“…… The forty or fifty years of war is like a catastrophe, and the ghost will not go away. In fact, in the final analysis, it is nothing more than the barrenness of our North Continent. At present, there are about five million people in the seven departments, but can the land of Hanzhou really support five million people?

The nobles ate and drank wine, but the herdsmen and slaves caught rats to eat and starved to death.

At this time, there is only one war. In every war, only half of the people remained, more than two million, who were supported by the land, and they were all women and children.

But in another forty or fifty years, two generations were born, and the land could no longer support them, so they fought again and died again in order to grab water, grass, cattle and sheep. Only by killing the superfluous can the remaining people live. - "History of the Shuofeng Tribe"

Hanju, located in the central part of Hokuriku, is divided into three topographic zones from east to west.

The east is the lofty Tongyun Mountain and the Gouge Mountains, the west is the plateau that connects with Liangzhou, and only the middle is the grassland suitable for habitation.

The grassland people of Hanzhou, known as the barbarians of the Eastern Continent, lived and galloped on this vast grassland.

The grassland area of Hanzhou is vast, and most of the grassland people living here live by grazing.

The land of Hanzhou is far more barren than that of the Eastern Continent, and the climate is relatively cold, so it is not suitable for farming.

Occasionally, herdsmen burn wasteland for farming, and their income is quite limited, and rice in Zhongzhou can even be harvested three times a year, while wheat in Hanzhou can often only be harvested once.

The survival of barbarian herders and the survival of their tribes were highly dependent on grazing, and livestock was not only the only source of food for some tribes, but also an exchange for other necessities of life between the barbarians who could not support themselves and the eastern continent.

Grazing livestock compete with thousands of wild mice, rabbits and other rodents in the pastures, and if they can't find suitable pasture, the animals can't survive and the tribe will die.

During the reign of Emperor Wen of Zhou, the barbarian population of Hanzhou was about eight million, far exceeding the upper limit of what the grasslands of Hanzhou could afford.

As a result, there are constant conflicts between tribes over pastures.

Vendettas due to blood revenge are a daily occurrence, and the herders often wake up the next day to find that the blood of their loved ones has dried up on the white tents, so they take the knife that kills the cattle and rush desperately to the tribe of the killers.

In large-scale tribal vendettas, many smaller tribes have even lost their main male labor force and have been annexed by larger tribes.

While the ordinary barbarian herdsmen were struggling for the land of the cone, the nobles of the great tribes still lived a luxurious life; The further growth of the large tribes was also accompanied by the disappearance of many small tribes.

Among the barbarian tribes at that time, the most powerful was the Shuofeng Clan, which had occupied the original royal city for nearly thirty years, and the private armies of the Shuofeng Clan, such as the Chu clan or the Lu clan, were more than the number of young and middle-aged men in many small tribes.

The True Yan Tribe, which is located in the northern part of Shuofang Yuan, also has almost the same strength, especially their cavalry army that comes and goes like the wind, it is simply a nightmare for the surrounding small tribes, even the Shuofeng Department is very jealous of True Face.

On the green mushroom plain in the south, the sand pool department and the nine Xuan tribe are in full swing to catch and fight.

Although these tribes will slowly be swallowed up by the Shuofeng Tribes in the Battle of Hanzhou Blood in the future.

It is worth mentioning that the Wudi tribe, a small tribe living on the bank of the Tiexian River, under the strong pressure of Jiuxuan, continued to migrate southward and retreated to the Tiantuo Strait, and finally could not retreat again.

Under the leadership of the lord Syral, the men of the whole clan designed an ambush of the pirate stronghold, seized their ships, and angrily crossed the Tiantuo Strait by boat, and quickly plundered an unsuspecting Ming town at night, returning with food.

This event, which did not cause serious damage, became the beginning of the "brute locust" that would continue for decades.

The attack did not cause much of a stir in the Eastern Continent, and the local garrison reported it as a simple pirate attack, but did not notice that the barbarians had sacked the entire village on horseback.

Contrary to what happened in the Eastern Continent, the harvest of the Five Tribes, although not much, attracted a lot of attention in the Northern Continent.

When the various ministries starved to death one after another, new sources of food could easily become the focus of attention of the ministries, and the virtual existence of coastal defense in the eastern continent and the failure of officials to fulfill their duties made it a very attractive thing to cross the narrow Tiantuo Gorge to the eastern continent to grab grain.

The discerning Shaojun Sha Ze of the Nine Clans sent secret envoys to buy longships from merchants in Youzhou, and hired many homeless people as crew members at high prices.

The Clipper crossed the Tiantuo Strait with the elite cavalry of the Jiu Xuan Division, and the cavalry went ashore at the mouth of the Yan River, and attacked the important granary of the Ming State along the river, killing more than 200 local defenders, and then quickly withdrew to the North Continent, and the Jiu Xuan Department suffered less than ten casualties.

The local officials who had accepted bribes from the Coastal Defense Department were afraid that they would be held accountable if the matter spread, so they concealed it and did not report it, and this behavior undoubtedly provided convenience for the ravages of the barbarians in the future.

The cavalry of the Nine Tribes who returned to the North Continent were treated as heroes, and their deeds soon spread throughout Hanzhou.

For a time, the barbarian herdsmen in Hanzhou went south along the river. There was a shortage of trees in the northern continent, so the herders killed cattle and horses and made rafts out of cow hides, and many herders sat on dilapidated rafts and drowned in the Wire River.

Even so, the hungry herders did not regret boarding the rafts and paddling south with the hope of survival.

At this time, it happened that the envoys of the Northern Continent were returned to the country by Emperor Wen of Zhou, and returned to the north in disgrace, bringing back the arrogance of these Eastern Continent people, as well as the intelligence that their defense capabilities were indeed low, and an undercurrent began to be pushed.

All the tribes saw the meaning behind this incident, so at the Kulig Conference, the various tribes agreed to go south together to plunder and cooperate with each other, with the Nine Tribes providing ships, and the strongest Shuofeng and Zhenyan and Helan Tribes contained the military power of the Ming Kingdom, and the final spoils were distributed according to the merits of each department.

On a dark summer night, the night watchmen of the Ming Kingdom saw from the lighthouse a column of ships suddenly coming on the sea without any flags, and there was no response to the flags.

Suddenly, the lighthouses on the left and left of the sea were lit to warn them, and the beacon flames stretched for dozens of miles.

The deserted coastal defense of the Ming Kingdom, which had been forbidden to the sea for more than 200 years, was torn apart like a piece of paper by the ships helmed by the wingless people, and tens of thousands of barbarians, including men and horses, landed on the shores of the Ming Kingdom overnight.

The barbarian ships skillfully bypassed the heavily defended Quanming and Bizhi and landed in the vast area of the Tobacco River Delta, and the Coastal Defense Division, which was caught off guard, did not even know where to transfer its troops when they saw the beacon fire that stretched for dozens of miles.

After coming ashore, the barbarians plundered along the way, but the strategy of "avoiding the real and making the imaginary" was brought into full play.

The barbarian horse is fast, and there is no worry about the rear, the barbarian raid also tramples the edible wheat on the way, the people of Chunguo are miserable, and because the barbarian cavalry comes and goes like the wind, so it has the name of "barbarian locust". The barbarians are like locusts entering the country, and everyone is in danger and their families are not protected.

After the landing, the barbarian tribes seized all kinds of ships that were still docked along the coast and had time to go to sea in preparation for another southward movement.

Shuofeng, Helan and Zhenyan sent out some cavalry to roam around Bizhi, forcing Zhu Guangzhi, the lord of the Ming Kingdom, not to divide his troops to contain the barbarians, and also ordered the "King Qin" to the commanders of various places, making the already very empty local defenses even more empty.

The commanders of various places also guarded the northern part of the Tobacco River Plain, which was rich in tobacco and fruits, and almost completely abandoned the garrison in the south of the Ming Kingdom, making the barbarians run rampant in the southern part of the Ming Kingdom.

All of a sudden, the "brute locusts" raged as if no one could handle it. When the news of the appearance of the barbarians in the Eastern Continent reached Tian Yuan, the whole country was shocked.

The Ming State is the barrier on the back of the royal domain, and has been responsible for the coastal defense of the Eastern Land for a long time, but it was broken through by the barbarians in one fell swoop, and the barbarian rangers relied on the speed advantage of the foot soldiers to intersperse and wander between the Ming army.

And a large number of troops of the Ming State were pinned down near the national capital Kaifeng, and it was difficult to take care of them, so it can be said that the gate to the north of the royal domain was completely open to the barbarians.

Although it is blocked by the ancient Gobi in the west, the Xiuwen Grand Canal, which flows from the Imperial Capital Basin to the Tobacco River, provides a good passage for the barbarians to continue southward.

For a while, the clouds in Tianyuan City were dense, and the evil consequences of the long-standing Eastern Army's military slack finally appeared.

However, unlike the princes who were in panic, Emperor Wen of Zhou ordered 30,000 Yulin Tianjun to garrison Dayanbokou on the one hand, and ordered all countries to rush to help, and the historian said that he was "calm and calm, full of worship clothes" when analyzing the military comparison of barbarians in the Taiqing Palace.

This is similar to his attitude towards the Hokuriku envoys in the court.

30,000 Yulin Heavenly Army was stationed at Dayanbokou, the imperial capital was very settled, and the Yulin Heavenly Army even had Yu Yu to suppress the scattered barbarians in the south of the Ming Kingdom, and the situation appeared in favor of the Zhou Dynasty, and the people of Tianyuan even believed that the barbarians would soon be driven out of the territory of the Great Zhou after various countries sent troops one after another.

However, history is always full of all kinds of accidents, and a group of about 1,000 horsemen led by the retainers of the Chu clan of the Shuofeng Department went up the Xiyan River by mistake because they did not know the terrain, passed through the abandoned ancient battlefield Dangyang Valley, and entered the imperial capital basin.

The rangers were surprised to find that the Imperial Capital Basin was far richer than the Ming Kingdom in the north, and at this time they finally understood that they had not gone south along the Grand Canal as originally planned, but had made a detour to approach the center of the Zhou Dynasty's power, the imperial capital Tianyuan City.

This group of rangers excitedly gave up the looting around the imperial capital, and instead went straight to the imperial capital Tianyuan along the official road shouting the slogan "Kill the emperor of the Eastern Continent and rob the treasures of the Eastern Continent".

With the luck of adventurers, they bet on the empty defense of the imperial capital, and their bravery and luck brought them to Tianyuan City.

The guards of the Yang Gate did not even have time to distinguish them from the Eastern Continent caravans, and they were rushed into the city gate by the leading rangers; Tianyuan Avenue, which can accommodate twelve carts in parallel, provided great convenience for the barbarian cavalry, and when the guards at the head of the city were shot by the barbarians and fell from the tower, nearly half of the thousand-strong team had already entered the city.

The barbarians who rushed into Tian Yuan were like digging a gold mine, and the barbarians who had never seen the Eastern Continent civilization were shocked by the dazzling commercial miracles in the market and did not know where to start.

The goods in Tianyuan City are just one store, and they are worth the entire collection of the most powerful Chu Clan's important ministers in the Shuofeng Clan, and even surpass them.

While some of the rangers had been lost in the streets of the deep and wide Tianyuan, someone finally recovered from the overwhelm of the great wealth;

A moment later, hundreds of barbarian cavalrymen with all kinds of gold and jade weapons hanging from their waists shouted one after another with the slogan of "Kill the Emperor of the Eastern Continent and rob the treasures of the Eastern Continent" and rushed to the imperial city.

The Yulin Heavenly Army, which was hundreds of miles away, didn't even have time to get the news that the barbarians had entered Tianyuan, and the military strength in Tianyuan City at this time was only five thousand gold guards.

Although the Jin Wuwei, who was mainly composed of the children of the family, was well-equipped, he was much inferior in training and fighting spirit to the barbarians born on horseback, and the Jin Wuwei who patrolled the streets even dropped his weapons and fled among the people as soon as he confirmed that the barbarians had entered Tianyuan, far less powerful than before.

The barbarians rushed to the palace gate of the Taiqing Palace without encountering serious resistance, but fortunately, the Taibu Supervisor was passing through the palace gate and "commanding" on the palace wall, so that the barbarians did not rush into the Taiqing Palace.

This group of cavalry was active in Tianyuan City for two whole days, except for more than 100 cavalry who left first, the rest of the cavalry was not completely wiped out by the 5,000-feather Lin Heavenly Army driven back by the starry night until the third day.

The barbarian invasion of the Eastern Continent was almost entirely aimed at plundering, and they did not capture cities, but burned and looted wherever they went, and the results were astonishing.

The people of the Zhou Dynasty hated the barbarians to the core, but there was nothing they could do. Because the barbarians plundered everywhere and often did not stay in one place for long, it was difficult for the defenders of the Eastern Continent to understand the truth and the number of invading barbarians was exaggerated to an incredible level, which further exacerbated the fear in the hearts of the people.

After obtaining the ships of the Eastern Continent, the follow-up men and horses came in a surge, and every day there were barbarians who returned with a full load of people on the return journey, and every day there were also barbarians who were full of hope to take the boat south.

The barbarian raids continued for nearly half a year, and it was not until midwinter approached that most of the barbarians withdrew from the Eastern Continent. However, there were still a small number of barbarians who remained in the Eastern Continent, either because they missed the opportunity to board the ship and were forced to stay, or they were too ambitious to leave because of the wealth of the Eastern Continent.

The people of the Ming Kingdom were given a short respite, but due to the huge destruction, there was a rare famine in the Ming Kingdom, which had the Tobacco River Plain, and they had to ask Tian Yuan for food and relief.

At the Kullig Congress, the ministries counted the number of people and losses involved in the southward movement, and redistributed a portion of the plundered harvest. Even the losses and huge gains made by the ministries in order to distribute the benefits are insignificant.

At the convention, the ministries agreed to continue their raids south the following spring, and unlike the previous congress, the ministries that had obtained enough ships made no tacit agreement to go south together.

In the spring of the following year, before the waters of the Xuesong River and the Tiexian River had completely thawed, the barbarian tribes of Hanzhou began to sail south.

Due to the severe shortage of skilled rootless crews, many ships are stuck in the ice, and conflicts over the river are a daily occurrence. Even so, the much larger number of barbarian rangers crossed the Tento Strait to reach the Eastern Continent.

The Ming Kingdom, which had not yet recovered from the previous year's blow, had anticipated the barbarians' southward movement, but they were unable to block the entire Tiantuo Strait and the northern coastline of Zhongzhou.

After a winter of hibernation, the "brute locust" ravaged the eastern continent again.

However, this time is different from the last time, the various tribes of the barbarians have their own affairs, and even the tribes will fight for property. Without the containment of Shuofeng and other large departments, the forces of the Ming Kingdom were liberated, and the small group of rangers gradually had a certain containment effect.

The infantry of the Ming Kingdom were almost inactive in the face of the wandering barbarian cavalry, and the barrier to the north of the royal domain no longer existed. With the old incident of the soldiers coming to Taiqing, Emperor Wen of Zhou attached great importance to the "barbarian locusts" and ordered the "Qin King" of various countries to "suppress the barbarians".

The state of Chu, which was closest to the royal domain, was the first to respond, sending 10,000 foot soldiers to the north. However, except for the state of Chu, all countries have not moved. The Tang state, which was closest to the Ming state, sent a large army on the first day of receiving the edict, but this army only marched less than a hundred miles before it was stationed in the Hexi Corridor and no longer moved half a step forward. Emperor Wen of Zhou repeatedly sent envoys to urge, but was politely rejected by Tang Hou on the grounds that "the feather trouble has not been eliminated", and the royal family was still too busy to take care of itself, so it was impossible to deal with Tang Hou.

The armies of several countries gathered in front of the Hexi Corridor, but the passage between Zhongzhou and Youzhou was guarded, and the barbarians attacked several times without success, knowing that this hard bone was not easy to gnaw, and they also stopped thinking of going to Youzhou to make a profit.

Chen, Jin, and Shang, known as the "Three Kingdoms of Tiannan", were already in the barren and barren Qingzhou, with weak troops, and the royal family was separated by two large mountain ranges.

Among the three kingdoms, only the Jin State was loyal to the royal family, but it was difficult to travel long distances, and it was inconvenient for the iron horse to go over the mountains.

However, Chen Guo rejected Chu State's suggestion of "borrowing the road", did not climb over Leiyan Mountain, but chose to climb over the distant Suohe Mountain, and the two armies of less than 3,000 people traveled all the way, and finally arrived at the Hexi Corridor at the beginning of summer, and walked for three full months in just a few hundred miles.

Chen Jun met the Youzhou coalition army standing here in the Hexi Corridor, as if meeting relatives, it was extremely difficult to say that the mountains are high and the road is far away, and it is not easy to trek all the way through the dangerous mountains and rivers, and the Youzhou coalition forces have expressed great admiration for Chen Jun's loyal savior at the expense of the expedition, and tens of thousands of troops from the six countries put on a "labor banquet" in the Hexi Corridor that night, and the lights can be seen more than ten miles away. Half a month later, the Shang army was late, and the army of the Seven Kingdoms was once again in a big way as before. The financial strength of the Tang State, which is located in the prosperous land of Wanzhou, is almost the first in the Eastern Continent, but the military strength is really average.

After receiving the edict, the lord of Tang immediately mobilized 10,000 taels of gold and 300,000 taels of grain from the treasury to "share the worries of the country", but he did not send a single soldier.

The ravages of the "barbarian locusts" made the rulers of the Eastern Continent realize the importance of cavalry and the serious lack of mobility of their own forces.

The Ming army was exhausted by the harassment of the barbarians, but it could not keep up with the speed of the barbarian cavalry.

The invasion of the barbarians, who were regarded as uncivilized, was a great humiliation and pain for the people of the Eastern Continent, and even more so for the Ming Kingdom, which suffered the most serious losses.

Based on this, the Ming Kingdom began to deliberately train cavalry. There was a lack of good horse breeds in the Eastern Continent, so the Ming Kingdom collected local materials, collected unowned horses from the Northern Continent, secretly established a horse farm in the south of the Tobacco River to provide mounts, and forged fish scale steel armor with the secret cold calcination method. Due to the limited annual production of steel armor, only 100 iron horses were originally formed to keep moving.

Emperor Wen of Zhou then sent secret envoys to negotiate with Shuofeng Zhenyan and the representatives of the Helan Ministry respectively, promising benefits, hoping to exchange the conditions for the withdrawal of the army. After some bargaining, the Shuofeng Department reached an agreement with Emperor Wen of Zhou.

The agreement between Tian Yuan and Shuofeng includes: every year the Zhou Dynasty pays tribute to the Shuofeng Ministry of 100,000 taels of silver and 200,000 horses of silk, that is, "New Year's coins", Emperor Wen of Zhou marries his daughter to the Shuofeng Ministry, and Tianyuan City accepts the Shuofeng envoys as VIPs to exchange news between the Zhou Dynasty and the Shuofeng Ministry.

The rebellious True Face Lord, on the other hand, refused the request for peace and continued to plunder in Middle-earth.

The men and horses of the Shuofeng tribe quietly withdrew to the North Continent, and the other barbarian tribes, who indulged in the abundance and great wealth of the Eastern Continent, continued to roam the rich lands, and the plague of the barbarian locusts continued for decades.

It is recorded that the emperor's economic power stemmed from the minting of currency. The three monetary standards of gold baht, silver quill, and copper tin were determined by the first emperor of the Great Zhou Dynasty, and the emperor had a huge currency minting center - the Goods Colony Mansion.

In addition, within the royal domain, the emperor had absolute power. The royal domain is also the center of the eastern continent, located in the rich imperial capital basin, the grain harvest is very rich and stable, and it is strategically located between the Leiyan Mountain and the Suohe Mountain, so that a large part of the circulation of goods must pass through the royal domain. The emperor sat on the ground to collect taxes, and the benefits were very considerable.

Added up, although the emperor had to pay for the imperial capital and a considerable number of imperial ministers, the emperor was still one of the wealthiest people in the Eastern Continent.

Even if it is as rich and developed as the Tang Kingdom, it is only comparable to the economic strength of the imperial family.

Blood revenge is the revenge of the brave barbarians on the steppe after being violated. Being violated and not responding in an equal way was considered cowardly by many barbarians, so blood revenge was once very popular among barbarians.

Blood revenge must be carried out by the victim's own family, and the object of revenge is not limited to the aggressor himself, but all those who are related to the aggressor by blood.

The purpose of blood revenge is not to stop the violation, but to punish the violation.

Blood revenge often has a chain reaction effect during the execution process, and eventually even involves multiple tribes.

Despite the cruelty, it has to be said that in the overpopulated Hanzhou, blood revenge is objectively a good way to reduce the population.

The Great Zhou Empire had a large number of nobles. There is no absolute difference between a family and a commoner, and if a family cannot inherit the military exploits and titles of their ancestors, it will slowly become a commoner. And civilians can also become families if they make meritorious contributions.

However, some traditional nobles are still recognized as famous and noble "families" by virtue of their hundreds of years of cultivation and accumulation, and among these families, there is also the saying of "seven great families".

The royal Zhou family, this branch mainly includes the princes of the royal family, as well as a large number of branches.

Their family crest is a "rose" derived from the First Emperor, and the family crest of each branch is slightly deformed.

The Tang clan of the Tang Kingdom, they are second only to the Zhou clan, and they are the second largest family in the empire.

Tian Yuan Xie Clan, this family has almost the most branches, and most of their divisions have no influence, and they belong to a family that slowly loses its influence after a long time. But in the imperial capital, there are still many Xie families, and their descendants serve in various institutions of the imperial family.

Youzhou Wu Clan, this is an extremely large family, and there are also countless small families, and the main family has long been lost in the long river of history. However, an outstanding member of a certain branch of the Wu family stepped into the mall and created a huge commercial dynasty with his unparalleled genius, so that the entire Wu family in the Eastern Continent worshipped him as the new head of the Wu family, so during the period of Emperor Wen of Zhou, the Wu family had very strength, and wealth could shake the government and the opposition.

Tianshui Bai Clan, a closed family located in Cloud City, this family has very few divisions in history, and most of them have also disappeared. There is only the main family, which has always been famous all over the world for the generals it has cultivated.

The Tianshui Bai clan has a very complete military talent training mechanism, all men are instilled with military knowledge and combat skills at a very young age, in this family, boys who cannot join the army are regarded as shameful, and even their mothers and sisters will despise him.

Successive generations of Tianshui family heads have followed the ancestral and tough military family program, and have cultivated shame and self-motivation in family members, making them strong and courageous, and never tolerating weakness. This provided a large number of military talents for the royal family and the princes, and also lost a lot of descendants in each war.

Tianyuan Yuan's family, although this family has always produced some famous prime ministers, including the later Yuan Taiqi.

The rest of the Yuan family are just indulging in the erosive life brought about by the exploits of their ancestors. The Yuan family controlled an extremely important institution in the imperial capital, the Cargo Colony Mansion.

The heads of the Yuan family have been in charge of the Cargo Colony Mansion for generations, and are responsible for planning the currency circulation and economic development of the Eastern Continent for the imperial family.

This position requires a very deep family education, so the position of the Ji family can rarely be replaced until the revival of the Wanzhou Wu family. This position also brought very lucrative benefits, so the Yuan family was very wealthy. In a group of wealthy children surnamed Yuan, there is always a peerless talent flashing in several generations, which can be regarded as an interesting thing.

According to the clan meeting system of the family and the Gongqing family, each family, that is, each surname, will have a "ancestral hall".

Whether it is a separate family or a main family, as long as they still firmly believe that they originate from the same ancestor, then they worship the same ancestral hall.

For example, the two generations of kings in the Tang Kingdom were incompatible because of the split, but both families still respected the Tang clan ancestral hall in the imperial capital. This ancestral hall does not mean the mausoleum or tablet of the ancestors, but is actually a meeting system of family elders.

The ancestral hall is always under the convening and maintenance of the main family, and if the transfer of the main family occurs like the Wu family, then a new ancestral hall must be opened.

The ancestral hall is composed of several elders, regardless of whether they are from the main family or divided families, usually the head of the main family is the leader of the ancestral hall, but there are exceptions. In short, the composition of the ancestral hall reveals that the power ratio between the main family and the division of the family depends on each other's forces. The competition for the ancestral hall of the great family is very fierce, but it generally happens in the shadows, and sometimes some candidates even need the emperor to coordinate, because the decision of the ancestral hall is of great significance to the actions of the entire family, and it is a very amazing opposition force.

The ancestral halls of each family have some secrets of their own clan, although nominally they are the ones who rule the affairs within the clan, but when these things happen to the great family, it will affect the pattern of the entire Eastern Continent.

For the ancestral hall that has strong control over the division of the family, the elders can even directly order the princes who are dividing the family, and the princes are not even convenient to refuse.

The emergence of the main family is a system of genealogical compilation of the family, that is, one person in each generation of the family will be the head of the family, and the head of the family must be a man in most cases.

The brothers of the head of the family are also written in the family tree, but only for their third generation, and they are not recorded thereafter. Therefore, the male descendants who cannot inherit the head of the family often choose to be independent, as long as he applies to the ancestral hall and proves that he really has the ability to survive on his own and reproduce the descendants of the family, he will often obtain the permission of the ancestral hall to establish a new division.

After that, the ancestral hall no longer manages the internal affairs of the divided family, but in principle, when the main family is in danger, the head of the divided family should do his best to rescue the main family.

Most of the divisions will decline and wither after a long time, but a few will grow and even surpass the power of the main family.

The inheritance of the family is equal to the inheritance of the head of the family. The establishment of the selection of the head of the family is to imitate the succession system of the royal family and select the best of the best. The only difference is that the competition within the family is much smaller, so the personal inclination of the previous head of the family and the opinions of the ancestral hall are enough to establish an heir.

For the main family, the opinion of the ancestral hall is more important, and for the division of the family, it is the opinion of the head of the family that is more important. For the head of the great family, the chosen heir is often pushed to the front of social activities by the entire family, sending him to the imperial capital to learn etiquette, scripture and culture, and he must appear as a new generation role model for this family, and if he fails to do so, he will be replaced.

Inheritance generally has some symbolic tokens, such as for the Yuan family, the inheritance of Zhongshu Province is of great importance. But the token is symbolic after all, and the recognition of the ancestral hall and the previous head of the family is ultimately decisive.

When the heirs of the family have a big dispute, it is still up to the emperor to adjudicate. The status of the emperor is also reflected here.

The families are mainly united by marriage, and the descendants of these families will have a large number of in-laws and relationships, which are very complicated.

Therefore, many children of families will have the blood background of several families, and they are particularly noble in terms of identity, so the descendants of the families will have many genetic diseases, all of which are caused by some confused close relatives.

The atmosphere of the Zhou Dynasty did not attach much importance to the seniority of the family's marriage, mainly based on age. According to the genealogy of one family, the wife may be two generations higher than the husband, while according to the genealogy of the other family, the two may be the same generation, which is too difficult to distinguish.

The ministers of Tian Yuan are a huge reserve of manpower, and most of them are nobles of the family. The children of the family are systematically educated in the family, and the core of the education is the family knowledge of each family. The ministers also sent their children to study in familiar families, so as to cultivate more well-rounded talents. They served in different fields such as military, cultural, economic, and political, and served a variety of masters, from the royal family to the princes to the great families, so as to make use of their talents. Commoners can also become ministers, but the road is more difficult.

Unlike the children of the family, who have intricate family relationships in the minister's class, they can obtain low-level positions by recommendation, and they must rely on military merit or make meritorious contributions to their masters on some special occasions, so as to step into the threshold of the minister's class. The Great Zhou Empire did not have a special talent selection agency, and the various institutions of the royal family and princes, as well as the big families, would recruit talents according to their own needs, but the children of the family were better educated, so most of the opportunities were reserved for these people.

The ministers pushed each other and had a sense of hierarchy. The Seven Great Families and some ministers who were at the peak of their power were naturally regarded as first-class ministers, the divisions of the great families, small families, and ordinary ministers were regarded as second-class, and there were also a few ministers who had no power and influence in the emperor were regarded as third-class. For example, the Chen family of Chen Guo, even as a prince, was regarded as a third-class minister and a prince of the countryside, and was discriminated against.

The camps of the ministers can also be distinguished according to the masters to whom they are loyal, and the royal courtiers, in the imperial capital, the courtiers loyal to the royal family are the most powerful group of people, and they also account for a large proportion.

The envoys sent by the princes, the princes will also send envoys in the imperial capital to communicate with the royal family and deal with affairs, these ministers may be sent to the imperial capital from the country, or they may be looking for suitable children of the family to serve locally, and they have a very close relationship with the imperial family.

The manpower reserve of the family, the rich family will hire their own retainers, just like the royal family and the princes pay them salaries. The team of retainers of the Baili clan is unusually large, and the head of the Baili clan in later generations, Baili Changqing, was convicted of the royal family, and it is precisely because of this huge team of retainers.

These retainers are only loyal to their masters, and they don't even pay attention to the emperor, and they are a very restless group of people. In addition, some idle children of the family who do not serve can also be counted in the family's manpower reserve, and these people are ready to contribute to the family at any time. The life of the Ministers The life of the Ministers in the Imperial Capital was full of luxury and romance, with various events and ceremonies to connect the nobles and establish a sense of superiority.

Visits between ministers were common, gifts were common, and wealthy families competed with each other for luxury, as well as for the cultivation of culture and art, and for the collection of treasures.

Poetry, writings, jade, courtesans, dances, and martial arts all occupy an important place in the life of the minister. They also gather on various special festivals, the most important of which are: Yuan Ri.

On the first day of the new year, at midnight, the emperor will worship the starry sky on the Taiqing Pavilion.

After the sacrifice, the imperial overseers would distribute the food given by the emperor to important ministers and families. On this day, almost all the ministers' homes were lit up all night, and the whole family drank and danced around the brazier, as a blessing for the New Year, and it would be a great honor to receive food from the emperor.

After dawn, the heads of the Gongqing family get in the car and go out to visit, and the newly grown boy has to accompany his father out of the house, which is often the first step for them to step into social interaction. The fathers recommend their grown children to friends in high positions, which also implies that the child can go out to be an official, and hopes that friends will pay attention to it when they have a position.

The young girls have little to do, and on this day they can go out and play casually, often to the house of the princess with whom they are most close. Each family prepared a sumptuous meal and waited, and every family was a scene of jubilation. This day is also a good opportunity for the young people of the Gongqing family to meet the young girls, who are looking for a good mate among the young people who come and go with their hearts, and the teenagers are the same. On this day, the girls will be wrapped in luxurious clothes, but boldly expose their necks, shoulders and arms, and the teenagers will also strive to show their most elegant or heroic side.

Compared with the Yuan Day, in the middle of spring in March, the day when Qin Tianjian announced the start of mid-spring was more relaxed and lovely.

Ministers are accustomed to going out with their families on this day, and it is also a time of competition for luxury, with a large entourage and gorgeously dressed ladies being the biggest attraction. On this day, the heads of the family deliberately expose their daughters to show that their daughters have grown up and can consider marriage.

In the spring, the maidens are dressed in thin and flowing clothes, and there are a large number of idle teenagers waiting in the wild to feast their eyes. After stepping into the green, the familiar ministers will check out and drink together, and introduce the grown girl to everyone, which is the first step for the girl to step into social interaction.

Chrysanthemum Day, this important festival takes place in autumn when chrysanthemums are in full bloom.

This festival originated from the fact that the family crest of the Yuan family was a chrysanthemum, and in the past, when the chrysanthemum was in full bloom, the wealthy Yuan family would gather the ministers to drink and sing and dance in their own chrysanthemum garden.

Later, the emperor was also very happy to be present on such occasions, and gradually developed into the emperor to convene this event, which was limited to the influential grand duke families of the imperial capital, and these important members of these families were invited to the imperial chrysanthemum garden to admire the chrysanthemums, drink and listen to the silk bamboo. It was a very elegant event, but the emperor sometimes took the opportunity to choose a new wife.

Ancestor worship, this is the day set by the ancestral hall of the great family according to a certain commemorative event of the family, and the branches of all over the country are summoned to come to the imperial capital to worship the ancestors.

Ancestor worship is not held every year, but once it is held, it is extremely solemn and grand, and it is often the time when the ancestral hall takes the opportunity to invite the family to come to the imperial capital to discuss matters. Usually the ancestor worship should be attended by the head of the family, and if the head of the family is unable to attend, it is entrusted to the eldest of the concubines.

The Mid-Autumn Festival, which is different from the previous ones, is usually counted as a festival as long as it is on the day of the full moon, and a certain minister will gather acquaintances to feast under the full moon, display treasures or enjoy singing and dancing. The so-called Mid-Autumn Festival is just to find a reason for this event, and usually the invitation card will be written with the words "Feeling the bright moon in your arms, inviting you to sing and drink to Ji Streamer".

This event is usually attended by few boys and girls, but by the heads of the family, because this strange festival has another meaning, which is a secretly popular entertainment among the ministers. Usually during the festival, singers and dancers are generously chosen by the guests.