One mile away from Zuo'anmen is the industrial park opened up by the capital in the past year. Covering an area of about 1,200 acres, the industrial area was originally a vegetable garden, dry land and several hills. Although it is located within the city walls, it is completely indistinguishable from the countryside outside the city walls.

However, although it looks like it is no different from the countryside outside the city, it is actually very different. At least the villagers living in the city are much safer than those outside the city, and most of the rice, flour and firewood issued by the imperial court are sent into their pockets when they encounter three festivals and two ceremonies.

In fact, when the palace chose to develop an industrial zone here, many villagers objected, after all, the income from growing vegetables was much higher than growing millet and sorghum outside the city.

However, under the threat and inducement of the palace eunuchs, the villagers finally handed over the land. However, the land expropriated for the industrial zone has also been reduced from 3,000 mu to 1,200 mu, because no one other than Chongzhen believes that such a large area of workshop concentration can be established in a short period of time.

However, more than a dozen cotton textile workshops alone have already occupied more than one-third of the planned land of the industrial zone. Coupled with the weaving and other workshops under construction, eighty percent of the 1,200 acres of land have been utilized.

The No. 1 Cotton Textile Factory in Beijing is located in the northeast of the industrial zone, with a newly built gravel road to the south, an adjacent weaving workshop to the west, and a small pond surrounded by arable land to the east.

Coming out of the main entrance of the cotton mill, across the road to the south, is a hill tens of meters high. The slope of the hill from the north is very gentle, about no more than 30 degrees. A year ago, apart from shrubs, weeds and an apricot grove, there were only three families living on the flat top.

Now, the northern slope of the hill is occupied by rows of bungalows running parallel to the east-west. Opposite the main entrance of the cotton textile factory on the north side of the road under the hills, there is a cement hill ramp with a width of about 6 meters.

On either side of this ramp are bungalows running parallel to the east and west. Each bungalow is divided into about 6 households, each with two bedrooms, a small living room, and a hallway at the entrance that doubles as a kitchen.

The length of the bungalow is about 38 meters from east to west, and the depth of the interior of the house is about 9 meters. Nearly 10 meters of open space has been dug to the south of each bungalow to serve as a passage for the bungalow residents and a space for stacking debris. Some of the industrious residents simply set up a small shed at the foot of the hillside to the south to serve as a kitchen or utility room.

The front and back floors of these bungalows are made of concrete, drainage ditches, and the uniform tiled roofs and white-lime stucco walls make for a spectacular look.

Standing on the gravel road on the north side of the hill and looking at the hillside to the south, you can see the layers of bungalows that seem to be stacked up like building blocks, standing abruptly in the wilderness, which makes people feel a little out of tune, but also has a strange sense of harmony.

When Zhang Shijie arrived here with several knights in military uniforms, it was the time for the cotton textile workshop to start work in the morning. In the bungalows on the hillside to the south, there were hardly any human figures, except for a few dogs hurrying along the road.

Zhang Shijie stopped his mount, turned his head to a small military attache behind him, and asked, "Does the family of the martyr Wang Shishi live here?" ”

The little military attache leaned back, grabbed the reins of his mount tightly, and stopped the mount under him before he replied nervously: "Yes, my lord, Lord Wang was originally from Shenyang, and after Shenyang was conquered by Jiannu, his family fled to Liaoxi. Last year, he was selected to go to Beijing to study at the Army Military Academy, and was selected by Lord Lian Shanxiang to enter the imperial guard, so he took his family members who were in exile in western Liaoning to the capital.

According to His Majesty's way of taking care of the family members of the Imperial Guard, the No. 1 Cotton Textile Workshop in the capital under the name of the Inner Government accepted the sister of Lord Wang and arranged a house for their family in the family area of the workshop. At this time, his sister should be working in the workshop. ”

Zhang Shijie frowned and said, "Apart from this sister, who else is in his family?" ”

"There is also a mother and a younger brother, but I heard that the mother's health is not very good. His younger brother is only 17 years old and has just been admitted to Yenching University, so he doesn't seem to live here. As for the rest of the family, they were separated after the fall of Shenyang. At the end, the voice of the little military attache dropped abruptly.

Zhang Shijie's face was expressionless, and he quickly calculated it in his heart. Although he didn't want to convey such a heavy message to a strange woman, he couldn't find anyone else at the moment.

He was silent for a moment, and then spoke: "Then you go and negotiate with the steward of the workshop, ask him to arrange a quieter room, and then invite the sister of the martyr Wang to come over." ”

The little military attache agreed, and wanted to turn his horse's head and go to the gate of the first cotton weaving workshop. Zhang Shijie suddenly stopped him again and said: "Let the workshop arrange two more stable women, it is best to have a good relationship with Wang Martyr's sister, and accompany her over..."

Although Zhang Shijie is not the kind of gentleman, he is also full of disgust with some dark social phenomena in the Ming Dynasty. When he was young, he had many unrealistic fantasies, such as learning from the heroes of Liangshan to do the way for the sky, or learning from the founding heroes of the Ming Dynasty and going to the frontier to make contributions.

But he never imagined that one day, he would carry this heavy message to a strange woman with a death notice and a martyr's medal.

On the way here, he had been worried about what he would do if the martyr's family wept bitterly when they got the news and couldn't keep their cool.

But it wasn't until he met the woman named Wang Qiuniang that he realized that it was he who should be worried about getting out of control. In front of this woman who was as calm as water, under her quiet gaze, Zhang Shijie, who was reading the death notice, felt that his heart seemed to be stinging as if someone had grabbed him.

The voice of his original solemn expression reading the death notice slowly became choked, and finally finished reading the short notice of more than 100 words in tears.

Several officers who came with him all took off their hats and stood on the side with solemn expressions, although they were not as out of shape as Zhang Shijie, but at this moment everyone's eyes were red.

When Zhang Shijie came to his senses and felt ashamed of his gaffe, the corner of his eye swept over the woman opposite and suddenly noticed.

Although the woman opposite did not cry when she heard the bad news, her face became extremely pale, and her hands were twisted into each other with such force that even the blood on the back of her hand was lost.

When Zhang Shijie's eyes were fixed on the other party's hand, the woman suddenly stood up, and she whispered to everyone like in a dream: "I, I just came in a hurry, and there is still a document in my hand that has not been filled in, if there is nothing else, then I will go back first." ”

Zhang Shijie suddenly looked up at her in amazement and said, "Miss Wang, wait, I still have some things here..."

Wang Qiuniang suddenly interrupted him hysterically and said: "You must be mistaken, my brother will be fine, what do you want to do, our family has nothing left, why are you joking with my brother's life..."

Zhang Shijie's body stiffened there, and he didn't know how to answer. Everyone in the room was silent and speechless, and could only look at the woman who had just been so calm, and suddenly became manic.

The two women who accompanied Wang Qiuniang hurriedly stepped forward at this time, half supporting, half holding her, and kept whispering in her ear to persuade something.

Zhang Shijie finally straightened up and stepped forward stubbornly, wanting to comfort the woman, but he spit out a word, and his eyes met the woman's eyes. That desperate and sad look was suddenly imprinted in his heart, making him suddenly feel that no matter what he said now, he couldn't comfort the woman in front of him.

Zhang Shijie forgot how he ended the conversation in the end, but he knew that his mission should be considered a failure.

On the way back, he learned more about this Wang Qiuniang from the mouth of the little military attache next to him. This Wang Shishi's sister is 3 years older than him. Not only did she lose her father and several other family members when Shenyang fell, but she also lost her fiancé two years later.

Wang Shishi has always been the biggest pillar of this family, and now the bad news he brought has given this woman another major blow.

Although Zhang Shijie knew that he was just an outsider in this matter, and there was nothing at fault. But thinking of Wang Qiuniang's desperate and sad eyes, he suddenly felt that he seemed to feel guilty in his heart. On the way back, Zhang Shijie never said a word again.

On the tower of the noon gate, when he stood in front of Chongzhen with a face full of shame, after reviewing his failed mission to the emperor. Zhu Youzhen looked at the houses outside the palace city, and said in a calm tone: "There is no failure that does not fail, even if I change positions with you, I may not be able to do better than you."

If I can watch the grief-stricken families of the martyrs, then I am not the soldier I need. Although you are now the governor of the Jinyi Guard, you may not be on the battlefield in the future. I want you to remember how you felt today, and that every soldier under your command will have a family that cares about them.

Every soldier who died in battle was a living person, not a corpse that filled a ditch. What exactly are they fighting for on the battlefield? I don't think it will be for the wealthy family to live the life of a wine pond and meat forest, and let their family starve to death in obscurity in some wilderness. ”

Listening to Chongzhen's words, Zhang Shijie suddenly remembered the words that his father told him a few days ago. Suddenly, he felt an indescribable feeling of depression in his heart.