In June of the ninth year of Yanxi, the weather was particularly hot.

On the official road leading to the county seat of Zhuoxian, a young man dressed in hakama, wrapped in a green scarf, and wearing a long sword at his waist was trudging.

Hakama pleats are Hufu, similar to the tops and pants of later generations, since the Zhao Wuling King "Hufu riding and shooting", because of its convenience in daily action and labor, it has gradually become popular among the people.

The young man's surname is Hua, his name is Tuo, he is a native of Peiguo County, Yuzhou (now Anhui Haozhou), although the family is also slightly famous in the local area, but since his grandfather, no one has served in the imperial court.

The gentleman's Ze, the fifth generation and beheaded, to Hua Tuo's generation, the Hua family is the decline of the court, reduced to a cold door, coupled with the current turbulence, above the court, eunuchs are in turmoil, in the place, the strong sit big, between the famous families of the flies and dogs, and control the right to recommend talents.

Therefore, although Hua Tuo has been crowned for a long time, is not twenty years old, and claims to be a good talent, he can only continue to study and look for opportunities to enter the office.

After walking for a while, it was almost noon, Hua Tuo stopped, there was still a short distance from the county seat, but he couldn't walk anymore, the day was too scorching, his lips were scorched and his mouth was dry, and even his eyebrows were a little dry.

It is not possible to go on like this, I am afraid that I will suffer from heat stroke, smacking his lips with the last few drops of water in the kettle, Hua Tuo looked around, looking for pedestrians, hoping to ask for some water to drink. It would have been better if there had been a carriage to Zhuojun and he could ride it.

Hua Tuo thought to himself.

As he was looking, in the path beside the road, suddenly a man came out of the distance, riding a horse and galloping wildly under the scorching sun.

The person who came was a middle-aged man, coarse and linen, and his appearance was too far away to see clearly.

Hua Tuo felt surprised, but this man didn't know why he was like this, and he completely ignored the scorching sun.

Just as he was about to ask a question, he saw smoke and dust rising one after another, forming a yellow curtain, and in this curtain, the man drove by like the wind on his horse, as if he had not seen Hua Tuo at all, and after a while, there was no trace.

"Cough, cough, cough......" Hua Tuo raised his right arm, covered his nose and lips with his sleeve, and waited for the smoke and dust to dissipate before he put down his arm and took a few breaths of fresh air, while feeling a little dissatisfied with the man who drove away.

was complaining in his heart, but Hua Tuo was stunned for a moment, and then looked at the path when the man came with bright eyes, laughing and muttering to himself: "Hua Yuanhua, Hua Yuanhua, you really let this day burn your head, this post pavilion is in front of you, are you still worried about drinking water?" ”

After laughing, Hua Tuo crossed the official road, came to the side of the trail, searched left and right with his eyes a few times, and saw a blue-black ancient stone tablet on the side of the path, the stone tablet was half-broken, but the vague handwriting on it could be vaguely seen, but it was the three Han Li characters of "Lou Sang Pavilion".

"Lou Sangtei." Hua Tuo muttered to himself, he was in a complicated mood at the moment, mixed with joy and sorrow, happy that he had a place to rest, and sad that the stone tablet in the geographical location of the pavilion was damaged to this point, and no one cared about it.

According to the Han family system, the stone tablets in the sign pavilion and other places need to be complete and clear, if there is damage, the county needs to allocate money to repair it, but now it is buried in the grass, dilapidated, and no one cares.

Hua Tuo shook his head, turned around and stepped onto the path, walking towards the Lou Sang Pavilion hundreds of steps away.

The pavilion is not only the most basic administrative system in the empire, for example, Emperor Gaozu served as the chief of the Surabaya Pavilion in Pei County before he started, and it has the important responsibility of transmitting official documents and entertaining officials and scholars - it is an important node to maintain the smooth flow of local information from the central government of the empire.

Therefore, the location of the pavilions is more than the traffic arteries, and they are mostly built next to the official roads, which are very close to the official roads, and even many pavilions next to the main roads of the empire are simply built on the edge of the official roads.

Walk to the pavilion, what catches Hua Tuo's eyes is a tall wooden pillar at all, standing tall there, this pillar is the sign of the pavilion, named Huabiao, with a horizontal wooden column head, its shape is like a flower, the shape is similar to the orange tree, the role is similar to the road sign or bus stop sign in later generations, used to point out the location and point out the direction to pedestrians.

On the steps of the pavilion, Hua Tuo saw an old man sitting at the threshold, and the old man was looking at him.

Hua Tuo hurriedly stepped forward to make a gift, handed over the document stamped with the seal of the county order of Qian County, and after the old man finished reading it, he continued: "In Xia Hua Tuo, it is a scholar who has traveled to study here, come here to rest for a while, and ask for some food and water by the way." ”

After that, he took out nine five-baht coins from his arms, and then stacked them one by one, and handed them to the old man in front of him quite painfully.

The old man took the money, weighed it, and then said with a smile in his eyes: "Okay." ”

After that, he beckoned Hua Tuo to sit down at the wooden table in the pavilion, then got up and went to the stove room, ready to eat soup.

After waiting for a while, the old man walked to Hua Tuo with a wooden tray, came to the table, and took off the food in the tray one by one and placed it on the table.

Hua Tuo saw that there were two plates and two bowls, the smaller one had two wheat cakes on it, and the larger one had some side dishes, including cranberry (kohlrabi), taro, radish, etc.; And those two bowls are a bowl of soup cakes and a bowl of rice wine.

Hua Tuo couldn't help but swallow his saliva, especially the aroma of the rice wine made his throat itch, the old man saw Hua Tuo like this, and said with a smile: "Then you can eat it first, I'll go to the back room to rest, and call me when I'm done." ”

Hua Tuo hurriedly nodded and sent the old man away, and then ate happily regardless of etiquette, and after a quarter of an hour, Hua Tuo was full of food and drink, and was holding his stomach and sighing contentedly, the old man happened to come from the back room to the main hall and sat next to Hua Tuo, and asked with a smile:

"Housheng, where are you?"

Hua Tuo said: "Back to the old man, under is the family of Peiguo County, Yuzhou. ”

In fact, this old man may know where Hua Tuo is from, after all, the clerk in charge of entertaining passers-by in the pavilion still knows a few words more or less, and he just read Hua Tuo's paperwork, but Hua Tuo has just finished eating, and he can't ask again, "Have you eaten?" I had to say so.

The two of them began to talk.

Through a series of conversations, Hua Tuo learned that this old man is called Liu Min, don't look at how inconspicuous he looks, but he is the pavilion father in the Mulberry Pavilion on this building, and he also has the imperial establishment.

The Han family system, ten miles and one pavilion, the pavilion has a length, and it is the pavilion chief; The pavilion has two pawns, which are the left and right deputies of the pavilion chief, one of which is the pavilion father, and the palm is opened and closed; One is to seek thieves and catch thieves.

And according to Liu Min, this building Sang Pavilion is not very simple, it is a fief of a pavilion marquis, and this pavilion marquis is their ancestor, although the ancestors later lost their titles, but they are also considered nobles, and even have a little blood relationship with today's saints.

Hua Tuo is a celebrity after all, and he probably knows some of the stories of the various systems of the Han family, and he thought about it for a while, and calculated the time, if what Liu Min said is true, this marquis is probably one of the many unlucky people who lost his title because of the gold when Emperor Xiaowu was drunk.

Thinking of Emperor Xiaowu, Hua Tuo couldn't help but feel a little sad in his heart, the Qiang people in the northwest have not yet been pacified, this year, the Son of Heaven is bewitched by eunuchs, the court wantonly arrested the scholars, the government and the opposition are in chaos, and even the world-famous Li Xiaowei has not escaped this catastrophe, where will the empire go?

Thinking of this, a wry smile appeared on the corner of Hua Tuo's lips, he was just a poor person who wanted to enter the office but couldn't, what did he want to do so much? It's just a matter of worrying.

However, this smile was misunderstood by Liu Min, thinking that Hua Tuo was ridiculing himself, and suddenly made a straight face: "Housheng, don't you think I'm lying to you?" ”

Hua Tuo came back to his senses and understood that his smile made Liu Min ambiguous, and he was about to open his mouth to explain, but he saw Liu Min stand up all of a sudden, and reached out to pull his sleeve.

Hua Tuo wanted to hide, but he didn't dodge, and was dragged up by Liu Min with his sleeve.

"Old man......"

Liu Min said: "Don't say more, I will take you to see something, and you will know that I have not lied to you." ”

"What is it?" Hua Tuo's pestle remained in place.

Seeing that Hua Tuo couldn't be moved, Liu Min had no choice but to snort coldly and said: "It was my ancestor who planted a mulberry tree at this time. ”

"Mulberry? Ancestor? It's not going to be hundreds of years, if it's going to be hundreds of years. Hua Tuo thought about it for a while, and suddenly became a little interested, and said to Liu Min: "Then please ask the old man to take the kid to open his eyes." ”

Seeing this, Liu Min was puzzled, what did he do in this later life, didn't he not believe it, why did he look so good? But since he said so, it didn't hurt to open his eyes.

So the two of them walked through the courtyard of the pavilion, came out through the back door, and went around a wooded field, and walked about three or four hundred steps before stopping.

"Look, that's it." Liu Min pointed to the big mulberry tree in front of him and said to Hua Tuo.

Hua Tuo didn't answer, his eyes were staring, and he was stunned.

Although he had already heard Liu Min talk about this mulberry tree before, he had already made some psychological preparations, but after seeing this tree, Hua Tuo couldn't help but be moved.

I saw that the mulberry tree stood tall, about five feet long; Its cover is pavilion, and it is summer, and its leaves are also blue, and the umbrella cover is huge, even if Hua Tuo is hundreds of steps away, it can be seen clearly.

"There is such a canopy!" Hua Tuo muttered in his heart.

There is a Han generation, since the Emperor Xiaowu, the doctrine of the Wei prevails, the scholars of the time, in order to seek the road of advancement, more to the Wei Wei to cater to the sycophancy in power.

"Hanshu Wang Mang's Biography" has a record of the Tai student mourning chapter to Wang Mang for luck and then offering Fu Rui to Wang Mang.

When Emperor Guangwu Zhongxing, he tried his best to publicize the prophecy, and even the purpose of the doctor's scholar was to "have a clear diagram".

Although there are also scholars such as Huan Tan, Zheng Xing, Yin Min, Zhang Heng and other scholars who vigorously criticize this superstitious atmosphere and try to get to the root of it, but in the end, they are not allowed to hold a high position and speak lightly, and it is difficult to reverse this trend.

Over time, and to this day, Shilin and the people all believe in the prophecy of the diagram and regard it as a guide, and so does Hua Tuo.

"Afterlife, how?"

Seeing Hua Tuo so surprised, Liu Min's heart was extremely comfortable, as if he had drunk ice water in this dog weather, because this came from the spiritual victory, and he also regained the calmness of seeing Hua Tuo for the first time.

Hua Tuo ignored the ridicule in Liu Min's words, stretched out his hand and pointed to the big mulberry tree, and said categorically: "There will be nobles here!" ”