On the bank of the Qingshui River in Yuanzhou City, a newly opened restaurant is full of people and bustling.

The teahouse is in ancient style, with a wooden structure, with two floors, a hall on the first floor, with tables placed in a hollow shape and a raised square platform in the center of the hall.

At this moment, there is an old man and a young man in the teahouse, and two people are singing books on this high platform.

The old ones played, the small ones sang, and the old and young people sang and made a melodious tune, which led the diners in the restaurant to burst into bursts of cheers from time to time.

The title of the book sung by the old and young is "The Chronicle of the Creation of the World", which commemorates the deeds of a generation of heroic Yao Lao Taijun who led the people who survived the catastrophe to conquer the north and south, overthrow the barbarian slavery, and establish the first unified empire in the Shenzhou continent, the Great Zhou Empire.

"In the last days, people and dogs,

Kill each other, easy to eat,

The tiger and wolf walked towards the hall, and the road was full of basil,

People say that heaven punishes them, and they don't wash away their evils

……

In the Hehe Yuanzhou, Yao Jun set out to conquer,

Kill the Beidi ghosts, drive away the Xijon demons,

Wave the army eastward into thousands of miles, kill the tyranny, and set the peace.

After ten years of conquest, the world began to be stable, the soldiers were discharged, and the people returned to the fields.

Yao Jun planned for another ten years, set up an only son, succeeded the world, sealed the meritorious heroes, and united the four countries.

Yongshang Jianguo Kan water level, Xuanwu contending for the flag flying;

The territory of the jaw is away from the fire position, and the Vermilion Bird soars into the sky;

Liu Ang Kaibang exchanged the gold position, and the white tiger roared at the top of Kunlun;

Xiao Yue was ordered to set the earthquake in the east, and the green dragon opened up the territory.

The northern kingdom of Yudi protects the state of God, and the southern kingdom provides money and grain.

The Son of Heaven lives in Luoyi, and Shenzhou begins to rise to peace,

Yao Jun drove the white crane and went west......"

In the era of strife, it seems that only singing the praises of distant martyrs will show that there is a trace of peace in this troubled world, and they will not be taken to justice by the secret agents of the imperial court to be convicted and imprisoned.

There are also people who fantasize about the birth of heroes in the subdued tone of this book and recreate the peace of the world.

In the year 588 of the Zhou calendar, only a city of Luoyi was left in the land of the Son of Heaven, and the four feudal kingdoms not only attacked each other in the past, but also continued to encroach on the land of the Zhou royal family after a hundred years of the founding of the country, until the land of the Son of Heaven in the 432nd year of the Zhou calendar was left after a city of Luoyi.

Although there is no Son of Heaven in the eyes of the Four Kingdoms, in order to avoid damage to their reputation, they tacitly maintain the last trace of distance from the Son of Heaven.

If you don't attack, don't court, don't respect, don't contempt, anyway, a city of land, it's useless, but it adds endless troubles.

The only value of the Zhou Wang's remains, only caring about two, one of which is still in the name of Zhou, and the four kingdoms are not abolished, but inconvenient;

Second, the four kingdoms still retain their reverence for Yao Jun, and the deified Venerable who saved the people of the last days has set up altars and temples to maintain sacrifices, which have not been interrupted for more than 500 years.

The new monarch has to sue Yao Jun to show orthodoxy, and the Yao Jun Hall in Luoyi City, the Yao Jun shrine in front of the palace and the only Yao Jun statue in the world are also regarded as spiritual pillars by everyone in the world, which is also the bottom line of the Four Kingdoms not to kill Zhou Tianzi.

Because in the hearts of the kings of the four countries, they did not dare to cut down.

Lu Lihua is the owner of this restaurant, and at the moment he is sitting in a private room set up by himself on the second floor.

The location is excellent, with a view of the Wonju city and a boat ride on the clear water, as well as a condescending view of the lobby on the first floor.

While listening to the storyteller's chanting, Zhu Lihua looked at the surging flow of people and the faces of all living beings around him.

When her eyes swept over the door of the store, she saw a woman in a pink dress with a somewhat bloated figure talking to Xiao Er, and the girl seemed to be dissatisfied.

When the restaurant was first built, and the harmony made money, Zhu Lihua hurriedly walked downstairs to the woman's side and asked the woman:

"The contemptible person is the owner of this teahouse, I don't know what happened to the girl?" After saying that, he clasped his hands together and slammed them down.

"Sir, I have told this girl that the store is full, but this girl said that the restaurant is open because people want to enter, so she will not leave, I explained in every possible way that I was afraid that she would block the door and affect the flow of customers, so I reasoned with her, and then sir, you came." The shopkeeper hurriedly explained to Zhu Lihua.

Lihua nodded slightly and said to the shopkeeper:

"Xiao Yi, you can go in and get busy."

Then he waved down to the woman again and said: "Come to all the guests, the border is a vulgar place, Xiao Yi is not educated, please forgive the girl, if the girl is not disgusted, there is a seat on the second floor, can the girl move." ”

After speaking, he made a gesture of invitation to the woman.

Seeing that the owner of this teahouse was well-mannered and had a gentle attitude, the woman stopped her sorrow and said:

"I just heard the little second brother call you a gentleman, watching you talk, you must be a scholar, but the little woman is abrupt.

Just rushed here with his companions, his companions went to buy some goods, and met in this teahouse, the little second brother said that there was no seat, and he couldn't help but be a little anxious, and his words were offensive, please don't blame Mr. ”

After speaking, he bowed down slightly and made a blessing.

"The girl is serious, please come with me."

Lihua hurriedly led the woman up to the second floor and sat down in her place.

Subsequently, he called Xiao Yi to order the purchase of tea and small fruits, and told that if the girl's companion came to see him, he would lead him directly to the second floor.

Xiao Yidao was dressed in "huh" and hurried to prepare.

Only then did she say to the girl:

"The girl can eat tea here and enjoy the scenery, if you need something despicable, please call me." After that, he was leaving.

The woman hurriedly got up and said: "Mr. and slow, it takes an hour for the partner to place the goods, the little woman's private room on the second floor is also full, if you guess correctly, this Accord is a place for Mr. to use for himself, the little woman is afraid, please sit down with Mr." ”

Zhu Lihua smiled: "The girl is smart, and it is not appropriate for the contemptible person to refuse, so it will be disrespectful." ”

After sitting down opposite the woman, Zhu Lihua said:

"I heard that the girl's accent is not from my northerners and the etiquette is thorough, dare to ask where the girl is from?"

The woman replied with a smile: "The little woman's family name is Mi, a native of Chu, a businessman in the world, and she came to Qin to enter some fur and leather clothes here, and she didn't want to meet her husband, and the little woman was very lucky." ”

Zhu Lihua said solemnly:

"Miss Mi is young and has been doing business for thousands of miles far, contemptible people admire it to the extreme, Chu State is thousands of miles away, it is really hard to imagine the danger of the road, and Chu State and Shu State have been at war for many years, and the road is not very smooth, contemptible people admire it tightly, and the girl is hard."

The woman covered her mouth and smiled: "Doing business across places, communicating with each other, this is the foundation of the Chu State, the Chu State is full of grain and rice, and it is transported to the Qin State to help it resist Xirong to protect the peace of the world, it has been the case for five hundred years, if the Qin State is not protected, the world is not guaranteed, let alone hard work."

And the businessman is very profitable, transporting grain here, selling goods and returning, it is already a million profits, and it will be embarrassing to talk about hard work. ”

Lihua smiled and said hurriedly:

"It's despicable and vulgar, Miss Mi, please use tea."

After that, he poured a cup of tea for the woman.

"In the border land, there is no good tea, there is good wine, this tea is also made in Chu, Miss Mi is not smiling, she doesn't dare to say it, just quench her thirst."

"The gentleman laughed, and the little woman thanked you."

After talking with this woman for a few words, Zhu Lihua had some doubts in her heart, seeing that the girl surnamed Mi was only twenty-eight years old, but she did not talk like a businessman, but came from a noble family.

But looking at the woman's face, her face is dark and rough, although she can't be said to be ugly, but she is by no means beautiful, and her body is bloated, but she looks like a businessman, but she vaguely reveals a kind of indescribable spirit, especially when she says the sentence "If the Qin State is not protected, the world is not protected", it seems that he is a nobleman who is worried about the world.

Thinking of this, Zhu Lihua couldn't help but laugh a little, people were just passing by here to drink tea and wait for people, and they wanted to do so much.

can recall that when he was sixteen years old, he was not the appearance of this girl, worried about the world, full of ambition, and every day he thought of "the sad wind holds a two-foot sword, and the armor is a halberd and a horse." Rong Di knocked on Hu Geli, and beheaded 30,000 people. ”

He is in his twenties, but he has never even been out of the original state capital, so he is really ashamed to think about it.

"Sir"?

Seeing that Lihua was in a daze, the woman suddenly asked:

"What is the gentleman thinking?"

"Ah, let the girl smile, but seeing that the girl can travel thousands of miles at a young age and appreciate this great river and mountain, I am so envious. But..."

At this point, she shook her head and stopped talking.

Seeing that Lihua was reluctant to speak, the woman also looked out the window.

Outside the window, the gray spots of the walls of Wonju Fortress tell of the countless pressures it has endured over the years.

There is no way to verify when Wonju Castle was built, but since the great flood receded, it has become the main area for people to live after the end of the world because of its high terrain, and it has also become a gathering area for the two major races of the Manxia and Xia.

Shenjun Yao Lao Taijun is in this city as a female streamer to lead the people to resist Rong Di outside and determine the situation inside.

For more than 500 years, Zhou Liyi has fought more than 50 times with Rong Di in this lower city, and there have been countless small battles, but with the cooperation of Xiao Guan, he has never been defeated, relying on the solid city and the terrain of a husband and a pass.

The Qinlan Mountains and the Sumeru Mountains converge here, forming a long and narrow gourd-shaped landform, the gourd mouth is known as the first pass in the world, Xiao Pass, and it is also the westernmost pass of the Great Zhou Empire, and the two hundred and forty miles after the pass is the city of Yuanzhou.

What is it like a hundred miles west of Xiao Pass, almost no one in the empire has been there, but everyone in the world knows that when Yao Jun drove away from Xirong, he led troops to kill hundreds of miles, but there was a plague in the army, and the soldiers of the Western Expedition suffered heavy casualties, and only less than 600,000 million troops came back, so Yao Jun had to order the withdrawal of troops.

After that, the Qin State scouts went out to investigate the movements of the Rong people, and they would never go a hundred miles away.

It seems to be a peaceful pass, but every ten years or so, there is an invasion of Xirong, Yao Jun set up the Qin State, in order to resist Rong Di, so a large number of meritorious generals and soldiers of a hundred battles were sealed in the Qin State.

Among the four feudal states, only Qin was militarily far ahead of the other three.

The so-called Qin people were born to fight, and the soldiers and the people were one, and this system lasted for hundreds of years.

But it is precisely because of this that the Qin State dominated the war against the aliens in the four countries, which objectively also caused passive reckless militarism and extremely poor economic development.

In the event of a natural disaster, the people in the country will suffer from hunger and cold far more than the other three countries.

The surname of the monarch of the Qin State is Yong, and the name of the monarch of the dynasty is Yongdaocheng.

Among the other three kingdoms set up by Yao Jun, Shu was south of Qin, and this country was established so that if Rong Di broke Qin, Shu would reject it, which could be said to be the second line of defense in the world, and Qin was bounded by Xia Shui.

Unlike the Qin State Xiaoguan and Yuanzhou to the east of the plains, because the Shu State is mountainous and has many rivers, Yao Jun established this country and built a wide range of passes, intending to defend the passes one by one if Rong Di came to protect the people and the land.

The surname of the monarch of Shu is Liu, and the name of the monarch of the dynasty is Liu Cong.

The state of Qi is located to the east of the state of Qin, and the two countries are bounded by the Yellow Water, and the northeastern part of the state of Shu also borders it;

The state of Chu is located in the south of the state of Qi, and the state of Qi is bounded by Xia Shui, and the state of Shu is bounded by the Luoying Mountains.

Yuanzhou has a townside general mansion, and the mansion is only a hundred steps away from the restaurant in Lulihua, and after a circle around the castle tower, Lihua's eyes finally moved back to the teacup in his hand from the door of the town's general mansion.

Looking at it, Zhu Lihua let out a long sigh.

"Poof",

The woman pursed her lips and smiled: "If it weren't for Mr. sighing, I would have thought that Mr. was hysterical." ”

Zhu Lihua looked at the woman staring at him embarrassedly, and then felt that he was a little out of shape.

"Ah, I just remembered the past, and I snubbed the girl."

The woman smiled and shook her head, looked at the embarrassed state of the woman, and said that it was okay, and said:

"Sir, it's been eight years since Rong Di last knocked, I don't know if Mr. has seen Rong Di, I heard that it doesn't look like a human, but like some ghost animals."

When she heard this childish question, she couldn't help but smile and said:

"What the girl said is not wrong, Rong Di is a general term for people outside the Guan, in fact, Rong and Di both refer to the barbarians outside the Guan.

When I was young, I followed my mother to bring food and clothing to my father, and I saw their corpses when I went up to the top of the city.

My father pointed to the corpse and told me that the Rong people are more similar to us, but the difference is that the Rong people are white-skinned and have a taller body than my race.

The Di people are shorter, and their skin is the same as ours, but their hair is generally red.

The Rong people's faces are quite normal, but the Di people's eyes and teeth are bulging and their faces are hideous.

They were all dressed in animal skins and armed with simple sticks and sharpened stones, but we had little chance of winning a one-on-one fight with them.

Although the people who were lucky enough to be brave and abnormal, they had no strategy, and they only fought with brute force, so Yao Jun protected and Xiaoguan was strong, and there was no danger in the past few hundred years. ”

"Yes, Yao Jun blesses, I can't let these man-eating devils enter my Shenzhou.

When I was a child, I heard my grandfather say that when these Rong Di were ravaging Shenzhou, they ate them when they saw living things. ”

After saying that, the woman made a frightened look.

Lu Lihua smiled, he could see that the girl also had an element of performance, but it was not a cowardice from the bottom of her heart.

Lihua was about to explain, when he suddenly saw three strong men coming into the restaurant, all dressed in short red shirts, each of them was burly, and as soon as he entered the door, he looked around, and at a glance he knew that he was looking for someone.

The woman also followed Lihua's gaze and turned around and saw the three of them, her face was happy, and she said to Lihua:

"Sir, the little woman's partner has come to look for me, please forgive me for the trouble today, I don't know how much silver taels this tea is?"

"The girl is laughing, you and I drink a pot of tea, and it will be shameful to ask the girl for money again."

"Okay, thank you so much, sir, the green mountains don't change, the green water flows forever, the little woman will leave, take care of you, sir."

The woman was not verbose, got up and said with a smile.

"The girl has a long way to return to Chu, be careful, I wish the girl a prosperous business this time."

Lu Lihua also smiled at the woman, got up and said goodbye, and watched her go downstairs and leave with the three strong men.

I don't know when it snowed outside the restaurant, and the street was already covered with silver, and the woman in pink fluttered away in the heavy snow, gradually moving away.

Lihua smiled, closed the window, wrapped the big coat on his body, and said to Xiao Yi, who was cleaning up the tea set:

"Xiao Yi, clean up, let's go to the General Mansion."

......

Outside the Anjung Gate of Yuanzhou, it was the woman in the Fangcai Restaurant who suddenly stood up and looked back at Yuanzhou City.

She suddenly remembered that she had been talking with the shopkeeper for a long time in the restaurant but forgot to ask the shopkeeper's surname.

But he thought that maybe he would never be able to come to this Qin country thousands of miles away in this life, even if he knew, he couldn't help but smile.

Thinking back to the sour and rotten atmosphere of this shopkeeper, he was full of ancient Chinese sentences, but for some reason he was not disgusted, but he liked to listen to him very much.

Thinking that his eyebrows twisted several times when he was suddenly in a daze, he couldn't help but feel funny, maybe he was also a troubled person.

"Fourth princess, what's wrong?"

A middle-aged man who accompanied him asked the woman who stopped suddenly.

The woman turned around, completely devoid of the playfulness and concentration of memories in the restaurant, and said:

"Brother Zuo, have we done all the goods?"

Man says:

"Fourth princess, the goods have been purchased, if we really come to do business, this trip will definitely be very fruitful."

"Brother Zuo Ci, then let's be a businessman, I think the fourth princess has been a lot happier in the past half a year, Brother Zuo Ci is good at kung fu, Brother Zuo Zhong is good at business, let's be a businessman on the rich side, and I will go back in the spring of next year and earn money to ask Xiaoxi for a wife, haha."

A teenager about thirteen or fourteen years old interjected.

"Xiaoxi, don't talk nonsense."

The woman looked at the young man and said, there was a hint of love between her eyebrows.

"This time we passed through the country of Qi, came to the country of Qin, visited the terroir, and observed the people's feelings, you should take a good look at it and keep it in mind, especially the terrain and mountains, but also to draw and make a book, maybe one day we will use it."

"Fourth princess, Gongzi Jia and you are brothers and sisters in the end, I think things may not be so bad as that, besides, Mrs. and Shumei are sisters, you ......"

The man on the side, who was slightly younger than Zuo Ci and was called Zuo Zhong, said to the woman with a worried face.

The woman looked at Zuo Zhong with a sad look on her face and said:

"Being in the prince's house, what is the relationship between brothers and sisters, it is in the way of others, it is already a gift to send you to make peace, and there will be no harm in killing.

Although I am a daughter, among the twenty-six ancestors of my Chu State, there are also four women, so isn't Xiao Yue, the founder of Qi State, also a daughter?

The eldest brother is the one who will repay him, and one of the two sisters of my five brothers and sisters married Qi Guo, and the second sister also recruited a horse to be a businessman's wife, and she can't afford to make big waves.

In recent years, although my mother has not been favored, my brother and I are the most threatening people to the eldest brother's throne, and we can't always be careless. ”

"Fourth princess, this time out of business, do you think Gongzi Jia thinks that the princess is determined to engage in business and play and relax her guard against the princess?"

Zuo Ci on the side said.

"Brother Zuo, remember, don't pin your hopes on uncertain speculation, the only thing we can be sure of will only be what happened in the past."

The woman is colorful.

"Brother Zuo Zhong, you first take ten people to set off to Shu according to the planned route on a fast horse, keep a three-day distance from my caravan, if there is any change, three people will report in three batches, and the remaining seven people will flee to Chu State, or Qi State, or Qin State, you can leave a mark and wait for the opportunity to change, but you can always return to help Bengong, let's go."

"Whoa."

At this moment, if there is someone from the Chu State Office, they will definitely find that this woman who is wearing an apricot pink dress and is still eating tea in the Hua Restaurant in the Chu State is actually the fourth princess of the Chu State monarch Mi Ziqing, Mi Chunxi.

They also never thought that on the second day of the winter month of the 588th year of the Zhou calendar, after traveling to the westernmost Yuanzhou city of the Qin State of the Great Zhou Dynasty in Shenzhou as a merchant, the fourth princess of Mi would march through the Shu State to the distant Chu State in the heavy snow.