The Mongols who invaded from the north not only blocked Duhe Fort back, but also the military forts of the Yansui West Road, such as the Ningsai Camp and the Jingbian Camp and Liushujian Fort, did not let the Mongols go further south despite the efforts of the many degraders, and they all more or less left some price for the invading Mongols.

The civil and military officials on Yansui West Road were busy reporting the good news, and the performance of the soldiers led by Shen Yikui on the battlefield this time really inspired many officials who supported Fuce. Without the threat of the Mongols, the people of Baoan County in the south can also carry out agricultural production with confidence.

And the Jinding Mountain tribesmen, who learned that the big boss had won a battle in the north, were even more proud of their own armed forces. The leaders who had stayed in the cottage had already exterminated the horse bandits that were roaming around, and now the invincible Mongols were no different in front of the great masters.

The residents of Jinding Mountain feel that with the leaders of Jinding Mountain, they do not have to worry about their lives being plundered by outsiders. Therefore, everyone is more at ease to complete their daily work, and after being guided by the leader of the cottage Xiucai to improve the new crop planting and production methods, everyone has brighter expectations for the future.

The children who study in Jinding Mountain have also become more energetic because of the happy emotional infection of the adults around them. The teacher of the cottage is busy with the inspection of farming, which also gives the children more time to relax from the boring study every day, and most of the children take advantage of this time to play with their partners.

However, there are also some children who are using this leisure time to practice seriously, and Zhang Zhaoliang, who was severely punished by Zhang Mengcheng before, is one of them. At this time, on a wooden frame in the open space in front of Yuewei Grass Hall, Zhang Zhaoliang was sitting on the wooden frame practicing the horse knife technique taught by the fifteenth uncle. He clenched his left hand into a fist to grasp the reins of a horse, and in his right hand he held a wooden stick and kept gesturing from side to side.

No matter how Zhang Zhaoliang wielded the weapon in his hand, he tried to control the stick in his hand and not touch the broom that was tied vertically at the front of the wooden frame. When Zhang Mengcheng taught the knife technique, he repeatedly emphasized that they should not touch their "horse's head" with a saber at any time. ”

"Second baby, why were you punished by Xiucai Gong again, what did you do this time to make your fifteenth uncle angry." Several women who knew each other in the village passed by and saw Zhang Zhaoliang sitting alone on a wooden frame. guessed that he violated the rules of the school again, and was caught and punished by Xiucai Zhang Mengcheng, so he asked curiously.

"It's nothing, I'm just idle." Zhang Zhaoliang responded with a red face, he was indeed practicing by himself and not being punished by Mr. However, Zhang Zhaoliang saw several aunts who left with a smile, and he knew that most of them didn't believe what he said.

Zhang Zhaoliang is the youngest son in the family, and he has an older brother above him. However, he is much older than Zhang Zhaoliang, beyond the entrance age of the cottage, and now he is following their father to work hard every day as a tunding. Because the father and son worked very weekdays, the fifteenth uncle asked Zhang Zhaoliang's father and brother to take care of a large piece of land in the village. There are many people who know them up and down the village, so Zhang Zhaoliang is used to being called the second baby by the people in the village.

Zhang Zhaoliang, who used to be a little playful, has his dream to sit here and practice at this time. Since his father took the family to the cottage, Zhang Zhaoliang and their family have gradually become more prosperous.

Zhang Zhaoliang, who is used to living a hard life, now even has the opportunity to eat a little meat every month. He is only eight years old, and he also knows that this is the reason why the three brothers Zhang Mengjin are working hard outside the home. Some time ago, the fifteenth uncle and the ninth uncle cleared out the horse bandits, and the eighth uncle blocked the Mongol invasion in the north, both of which deeply affected Zhang Zhaoliang.

Just like Zhang Mengjin and Zhang Mengguang longed for their clan uncle who returned from the army when they were children, Zhang Zhaoliang, who is now a junior, also began to look forward to the eighth, ninth and fifteenth uncles who were mighty, hoping that he could also be active on the battlefield in the future. At this time, he sat on a wooden frame to practice swordsmanship and riding, and he also planned to go into battle when he grew up and earn a fortune with his ability.

Some time ago, Uncle Fifteen returned to the cottage and lost his temper after seeing their poor performance. Although with the help of the third old lady, they were able to avoid the period when Mr. was most angry, but the fifteenth uncle still completed the original punishment of the students in the next few days.

However, in the following days, Uncle Fifteen did not continue to lose his temper, he relaxed the management of the cottage because he was busy with other things, and instead used the method of inducing rewards to let the students of the cottage study spontaneously and seriously. In addition to some small red flowers that are usually rewarded, Uncle Fifteen said that after a while, he would select students with good performance to graze the horses in the village.

Zhang Zhaoliang, who has made up his mind to fight for wealth on horses in the future, has always wanted to ride a war horse used in the stockade. He very much expects that he can be selected this time, so his recent performance is very serious and hard-working, and he has already received several small red flowers, and the fifteenth uncle even praised himself in front of his family at home.

Thinking of the happy expressions on the faces of his parents and his brother when the fifteenth uncle praised him before, Zhang Zhaoliang laughed unconsciously, and started his after-class practice more seriously, for fear that he would be compared to other students in the grass hall in the future lottery.

In fact, Zhang Zhaoliang doesn't have to be so afraid that he will lose the election, because the number of students that Mr. Zhang Mengcheng plans to transfer this time is much higher than the last time. The students from the cottage were sent to graze horses again, not only to encourage the learning enthusiasm of the children in the cottage, but also to relieve the food pressure in the cottage.

The breeding of horses is a rather food-consuming thing, and it turns out that Jinding Mountain can barely maintain the number of horses in the cottage by plundering the township. Although a lot of farmland has been developed around Jinding Mountain, the consumption of horses is still a heavy burden.

According to the grain and grass supply standard for horses in Jinding Mountain, in the six months of winter and spring every year, the average consumption of each war horse in Jinding Mountain is roughly five stones and four buckets of beans, and one hundred and eighty bunches of autumn grass are added, and the weight of each bunch of autumn grass is about fifteen catties. (Note 1)

Even in summer and autumn, when horses can graze around, the monthly consumption of beans per horse in the cottage has only dropped from nine to six. Therefore, it is necessary to supply a total of more than 400 horses and mules in Jindingshan and Duhebao, and at the same time ensure the rations of the personnel in the two places.

At present, it is summer, and the horses in Jinding Mountain will be divided into two and eight, and the two will be trained with the camp, and the eight will be scattered outside to save the limited grain and grass in the cottage. In the north, the Duhe Fort, which is responsible for guarding the border, has a ratio of five or five points, and it is only reluctantly that Fan Shunjiang and other outstanding sentinel leaders continue to go out of the wall to explore, and the Duhe Fort is farther away from the side wall than other border forts.

It is precisely because of this huge food consumption that Zhang Mengjin and his gang, who once shared the sphere of influence in Baoan County equally with Cai Xiaozi at the top of Artemisia, even if they had the opportunity to expand the number of cavalry in the cottage, they also limited the number of horses in the cottage because of the pressure on food. At the same time, the number of caretakers has also been expanded during grazing, so that the grazing work can be carried out more efficiently, so many students in Zhang Mengcheng's thatched cottage have been pulled out to participate in voluntary labor.

Zhang Zhaoliang continued to practice hard, although his determination was great, but he was still a playful child after all. He didn't last long while he was practicing the basics, and was soon attracted by a burst of laughter.

It turned out that several other children in the cottage were playing, and several older children were competing on stilts. Zhang Zhaoliang thought that he had been practicing for a long time, so he immediately dropped the wooden stick in his hand and quickly jumped off the wooden frame to fight with the other children.

Today, the adults have work to do, and the children are not restrained, so they are naturally playing.

PS: Note 1: In the information of the Ming Dynasty, there are many "three liters of grass per horse day" statement, and it is found that there is an item of "autumn green grass" in the twenty-fifth volume of the Ming Dynasty, and there is a statement that "each bundle weighs fifteen catties". The records of the material beans in the Qing Dynasty materials are mostly nine buckets in winter and spring, and six buckets in summer and autumn, which is no problem. However, there are differences in the records of the branches, some of them have one bunch per day, and some have two bunches per day. According to the records in the Qing Dynasty, the grass is seven catties per bunch. But the seven catties of grass still feel too little, so it should be two bunches that add up to about the same as one bunch in the Ming Dynasty.