When he saw Yu Xiu'er's letter, Sun Xiangfu felt very guilty in his heart, he was so busy that he didn't care about his wife and unborn child for more than half a year.

And the reason why Yu Xiuer sent a letter to Sun Xiangfu at this moment is because the imperial doctor has confirmed that she is pregnant with twins, and after the eighth month of pregnancy, the fetal movements are particularly frequent.

For women in this period, childbirth is a matter of life and death, especially in the case of the first child or twins, the possibility of happy events turning into funerals may be higher, so Yu Xiuer was very scared.

was full of fear, but it was not an ideal fertility state, so Sun Xiangfu asked Li Shimin for leave as soon as he saw the letter.

"Or, would you like to ask Daoist Sun to go back to Chang'an in person? Right now, Shanyang can't leave you. Knowing the situation, Li Shimin was a little embarrassed.

Sun Xiangfu arched his hand and said, "It's better for the minister to go back in person!" The fear in Xiu'er's heart is probably something that only a minister can eliminate. ”

"Then there is no hurry for this day and two days, isn't the production period going to September, and after the opening ceremony, the event will be held normally, and you will be in a hurry to set off and go back.

In addition, Xiao is still a little confused about your proposal to take a scholar according to demand, since you have to go back some time earlier, I will let you serve as the deputy chief examiner of this imperial examination to assist Xiao Xiang in preparing for the examination! ”

Li Shimin must wait for the end of the big competition, and then go back with the army, moreover, his team has a lot of courtiers, the number is huge, and the walk will definitely not be too fast, leaving in early September, I am afraid that it will be at the end of September, or even October will arrive in Chang'an, Sun Xiangfu set off in mid-August, he can arrive in Chang'an more than a month earlier than him.

"So, so be it!" Sun Xiangfu nodded with some concern, no way, a first-time father can't be easy.

Then, Sun Xiangfu had to arrange work in a state of apprehension, who called him the mastermind of the whole big competition!

The opening ceremony was held at the competition venue outside Shanyang City, and this time, everyone experienced what a real crowd is.

Koji Zhisheng, who has lived in Shanyang City for almost two months, only had a more intuitive understanding of the strength of the Tang Dynasty when he saw this kind of picture of six or seven hundred thousand people all gathered in sight, and the population of Shanyang has been more than twice that of Gaochang Kingdom.

The Hu merchants in the Western Regions are very glad that they did not miss this grand event, and they now have a specific idea of the word 'grand event'.

In order to maintain the order of this place where hundreds of thousands of people gathered, there were as many as 50,000 sergeants who were responsible for dividing the area and preventing stampedes, and all the Anbei troops who did not participate in the competition and the 16 guards brought by the emperor had to be on duty in two shifts and take turns.

The crisp weather in autumn is very suitable for holding this kind of large-scale event, it is also about ten o'clock in the morning, with the support of the Xuanjia Army, Li Shimin led a group of courtiers into the high platform in the center of the competition field, and now, he is not worried at all that the businessmen of Shanyang can't afford to hold this event, and in this month or so, it is estimated that all the businessmen will at least earn more than ten times the profit of the money they invested.

There were many seats on the central platform, Li Shimin was in the middle of the first row, his left and right hands were Fang Xuanling, Sun Xiangfu, and the court officials at the level of the Sixteen Wei Generals, and after they sat down, more than a thousand wooden carts with big drums were pushed into the venue.

The people of Shanyang City, especially those who live in the Yufang Inn outside the city, are no strangers to the sound of these drums, because recently in the military camp, there are often rehearsals and drumming sounds, and in this era without audio equipment, the only sounds that can be heard by hundreds of thousands of people at the same time are these drums.

It's not that Sun Xiangfu doesn't want to arrange for Li Shimin to make an opening speech or something, it's really too difficult to do this, in order to ensure the safety of Li Shimin and the courtiers, the people are more than 300 steps away from the high platform, so as to prevent someone from hiding bows and arrows and assassinating the emperor or ministers.

At such a distance, the soldiers divided the guardrail into a small piece, a small piece of people, a little farther away, a straight line distance from Li Shimin, are more than a mile, you can see a small yellow dot, can only say that today's weather is good, these people's eyesight is very good.

So, the drums, and the singing of tens of thousands of sergeants, were the only performances of this grand opening ceremony.

The singing of thousands of drums and 100,000 troops resounded in the sky, and the rhythm of the drums was no longer "General Order", but "Loyal to the Country", on this occasion, to promote the idea of serving the country, so that the hundreds of thousands of people present could form the idea of family and country, which was an excellent opportunity, and the herd mentality would affect all people, including more than half of the Hu people on the scene.

This kind of huge scene is destined to be unforgettable for many people, not to mention the common people, that is, the courtiers, and when have they enjoyed the attention of hundreds of thousands of people, affected by the singing of the military and the Han, even the civil servants have also given rise to a trace of pride in protecting the family and defending the country, and the people who are more emotional will soon burst into tears.

The last sentence of the song, "I am willing to defend the land and reopen the territory, and China will let the Quartet congratulate me"

has exhausted the ambitions in the hearts of the warriors, so today it is destined for them to sing the leading role.

The military horn sounded when the drum fell, and the participating team of the Xuanjia Army, holding the five-clawed black dragon banner, marched in formation and took the lead in entering the venue.

What is more interesting is their attire, a black long-sleeved trousers, in which a five-clawed black dragon is embroidered on the chest, and behind it, a rectangular strip of white cloth is hung, on which their names are written in black ink, as well as the entry number.

These clothes are naturally sportswear made by Shanyang's garment workshop for them, made of cotton, comfortable and elastic, and do not affect the movement at all, just look at the color of the clothes, you can distinguish the team well.

Then, the left guard, the right guard, the left guard, and the right guard in the khaki costumes

All the teams have different colors of clothes, and their respective military flags are also different, and most of them are majestic Chinese character flags.

The most sassy Anbei Army's big red sportswear, embroidered on their chests, is a city gate surrounded by golden rice ears and various flowers, everyone knows at a glance that it is the gate of Shanyang City, and this is also the military flag pattern of the Anbei Army.

It is worth mentioning that Xue Yantuo and the Northeast Four also wear the same style of sportswear, Xue Yantuo's banner is a bull's head, the Murwei Department is a dense cedar forest, the Department is a hideous bear head, the Department is a curved sheep's head, and the Khitan Department is an eagle with wings spreading.

Most of the participating members of several ethnic minorities are not as good as the Han sergeants who have been trained for a long time, but they took animals as banners and wore clothes embroidered with animals on the field, but they won the cheers of many spectators.

According to the discussion between Sun Xiangfu and the generals, the competition items that were finally determined were five major events and one hundred and twenty small events, of which each project could send up to five people to participate in each team.

Since each army had previously conducted internal selection, in order to ensure that the team members had enough time and energy to deal with the competition, except for a few sergeants who were indeed strong in many aspects to participate in multiple events, most of them only participated in one or two small events of the same major event, which made each team look like almost four or five hundred people.

On the first day, in addition to the opening ceremony, everyone came to show up collectively, which was the draw of all the preliminary events, and after getting the lot, they knew when and at how many venues they should participate in the competition.

Since there are a total of 23 teams participating, then, for each small event, there will be 115 people participating, in addition to the team competition, the single event, whether you can win the championship, mainly depends on whether you can win the more than 100 people.

After the opening draw in the morning, the betting markets in the city were overcrowded, and they had obtained a list and number of contestants from the organizer of the big game, the Metropolitan Protectorate of Anbei, three days earlier.

Then according to these competitions and the list of participants, a special betting handicap was set up, and the individual single item was the hottest in sales, such as buying a fist and foot ring to win in a row, buying a person to win, winning, doubling the bonus, winning two games in a row, continuing to double, winning three games in a row, and then doubling, half of the individual games, entering the sixth game, it will be the final, that is, if you buy the champion at the beginning, if you don't redeem the prize halfway, the bonus can be increased six times.

A penny, six times, but sixty-four Wen, which greatly attracts people's speculation, because on the whole, buying this is more cost-effective than buying the size in the gambling house, one hundred and fifteen to sixty-four! More than 50% of the winning rate, and, there is no leopard all-you-eat situation, you can also claim the prize and leave the game halfway, for gamblers, such a victory is very large, including Hu Shang in the Western Regions, in each handicap, a lot of bets, even if it is to leave some people down to watch the final results of the game and the prize, but also at the expense.

However, Sun Xiangfu knew that this was just an illusion they saw, in fact, in every game, their winning rate was only 50%, because the game he bought had only two results, either winning or losing.

In the six rounds of the game, only one person can win all, and it is not excluded that there are some people who will leave the game after earning two or three times in the middle, but most people will lose money and leave the game in the whole process.

Because without knowing the level of the contestants and the object of the competition, at the end of the first game, almost half of the people lost, and in the second game, those who expected to win in a row, will lose half of them, and the people who bought the championship from the beginning may only be a minority, and among these few people, there may be many people who have withdrawn from the prize halfway, so calculated, the amount of bets collected in the handicap is enough to pay for the winners who make money and leave the game and persist until the end, and the remaining part is profitable.

As a manager, Sun Xiangfu will not prohibit the opening of such a handicap, he only needs to send people to collect taxes, a world where some people are poor and some are rich is normal, and giving some people a chance will make them more love and hate the city, and it is difficult to give up.

After seeing more of these ups and downs, people will gradually become rational and open up the wisdom of the whole people, but it is not simply to let people read and read, the literacy rate of the Song Dynasty is very high, however, it did not give birth to an advanced civilization that transcends all the others.

In Sun Xiangfu's view, the birth of an advanced civilization needs the most experience, both good and bad, all have to be experienced, only more experience, in order to make people see the world more thoroughly, in the way of groping forward, can have more inspiration.

Wise people like Li Shimin and Fang Xuanling have a lot of inspiration after seeing everything about Shanyang.

This northern tour not only allowed them to do such a big thing as subduing the four departments, but also increased a lot of knowledge in governing the country.

However, these are only some of the corners of the relatively mature civilizations in later generations, and by learning these corners, they can gradually accept and promote greater changes in the world.