Qin Feng had already prepared another small boat, followed Wei Ying's one from afar, and finally crossed the big river, and under his disguise. At least so far, Wei Ying has not found him. Qin Feng was even thinking, if Wei Ying succeeded in arriving at Qin this time, would he be able to go to the rivers and lakes of pleasure?

Entering Hangu Pass, to the Wei military camp in Huashan, the fast horse is only half a day's journey.

The white horse that Wei Ying rode was his usual mount when he was a concubine in his uncle's mansion, and he walked for two whole days on this road.

It's not that the white horse's foot strength is too weak, it's really that Wei Ying is not in a hurry to enter Liyang.

Wei Ying wanted to take a good look at the Qin State, and by the way, investigate the customs of the Qin State.

After all, this Warring States, which was blocked by Wei to the west of Hangu Pass, was distant and alien to him. To be exact, I have heard a lot, but I have never set foot in this mysterious land. This is a kind of regret for him, a well-traveled scholar.

The motherland of Wei Yang is the most fertile area in the middle of the river.

Although the vassal state is not large, it is a feudal country of the descendants of Yin Shang, with developed merchants, solid people's livelihood, and civilized people's customs. His ancestor was originally a prince of the royal family during the Pangeng period of the Zhongxing King of the Shang Dynasty, and because he was a first-class "duke" prince, he used "Gongsun" as his surname.

After the Shang kingdom moved to Chaoge, the Gongsun clan was defeated in the battle with Rongdi in the west, and since then it has been in a state of collapse and has gradually sunk. By the time of the end of the Shang Dynasty, Gongsun was already just a doctor in the palace of the Emperor of Shang.

King Wu of Zhou fell, Doctor Gongsun died in Mengjin, and the Gongsun clan dispersed. When King Cheng of Zhou, in order to appease the old department of Yin Shang, the regent Zhou Gong sealed the descendants of the Yin Shang royal family in Puyang, which was across the river from the old capital Chaoge, and made a vassal state, named Weiguo, which means to watch the old land of ancestors. At that time, the descendants of Yin Shang scattered all over the world returned to live and work in peace and contentment.

More than 20 families from the rest of the Gongsun clan also moved back to their homeland from the east coast. In the hundreds of peaceful years that followed, the patriotic people's business complexes have been wiped out.

In addition to the ruling aristocracy of the country, the old lineages and surnames of the common people have been far removed from the traces of their ancestors in the integration and exchange. Because the Gongsun clan was reduced to ordinary merchants, they felt ashamed of the royal family name "Gongsun", so they moved with the customs, and changed their surname to Wei like many patriots.

Wei Ying's great-grandfather was called Wei Si, known as "Wenshang", who specialized in collecting bamboo materials to make bamboo slips and selling them to the government and scholars.

The profit of this kind of business is not high, but it is relatively stable, and it gradually becomes rich.

Grandfather Wei Huan, further expanded, and was already a big merchant who occupied the bamboo slip market in the ten vassal states.

Father Wei He is hardworking and loyal, but his business skills are mediocre.

The only one is that in the deep mountains of bamboo picking and charity selling bamboo slips, I have made friends with many famous people and hermits. Later, Wei He gave all the best bamboo slips to the scholars, and did not charge a penny. Wei's bamboo slips have already created fame, and the world calls them "Wei Jian".

But he didn't want to lose five of his six workshops because of Wei He's low-priced charity sale and appearance gifts, and his wealth declined. Wei He simply sold the last workshop, married the daughter of a hermit, and became a scholar behind closed doors.

When Wei He was forty years old, Mrs. Wei gave birth to a son, whom the hermit's maternal grandfather named "martingale", which means the tough leather under the horse's neck.

The meaning of the old man is far-reaching, he may want his little grandson to become the horse neck leather that cages the Wei family, or he may hope that the little grandson will be as tough as the horse neck leather, and he may even want him to become a warrior who tames the fierce horse.

But no matter how much he was expecting, his grandfather and his beautiful mother died of a plague when he was three years old. The lonely Wei He became depressed and became ill, and felt that he would die soon, so he entrusted his four-year-old son to a master who lived in seclusion in the mountains and went west.

The hermit in the deep mountains made a promise and brought Xiao Wei Ying into the reckless Wangwu Mountain, and personally raised and raised him.

Wei Ying was literate at the age of four, practiced swords at the age of five, read and wrote at the age of eight, studied the study of the Legalist at the age of twelve, and began to travel the world with his teacher at the age of thirteen, traveling all over the world.

When he was sixteen years old, his teacher secretly sent him to the mansion of the prime minister of Wei to study government affairs. In the past five years, he collected laws and regulations for his uncle, and once again revisited the countries of the Central Plains, and had a practical understanding and speculation of the people's livelihood and people's governance in various countries. It should be said that at the age of twenty-one, it is extremely rare for a scholar with such rich experience.

Unfortunately, Wei Ying never came to Qin.

In the era when Wei Ying grew up, the eastern states were classified as barbarian states to Qin, excluding the civilization in the Central Plains.

This contempt even far exceeded the contempt for the other barbarian state, the state of Chu. The root cause here is that the Qin tribe has been living with the Western Rongdi for a long time, and they have become great princes only by virtue of their military bravery, and the so-called foundation is barbaric.

But when ordinary scholars and officials gathered, they always talked about all kinds of backwardness, ignorance and barbarism of the Qin State. The folk custom is "three generations living together, men and women living in the same house; cold food and bad drink, good leisure and bad work"; The rule of the people is "brave and aggressive, and does not understand the law of etiquette"; Minzhi is even more "blunt and stupid, and does not know poetry and books".

Even for the famous Qin Mugong, there is also the notoriety of "people are martyred and abuse barbarians". In the eyes of the Dongfang scholars, the Qin State is a barbaric and terrifying land, except for fighting, never set foot on that evil land.

Under this long-standing situation of discussion and rumors permeating the East year after year, very few scholars flowed into the Qin State in batches.

For hundreds of years, except for Lao Tzu and a few Mojia disciples who have stepped into the Qin foreign country, "Qin State has no scholars" has always been the consensus of the world.

In this kind of consensus of Chen Chen, Wei Ying's teacher and Wei Ying are not exempt from vulgarity. They even traveled for half a year in the state of Chu, another "barbarian state", but they never thought of going to the state of Qin.

If it weren't for the enlightenment of that mysterious old man and the deafening order to seek talents, Wei Ying really didn't know if he would come to the Qin State in this life?

It was precisely because of the strangeness and mystery that Wei Ying decided to search for it. He hoped that before entering Liyang, he would have a rough evaluation of this hideous country in the eyes of the Oriental scholars.

As soon as you enter Hangu Pass, it is the area west of the river. During the Warring States Period, when the word "Hexi" was mentioned, people thought of the long-term tug-of-war between Wei and Qin. "Hexi" is the west bank of the Yellow River into the north-south direction of this section, the south roughly includes the Taolin Heights, the Kuoshan area, until Huashan, more than 300 miles from east to west; The central part generally includes the lower and lower reaches of Luoshui basin and fortress areas such as Shimen, Shaoliang and Puban; The northern part generally includes the Eagle Yin, Gao Nu, and Fu Shi, until the clouds further north.

This is what the Sengoku people called the land of Hexi.

The vast land on the west bank of the Yellow River, which spans more than 1,000 miles, was the territory of the Qin State during the Qin Mugong era.

Later, it was gradually encroached upon by the three kingdoms of Wei, Zhao and Han. In particular, two famous generals during the reign of Marquis Wen of Wei, Wu Qi and Le Yang, fought 76 times against Qin and other princes, won 64 times, and drew 12 times, greatly expanding the territory of Wei, and the largest piece of it was the land west of Qin.

At that time, it was the Qin State that was in power for the four generations of Jian, Li, Impatient, and Out of the Kingdom, and it was the most chaotic and weak period of the Qin State, and it was not capable of confronting the emerging and powerful Wei State at all.

Wei Ying is generally familiar with this area, which has been occupied by Wei for more than 30 years. The Wei State did not implement corresponding changes to the land west of the river that originally belonged to the old Qin State, and the well field system and the subordinate agricultural system were still retained.

Nor was it given to any meritorious person as a fief, to be exact, not a single important minister wanted to be enshrined here.

Wei's method was to divide the land west of the river into sixteen counties, which were directly governed by the county decree sent by the royal family, and the taxes were paid to the royal family; The people of Hexi were heavily taxed and frequently forced into service, but they were not allowed to serve as soldiers.

Wei believed in the people of this "barbarian state", and regarded them only as cultivators and cattle and horses, rather than making them glorious knights.

The people of Hexi and the local people of Wei were far from prosperous, but they were struggling on the food and clothing line.

In Wei Ying's view, this was the stupidest way to deal with the new territory, and it was a harsh government that forced the common people of Hexi to deviate from Germany.

He once wrote to his uncle several times, suggesting that Wei implement the "light tax and leniency of labor, and allow the people to enlist in the army" to the land west of the river.

Uncle Gong praised it greatly, but he couldn't get the approval of the King of Wei and the upper echelons of Wei. King Wei said, this is the ancestral system, it can't be touched easily, look at the old ministers' clans? The old nobles said that the Qin people were cheap and only worthy of hard labor, so how could they be treated as kings?

Wei Ying did not delay in the Hexi area, and when he entered Hangu Pass, he beat his horse to the west, and did not slow down until he saw Huashan.

He chose the official road on the north bank of Weishui as the westward route, to see what the hinterland of the Qin State was? This road is said to be an official road, but in fact it is a potholed loess road that can only stagger vehicles.

At this end alone, it can be seen that the Qin State is indeed poor. Wei Ying watched while walking, and became the traveling bachelor of the year. When I met a roadside farmhouse, I walked in to beg for saliva and exchanged pleasantries with the owner for a while. When it was dark, he rested in a farmhouse and talked to the master about the third watch. Early the next morning, Wei Ying and his master got up at the same time, Yin Yin said goodbye, and went west again.

After half a day, it is already the original area of Weiping. However, seeing that the surface of the Weishui River is wide and the clear waves are rolling, but the two banks are white and boundless saline-alkali barren beaches, and the wild grasses and shrubs in the beach are intermittent, just like a piece of oasis in the snowfield. Occasionally, when a strong wind blows, it will swing up a white dust mist in the sky, blowing in the face, whistling past, a desolation, a silence. Until the original place of the mountain outside the salt-alkali beach, a little bit of dwellings and wisps of cooking smoke leaked out. Wei Ying couldn't help but sigh deeply for the barrenness and barrenness of this fertile land.

stared intently, but saw a group of farmers not far in front of them digging ditches, their tanned bodies shining with sweat crystals in the summer sun. Wei Ying tied the white horse to the tree by the side of the road, took the leather bag and walked over.