Xu Zixian finally went back to live in the Hou Mansion tonight, of course, to take Wei Yi to meet his little sister.

Looking at Tianzi's sister talking to Wei Yi shyly, Xu Zixian felt quite uncomfortable in his heart, maybe as a father and brother, even if it was his best friend marrying his sister, he wouldn't feel happy.

But after thinking about it, it seems that he is going to marry Chen Wenjun soon, and Chen Zhengzhi, the eldest brother, seems to be not unhappy, and Wei Yi in front of him is still waiting.

The dinner was extremely simple, Xiuniang and Xiaomei personally cooked a few light side dishes, Wei Yi accompanied Xu Zi to drink porridge first, and after a serious illness, the diet needed to be light.

However, the barracks and official residence area outside the Hou Mansion are quite lively, and the aroma of wine and food is blown into the Hou Mansion by the sea breeze.

The camp still has extra food, but now there are not many government soldiers who have returned to the barracks, and most of the government soldiers are stationed everywhere, or hunt down the remnants of pirates, and they also add food, but they eat outside.

Most of the officials in the official residence area have gone home to live, and most of the aroma of wine and food comes from that side, and the civil officials have banned alcohol during the upper duty period, and they can't help it after the lower duty, but it is forbidden to be extravagant and wasteful, and most of the officials on the island are usually very thrifty under the drive of Xu Zixian, and this time of course everyone is quite happy, so the ban is opened, and many people should be fishing in troubled waters, taking the opportunity to drink two more glasses.

After the meal, everyone chatted together, and Xiaomei and Xiuniang went to the back house, the name will be decided, and young men and women should not spend too much time together.

Xu Zixian has not drunk tonic for many days, and today he made an exception, which made people drink iced sour plums, and the porcelain cup had the feeling of ice crystals frozen.

"I have to say, it's still too hot in the south." A maid handed over a warm towel, Xu Zixian and Wei Yi wiped the sweat on their faces, and Xu Zixian said to Wei Yi: "How is Penghu?" ”

"It's the same." Wei Yi said: "It's much hotter than Fuzhou, there are many rocky mountains outside the main island of Penghu, and there are many strong winds inside, and it's better when the wind blows, although it's hot, but it's not stuffy." On the side of the Eastern Domain, I felt that although there was a sea breeze, my body was still slimy and uncomfortable. ”

"Exactly." Xu Zixian said: "I spent 300,000 guan on Taishan to build this courtyard, and 50,000 or 60,000 guan in Fuzhou is enough." I feel very ashamed, and in a year or two at most, I will move to the central part of the country. ”

Wei Yi laughed and said, "Of course, your father-in-law wants your young couple to live more comfortably, as long as you don't take Miss Chen to live in the mountains, or set up a tent or hut, why should he come to do a lot of trouble?" ”

"Spend tens of thousands of dollars next year, and you can also build a good courtyard, and then live in the middle of the country in winter and summer, and come to the south in spring and autumn, and run on both sides."

Wei Yi nodded, of course he wouldn't have anything to say about this, the climate in the central part is good, almost everyone who has been there says so, the winter is warm, the summer is cool, it is indeed a good place, in comparison, the south of the Eastern Domain, it is indeed too hot.

Wei Yi asked with great concern: "I heard that coal and iron ore have been discovered in the central part of the country?" ”

"Yes." Xu Zixian said: "The iron mine is in the central part of the country to the east near the mountains, and the coal mine is more north, and there are some coal mines, almost at the northern end of the Eastern Fan Island. ”

"How's the iron ore?"

"Not good." Xu Zixian shook his head and said: "Miscellaneous, the iron quality is not good, but there is an advantage, it is better to have a large amount of iron ore in shallow ore veins, and it can be mined for many years without digging deep holes." ”

"That's really good news." There are many counties in Fujian that are based on mining and ironmaking as economic support, Fujian iron is sold all over the world, famous for its excellent quality, mining and ironmaking are also the pillar industries in these places, Wei Yi has been the chief writer of the newspaper, and he is also from a family of official gentry, so he is quite clear and aware of these things. He nodded and said: "Min Tie is famous for its high quality, Mingda, the quality of your iron and stone is not very good, and you plan to make iron from coal, I am afraid that your iron will not last long after it comes out, and it will be ruined." ”

"Don't worry about this." Xu Zixian said with a smile: "Since I want to open a mine, of course I am not a fool, first build roads, build houses, build logistics, and then talk about building blast furnaces and erecting mines." ”

"You have always been meticulous and cautious in doing things, and I just reminded you casually."

Wei Yi couldn't admire Xu Zixian's ability anymore, he just nodded and smiled at the moment, and he didn't mention it.

"You defeated the two thieves of Luzon, beheaded the pirate king, and beheaded more than 20,000 levels." Wei Yi said with emotion: "If those people in Fuzhou Evening News knew, they wouldn't know how to jump in a hurry and want to grab this news." ”

"Newspapers don't mean as much as they used to." Xu Zixian said solemnly: "If power is not restricted, there can be no supervision of public opinion." If education is not popularized and people's wisdom is not opened, the circulation of information will be of little significance. In the present situation, the prestige of the central authorities is not established, the localities are centrifuged, and the newspapers will become more and more inclined to local interests, and the negative effects will be increased. ”

Wei Yi nodded heavily and said, "Mingda, you really know more than I do, and I have thought about this matter, but I am not as thorough as you think." The newspapers in Fuzhou have recently complained about the Northern Expedition, and they also complained that the imperial court attached great importance to the northern frontier defense and invested heavily in it, feeling that Fujian was impoverished, and pirates could not prevent it, and the imperial court attached too much importance to the north. ”

"That's short-sightedness, too." Xu Zixian said: "We have been to Jingshi and seen the tragic situation after the invasion of Donghu, it was the slaughter of the whole village and the whole town, no one can survive, and the cruelty is still above the pirates." If you imagine that there is no northern military town blocking Donghu, won't the Donghu people go south? ”

"That's the truth, but there are still too many people who are short-sighted."

"That's why I'm going to run a school. It's not just about reading the scriptures of the saints...... To be honest, the words of the sage were said 2,000 years ago, and ethically speaking, they are not outdated, but they will definitely not be used to govern the world. Therefore, to set up a school, Confucianism is only the basis of literacy, craftsmanship, arithmetic, calligraphy, law, military, including geography, are all learning, from primary school to secondary school, and then to the university hall, to raise a large number of new scholars in the general trend of tomorrow, this is my greatest ideal, if I can do a greater cause of course it is good, otherwise, spend decades to cultivate a large number of really useful talents, it is also worth a lifetime. ”

Wei Yi looked at it very carefully for a while, and then he smiled dumbly and said, "Before, I was with Brother Zizhang and Mingda, and we all talked about our ideals. Brother Zizhang is willing to be a good general, kill the enemy and make meritorious contributions, and restore the identity of the clan. My ideal is to be a Zhongjinshi, to expand the lintel of my Wei family, and your ideal is to do a career and add glory to the face of the deceased old Nan Anhou, but at that time, you never mentioned running a school. ”

"Times will change, and people's ideals and aspirations will also change." Xu Zixian also remembered the past, he was still half a child at that time, and he must have said a lot of childish words, but he didn't have any ashamed expression when he thought about it, people in the world, even saints have ignorance, and they don't need to mind too much.

"I really didn't expect that you would be willing to run a school for cultivating talents, and spend so much."

Wei Yi had been to the Eastern Domain many times, and he was quite clear and aware of the situation on the Eastern Domain.

"I'm just a little worried." Wei Yi said in a joking tone: "The cost of running a school like this on the island is not small, and some people have corresponded with me in private, saying that there are many people in Fuzhou who are waiting to see your jokes." ”

"I've never heard of a country being poor because of running a school." Xu Zixian smiled and said, "Let's wait and see, the children will be able to enter school this fall, and then we will see who is the real joke." ”

"Mingda, you have always done things with a purpose, I know it." Wei Yishen bowed his body for a while, and said with emotion: "Tonight is a casual conversation after the big victory, I feel really comfortable and leisurely, but it's a pity that Brother Zizhang is not there, and Yao Weizhong, Chong Weicheng and they are not there." ”

"It's been a long time since Jingshi was separated." Xu Zixian also sighed: "Yao, the two of them, are both heroes of the Northwest Generals, I don't know if they accompanied the Northern Expedition?" It stands to reason that they are from Jiangmen, and their families will make them fight on the battlefield, and they are new martial arts warriors, so they can be assigned battalion command to lead their troops to fight, so they can be said to be in danger. ”

"Yao Weizhong told me that his family has always been like this, the children who are raised are carefully nurtured, and when they grow up, they have to fight for fame by themselves. Compared with these generations of generals, my Wei family should be ashamed of an official gentry family. ”

"There is no place for the gentry to cook, the food and grass are supported, what the soldiers eat and what they wear, it is all the same, and everyone must do their part." Xu Zi first looked to the north, knowing that the soldiers there were trekking through mountains and rivers to Pingzhou and Shanhaiguan, where there would be a battlefield where hundreds of thousands of people would fight, the national fortune of the Great Wei Dynasty was in this battle, millions of people, hundreds of thousands of van troops, 300,000 forbidden troops, famous ministers and generals gathered on the battlefield, spending tens of millions of dollars, the forbidden army will fight with the most vicious enemy, both sides have quite high tactical literacy, the forbidden army is wearing armor, there are a large number of foot archers and divine arm archers, the forbidden army of an army, at least seventy percent of the archers and crossbowmen, there are more than 100 divine arm archers, There are also a large number of waist crossbows, kick crossbows, and eight bull crossbows that act with the army, the forbidden army array is neat, the arrows can cover the sky when the arrow is fired, and the Donghu cavalry is strong, and there is the power of the battle, it comes and goes like the wind, the soldiers wear triple heavy armor, brave and invincible when attacking, the killing skills are skilled and sophisticated, the harassment can not get off the horse for a few days and nights, and can march more than a thousand miles in a few days in the territory of the Great Wei.

This kind of war is the real war, and it is the big war that determines the fate of millions of people, so how the imperial court ignores the local officials and how to ignore the pirates in Fujian, Xu Zixian can understand from the bottom of his heart.

How did the people of the South imagine the cavalry? The imagination is so poor that they really can't understand it.

Outside the Sai, on the northern border, thousands, tens of thousands of Hu cavalry roared in, that kind of spectacular scene, only the natural landslide tsunami can be compared, in front of tens of thousands, even tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of cavalry, under the test of the heavy cavalry charge, the people of the north and the forbidden army also made unimaginable sacrifices for the southerners, when the forbidden army in the north held the formation, in the face of thousands of cavalry Hu cavalry charge, there was no courage and determination, in the face of such a charge, ordinary people even stood hard, let alone to fight with it.

The heavy infantry of the forbidden army, wearing seventy pounds of multiple iron armor, wearing a scarf, holding a long guard, the elite forbidden army has its own military number, and the crossbowmen in the most elite Tianwu army are required to be six feet tall, that is, more than one meter eight or seven!

The crossbowman, who is nearly 1.9 meters tall, easily unleashes the crossbow and shoots arrows at those fierce cavalrymen.

Even if the enemy has thousands of horsemen, like a landslide cracking when charging, the Wei army's military formation can still maintain the array in front of such an impact, and the landslide and tsunami are in front of the face without changing.

The cavalry of Beilu and Donghu often gathered two or three hundred thousand people to invade the border, and if the forbidden army of Great Wei had not maintained a fairly strong combat effectiveness, the northern border defense would have been beaten into a sieve long ago.

Even so, the people of the North are still suffering in ways unimaginable to the Southerners. Almost every family of the people in the border counties has died in the attack, or they were captured by Donghu and brought back to the Yingzhou area to be resettled, become slaves, toiled for them, and were abused in the harsh natural environment, even young and strong men may not live for ten years, and the families of those who are generally arrested can only treat them as if they are dead.

In the entire north, all the way to the banks of the Yellow River, no prefecture or county dares to say that it is safe, and in the prefectures and counties close to Changcheng County, every family member has died, and this kind of suffering is not understandable to the southerners.

The piracy in the south has been raging for nearly two decades, while the northerners have been fighting against foreign enemies for more than two hundred years.

"I hope Brother Zizhang can come back as soon as possible." Xu Zixian said: "He is a rare talent, I have already discussed with the uncle of the Xu family, as soon as Brother Zizhang comes back, he will come to the Eastern Domain to help me, and there is no need to go elsewhere to find a job." For the position of military attaché, I will do it for him. ”

Xu Xingwei is indeed a rare talent, young and old, steady, and very smart, belonging to the kind of family that speaks and does things without leakage, making people feel comfortable.

And he is immersed in martial arts, not only is the kung fu of the hundred enemies good, familiar with the book of war, of course, it is not the kind of military book read by the literati, it is the real doctrine of the soldier, and he must be familiar with the golden drum banner camping and marching array and geography and astronomy, Xu Xingwei can be a martial artist, which shows that the foundation of his military science is also quite solid.

In the north, he was ordered by the court to run around and walk, passing orders back and forth on the battlefield of the Northern Expedition and on the sea, and dealing with self-reliant forces like Wang Zhi, you can imagine what kind of training he has gained in the past few months, if Xu Xingwei comes back, Xu Zixian does not plan to ask him to obey the orders of the court to serve in the local area, and directly go to the Eastern Domain to lead troops for him, or preside over a division, Xu Xingwei is very qualified.

Age is not a problem at all, mediocre people in their forties and fifties do not mean that they know more, they just waste more food, and outstanding people, when they are in their twenties, are mentally mature enough to be able to lead the army and sit on one side.

Wei Yi nodded lightly, the two were speechless for a while, the northern battlefield, and the brotherhood, for a while made people a little worried and sad, the interest in chatting was also interrupted, both of them understood, and discussed, the war in the Northern Expedition is not optimistic, even completely pessimistic, if Xu Xingwei is still stubborn and stays in the north, it will be a very dangerous situation, once the army is defeated, don't say that an ordinary son with a national surname who has five suits, even if he is a general of the unified army, with the status of a prince, he may not be able to save his life at that time, And Xu Xingwei is running in front of the army, he is also serving the country, and he can't persuade him from the general righteousness, so he can only pray silently, hoping that this good brother can go south before the war and return safely.

……

Wei Yi left Huaxi Port the next day and returned to Penghu.

Although the war is over, there is still a lot to be done to deal with the aftermath.

The rise of the Hou Mansion in Nan'an, including the current scale of the Shui Division, is of course also related to the war, and every time it is won, the Hou Mansion will grow again.

At the end of the afternoon, all the pearl divers arrived outside Huaxi Port, and then they saw the tragic battlefield, there was still the smell of corpses and burnt smell in the air, there were still more than a thousand corpses waiting to be disposed of on the beach, thousands of Eastern Domain people and government troops were on the beach to deal with the chores after the war, some officials in green and blue robes were directing on the beach, and dozens of mule carts were already waiting, looking like they were going to pull away the goods on the beach.

The pearl divers have been accustomed to seeing life and death, but when they see such a scene, they are still quite uncomfortable, many people have turned pale, and even a little disgusting, if it were not for these nerves like steel, ordinary people would suddenly see thousands of charred corpses, I am afraid that they will vomit out immediately.

However, the soldiers and civilians on the island didn't seem to mind, and continued to rummage through the pile of corpses as if they were picking up something, and looked very carefully.

After the ship docked, a clerk brought the pearl diver to a blue-robed official, this thirty-year-old official was of moderate stature, at this time many pearl divers found that the officials of the Nan'an Hou Mansion were basically thin and strong physique, and this official was also, although he was a civil official, but his body was not thin, but strong, which was in stark contrast to the body of the Great Wei officials who were either too thin or obese. And his eyes are sharp, his speech is clear and clear, and the first contact is quite awe-inspiring.

"Your task is to retrieve valuable things from the wreck, well-preserved weapons, crossbows, and, most importantly, gold, silver, and armor, and I know that you can pick up heavy objects, and you have a rope on you, and if you can't move it, you can pull the rope to drag it up to the surface. I have already paid you and others for their work, and I can say one more thing here, if you and others bring up a large amount of gold and silver armor, there will be a heavy reward, and I Nan'anhou Mansion is a word. ”

The person in charge of this matter is Chen Zuocai, he is in a very good mood, and now he has picked up thousands of stones of grain from the sea, although the Nan'an Hou Mansion does not care about this little money now, but grain is food, and harvesting spoils is always pleasant.

In addition, there are many fine and soft items, which are estimated to add up to tens of thousands of yuan.

From dozens of well-preserved warships, only a few hard bows, crossbows, trebuchets were found, and of course arrows and some weapons, most of which were not standard weapons, but could be issued to the people for use.

Especially for strong bows, it takes at least half a year to make a good bow, not to mention manpower or materials, because the bow handle needs time to relax, and if there is no time, its stability cannot be determined, and it will not be possible to make a good bow.

For a real good bow, the production time starts from the years, which greatly increases the cost.

In addition, there is the cost of time, the standard bows and arrows bought are made in a short period of time, and they can be used, but they are too far from the standard of good bows and arrows.

At least a few hundred hard bows were found from the ship, and the pirates were not inferior goods, although they were brutal and vicious, it did not mean that they were stupid, good bows were used to kill the enemy and save their lives, and they naturally kept the good goods for their own use.

In addition, there are hundreds of collar armor, most of which are pierced armor and chain mail, and the people over there do not seem to be very good at making cotton armor.

These harvests were quite pleasant, but not many antiques, calligraphy and paintings, or gold and silver were found, and the people met once, presumably because the pirates wanted to abandon the ships, so they emptied the goods in advance.

There are a few omissions, but not much, hardly worth mentioning.

What is certain now is that there will be a lot of harvest on the bottom of the sea, that is, the work of these pearl divers in front of us.