Guide to traveling through the Northern Song Dynasty

The sweater on Ju Ming's body was already torn, with scratched holes everywhere.

He took off his sweater and cut it into several pieces with his sword. Then he returned the sword to its sheath, carefully wrapped the scabbard and hilt with the strips of tattered clothing, and tied it tightly with a few shoelaces.

Strict sword control was implemented in the Song Dynasty. The Eight-sided Han Sword is definitely a prohibited item and cannot be exposed to strangers!

After hiding their weapons, the father and son followed the sound of horses and walked towards the depths of the tea farm.

After about ten minutes, the two looked disappointed - there was indeed a horse there, but there was no trace of humans at all.

It can be seen that the horse has a tall frame and its fur is brown. But it was so skinny that every rib stood out, and the horse's belly was completely deflated, reminding Ju Ming of the starving Africans in the photo.

A long rope is tied to the horse's head, and the rope is messily wrapped around the tea tree.

With the horse as the center of the circle, the tea trees and weeds in the surrounding area of ​​three to four meters were eaten bare. It was estimated that all the edible food had been eaten. The horse was eager to break free, so it ran and jumped around, causing the rope to get shorter and shorter, and it was completely tied to a tea tree.

Seeing two humans coming, the horse first took a step back in panic, then shook its head as if asking for help.

Ju Ming came closer to check and found that the horse's neck had been strangled with many scars. Some scars have scabbed over, while others have festered, and there are even live maggots swarming in the wounds.

"There are words here!" Zhu Guoxiang suddenly shouted.

Ju Ming walked to the left rear of the horse and saw that there were brand marks on its left hip, and there were two brand marks on it.

The first place is a large seal with several characters, the key word is "Qin". The second place is a small seal, with only the word "A" stamped on it.

Ju Ming carefully recalled the information. Perhaps due to the influence of time travel, related papers were quickly recalled. Based on the clues, he guessed: "This is a horse bought by the Tea Horse Division from the Hehuang area. It was first sent to Qinfeng Road to buy a horse to be registered in the prison, and then transported to Kaifeng via the Han River to be used as a forbidden army horse for the Dianqian Division. This' The character "A'" is the abbreviation of the number of the front officer of the palace. An unknown accident occurred during the escort, and the army horse fled randomly to the tea farm and was trapped."

"Since it is a military horse, it cannot be kept by private individuals," Zhu Guoxiang swallowed and said hungrily, "We might as well kill the horse and eat its meat."

Ju Ming did not take action immediately, but said to himself: "If it was the Northern Song Dynasty, the Hanshui horse gang had not yet been customized, and the Hehuang horses were generally used directly as frontier war horses, and were rarely transported to the prefectures and counties further south. Even if it was to be transported to Kaifeng, it would be through Tongguan and across the Yellow River. How could it be taken around the Han River? Could it be that we have traveled to the Southern Song Dynasty and this horse is destined for Hangzhou?"

Too little information to understand.

Zhu Guoxiang was so greedy that in his eyes, this military horse was just a piece of barbecue.

"Qiang!"

Ju Ming untied the shoelaces wrapped around the hilt of the sword, unsheathed the sword and planned to kill the horse.

The horse turned to look at him, as if he understood human nature, and there was a hint of pleading in his eyes.

Ju Ming looked at the yellow gelding and couldn't help but feel soft. He couldn't kill him harshly. He asked his father: "Why don't we let him go?"

Zhu Guoxiang was silent for a few seconds, nodded and said, "That's okay."

Ju Ming stepped forward with his sword in hand and carefully cut the rope. The horse did not struggle and just stood there obediently and cooperated with the action.

After cutting all the ropes around the horse's neck, Ju Ming stroked the horse's mane and said, "You are just left to fend for yourself in the mountains. It would be very troublesome for us to take you with us."

The father and son turned around and left, but the horse clung to them and followed them step by step.

When passing the tea tree in front of him, he did not forget to eat tea to satisfy his hunger. The horse was obviously starving.

Following them all the way to the river, Ju Ming went to clean the clay pot, took a pot of river water, and put it in front of the horse. The horse quickly lowered its head to drink water and swung its tail happily, already treating Ju Ming as its master.

Zhu Guoxiang looked at the white maggots swarming around the wound on the horse's neck and silently went to look for medicinal herbs nearby.

After finding the herbs, Ju Ming lit a fire and burned the sword. He used the hot blade to dig out the carrion, scraping off the maggots and throwing them away. The horse just neighed twice and then stood up straight, not moving until the herbs were applied.

The father and son sat down around the fire, while the horse stood beside it and grazed.

"Let's bake two sweet potatoes." Zhu Ming couldn't bear it anymore, although the 20 kilograms of sweet potatoes would be of great use in the future.

Zhu Guoxiang nodded heavily: "The roasted sweet potatoes are delicious!"

When rolling down the hillside, some sweet potatoes were broken. The father and son picked the seriously injured ones, built a kiln with soil, and roasted the sweet potatoes in the same way as kiln chickens.

When they ate the fragrant roasted sweet potatoes, they were so happy that they wanted to cry.

Since I finished eating the snacks I brought, I have been eating wild vegetables to satisfy my hunger. Fortunately, I snatched a small deer from the yellow-throated marten on the way, otherwise I would have been malnourished and unable to trek.

We also encountered many wild animals, but the two of us didn’t know how to hunt!

After eating a roasted sweet potato, although he was still hungry, Ju Ming felt strong again. He stood up with his sword and said, "Let's go, Dean Zhu."

The father and son continued to move along the Han River, followed by a scrawny yellow gelding.

Perhaps the horses brought good luck. We only walked for three hours this time. At about four or five o'clock in the afternoon, we actually saw bursts of smoke rising in front of us.

"Finally I met a living person." Zhu Ming wanted to cry at this time.

We haven’t seen the house yet, but the scenery before us is completely different.

The lowlands by the river have been cleared, and instead of endless forests of weeds, there are large expanses of golden rapeseed flowers.

Further away from the river bank, there are some wheat fields at the foot of the hillside, and the wheat seedlings are lush and growing happily.

In the wheat field, a few figures can be vaguely seen.

The farmers were wearing short shirts, casually wrapped in linen turbans, and tied with collars on their arms, and were working hard to weed the wheat fields.

"No chewing!"

Ju Ming slapped him in the face and stopped the thin horse who wanted to eat rapeseed.

This horse is actually quite sensible. After encountering the big bully, it obediently moved along the field ridge.

Every once in a while, the field ridge becomes slightly wider, and mulberry trees must be planted in the wide area. First, it can collect mulberry and raise silkworms, increasing farmers' income; second, it can stabilize the field edges and prevent water and soil erosion; third, it can prevent others from invading the fields (mulberry trees are the field boundary, and moving the field edges is useless unless the roots of the mulberry trees are removed).

After passing through several rapeseed fields, we were already close to the village, where about ten families lived. They are all thatched houses, with walls made of earth and stone, and roofs covered with thatch to protect them from rain.

The father and son had been discovered a long time ago. As soon as they reached the entrance of the village, several farmers came over.

The leader was a farmer. He seemed to be in his thirties or forties, or in his forties or fifties. His face was so wrinkled that it was difficult to tell his age.

Before the other party could speak, Ju Ming bowed and saluted: "Hello fellow fellow, my father and son want to ask for a drink of water."

This move will put those farmers out of business.

The two endured hardships for ten days, and their clothes were in tatters. Zhu Guoxiang even had a ragged beard. They all had short hair, and they looked like they had been tortured, or they looked like monks who had gone down the mountain to beg for alms.

Ju Ming behaved politely, bowed and bowed, and seemed to be a scholar.

The most important thing is that Ju Ming has a weird accent and he doesn't know what he is saying.

In fact, if you speak slowly, you can still understand the general meaning. Many of the pronunciations of the languages ​​spoken by these villagers are close to Shaanxi Guanzhong dialect, and many are pronunciated close to Sichuan Leshan dialect.

Seeing those farmers frozen in place, Ju Ming slowed down and spoke again.

The leader of the farmers finally understood and invited them into the village to drink water. He asked out of curiosity: "Where are you from?"

Zhu Guoxiang has a friend who is from Leshan. He tried his best to imitate: "We came from the south to seek refuge with relatives. We encountered bandits on the way and were tricked by bandits and had our hair cut off. We finally escaped with great difficulty."

"This horse is quite thin." The farmer said intentionally or unintentionally.

Zhu Guoxiang explained: "There is an abandoned tea mountain in front of us, and this beast was entangled in the tea tree with a rope. We rescued it from the trap, and it followed us all the time."

The farmer smiled and said: "It's quite human nature."

Zhu Guoxiang imitated his son and asked, "What's your surname?"

"My surname is Tian, ​​and everyone in the village calls me Tian San," said the farmer.

Zhu Guoxiang introduced himself: "I, Zhu Guoxiang, this is the dog Zhu Ming."

Chatting all the way into the village, Zhu Ming was silent the whole time and quietly observed several farmers next to him.

The farmers were also observing them, staring at their backpacks for a while, and then looking at their skinny horses.

One of them glanced at Ju Ming's shoulder intentionally or unintentionally - the sword wrapped in a torn sweater was carried behind Ju Ming's back, with the hilt protruding from his right shoulder.

The farmers seemed to be walking casually, but in fact they secretly surrounded the father and son, ready to attack immediately if an accident occurred.

Arriving at the farmyard, Tian San asked Hun's family to get a ladle of water.

When the father and son were drinking water, Tian San asked deliberately: "Where are you going?"

Ju Ming tried to slow down his speech: "We came to visit relatives. I heard from the elderly at home that our relatives grow tea here and haven't moved around for decades. But when we came here, the tea mountains along the way were deserted. Where can we find our relatives in the future? I don’t know where to settle down.”

Tian San shook his head and sighed: "The tea mountain in front was deserted ten years ago. There are so many good tea trees that no one dares to pick them. If you pick them, you have to pay tax to the government. The tea tax is okay, but I'm afraid it will be too much. Miscellaneous donations and errands.”

"Even if we don't pick tea, why don't we plant grain fields?" Zhu Ming asked.

Tian San suddenly became full of resentment: "It is said that Xianggong Cai is carrying out a reform, and he is enacting the land order. The bigger households have less and less land, and the small households have more and more land. If small households can't survive, they have to devote themselves to farming. The tenants had to either flee into the mountains. By the second year, the big households would also be given lots of land, and any number of mountains and forests would be considered fertile farmland for the big households. The big households without a backer in the county government also had to break up their homes and flee."

The equalization of taxes on square fields is the core content of Wang Anshi's reform.

After Cai Jing came to power, he immediately restarted Fangtian. To put it bluntly, it was to inventory the acres of land. For the sake of political achievements, local officials pointed at the barren mountains and said they were dry fields, pointed at the riverbanks and said they were paddy fields, and forcibly registered them under the names of ordinary people.

As a result, the whole country was in chaos, and even the landlords who were not strong enough were forced to abandon their family properties and run away.

Ju Ming asked again: "How far ahead is the county seat?"

"It's far away," Tian San pointed to the west. "It's still dozens of miles to Xixiang County. You have to take a boat there. There are mountain roads along the river, and they are winding. It may take two or three days to walk."

Ju Ming asked again: "Is there a market town?"

"You mean the grass market?" Tian San replied, "Ten miles up the street, there is a white market. I usually go there to buy salt."

After chatting for a while, Tian San’s brother Tian Er came home. In the kitchen, the woman had already prepared the meal.

Tian San invited the father and son to have dinner together, but Zhu Ming and Zhu Guoxiang were naturally disrespectful. They had not tasted rice for a long time.

Tian Er and Tian San both have wives and children. The youngest daughter is only five or six years old. She looks at the stranger with wide eyes and curiosity.

The meal was a pot of mixed porridge, which actually contained rice, but there was a lot of bran in it. I don’t know if the rice was not pounded cleanly, or if the chaff was deliberately left mixed in to fill the stomach. There are also unknown wild vegetables, which are also cooked whole in the porridge, and the green color is quite beautiful.

The dish is a bowl of pickles, which are quite salty. You can drink half a bowl of porridge in one bite.

With such a simple meal, the father and son found it indescribably delicious, devouring it as if they were reincarnated by starving ghosts.

I was embarrassed to eat too much because there was not enough porridge.

Finally, the porridge pots were scraped clean, Tian Er's wife went to wash the dishes, Tian San's wife went to feed the chickens, and the men sat in the yard and continued chatting.

Before I knew it, it was completely dark.

The family only has a few houses, no guest rooms, and not even a woodshed.

The father and son were arranged to rest in the kitchen. Although the conditions were very poor, they would not have to eat and sleep in the open.

Hearing the footsteps outside the house walking away, Ju Ming looked through the crack in the door for a while. After making sure that no one was there, he whispered: "There is something wrong with this village. When we first entered the village, the eyes of the villagers were too penetrating."

"I also feel something is wrong." Zhu Guoxiang said.

Ju Ming said: "The horse is right at the door of the kitchen. If the villagers had evil intentions, they would definitely grab the horse first. As soon as we heard any noise, we would grab the door and run away, leaving the horse to them."

Zhu Guoxiang said: "The old rule is to take turns to keep vigil."

"What should we do if there are too many people? If we are blocked in the kitchen, it will be difficult to escape." Zhu Ming asked.

Zhu Guoxiang thought about it, but there was no good solution, so he suggested: "How about we go out to sleep. I see a lot of firewood piled under the eaves on the side of the house. It is not easy to find it hidden inside. If someone comes, we will look for an opportunity to escape. If No one comes, let’s go back to the kitchen before dawn.”

Zhu Ming glanced at the firewood in front of the stove: "There is no need to go out, we are here. Lock the door. If you find something wrong, just light the house on fire. When the fire breaks out, open the door and rush out in the chaos. When you see the house, Light a fire. Every household in the village has firewood under the eaves, which is easy to ignite. If they dare to mess around, we will play hard and burn down all the houses in the village! By then, the villagers will go to put out the fire. Who will Do you still have the time to chase us?"

Zhu Guoxiang was a member of the system and tended to be conservative in his behavior. How could he come up with such a method? He was so shocked that he didn't know how to speak. He held it in for a long time and only gave a thumbs up: "You...are amazing!"

Just as they were told, the father and son piled straw, bamboo shoots and other flammable firewood around branches, bamboo poles and other good firewood.

Once there is any disturbance, it can quickly ignite.

While the father and son were preparing to set the fire, the Tian brothers were also discussing in the hall.

Tian San said: "These two foreigners are probably not ordinary people."

Tian Er said: "That young junior has a weapon wrapped in rags on his back. I'm afraid he is still a skilled practitioner."

"I'm afraid that the official horse was left over from last year's robbery and escaped to Feicha Mountain and was met by them." Tian San guessed.

Tian Er asked: "Do you want to snatch it back?"

Tian San smiled and said: "It's so skinny that it's all skin and bones. How about snatching it back and serving it to you? You can only kill it and eat its meat."

Tian Er said: "It's okay to eat meat. I haven't eaten meat for a long time."

Tian San shook his head: "If you are really a Lianjiazi, it's not worth it for a meal of horse meat. It depends on whether they leave. If they stay for two days and then leave, we won't cause trouble. In a few days, it will be time to pick tea again, everything will happen." Be careful not to make a big fuss and call in the government. You go to the village overnight and inform the brothers about what happened to these two strangers."

"Okay, I'll go right away. You can keep an eye on me at home." Tian Er stood up immediately.

Tian Er returned to his room, took off the hatchet from the wall, took out a stick from under the bed, and connected the hatchet and the stick together.

A simple knife is assembled and formed.

Although the control of knives was strict in the Song Dynasty, lawless people also had ways to deal with it.

The short blade and long handle were disassembled and placed. When the government found out, they said it was a farm tool. When there was a fight, they assembled it into a simple knife to fight.

Pu Dao has no fixed system and comes in various shapes. It is a very flexible and free DIY weapon.

But in the night, Tian Er went out with a simple knife, walked out of the village from the west, and turned into a valley.

Following the valley into the deep mountains, walking for several miles, you will find large tracts of tea mountains.

And deep in the tea mountains, there are more people.

Weapons are hidden in every household here, and they are in contact with the novice Yuanwai further upstream, who is responsible for opening up government channels. Therefore, there is no need to pay tea tax on the tea mountains hidden in the mountains. After collecting and steaming the tea leaves, all of them are used for private smuggling trade.

Deeper in the tea mountain is a dangerous mountain range.

Earth and stone walls were built at key locations throughout the mountains, and there was a bandit village on the top of the mountain, and farmers also lived in the village.

Smuggling tea is just one of them. Occasionally, they also go down the mountain to rob business travelers.

Even, rob the official product!

The official supplies that were grabbed were sold through channels found outside by novice members.

In the late Northern Song Dynasty, officials were honest and honest, and the people were simple.