The Cui family story --- uprooted from home

One morning in September 1931, the fog on the street had not yet dissipated, and the sound of selling wontons could be faintly heard, and when the sound of selling wontons was heard completely clearly, the figure of the wonton seller could be seen, a flat shoulder carrying the ingredients and a stove, from the east of the city to the west of the city, and then from the west of the city to the east of the city, and then from the west of the city to the east of the city, the wontons were almost sold, and then they would walk out of the east gate with the burden and end the day's selling.

Weekdays early in the morning into the city gate is mostly some vendors, today's east gate of the city has a shoulder rammer, back to the hand saw teenager, this dress at a glance to know that it is a small carpenter who has just been apprenticed, his name is Cui Zhensheng, at the age of ten, he entered the carpenter shop to learn carpentry, six years of cold winter and heat finally waited for the day of the apprenticeship, this morning he decided to go out and break in, relying on his own craftsmanship to support himself.

Far to Fengtian in the northeast, the Japanese army launched the "Fengtian Incident" that shocked China and foreign countries on September 18 of that year, and the ambitious Japanese used the northeast as a breakthrough point to think of invading and occupying all of China and even the world. At this time, Cui Zhensheng took the east gate of the city as a breakthrough to first find a place for himself to live, and then slowly grew his family.

A hundred miles north of Cui Zhensheng's hometown, there was a lot of traffic, bustling, storytellers, jugglers, and cattle traders, and Cui Zhensheng, who was crowded in the crowd, thought, "Just settled in this place."

In the evening, Cui Zhensheng found a car and horse shop to live, the grass shed in the courtyard of the car and horse shop for livestock to rest, the chase shop in the house for the traders to rest, Cui Zhensheng was crowded on the chase shop in the house, he was thinking about how to pick up the work tomorrow, how to communicate with the main households when he picked up the work, "Everything is difficult at the beginning, I should be fully prepared mentally", thinking about it and falling asleep.

The next morning, Cui Zhensheng carried a rammed saw and began to make a living by stepping on the door of a hundred houses, and at the beginning he received some repair work, because no one would believe that a carpenter who had just come out of the apprentice could make good furniture, and if he didn't get it right, he would scrap his hard-won wood.

There is a family surnamed Jia here, which is a well-known large household in these ten miles and eight villages, and there are hundreds of hectares of fields in the family alone, and the two boats of green brick and tile houses are even more magnificent. On this day, the old life star of the Jia family swallowed in the protection of his children and grandchildren, it is said that such a large family should prepare the old life materials for the old life star early, and the carpenters in the village have found some reasons to resign from this business, and then the old life star has not swallowed at that time, so the Jia family has shelved this matter. Now that the matter has fallen to the ground, we must hurry up and get the shou material out no matter what. Hearing that there was a new carpenter here recently, the Jia family quickly sent someone to the chariot and horse shop on the set to invite Cui Zhensheng.

Cui Zhensheng followed the servant into the Jia family, and Old Master Jia invited him into the hall, and after sitting down, Old Master Jia said, "Master Cui, I am ashamed, the old lady died today, but Shou Cai has not yet prepared, please Master Cui will help me with this no matter what." Cui Zhensheng was embarrassed and said, "This matter should have been prepared earlier, and now it is urgent to rush to control it." Then I asked, "I don't know how many days to stop mourning"? Old Master Jia said, "My old wife is also considered to be at the end of her life, stopping mourning for seven days, and on the sixth day shed, she will be moved to the spiritual shed, and there are five days in between, and I hope that Master Cui will save the emergency." When Cui Zhensheng first arrived here, this was the first decent business, and he also agreed to it in an emergency, but he made two requests. Old Master Jia said, "Good, good, don't say two is no problem to want two more." "It doesn't matter if two people are enough. What are the materials used to make shou materials"? Cui Zhensheng asked. Mr. Jia said, "I have all the trees in my field, pine trees, cypress trees, willow trees, shirt trees." Cui Zhensheng thought about the materials that came out of the pine trees and had to be coaxed dry, otherwise the deformation would be too severe, it would take time, and the willow trees would be too hard to work, so let's use cypress trees. "Well, just listen to Master Cui." Old Master Jia said.

The next day, Cui Zhensheng led two hands to the Jia family's woods, selected two cypress trees with a diameter of about thirty centimeters, cut down and transported back to the Jia family's backyard, in order not to delay the progress of making shou timber, he has been eating and living in the Jia family for a few days, after lunch, they first sawed the cut back trunk into eight centimeters pieces, and then Cui Zhensheng drew the line on the piece, let the two subordinates saw out the materials he needed according to the line, and he dealt with the arc that could not be seen on both sides of the trunk, and he stepped on one foot on the piece of flat side of the arc. The two hands rammed up and down, until the arc side was also rammed into a plane before stopping, the role of ramming is to roughly plan the uneven wood, referred to as rough planing, followed by the sawing of the length of the wooden board with planer planing, referred to as fine planing, the next few days is assembled. On the first day of the old birthday star's funeral, Cui Zhensheng built an eight-foot-long coffin as scheduled, brushed with scarlet paint and dried overnight.

In the past few days of digging the coffin, Cui Zhensheng figured out why other carpenters did not dare to come to this matter, he also listened to the two guys who laid hands on it, there was a group of bandits seven or eight miles away from here, the leader was called Guo Qing, who often had contacts with Old Master Jia, last year when the old birthday star was still alive, on her birthday, the Jia family set up a birthday banquet for the old life star, the pomp was quite large, the relatives and friends of the eight townships in ten miles and eight townships came, there were fifty or sixty tables, and also invited the drama team, Guo Qing also came. The guests ate and drank while listening to the play, the scene was not lively, during the banquet a Xu carpenter was drunk, dangling leisurely to go to the hut, came out and said some words of congratulations to the old birthday star, because of the drunkenness of the red rope belt was not tied, leaked out of the half-cut in front of the crotch of the pants, Guo Qing at the next table saw and scolded "the shame of the real fucking mother." Then he ordered his men to drag Xu Carpenter away. After Old Master Jia knew about this, Xu Carpenter had already been buried alive by two of Guo Qing's men. Later, it was rumored in the village that Guo Qing loved to bury carpenters alive, especially carpenters who had a good friendship with the Jia family.

The day after the old birthday star of the Jia family was buried, Old Master Jia found Cui Zhensheng, "Master Cui, if you are grateful, I will not say it, I live here before looking for a place to stay, you have craftsmanship, the wood in the field is used casually, and the good furniture is changed into cash." Old Master Jia said knowingly.

In this way, Cui Zhensheng lived in The Jia family, and the days passed day by day, and the people in the village gradually knew that the Jia family lived in a Cui carpenter from abroad. One day Cui Zhensheng was doing carpentry work in the courtyard, and the princess crossed the high threshold of the Jia family, walked straight to Cui Zhensheng, patted Cui Zhensheng's shoulder and smiled and said, "Little Cui, quickly put down the work in hand and follow me." This princess is a well-known matchmaker in this area, and this time she came to find a daughter-in-law for Cui Zhensheng and told him to hurry up and get aside. Cui Zhensheng put down the carpentry axe in his hand, patted the sawdust on his body, and followed the princess. On the way, The princess said, "This woman's name is Li Meiying, she is sixteen this year, her home is not far from our place, it is also the appearance of two miles, today with her uncle to catch the market, this is not stopped by me, now waiting at my house." Wang Baozi said and trotted up, and Cui Zhensheng followed closely behind.

Entering the Queen Mother-in-Law's Xili Room, Cui Zhensheng saw Li Meiying sitting on a chair, smiled and nodded out of politeness, and then took out a box of cigarettes from his jacket pocket, drew out one and handed it to Li Meiying's uncle. Wang Baozi said, "Xiao Cui, don't look at Xiao Li's face with a few hemp seeds, Xiao Li's heart can be sharp." Cui Zhensheng thought to himself which was a few hemp seeds, it was clear that there was a face on the hemp seeds, and he lowered his head and smiled bitterly. Li Meiying is also not ambiguous, "If you don't want to, you can say it directly, why do you have to look down on people like this." Cui Zhensheng hurriedly said "No, no, no." I didn't say it three times. Li Meiying looked at Cui Zhensheng and then asked, "That is willing." Before Cui Zhensheng could react, he casually replied "Hmm." This "um" contributed to the fact that Li Meiying became Cui Zhensheng's daughter-in-law in the future.

With his own small family, Cui Zhensheng decided to move out of the Jia family, and when he resigned with Mr. Jia, although Mr. Jia repeatedly retained it, but in the end Cui Zhensheng still insisted on moving out, and Mr. Jia could not keep it and said that he "came to me at any time when he encountered difficulties, although he moved out, the wood in the field was still used casually." Cui Zhensheng thanked Old Master Jia and packed up his belongings and left the Jia family.

Cui Zhensheng has been making furniture in the Jia family for many years, and then pulled to the market to sell, and also saved some savings, with these savings to buy a shop on the street of the market, hired two short-term workers, and the business is considered to be formal.

Fast forward to 1945, on August 15 of that year, when the ambitious Japanese signed the unconditional surrender, failing to fulfill their dream of occupying China and the world. However, at this time, Cui Zhensheng was growing his family step by step, from the carpenter shop of that year to the current carriage shop, the tall carriages were ordered one after another, and the silver flowed into Cui Zhensheng's pockets one after another, becoming one of the four major households with the same name as the Jia family. There are two sons under the knee, the eldest is called Cui Xiushan, and the second is called Cui Xiulin.