More than 100 guards guarded a carriage before and after leaving the Jizhou military camp, and set off along the official road to the county seat about 20 miles away.

The northern Xinjiang, which is most familiar to the people, is the place where Youzhou goes to the northeast, especially the line of Jizhou, and fights for many years.

Xinzhou, Daizhou, Yizhou, this line is in the south of Yanshan, Yanshan is a natural barrier, separating the Saibei grassland from the Central Plains.

If people on the grassland want to enter the customs, the priority on this line is Daiyangguan on the Daizhou side, and Daizhou also has the largest border city in Jizhou, and a large number of grassland merchants will go to Daizhou to exchange goods.

Relatively speaking, there are far fewer grassland merchants from Shinshu, because the road is not easy to walk, although there is also a border pass that can be passed, but the mountain gorge to pass through is relatively narrow and rugged, and there are often mountain bandits, no one wants to take risks.

This time, the people of the Goqin tribe on the grassland contacted Prince Wu and planned to exchange war horses for grain and grass, and the reason why they chose to meet in Shinshu was also because there were few people on this road, and it was not easy to be noticed.

The people of the Gochen tribe do not want to be known by other tribes that they are struggling to survive.

At the beginning, Xu drove out of Yanshan, in exchange for decades of peace, but as the dominance of the Great Chu Dynasty became lower and lower, many tribes on the grassland actually no longer obeyed the dispatch of the Chu court.

Originally, a certain number of war horses were contributed to the imperial court every year, and the imperial court was then distributed to the soldiers of the Zhuwei Mansion, and if the number was insufficient, the Chu imperial court would buy war horses from the grassland at a high price.

To this day, no one listens to the decrees of the Chu court to the local level, and the envoys of the thirteen states are all withholding the annual money and grain taxes, so what can the court do?

Even the nearby imperial court can't manage it, let alone the vast grasslands beyond the mountains and rivers.

Now the most powerful tribe on the grassland is called the Iron Crane Division, and there are hundreds of thousands of skilled archers and horses who can wear armor to go into battle, and they have fought for three consecutive years, destroying more than a dozen tribes large and small, and the rest are all subjugated to the Iron Crane Division's iron cavalry sword.

The Goqin Department is also one of the subservants, although the strength of the tribe is not small, if you fight with all your strength, it is not a problem to call for 100,000 cavalry, but they do not dare to confront the Iron Crane Department head-on, fortunately, the Iron Crane Department is so arrogant and does not plan to have a conflict with the Goqin Department for the time being.

The Iron Crane tribe does not want to fight the more powerful tribes, their strategy is extremely simple, for small tribes, especially disobedient small tribes, then they will be destroyed, and for large tribes that are not easy to fight, then they will be wooed.

The Iron Crane Department initiated the formation of the Grassland Tribes Alliance, and the Iron Crane Department is the initiator and the strongest, so it is the leader tribe of the alliance, and the two weaker tribes of the Goqin Department and the Fulu Department are the deputy leaders of the alliance.

The battle flag of the Iron Crane Department is a red flying crane, and the flying crane is also their totem, the Goqin Department believes in the wolf god, and their battle flag is a wolf head, and the totem of the Fulu Department is a five-colored divine deer, and the battle flag is a pair of antlers.

Under the three major tribes, there are hundreds of small tribes attached to each other.

Therefore, this grassland tribal alliance is also called the crane wolf deer.

It stands to reason that before being absolutely sure, the Iron Crane Department will not do anything to a large tribe like the Goqin Department, but in recent days, the Goqin Department has suffered a natural disaster, a fire has burned down the pasture, and the cattle and sheep have no food and grass for the winter.

This catastrophe is not because there is no food and grass to starve to death, cattle and sheep will be starved to death, at least to survive this winter.

This catastrophe is that the Iron Crane Department will never let go of such an opportunity, and now in this situation on the grassland, the Goqin Department and the Fulu Department are relatively close, and the two clans have joined forces to fight against the Iron Crane.

However, since the disaster, there is news that the Iron Crane Department has been inquiring about the loss of the Goqin Ministry, and has been sending envoys to the Fulu Ministry, if nothing else, the Iron Crane Department is still using the old routine, and discussing with the Fulu Department to join forces to destroy the Goqin and divide the Goqin equally.

If the Fulu Department is fooled, then there will only be one Fulu Department left in the Iron Crane Department, which can barely be regarded as his opponent, what else does the Iron Crane have to worry about?

The Geqin Tribe's Ai Jin Yutai will not hand over the fate of the tribe to others, and he can't pin all his hopes on the Fulu tribe rejecting the Iron Crane Tribe.

That's why he sent someone to contact Prince Wu, planning to exchange a large number of war horses for grain and grass, as long as there is grain and grass, to survive this cold winter, next spring, the grass ash left after a fire will make the new grass more vigorous and abundant.

Along the way, Li Diudiu and Xiahou Zhuo studied the situation on the grassland, but they were idle and bored anyway, chatting and chatting about the customs and customs of northern Xinjiang from the grassland.

"In the past, when the Zhou Dynasty was in the past, this was not a border fortress, and Jizhou was robbed by the northern tribes, occupied for hundreds of years, and was snatched back after the founding of the Great Chu State."

Xiahou Zhuo looked at the outside of the carriage and said with some emotion: "After the founding of Great Chu, a nine-star line was created in the area of Xinzhou. ”

Li Didiu asked curiously, "What is the Nine Stars Line?" ”

Xiahou Zhuo said: "Nine stars, referring to the nine county seats, lined up, connected into a line, this is the frontier line of Dachu, at that time, Jizhou this place has been fighting for many years, people have been empty, all are wasteland. ”

"His Majesty Emperor Taizu of Great Chu ordered to transfer people from all over the country to supplement Jizhou, and the people who moved from all over the country can have millions of people, and then gradually multiplied, so that there is now a prosperous ...... Jizhou."

Speaking of the word prosperous, Xiahou Zhuo sighed.

Prosperity is a thing of the past, and now it is full of devastation.

After a pause, he continued: "At the beginning, these nine county towns were named by Emperor Taizu according to the nine-character mantra of Zen Buddhism, and the soldiers were all arrayed in front, and each word was the name of a county. ”

Li Didiu thinks this is very cool.

Xiahou Zhuo continued: "What we are going to now is a county town in the nine-star line, but there is no nine-star line now...... Before the general Xu Qilu quelled the rebellion in the north, more than half of the nine county towns were broken by the grassland cavalry, and only four of the nine counties have survived so far. ”

"These nine counties, where the city is broken, the people fled to other counties for refuge, to be honest, the imperial court is lazy, although the nine counties are not complete, but the imperial court has not changed, until a few years ago, the imperial court did not have a decree, officially merged the nine counties into the current four counties."

Li Diudiu said: "I didn't expect you to be so knowledgeable. ”

Xiahou Zhuo smiled proudly, and he pointed ahead: "The place we are going to was originally called Liexian, and later merged into a former county, and now this county is called Qianxian County." ”

Li Diudiu: "The name is very good, I don't know why, it sounds very majestic." ”

Twenty miles of travel for half a day, anyway, there is no hurry, Prince Yu means that there may be a big event in the military camp in the past two days, he is worried that there will be any accidents, in case the people of the Goqin Department suddenly change their hexagrams, they may really fight, so let Xiahou Zhuo go to Qianqian County to live for two days.

The county seat of Qianfeng County is not small, and now there are tens of thousands of permanent residents in the county, close to the border pass, although it is not as prosperous as Daizhou, but there are also some merchants on the grassland doing business here.

The most common thing here is all kinds of mountain goods, such as a dazzling array of dried fruits, most of which Li Diudiu has never seen, and his eyes are full of curiosity about what this is and what it is.

Xiahou was arrogant, and when Li Diudian saw something that showed doubt, he asked people to buy some to taste.

In addition to a large number of dried fruits, there are the skins of various wild beasts, and there are many wild things in Yanshan, and many hunters make a living from it.

However, Xiahou Zhuo said that many of the whole skins that looked extremely precious were actually spliced together, and they could deceive one by one.

Including those vendors who sell dried fruits, the price is very cheap to tell you, but you can't call it, if you buy a pound of dried fruits, you can have six taels in your hand.

Not only those who sell dead things, but also those who sell living things, there is a whole market in Qianfeng County that sells live things, and those mountain beasts that Li Didiuu has never seen can be seen here.

"What is this?"

Li Didiu asked curiously, pointing to the birds in a cage one by one.

When the merchant saw that a guest had arrived, he hurriedly got up and introduced: "This son, this bird of prey is called a falcon, this is a young falcon, this thing is amazing, swimming in the nine heavens, you don't look particularly big, but there is nothing that is its opponent, the most fierce." ”

Li Diudiu looked at Xiahou Zhuo, Xiahou Zhuo also looked at the bird carefully, he nodded and said, "It looks like a falcon, but I haven't seen it either, and I've heard of it." ”

The merchant said: "This is the hunter squatting in the mountains for more than ten days to catch, I wanted to catch the big one, but I missed, the big one died, I didn't expect that there were two small ones in the nest, one of them also died, only this one remains, if the son likes it, sell it to you at a low price." ”

Li Diudiu liked it, he looked at Xiahou Zhuo, Xiahou Zhuo shook his head and said: "This kind of young bird basically can't be raised, you can raise it from now on, even if you raise it, you will lose its wildness, you can't hunt, and it's useless to buy it." ”

Li Diu, but he likes it, this little thing looks a little milky, but it is an illusion, behind that look hides a kind of vigilance, a kind of ferocity, that is the ferocity of a natural hunter.

"How much?"

Li Didiu asked.

The merchant hurriedly said: "It only costs twenty taels, and I have an eye relationship with my son, and I sell it to my son cheaply." ”

Li Didiu smiled.

Xiahou Zhuo snorted and said, "You can keep this thing for yourself." ”

The merchant felt angry, and said with a serious face: "I didn't sell this thing, do you think the two sons can't sell it?" I just don't want to compromise its value, it's a Gyrfalcon, I'm sorry for the name Gyrfalcon! ”

Li Diudiu said: "What you say is reasonable, but I can't afford it." ”

Xiahou said: "I'm different, I can afford it but I don't want to buy it." ”

The merchant didn't bother to say anything, and said in his heart that these two people who didn't know the goods, this was a small spear falcon, if it was big, it would be difficult to sell it in a big place like Jizhou City or the capital.

Li Didiu had already walked out a few steps, and then turned around and asked, "Can you bargain?" ”

The merchant hurriedly replied: "The price is always negotiable, if I say death at a fixed price, then I am not a businessman, son, how much do you think you can pay?" ”

Li Diudian was on the side of a finger, and the merchant shook his head: "Ten taels is too low to sell." ”

Li Didiu smiled and said, "I wanted to say one or two." ”

The merchant's eyes widened: "What's the trouble!" ”

Xiahou Zhuo lowered his voice and said to Li Diudiu: "He can't afford that thing himself, he needs to feed fresh meat every day, and he doesn't have time to boil it, if you really want it, you should be able to buy it for about fifteen taels, and I will buy it for you." ”

Li Diuti shook his head and said, "Fifteen taels to buy it?" How much meat can you buy! ”

Xiahou sighed: "You think it's easy to raise it? The cost of this thing for a month is greater than the living expenses of ten or twenty ordinary households. ”

Li Diu's mouth opened wide, and he said with a shocked face: "Raise? I don't want to raise it, I want to eat ......."

The corners of Xiahou Zhuo's mouth twitched.

"Get out!"