Light Keeper

Chapter 324 This Mission Is A Little Difficult 1
She was born in a place called Zhao Village in Kuang State, where it is very poor, and the whole village has the surname Zhao.

She has two older sisters, and she is the third in the family, so she is called Sanniang. The girls in the same village are all similar to her, they are all fourth aunts, fifth aunts, and sixth sisters, and none of them have serious names.

Within two years of Zhao Sanniang's birth, two younger brothers were added to the family one after another, making the already poor family even worse.

At that time, the Kuang Kingdom had been established for a hundred years, the imperial court was decaying, the royal family lived in extravagance and corruption, the common people could not afford food and clothing, and the levies and miscellaneous taxes were increasing day by day.

When Zhao Sanniang was 12 years old, there was a drought, and there was only one drenched rain in the whole summer.

Seeing that the harvest was not good and it was time to pay taxes again, Father Zhao had no choice but to buy the eldest daughter in tears and pooled some money.

But then the plague of locusts came.

When the locusts passed through, the Zhao family had nothing left except the adobe of their house and not even the thatch on their roof.

Under the pressure of such blows and heavy taxes, Zhao's mother is already in a bad health, let alone bad!
Zhao's father wept bitterly, but he did not dare to take out half a silver to ask Zhao's mother for a doctor. He died of illness within a few days!
Although the Zhao family lost two people, but when it came to the autumn tax season, the tax officer insisted that the population had not decreased. It must be Zhao's father who hid them, and he wanted to send Zhao's father to prison on charges of tax evasion.

Father Zhao had no choice but to give his second daughter, who was only 13 years old at the time, to the tax official, and only then escaped a catastrophe.

Everyone thought that this matter had finally come to an end, but who knew that this matter was just the beginning.

There is no money or food at home, and the family has several mouths waiting to eat.

But Zhao Sanniang is really too young. Although she is 12 years old, she has not grown up at all due to malnutrition. She is dark and small.

Zhao's father wants to sell her, but those secret doors in the city don't want her!
He is helpless, but the family must live!
Finally, after asking for several days, she was sold to a hunter in a village not far from here.

Orion's surname is Zhang. He is not young. He is already 30 years old. He had a wife who died later and left him a ten-year-old son.

When he bought someone, he had never met Zhao Sanniang, so he didn't know the specific situation.

But when I saw the real person, I realized that I had been fooled.

Seeing that it was definitely impossible to retreat, he had no choice but to take him back home.

Looking at his ten-year-old son, who was half a head taller than Zhao Sanniang, Zhang Orion sighed. He obviously bought a wife for himself, but in the end he became his son's wife.

It is not common to get married at the age of ten in this day and age, but it is not uncommon. Everyone doesn't know the reason, and they don't think there is any problem.

From then on, Zhao Sanniang became the Zhang Zhao family.

Zhang Liehu is a very kind person, and he never felt sorry for Zhao Sanniang because he was fooled.

He is not small. In this era when everyone can't get enough to eat, relying on the mountains behind him, he has become the only family in the whole village that eats meat all the year round.

After Zhao Sanniang got married, she lived a very leisurely life. In the past, she and her sisters had to plant and reap the land and take care of the whole family, but now there is no such trouble.

The Zhang family has a small population, and she doesn't have much housework to do. In addition, she eats well and has good nutrition. She can grow taller within a year.

When it's spring planting time, many people in the village will come to help Zhang Lihu in order to please Zhang Lihu.

The same goes for the autumn harvest.

Four years passed in a blink of an eye. When Zhao Sanniang was sixteen, she was pregnant with her first child. She was well nourished and in good health. Originally, this pregnancy was extremely stable.

But who knows, when she was more than seven months pregnant, Zhang Liehu died unexpectedly in the mountains.

The pillars of the family suddenly collapsed, causing her and her husband Zhang Hu to lose their position for a while. As soon as the father-in-law's body was recovered, Zhao Sanniang gave birth to a son prematurely.

Neither of them had ever been educated, and the child was born at such a critical moment, so they named him Da Lang in a perfunctory manner.

Zhang Orion's death dealt a big blow to the Zhang family.

The originally kind people in the village suddenly changed their attitudes and put on another face.

Zhang Hu was originally an optimistic and free-spirited person, but due to this incident, he became silent and gloomy overnight.

He hadn't recovered from the pain of losing his father, and people in the village spread the saying that Zhang Dalang and Zhao Sanniang ordered their relatives to be hardened.

There are different opinions, some say there are noses and eyes!
Zhang Hu had heard it a few times, and he was so angry that he had two fights with others, and the rumors spread even more!
He knows the root of the problem. His family is now planting the best land and doing the least work, all because of Zhang Liehu's care for the villagers every year.

Now that Orion Zhang is no longer around, those things are naturally jealous.

Now his father's bones are not cold, and his wife and son are lying at home. Although Zhang Hu is only 14 years old, he is already a man in this age!
He didn't want to live in such a useless life, and regardless of Zhao Sanniang's objection, he resolutely picked up Zhang Orion's outfit and went into the mountain.

From then on, the backbone of the Zhang family changed to another person, and life slowly became stable again.

Every time it comes to spring planting and autumn harvest, there are still people who come to help with smiling faces.

Zhang Hu will share the harvest with everyone as in previous years...

In the winter of the second year, Zhang Erlang was born.

Two years later, Zhao Sanniang's little daughter was also born.

At this time, the Zhang family had come out of the trough. Zhang Hu loved his youngest daughter more than his two sons. In an era when all women had no names, this little girl had a name, Baozhu.

It's a pity that the man who regarded her as his precious orb finally didn't wait for the day to raise her.

Like Zhang Orion, Zhang Hu also died in the mountains when Zhang Baozhu was four years old.

From then on, Zhao Sanniang's hard life came.

In times like this, there is a reason why boys are favored over girls.

A man's productivity is everything in this era. A family with more men will be tougher. There are many men in the Zhang family, but it's a pity that the eldest man is only eight years old.

Zhao Sanniang could only grit her teeth to support the family.

The village is far away from the county seat, and there is not much work to do. She farms the land by herself in spring and collects it by herself in autumn.

The boundary markers in the field were moved and moved, but no one could make decisions for her.

Taxes are also getting heavier, and Zhao Sanniang has exchanged everything that can be exchanged for money in the family, just to raise the three children.

She is grateful to the Zhang family and respects and loves Zhang Hu.

So no matter how others tried to persuade her, she never thought of abandoning her three children and looking for another way out.

Her body was getting worse day by day under the heavy workload.

Sometimes she lay on the straw, wondering if she would be free if she died like this!
But every time I think about this, I am afraid that if I see Zhang Hu, I will have no face to explain to him.

She is so strong, supporting her belief that these three children must be brought up.

Kuang's taxes are getting heavier and heavier, wars break out frequently in various places, and neighboring countries take the opportunity to launch troubles. Under internal and external troubles, Zhangzhuang, which is close to the border of neighboring countries, will inevitably not be affected.

(End of this chapter)