"Go to the army to try to be a flint?"

Xia Dingmao was a little surprised: "The gentleman is only 18 years old, and he has not yet reached the age of service." ”

In the Qin Dynasty, soldiers were enlisted at the age of 17, but the Han Dynasty set the age of conscription for men at 20. The first is because wars are not frequent, and the second is to give men enough time to marry wives and have children.

A few years ago, the new emperor succeeded to the throne, in order to implement the spirit of "prohibiting harshness, stopping unauthorized endowment, and strengthening the peasants" in Emperor Xiaowu's edict of Luntai, the general Huo Guang postponed Fu to 23 years old, which is considered a very tolerant good governance.

Therefore, unless Ren Hong takes other paths, he will not find the opportunity to join the army as an official.

Ren Hongdao: "Fu Gong is kind to the central governor of Dunhuang, and he will recommend me to him, and I will be recruited by the central governor." ”

The local county guards and governors of the Western Han Dynasty had the power to remove officials on their own, and some people were even directly requisitioned from the white body to Zhu Cao Peng, Wei Shi...... There is such a thing as recruiting a small official to be the captain of the flint, and the waiting officer can make a decision without even the appearance of the captain.

"Next, I will try to be a long-term Biansai Sui for a few months, if I am still alive when Fu Gong travels west again, and I will not lose the Sui, and I will have a place in the mission to the Western Regions, but if I am unlucky and die......"

Ren Hong said with a smile: "In this world, there is another lesson that is as boastful as Di Shan, but it can not be true, and nothing can be achieved in the end." ”

"This is my agreement with Fu Gong."

"The gentleman has already agreed?" Xia Dingmao also served in the army, and said worriedly: "Although Fengsui is not far away, the hard work is not comparable to that of Hanging Spring." ”

Xu Fengde said: "Young people endure hardships, and there is nothing wrong with sharpening their skills. He patted the lame leg: "Just don't be like old and decrepit, just break your leg." ”

Ren Hong said: "Xu Qifu is right, I can't ask for this, the prime minister must be sent to the state and county, and the general must be in the army, which is also a rare experience." ”

"What's more, although the Suichang is also a young official, the rank Lu is more than a hundred stones, and the same as the kitchen and the stableman, if I can become an official, it can be regarded as a promotion, and the rank of Lu is twice as high as that of the fighting food officer."

Ren Hong pointed to the brown mare tethered to the stable, and laughed at himself: "If it weren't for that, I wouldn't have been able to feed this horse given by Fu Gong." ”

The three of them walked to the stable, and the stableman with experience in Soma had already checked the horse up and down, and asked Ren Hong to find a wooden slip and register the name of the horse.

The stableman pinched the horse's mouth, looked at its teeth, squinted for a moment, and said:

"In July, the Horse Supervisor Fu Gong's Office gave Ren Hong a private horse, a left plagiarism, a four-year-old tooth, six feet five inches high, an upper foot, and a ...... of training."

Ren Hong knew that at the beginning of the Han Dynasty, after the rebellion of Chu and Han at the end of Qin, the people's livelihood withered, and the emperor's chariot could not get together horses of the same coat color, and Liehou Qing often rode ox carts.

But after the recovery of several generations in the early Han Dynasty, the horse breeding industry was vigorously promoted, and in the seventy years of Emperor Wu, the people had raised horses in every Lilu, and there were groups among them, and those who rode inferior horses and mares were embarrassed to participate in aristocratic gatherings.

Soma became a university question, and in order to accurately describe the characteristics of horses, dozens of special words were invented, such as "騂" means red all over the body, and "馰" means white forehead.

As for left-handed plagiarism, it is the horse's left butt that has a brand.

The stableman rated the horse as a top-footer, but because of its relatively young age, it was only suitable for daily riding, not for heavy work and battlefield.

"5 to 12 years old is a strong horse, and this mare has to grow a little longer." The stable man said to Ren Hong: "Come and give her a name!" ”

Because there are too many horses for official and private use, in order to facilitate registration, the owner of the horse will generally give the horse a name, such as the horse in the hanging spring stable, the name "Huang Jue", because it is named after the black-mouthed yellow horse, and the famous "Cangbo", because the color of the horse is blue-black.

Xu Fengde's private horse is called "Wan Xing", which is to seek good luck.

Ren Hong has even seen a horse called "Iron Pillar......

He gently stroked the little mare, and listened to Fu Jiezi say that this was given by the Suo clan of Dunhuang, after two hand-changing gifts, the mare was a little afraid of life, and was not very willing to eat grass, until Ren Hong handed over a radish, which was chewed.

Ren Hong suddenly laughed and said, "Just call her 'radish'!" ”

"In the future, no matter how my horses are replaced, they will be called turnips, and I hope they will be able to whistle at any time, even across thousands of mountains and rivers."

Ren Hong likes to give new names to some vegetables and fruits, such as hailstorm, and Ren Hong has to call it radish.

The stable man and Xu Fengde looked at each other, but they didn't delve into it, after all, there were all kinds of strange names for horses.

However, just as later generations can afford to buy a car and can't afford to raise a car, raising horses also requires a certain amount of financial resources.

Ma Guang eats pasture and is prone to illness and thinness, and if it eats grain, it eats at least five times as much as a person in a month......

Ren Hong, a young man who is not wealthy, is afraid that he will be dragged bankrupt by this horse.

After the sun set, after a period of getting along, the radish was not so afraid of Ren Hong, but looking at the two buckets of wheat beans that it had eaten silently, Ren Hong also became sad:

"I can only hope to be a flint chief as soon as possible and have more money, otherwise I won't be able to support you!"

……

The days were as usual, and Hanging Springs waited for waves of soldiers and merchants, and sent away batch after batch. Ren Hong still greeted the send-off diligently, and only rode his radish in his spare time, circling the Silk Road twice.

After waiting for a few days, Su Yannian and Chen Pengzu came to Hanging Springs again, and were about to meet Ren Hong coming back from walking his horse outside.

"Su Jun, Zhang Jun!"

Ren Hong dismounted and bowed his hand: "Could it be that Fu Gong has been sent out of the county?" ”

"We are only responsible for welcoming Fu Gong to the central governor's office." The task was successfully completed, and Su Yannian's face was very relaxed: "It just so happened that the central lieutenant sent Chen Pengzu to run errands again, so I came with me, just to have a mixed meal." ”

After only a few days, Su Yannian was hungry for the good dishes of the East Kitchen in Hanging Spring, saying that he had eaten this food, and the food from other places tasted like chewing wax.

After saying that, he looked at Chen Pengzu, who was a little unhappy on the side, and said with a smile: "Ren Hong, do you remember that day in the house of the place, Chen Pengzu shouted loudly, if the Han army really wants to return to the Western Regions, he will give you a good horse......

"A good horse with a good saddle! I didn't finish my words at the time, didn't Fu Gong already give away the horse, should I still fight with him! ”

Chen Pengzu blushed and corrected loudly, at the central governor's office, through the conversation between Fu Jiezi and the governor, they finally determined that returning to the Western Regions may really be the imperial court policy in the next few years......

The bet was cool for a while, but when it came to the end, Chen Pengzu was reluctant, he was not as rich as Fu Jiezi, and he gave a good horse casually, so he changed his mouth to a saddle......

As he spoke, he reluctantly handed over a pair of saddles to Ren Hong.

The Han Dynasty did already have soft saddles, with a surface made of leather, padded with wool and thickened saddle pads in the middle, and sewn with very fine leather thread around the perimeter, more like a cushion than a saddle.

From a soft saddle to a hard saddle with a saddle bridge, the evolution of the harness still has a long way to go, and Ren Hong would rather spend more time adapting to it, but he does not intend to accelerate this process......

Su Yannian made fun of Chen Pengzu's words but didn't believe it, and said that he would send the horse and turn it into a saddle, but Chen Pengzu argued that the saddle was made of excellent materials and was worth at least a few hundred dollars.

Ren Hong didn't dig deeper, and secretly complained in his heart:

"Obediently, one horse is about to eat me bankrupt, and another horse is to make me eat bran vegetables every day?"

"Enough is enough, let's get down to business!"

Chen Pengzu told Su Yannian to shut up, and slowly took out a document from his arms and solemnly handed it to Ren Hong, which was the reason why the two of them came to Hanging Springs today.

"The governor of the central part of Dunhuang, recruit Ren Hong, the official of the Hanging Spring, to swallow Hu and wait for the official, and break the Sui Suichang!"