There were four forbidden gardens for the royal family of the Tang Dynasty. The earliest was the West Inner Garden, which was located to the north of the Taiji Palace. It raised many rare birds and animals, as well as spiritual flowers and fairy grass. Later, the Qujiang Pond Furong Garden was opened, but it was mainly a royal garden.
There are no rare animals, but there are many rare birds and peacocks.
After the construction of the Daming Palace was completed, the Taiji Palace basically became a retirement place for the late emperor's concubines. "The white-headed palace ladies are here, gossiping about Xuanzong" happened in the Taiji Palace.
The West Inner Garden also became a place for garrisoning, and one hundred thousand Yulin troops were stationed here. The Royal Forbidden Garden was transferred to the Daming Palace. There are two main places, one is the Inner Garden southeast of the Daming Palace, and the other is the Daming Palace.
Longshouyuan in the north is also called Beiyuan.
Deer are raised in the Inner Garden and animals are raised in the North Garden. When the emperor is tired of dealing with state affairs, he can take his guards to the Forbidden Garden to hunt deer on horseback. Of course, tigers, black bears and the like cannot be raised in the Forbidden Garden. They do not understand the power of the emperor, so what should they do if they knock down the emperor?
From ancient times to the present, poaching in the Royal Forbidden Gardens has never stopped. After the founding of the Tang Dynasty, rangers from Chang'an often went to the West Inner Garden to poach, making it difficult to prevent them.
There are often poachers in Neiyuan and Beiyuan, but they are mainly concentrated in Neiyuan. The rangers are not stupid either. Beiyuan raises ferocious beasts. When they go there, they feed tigers with their bodies.
The reason why Guo Song chose Beiyuan was because he heard that there were three white tigers in Beiyuan that were rare in the world and their fur was very expensive.
At noon, Guo Song and Gan Lei reached the edge of Longshou Plain from a trail.
"Senior brother, I have thought about it, your family can sell wine in the future."
"Why did you think of letting me sell wine?"
Guo Song scratched his head and said with a smile: "I'm thinking about how to deal with tiger bones, bear bile and the like. The skins can be sold for money, and the bones can be brewed into wine. Your family sells wine, and by the way, you can sell tiger bone wine, bear bile wine and the like.
Yes, and even if you drink secretly, my sister-in-law won’t be able to find out because you smell of alcohol anyway.”
Guo Song's reason made Gan Lei angry and said: "I have never heard of any liquor shop selling tiger bone wine. Is it a drug store? If I were asked to sell wine, I would vomit when I smell the wine, and even steal it.
What about drinking?”
"Brother, I'm serious. I saw a Western businessman purifying milk wine in Hexi. The wine he purified is very strong and cannot be seen on the market in the Tang Dynasty. You sell this kind of wine. Chang'an is unique, and you are afraid of losing business.
?”
Gan Lei was a little tempted, "Really? Have you learned how to purify it?"
"It's actually very simple. To put it bluntly, it's worthless. It's just that no one thought of it."
Gan Lei thought that he could not make the decision and had to go back to report such important matters to his wife. He suddenly became listless, "Let's talk about it later! How do we go up the mountain now?"
There was a path in front of them, and on the opposite side of the path was a high wall, at least one foot to five feet high. Beasts couldn't jump out, and it was difficult for people to climb in.
Guo Song sneered, "Is it difficult for this kind of wall to contain me?"
At this time, there was a sound of horse hooves in the distance, and the two people quickly retreated and hid behind the bushes. They saw a group of cavalry galloping towards them on horseback, kicking up billowing yellow dust and galloping past them in a moment.
These are the sentries patrolling the outside. Of course, the palace guards cannot patrol inside Longshouyuan, but patrol outside the wall to prevent poaching. However, compared with the patrol protection in the inner garden, the patrols here are much sparse.
Patrols only occur once every half hour.
Guo Song stepped forward quickly, jumped more than ten feet high, inserted two chisels into the wall at the same time, flipped his body, and landed firmly on the top of the wall.
Gan Lei pouted, he just jumped off a cliff for several years to show off.
"hurry up!"
Guo Song shouted low, and Gan Lei rushed forward and threw a roll of rope up. Under Guo Song's pull, he also climbed up the wall, and the two jumped into the wall.
When he was in Kongtong Mountain, although Gan Lei was fat, he was very agile and fast. Now that he has been married for four years, he rarely practices martial arts, but after all, his foundation is still there. After running dozens of steps with Guo Song, he also
Gradually I caught up.
The two found a tree, Gan Lei climbed up the tree, and Guo Song slaughtered a sheep to let the smell of blood spread. He jumped onto a big rock, holding a bow and arrow, waiting for the prey to come.
But they waited for half an hour, but saw nothing. Gan Lei became a little anxious and said, "Junior brother, did we make a mistake? There are no ferocious beasts here."
Guo Song slapped his forehead and smiled at Gan Lei: "We are confused. This is not Zhongnan Mountain. This is the Royal Zoo. We have indeed found the wrong place."
He jumped down from the stone and waved to Gan Lei, "There must be someone feeding them. We are going to the feeding place. They should have lunch there, not here."
Gan Lei also jumped down from the big tree, and the two of them walked around the wall to the west. After a while, they saw an iron gate in front of them. There was a small window on the gate, which was firmly locked by an iron chain, and a window was inserted next to it.
A sign that says 'Breeding area, keep away from idlers!'
"Senior brother, this is it."
Guo Song heard his senior brother's response. When he turned around, he saw Gan Lei shaking with fear and pointing upward. When Guo Song raised his head, he was startled and saw three white tigers lying on the big rocks above.
Looking at them coldly.
At this time, the largest tiger slowly walked towards Guo Song, who was still carrying a bloody sheep in his hand.
"Junior brother, run quickly!"
Gan Lei finally collapsed, turned around and ran away ten times faster than a rabbit.
Guo Song suddenly threw the sheep over, and he ran a few steps, jumped up, and climbed to the top of the two-foot-high fence. He watched Gan Lei running away and couldn't help but shake his head, feeling an indescribable feeling in his heart.
In just four short years, my senior brother has fallen into such a state of despair. Where has Gan Lei, the man who led the black bear to the wolf's den, gone?
In fact, it is not that Gan Lei has become timid, but that Guo Song is no longer the little Taoist Guo Song he used to be.
The two white tigers on the stone roared lowly, but the largest white tiger ignored it and lay on the ground, tearing the sheep into pieces and gobbling it up.
This was an excellent opportunity. Guo Song couldn't bear it any longer. He pulled out an arrow from behind, opened the bow suddenly, and shot the powerful arrow at the white tiger twenty steps away. This arrow shot extremely well.
A fierce, 'poof!' arrow was shot from the left eye, straight through the brain, leaving only the tail of the arrow outside the eye.
"Ouch!" The white tiger stood up and screamed wildly, rolled desperately on the ground a few times, and then stopped moving.
The other two white tigers stood up in fear, glanced at Guo Song in horror, turned around and fled up the hill.
At this moment, the sound of wheels came from outside the wall in the distance. Guo Song turned around and saw a soldier pushing a cart of mutton dozens of steps away. It was a hot day and he did not raise his head while wearing a straw hat.
, I didn’t see Guo Song on top of the iron fence.
Guo Song jumped down and ran in front of the huge white tiger. The white tiger lay on the ground lifelike, as if sleeping soundly. Guo Song did not care about being afraid and threw the uneaten mutton into the grass. He weighed more than three hundred kilograms.
The tiger put it on his shoulders and ran away along the wall.
The feeding soldier opened the iron window on the gate, threw the slaughtered sheep in one after another, and muttered: "You were roaring just now, why are they gone now?"
"Hey! It's time to eat."
He roared, but no tiger paid him any attention. Instead, he saw a black panther coming out of the woods and standing on the hill, but it still refused to come down.
"If you don't eat, you will starve to death, you beasts!"
He threw all the mutton in, "Clang!", closed the iron window, pushed the cart and left cursing.
Guo Song ran more than a hundred steps and saw Gan Lei. He was squatting on a big tree and looking at him with a guilty look on his face.
"Brother, after I had a wife and children, my courage has indeed become smaller. Fifth brother, my brother ran away first just now. I'm sorry!"
"Senior brother, I don't blame you. It doesn't matter if you run away, I won't have anything to worry about."
"Then what's the point of me hunting?"
Gan Lei slapped himself hard, "I'm so damn useless now!"
Guo Song threw the tiger carcass on the ground, "The reason you came to hunt is very simple. You are responsible for carrying it back!"
Gan Lei exclaimed, he jumped down from the tree, squatted down to measure the white tiger in front of him, and exclaimed, "There really is a white tiger! It's still so big."
"Nonsense, you think this is Zhongnan Mountain, this is the Royal Beiyuan, and vulgar fans can get in? By the way, I seemed to have seen a black panther just now." Guo Song said thoughtfully.
At the iron gate, the black panther, which was gnawing on the leg of lamb, suddenly sneezed heavily. It looked around in horror, picked up the sheep in its mouth, and flew away into the woods on the mountain.
The two brothers returned to Chang'an City at night. Guo Song rented a yard outside the west city. The two of them worked together to skin and debone the white tiger overnight. The tiger meat and bones were divided into sacks and sold to the drug store tomorrow.
This is when Gan Lei showed his talents. Gan Lei worked in a tanning workshop the year before last and learned the leather tanning technology.
Tiger skin is best processed by tanning. Gan Lei has prepared the saltpeter in advance and put it in a big bath. However, the big bath is placed in Qingxuguan. It will take half a month at the fastest to tan the tiger skin. It must be
It is necessary to carry out the process in a safe place. After all, this is a rented house, so it is not very safe.
Before tanning, another extremely important step is to clean the tiger skin. Spread the tiger skin on a half log and use a bow-shaped knife to carefully scrape off the fat and residual meat attached to the skin. Do not scrape too much.
Be ruthless, but don't shave too much. This is the most tiring and technically demanding task, and requires a lot of patience.
Gan Lei was busy until the fifth watch when he finally finished handling the rare white tiger. He was so tired that he could not move on the ground. Guo Song took advantage of the cover of night to carry the tiger skin, meat and bones.
Climbed the wall and entered the city.
====
[In fact, in the Tang Dynasty, to avoid the taboo of Li Hu, the ancestor of the Li family, they generally did not talk about tigers, but big insects. But it was too awkward to talk about big bugs, so I still used tiger. In addition, it will be on the shelves at 12 o'clock tonight. It will be announced when it is put on the shelves.
One chapter, three chapters tomorrow, I’m going to ask everyone for your monthly votes!】