In the early morning, Huaiyu rode Ye Zhaobai, followed by two dogs, and headed to the south of the city with his entourage. As soon as he left the house, he met his neighbor Wei Zheng who was going to work in Shangshu Province.
"Wei Zuocheng, good morning."
Wei Zheng actually snorted, turned a blind eye, and turned to the other side.
"Why is this man so rude?" Chen Sheng felt that Wei Zheng was puzzled. He was an official in the same dynasty and his neighbors would not see him when he lowered his head.
"Ignore him." Huaiyu smiled. This Wei Zheng is really annoying. This man impeached Huaiyu three times. He made great contributions when he was still in Longyou. Li Shimin wanted to make him the founding county son and give him the title of guerrilla general.
, Wei Zheng jumped out to object, saying that the reward was too much.
Later, when Huaiyu returned to Beijing, Wei Zheng wrote to impeach Huaiyu twice.
On the night when Li Shimin ascended the throne, Duan Lun presented fireworks to Li Shimin. Wei Zheng impeached Duan Lun and also impeached Huaiyu, resulting in Huaiyu being removed from his position as a young eunuch.
The most outrageous thing is that after Huaiyu moved to Yongxingfang and became Wei Zheng's neighbor, I wonder if this guy was envious of Huaiyu's luxurious house, so he actually found an excuse, saying that Huaiyu was an aristocratic official of the imperial court, and now the country
In the turmoil and the treasury was empty, Wu Huaiyu did not know how to set an example by being diligent and frugal, and instead indulged in extravagance and waste.
It was said that Huaiyu's family killed chickens and sheep every day and ate meat every meal, and even the family dogs ate meaty bones, saying that this was cannibalism.
Anyway, it has risen to a very high level.
Although Li Shimin ignored him in the end and did not deal with Huaiyu, it was Ma Zhou who vented his anger on Huaiyu and turned around and impeached Wei Zheng. As Minister Zuocheng, he not only failed to help the court solve the current famine and food shortage problem in Chang'an, but instead brewed private wine at home.
Wine is also sold privately.
Li Shimin immediately punished Wei Zheng and had all the brewers in Wei Zheng's family confiscated. He also confiscated the wine Wei Zheng brewed and fined him twenty kilograms of copper.
From then on, Wei Zheng didn't even say hello when he saw Huaiyu.
Yesterday, Ma Zhou proposed to marry and get engaged. The Wu family held a banquet and invited guests and relatives. Lao Wu also invited Wei Zheng, but Wei Zheng didn't come at all. Later, Mrs. Liu sent some meat to the Wei family, and Wei Zheng returned the same.
Anyway, I just meant that I would never interact with the Wu family.
Huaiyu didn't care. Although he, Wei Zheng, was now Shangshu Zuocheng, he was not Li Shimin's true confidant. He was just a troll. Being stared at and trolled by him would not affect Huaiyu in any way. Maybe it would be a good thing.
We took Chen Sheng to visit the Xinchangfang Liyuan in the south of the city, where they not only make autumn pear paste and pear nectar according to the old tradition, but also start to make pear wine.
He is not afraid that Wei Zheng will come again to impeach him for making wine. His pear wine does not require grain anyway. When the wine is ready, he will give Wei Zheng a bottle and make the old man angry to death.
"Have your sister-in-law and the others gone to Longyou?"
"Well, we are already on the way. I have to thank Erlang for the arrangement."
Chen Xing originally hoped that his wife, children, parents and brothers would all go there, but now although Chen Sheng and the others were released by the Li Jing family, Chen Sheng came to find a job with his brother-in-law Huaiyu, so naturally his wife and children would not go to Longyou again. Chen Xing
My parents thought about it over and over, but in the end they were unwilling to leave Chang'an.
They even missed their job as stewards in the Li family manor. Suddenly they were free, and they were a little at a loss what to do.
At last Runniang requested, Huaiyu arranged for the couple and their daughter to look after the pear orchard in Xinchangfang in the south of the city, and take charge of making autumn pear paste, making wine, raising bees and collecting honey, and by the way, they also took care of the twenty acres of land in Qujiang.
stand up.
"The Forbidden Army is recruiting new people, do you want to join?" Huaiyu asked.
Chen Sheng smiled and said, "I was originally a slave born in the Li family. Even if I am released as a good man, my identity is the same. I am not qualified to be a soldier, so how can I be a member of the Imperial Guard?"
"This time is different, but it is a rare opportunity."
It turned out that Li Shimin had been feeling aggrieved after reaching the Weiqiao Alliance with Jie Li, so he now began to personally train soldiers to practice archery in the Xiande Hall of the East Palace. The guards of the Suwei army in Chang'an were transferred to the East Palace in turn to receive training.
The emperor's professors not only learned archery from the emperor, but also had to compete in tests after learning, and those who shot well were rewarded.
This matter can be said to be very extraordinary. After all, under normal circumstances, the emperor in the palace only has the Qianniu Preparatory Body of the Left and Right Mansion. These senior guards of the Left and Right Mansion can bring along the guards with swords and arrows, and the rest can only
Wearing a wooden sword and sword as a guard of honor.
Nowadays, hundreds of soldiers are shooting arrows and stabbing spears outside the Xiande Hall every day. If one or two people with ulterior motives get mixed up inside, wouldn't it be a big deal?
Wei Zheng was the most violent in his opposition and began to remonstrate with him as soon as he came to court.
Feng Tongren, the governor of Hanzhou, pretended to have something to do and rode a post horse back to the court to remonstrate. Li Shimin couldn't listen to it at all. Not only did he not stop personally training and testing the soldiers outside the Xiande Hall, he even expanded the forbidden army at the north gate.
The old base of the North Gate Imperial Army was naturally Li Yuan's Emperor Yuan Cong, with 30,000 men on duty in the fifth rank, and about 6,000 men remaining on rank.
Nominally it was subordinate to the left and right garrison, but in fact it was directly subordinate to the emperor.
After the fourth day of June, Li Shimin made some adjustments to the North Gate Forbidden Army, and also selected the brave young Baiqi, accompanied by his attendants, to form Baiqi.
Not long ago, the Thousand Cavalry Camp was also established.
Now Li Shimin plans to make a comprehensive adjustment of the system. The Hundred Cavalry will be expanded to 2,000, and the Thousand Cavalry Battalion will also be expanded from 2,000 to 10,000. The initial plan is to organize the North Gate Forbidden Army into left and right flying cavalry battalions, and left and right thousand cavalry battalions.
The Cavalry Camp, the left and right Shenji Camp, and the left and right Hundred Cavalry Camps are still collectively referred to as the Eighth Battalion of the Forbidden Army.
Feiqi, Qianqi, and Shenji are still the original 30,000 horses, each unified by 10,000. However, this expansion of the Hundred Cavalry Battalion will not be directly selected from the Yuancong Forbidden Army, nor will it be selected from the former Liuhu of the Qin Palace.
The emperor actually wanted to select brave young men from the army.
What is a fanhu?
They were not barbarians, but they were slaves of the government and were freed once.
The Tang Dynasty would seize some criminals and their family members into official service as slaves and relegate them to lowly status. These people were called official households. They were not officials, but slaves of the government.
Some of them perform well and can be released once, that is, they gain partial freedom and become fan households. Fan households are still slaves of the government, but they are not as dead as those under the control of official households. They can even get their own household registration, marry a wife, have children, etc.
It's all possible. You have to undertake certain craftsmanship for the government every year, or raise horses and farm, etc. When the land is divided and granted, you can get a small part.
If these people behave well in the future and have the opportunity to be released again, they will become truly free people.
This time Li Shimin wanted to expand the Hundred Cavalry, and the plan was to expand it to two thousand, but he had to select brave young men from the peasant households, which was very special.
Wu Huaiyu estimated that the reason for doing this was that many of these young people from the feudal households were originally military attachés or generals. They were dismissed for committing crimes, or they were against the Li family in the previous dynasty, or they were members of the local separatist forces in the late Sui Dynasty.
Secondly, these people are already slaves, even official slaves or royal slaves. Their status is already the lowest. If Li Shimin gives them a chance, they will naturally be even more grateful.
Just like back then, Fan Xing, Qian Jiulong, Ma Sanbao, etc. were also slaves of Li Yuan's family. However, in the founding war of Li Tang, they also fought with their lives and were finally awarded the title of general.
"Then I don't meet the conditions. I am a good citizen now. Even if I am still a lowly person, I am still a private slave of the Yongkang Duke's mansion, not a peasant household."
"But you are brave and capable. Your Majesty is expanding the Hundred Cavalry. This time, the main purpose is to select brave young men from the households. I recommend you to guarantee that your skills are completely sufficient.
And if you can’t get into Baiqi, you can still take the test of Thousand Cavalry or Flying Cavalry.”
Chen Sheng didn't seem to have much interest in serving as a soldier or an official. He was greatly influenced by Li Erlang. "It's good to follow Erlang now."
"By the way, with the expansion of Qianqi, Baiqi, Shenji, and Feiqi, won't Erlang, the Qianqi envoy, also be promoted? Congratulations!"
"The Thousand Cavalry Battalion will indeed expand, but after the official expansion, I will no longer be able to serve as the envoy of the Thousand Cavalry Battalion. I am not qualified enough."
Huaiyu was very calm about this. Regardless of whether he was in Qianqiying or Wanqiying, he was so young and would not force anything.
"I suggest you try the Hundred Cavalry Recruitment. You are not young anymore. You have to think about your wives and children. This Turkic invasion, the famine in Chang'an, how many people pawned their wives and sold their children. In the final analysis, it is not because of their low status.
What?
If you become a member of the Imperial Guard, are you still afraid that your wife and children will suffer from cold and hunger?
If you become an official like your brother, you won't have to worry about poverty and hunger. In the past, you followed Li Erlang, and your whole family was also a slave of the Yongkang Palace. In fact, you don't have to worry about food, drink, clothing, etc.
But now that you are setting up your own business, these are things you have to consider."
Chen Sheng, his parents, wife, and sisters are now considered servants of Wu Huaiyu's family, and they also receive rations and wages, but his words did make Chen Sheng listen to some of them.
"I'll think about it again."
"Well, this is a rare opportunity, don't miss it."
Huaiyu and the others went around the Xinchangfang Liyuan. Runniang's parents used to work as stewards in Lijiazhuangzi. They were both relatively young, in their early forties, and they worked neatly. They had a teenage daughter.
It turns out that there is an old couple taking care of this pear garden. Now that they are old, they have returned to Qinqiong Village to take care of themselves.
A pear wine brewing workshop has been set up. Making pear wine is actually not complicated. The main thing is to break the pears and remove the seeds, then break some into pieces and let them ferment naturally. It takes a long time and the temperature suitable for autumn is used to ferment.
Huaiyu walked around and found that they were very efficient in doing things. The garden was very neat and tidy. The original old courtyard was also renovated. They also raised two dogs and fed a donkey. They not only kept bees in the pear garden, but also kept
Eat a lot of chicken.
Chickens are raised and lay eggs in this forest, which not only supplies the Wu family, but can also be sold regularly in the market. This twenty-acre pear orchard is very profitable, but it is a bit remote. Apart from the bald donkeys in the Qinglong Temple next to it, there is no one to keep company.
, at night, it’s just like the wilderness in the countryside.
"There are wolves and foxes here."
"Wolf? Weasel?"
"It's not a weasel, it's a real wolf."
The dozens of huts south of Daxingshan Temple and Xuandu Temple in Chang'an are all farmland, vegetable gardens, or Taoist temples. There are not many households at all, and the ones they have are all temporary sheds built by farmers to live in while farming.
Coupled with the wars in the late Sui Dynasty, wolves actually appeared here, including more foxes, weasels, and wild cats.
Chen Sheng's parents specially raised two dogs and several cats to prevent thieves and wolves. The wolves and weasels would come to steal the chickens.
Qinglong Temple occupies a large area in Xinchangfang. There are thousands of cherry trees in the temple. Every year when the cherry blossoms are in full bloom, it attracts many Chang'an people to come for an outing. Of course, this pear garden is also very beautiful when the thousands of pear trees are in bloom.
But now, there are no brilliant cherry blossoms and pear blossoms here, and there are no Chang'an people coming to enjoy the flowers for an outing. There are only large farmland and vegetable fields in the empty square area.
These lands were not damaged by the Turks. Millet, millet, buckwheat, sorghum, and soybeans were all ripe for harvest, and winter wheat was already being sown in some fields.
"Erlang had previously ordered the twenty acres of land in Qujiang to be planted with crops, so he arranged for them to be planted with winter wheat. Wheat will be harvested by May next year. Those twenty acres are good land. If we get it from Taipu Temple
Buy more horse manure to make fertilizer. One acre of land can probably produce three shi of wheat, and 20 acres of land can produce 60 shi of wheat." Speaking of the piece of land, Lao Chen was very excited. This land is excellent and he has not rented it out.
It was he who planted it with the slaves of the Wu family.
That piece of land was originally awarded by Li Shimin to Wu Huaiyu to build a house so that he could manage things in Qujiang Shenji Workshop, but now he rarely goes to Qujiang.
After owning the Yongxingfang mansion, Huaiyu had no plans to build a house in Qujiang for the time being, so he simply asked Lao Chen to plant winter wheat on the twenty acres of land.
"The Zhike monk from Qinglong Temple has been to the pear garden several times and wants to buy it."
"Tell them, no matter how high or low they are, they are not for sale!"
Huaiyu didn't have a good impression of the monks in the Tang Dynasty today, especially those in Chang'an. He didn't know whether these people were good at memorizing sutras, but they were good at loan sharking.
