Zhuojun has entered the autumn season again, a large area of maple leaves and persimmon trees dyed the mountain red, a large area of golden corn fields are about to start harvesting, looking from afar, like a golden ocean, this is the most beautiful time of the year in Zhuo County.

With the end of the Goguryeo Campaign, the population that was almost overwhelmed by Zhuojun began to recede rapidly, and the Great Sui Emperor led hundreds of civil and military officials to return to Luoyang along the Guangji Canal in large ships, and hundreds of thousands of troops also followed the retreat south.

At the same time, the people of Hebei Province and Henan Province also began to return to their hometowns in large numbers with the army, and the official road from Jixian County to the south was crowded with endless flow of people.

When Zhang Xuan led the headquarters to return to Zhuo County, the tide of returning to Zhuo County had come to an end, and the endless camp of people outside the north city of Jixian County had shrunk by half, and there were less than 30,000 people left from hundreds of thousands of people recruited from all over the country, and most of them were busy packing their luggage to return to their hometowns.

Zhang Xuan led the army along the official road to Jixian County, the army did not go fast, the official road was crowded with pedestrians from the south to the north, the peasants who used donkeys to carry mountain fruits to the county seat to sell, there were merchants who carried the burden in a hurry, and there were also many caravans from Liaodong or the grassland.

The end of the war had an immediate effect on the economy of Zhuojun, and merchants who had been dormant for a long time immediately became active.

Zhang Xuan was leading the soldiers to rest on the grass by the roadside, and by the small river in the distance, 300 cavalrymen were feeding their horses and drinking water, and the surrounding grass was filled with more than 1,400 infantry.

Laihu'er was not thin on him, and almost all the three hundred war horses captured on the battlefield were rewarded to his army, but they were not handed over according to the custom, so that there were actually three hundred cavalry in his army, which was completely different from other military governments with few cavalry, and was already a very effective army.

This time to the south, he will rest in Zhuojun for a few days, and then continue to go south to Luoyang to assemble, Zhang Xuan was in a good mood all the way, and returning to Dasui made him feel home.

At this time, a large herd of horses appeared on the official road, as many as hundreds. It was a group of horse dealers who came from the north, and Jang Xuan glanced at the horses, most of which were horses for transporting goods and doing farm work, and belonged to the category of livestock. It is not a war horse for war.

The Great Sui was very strict with the control of war horses, and it was not allowed to sell war horses privately, but only ordinary livestock and horses, and horse dealers who returned from the grassland would be strictly checked.

Now, of course, the situation is chaotic. The management is not as strict as before, knights riding high-headed horses abound, as long as you have money, you can buy good horses, but the price is very expensive, often hundreds, if it is a BMW horse, even buy thousands or even tens of thousands.

However, no matter how lax the management is, it is still extremely rare to drive dozens of war horses to appear on the official road, and first of all, the army will not be able to pass this level.

At this time, the new cavalry commander Chen Xu urged the horse to rush forward and whispered to Zhang Xuan: "General." There seems to be something wrong with this group of horses! ”

Zhang Xuan knew that Chen Xu's father was the manager of Zhangye Military Horse Farm, and since he said that there was a problem, he must have discovered something.

"What do you see?" Jang Hyun asked with interest.

"Does the general see the leper in the middle?"

Zhang Xuan also saw that among the hundreds of horses there were forty or fifty leper horses, they were tall and tall, but their fur was ugly, their coat was messy, full of leprosy, and they were so thin that they walked listlessly with their heads down.

"What's wrong with them, do you think there's something wrong with them?"

Chen Xu nodded, "My father told me that to look at a horse, you have to look at the ears, legs, and tail. The horses had round and neat ears, slender and powerful limbs, long tails, and even skeletons, and I am sure they were all disguised as lepers, listless or hungry. Either they are fed with medicine, but they are actually real war horses. ”

Zhang Xuan heard that he was reasonable, and carefully looked at these dozens of leper horses, sure enough, his limbs were slender and powerful, Zhang Xuan's heart moved, and he ordered left and right: "Stop this group of horse dealers, I want to talk to them!" ”

The soldiers quickly surrounded the group of horses, and after a while, Chen Xu led a horse dealer leader, who knelt on the ground and kowtowed, "We are all legitimate merchants, the general spares us!" ”

"Are these horses going to be sold in the Central Plains?"

"Exactly! We came from Xi Ren and bought these horses to go to the Central Plains to change hands, and the villain has the release documents of the Liaodong border general! ”

The leader of the horse dealers took out a piece of hemp paper stamped with the official seal from his arms, stood up and handed it to Zhang Xuan, Zhang Xuan took the hemp paper and looked at it, it was released by Liucheng, and he asked with a casual smile: "Are these horses to be sold?" ”

The leader of the horse dealers hesitated, nodded and said, "Exactly!" ”

"What is the market value of the horses now?" Jang Hyun asked with a smile again.

The head of the horse dealer said: "Generally speaking, the younger ones are about twenty horses, and the old horses are much cheaper. ”

"Excellent! We also need some horses to consign grain, so how about buying a few at market prices? ”

Zhang Xuan waved his hand, a soldier carried an iron box, opened the box, it was full of yellow and clear gold ingots, Zhang Xuan smiled and said: "This is two hundred taels of gold, according to the market value of three thousand yuan, buy one hundred and fifty horses." ”

The horse dealer's face became extremely unnatural, his legs trembled involuntarily, Zhang Xuan ignored him, and said to Chen Xu: "Go and pick one hundred and fifty horses!" ”

Chen Xu knew this, and immediately led the soldiers into the horse herd, and picked out all the more than fifty leper horses, and the horse dealer knew that it was exposed, and his face turned pale, as if he had been struck by lightning, and stood there motionless.

"Why are you so nervous, just a bunch of lepers, do they have another article?"

At this time, a soldier brought over a leper horse, Zhang Xuan twisted the horse's hair, the color appeared on his hands, and the leprosy spots on his body were also mud spots, which fell off with a light pick, and Zhang Xuan looked at the horse dealer leader coldly.

The leader of the horse dealers fell to his knees, trembling and unable to utter a word.

At this time, more than a dozen horse dealers were escorted over, and they were all extremely frightened, and knelt down and kowtowed tremblingly, "Spare your life!" Spare your life! ”

They all know the consequences, trafficking war horses without permission is a capital crime, and they were actually found by the army, I am afraid it will be difficult to escape today's catastrophe.

Zhang Xuan didn't have the idea of killing them, now is a troubled time, everyone wants to seek benefits, not to mention these horse dealers, but he is also very interested in this group of war horses.

Zhang Xuan said slowly: "I'll give you two ways to go, one is that I will hand you over to the Zhuojun government and let them deal with it, and the other way is to sell these war horses to me, you make a little less, how about it?" ”

Jang Hyun came from the Baye Gukulun Division. He knew the price of the war horses of the Kulun Division, and a war horse was only about 30 yuan, so he bought it with 60 yuan, and these horse dealers would not lose money.

Of course. Zhang Xuan also knew that a good war horse was worth at least two or three hundred yuan if it was sold in the Central Plains, but it was impossible for him to pay such a high price.

"Sixty pounds of horses, you have also earned a lot, agreed. I'll let you go, and if you don't do it, then I'll arrest you and go to the officials!" ”

More than a dozen horse dealers looked at each other, it turned out that this military master was the idea of beating this group of horses, at this time, the horse dealer leader quickly glanced at the small box of gold, he knew that let the army take out the gold to buy horses, this kind of thing is not only rare, but also absurd, it is rare to see a person for hundreds of years.

This general is the same as the one who has been an alternative for hundreds of years. If the army takes a fancy to their horses, more often than not, they frame them for collaborating with the enemy, cut them with a knife, or tie them up to see the officials, and the horses disappear.

The leader of the horse dealers knew that the incense he had burned had appeared, and he met an officer with a bodhisattva's heart, and he actually gave him back the gold.

It's just that he didn't dare to collect the army's gold after killing him, and besides, this is not a matter of money, this group of war horses is not his at all.

He handed over these horses to the army, how did he go to explain to Zhang Jincheng. will also be killed, especially since two of the horse dealers are Zhang Jincheng's subordinates, and they are the owners of the war horses.

The leader of the horse dealers secretly glanced back, only to see two of Zhang Jincheng's subordinates kneeling at the end. He stared at him viciously.

Most of the people who can go to the grassland to sell horses lick blood from the knife edge, are bold and dare to take risks, and they are all cold-hearted, and the horse dealer leader is murderous in his heart. He gritted his teeth and said, "Please general, let us discuss." ”

"Yes!"

The leader of the horse dealers turned around and gave a dozen of his subordinates a look, and his men hurriedly gathered up.

The leader of the horse dealers whispered a few words to them, and he suddenly turned his head to look at the two Zhang Jincheng's subordinates, his eyes were fierce and full of murderous intent, and a dozen horse dealers nodded and surrounded the two together.

The two Zhang Jin's men immediately understood that they were about to be betrayed, so they jumped up and fled, but they could not escape, and after only a few steps, they were pushed to the ground by a dozen other horse dealers.

The leader of the horse dealer pulled out his knife and rushed forward, one person and one knife resulted in the lives of two people, he threw the knife away, and said to Zhang Xuan without hesitation: "This general, the war horse belongs to you." ”

The situation became so fast that the soldiers had already been killed by the time they reacted, and they raised their spears and surrounded a dozen horse dealers.

Zhang Xuan walked over slowly, looked at the horse dealer leader and said coldly: "It seems that things are not simple, tell me the truth, I will let you go, otherwise, I will kill you all the same." ”

The leader of the horse dealers also let go, and said frankly: "These war horses actually have nothing to do with us, they are the horses of Zhang Jin, the king of Qinghe, he didn't know the way to buy horses, so he sent two people to go north with us, and he paid for the horses himself, and the generals of these war horses took them if they wanted, and we didn't dare to accept the gold." ”

It turned out to be Zhang Jin's horse, which was unexpected, and he groaned and asked, "Aren't you afraid of his revenge when you killed him?" ”

The horse dealer shook his head, "If this time it is safely delivered to him, he will definitely let us go a second or third time, and we will die on him sooner or later, since the person who killed him, we will go elsewhere, of course, if the general doesn't want Zhang Jincheng's horse, it's okay, just beg the general to let us go." ”

Zhang Xuan laughed, "Why don't I want a war horse that doesn't want money?" ”

．．．．．．

He got more than 50 fine war horses without spending a penny, and Zhang Xuan had never made such a good deal, so that all officers above the brigade commander could ride horses.

And ten of his cronies can also be paired with war horses.

This is something that Zhang Xuan has been thinking about, only officers above the rank of lieutenant can ride horses in the Sui army, and they are not necessarily good horses.

But as the commander-in-chief, he needs to give his officers a little different benefits, so that they can be more loyal to him, and a good war horse for each person is a good means of buying people's hearts.

Jang Hyun already sees this army as his foundation, and he needs to hold them firmly in his hands.

As for the words of the horse dealer, 'These are the horses that Zhang Jin said, if the general doesn't want them......

Zhang Xuan didn't care about it at all, he was a warrior who came out of the bloody battlefield, would he still be scared by a bandit leader?

He only hated that this was not Lu Mingyue's horse, Lu Mingyue still owed him a horse, and Zhang Xuan never forgot it.

When the officers heard that the general was going to divide the horses for themselves, they gathered around them from all sides, and demanded that they divide the horses now.

Zhang Xuan said with a smile: "These horses still need to be fed well, I believe that in another ten days, they will completely change their appearance, and when the war horses are strong, I will give them to you." ”

Having said that, the two dozen officers couldn't help but run to the river, carefully observing the group of war horses that were washing their furs, distinguishing the advantages and disadvantages of each horse, and they were already beginning to choose their own war horses.

At this time, a soldier rushed along the official road from the direction of the county seat, and Zhang Xuan stepped forward and asked, "How is it, have you heard where the military office is?" ”

The soldier hurriedly saluted and said, "General Qiyu, the temporary military office of the Xiaoguo Army is close to the north city gate, and there are officials inside to receive it." ”

Zhang Xuan thought about it, it was a bit inappropriate to bring so many troops into the city, so he called a few captains and asked them to continue to lead the soldiers to rest in place and wait for his news, while Zhang Xuan rushed to the military office in the city with a few cavalry.

Galloping all the way, after a short time, they rode into the north gate of Jixian County. (To be continued.) )