Several women in the second echelon were humble to each other, and none of them wanted to go forward and run in front of the crown princess.

The princess laughed and whipped each of their horses before reaching the finish line in six.

There was thunder of joy on the side of the avenue and in the stands. The Silla envoy stood up and, like everyone else, clapped as he paused, and shouted as everyone shouted, "Good! Good! Good! Good ......"

They dismounted and saw His Royal Highness the Crown Prince walking towards them with a flower crown woven by green cypress branches and colorful pheasant feathers.

Princess Jiang thought that this was given to her this first place, but Li Zhi crossed over her, put it on the head of the crown princess Wang without thinking, and said to her, "I didn't expect you to be so good!" ”

This wreath is not awarded to the champion, the champion has its own generous reward.

But His Royal Highness the Crown Prince personally bestowed the flower crown, which undoubtedly has an incomparable honor. In front of the people around him, his wife did not hide it and said, "It's a pity that Mrs. Liu didn't arrive, I have some regrets!" ”

Li Zhi comforted, "It's okay, I'll watch the next group of games with you, because Gao Jun's other eight ladies must be in it." ”

Instead of going to the stands, they set up umbrellas on the side of the arena and set up seats and wooden tables.

The second group began to enter, and there were more participants in this group, as many as 320 people signed up for the competition, and most of them were young people, and the oldest was only 30 or 40 years old.

Strictly speaking, the first group of competitions is just a symbolic taste, to show the wide participation of Chang'an women's riding, and at the same time to improve the specifications of the event.

But the second group is the most intriguing.

There is no disparity in status between these people, and the highest rank is a fourth rank, and their husbands can rise to a rank before the age of forty, and all of them are outstanding.

There is nothing to honor today, just go and run, who doesn't want to be in the limelight, so that their husband's name will appear in the conversation of those high-ranking officials.

And most of the people who have survived to this level by virtue of prudence and qualifications are already in their fifties, and most of them will choose to let their wives be an off-site spectator.

First, the ladies of the clan officials of the same rank entered.

Then the ladies of the four ministries of the four products, Shangshu Zuocheng, Taichang Shaoqing, the ordnance supervisor, the Shangfu Zhichong Lieutenant, the Zhengyi doctor, and the wives of Zuo Qianniu Wei Zhonglang General entered.

Li Zhi tilted his head, and in the gaps of the first few rows of people who had entered, he searched for the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth ladies of the Shangshu Mansion of the Military Department that he recognized.

In the end, he found it, Mrs. Fan was sixth in the third row, and Li Zhi could only see her side face.

With her head down and a whip on her wrist, she was seizing the last chance to straighten her outfit before the start of the race, and she was on the twenty-sixth.

Next to it was the lady Xie, and on the other side was the fourth lady Siqing.

And Su Yin, the director of the outer palace, was in the first place in the fourth row, and next to her must be the Ninth Lady Lilan, who had not yet met, this person was slightly older than the other people in the Shangshu Mansion of the Ministry of War, but he had a unique appearance.

The crown princess secretly reminded her husband that he was Venerable today, and he should pay attention to the etiquette in front of people, and not stare at a certain place too stupidly.

So Li Zhi took this opportunity to point out to his wife the eight ladies of the Shangshu Mansion of the Ministry of War.

Therefore, the crown princess praised her sincerely, "Ah, although I heard about it in advance, I still didn't expect it today, fortunately I wasn't in a group with her!" ”

The prince whispered to her, "You're not bad either. ”

This sentence is a little similar to the sentence he just said on the palace wall of Daming Palace, both in tone and meaning, so he remembered the woman who stayed there.

Li Zhi said to the crown princess, "After the run, the widow has to leave in advance." ”

To the right of Lilan should be the Lu clan, but she is not in the position. Lilan and Su Yin beside her reminded of this, and Su Yin said, "Maybe I don't want to play." ”

In fact, the Lu family had already come, but because she lost the silver plate of "33" in her hand, she only picked up this "321" in the open field, so she stood in the last place.

She thought that the brand in her hand at this time must be Yang Lizhen's.

Lu Shi was a little surprised, he didn't expect that after the two had been separated for a short time, his little girl who had jumped off the cliff in the past was actually qualified to use a silver number plate.

But judging from the number on the number plate, Yang Lizhen's identity should only be enough to go down from the sixth rank at best, otherwise he will not be ranked last.

She thought, no wonder Yang Lizhen disdained to go back to Qianzhou with her.

If you can marry a Beijing official from Liupin, you will not go to the remote Qianzhou, how prosperous Chang'an is.

At the end of the inspection, the examiner only paid attention to the silver medal in her hand, and did not look at it carefully. Because the gong sounded after that.

In order to let the people in front of the queue gallop out first, Lu Shi felt the sound of hooves vibrate for a long time, and the row in front of her started up.

She slammed the whip into the back of her mount's crotch, but the men in front of her always held her down in droves, blocking her path.

She rode her horse left and right to find a gap to rush out of, and at the same time regretted the loss of the "thirty-three" plate, which put her at a disadvantage in the first place.

The competition in this group was tense at the beginning, and no one let anyone. The women shouted "Drive!" A colorful torrent rushed through the stands full of high-ranking officials and envoys.

People in the stands and outside the arena soon saw that two horses had come out on top less than twenty paces after the start and were rushing to the front of the line in the blink of an eye.

Master Chu excitedly stood up from the highest grandstand and shouted below, "Niece Fan! Well done! Good! ”

The Silla envoy stood up and, like everyone else, leaned forward, paused and clapped as he paused, and shouted as everyone shouted, "Good! Good! Good! Good ......"

The tall wooden grandstand vibrated regularly with the countless pauses and stompings of the people, and then with a "squeak", the horizontal board facing the side of the track deviated little by little from the columns, and finally broke away completely.

The stands are pouring down slowly!

The people above exclaimed, grabbed the wooden railing of the stands, and leaned against them, the problem was that the wooden railings were also part of the stands.

If these first-class and second-class officials and foreign envoys who watched the ceremony were thrown down from the stands and made them fall into disgrace, it would be the biggest failure of the competition.

A month of preparation, and in the end, such a fuss will not hurt people, and your face will be thrown abroad.

Li Zhi stood up suddenly, as if he had already faced his father's questioning. He saw that many people who were standing under the stands had already run out, and some rushed onto the track.

Most of the horses on the track had already run past, and only the last four or five people had reached the bottom of the stands.

Someone yelled, stood up under the bleachers, pressed his shoulders against the wooden beams of the first layer of the stands, and carried it hard under his legs.

It's Li Yuanxiang, the king of Jiang'an!

At this moment, most of the Lou Luo people around him were scared away, and he couldn't hold on for long, and he wanted to order someone to hurry up and call the people in the stands to come down.

At this time, there was a small and thin pawn who ran over, the top of his head was only to Li Yuanxiang's chest, and he was just able to hold up the wooden beam with his hands, and he was helping King Jiang'an.

King Jiang An was speechless and looked at him. The man immediately understood, ran out, waved his arms and shouted at the stands:

"Adults up there, come down, yes! Don't mess up, don't move the first floor and the second floor, don't let the stands be weightless, let Lord Chu and Lord Tang go first! ”

The momentum of the collapse of the stands stopped, and the Lou Luo ran back to help, and the people were evacuated from the stands in an orderly manner under the command of the unknown pawn.

Seeing if there is any danger, Li Zhi doesn't want to stay here longer, but for the Ministry of Engineering, he always has to hold them accountable for the quality of their construction. In addition, he also had to think about how to praise his showy imperial uncle - Li Yuanxiang.

……

Lu's horse happened to rush under the stands, but her path was blocked again, and the horse, who had never seen much of the world, was startled by the chaotic crowd and the screams of people who rushed onto the track.

It ran around the bend and ran all the way out of the track, uncontrolled by Lu, and she began to scream.

At this time, a knight of public service arrived at the right time, and he caught up with Lu, crouched on the horse's back, and reached out to grab the reins of her horse.

He ran with Lu's horse, first slowly exerting force to slow it down, calm it down and return to the right path, and then gradually accelerate with it. It struggled for a while, then behaved normally, and then dragged back into the run.

Lu Shi decided that this young knight was the one who was ready to deal with emergencies in the tournament and protect the safety of their ladies with status.

Lu thanked him in shock, but the man did not speak, and stayed behind her horse to protect him.

Lu's riding skills are not very good, and she has not practiced much since she came from Qianzhou, and the most important thing is that she has no teacher, and she has been affected by the loss of the brand for several days.

At this time, she came back to her senses and found that even the last group of people had left her far behind.

She wanted to give up halfway and find a place where no one was around, but the knight who protected her kept following, and she was embarrassed.

The last person to run will never be noticed, the track is no longer as lively as she expected, and the more people who watch the race, the more they run, the more they seem to be few.

Lu Shi was so interested that she wanted to stop several times, but after passing the East Forbidden Garden, she felt that this competition was a kind of torment for her.

She rode forward and asked the knight beside her, "What's your name?" ”

The knight ignored her, but gave her a whip on her horse.

Twenty miles of road to the West Forbidden Garden, the shadow of the person in front of him was gone. The last one set off and the last one arrived, Lu was so depressed that he couldn't help but regret that he coveted Yang Lizhen's brand.

She didn't know what kind of expression she should hold to enter the end of Tonghuamen, facing the comments of the spectators, and calmly finished the race.

And the city on all sides, at this time she only ran through the northern city.

At that time, all the wives who knew her in the Gao Mansion who participated in the competition would not necessarily laugh higher than others, but they would definitely gloat better than others.

She is not a fool, she can understand their resistance to herself, and she doesn't treat herself as a Gaofu person at all.

In the West Forbidden Garden, there was clearly a conspicuous sign pointing out the direction of the track, but at this time, the knight spoke for the first time: "Madame, please come with me!" ”

His tone was humble and articulate, but unrelenting, and he led her to the left, off the track of the West Forbidden Garden, through dense trees, and onto an undulating path.

There was no one here, Lu Shi was worried, but he was not allowed to hesitate, not knowing where he was going to take him.

They went directly into the West Inner Garden, and in front of a deserted North Palace Gate, the knight waved a special sign at the guard on the door, and they let them go.

There is a straight east-west avenue in the garden, and it is flanked by tall palace walls.

The knight was in front of the horse, and Lu Shi had entered a strange area, and she kept beating her horse, for fear that if one was accidentally left by the other party, then she would never be able to get out again.

She seized the opportunity to ask aloud, "Where is this?!" "She wants the knight to hear her suspicions, and if she doesn't explain it again, she won't leave.

The knight told her briefly, "It's Jiacheng, this is the special road for His Majesty to enter and exit the Royal Forbidden Garden, others are not allowed to take it, we are passing through the Xuanwu Gate Forbidden Area." ”

Lu's heart jumped to his throat, and if he didn't grit his teeth, he should have jumped out.

The knight said "pass", then it was not His Majesty the Emperor who wanted to summon her. She realized that she was taking a shortcut.

Lu Shi wondered what the origin of this Yang Lizhen was, holding the "three hundred and twenty-one" brand at the end of the ranking, but he had such treatment.

Yang Lizhen lost the brand, she must not have even come to the arena, and this cheap let her surname Lu pick it up.

Just galloped forward for two miles, they turned around, entered the Xuanwu Gate with the sign in the knight's hand, and ran forward against the inner city wall.

Here, a janissary stands every ten paces, forbids idlers, and guards patrol it.

After another four or five miles, the knight spoke again, "In front is the Xing'an Gate of the East Palace, no one is blocking it, you go out, walk along the outer wall of the East Palace, and go east to Chunming Gate at the Taimiao, and you can merge into the track." ”

Lu Shi's heart was overjoyed, and she wanted to say something more, but she found that the sound of hooves behind her was gone, and the knight did not know where to go.

But at this time, she was neither nervous nor afraid, and she could see that she was just taking advantage of Yang Lizhen.

……

The southwest corner of the palace wall of Daming Palace.

Only the crown prince Li Zhi and the young maid with a light veil cover stood here, although the prince's guards were not far away, only twenty paces, but they were blocked by a bell tower here.

The maid boldly climbed the prince's neck, and he grabbed his waist with one hand, and with the other hand to remove the veil that stood in front of the two, and was now examining herself.

The maid said to him, "Your Highness, you are so wise to come up with such a way to shut people's mouths. ”

Li Zhidao, "There is only one way, since Bu Zheng has something to say, someone has to overstep it." ”

"However, she is from Gaofu, how can Gaofu sit back and watch such ugliness?"