In a trance, in the spring and March of the ninth year of the Han Dynasty, it had also come to an end in all kinds of trivial matters.

As the capital of the Han Dynasty, Chang'an can be regarded as a rare prosperous Changyi in the entire Central Plains and even in the whole world.

The majestic Chang'an city wall is three zhang five feet high, one zhang five feet wide at the bottom, nine feet wide at the top, and nearly sixty-five miles (1) in circumference, covering an area of nearly 100,000 mu (large acres).

It is in this capital city with a length and width of about 15 miles, and nearly half of the city is occupied by Chang'an and Weiyang palaces, there are more than 80,000 families, totaling more than 200,000 people.

Of course, as an agrarian regime, it is impossible for these 200,000 Chang'an people to live in Chang'an City in a completely closed manner - the acres of land under the names of Chang'an people are scattered outside Chang'an City.

Just as at this time, Liu Hong in the Weiyang Palace poured another bowl of medicinal soup under Zhang Cang's angry eyes, and Zhou Bo and Liu Jie knelt on the edge of Chen Ping's collapse in the Qu Shunhou Mansion, and most of the important ministers in the court were busy arguing with the Hun mission.

Although the raging Weishui has not been frozen by the winter, the flow of water has not yet reached the bottom of the irrigated farmland, so the work of the people is still generally stopped at turning the soil, weeding, and digging up the silt accumulated in the fields and canals.

In the crowd, it is not difficult to find children with pigtails with horns, sleeves and robes with a large section growing at the end of their robes, and a lock of snot dripping between their mouths and noses, sensibly carrying stone and even wooden farm tools, following behind their fathers.

Adult women, on the other hand, are rarely seen in the crowd of people who leave the city and go to the fields—shortly after dawn, the women of every household are busy making food over the fire, and before noon they bring the hot food to the ridges of the fields, so that their husbands and sons can have a full meal to finish their work in the afternoon.

In this case, a hand-held wooden rake, shoulder against the bamboo basket? The man with the bag of dry food behind him? It is extremely prominent.

- Without a wife to cook, and it is inconvenient for my daughter to go out? He Guangsu can only bring the morning food in advance? lest you go hungry.

Speaking of which, the Han family's etiquette and religious constraints on women are not so strict? It can even be said that there are almost no limits.

It is different from the fact that the door of the later generations will not go out, and the second door can be called a lady's show? What was the social status of women in the early Han Dynasty? Almost no less than the new era - in the Han family, a woman can be the head of the household!

Unlike the Song and Ming dynasties, which were prosperous in etiquette, the people of the Han family could not only have the situation of 'father divorce his wife', but also women could repair books with a piece of paper? Kicked her husband? and start a new family without discrimination.

Women who remarry will not be discriminated against in the Han family, but will be more popular than women who are newly married - especially with children!

This is related to the background of the times: compared with the first marriage, the girl who has not 'proven' her fertility is undoubtedly a second-married woman who has had a 'successful experience'? It is more able to undertake the arduous task of 'bloodline inheritance', which is greater than the sky at this time.

And the Han people, especially the inheritance of bloodline, are extremely reverent of their ancestors? He also believes that after death, he will continue to live in hell.

The most feared thing of the Han people was never death, and the most serious punishment in the Han law was not the death penalty at all!

What are the Han people afraid of? Is it to cover his face with his hair after death, and face his ancestors without face? No heirs to offer sacrificial blood food? Become a lonely ghost in the underworld.

And the death penalty is not too serious in the Han law - the death penalty in the Han family? It is possible to spend money on the government to atone for sins, and even to exonerate and atone for sins.

The capital punishment at this time is a beheading!

Perhaps for future generations, whether it is strangulation, beheading, or being cut off by the waist, it is the same nature: death.

But in the universal values of the Han family, the difference between 'dying with the whole body' and 'being split in half' is greater than the difference between death and immortality!

At this time, the common people generally believed that after death, the soul of a person fell into the yin, and would retain the state of death, and even the expression.

Therefore, the methods of death such as hanging and throwing himself into the river are all reluctantly acceptable to the people.

When it comes to the aristocratic class, it even extends to the forced high 'swallowing gold and dying'.

And beheading is the most feared punishment of the Han people - in the eyes of the Han people at this time, if they are cut into two sections, they will inevitably be scattered, and they will disappear between heaven and earth!

It is precisely this inherent concept that gradually developed a very ignorant 'style of thick burial' in the Han family: the Han people, who believe that people will still exist after death, pursue the funeral custom of 'swearing to die as if they were dedicating their lives', so that their deceased relatives can live a better life in the dark season.

He Guangsu is one of the typical examples of 'persecution' under the custom of thick burials - the unexpected death of his wife not only caused He Guangsu to lose his partner and the whole family to lose internal workers, but also destroyed the economic situation of He Guangsu's family, which was still optimistic.

If his wife is still there, He Guangsu will not have to sell all seventy percent of his family's acres; Sitting on 100 acres of land, and a little frugality, He Guangsu definitely has the opportunity to save tens of thousands of dollars in his lifetime, leave a rich family foundation for his son, and let his daughter marry out with dignity.

But now, all this has been shattered - the family's thirty acres of land can't support the family's three mouths at all; Not surprisingly, He Guangsu has to be busy surviving all his life.

If he doesn't encounter any more accidents, He Guangsu can only barely guarantee that he will pull his son up and send him to the army - regardless of whether he has meritorious service or not, the food and salary can at least fill his stomach.

In addition, with the only 30 acres of land left in the family, you can also find a relative and pass on He Guangsu's lineage.

As for his daughter, He Guangsu is powerless...

Even when the daughter was born, the birth time was reported a few months later, but after the spring of this year, the daughter was inevitably included in the list of late marriages who were 'over 16 years old and unmarried', and became the focus of the internal history.

He Guangsu has even been given a clear deadline: if his daughter is not married in the summer of May, then He Guangsu will start to pay a super high fine of 120 yuan (one calculation) per month!

It seems that one hundred and twenty dollars is not much, but the price of one and a half pounds of corn; But for He Guangsu, who was already destitute, the 'unplanned expenditure' of 120 yuan a month was no less significant than borrowing from a loan shark...

The current situation at home makes He Guangsu have only two choices: either marry his daughter to a more destitute idler and lazy, or sell his daughter to Gaomen as a concubine and slave.

Marrying a daughter to the right family means that the other party's family only has about 30 acres of farmland; After getting married and splitting the family, how much the son-in-law can get depends on how many sons they have in the family and whether the son-in-law is the eldest son in the family.

Even if the son-in-law can have 30 acres of land in the future, the daughter may not be able to have a good life when she marries - 30 acres of land means less than 100 stone of grain output (before tax) in a year; At most, they can barely feed two people.

After her daughter has her first child, what her daughter will face is probably being swept out of the house and finding another family...

Out of pity for his daughter, He Guangsu could only give up this choice, and strive to send his daughter to the high gate, so that her daughter could spend an unhappy life in peace.

But for some reason, the Tian family, which was originally negotiated, changed its old style, not only no longer buying slaves, but also threatening to release more than half of the slaves in the family!

He Guangsu, who had no other way, could only accept this result and choose...

Evade.

——Since the hanging failed, the day of the couch recuperation, the full count, the daughter He Yi has not been out of the house for nearly three months.

And the reason why He Guangsu 'imprisoned' his daughter at home was because of an extremely helpless last option that he could only accept: to report death.

If he still can't find a solution by May, He Guangsu can only report to the government: his daughter died of illness.

In this way, it is naturally impossible for Neishi to be fined for not marrying the 'dead' He Xi, but from then on, He Xi's household registration will be cancelled and he will become a black household completely.

You don't have to think about getting married, the worst situation is that He Yi will be at home from now on, and even the neighbors can't see each other anymore...

"Well, if there is war..."

Walking out of Chang'an City from the Ancheng Gate, passing by the southern camp stationed by the newly established strong crossbow commandery, He Guangsu didn't have to sigh bitterly.

He Guangsu is over 30 years old, and he has already passed the golden age of being included in the two armies of Chang'an and becoming a member of the standing field army; However, if there is a war, He Guangsu has experienced the qualifications of serving in the border army, which can definitely win him the opportunity to become a 'other department'.

And now, the original Southern Army has been officially reorganized into the Captain Department of the Strong Crossbow; Judging from the name of this organization alone, you can know that this department should be dominated by bow and crossbow troops.

When He Guangsu served in Longyou, he was precisely a material officer!

Whether it is holding a heavy shield to provide protection for the bow and crossbow cluster, or personally holding the crossbow machine to shoot, it is not a problem for He Guangsu.

Nowadays, between the Northern Army and the strong crossbow captain, the strong crossbow captain department is especially valued; Once the war starts, the strong crossbow commander will inevitably be ordered to go to battle!

At that time, He Guangsu will be able to officially become a member of the Central Army of the Han Dynasty in the capacity of 'the commander of the Ministry of Materials of the Late Longyou Commander', even if it is temporary.

War can be regarded as the best solution to the situation He Guangsu is facing now.

As long as he participates in the war as a material officer, He Guangsu is confident that he will be able to share a certain amount of military merit - even if he does not have a title, he can have an income of several thousand dollars.

If you die unfortunately, you don't have to worry about the funeral - Emperor Taizu Gao's decree: If a soldier dies in battle, all funeral matters, including but not limited to coffins, clothes (qīn), etc., are all in charge of Shangguan! ②

At the same time, there will be a considerable amount of pension sent to the family, and with the dowry, the daughter will not worry about finding a good family.

As for the son, it is even more likely that he will be summoned by the Son of Heaven to Shanglin Yuan to raise fish, and eventually become a member of the glorious forbidden army!

Thinking of this, He Guangsu couldn't help but feel sad: Why is Shangcang alone? Why not send a war to save the family?

"The Ueda ridge~"

"No matter how you look at it, you can't get into the strong crossbow captain."

A gentle call came, and Fang pulled He Guangsu's mind back; When he turned around, he found that his neighbor Uncle He stopped and stood, holding his son He Weiyang, waiting for him.

Lowering his head, He Guangsu realized that he didn't know when, he had already stood a hundred steps outside the south camp, and if he moved a little further, he was afraid that he would be stopped by the arrows shot from the camp.

Just as He Guangsu lowered his head helplessly, about to return to the dirt road to Tianmu, he saw a horse galloping from the opposite side.

"Avoid! Avoid! ”

He Guangsu, who walked out of the dirt road because of his distraction, escaped, and the old man He, who was waiting sideways in the road, was indeed almost knocked to the ground by the speeding knight.

hurriedly stepped forward and confirmed that his son and the old man He Tou were okay, He Guangsu came back to his senses full of anger, and was about to scold, as if he had been immobilized by Xerox, and froze in place.

The black horned flag behind the knight also glowed with a terrifying light in the slowly rising morning sun.

"One, two, three..."

After counting the number of corner flags behind the knights, before He Guangsu could calculate it, he heard a high-pitched roar coming from outside the Nanying on the side.

On the side of the road, which had been empty, a soldier who was dusty suddenly stood up and ran towards the camp.

"Captain Su, eight hundred miles in Kanto is urgent!"

Looking at the sergeant's distant back, He Guangsu didn't care about being surprised by the distribution of the sentry posts in the southern camp, but only raised his head slightly and looked at the red half of the sky above his head.

"One God, manifested?"

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PS1. Wu Bolun's "A Brief History of Xi'an" records that the circumference of Chang'an City in the Han Dynasty is 65 miles, 3 zhang 5 feet high, 1 zhang 5 feet wide at the bottom, and 9 feet wide at the top; This paragraph describes the weights and measures of the Han Dynasty. That is, the circumference of Chang'an City is about 27 kilometers, the height is 8 meters, the bottom width is more than 3 meters, and the top width is nearly 2 meters.

However, judging from the construction time and the number of laborers recorded in the "Sanfu Huangtu" and the "Zizhi Tongjian", Chang'an City should be slightly larger than the "Xi'an Historical Narrative", and the archaeological research on the ruins of Chang'an City in the Han Dynasty also proves this.

However, for the specific parameters, the assistant officials have not been able to find accurate and verifiable information, so for the time being, the data recorded in the "Historical Narrative of Xi'an" is not very accurate.

As for the number of people in Chang'an City of the Han Dynasty, it was obtained by multiplying 80% of the records in the late Western Han Dynasty, after all, at the beginning of the establishment of the dynasty, the number of people in the capital was relatively small and reasonable.

2. According to the "Law of Death" recorded in the "Zhangjiashan Han Jian's "Two Year Laws" Collection of Explanations, it is recorded that the sergeant unfortunately died, the official collected the clothes and coffin, transferred to his home, enshrined in a young prison, and the chief official saw the funeral.

Translation: If a soldier dies in battle, the Shangguan should be responsible for funeral clothing, coffins, coffins, and corpses, etc., return the remains of the martyrs to their homes, and send sacrifices of the specifications of the young prison (one pig and one sheep), and the chief official personally attend the funeral to ensure that the above regulations are completed.

According to the various checks made by the officials, it was finally found that this law was not obtained by Xiao He when he compiled the Han law, but was implemented by Liu Bang as a martyr's compensation plan during the Chu and Han hegemony when Liu Bangshang was the king of Han.

From this point of view, it may be slightly biased for historical researchers to say that Xiang Yu was stingy and stingy, but there is a historical basis for saying that Liu Bang was 'generous to his subordinates, knew how to invite people's hearts, and took care of his soldiers'.