Caozhen Township is located on the south side of Baiguishan Reservoir in Pingdingshan City, Henan Province. It is rich in rice and lotus seeds and is called "Little Jiangnan". In Cao Town, the story of Lady Cao has been circulating, and many village names here are also related to the legend of Lady Cao.
According to legend, during the Northern Song Dynasty, there was a girl named Cao in Cao Town. She had big feet, a runny nose every day, and sores on her head. Because her parents died early, she lived with her brother and sister-in-law. But her brother and sister-in-law didn't like her very much. They thought the girl was dragging them down, so they asked her at a young age to herd pigs seven or eight miles away all day long, and when they came back at night, they had to weave all night. Because the pigs often bathed in a small river when they were herding, making the water turbid, people called the river Nihe. The pigs after bathing often rolled on the ground and dug up the soil, causing many large pits on the ground. People later named the nearby village Caokeng.
Although the girl looks ugly, she is kind at heart. Once, when she was out herding pigs, she picked up an abandoned kitten. Thinking of her own misery, she took the cat home. When she had food, she was reluctant to eat it and wanted to let the kitten go. Eat enough.
In the blink of an eye, the girl has grown to eighteen years old. Because she is ugly, no one has come to propose marriage. My sister-in-law gossiped all day long, scolding her for not being able to get married. The girl said to her sister-in-law: "Don't look at me because I'm ugly. When I get married, you will let me step on your back." This made her sister-in-law very angry. She scolded her that a toad wants to eat swan meat. It's wishful thinking.
After Song Renzong came to the throne, he asked a famous heavenly master in the court to tell his fortune and marriage. The heavenly master watched the sky at night and said that the real empress was 300 miles south of Bianjing City. So, the emperor immediately sent imperial envoys to look for the empress. The imperial envoy asked: "What does the empress look like?" The Heavenly Master said: "I can't reveal the appearance of the empress, but you remember, whenever you see a living animal head on someone's house, you will welcome the girl back. That's all."
The imperial envoy walked all the way to Cao Town, but he never saw a house with a living animal head. However, when passing by the girl's house, the girl's cat "Miso" jumped up to the roof and lay on the animal's head. When the imperial envoy took a look, wasn't this the family he was looking for? This is the only girl in this family. Even though she is ugly, she cannot violate the sacred decree. Please welcome her back.
When my sister-in-law saw this formation, she was dumbfounded. She didn’t expect that such an ugly little girl would become a queen. When the girl got on the sedan chair, she lowered her head and the mucus from her nose turned into golden beans on the ground. When the sister-in-law saw a lot of golden beans on the ground, her eyes lit up. When she bent down to pick them up, her feet slipped and she fell to the ground. The girl stepped on her sister-in-law's back and got into the sedan.
When the wedding sedan arrived at a small village two miles east of Cao Town, the boils on the girl's head fell off and turned into a silver bowl, and a full head of hair grew out. Therefore, this small village was renamed "Yinwan Village". Later, the name changed and became "Yinwang Village".
Not long after passing Yinwang Village, the girl’s big feet turned into three-inch golden lotuses. Later, people built a temple here to commemorate her, called Tuojiao Temple. Unfortunately, this temple no longer exists.
Continuing eastward across the Shahe River, when we came to Biancheng Village, the girl's appearance became more beautiful, and she had changed from an ugly girl to a queen of the country. So, the name of this small village was changed to "Biancheng Village" "City" is homophonic to "become".
The girl was welcomed into the palace and later named empress, she became the legendary Empress Cao. Her brother and sister-in-law took advantage of themselves to become relatives of the emperor. They committed all kinds of evil and were sued to Bao Zheng. Bao Zheng decided to visit Cao Town in person. After Uncle Cao Guo learned the news, he sent people to capture Bao Zheng and imprisoned him in a water prison in Cao Town. To this day, the ruins of this water prison still exist on Caozhen Street.
After Bao Zheng was imprisoned, he was unable to communicate with the outside world. However, one day, a duck suddenly swam into the water prison. Bao Zheng was overjoyed. It turned out that the water prison was connected to the bottom of Baigui Lake. So he bit his finger, wrote a letter in blood, let the duck hold it in his mouth, and took the letter out.
After receiving Bao Zheng's letter, Song Renzong immediately sent people to rescue Bao Zheng, captured Cao Guojiu, and decided to kill all the Murakami surnamed Cao. Later, too many people were killed, and the executioner couldn't bear it, so he said to those named Cao, "You won't change your surname?" So, when I caught people with the surname Cao and asked them what their surname was, some said their surname was "Shi" and some said their surname was Ruan. This is why today in Cao Town there are many people with the surname Shi and Ruan but almost no people with the surname Cao.