Chapter 23 Moving the Grave
In February of the fifth year of the Gandao reign, Yizhou Road, at the request of the Lizhou Road Inspection Office, began to issue a warrant for the arrest of Meng Xiao from all prefectures and counties in Western Shu. Before learning of his crime, Meng Xiao had already fled to Zizhong County with his servant and cat. His wife, Diao, who came from the famous Huang and Diao families, was unable to accompany him due to illness. The aunts of the Meng family said that Diao was frightened and sick because of the disaster Meng Xiao had caused. In January, the night before Meng Xiao left Chengdu, he had a long talk with Diao. The aunts didn't know what the couple talked about, and said that Meng Xiao must be leaving, and Diao asked him to explain everything clearly. The next day, Meng Xiao took his servant out of the south city gate, and Diao fell ill. Half a month later, the Huang family took Diao away. Third aunt Ma and fifth aunt Tian said that Diao was not really sick. Diao pretended to be sick in order to return to her original family from the Meng family. Although the officials, clerks, scholars, hermits, and professors of the Huang and Diao families had entrusted their wealth to Meng Xiao, they were not entirely unconvinced by the legality of the silver bonds issued by Meng's bank. As early as the beginning of the fourth year of the Gandao era, Huang and Diao had sold all the silver bonds they had purchased from Meng's bank. In February of the fifth year, Meng Xiao's bank was seized by the Chengdu prefecture. A portion of the debts were repaid to wealthy individuals in Yizhou Road, but not only was the interest unpaid, even the principal remained unpaid, reportedly still over a million strings of cash. In Western Shu, all matters related to Meng Xiao's official duties, accounting, finances, and brokerage dealings were brought to the yamen for review. Based on the confessions of over a hundred people, the Chengdu prefecture ultimately charged Meng Xiao with ten different crimes. In addition to the same blatant bribery and bullying as Meng Xian, there was also fraud and extortion. The official documents issued by the government office said that Meng Xiao issued silver bonds in the name of the Tea and Horse Bureau and the General Administration Bureau. In fact, these two government offices only asked him to buy military supplies, and there was no bribery transaction between him and them.
The locals were not surprised that Meng Xiao was wanted. They said, "Where did all that money come from, even though they had hundreds of thousands or millions of coins in their hands, and all they got was scraps of paper?"
Fortunately, Meng Xiao had already moved into a separate courtyard when the crime occurred, and everyone in Jinmafang knew about it. His aunts and their children knew nothing about Meng Xiao's business. When the government convicted Meng Xiao, they only sealed off the Meng family's separate courtyard and spared the main courtyard. At the end of March, Meng Xiao arrived in Wanglai Town and entered Chongqing via Erlangguan. He eventually reached Baisha, taking the same road his father, Meng Jianxiu, had taken. On this road, he encountered a large white cat. The cat lay on the roadside stone, gazing from afar at the charred female cat in his arms. The white cat meowed, its voice hoarse and low, like a tiger. Meng Xiao walked forward. The white cat jumped off the stone, walked past him, and then stopped, still looking back at the female cat in his arms, meowing non-stop. Meng Xiao immediately understood that the white cat was blocking his way to make him turn back. It wasn't asking him to go back and confess his sins and face death, but to go back and move the graves of his father and ancestors to this place.
After arriving in Baisha, Meng Xiao only stayed in his mother's thatched cottage for two nights before he began preparing to relocate the graves of his father and ancestors. The graves of his father, grandfather, great-grandfather, and great-great-grandfather must be relocated. The graves of the ancestors before him could be relocated if possible, or not. With this in mind, he spent a hundred strings of money and asked the monks of Dasheng Temple to select a burial site in Baisha Town. He also spent another two hundred strings of money to hire six laborers from Baidu Post Station to go to Chengdu to dig soil and relocate the graves. However, these six people went through Fotu Pass and Erlang Pass, passed through Baishi to Laifeng Post Station, went through Yongchuan to Longchang, went from Neijiang to Zhujiang Post Station, and then entered Chengdu through Lingchi County. When they arrived outside the Jiangdu Temple, they found that the Meng family's tomb was guarded by three soldiers. Among these three people, two carried large swords, like Guan Yu and Zhang Fei, while the other one did not carry a sword and had a shifty look, looking even more formidable than Guan Yu and Zhang Fei. The six people returned empty-handed and returned the 170 coins to Meng Xiao, saying that you should discuss it with your family first, otherwise no one would do the job.
Meng Xiao went to look for people again, and found two groups. One group refused to go, and the other group returned empty-handed. So, in September of the year of Jichou, Meng Xiao gave the cat to the monks of Dasheng Temple to raise, and went to Baiduyi again to hire five laborers and seven horses, and then took these people and the servant back to Chengdu. This time, he took a small road and had to pass through Gele Mountain on the way. The journey was smooth, and the seven people arrived outside the Jiangdu Temple in Chengdu. They guarded the cemetery from the north for three days and two nights, and caught a vacancy - the most difficult to mess with shifty eyes were gone. The servant took the opportunity to approach and talk to the soldier who looked like Guan Yu, pretending to be a fellow villager and claiming to be a member of the Huang family. The servant took Guan Yu to the village inn. Zhang Fei was the only one left, and was knocked down by two laborers and dragged into the ditch. Six people dug out Meng Bao, Meng Yin, Meng Xian, Meng Jian and their wives and concubines from the graves. During this time, a passerby asked about it, and the six people said that they were sent by their own family to move the graves, and that the noise was a bit loud because they did not do this kind of earthen work often. In the end, the laborers dug out Meng Xiao's four ancestors and their wives and concubines, making a total of eleven people. There were seven horses, minus one for Meng Xiao to ride, and the remaining six were harnessed to the cart, which could carry six people. After discussing with his servant, Meng Xiao decided to abandon the concubines from his great-grandfather Meng Bao to his grandfather Meng Xian first. Only Meng Bao and his wife, Meng Yin and his wife Bai, and Meng Xian and his wife Gao were lifted onto the carts. One couple was on one cart, and two horses pulled one cart. The order and pairings must not be messed up. The laborers took turns carrying his father's body.
The seven men decided on a method for transporting the remains. However, when the laborers were about to bury the concubines' remains, they couldn't remember the identities of the women and confused Meng Xian's wife, Gao, with his concubine, Wang. By the time Meng Xiao discovered the situation, Meng Xian's grave had already been refilled. This was the only option left. Guiltily, Meng Xiao knelt before the cart and told his grandfather, "You chose Wang, too. Please accept it."
The seven bodies had turned to skeletal remains, so transporting them wasn't difficult. Five porters wrapped them in white cloth, placed them on bamboo mats, and carried them to the carts. Incense, candles, and fruits were placed in each cart. The team first headed east, from Lingquan County to Huxi, with servants scattering paper money along the way. When they encountered patrol officers questioning them, Meng Xiao gave them two coins, and no one stopped them. In mid-September, the team arrived in front of Gele Mountain and rested for a night. The next day, they entered the mountain. Meng Xiao hired a guide and planned to go up the mountain along the way, but encountered an insurmountable obstacle on the way.
The path the seven men had taken through the mountains when they arrived had become more winding, with many more troughs and anticlines. A gully, more than two feet wide, emerged from the slope, with fallen trees hiding the bottom. From the pitch-black depths, a sound occasionally emanated, mixed with the gurgling of water flowing through a narrow channel, as if the gully had chewed up a large stone and swallowed it. The ground trembled, and the horses could not move forward. The valley sank into the ground, becoming a pit, swallowing the surging sand and mud like a drunkard's drink. The team circled the mountain for half a day before being stopped by a steep path. This path was covered in dense forest and led to the heights of the mountain. The guide said that this was the only way out. It was your fault for arriving three days late. Three days ago, the ground hadn't sunk yet!
The team stopped in front of the forest, discussed the matter for a while, and then split into two groups. Two people on one group abandoned their carts and took the seven horses with them, seeking another way out of the mountain. The other group of five carried the seven bodies up the slope, and once they were out of the mountain, they went to the post station to find carts and horses.
Five men tied the five bodies to their backs with white cloth and ropes and formed a single file into the woods. The guide, clad in straw sandals, walked in front, wading over stalks of euphorbia and elm vines. The initial stretch wasn't difficult. After a while, rock debris and mud began to slide, and the damp lichens scoured the ground, picking at the men's feet. Large trees, uprooted from the ground, huddled against other trees. Turtle doves and red-eyed birds chirped and mocked the group's awkward climb up the slope. Some of the men's feet ached, and the dead bones on their backs felt heavier and heavier. The thought that the slope was higher than expected frightened them. As they continued, one man's foot was licked by lichen into a ditch, causing him to fall backward and tumble down the path, shattering bones on rocks and tree roots. Two porters exchanged a glance and quickly gave chase, returning to the foothills. The situation was dire. The men weren't seriously injured, but their knees were dislocated, leaving them unable to walk. Meng Xiao suggested to find the two porters who left first, and let them take this man with them and find another way out of the mountain. However, the two people present disagreed, saying that who is more important, your dead family or my living family? We will take the brothers out of the mountain to seek medical treatment first. If you can wait, then wait. If you can't wait, then carry the seven ancestors back to Baisha Town by yourself. Meng Xiao promised to give each person an extra fifty coins, but the porters were anxious and tired and disagreed. During the argument, Meng Xiao spoke more harshly, and they simply lifted up the brothers on the ground and walked out of the forest.
Meng Xiao watched the three figures disappear into the shade of the trees, cursing them for being eaten alive by tigers along the way. Then he looked at the bodies wrapped in bamboo mats and white cloth on the ground and thought, "Oh no!" Two bamboo mats had cracked when they were thrown off, and bones had fallen out and rolled together. They belonged to his great-grandfather Meng Yin and great-great-grandfather Meng Bao. The small ones were toes and heels, while the larger ones were tibias, hips, and sacrums. Meng Xiao hurriedly squatted down to count the bones on the ground, then tore apart the bamboo mats and examined the remains inside, but he couldn't tell which bones belonged to which.
The servant on the mountainside asked, should we go up or down? Meng Xiao waved his hand. The servant and the guide also came down, squatting on the ground to count bones. After unpacking five more bamboo mats, they found that it wasn't just the great-grandfather and great-great-grandfather who were injured. Dad's head was tilted, and his cervical vertebrae were broken, perhaps from hitting a rock. Grandfather Meng Xian's arm was half broken, and he didn't know which tree hit it, or if it was broken in the car, and now it was attached to his foot. Meng Xiao was filled with grief and anger, cursing the porters to death, and pointing to the empty sky, he said to the ancestors: "I will definitely send you to Baisha!" After that, he and the servant and the guide invited the ancestors onto the bamboo mats, tied them together in pairs, and put them back on their backs. The servant and the guide couldn't carry two people, so one waited on the slope, and the other watched at the bottom, watching Meng Xiao run up and down three times. When the ancestors gathered at the top of the mountain, the guide said to Meng Xiao, "You are a good hand, but carrying seven ancestors out of the mountain alone is impossible."
After letting out the anger, it was time to think of a solution. The servant suggested leaving the mountain first and then finding someone strong to carry the remains back. The guide suggested cremating them on the spot. The servant said that bones could not be burned without a fierce fire. The guide said that burning them into pieces would be fine. At first, Meng Xiao disagreed with cremating the remains of his ancestors. The three of them discussed until it was getting dark, and then Meng Xiao changed his mind. The guide and the servant picked up some broken wood. Meng Xiao borrowed a knife from the guide and climbed up a tree to cut some branches. The three of them pulled up the weeds on a piece of land, piled the wood and branches together, and lit a fire. Before the cremation, Meng Xiao knelt down again, kowtowed three times and kowtowed nine times, shouting "I am an unfilial son, and I am an unfilial grandson" several times. The fire was lit, and the great-grandfather was the first to burn. Meng Xiao knelt down again and wailed loudly, as if he was going to throw himself into the fire and burn himself. The servant helped him up, saying that the dead will enjoy happiness in the underworld, so why bother with a few bones like you who burn paper. Get up, they will forgive you.
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