The participants of the county horse race are all famous and wealthy merchants in the county, although many officials also have a hobby of raising horses, but due to the meager income, the horses in their hands are certainly not as good as the horses in the hands of the merchants.

Although there are also merchants who quietly give some valuable horses, this kind of thing cannot be put on the surface, after all, it is no different from bribery.

Therefore, the county horse racing club is basically the world of the merchants, and in order to win the horse race, so as to go to the royal capital to "show" and "show" their faces in front of the king of Yizhou, the merchants did not hesitate to spend a lot of money, and the horses that they could bring to the competition were at least five or six hundred taels of silver at the level of war horses, and even more worth a thousand taels of good horses.

Fang Ling and the three of them followed Cao Yaode into the county government, and they also met many participating businessmen along the way, although everyone was an opponent, they still looked kind on the surface.

Many people noticed Song Ying'er, and one by one they couldn't help but ask Cao Yaode curiously, Cao Yaode waited for the opportunity to introduce Fang Ling, let him mix a familiar face, after all, when he is away, there are many friends and many ways, and it is not wrong to know more people, which is also a little reward for Cao Yaode's gratitude to Fang Ling for helping to choose a horse.

In addition to the need for a pair of brains, eyesight is also very important, to see people not only to see clothes, but also to see his spirit, to see his temperament, the eyes of the businessmen who came to participate in the competition are naturally very vicious, a look at Fang Ling's dress and temperament, and then look at the stunning "beautiful" maids and mighty entourage around him, he knows that he must be from everyone, and there is a horse farm at home, so he is naturally willing to make friends, so along the way, Fang Ling almost took a look at the giant businessmen in the county town.

The county government is just like the situation that Meng Zhiyuan and others listened to, it is heavily guarded, and every soldier is armed with a spear and his eyes are blazing, and he is the elite soldier in the city.

There is a special racecourse in the county, and when everyone comes to the rest place outside the field, the horses are also pryed over from the other side and handed over to the merchants, who determine the order in which the horses will appear.

When they saw the three horses of the Cao family, many merchants laughed out loud, the northern horse was reasonable, he was tall and strong, and the other two were southern horses and mountain horses, both of which were at the bottom of the horns.

However, the Cao family has never won a race in the county, so everyone just laughed at it, this horse purchase not only has to invest a lot of money, but also have a pair of eyesight, otherwise just listen to the horse dealer's boasting, only suffer yourself.

It wasn't until the horses had also finished appearing that the county guard Jiang Wenshan and his officials appeared.

Jiang Wenshan walked at the front of the team, this person was in his forties, his physique was not as weak as that of ordinary literati, he seemed to have some hard work, and he even walked quite powerfully, his face was white and beardless, and he was dressed in a county guard uniform, but he was quite official.

Behind him were the county officials, county lieutenants and other county officials, there were more than a dozen people, and almost all the officials with important positions in the county town had arrived, which showed the importance attached to the Jockey Club.

Not long after Jiang Wenshan sat down, he announced the start of the horse race, and the merchants formed opponents according to the draw, and after three rounds of competition, one person was won, and the winner was drawn again, and the other opponents were contested to finally determine a winner.

The rules of the game are the same as what Cao Yaode said, the best-of-three system, seemingly simple but also very particular about strategy, if you don't know how to be a horse, if you hit hard, it is easy to lose, if you carefully analyze the opponent's three horses, understand the advantages and disadvantages of the opponent's horses, and then adjust your own horse according to the situation, the winning rate will be greatly improved.

However, Fang Ling didn't care about this, after looking at all the horses on the scene, he was sure that the winner was not Cao Yaode's, after all, two of them were high-grade horses carefully selected by him, with excellent bloodlines, even if they were used for breeding, they would not lose to the so-called famous horses.

Of course, most of the horses brought by the merchants present were also at the level of war horses, although many merchants did not understand horses at all, and just followed the trend, but the ability of horses was known as soon as the competition was made, and every horse that could come to the competition was also selected by thousands of people.

Soon the race began, and with the shouts of the trainers, the horses galloped towards the finish line, full of energy.

The competition is very fierce, and everyone wants to have the opportunity to meet the king of Yizhou, and if they can be appreciated, they will find a great backstage.

Jiang Wenshan and others also watched it with relish, and from time to time they exchanged heads with the officials around them, commenting on their heads.

Soon, it was the turn of the three horses of the Cao family to fight, and Cao Yaode was originally going to let the worst northern horse play in the first game, but after Fang Ling explained in a whisper, he sent the strongest red horse.

It turned out that Fang Ling had already seen that the horses sent by the opponent were the strongest of the three horses, and he intended to win the first race.

However, Fang Ling deliberately wanted to show the strength of the horses, so he sent a red horse in the first game.

As soon as they saw that the Cao family pulled out a short mountain horse, the businessmen couldn't help laughing, and many officials also shook their heads on the stage.

However, as soon as the two horses started running, the red horse flew out like an arrow, directly pulling the opponent's horse away for a long distance, and it ran faster and faster, so that everyone thought that it was a red shadow at all, not a horse, and that the distance was getting bigger and bigger.

Jiang Wenshan couldn't help but look at it, and hurriedly asked what the Cao family to which the red horse belonged was doing.

When the red horse ran to the finish line, he didn't even gasp for breath, but just raised his hooves, as if a warrior with high martial arts had gently flicked the dust off his body after defeating the enemy.

The performance of the red horse was completely amazing, and the speed surprised everyone, and no one expected such a humble horse to have such speed and endurance.

Cao Yaode and the others looked excited, and their fists were tightly pulled together.

Immediately afterwards, in the second game, the Cao family sent another southern horse with the same short head, and everyone else frowned, and the officials also started to talk about it, speculating whether this horse was also so powerful.

As expected, the southern horse was also the first to fly out, inheriting the endurance of the northern horse and the speed of the southern horse.

Those who were close even felt a strong wind blowing when the horse ran by, and the speed of this horse was not below that of the red horse, and the horses sent by the other two were inferior to the horses in the first race, so the gap widened even more than in the first race.

In the previous many races, the horses of the merchants on both sides had their own advantages and disadvantages, and many even fought five races to determine the winners and losers, and the level was also comparable, but like these two games, the horses of the Cao family actually won with an overwhelming "sex" advantage, which made people impressed, of course, some people wondered if the opponent's horses were too inferior.

However, as the two horses continued to play, each time they were completely superior to their opponents, no matter how strong the opponents were in the previous races, but there was a clear gap between them and the two horses.

Originally, according to the pre-estimate, this horse race was going to last until the afternoon, but because the two horses of the Cao family were so strong, the number of races was reduced by many times, and the race ended before noon.

Both officials and businessmen were embarrassed by the Cao family's victory, and were even more curious about the origin of these two horses.

Jiang Wenshan even stood up and walked to the venue in person, followed by all the officials.

Jiang Wenshan stretched out his hand and stroked the two horses, and said with a curious expression: "Boss Cao, what is the origin of your two horses, how can they run so fast and have such good endurance?"

Cao Yaode respectfully arched his hand and said: "Lord Hui, this red horse is a rare mountain horse in the western part of our country, and the environment of its origin has mountains, rivers and grasslands, so it combines the endurance of mountain horses and the speed of grassland horses, and the other is a mixture of northern horses and southern horses, and it also has the characteristics of two horses." ”

Jiang Wenshan's eyes lit up when he heard this: "Boss Cao actually knows horses so well, these two horses don't look obvious from ordinary mountain horses and southern horses." ”

Cao Yaode smiled and said calmly: "These two horses were chosen by this Fang Gongzi for Xiaomin. ”

As soon as he said this, everyone's eyes couldn't help but fall on Fang Ling, and more of them saw Song Ying'er behind him at a glance, and they suddenly felt a sense of amazement.

When Jiang Wenshan saw Song Ying'er, he was also slightly stunned, as if he didn't expect that there would be such a stunning woman in the world, but he was the identity of the county guard, so he quickly came back to his senses, glanced at Fang Ling up and down, and said in surprise: "Fang Gongzi is young, but this eyesight is superior." ”

Fang Ling said with a smile: "My lord has won the prize, the small family is in the north, and there is a horse farm at home, so I know a little about all kinds of horses." ”

Jiang Wenshan suddenly realized, and at the same time was very satisfied with Fang Ling's modest attitude, and said with a smile: "You know a little bit about it, but you are too modest, you can see through the origin of the horse at a glance, the bloodline of the horse, this is not a day or two of work, I am afraid that the horse master in the county government will not reach this level." ”

Speaking of this, he smiled at everyone and said, "The official has set up a luncheon in the mansion, and since the horse race is over early, then you should go to the hall with the official." ”

Everyone then gathered around Jiang Wenshan and came to the hall of the mansion, where officials and businessmen gathered, and because the Cao family won, the seat was naturally in the front row.

During the banquet, Jiang Wenshan asked Fang Ling with great interest about the Northern Horse Farm, and this question seemed to open the conversation.