entering the court.He was very contradictory in his heart, so that after teaching Mencius Xiu for six years, he finally chose to leave. Mencius Xiu's future path must be left to him to walk. Whether he upholds the righteous way or falls into the evil way depends on his own practice. .The master led the door to practice in an individual, and taught him what should be taught and what can be taught. Whether it is good or bad, it has nothing to do with Liang Jiyu from now on.

Mencius had passed the county and government examinations before, and then studied on his own for three years. At the age of 15, he passed the final college examination of the children's examination and became a granary student.Lin students are the outstanding students among the students (commonly known as scholars) who receive the royal salary, the first among the three ranks.Becoming a student means having fame and fame, entering the scholar-official class, and having privileges such as exemption from corvee, not kneeling before the county magistrate, and not being able to use torture casually.

Originally a bright future, but it was completely ruined by family changes.His father and brother died suddenly, and his mother suffered a severe blow and then died of illness. He lost his parents and brother in a day.However, he has no time to grieve at all, because now he has become the backbone of the family.The two younger sisters are now in disarray. As the elder brother, he must take up the burden of the family and support them.

hateful!His body was too weak, and he didn't dare to get sick after the accident at home, but his body couldn't help him, and he fell ill again.He had a high fever for days and was in a state of chaos. He only remembered that his third sister, Ah Qing, had been taking care of her.In his mind, Ah Qing has always been very strong, but after the death of her parents and elder brother, Meng Zixiu felt bad about her behavior.She hardly shed tears, but it was not indifference, but a feeling of dazedness that had not yet reacted to the huge blow. She seemed to have not yet been able to accept the reality. The heavy truth sank into her heart thoroughly.

After burning for two days and two nights, his health finally recovered, he slept a lot, and couldn't fall asleep at night, so he simply got up and sat in front of the case thinking about the future of the three brothers and sisters.Father and brother died inexplicably, did they just swallow this breath?He came up with the answer to this question without much hesitation. The people in his family are all stubborn, and what they want in their whole life is a truth. With such a big change in the family, the Meng family is absolutely determined not to let this matter go away. In the past, no matter what, he had to find out the reason for the death of his father and brother.

Since they want to investigate, how to investigate is the main problem they face.Now that his parents and elder brother have passed away, he is in mourning period and will not be able to participate in the scientific examination for three years.It is impossible for him to waste these three years. The evidence of the death of his father and brother is fleeting, so he must investigate immediately.He is not at ease entrusting others. His father and brother are both Jinyiwei. Whether their deaths are related to Jinyiwei's internal affairs is still uncertain. He can't trust his father's old acquaintances in Jinyiwei.The safest way to do this is for their brothers and sisters to investigate.

Now there is still a problem, that is, there is a vacancy in the military registration of the family. As a military household, one of the male members of the family must have a military registration, and if there is no male male, he must find another replacement.His body is so weak that he is basically waiting to die when he enters the military camp. He can't survive the high-intensity training. There are very few military doctors in the army, and no one can see his illness.He also takes a large amount of medicine every day and must be looked after, which is impossible in the army.A weak person like him should have been eliminated from the very beginning.But where can he find someone who is willing to replace his family's military registration?

What he could never have imagined was that it was Ah Qing who brought up the issue of military registration on his own initiative.During the day, seeing his recovery, Ah Qing, who came to take care of him to wash up, volunteered to say so.To be honest, it was not that Meng Zixiu had never considered this proposal, but he rejected it at the very beginning because he was too resistant to let his sister enter the military camp disguised as a man.This may be a relatively better way, but what has to be sacrificed is Ah Qing's future life.She lost the life of a normal woman and had to change her gender and live as a man, which was too painful.

"Brother, the boat goes straight to the bridge. Life in the military camp is not a lifetime. I have to retire. Right now we have to solve the urgent need. Besides, after entering Jinyiwei, I may be able to contact the upper echelon of Jinyiwei more conveniently to find out about the death of my father and brother." .”

When Ah Qing said this to him, her expression was calm and resolute. This was obviously a decision she had made after long consideration, and she had already made up her mind.Mencius remained silent for a long time, and finally decided to accept his sister's proposal. Indeed, this is the most feasible solution at present, and the future can be expected.But he has to consider all the details for his sister, and he can't make a mistake in one step. He must protect his sister and never let her identity be revealed.

He made an extremely detailed deployment of the whole plan overnight, trying to consider every detail, including how to make his sister disguise as a man without revealing any flaws, how to cheat the initial medical examination, and what goal my sister should work towards after entering the military camp , what matters need to be more careful in the army.He thought about it all night and listed it all on paper.

On the second day, he discussed with his sister in detail for an hour, perfected more details, and at the same time began to design equipment for his sister to disguise as a man.Because they can't speak, they made up a reason why they can't speak. This reason is still a double-linked buckle, unraveling the outer link and the inner link. This is a double deception, which can make some suspicious people believe it is true.In addition to the problem of vocalization, my sister's face is also suspicious. After all, she is a woman, and her face is fundamentally different from that of a man, especially the beard. Therefore, the lower half of her face must be covered up to the Adam's apple.It may not be a big problem to take it off for a short time, but it must not be watched day and night, otherwise everyone will be suspicious.Meng Zixiu hoped to design a mask that could scare the enemy, just like the mask of King Lanling.Because his sister's face is too handsome and lacks deterrent power.Finally, there is the issue of body shape. He has to design an inner armor that can support the outline and cover the curves of the body. Of course, it also has the role of defense to protect his sister from harm.

He thought for a long time, drew the sketch, and then went out with the sketch for a whole day.He found a blacksmith shop that his father was familiar with, and asked the blacksmith shop to make such a mask, and he also found a tailor to make the inner armor.

Busy, looking for materials, repeated revisions, from the middle of the first month to the beginning of March, the mask and inner armor were finally produced, which perfectly fit my sister's body and minimized the burden on her when she put it on.During the period, he ran to his uncle's house countless times, exhausted his lips and tongue, and finally persuaded his uncle and aunt to agree to this plan. During this time, his cousin Zhao Ziyang also helped a lot.He also found time to visit his father's old friend Liu Jiaotou who was in Jinyiwei with a gift. He deliberately put on inner armor, covered his face and pretended to be unable to speak, and asked Liu to open the back door to let him join Jinyiwei.In the end, the kind-hearted instructor Liu sympathized with their family's experience and agreed.

On March [-]th, the day when he registered to join the army, Mencius went through a formality, filling in his name on the recruit roster, but he was not checked in the physical examination, so he was directly ticked as an excellent one.

But from that moment on, he was no longer Meng Kuang. The identity of Meng Kuang has since been given to his younger sister, Ah Qing.Meng Kuang also voluntarily gave up his fame, and his younger sister took over this identity, which meant that Meng Kuang, a "scholar", had joined the army, and he would no longer be tested for fame from now on.And he has already thought of a new identity for himself, taking the meaning of "the road is long and long, I will search up and down", and he is called Mencius Xiu.He once heard his father mention that there seemed to be a side branch of the family in the south, which was cut off after a few generations of single inheritance, and the last generation should be his distant cousin.He just used this unknown cousin who died young as his future identity.

The next day, he left home.Because he was afraid of the parting scene and seeing his sisters crying, he left home before dawn.Carrying a burden, wearing a bamboo hat, and sticking a cane, when he walked all the way to Chaoyang Gate, he was already in tears.There is a saying in the legendary story book "The Story of the Sword" that has been widely circulated in recent decades: Men don't shed tears easily, because they haven't reached the place where they are sad.At this moment, he was really heartbroken, and he couldn't worry about his two younger sisters no matter what.But since he has chosen to embark on this road, there is no turning back. He must grit his teeth and walk bravely and firmly.

At Chaoyang Gate, he found a few guys from Zhao's Grain Company waiting here. These guys were all arranged by his uncle to send him to Nanjing.Their original mission on this trip was to escort a ship of naked oats from the north to Nanjing from the south of the canal to the wharf of the Tonghui River, which happened to be able to carry Mencius with them.

After the city gate opened, they left the city with the sound of morning bells and went all the way to the Tonghui River Wharf to board a boat.Fifteen years since his birth, Meng Zixiu left Beijing for the first time, saying goodbye to too many emotions and memories in this place where he grew up.It is difficult to set a return date, but he must bring good news when he returns.He stood at the stern of the boat and looked at the outline of the capital city, his eyes were distant and solemn.