When the Turks were rampant, most of Youyan was under their control, and Guangyang was a fortress facing the Turks. It was not until Zheng Rong took office as the governor of Youyan that he reclaimed wasteland, raised military horses, reorganized the army, enriched the immigration, restored his homeland to Mobei, and rebuilt several prefectures and counties, which made Guangyang located in the center of Youyan Dao.

Because of this, although Guangyang is a capital, the pattern is very different from Luoyang, Chang'an, Chengdu, Jianye and other cities. The big cities of the Central Plains have a history of hundreds or even thousands of years, most of them are still the national capital of a certain dynasty, the shape of the capital is symmetrical, the center is the imperial city or the official office, the households on both sides of the commercial hall are spread out in turn, and a huge city wall isolates farmland, pastures, military camps, etc. from the city. Guangyang is a big fortress, within the city wall there are only Youyan Wangfu, Youyan Road military and political yamen, money and grain weapons warehouse, Youyan Wang's direct army camp and playground, etc., residential shops are built according to the city wall, layer by layer. Zheng Rong often thought that if the Turks sent troops to attack Guangyang, although Guangyang could be defended, the nearby people lacked protection and would inevitably become a fish and meat; Therefore, in the past few years, he has accumulated money and grain, and is ready to build another city wall outside Guangyang City. However, the imperial court's finances were already stretched and unable to allocate funds, and only the local financial resources of Youyan needed to be saved for many years, but now they have finally accumulated almost enough, but they have sent 300,000 yuan to help Henan, so the matter of building the city can only be put on hold.

However, with the protection of King Youyan and his subordinate cadres, the people of Guangyang are not very worried about the safety of their families, and they inquired from afar that King Youyan finally returned to Beijing in March, and hundreds of people were waiting outside the four gates of Guangyang. However, with the experience of the last send-off, the people no longer carry wine and food, but only welcome them outside the door.

After thanking the people for their kindness, it was late at night when he entered the palace, and after a few bites of dinner in a hurry, Zheng Rong fell asleep and rested. At midnight the next day, Zheng Rong got up early, listened to the reports of Cui Nan and Wei Hu, had a hasty lunch, and began to deal with the backlog of copywriting that had been backlogged for several months. And so on for about ten days. When the affairs are cleaned up, it is already early winter, and it is necessary to go out of the customs and burn the grass.

The Turks grazed in the north, and in early winter everything was already bleak, and there was no forage for cattle and horses, while there were still abundant aquatic grasses near Youyan in the south. Although after Zheng Rong's several attacks, the Turks no longer dared to plunder southward and sought to open up mutual markets, but there were still small groups of Turkic herders who came to the vicinity of Youyan to raise cattle in early winter. In order to prevent the slightest slightness and prevent friction between the Han people and the Turkic herdsmen, Zheng Rong led his troops to harvest or burn the forage in the northern part of Youyan in early winter every year, which was also the time of rotation training every year.

Zheng Xin and Zheng Miao are over 20 years old, and since last year, Zheng Rong has taken them north to burn grass, but this year, in order to let the brothers have more contact with Qiu Yizhi, they let all four stay in the palace to study literature. This Zhongli Kuang was originally hired by the King of Youyan as a teacher, and it was his job to educate the prince, and he didn't need this powerless scholar when he went out to train the army, so he concentrated on teaching several princes in the palace.

Zhongli Kuang's teaching is different from other gentlemen, one does not scold, the other does not hit, after the designated range, students are free to read, after reading, if there is a question, it will undoubtedly pass. Princess Youyan is the daughter of a Confucian general in this dynasty, and her knowledge is not under ordinary scholars, seeing that Mr. teaches like this, she complained to her husband several times, but Zheng Rong didn't care at all, and let Zhongli Kuang teach.

Among the four students, Zheng Xin studied the most and worked hardest, and he was also a stable person, and most of the questions he asked were correct, and he never exceeded the etiquette of the saints; Zheng Sen values martial arts and light literature, and his learning is the worst among several people, but he never asks questions, and Zhong Li Kuang also goes with him; Zheng Miao is talented and talented, and her questions are often whimsical, but fortunately, Zhong Likuang is originally knowledgeable and knowledgeable, and he is not a rotten Confucian who is dead to study, otherwise he would have been annoyed by the question; Qiu Yizhi is the youngest, and his learning foundation is the worst, but his talent is above the other three, every time he reads a paragraph, he either doesn't ask, and if he wants to ask, he hits the nail on the head, Zhong Li Kuang loves and hates, sometimes likes and sometimes worries, although he answers, he always answers extremely hard, and he doesn't care if Yizhi can understand it or not.

During the break between classes, Zheng Xin and Zheng Sen were always together, not knowing what to talk about. Zheng Miao and Qiu Yizhi love to play together because of their similar age, but both of them want to follow their brother, but they are always thrown away by those two, which is quite interesting.

Zhong Likuang taught for about half a month, and then he was ordered to go to Zheng Rongjun. It turned out that when Zheng Rong led his troops to burn the grass, he ordered Wei Hu, the general of Zhengdong, to sit in Guangyang to defend, and ordered Cui Nan, the general of Zhengbei, to sweep as the vanguard, and he led the Chinese army to advance slowly. Unexpectedly, when Cui Nan inspected the camp overnight, he occasionally saw some lights in the distance, and he didn't ask King Youyan for advice, and directly led hundreds of cavalry to investigate. If you don't look at it, you can't see it, but it is actually a rather large Turkic camp, and there are hundreds of tents of all sizes, but there is not a single scout who is a sentry, as if it is defenseless. Cui Nan has always been good at raiding, and he must be thoughtful before attacking, and once he makes up his mind, he is indomitable, and he often makes outstanding contributions. This matter is strange, how dare General Cui slack off, so he sent a team of light horsemen to test it. Not wanting to have a single soldier to protect the huge camp, this cavalry captured all the people in the camp without any effort, and carefully counted more than 700 Turkic women, old and young.

This group of Turks of unknown origin has become a great trouble for Zheng Rong. There were people in Zheng Rong's army who understood Turkic dialect, and they asked and asked, but they only said what kind of Dali Khan's people were, and they couldn't ask anything else. However, in today's Mobei grassland, it is the Visimi Khan who dominates, and he has never heard of any Dali Khan. Zheng Rong couldn't do it, he couldn't let it go, and he couldn't kill it, so he had to invite Zhong Likuang from Guangyang to discuss it carefully.

Although Zhong Likuang was well-informed, he couldn't guess the identity of this group of Turks, so it was not easy to deal with them at will, so he suggested that all these people should be brought back to Guangyang, strictly controlled, and a few Turks who had surrendered to the Han Dynasty were sent to secretly investigate, and slowly find out the origin of these people. Zheng Rong felt that he had no choice but to do so, so he agreed.

This time it is busy Zhong Li Kuang. Although the Turks had a language, there was no written language, and the written records were all marked with Chinese characters to mark the Turkic pronunciation, and it was necessary to register the more than 700 Turks one by one, allocate shelters, arrange guard sergeants, and install detailed work.

When Zhong Likuang left Guangyang, he circled a stack of books for the four students to read. A few people began to read it seriously, and within a few days, they were released to Nanshan. Zheng Xin and Zheng Sen heard that their father had captured more than 700 Turks and returned, but they did not participate in the action. Qiu Yizhi had never seen what the Turks looked like, and he also encouraged Zheng Miao to find an opportunity to watch the excitement all day long.

In the afternoon of that day, the four brothers had lunch and studied in the school, and after reading a few pages, Zheng Xin and Zheng Sen left their books and went to the garden outside to discuss something. Zheng Miao Tongyi was the most naughty, quietly sneaked out of the study room, hid in the garden bushes step by step, and quietly eavesdropped on the conversation between the two brothers.

I only heard Zheng Sen say to Zheng Xin: "It is said that the seven hundred Turks captured by my father this time are of unknown origin, I don't know what my brother thinks?" ”

Zheng Xin touched the beard that was not thick in his jaw, and said: "Is this - there are more than 700 people in the camp, which is not a small tribe among the Turks, and my father will go out to burn grass regularly in the early winter every year, which is well known to the Turks, it stands to reason that such a large camp will not be set up on the front line, and the foolish brother really can't think of a reason." ”

"Hehe, my brother is too humble." Zheng Sen smiled, "Even Mr. Zhongli can't guess where they came from!" ”

Zheng Xin shook his head and sighed: "It's only because the foolish brother is a shallow learner, and he hasn't seen anything in the world, otherwise finding out the origin of this group of Turkic people and sharing the worries of his father will be considered filial piety!" ”

When Zheng Sen heard this, he suddenly smiled slyly and said, "The younger brother has a few friends in the Guangyang garrison, according to them, those Turks have been arranged by my father to work in the horse market, I wonder if my brother is interested in going to find out?" ”

The horse market in Guangyang is very open, except for the prohibition of carrying blades, anyone can patronize, but the fish and dragons are mixed, and the princess is afraid that a few children will have an accident, so she always does not let them go to the horse market to hang out. But now that there is a saying about sharing the worries of his father, even if the princess says it, it is inconvenient to scold. Thinking of this, Zheng Xin nodded and said, "Just take a look, but you have to be micro-obedient." ”

Zheng Sen said with a smile: "It's still my brother who thinks thoughtfully." ”

Yizhi, who was hiding on the side, heard clearly, and saw that the two of them got up to change their clothes, so they glared at Zheng Miao with their eyes, only to see Zheng Miao also looking at him with the same eyes, the two of them understood, and nodded vigorously at the same time, seeing that the two brothers walked away, they jumped out of the bushes and jumped up and down to change their clothes. The two boys were very fast, and they went out faster than the two brothers, so they hid aside, and when they saw that they had gone some distance, they followed not far away.

More than ten years ago, Guangyang was originally a border fortress, and there were no ordinary people except for a few listless frontier defenders. Since Zheng Rong took charge of Youyan, he has expanded the territory to the north, relocated the people in the mainland, and opened up the horse market to each other, turning an unknown place into a world-famous big city. At present, Guangyang alone has more than 300,000 residents, thousands of shops of various colors, an endless stream of people from various tribes who come to trade, and countless leather goods and medicinal materials sent to the interior, and its wealth is second only to Jiangnan.

Before Qiu Yizhi recognized Zheng Rong, the king of Youyan, as his father-in-law, he had never stepped out of Nanyang County, Dengzhou, Henan Province. Although Nanyang is also a land of fish and rice, it is a small place after all, how can it be as prosperous as Guangyang. The dazzling array of goods, the shouting of the south and the north, the rich aroma of barbecue snacks are refreshing, and even the puffs of smoke and dust raised by the cows, alpacas and horses are very different from other places. If it weren't for the fact that Zheng Xin and Zheng Sen had to follow closely in front of them, and they were afraid that they would get lost when they first arrived, Qiu Yizhi ran away early to see the excitement.

The horse market, which was exclusively for Turkic business, was of course different, in that it did not have a fixed shop like the Han Chinese, but instead set aside a pasture for the Turks to trade freely with their livestock. The nomads had nothing to do with them except for a handful of goods such as livestock, leather goods, and ginseng, but they needed ceramics, linen, tea, silk, etc., and even needlework, hemp rope, and salt had to be imported.

When the Turks were weak, they could only rely on selling their lives for the Tatars in exchange for something; After it is strong, it can send troops to attack the Han border and loot some utensils; In the last years of Han Chengzong, the Turks occupied thousands of hectares of fertile land in Hetao and plundered hundreds of thousands of people, but because they did not know how to cultivate, the Han people fled south, so they could only abandon the Hetao and return to grazing, and attacked the border every year as usual. Since Zheng Rongdu's military affairs against the Turks, the Turks' attacks on the Han Dynasty have become more and more difficult, and the things they have grabbed have become less and less, and the price paid has become higher and higher. However, Zheng Rong was relaxed and opened the mutual market at the right time, one to reduce the ambition of the Turks to go south, and the other to buy Turkic horses for his own use, so there is now a prosperous Guangyang City.