The officer (knocking on the door with a knife in his hand, pointing at the frightened old woman) said, "The government has ordered conscription. Is there a man in your family? Come with me to Heyang to serve the country! "
Old woman (stuttering) (crying sadly): "No, no" (poor officer, where is a man in my family? )"
Officer (waving a knife in his hand): "What? No? Don't you have a son? Call them out! "
Old woman: (sobbing and wiping her tears with her hands) said: "My three sons are all serving in Yecheng. Both sons died in battle, only one is still alive, and there is no pillar in the family. "
Police officer: Nonsense! Your son is far away in Yecheng, and you are obviously making up lies to coax us!
Old woman: Officer, I have some letters here. (Say that finish, take out the letter from your arms and hand it over)
The servant was about to reply when the baby's cry and the woman's voice coaxed the child came from the back room.
The officer (grabbing her by the collar) said, "Don't you dare fool us. Who is crying in the room? There must be someone else, let him out quickly! "
The officer (grabbing her by the collar) said, "Don't you dare fool us. Who is crying in the room? There must be someone else, let him out quickly! "
The old woman (burying her face in her hand and trembling) said, "There are really no men at home, only my grandson, who is still nursing. The child's mother cares about her son, so she hasn't left yet When she came out, she didn't even have a complete dress, so she didn't have the face to see you! "
The officer (fine eyebrow) said, "You don't tell the truth, do you?" Go in and search! "
The old woman (quickly) said, "Wait a minute, gentlemen. To tell you the truth, although I am old, I can still make breakfast for the soldiers. Please let me go! "
The officers (exchanged glances and nodded) said, "You? Not bad. Come with us. "
Old woman: "I'll pack my things first."
Attendant: "What are you packing? There is everything in the barracks, let's go! "
(The old woman looked at the room reluctantly and walked back in three steps. At this time, there was a baby crying at the top of his lungs in the room. )
The Creative Background of Stone Trencher
In the first year of Gan Yuan, Tang Suzong (758), in order to quell the Anshi Rebellion, our army Guo Ziyi, Li Guangbi and other nine people led a 200,000-strong army to besiege Ye Jun (now Anyang, Henan) occupied by An Qingxu, and victory was in sight. However, in the following spring, due to the reinforcements sent by Shi Siming and the internal contradictions in Tang Jun, the situation was reversed. Under the attack of the enemy on both sides, Tang Jun collapsed across the board.
Guo Ziyi and others retreated to Heyang (now Mengzhou, Henan) and dispatched reinforcements everywhere. In the spring of the second year of Gan Yuan (759), Du Fu was demoted to Sigong in Huazhou to join the army.
He left Luoyang, passed Xin 'an, Shi Hao and Tongguan, stayed overnight, traveled widely, and arrived at Huazhou as a post station. Wherever he went, he was devastated and the people were miserable, which caused a strong emotional shock to the poet. On the way westbound from Xin 'an County, he lived in Shihao Village and met officials and soldiers arresting people in the middle of the night, so he wrote this poem according to what he saw and heard.