Coming to the bottom of the mountain, Xiao Yi completely saw the whole picture of the town, different from the general square city, the town is 3 miles long from north to south, only 1 mile wide from east to west, and the outer city walls are built with huge stones, and the top is made of loess ramming; But the wall fort has been dilapidated now, many places have collapsed, set up two city gates in the north and south, the whole town is shaped like a Crouching Tiger, the north gate is the main gate, there is an archway at the entrance, it has been somewhat broken, it is full of arrow marks and there are traces of being burned by fire, there are three big characters of "Crouching Tiger Pavilion" vaguely on it.

The Han system of 100 households is one mile, ten miles is a pavilion, and ten pavilions are a township.

That is to say, if you are a pavilion marquis, such as Guan Yu's Hanshou Pavilion Marquis, you can enjoy the taxes of 1,000 households as your own wealth, and Zhuge Liangguan Fengwu Xianghou is a genuine marquis of ten thousand households.

No wonder Zhuge Liang posted his last words before he died: "The minister is in a foreign office." There is no other scheduling, food and clothing, all look up to the official, "Wanhu Hou!" Definitely a high-paying job in this era.

This place is a pavilion, which means that there are at least a thousand households in theory, but now it seems that it would be good to have half of them; Most of the people live in small towns, and some are scattered in fishing villages near the various tributaries of the Panlong River......

Lao Dao told Xiao Yi that because of the harsh natural environment and limited grain acres in Crouching Tiger Pavilion, the people here had to rely on the mountains to eat the mountains and rely on the water to eat water; Wohu Mountain belongs to the Yanshan lineage, there are many jackals, tigers and leopards in the mountains, so most of the men here go up the mountain to hunt all the year round, or fish in the turbulent river of the Panlong River, plus it is located in the northern Xinjiang, there are often nomadic tribes to intrude, the people are usually for the people, and the soldiers are soldiers in wartime, all hundreds of years down to develop the folk customs of being fierce and good at war but simple and kind.

It is precisely because the people here are fierce, and the soldiers are not only brave and good at fighting but also not afraid of death, so every time there is a war, the country has repeatedly recruited soldiers from there, which has caused the lack of men in the Crouching Tiger Pavilion; It can be said that every family here has people in the army, and even serving in the army has become the only way for adult men here.

The origins of the people here are even more varied, including the local aborigines, the descendants of the garrison here, the displaced people who ran because of the war, the families of the criminal officials exiled by the imperial court, and even the herdsmen who ran from the grassland......

Lao Dao came to the blacksmith shop in the city this time, it turned out that the night before Xiao Yi crossed, there was a vision in the sky, and a meteorite meteorite landed in the nearby wilderness, and meteorite is one of the best materials to build a blade, so that day Lao Dao went to the field to look for meteorite, but the meteorite was not found, but on the way happened to pick up Xiao Yi by the river.

Fortunately, a blacksmith friend of Lao Dao got a piece of meteoric iron, but unfortunately the weight of the meteorite iron was not enough to make a large blade, so he decided to make three short knives, and agreed to give one of them to Lao Dao to repay the original kindness.

The blacksmith shop was at the west end of the town, and from time to time there was a sound of knocking, and the master and apprentice came to the door of the blacksmith shop, and there was a cloth sail erected at the door, which read: "Niujia blacksmith shop", and a hammer was painted underneath, which seemed to be the sign of the blacksmith shop.

The front and back two layers of the courtyard, made of gravel and mud and the rhizomes of plants, inside a big man is raising a hammer to slam a long piece of iron on the cutting board, and two teenagers on the side are fighting, it seems that they should be the apprentices of the blacksmith, and there are some well-made blades and farm tools lined up on the wall.

The people of this place are martial and the men love the blade, so the business of the blacksmith shop is exceptionally good.

Early iron was formed by direct reduction of ore, which had a low carbon content and a soft texture. In the early years of the Eastern Han Dynasty, Du Shi invented the iron smelting water drain, which used water energy to drive the bellows to blow air, so that the iron smelting temperature was further improved. During this period, the iron-making process developed rapidly, and the technologies of casting, forging, softening, carburizing, and other technologies became more and more mature. However, in order to get a good piece of steel, it is necessary to use pig iron to be repeatedly heated and forged, and it takes a lot of materials and manpower to make a hundred steels.

Later, Emperor Cao Cao of Wei Wu was a hundred knives made by the method of repeated heating and forging, with dragons, tigers, bears, birds, and finches as the knowledge, a total of five, Cao Pi, Cao Zhi, Cao Lin each one, Cao Cao fought two pieces. With Cao Cao's noble status at that time, it was only with the manpower and material resources that could be mobilized that five Baipi knives were created, which shows the difficulty of building treasure knives and the high cost of forging in this era.

Seeing the arrival of the old way, the blacksmith hurriedly put down the sledgehammer in his hand, bowed and said: "The immortal master is well"; Xiao Yi took a closer look at the blacksmith, at least one meter eight or more tall, **** upper body, bullnose shorts below, wearing a cowhide apron, bronze arms, green tendons highlighted like a small dragon, thick phalanges, thick calluses at the tiger's mouth, and a little scar showing a long-term life with Mars.

The blacksmith's name is Niu Hong, and his family has been a foundry for generations, but he is not a local native, but suddenly brought his wife and nephew to the town a few years ago, making agricultural tools for a living, and sometimes building weapons for people.

There are two teenagers behind him, one is stout and sturdy, with a fat head and big ears, honest eyes, shorts with a bull nose, a leather skirt tied at the waist, and fast boots with thin soles under his feet. He also held a small hammer in his hand, and the Wagyu blacksmith was like a mold that was two sizes smaller.

The other boy was a slender man, with broad and powerful arms, and a pair of shining eyes, and was clearly a clever man; Especially when the young man looked at Lao Dao, he actually had a sense of longing, and when he saw Xiao Yi standing behind Lao Dao, he showed an extremely envious look. The two also hurriedly saluted, calling them "immortal masters".

"Why are you envious of my brother? Could it be that being a Taoist priest is also an enviable profession in these years? Xiao Yi found the envious eyes of the two teenagers, and couldn't help but look at the mixed yuan gossip robes on his body.

"This is a newly recruited apprentice of the poor road, and the road name is 'no worries'.

Xiao Yi was busy with the appearance of an old scholar and saluted: "Immeasurable Heavenly Venerable, I have seen Niu Jushi!" ”

"Don't dare, don't dare, the little immortal master is polite!" The blacksmith's eyes lit up as he shook his hand, and he was obviously surprised to hear that he had been taken aback. This made Xiao Yat once again wonder if being a Taoist priest was really a promising career.

The bull blacksmith pointed to the stout young man and introduced to Xiao Yi: "Dog Niu Wei, milk name 'Da Niu';

The blacksmith pointed to the slender young man and said: "Nephew Ma Ning, because he is the sixth in the family, his milk name is 'Ma Liu'", Ma Liu bowed his hand, Xiao Yi was busy returning the salute, and he didn't forget to say a sentence in his mouth: "Immeasurable Tianzun." ”

As the saying goes, when a monk hits a ...... No, it's when a Taoist priest recites a sutra for a day, not to mention that now I find that the career of a Taoist priest has great prospects.

In this way, in the blacksmith shop in this town, Xiao Yi, the general of Dawei's 'Shenwei Tiance' and Niu Wei, who is known as Niu Tou and Ma Mian under his subordinates, completed the first meeting in their lives. This year, Xiao Yi was 14 years old, Da Niu was 17 years old, and Ma Liu was 16 years old.

The later "Chronicles of the Three Kingdoms" Wei Shu recorded:

"Niu Wei, the word Zhenyuan, the milk name is 'Big Niu', Youzhou Yuyang County people's, father Niu Hong, a knife master; Niu Wei is a poor young man, and he makes a living with his father's iron, and sometimes there is a 'Wushou Hou' Xiao Yi who comes to visit with his teacher's 'out of the dust', Niu Wei is impressed by the wisdom of Wuwu Hou, and follows for life. Niu Wei often said: "The parents who gave birth to me, the wise who opened me, have no worries!"

"Ma Ning, the word Zhiyuan, the milk name Ma Liu. Xiliang people's family, his father was a horse breeder in the imperial court, and he was killed by the traitor Dong Zhuo, wandered in Yuyang, defected to his maternal uncle Niu Hong, and made a living by striking iron; Later, with his cousin Zhenyuan Marquis Niu Wei met the 'Marquis of Wuwu' Xiao Yi, followed for life, and the later official worshiped the Great Wei Zheng Peking General, Jue, Zhiyuan Marquis. Ma Ning often said: "If you have to meet a sorrowless Hou, Ning, the luck of three lives!" ”