It was getting dark, and Montenegro said to Zhong, "There is no way for the two of us to bring the cowherd back, and besides, the thieves have not been caught, and the cattle have not been found." Climb a little more up the mountain, you should be able to see the big river town in the distance, we have a fire there, the people in the village see it, they will immediately organize people to follow the marks we left on the road to come to support, we rest here for a few hours, wait for the big team to come, and then continue to chase, it is estimated that we can catch up with the thieves at noon tomorrow. ”

Zhong didn't say a word, and immediately crawled to the heights. People in the mountains have a tradition, when it is dangerous to enter the mountain, they immediately light a fire on the top of the mountain, and as long as someone sees it, they will organize people to support. Especially in a border place like Nanyang, it is even more frequent. Montenegro skinned the snake, cut it into sections, plugged it with a branch, and roasted it on the fire, this snake was seven or eight pounds, enough for two people to feast!

By the time a fire was lit on the top of the mountain, it was already dark! Tadashi returned to the cowherd and said, "They can surely see that when I first reached the top of the mountain, I could also see the great river village at the foot of the mountain in the distance. The two chatted while eating fragrant roast snake meat!

"The cowherd's face is already a little red, his life is really big, why didn't the beast eat him last night?" Montenegro said.

"Maybe there was almost no bloodshed, so it didn't attract other animals! Otherwise, ten won't survive. Zhong said.

Lie by the fire and listen to the howl of the tiger and the wolf! Because of Xiao Hei being on guard, both of them fell asleep peacefully!

In the second half of the night, Xiao Hei suddenly barked a few times, and the two immediately turned over and raised their swords!

"It's our people here!" The two saw more than a dozen torches under the mountain, and they were crawling towards this side.

In a few moments, the people arrived. It was the township tour with fifteen villagers.

Pavilion Changzhong and Xiang Youyou discussed for a while and immediately arranged: "Eight people carry the cowherd back for treatment, and ten people pursue the thieves!" ”

"These Chu thieves, do you think this is still easy to bully in South Korea? Let them know today that Daqin's cattle cannot be stolen. You said angrily. It turned out that in the past, the border people of the two countries often crossed the border to steal things. Nanyang only got better after returning to Qin!

Xiao Hei set off with Black Mountain, Pavilion Changzhong and eight other villagers with the stars. When he climbed over another mountain, Blackie stopped and issued a warning. "The thieves should be in front, everyone put out their torches and don't make a sound." Montenegro whispered to everyone. It was the darkness before dawn, and he couldn't see his fingers, so he simply asked everyone to sit down and eat something, and wait for a while, and then set off again when the sky was bright.

The mountain in spring is still quite cold, just rushed, everyone sweated and did not feel, now a gust of mountain wind blows, several people sneezed again and again, fortunately, after two quarters of an hour, the sky will be white! Zhong said softly, "Don't make a sound, let's go!" ”

Everyone walked lightly for half an hour, and the sky was already bright. When he climbed over a small hill again, Xiao Hei lay on the ground again and called the police, as if to say that there was someone in front of him.

Several people stopped in unison, and Pavilion Changzhong and Black Mountain quietly walked forward to explore the way! Sure enough, as soon as I turned the corner, there was a big leeward rock, and four people were lying on the ground sleeping!

Pavilion Changzhong waved his big hand, and the others immediately followed quietly, Zhong said: "In a group of two, slowly rely on the past to catch them all alive!" ”

The poor four were still asleep, and they were pressed to the ground, and when the cold copper sword rested on their necks, they gave up resistance! Two daggers and two bronze swords had already been found from them.

"One step at a time, tie their right hands!" He always took out the rope and ordered the others.

When the sun came out, the group led the four thieves and led the oxen back. The four thieves never dreamed that the gang would be able to find exactly the path they were taking on the path that crisscrossed the beasts, and follow so quickly.

On the way back, everyone was elated, forgetting the hard work, and talking about how much credit they could share this time.

"Brother Montenegro is the first merit," Zhong said to everyone earnestly, "without Montenegro, let alone a day and a night to save people and catch thieves, you can't even find the road!" ”

Montenegro resolutely did not want to be the first meritorious, saying: "I am already a doctor's knighthood now, even if I get the first merit, I can't be promoted to the knighthood!" Loyal to contribute the most, when the first credit, I am the same as everyone! ”

At the insistence of Montenegro, the pavilion chief was the first to take the lead, Montenegro was second, and the others were the last.

The next morning, Montenegro said goodbye to everyone, got on the bronze car, and rushed to Zhangjia Village.

The village has changed greatly, and the Qin law stipulates that a family with a strong man can get 100 acres of self-cultivated land divided by the government, and pay taxes at 30%! Those who have won the first level can get a hectare of land! Half tax on the field that was rewarded. The Qin government also set up cattle herds in the townships and villages, which were responsible for raising cattle in normal times and renting them to farmers when they were busy. There are also field officials and field officials, who are responsible for guiding and inspecting the cultivation situation and the rental and maintenance of farm tools. Some advanced farming tools and cultivation methods are directly implemented in every household. In this year's spring ploughing, almost every family is 100 acres, 40 acres more than before, but every household is more relaxed. Now is the time to plant seedlings, men planting seedlings, women sending rice is not lively, a living picture of spring ploughing.

The title of Qin State is also related to the reward of land, the first level of the title to the fourth level, each level can be rewarded with one to four hectares of land, the fifth level of the lord and the house of nine acres, five servants. From the fifth level to the ninth level, the five doctors will enjoy five hectares of land at each level, and after the tenth level, they will no longer appreciate the fields, but will be changed to a year! Montenegro is now a fifth-level doctor, with a total of fifteen hectares of land, nine acres of mansions, and five servants. The second brother Ming has a first-class title and is a small official in the city. When the farm was busy, Tian Dian sent an official servant to replace the work. The servants of Montenegro are like servants who are at home all year round.

Therefore, this year's spring is busy, and Big Brother Light feels much easier than before! The seedlings were planted early!

"Grandma, big brother! I am back! Montenegro took Xiao Hei back to his home six months ago and shouted loudly!

One of the 'gongshi' wooden flats on the door has been replaced by another piece of more elaborate black lacquer and red 'doctor'. The family heard the shouts and greeted them one after another, and the mother took her little son's hand, looking at the little son in front of her, who was suddenly taller, dressed in new clothes, with a crown on his head, and a graceful little son, and said excitedly: "Tall, strong!" ”

The people in the village saw someone coming to the village in a bronze car, and they didn't dare to think that the person sitting on it was the black mountain that was still in tatters and skinny a year ago. The bronze cars of this era are almost equivalent to the supercars of later generations. I didn't come to join in the fun until Montenegro entered the house!

Montenegro hurriedly distributed a large bag of caramel brought back to everyone, and the excitement lasted for a while before they dispersed.

Montenegro took out a large bag of gold cakes, exactly 240 taels of ten yi, handed it to the eldest brother and mother, and said: After the farm is busy, the government will arrange people to come to our house to build a house, and this gold should be enough to build a three-entry house. He also gave a few pieces of fine arrowroot cloth to his sister-in-law, and asked her to make some clothes for the family and the two little nieces. and gave his mother a big bag of Qin and a half.

The family has never seen such a shiny golden cake, and they all laugh and love it!

Montenegro called five more servants, and when they saw that all of them were strong, they knew that they had been specially selected by the county order. He said to them, "When you enter the door of my house, I will let my brother and sister-in-law treat you as if they were my peers." Now I will give you 500 yuan a year for three years, and as long as my family is satisfied with you, I will be responsible for spending money to redeem your free life!" If you want to stay, you can get sixty percent of the land you plant. Farm helpers are all paid. The mother-in-law and the house are also for you! What do you think? ”

The five servants were stunned! When he reacted, he knelt on the ground and kowtowed, crying with joy.

Montenegro went to the back mountain and looked at the chimney-burning pottery kiln, and a simple straw hut had been built in the open space in front of the pottery kiln, which was full of pottery blanks and purchased firewood. Montenegro picked up a burned chimney and looked at it, it was much more beautiful than the one just burned a few months ago, it seems that the big brother has not improved their technology less. There are also some burnt ones next to it, clay pots, clay pots, etc.!

"Big brother, do you still want to diversify?" Montenegro saw so much pottery and asked the eldest brother light!

"I'm just going to try a few when I'm not busy, and when I'm done in the future, maybe I can sell it for some money?" The eldest brother replied.

"You can try it, pick some delicate red clay on the mountain, soak it in the pool for a few days, then mix it into mud, pour this mud on the sun-dried clay pot blank, and then burn it to see how it works?" Montenegro knew that later generations of the Tang Dynasty only had this process, called glaze making water and glazing. It can be fired into a smoother and more delicate pottery, called Tang Sancai.

Just do it, brothers, go to the mountains and dig up finer laterite, make glazed water, and glaze a few pottery! Just wait for the kiln to try firing again after the spring is busy.

Five days later, when the village sent away the first batch of servants after the beginning of spring, the second brother Ming also came back with five craftsmen from the county town to build a house for his family. Since most of the people in this village work in the pottery kiln, they can only invite dozens of Ding Zhuang from neighboring villages to help. The two construction sites are busy at the same time, so it's not lively.

When the glazed pottery is fired, the bright luster and smooth appearance of the thief attract countless people's admiration! "You can also try other colors of clay to make glaze water later. Maybe it will have a different effect! "When Montenegro was discussing the matter of glazed water with Big Brother Guang, Pavilion Changzhong and Li Zhengdi came.

As soon as Montenegro saw them, he knew what they were coming for, and Lao Yuan asked loudly, "Brother Zhong, how is it?" Did the cowherd come back to life? ”

"I've come back to life, but I won't be able to go to the ground for at least half a year." Zhong replied.

Montenegro invited the two into the house and sat on the table of the eight immortals to drink tea! Zhong looked at the Eight Immortals Table and praised: "This set of tables is good, it is much more comfortable than kneeling!" It's convenient. ”

"What happened to this cattle theft?" Montenegro asked.

"Those four cattle thieves are all border people of the Chu State. In the past, when this was still South Korea, the border people of the two countries sneaked around, and the government had no way to manage it! They saw the cowherd chasing after them on the mountain, so they set up an ambush in the narrow place of the downhill road, and the cowherd could only jump off the cliff in order to survive, so these four people committed the crime of group robbery, sentenced to black face, and sent to Lishan to repair the mausoleum. Zhong continued to know, "Ten of us captured four thieves from the Chu State, and I got the first merit to be promoted to the first rank of hairpin, and I got a reward of 2,000 yuan, and you also got a reward of 2,000 yuan for your second merit, and the rest of the people each had 200 yuan." Zhong took out four thousand coins and put them on the table and said, "You gave me the first credit, and all the reward money belongs to you!" ”

Hei San felt more and more loyal and sincere, and insisted on only accepting his own two thousand dollars. said with a smile: "The reward is a violation of Qin's law!" "This is not Montenegro's nonsense, Qin Law has a saying: merit must be rewarded, and punishment must be punished. Reward the fugitive, sin! Meaning: The government will reward those who have made meritorious service and punish those who have done wrong. When a person is meritorious, it is just as illegal to refuse a reward from the government as it is to escape punishment! There is a case: in the twelfth year of filial piety, the Qin army recovered Hexi, and the government rewarded each soldier with 300 yuan. One of the commanders thought that the reward for the officers was too small and the soldiers too much, so he deducted a part of the reward and distributed it among his ten hundred generals. And the soldiers were given only two hundred dollars each. This practice is very common in the six countries of Shandong, and most people have complaints in their hearts, and they don't feel that there is anything wrong! It's the default. One of the soldiers reported it to the military judge, and the military judge had difficulty making a decision, so he reported it to Shang Jun. Shang Jun's verdict was as follows: the commander withheld the soldiers' rewards, beheaded them, and confiscated their property. Because ten hundred generals are ordered by the commander of a thousand masters, they are not guilty, and the extra money does not need to be returned. A thousand soldiers knew that the reward was 300, but in fact only received 200 and did not report it, and all of them were fined 2 (1344 yuan for the first class). Shang Jun punished the soldiers with a reward for the crime. From then on, no one in the Qin army dared to deduct the reward, and every reward of the state government could be distributed to the soldiers.

Of course, Zhong knew that the reward was guilty, so he stopped insisting, took out two pieces of wood, and handed them to Montenegro. He said, "This is your letter from the academy. ”

Montenegro opened the wooden slab, and a piece was a letter written by Wu Bufan, the county guard, asking Montenegro to go to Nanyang as soon as possible. Another piece of wood is an official document, which reads: Doctor Zhang Heishan of Zhangjia Village, Dahe Township, Tongbai County, is the commander of the cavalry of Nanyang County. The payment is the Nanyang County Guard.

When it finally arrived, Montenegro was very happy to see Chung off. He went to Lizheng's house with Li Zhengdi and changed his civilian registration to the household registration of military officials. And re-do the verification and passing. The next morning, he said goodbye to his family. Mother was really reluctant to go to Montenegro to join the army, her eyes were red from crying, and she repeatedly confessed: "Don't be in the limelight and rush to the front when you are fighting, it is safer to be in the back." "Fortunately, my sister-in-law supported me. The two little nieces just couldn't bear Xiao Hei, and they also cried a lot! Montenegro held back his tears and confessed to his eldest brother: "Ask two domestic servants to do housework, so that mother and sister-in-law can enjoy the blessings!" "Take Xiao Hei to the bronze car and set off to Tongbai County.

In the evening, Montenegro entered the city just in time for the city gate to close, and the small city was very quiet in the evening, the shops were busy closing, and the inns and restaurants were busy hanging white gauze lanterns. Black Mountain got out of the car with Xiao Hei and walked slowly towards the academy.

Montenegro suddenly has a trace of attachment to this small city where he has lived for six months, what is the attachment? Montenegro itself can't tell.

Back at the academy, the teacher Meng Zhao was wearing small eyeglasses sent by Montenegro, reading a book under the yarn lamp. Montenegro bowed deeply to the teacher and waved his hand, "Student meet the teacher!" ”

Meng Zhao saw that Montenegro saluted himself seriously today, and laughed, "The sun is coming out in the west today, you must have something to do, tell the teacher quickly!" ”

Montenegro was very moved and said: "The students are about to go to Nanyang to join the army, thank the teacher for taking care of them in the past eight months, and now they are a little reluctant to leave the academy!" ”

"You're so impatient! You're only sixteen years old. You haven't learned the six arts of Confucianism, and in another ten years, it's not too late to join the army at twenty-six! Meng Zhao hated the iron and scolded him, "Pity me Meng Zhao, counting, royal, calligraphy, etiquette, music, shooting, everything is fine, and there is no mantle disciple!" ”

"Teacher, are we Confucians proficient in archery if we play pitching pot accurately?" Montenegro often watched the teacher play pitching pots, almost every shot, Montenegro once tried to play once, but I didn't expect to hit a single shot, and then I was too lazy to play again!

"Pitcher? You're underestimating the teacher too much! Bring me the bow and arrows from the wall! ”

The old mulberry bow on the wall is very exquisite. When he first came to the academy, Montenegro was curious to take it down and play with it, but he couldn't pull the bowstring. The teacher laughed and said that he had to raise this skinny body before he could learn archery.

Montenegro took the bow and arrow, handed the bow to the teacher, and the teacher took the posture of archery, and when he pulled the bowstring, he immediately formed a full moon shape, and pulled it three times in a row, his face was not red, and his heart did not beat. "Go and take down the torches from the wall, light them, and throw them into the air." Meng Zhao drew an arrow and said to Black Mountain ready.

Montenegro walked thirty paces away, threw the torch into the air, and heard a whoosh, and an arrow had already hit the torch, and the torch flew out and was nailed to the trunk of a tree. Meng Fuzi shot two more arrows at the torches on the tree. Montenegro hurriedly went to check, and all three arrows hit the torches, and the torches were nailed into the tree poles and into the wood for three points. Montenegro took the bow from the teacher's hand and pulled it hard, no matter how hard he tried, he could only pull it away for seven points.

"I once heard that Mencius performed archery in the Jixia Academy, and the archery skills shocked everyone, and I used to think that they were exaggerating Mencius's archery skills, but today I saw the teacher's archery skills with my own eyes, and the archers are nothing more than that. Only then did I know that I was sitting in a well and watching the sky! Montenegro sighed!

"The study of Confucianism is as vast as a sea of smoke and boundless! As a teacher, you are still like a lonely boat, swimming in it, let alone you! Meng Zhao said.

"Teacher, how do you judge the current trend in the world?" Montenegro would like to know what Meng Zhao thinks.

"The world is full of swords, and the princes have attacked each other for hundreds of years. The hearts of the people in the world have long thought about unification, and the momentum of Qin has been achieved. If the current Qin rule of law is used in the world, it will be difficult! Meng Zhao sighed.

"The words of the teacher, whip into it! The law of Shang Yang is the law of hegemony in the Warring States, not the law of the day! Seeing that the teacher analyzed so thoroughly, Montenegro secretly admired it in his heart!

The teacher and student had never discussed the world like this, chatting in the study until midnight before resting!