Zhu Yuanzhang in the cellar

Chapter 4: Your name is Zhu Yuanzhang?

"Call the police quickly."

"Ouch, it hurts so much, tie it up tightly."

"Don't worry, it's tied tightly."

"Search him for any weapons."

"I searched, but found nothing."

"Hello, there's a dog thief here. Ouch, it's okay, I just had a fight and it hurts a little. Um, it's at Zhu Changqing's house, Zhujiaping, Shangfeng Mountain, um, ok, please hurry up."

Zhu Yunfeng hung up the phone, squatted on the ground, wearing a mask of pain on his face, and rubbed the painful area hard.

Although it was November and the weather was cold, he was already sweating profusely, his face was bruised and his little brother was still aching.

A few minutes have passed and the pain has eased a lot, but I still can't help feeling a little scared.

He just lifted up his pants to check and his second brother was almost in danger.

I never expected that the opponent's fighting power would be so amazing. If it weren't for the fact that two fists are no match for four hands, and if it weren't for Ji He's divine soldier descending from the sky and catching the opponent off guard, I'm afraid I would have to die today.

Feeling the pain in his body, Zhu Yunfeng stopped the blood from his nose with a tissue, grinned, and glanced at the man.

I saw that the other person was dirty and covered in mud. I couldn't see what he was wearing. His body and head were also covered in mud. The only thing that could be distinguished was that his hair was quite long, but now it was disheveled, making him look like a beggar.

At this moment, Ji He tied up the man with the nylon rope from the utility room.

As a heavyweight fighter, Ji He's collision was so powerful that it knocked the man unconscious and he is now talking nonsense.

It's just that his dialect was so strong that the two of them couldn't hear clearly what he was saying.

Zhu Yunfeng could only vaguely sense that the other party was scolding or questioning him, but he had no idea what he meant.

"Fengzi, what is he talking about?"

"I can't come."

"Didn't you ask?"

"did not ask."

"Just to ask."

After Ji He tied him up tightly, he spoke in Mandarin: "What do you do?"

"Who are you and where is this?"

Zhu Yuanzhang shouted angrily.

"What on earth is he talking about?"

“I still don’t know.”

Zhu Yunfeng and Ji He stared at each other.

"Where is this place?"

Zhu Yuanzhang spoke almost word by word.

"What is this place?"

Ji Hyuk asked tentatively.

Zhu Yuanzhang nodded.

It was indeed difficult for them to have a conversation.

Because Zhu Yunfeng spoke to Ji He in the local dialect of a county in southern Hunan.

Their county is considered good. There are differences in dialects within the county, but the differences are not big. Further west, like Huaihua, close to Guizhou, sometimes the dialects between villages and towns are different.

Zhu Yuanzhang spoke "Jinling Elegant Language", also known as "Hongwu Zhengyun" or "Ming Dynasty Official Language", which is considered the Ming Dynasty version of Nanjing dialect.

It not only gave birth to the later Nanjing dialect, but was also the Beijing dialect, one of the ancestors of modern Mandarin.

After the Jingnan Rebellion, Zhu Di became emperor and moved the capital to Beijing in the 19th year of Yongle. He brought 400,000 people from Nanjing and integrated their language with the local Old Beijing dialect.

By the middle and late Ming Dynasty, the initial Mandarin had been formed, and by the Qing Dynasty, Beijing dialect had become very authentic.

So when Zhu Yunfeng and Ji He were talking in the local dialect, Zhu Yuanzhang couldn't understand a word, but if they spoke in Mandarin, he could barely understand.

"You came here to steal the dog and didn't you know where this place is?"

Ji He was a little speechless.

This person seems to be playing dumb.

However, Zhu Yuanzhang shouted angrily: "How dare you say that I came here to steal dogs!"

"Oh, are dog thieves so arrogant these days?"

Ji He rolled up his sleeves, his huge fat flesh bounced, and his fist was really as big as a casserole.

Zhu Yuanzhang raised his eyebrows.

Naturally, he didn't take this fat guy who looked strong on the outside but was actually weak seriously.

I am just a fish on the chopping board.

What's more, he remembered that he was clearly in the Qianqing Palace preparing to attend court, but in the blink of an eye he appeared in this strange place.

There are too many weird things in it, so it is better to be cautious and not irritate the other party.

So Zhu Yuanzhang began to calm down slowly, stopped talking, and started to look around.

What's that above your head?
Radiating light.

So dazzling.

"Something's wrong."

Zhu Yunfeng suddenly said.

"what happened?"

Ji He wondered.

"How did he get in?"

Zhu Yunfeng pointed at the side door and said, "The door is closed from the inside."

"What about the other doors?"

"I just checked and it was also closed. I usually lock the back door, and the windows were not broken. There was no car outside, and there was only one person, which doesn't look like a dog thief."

"Maybe he unlocked the door first and then closed it?"

Ji Hyuk scratched his head.

Although the door of Zhu Yunfeng's house is an anti-theft door, it is not a particularly expensive high-end anti-theft door that can be opened by a skilled thief.

"It's possible. It's just that when I came, the cellar door was locked from the outside, which made me feel a little strange. And if he came to steal something, there was a TV in the living room, why would he go to the cellar?"

Zhu Yunfeng's eyes moved across the cellar floor.

The utility room is not big, only about ten square meters, and there is a large freezer at the innermost part, which is used to store the frozen meat left over from last year.

Near the freezer are some boxes, some containing fruits, vegetables, and nuts. Anyway, it is autumn and winter now, and the temperature in the mountains is relatively cold, so there is no need to worry about the fruits going bad.

Right in the center is the entrance to the cellar. What is placed underneath is not expensive red wine, but some jars and cans, pickled beans, chopped peppers and the like. Apart from that, there are the rags inherited from his grandfather as the eldest son and grandson.

There were worn-out tables and chairs, a pile of yellowed old books and newspapers, a jar of medicinal wine brewed by my grandfather, a bed curtain with carvings of dragons and phoenixes, and a unique and strange stone tablet placed in the innermost corner.

Zhu Yunfeng felt something strange at first. He never dreamed that someone would appear in the cellar, because if it was a thief, there would be nothing in the cellar that could attract him.

unless.

Are those junks left by grandpa in the cellar antiques?

"I understand."

Zhu Yunfeng's clever little brain quickly started to work, and he said in great joy: "Chisang, we are going to get rich."

"Why are you speaking your hometown dialect?"

"Don't be so mean, I'm the Iron-blooded Wolf Warrior, and I have nothing in common with the little people. Let's talk business."

"How to say?"

“Remember what our life coach told us?”

"Trying to make money?"

Ji Hyuk asked tentatively.

"Yes! Make money! Now is your chance to make a fortune."

"what chance?"

“I have antiques in my cellar!”

"real or fake?"

"It must be true."

Zhu Yunfeng looked towards the cellar and asked, "Why do you think this person came to my cellar?"

"why?"

"If he came to steal the dog, I just checked outside and there was no car. If he came to steal something else, the most valuable thing in the living room is the TV, so why didn't he move it?"

"what do you mean?"

Ji He gradually understood and said, "He came to the cellar specifically to steal things?"

"That's right!"

Zhu Yunfeng praised his own wit. He didn't even feel any pain in his crotch. He said excitedly, "There is only one possibility. There must be antiques in my cellar. Damn, Chichi, I'm rich. I'm going to take you to show off and fly in the future."

"Yoshi."

Ji He's face suddenly perked up, and he became wretched, and said, "Feng-san, work smartly." "Wait a minute."

Zhu Yunfeng took out his cell phone, turned on the flashlight, and then climbed down into the cellar.

He had been to the cellar once before, during the Chinese New Year, when his father asked him to put pickled beans and chopped peppers in there.

As soon as you enter, there is a fishy smell inside, because this cellar is left over from the old house of my grandfather. It was covered with cement when it was renovated and rebuilt, but it has been an earthen cellar for decades, so the smell must be unpleasant.

In addition to the earthy smell, there was also a musty, sour, and indescribable smell. Turning on the cellar light, the contents came into view under the dim incandescent light.

I saw that one of the jars on the right was kicked into pieces, and the chopped chilies inside spilled all over the floor. The sour smell was probably coming from this jar. As for why the jar was kicked into pieces, it was probably the work of the person above.

There is a cabinet on the left hand side, which was my grandfather’s cabinet. There is a cabinet on top with three drawers in the middle, and a counter below. The cabinet is for bowls, the drawers are for sundries, and the counter is for leftover meals.

At this point, it was no longer a cupboard, but a storage cabinet. The cupboard was filled with old books and newspapers, and layers of yellowed old papers were piled up on the counter. There was also a small basket hanging on the left ear - that was where the chopsticks were placed.

When I saw this cabinet, my childhood memories came to mind.

When I was a child, I often looked for leftovers in it, and played playing cards with my friends in the village and threw them casually into the middle drawer. This cabinet carries a lot of memories from the past.

In addition to these things, there are other sundries, such as tables, chairs, benches, medicinal liquor, bed curtains, etc.

Zhu Yunfeng's eyes swept across these things, and finally focused on the unique and strange stone tablet.

Because everything else was relatively intact, even the jar was only kicked into pieces, only the stone tablet was dirty and covered in mud, as if it had been touched by someone.

Considering that the visitor was covered in mud, Zhu Yunfeng quickly deduced a plot.

This guy is either a tomb robber or a connoisseur. He sneaked into his house on a stormy night just to find this stone tablet.

Speaking of which, this stone tablet is also very legendary.

According to the elders' legend, their ancestors of the Zhu family were descendants of Zhu Jianjun, the Prince of Ji in the Ming Dynasty. Zhu Jianjun was enfeoffed in Changsha. After the fall of the Ming Dynasty, his descendants fled or scattered.

One group of them fled to a remote mountain forest in central Hunan and hid there, changing their surname to Chen.

Since Zhu Yuanzhang's mother's surname was Chen, and during the Song Dynasty, the Yimen Chen family was ordered to split up, and one branch was also assigned here, so after changing their surnames, they lived together with the local Chen family, which made it easy for them to evade the Qing Dynasty's pursuit.

And this stone tablet was brought out from the palace by Zhu Jianjun.

At the end of the Ming Dynasty, the Manchus conquered Chenzhou, and the descendants of the Changsha Palace decided to split up and flee. Zhu Yunfeng's ancestor was given this thing.

I originally planned to throw it away. After all, it was inappropriate to carry a stone tablet weighing more than 100 kilograms while fleeing.

However, I heard that the stone tablet was extremely hard, and there were no words on it, only a large number of dragon and phoenix reliefs carved on it. My ancestor thought it might be a treasure, and at worst it could be used as a tombstone, so he reluctantly took it with him.

He took his family of five from Changsha and fled to the mountains more than 100 kilometers away.

This place is located in the Xuefeng Mountain range between Huaihua and Loudi. It is deep in the mountains and old forests and rarely visited by people. The Qing Dynasty did not search here, so he was able to live and multiply in peace with the Chen family.

But on the surface his surname was Chen. In fact, he made two family genealogies. One of them was made by bribing the Chen family in Yimen and including him in the one to avoid the eyes and ears of the Qing Dynasty.

The other is a secret book, which records the genealogy of the Zhu family up to his generation, as well as the reason why he fled here and changed his surname to Chen.

This secret book was not made public and was only passed down to each generation of the Zhu family patriarch. The patriarch was inherited by the eldest son and grandson. In the end, this stone tablet was never turned into a tombstone. It was hidden underground for a long time along with the secret book and some other treasures brought out of the palace, never to be seen by the light of day.

That ancestor knew very well that it was a crime to possess a treasure. After he integrated into the Chen family, he did not exchange the treasures he brought out of the palace for money. Instead, he used a small amount of money to buy some land, buried the treasures in the ground, and lived a poor life in the mountains.

By the time the second generation of clan leaders came along, it was already the Qing Dynasty.

The Qing Dynasty was searching everywhere for members of the Zhu family. Under heavy pressure, the second-generation patriarch did not dare to reveal himself. It was not until his later years that he dug out some silver from the ground, melted it, bought some land to distribute to his descendants, and handed over everything to his eldest son before passing away.

The same is true for the third generation patriarch.

In this way, the Zhu family hid their original surname from generation to generation and borrowed money to buy land. By the late Qing Dynasty, the Zhu family had become the largest landlord in the town, known as "Chen Banshan".

There are more than 20 villages from their Lansha Town to Shangfeng Mountain. At least half of the farmland in each village belongs to the Zhu family. There are countless long-term and short-term workers in the family. It can be said that most of the people in the town are working for the Zhu family.

According to Zhu Yunfeng's father, when his great-grandfather married his great-grandmother, the dowry he gave was silver dollars carried in a basket.

By the time of Zhu Yunfeng's grandfather's grandfather, it was already the Republic of China. After the Qing Dynasty fell, his grandfather's grandfather announced the secret book, separated the Zhu family from the Chen family, and restored their original surname.

But it also returned to its original nature.

Emperor Gaozu indulged in all kinds of eating, drinking, whoring and gambling. According to the local dialect, he was a well-known "transcendence man" in the surrounding area, and could be said to be a reincarnation of wealth and status.

Zhu Yunfeng's great-grandfather was no pushover either. He inherited a lot of his great-grandfather's wealth and worked hard to build up the family fortune. However, within a few years, by the late Republic of China, the Zhu family had become extremely poor.

After the founding of New China, they were even classified as poor peasants.

The only things these two prodigal sons left for their descendants were a few acres of land and this stone tablet.

"I didn't believe my dad before when he said this broken stone tablet was a treasure, but now I believe it. Otherwise, why would someone come to my house to steal it?"

Zhu Yunfeng thought to himself.

However, he couldn't move the stone tablet weighing more than 100 kilograms, so he had to climb up again.

Ji Hyuk is still questioning the man.

"Can you say that again."

Ji He said.

Then he heard the man say: "I'll say it again, my name is Zhu Yuanzhang, and I'm the founding emperor of the Ming Dynasty."

"What did he say?"

Zhu Yunfeng crawled out of the cellar.

"He said his name was Zhu Yuanzhang, and he was the founding emperor of the Ming Dynasty."

Ji He looked at Zhu Yunfeng.

Zhu Yunfeng also looked at him, and then the two of them burst into laughter.

"Hahahahahaha."

"He said his name is Zhu Yuanzhang, and he is your ancestor."

Ji He was overjoyed.

Zhu Yunfeng was so angry that he laughed. He walked to Zhu Yuanzhang, squatted down, patted his face and said, "Your name is Zhu Yuanzhang? You are not worthy of the surname Zhu, and you dare to call me Zhu Yuanzhang?"

"Why am I not worthy?"

A barely detectable murderous intent flashed across Zhu Yuanzhang's eyes.

"You're here to cause trouble, right?"

Zhu Yunfeng said with a smile: "Do you want me to play the Ming Dynasty March for you later?"

"What Ming Dynasty March?"

Zhu Yuanzhang has gradually figured out the other party's accent, and now he can slowly correct his own accent so that both sides can understand each other.

"Guanshan Wine" is also called Zhang Juzheng's Little Song, but wouldn't it be better to play the song "The Unhappy Ming Dynasty"?

Ji He said happily.

"What is the Great Ming Unexpected Song?"

The murderous intent in Zhu Yuanzhang's eyes was growing deeper and deeper.

"The special song for the old Zhu family when their wives and children died, also known as Zhu Di's Happy Song."

Ji Hyuk explained.

Zhu Yuanzhang's pupils shrank slightly.

This kid seems to have too many nine clans.

Zhu Yunfeng rolled his eyes at him and said, "Hey, hey, hey, I'm still here."

"He's an imposter anyway, and he's pretending to be your ancestor, aren't you angry?"

"Angry."

"Then don't beat him?"

Ji He is ready to go.

Zhu Yunfeng is still quite proud of being a descendant of the Zhu family.

He could say bad things about the Ming Dynasty himself, but he would not allow others to say it. For this reason, he even had a fight with a classmate named Zhao Jun when he was in junior high school in the county.

Because Zhao Jun was said to be a descendant of the Zhao family of the Song Dynasty, when they learned that he was a descendant of the Zhu family, the two debated about who was stronger, the Zhu family or the Zhao family.

It turned out that Zhao Jun was a person who liked to speak ill of his ancestors and would not allow others to speak ill of them, so the two sides started fighting.

In fact, both of them have the same reason. It's like locals can say bad things about the local area, saying this place is not good and that place is not good, but if outsiders say bad things about their hometown, they will definitely fight back.

So Zhao Jun didn't like the Song Dynasty and didn't allow anyone to curse his ancestors. Zhu Yunfeng also often talked about the shortcomings of the Ming Dynasty, but didn't like others to say so. The two descendants of the Song and Ming dynasties started to argue.

Now that he heard someone impersonating his Zhu family ancestor, Zhu Yunfeng was naturally unhappy.

"Forget it, let's wait for the police to come."

Zhu Yunfeng originally wanted to beat Zhu Yuanzhang, but Zhu Yuanzhang was a dirty old man over fifty years old, so he looked pitiful and did not do anything to him.

He sat in the corner of the utility room, his eyes wandering towards the light bulb above his head, his mind full of random thoughts.

Now it is certain that the other party is coming for the stone tablet.

With the family tree as evidence, it can be proved that it is something passed down from ancestors.

Things that are passed down can be sold for money.

Find an expert on cultural relics to appraise it, and then find a buyer.

When I have earned the money, why would I write a flop novel?

Sports cars, beautiful women, sea view villas, delicacies from land and sea, whatever you want.

Think of this.

Zhu Yunfeng is full of anticipation for the future.

Think a little excited.

(End of this chapter)