[New Year's Day third watch, ask for red tickets, collect]

After spending the sleepless night of Shangyuan in Jingzhao Mansion, Zhang Yu's visit the next day, although there was no time to talk about it in depth, was enough for Zhang Yu to remember the names of Han Gang and Liu Zhongwu. Don't meet later, Han Gang's pretentiousness actually left a deeper impression, and Zhang Yu's attitude was more attentive.

Zhang Yu invited Han Gang and them to go to Beijing together, but because the speed of the trip was too far apart, the two sides still couldn't go together. Zhang Yu wanted to give money and gifts again, but Liu Zhongwu, who reacted, did not wait for Han Gang to mention it, and consciously and voluntarily refused all the gifts, which made Zhang Yu more respectful. After arriving at the end of the day, Zhang Yu almost forced Han Gang and Liu Zhongwu to agree that they must go to his house to sit down after arriving in the capital, so they can say goodbye.

"Thank you, Han Guanren." Recalling what Han Gang said yesterday, Liu Zhongwu deeply appreciated Han Gang's foresight. His thanks were genuine, not the slightest bit false.

Han Gang smiled and patted Liu Zhongwu's shoulder very closely, "It's okay, don't care." ”

Farewell to Zhang Yu, and was sent out of the city gate by the uncle and nephew of the seed family, Han Gang and his party continued to set off. The next way, is no thrill and no danger, after three hundred miles of Tongguan Road, very smoothly arrived at Xijing Henan Mansion, that is, Luoyang. The Great Song Dynasty Xijing, the history is not inferior to Chang'an, it is more prosperous than Chang'an, and there are even palace buildings, but Hangang They have no time to travel. I stayed overnight in a post house, and the next day I set off from Luoyang. The four riders galloped on the vast plains of the Central Plains, and a few days later, Han Gang and his party finally came to the Bajiao Town [now Kaifeng Badian Village] not far from Kaifeng.

There were only thirty miles left from the capital, but it was getting late, and the sun was already on the horizon. Even if you go from Bajiao Town to Kaifeng City as quickly as possible, you won't have time to reach the city before the city gate closes. There was nothing to do, Han Gang and the others could only stay in Bajiao Town for one night, and wait until tomorrow to enter the city.

There is no post house in Bajiao Town, so Han Gang and his entourage casually found a foot shop that looked fairly clean to live in - the custom of the world, through the government's permission to make their own wine, the restaurant is called the main store, and the ordinary small inn is called the foot shop. There are seventy-two stores in the capital, and in Bajiao Town, there are only foot shops.

Entering the store and asking for the house, Liu Zhongwu went into the stable to take care of his beloved horse - a good horse is worth a thousand gold, Liu Zhongwu took the shit luck to get this good horse in Hexi was sick, he was even sadder than the death of Lao Tzu Niang. Han Gang settled down and came to look for him, and saw Liu Zhongwu crying with a sad face, holding an ointment that he got out of nowhere, and wanted to rub it on the hooves of the red horse.

Liu Zhongwu's red horse ran on the road for too long, 17,800 miles, and the hoof shells of the four hooves were worn off a lot. In the first two days, they couldn't run anymore, and they dragged behind, causing Han Gang and them to rush to the post house every day.

The horseshoe had not yet been invented in the Northern Song Dynasty - at least not seen by Han Gang, nor was it installed under the four legs of the red horse - and the long-distance action was very depleting to the four hooves of the war horse, and the reason why it was difficult to raise horses in the humid and hot places in the south was also because the moisture easily injured the horse's hooves.

And Han Gang knows what a horseshoe is, and also knows the general usage and shape, with the average level of craftsmen in the Great Song Dynasty, according to the requirements to create a few urgent shoes, nailing may not be easy, but it is not difficult to brand the horseshoe. If Han Gang had told Liu Zhongwu two days ago that in the blacksmith shop that came all the way, he would have played a few pairs overnight, maybe he wouldn't have been too late to rush to Jingshi today, but he didn't reveal half a word to Liu Zhongwu from beginning to end.

Just as saddles and hard stirrups are to cavalry, horseshoes can greatly enhance the combat effectiveness of cavalry. In the Han Dynasty, where stirrups and saddles had not yet appeared, the Han army, armed with heavy crossbows, could defeat the Hun cavalry with one as five. At the end of the Han Dynasty, when the heroes were strife, the Han people were still able to chase and fight the Wuhuan cavalry in the north. However, after the emergence of metal stirrups in the Northern and Southern Dynasties, the contrast of combat power between the northern nomads and the southern Han gradually reversed.

Of course, Hangang will not give up promoting the use of horseshoes for this reason. That's stupid. It was already the 11th century A.D., and the horseshoe should have appeared in the West. Such a useful equipment will sooner or later spread in the East. Victory over the enemy is not about burying new weapons deeply, but about continuing to create more powerful weapons.

Han Gang's idea was just that he didn't want the horseshoe to leak out in advance, and when he officially received an official position, he began to assist Wang Shao in using troops in Hehuang. If it is released at that time, the military merits earned from it are much more powerful than Liu Zhongwu's little exclamation.

Han Gang looked at Liu Zhongwu's grief-stricken appearance outside the stable, and felt slightly sorry in his heart, feeling that it was better not to go in to find him at this time. Turning back to the store, Lu Ming walked over: "Han Guanren, it's still dark now, why don't you go and visit the West Taiyi Palace in the town." Although there are no antiquities there, a few old plums in the palace are still worth seeing. ”

The provincial test will start in ten days, but Lu Ming doesn't seem to take it to heart at all, as the saying goes, grinding the gun in battle, if it's not fast, it's light, Lu Ming doesn't even want to hold the Buddha's feet, and he doesn't even do a review. Han Gang shook his head secretly, and looked down on Lu Ming's chances of being a jinshi in the exam.

Since Lu Ming himself didn't care about the upcoming exam, Han Gang didn't have any reason to worry about him. If there was nothing to do, he left Li Xiaoliu to guard the luggage in the room, and together with Lu Ming, he went to the West Taiyi Palace he said.

Not far from the town outside the town of Xisu village head is the West Taiyi Palace, here is opposite to a Zhongtai Palace, located in the southeast corner of Kaifeng City. It was built for the early years of Xining, and it was recently completed, and a deputy envoy of the third division died during the sacrifice, saying that there was something wrong with eating the gizzard meat, and the seven orifices bled to death - Han Gang couldn't understand why Lu Ming, who had not arrived in Beijing for three years, could know so much about Lu Dao.

The two Taiyi Palaces are actually the shrines dedicated to the Eastern Emperor Taiyi. Taiyi is also known as Taiyi and Taiyi, and there are clouds in historical records: 'Taiyi, the noble of the gods', is another name for the Emperor of Heaven. Qu Yuan's Chu Ci "Nine Songs" also has a piece of "Eastern Emperor Taiyi", which ranks very high in China's immortal genealogy. It's just that the incense offered to Taiyi is not vigorous, and it is not as good as the general stove god, the city god, and even less than the gods such as Erlang God and Zigu God that are popular in the world today. The so-called county officials are not as good as the current management, and this is roughly the case.

Although the incense is not abundant, Taiyi Palace is after all a Taoist temple listed in the ancestral department, which is much larger than Li Guangmiao in Hangang's hometown. However, there are more than a dozen fireworkers who sweep the courtyard in the palace, and they are managed by a temple leader who leads the imperial court. And Han Gang heard from Wang Hou and Lu Ming that there is also a type of official position in the imperial court called Tiju Gongguan, which is specially used to place officials who are degraded or ask for retirement, similar to the nursing home in the officialdom, and the CPPCC in later generations.

Since this palace is subordinate to the official, of course, it also pays attention to the façade, and the palace is heavy, and there are more than a dozen large and small buildings. The main hall is four or five feet high, and the few pillars exposed on the outside alone are thicker than two people hugging each other.

"Although the main hall of the West Taiyi Palace is not big and the decoration is lacking in luxury, it was expected to be personally supervised and built by the capital back then, and it is extremely solid. On the same day, the main hall erected beams, Yu Duliu personally put the beams right, he came down from the hall, and said that unless the fire and earthquake, this hall will not be bad for a thousand years! For decades, this temple has been struck by lightning, but there is really nothing at all. ”

Lu Ming introduced, and his words were fascinating, like a standard tour guide. However, what he said about Yu Du, Han Gang was confused, so he asked him.

Lu Ming explained: "It is Yu Hao, the first carpenter since the dynasty, known as Luban in the world. Nowadays, there are three volumes of "The Book of Wood" in the world, and carpenters all over the world use it as a law. He pointed to Kaifeng City in the east, "The Kaibao Temple Tower in Kaifeng City is built by Yu Duliu, and when the tower was first completed, it was tilted to the northwest and looked at it incorrectly." The court wanted to ask for the guilt, but Yu Du expected to say: 'There are no mountains on the flat land of Beijing, and there are many northwest winds, and they will not blow for a hundred years, so they should be right.' ’”

"Yu Hao?" Han Gang read the name mentioned by Lu Ming, and it was inexplicably familiar, but he couldn't remember it for a while. If the rumors are true, he is really a great craftsman. He listened interestingly, so he asked, "What about the Kaibao Temple Pagoda now?" Is it right? ”

"When I was exactly a hundred years old, I burned a fire, and it was during the Qingli period. But before that, it was indeed correct," Lu Ming gestured his fingers up and down, "straight to the top, not biased at all." Yu Du expected that his words were like gods, so now there is an extra layer of worry in Jingshi. ”

"Worried about what?"

"I'm worried that in another seventy or eighty years, will the temple towers in Beijing all fall to the southeast!"

Han Gang laughed when he heard this, Lu Ming's burden was really funny.

Lu Ming laughed with Han Gang for a while, and continued: "Yu Du is expected to have only one daughter, and it is said that she has been passed on by her relatives, and her skills are not lost to her father. It is rumored that the three volumes of the "Book of Wood" are actually from her. Later, he was recruited, and now his descendants should still be in Beijing. ”

Han Gang paused in his footsteps, and he finally remembered where he had heard the name Yu Hao. Isn't this the same Yu Hao who appeared in the textbook when he was in school? An excerpt from an ancient text in Shen Kuo's "Dream Creek Writings" in "The Wooden Pagoda of Brahma Temple", which I still memorized at that time. Unexpectedly, Yu Hao not only repaired the tower in Wuyue Kingdom, but also repaired the tower in Kaifeng Mansion. can be passed down through the ages, and the ability is certainly not bad.

While talking and laughing, the two walked into the main hall. The statue of the Eastern Emperor Taiyi is high in the hall, and the decoration is brilliant. It's just a rich round face with three strands of beard, but this appearance is like a mold reflection with other gods that Han Gang has seen.

Standing in front of the incense case, the two of them each stepped forward to salute a stick of incense, and then knelt down to salute. The thin and tall Miao Zhu stood aside, waiting for the two of them to salute.

"The Eastern Emperor is above, and the believer Lu Ming worships in front of the car......" Lu Ming knelt on the futon and recited the words, while Han Gang also knelt down, but he was looking around. Indeed, as Lu Ming said, there was no decoration in the hall, and as for the building structure, Han Gang had no understanding, and he couldn't see how subtle Yu Duliu's methods were.