The sky was a little gloomy, and Han Gang looked up, looking like it was going to snow and rain. He didn't know if there was a taboo in the weather about the Lu Dao whip ox sacrifice, and it seemed that most of them didn't look like it. It's just a festival held in the wilderness, and it is unpleasant when it rains and snows. And he is going to Tokyo City tomorrow, and he doesn't want to be in the rain or snow.

Early in the morning, Han Gang came to an empty field outside the south gate of Qinzhou City. There was already a sea of people around, and in the center of the crowd, Li Shizhong stood solemnly with a group of civil and military officials in Qinzhou City. In each of their hands, they held a colored staff made of five-colored silk and surrounded a clay ox covered in red and hanging colors. There are also clay farmers and farm tools on the side of the earthen oxen.

This spring cow, which is made of clay and the size of a real cow, is very delicately carved. A bowing and pulling plough action depicts even the bulging muscles at the shoulder blades. The oxtail swings lightly, seemingly to repel mosquitoes and flies, and it is vivid. Such carving made Han Gang very curious about whose handiwork it was.

In today's ceremony, the mud cow is the protagonist.

In the sound of drums, Li Shizhong took the lead in a circle around the spring cow and whipped three more times. One by one, the officials stepped forward in order, and with the same actions as Li Shizhong, they turned around and whipped three times. There were also two small officials next to him who shouted loudly in the Qin dialect to persuade the peasants, which was the standard original singing method that made Han Gang breathtaking.

This set of rituals, called whipping spring, also known as beating spring, is intended to pray for a good year. Not only Qinzhou, but also the eighteen roads in the north and south of the world, four hundred military states, thousands of counties and counties, and even the imperial palace, on this day of the beginning of spring, whether it is the official or the Son of Heaven, they all have to come out and whip the butt of the earth cow three times. The Son of Heaven also has the gift of borrowing the field, that is, going down to the field to push the plow, pushing it up nine times, in order to show the righteousness of persuading the farmers.

Han Gang has not yet obtained the official status and is not qualified to participate in the whipping. But his identity allowed him to occupy a good position and stand at the front to watch. Han Gang's tall man made the audience behind him angry, and they could be heard jumping behind one by one.

There are also many foot traders, scurrying around in the crowd, shouting and selling clay sculptures of five-colored small spring cattle. The size of a small spring cow's palm, vivid. The highest-grade Xiaochun Niu even has a small wooden cage with a row of clay sculptures. Such a spring cow is often worth as much as four or five times.

Ignoring the movement behind him, Han Gang's attention was focused on the officials holding the whip and ox colored cane. I can see dozens of large and small officials of the Chinese and martial arts classes in Qinzhou City dispatched at the same time, and there are no opportunities several times a year.

Unlike the Ming and Qing dynasties, which divided civil and military officials into official robes, there was no difference in the costumes worn by the civil and military officials who participated in the ceremony at this time, and they could only be distinguished by their stature. Han Gang identified them one by one, and more than half of them he had only heard of their names and had never met them. It is only now that names are associated with people for the first time.

"There are so many officials, why don't there be any Kansai people?" In the crowd, I don't know who suddenly came out of nowhere.

Immediately, several people retorted together: "Xiang Zhan is from Kansai!" ”

They had to remind Han Gang to observe it carefully. Xiang Bao is indeed from Kansai, but apart from Xiang Bao, among the dozens of civil and military attaches present, there is really not a single one from Shaanxi. If it is a civil official, it is an official from all directions, and those who can guard the township and county are all exceptions. But the military ministers who guard the border are different, there must always be some members who are born in the road and are familiar with human geography.

Han Gang's eyes swept over the military attaches present one by one, and suddenly realized that they were all around forty to sixty years old—young generals in their twenties and thirties were not of high quality, and they were not qualified to participate in the festival. After discovering this, Han Gang was relieved. Not surprising at all, as this problem also appears in several other roads in Kansai. Between the ages of forty and sixty, there was a clear fault line in the Shaanxi Forbidden Army.

Among the middle-level generals and colonels leading the army in Kansai, there are many city lords, village lords and castle lords, but most of them are between the ages of forty and sixty, and most of them are not born and raised in Kansai, or they are not from the Western Army.

For example, Xiang Bao is a Zhenrong soldier, but he started in Tokyo and is not regarded as a member of the Western Army. Guo Kui, Yang Wenguang, and Zhang Shouyue have been in Kansai for many years, but none of them are from Shaanxi.

There is only one reason for this situation, that is, more than 20 years ago, after Li Yuanhao rebelled, the Song army suffered successive defeats in the three battles of Sanchuankou, Haoshuichuan and Dingchuanzhai, and the continuous blood loss in the confrontation with Western Xia in the following years.

These three battles were defeated, and in terms of troop losses, the total number of troops did not exceed 100,000, but the elite soldiers and strong generals in the Kwantai Army were almost swept away, especially many young generals and colonels who were optimistic about their futures early on, all of them were completely lost in the three battles, which greatly damaged the vitality of the Western Army. So much so that in the past 20 years, most of them have been passively beaten.

Di Qing and Chong Shiheng, the two leaders in the Western Army, are mostly in the face of the party members. Up to now, Di Qing and Chong Shiheng have passed away one after another, and Guo Kui and Yang Wenguang are the only ones left, and they have to rely on old guys like Zhang Shouyue to go to the border city to guard the scene to support the scene.

As for Liu Changzuo, although his ancestral home is Zhending, Hebei, he has moved to Shaanxi as a general since his father's generation, but he is a member of the standard Western Army. Although Liu Changzuo is in his early forties, he should still be counted at the level of the new generation, because he inherited his father's shadow and became an official, and his father Liu He died in the battle of Dingchuan Village.

However, since the Qingli Peace, the generals and schools of the Western Army who have grown up are now in the year of fighting, Liu Changzuo, Wang Junwan, and Liu Zhongwu, who is said to have been appreciated by Xiang Bao recently, is not the case. There are countless excellent general schools in their twenties and thirties in Kansai. If Wang Shao wants to select the generals who will participate in the Tuobian Hehuang, the room for choice is far stronger than that of Fan Zhongyan and Han Qi, who came to Kansai to rescue the emergency.

Looking back at Wang Shao standing in the queue of officials, he was still galloping yesterday, and now he is also holding a colored cane in his hand, and he is moving forward in line step by step. The well-dressed officials on weekdays were dancing with colored sticks, and Han Gang felt a little bored, even if it was used as an entertainment program, it felt like nothing more than that.

But the people who participated in the ceremony, including Li Shizhong and Wang Shao, were all serious. Agriculture is the foundation of the country, and if there is a mistake in the ceremony, in case the harvest is not good that year, it will be resented by the people of Quanzhou County. stabbing to the court is also a crime.

Li Shizhong has already stood back in the main seat of presiding over the ceremony, standing uprightly with his hands together, with a solemn expression, like a statue, as long as he has been in the court for two years, most of them will practice this ability. The subordinate officials who belonged to the Qin Feng Jingluo Division and the Qinzhou Prefecture Government were coming forward to whip the bull in order, and it would be a long time before it ended.

Li Shizhong maintained a solemn expression on his face, but his eyes were fixed on one of the people around him. What attracted Qin Fengjing's attention was a tall young man standing at the front of the crowd.

'It's Han Gang, right?' ’

Although Li Shizhong had carefully read the recommendations of Wang Shao, Wu Yan and Zhang Shouyue, and he admired Han Gang's talent and virtue, Li Shizhong saw Han Gang himself for the first time.

Brilliant indeed!

Li Shizhong had to admit that Han Gang's appearance and temperament were rare and outstanding in Qinzhou, and even in the city of Tokyo, which was full of talents, he could be ranked in the forefront. Standing in the midst of thousands of onlookers, people can see him at a glance, and there is a feeling of standing out from the crowd.

Li Shizhong laughed at himself suddenly, no matter how he said that Han Gang was both civil and military, and his wisdom and heart were all first-class scholars, if he was unexpected, it would be a joke.

Although Han Gang stood at the front of the crowd, he looked lazy and sleepy, and he was not at all contaminated with the fanaticism or piety that diffused in the surrounding crowd, which was also the reason why Li Shizhong recognized him from thousands of people with just one glance.

- 'After all, he is a disciple of Zhang Hengqu. Li Shizhong couldn't help but sigh.

Although Zhang Zai's official position is not high, and his qualifications are far inferior to Li Shizhong, he is a world-famous Confucian, and he has naturally understood the etiquette system for a long time. Today's spring ritual is very different from the ancient system, and there are many kitsch changes, no wonder Han Gang, who inherited Zhang Zaizhi's teachings, will watch it as a joke and don't take it to heart at all.

"Rare talent...... Li Shizhong's exclamation finally sounded, attracting several people standing beside him to look over. Li Shizhong's eyes lit up, and they immediately lowered their heads to avoid it.

His eyes returned to Han Gang's body. The rules and regulations of the wounded and sick camp system compiled by Han Gang were submitted at the beginning of last year and put on Li Shizhong's desk.

Li Shizhong guessed that Han Gang might have the idea of 'rather be tired of complexity than simplicity'. The system and regulations he revised have a total of six major items and more than 70 detailed rules, a total of more than 20,000 words, and a thick stack of 50 or 60 pages, like a book. In that system and regulations, from the external building to the interior furnishings, from the daily diet to the care of the wounded, from the rules of work and rest to the safety and security, all the details related to the wounded and sick camp are covered.

Li Shizhong just flipped through it casually, and the number of words alone startled him. The Northern Song Dynasty was different from the era after a thousand years, and articles of up and down 1,000 words were the general situation. After 10,000 words, it is known as a book of 10,000 words, which is not something that ordinary readers can write by hand. And Han Gang only took more than a month, which is as many as 20,000 words. Han Gang also made it clear on the title page that this was only a trial regulation, and the specific provisions would be gradually revised in the course of the trial implementation.

Although this regulation may seem a bit cumbersome, each article and paragraph has its own merits, and none of them can be deleted. Being able to take all these aspects into account, Li Shizhong only felt that it was impossible for Han Gang to be only eighteen years old, and the forty-eight-year-old old official was almost the same-he had mastered all the knowledge involved in the regulations, and there was still room for revision, so it was impossible for him to be a teenager who had not yet had any practical experience.

ps: The Lichun Whip Ox is a very interesting festival, from which you can also see the significance of agriculture to ancient China.

The second update, red ticket, collection.