Legend has it that a long time ago, there was Mengjiazhuang in Songjiang Prefecture, Jiangsu Province. There was an old man in Mengjiazhuang who was good at growing gourds. The gourds he planted grew very prosperously this year, and one of them even reached into the yard of his neighbor Jiang's house. The Meng and Jiang families were very good friends, so they agreed to marry half of the Hulu family in the autumn. In autumn, a big gourd was born. Meng and Jiang were very happy and picked the gourd to share. Suddenly he heard bursts of children crying from the gourd. Old Man Meng was very surprised, so he cut the gourd open with a knife and saw, ah! There is a little girl sitting in the gourd, with a red face and a chubby little mouth, she is very cute. When the old woman from the Jiang family saw it, she liked it so much that she hugged her and said, "Give me this child!" But Old Man Meng had no children, so he had to do it. The two families started to argue, and they were at loggerheads for a while. In the end, I had to ask the village elders to cut it off. The elder said: "You two have agreed to take half of the gourd family, so the child in the gourd can be considered a joint raiser of your two families." So the little girl became the apple of the eye of the Jiang and Meng families. Because old man Meng had no children, Then she lived in the Meng family and named her Meng Jiangnu. As the stars passed, the sun and the moon flew by, Meng Jiangnu grew up day by day. She was ingenious, smart, and extremely beautiful. She could weave cloth to rival the Weaver Girl, sing songs to rival the oriole, and was loved by Old Man Meng like a treasure.
On this day, Meng Jiangnu finished her sewing and went to the back garden to relax. The lotus flowers were in full bloom in the garden, and the water in the pool was green. Suddenly, a pair of big butterflies landed on the lotus leaves by the pool, attracting her attention. She walked over lightly and fanned herself. She didn't want to use too much force, so she fanned Fall into the water. Meng Jiangnu was very angry, so she rolled up her sleeves and reached out to fish. Suddenly she heard movement behind her. She hurriedly looked back and saw that it was a young man standing under the tree, his face covered with dust and exhausted. Meng Jiangnu hurriedly found her parents.
Old man Meng was very angry at the young man for entering the back garden privately, and asked: "Who are you? How dare you enter my back garden privately?" The young man hurriedly apologized and told the whole story.
It turns out that this young man's name is Fan Xiliang, a native of Gusu. He has been studying since he was a child and is full of articles. I don't want Qin Shihuang to build the Great Wall and arrest people everywhere, one from the third and two from the fifth, and the people of Li are complaining. Fan Xiliang hurriedly disguised himself and escaped. Just now, I was unbearable due to hunger and thirst, so I went to the garden to rest. I didn't want to disturb Meng Jiangnu, so she continued to accuse her.
Meng Jiangnu secretly agreed with her heart when she saw that Fan Xi was a good friend who was courteous and honest. Old Man Meng also sympathized with Fan Xiliang, so he allowed him to stay. Meng Jiangnu expressed her feelings to her father. Old Man Meng agreed very much, so he hurried to the front hall and said to Fan Xiliang: "You are now wandering around and have no fixed place. I want to recruit you as my son-in-law, what do you think?" Fan Xiliang hurriedly left his seat and said, "I am a fugitive. I am afraid that I will harm the lady in the future, so I don't dare to think about marriage." But Meng Jiangnu has made up her mind. Xiliang refused to marry, but Fan Xiliang finally agreed. Old Man Meng was so happy that he couldn't close his mouth. He hurriedly discussed with the Jiang family to choose an auspicious day for them to get married.
It happened that there was a scoundrel in Mengjiazhuang, who usually admired the beauty of Jiang Nv. He came to ask for marriage many times. Old Meng refused, so he held a grudge and waited for an opportunity to retaliate. Now that he heard about Fan Xiliang, he secretly went to the government to report the matter and led officers and soldiers to arrest him.
At this time, the Meng family was still in the dark. They had just been married for three days and were still immersed in joy. Suddenly, there was a crash, the door was knocked open, and a group of officers and soldiers rushed in. Without explanation, After Fan Xiliang was tied up with a rope and about to be taken away, Meng Jiangnu rushed towards him, but was pushed away by the officers and soldiers. She watched helplessly as her husband was taken away.
From then on, Meng Jiangnu missed her husband day and night. She did not think about tea or food, and she was endlessly sad. Winter came in a blink of an eye, and there was heavy snowfall. Jiang Nu wanted her husband to build the Great Wall, but the weather was freezing and she had no clothes to keep out the cold. So she hurriedly sewed cotton-padded clothes day and night. While doing so, she sang a ditty she composed: "The moon is so crescent." In the Ming Dynasty, Meng Jiangnu's husband built the Great Wall. Even if he had to travel thousands of miles, it was a kindness to give him warm clothes."
Meng Jiangnu made cotton clothes overnight, and she set off on her journey. Along the way, we traveled through mountains and rivers, eating and sleeping in the open air. We didn't know hunger, thirst, or fatigue. We kept moving forward day and night. On this day, we finally arrived at the foot of the Great Wall. But there are tens of thousands of civilians under the Great Wall, where can they find them? She inquired about people she met, and a kind-hearted citizen told her that Fan Xiliang had died of overwork long ago and was buried in the Great Wall building a wall. When Meng Jiangnv heard this, her heart was as sharp as a knife, and she asked kind-hearted migrant workers to lead her to the Great Wall where Fan Xiliang was buried.
Sitting at the foot of the city, Meng Jiangnu was filled with grief and anger: She thought that she would travel thousands of miles to find her husband and send him cold clothes, and go through all kinds of difficulties and dangers, but in the end she couldn't even find her husband's bones. How could it not be heartbreaking? The more I thought about it, the sadder I became, so I cried bitterly towards the Great Wall day and night, without drinking or eating, like a cuckoo crying for blood, looking at the moon. This cry moved the heavens and the earth. The white clouds stopped and all the birds were silent. I cried for seven days and seven nights when suddenly I heard a rumble in the mountains. The ground shook, sand and rocks flew, and the Great Wall collapsed for 800 miles, revealing Fan Xiliang's bones.
The collapse of the Great Wall for 800 miles had already alarmed the officers and soldiers, who reported it to Qin Shihuang. Qin Shihuang was furious and ordered Meng Jiangnu to be captured. When Meng Jiangnu was captured, Qin Shi Huang saw her extraordinary beauty and wanted to make her his concubine. Meng Jiangnu said: "If you want me to be your concubine, you must first do three things: first, you must build a long bridge, ten miles long and ten miles wide; second, you must build a tomb on a mountain ten miles square; third, you must wear sackcloth and go to the tomb. Memorial." Qin Shi Huang agreed after thinking about it. In a few days, all the tombs of the Long Bridge were built. Qin Shihuang, dressed in sackcloth, set off in a row, crossed the Great Wall and went to the Long Bridge, and then came to the tomb to offer sacrifices. After the sacrifice, Qin Shihuang asked Meng Jiangnu to follow him back to the palace. Meng Jiangnv sneered and said: "You are stupid and cruel, you have ruined the people of the world, and now you have killed my husband. How can I be your concubine? Stop dreaming!" After saying that, she embraced her husband's body and jumped into the rough sea. For a time, the waves rolled, emptying and hitting the shore, as if they were lamenting for Meng Jiangnu. At the time of Qin Shihuang, there was a Tianhe that separated the two villages. The watermelon village was on the east side of the river, and the gourd village was on the west side of the river. One year, old man Wan of Huluzhuang planted a gourd in his yard. The gourd seedlings grew on the roof of his neighbor, old man Xi, and formed a huge gourd. The two old men discussed it. When the gourds grow, they will saw two gourds per gourd, one for each family.
The gourd has grown into a sawed-off shape. What do you think? There is a fat boy lying inside the gourd. They both liked and were afraid of the child, and didn't know what to do. After pondering for a long time, Old Man Wan picked up the fat baby and said with a smile: "A child is born in a gourd, and there is no end to it!" But what are these two families going to do with one child? Old Man Xu said, "It's easy, just tear off the wall. The two families raised the child together and named him Wan Xilang. "In this way, the two houses merged into one, and the two families became one family. Later, people changed their pronunciation and called Wan Xilang Fan Xiliang. Let’s call him Fan Xiliang! More than ten years later, Wan Xiliang grew up to be a young man. Just when Qin Shihuang was arresting people to attack the border wall, he sent troops to Huluzhuang. Fan Xiliang took advantage of the chaos among the black people and jumped into the water to escape to Dongxiguazhuang on the river. Every watermelon farmer grows watermelons. As soon as he saw the pursuers coming, he hurriedly grabbed the wall of a house and jumped in. What a coincidence, there is a watermelon garden inside the wall, and there is an old earthen kiln at the root of the wall. It is covered with watermelon seedlings. He jumped over the wall and jumped into the earthen kiln. It was dark and the melons were deep. The pursuers looked for him but couldn't find him, so they left. Unexpectedly, Fan Xiliang fell into the kiln and twisted his ankle again. At dawn, the owner came to unload the watermelons and pulled him out of the kiln.
The owners of the melon garden are two old men, one with the surname Meng and the other with the surname Jiang. There is only a lovely girl named Meng Jiang in front of them. Her background was the same as that of Fan Xiliang; more than ten years ago, Old Man Meng and Old Man Jiang grew a watermelon plant in a ditch, which yielded water as big as a bucket. At that time, they agreed that if the melons were not picked and the seedlings were not pulled out, the melons would be cut into two halves once they were ripe, and the whole family would be able to pull out half of the melons. When dividing the melon, he cut it with a knife, and a little girl came out of the melon, and she was named Meng Jiangnu. Now she has grown into a big girl. She is neat and beautiful, and she can be a matchmaker. She shook her head when she said one thing. She shook her head when she said one thing. She tried seven or forty-nine names in a row, but none of them worked. This time it happened to be bitter gourd and sweet watermelon. Meng Jiangnu and Fan Xiliang fell in love as soon as they met each other, and they were both happy when they showed up to the old man. It happened that the old man Xu from Huluzhuang was Meng Jiangnu's boss, so he asked him to be the matchmaker.
Meng Jiangnv and Fan Xiliang got married and had a wedding ceremony. There were people in the family who were busy in the fields, and they became more and more successful as time went by. From this year on, gourds were put on the shelves of the Gourd Farm, and watermelons were rolled in the ground, along with watermelons and gourds. long. Later, the watermelon seedlings climbed onto the gourd stand and the gourd was dragged to the watermelon field. When the wind blows, leaves touch leaves and flowers touch flowers, and the bitter gourds in Calabash Village become sweeter. To this day, there are both bitter gourds and sweet gourds. People say that the bitter gourds that can be sawed and fluttered were planted by Fan Xi, and the sweet gourds that can be stir-fried were planted by Meng Jiangnu.
According to legend, gourds only have white flowers and no red flowers. This was the mourning tribute worn by Meng Jiangnu for Fan Xiliang after he died on the Great Wall. To this day, young women in eastern Henan still wear white cloth strips and white ribbons on their heads to mourn the dead.