Exit the inner palace from Xihua Gate, then walk north along the bank of Taiye Pond surrounded by weeping willows. After a few miles, you will arrive at the Jiuqu Trestle Bridge leading to Qionghua Island.
Walking on the trestle, twists and turns, connected pavilions and terraces, surrounded by sparkling green water, under the spring sun, gentle breeze blowing on your face, you feel like you are in heaven.
Qionghua Island is close to the east side of Taiye Pool and is located in the northwest corner of the Inner Palace. Although this island is not big, with a radius of only more than three miles. But what is rare is that there is such an island in the middle of the lake within the imperial city. It is surrounded by water on all sides and east
Facing Wansui Mountain, the island has lush trees and uneven terrain, which naturally becomes a grand scene in the palace. Qionghua Island in the Xiyuan of the Imperial Palace has always been a place for the palace concubines to go out and play.
However, this place has now become a restricted area, because the new residence of the current emperor is here. After the construction of the Leopard Room, Zhu Houzhao stayed here eight out of ten days. The entire facilities and palaces on Qionghua Island have also been renovated.
Planned it out.
Located on the high ground on the west side of Qionghua Island, this is where the Leopard House is now. Dozens of newly built pavilions and pavilions are located here. On the east side are sloping woods, with iron fences demarcating different areas.
Many captured rare birds and animals have been released here. Although it has not yet reached a large scale, the roar of tigers and leopards at night makes it quite wild.
When Zhang Yanling arrived at the Leopard Room, Zhu Houzhao, Liu Jin and others were already ready. Zhu Houzhao was even covered in armor and was riding majestic on his horse.
"Uncle, why are you here? If it's any later, I won't be able to wait for you." Zhu Houzhao laughed loudly when he saw Zhang Yanling arriving.
Zhang Yanling stepped forward and saluted, and said with a smile: "I came all the way here at full speed. Why is the emperor so excited today?"
Zhu Houzhao smiled and said: "I haven't hunted for a long time, so I just want to stretch my muscles. Besides, Liu Jin and the others have brought some new gadgets, so I just want to take a look."
Zhang Yanling smiled and nodded. Seeing Zhu Houzhao with blue eyes and a drunken look, she felt a little worried. Liu Jin came out of the leopard room and collected many charming women. The handsome men doted on them.
How could a sixteen or seventeen-year-old boy survive without going to court and living and drinking every day?
However, Zhu Houzhao was in good spirits. He repeatedly urged Zhang Yanling to prepare horses, and the group quickly prepared and headed down the mountain road to the island.
The island is not big, but the design is very clever. The road winds around the island and is blocked by huge rocks at key points, creating a rugged and tortuous mountain road feel. The straight-line distance is often only separated by a forest a hundred steps wide.
But after seven turns and eight turns, the detour lasted only a few miles. In addition, the forest on the island is dense, and walking on the forest road, you can't see anything except trees for more than 20 years, which adds to the feeling of deep forest and darkness.
A small island with a radius of only three miles, with this ingenious design, actually has the feeling of walking through deep mountains and old forests, with a dark and uncertain future. This amazed Zhang Yanling. Sure enough, flattering and pleasing the emperor is also a skill, and it is also necessary.
They put all their efforts and thought into it. The winding design up and down the hillside and the obstacles of huge rocks and trees everywhere are obviously artificially designed to make the emperor's experience better.
Half an hour later, a group of people arrived at the first hunting spot majestically. Dozens of guards spread out and began to drive the wild animals from all directions to an open space in the middle of the forest. After a while, a group of sika deer, roe deer, and roe deer appeared.
Wild boars and rabbits gathered in the open space in horror. Zhu Houzhao rushed out on horseback, bent his bow and arrows and shot one after another, killing seven or eight of them in a short time.
Liu Jin and others stood by and praised loudly, with a flood of flattery.
Zhu Houzhao turned his horse around, looking unhappy.
"Your Majesty's archery skills are superb. He can hit hundreds of hits. His power is incomparable." Gu Dayong stepped forward to lead the horse and praised loudly.
Zhu Houzhao threw the bow and arrow to the ground and said angrily: "It's boring."
Gu Dayong was stunned and at a loss. Liu Jin hurriedly asked: "What's wrong with the emperor?"
Zhu Houzhao said: "What's the point of this kind of hunting? None of these wild animals are too fat to run, and they are all deer and deer. They are not challenging at all. And there are so many of them? My horse's hooves can crush them to death.
A few of you. Do you treat me like a three-year-old? It's boring."
Zhang Yanling secretly laughed in her heart. It seems that Liu Jin is not good at flattering. Doesn't he know that the emperor likes excitement? These are obviously artificially fed, even running lazily, and there are so many bizarre herbivores for Zhu Houzhao
How can he be satisfied with hunting?
Liu Jin didn't panic at all, but laughed.
"Oh, Your Majesty, where are you now? This is just the beginning. This is not a place for the Emperor to hunt. This is the Animal Garden, where the Emperor is allowed to practice and warm up first to get the feeling of archery.
Before boxing, you have to stretch your waist and stretch your legs and feet. The real hunting is in the back. This is actually a place for the emperor's queens and concubines to come and play in the future. If the emperor likes to play, they can also play with it in the future, right?
What?"
Zhu Houzhao was stunned for a moment, then his anger turned into happiness, and he nodded and said: "I see, it's pretty much the same. But do I still need to practice my archery skills? Liu Jin, believe it or not, if you stand there, I can shoot you in the head with one arrow."
The hat on my head won’t hurt you at all.”
Liu Jin was so frightened that he almost peed his pants and said hurriedly: "How can I not believe it? The emperor's archery skills are the best in the world, and all the slaves recognize him."
Zhu Houzhao laughed and said: "Look, I scare you. If you are scared, just say so. There is no need to flatter me. I know how good my archery skills are. What is the best in the world? There are many powerful people in the world. Let's go.
Let’s go to the next place. What’s the next place?”
Liu Jin smiled apologetically and said: "Your Majesty, be careful in the next place. That's where jackals and wild boars mix. The wolves and wild boars there fight fiercely. Everyone feeds them, and it's up to them to find food. They hunt and bite them every day.
, very dangerous.”
Zhu Houzhao became energetic after hearing this, nodded and said: "This is interesting. Let's go."
Soon after, they arrived at the next hunting place. After everyone got off their horses and entered the iron gate, all the guards were on alert and guarded them carefully. After walking a hundred steps along the forest road, they were surrounded by people biting and screaming.
Everyone looked at the sound and saw three gray wolves rushing out of the dense forest, chasing and biting a large black wild boar.
The wild boar was covered in blood, and three gray wolves followed it and pounced on it and bit it from time to time. The wild boar screamed and staggered away.
"Interesting, interesting. I have to help that wild boar. What is the ability of a gray wolf to overwhelm a small one with its many?" Zhu Houzhao crouched and laughed softly, bending his bow and aiming an arrow at the gray wolf.
Zhang Yanling whispered: "Your Majesty, why don't you wait? I feel that the three gray wolves may not be the opponent of the wild boar. The wild boar has rough skin and thick flesh, and it looks like it is covered in blood, but it is not seriously injured."
Zhu Houzhao didn't believe it, but he put down his bow and arrow. Everyone squatted behind the tree and took a closer look. They saw the wild boar rushing to a rock, suddenly turning around, pressing its butt against the rock and showing its ferocious horns at the three wolves in front of it.
Teeth, making a low growl.
The three gray wolves didn't seem to expect that the other would dare to confront each other. One of them, who was probably new to the world, actually pounced forward and opened his mouth to bite the wild boar's head. The next moment, the gray wolf let out a shrill scream.
He was thrown into the air and rolled all over the ground when he landed. Blood gurgled out from under his neck. He soon fell to the ground dying.
Everyone was stunned, and they didn't see clearly how the wild boar took action. They just saw it forcefully push the gray wolf, and the gray wolf flew away. There was a trace of blood on the two fangs. It seemed that it was just that.
He arched and pierced the gray wolf's neck.
The other two gray wolves retreated in horror, looked at each other, and suddenly turned around and ran away.
"Amazing, amazing. If you hadn't seen it with your own eyes, who would have imagined such a result? A wild boar can actually deal with three evil wolves? That's just a pig." Zhu Houzhao exclaimed.
Zhang Yanling smiled and said: "People should not be judged by their appearance."
Zhu Houzhao laughed. The wild boar heard the sound and turned around. It took an offensive stance and seemed to be ready to rush over. Zhu Houzhao stood up with his bow and arrow, and hit the wild boar's back with an arrow. The wild boar let out a cry.
Screaming and roaring, it rushed towards Zhu Houzhao. Zhu Houzhao fired three arrows in a row and hit two more. When the wild boar fell, it was only ten steps away from Zhu Houzhao.
"What a beast, really ferocious. Interesting, interesting." Zhu Houzhao stepped forward with great joy, stepped on the wild boar with his foot and said with a smile.
"After all, I am no match for the Emperor's arrows." Liu Jin said with a smile.
Zhu Houzhao laughed. At this moment, the hunting had some meaning.
After walking around in the forest for a while, we shot two more gray wolves. It was already noon. Everyone set up tents in the forest, skinned the wild boar and roasted some meat to eat. Although the smell was old and tough, it was very unpalatable, but
What Zhu Houzhao wanted was this feeling of squeezing hair and drinking blood. So he ate with relish and praised loudly.
After eating, the hunting continued. First, we went to a deep pool dug on the east side of the island. There were more than ten poisonous dragons crawling on the rocks to bask in the sun. Liu Jinxin ordered people to catch them from the swamps in the south.
The poisonous dragon is kept in the water pool dug in the east of the island.
"Your Majesty, this poisonous dragon is very ferocious. It took a lot of effort to catch it. It is very valuable. We must let them multiply. In the future, we will kill them when there are more of them. The skin of this animal can be made into fine leather armor, which is invulnerable. In the future, the Emperor will personally
Shoot a few of them and order the eunuch to make a set of poisonous dragon armor for the emperor. That will be very impressive." Liu Jin said.
Zhu Houzhao nodded in agreement, but also felt a little regretful. Seeing the ferocious appearance of the poisonous dragon, he wanted to see how ferocious the poisonous dragon was. So he ordered people to go to the Beast Park to catch a few deer and throw them into the pool. The lazy poisonous dragons saw their prey.
When they came down, they all immediately became energetic and swarmed up, dragging the half-dead deer into the water. After a death roll, not even a piece of bone or debris was left in the deer.
"It's so cruel. How could such a thing exist in this world?" Zhu Houzhao said excitedly and surprised.
Liu Jin smiled and said: "The world is so big that there are all kinds of strange things. On our island, there will be all kinds of rare and strange animals in the world in the future. Whatever the emperor wants to see, the slaves will get it."
Zhu Houzhao nodded, turned around and saw Zhang Yanling frowning, so he asked: "What's wrong, uncle? Don't you like this thing?"
Zhang Yanling said: "That's not true. I'm just worried. If this thing climbs out and enters the Taiye Pool, it will be very troublesome. It's okay for Eunuch Liu to get some rare and exotic animals. This kind of thing will make the palace people wait.
It’s better not to bring unpredictable evil creatures into the palace. Tigers, wolves, bears, and leopards will not leave this island, and this poisonous dragon will crawl everywhere. This pool cannot trap them.”
Zhu Houzhao was startled when he heard this and nodded: "My uncle is right. This thing is very dangerous. Once it enters the Taiye Pool, it will probably hurt the people in the palace. I'm afraid I won't be able to keep it. Liu Jin, you guys are responsible for this."
I didn’t think carefully. I slaughtered them all and couldn’t keep any of them.”
Liu Jin nodded in response, but in his heart he scolded Zhang Yanling for talking too much. You must know that he had tried every means to get this poisonous dragon to the capital. He had spent a lot of effort to please the emperor, but now he was reprimanded. It was really a fox that was not caught.