"Official, that young man should also be here to take the Yuntai Academy, right?"

Ximen Qing smiled and said to Wu Haogu: "Why don't you let people go to the police patrol to get their case book, see who the white-clothed young man is, and then recruit him to the palace." ”

"No need." When Wu Haogu said this, he didn't expect that the person he met today was Yelu Dashi. "If you have the ability, you will definitely be able to pass the exam...... It's not hard to get into. ”

The enrollment requirements of the two Yuntai Academy Palaces are actually very low - the future millennium university is not very popular in this era! Don't look at Su Dongpo's fame, but his knowledge is not obvious at the moment. This is not required for the imperial examination, and the standard of the imperial examination is still Wang Anshi's new learning.

As for the positivism and the way of nature proposed by Wu Haogu, they haven't even been on the table yet!

Otherwise, Wu Haogu would not have been in a hurry to open a branch here in Jiehe Shang City, and also recruit students from the Liao Kingdom for free—all of which were laying the foundation for the upcoming school struggle and the spread of Confucianism.

"Let's go," Wu Haogu said with a smile, "Eldest sister, let's go to Ma Zhi's Zhuangzi today, he should come from Xijin Mansion today, right?" ”

Ximen Qing nodded and said, "Ma Erbo arrived last night, and he should be in his village today." ”

"Okay, let's go talk and be a villain."

Ma Zhi was also very busy during this time, and his uncle Ma Renwang was ordered to assist the three brothers Xiao Baoxian, Xiao Fengxian and Xiao Sixian to arrest the sinners who had participated in the persecution of the Great Filial Piety Emperor (Yelu Yanxi's father) and Xuanyi Empress Xiao Guanyin. Ma Zhi waited for the list sent by his uncle here in Xijin Mansion, and arrested people as soon as he got the list. Dozens of sinners have been caught, and many more have been informed and have taken refuge in Jiehe Commercial Market.

Ma Zhi, who can also be regarded as an account, finally got free, so he left Xijin Mansion City, which was panicked because of the large-scale raid, and arrived at his fort in the north of Jiehe Shang City.

The fort was built just this year, right next to the northern border of the merchant market, and also guards the avenue. It was also built tall and sturdy, and a large number of red bricks were used to wrap the rammed earth.

Such a fort dock naturally has a defensive function, nominally to defend the Song people on the south bank of the Jiehe River, but in fact it is an important branch of the north city of Jiehe Shang City. It can be used to shield the north side of the northern part of the shopping market.

Wu Haogu and Ximen Qing took dozens of horsemen with their retinue - mainly the children of the Ximen family, the Murong family and the Chai family, Wu Haogu also gave them land according to the standards of the imperial knights, and turned them into knights attached to the Shang City - and arrived outside Ma Zhi's fort.

The Ma family, who was on guard from a high place, had already discovered them, so when Wu Haogu arrived at the south gate of the fort, Ma Zhi had already taken his two sons, who looked less than ten years old, and two brocade-robed men of the same age as Wu Haogu followed, and stood at the open gate with a smile.

"Second Brother Ma," Wu Haogu got off the horse, laughed and went up, grabbed Ma Zhi's two outstretched arms, and shook them vigorously, "I really want to annoy my little brother." ”

"Wow!" Ma Zhi had already felt the strength of Wu Haogu's hands, and was surprised, "Da Lang, you haven't practiced kung fu these days, right?" ”

"That's," Wu Haogu smiled, "I'm the military attache of the Great Song Dynasty now, or with the emperor, I have to have two hits, right?" ”

Wu Haogu turned his gaze to the two dolls who followed Ma Zhi again, "These two should be Ling Lang, right?" ”

"Yan'er, Yun'er, come and meet Uncle Wu." Ma Zhi smiled and introduced his two sons, Ma Yan and Ma Yun, to Wu Haogu.

When the two tiger-headed boys heard this, they all respectfully saluted Wu Haogu and called them uncle. Ximen Qing, who was behind Wu Haogu, probably knew that Xiao Langjun of the Ma family was coming, and he had already prepared the gift money for the meeting. It was not a red envelope stuffed with a large denomination of personal friends, or a small string of copper coins, tied with a red rope, and handed to the two little Langjun of the Ma family with a smile.

"Da Lang, let me introduce you to the two Yanzhong heroes." Ma Zhi then introduced the two brocade-robed men behind him to Wu Haogu.

"This is Wuqing Liu Fan, this Wuqing Li Zheng, they are all good men with you and me!"

Of course, there are many heroes of the Han people in Yandi who have their hearts towards the Great Song Dynasty, and the Liao State pursues the world election system, and it is a wealthy family like the Yan Sijia that is supported, for the ordinary Yanyun Han people, there is no way out except for being oppressed by a wealthy family like the Yan Sijia and the Khitan people.

Therefore, in the chaos at the end of Liao, the people who were not Yanyun launched a riot, broke away from the control of the wealthy families, and surrendered to the Great Song Dynasty.

Nowadays, among the Liao people who are attracted by the Jiehe Commercial Market, a considerable number of them are the fleeing tribes of the commoners and even wealthy families in Yandi, and the merchants who originally traded in the city of Xijin Mansion have now moved to the Jiehe Commercial Market in large numbers.

However, the two people that Ma Zhi introduced to Wu Haogu were not businessmen who were preparing to move south to Jiehe Shang City, but Ma Zhi's newly acquired backbone retainers. Now Ma Zhi's life trajectory has also changed because of the appearance of Wu Haogu. is no longer a child of the unpopular medical witch Lushan Ma family, but took the opportunity to participate in the Jiehe Commercial Market and became Xiao Baoxian's cronies.

The current Emperor of Da Liao has no team, and the three brothers of the queen who can really be relied on around him are Xiao Baoxian, Xiao Fengxian and Xiao Sixian.

became Xiao Baoxian's cronies, Ma Zhi naturally had more room to exert himself, and he was able to operate a manor fort in Wuqing County, Liao State, north of the Jiehe River, and establish a private army of the family - this is not the fort and private army of the Ma family in Yiwu Lushan Mountain, but Ma Zhi's own strength!

And Liu Fan and Li Zheng, most of them are local tyrants in Wuqing County, and they are now used by Ma Zhi.

……

"Second Brother Ma, your city is really good!"

Accompanied by Ma Zhi and Ximen Qing, Wu Haogu had already ascended to the head of Majiabaowu. On the side of the Liao State, it is not a matter of the big clans to build cities privately. The so-called military state under the head is built by private individuals, and after it becomes bigger, the imperial court will give it a military state number, which is considered the territory of the country, but the lord of the military state under the head is hereditary and reckless.

And Ma Zhi in the south of Wuqing County built this private city, is even more solid and abnormal, the city wall is about three zhang high, a water of red brick wrapping, the north and south two city gates are also built to cover the corner tower convex wall, outside the city there is a half-dug ditch, it looks deep and wide.

Although the area of the castle is not large, it is fully equipped, with buildings, warehouses, stables, school yards, and handicraft workshops.

Ma Zhi was also proud, leaning on a battlement, touching his beloved city wall with his hand, and grinning: "Da Lang, not to mention a certain city in Liao, even in the Great Song Dynasty, it can be regarded as a number of strong cities...... Two years ago, I couldn't have imagined that there would be such a city. ”

Two years ago, there were no red bricks and boundary river marl - the boundary river marl was ground and calcined with lime and clay, and then mixed with broken bricks and ground together, and then mixed with water, glutinous rice juice and sand to stir evenly. It can be regarded as the earthen cement jointly invented by Wu Haogu, Huang Shilang and some other craftsmen. The quality is actually not good, but it is still much stronger than the original Sanhe soil, and the city built with red bricks is indeed a rare strong city in the world.

"The land around this city has also been attached to Second Brother Ma?"

Wu Haogu stood at another battlement and looked north. At this time, the winter sun is sprinkled from the west, covering the rivers and plains in front of you with a warm layer of gold.

The Liao land north of the boundary river is slightly more prosperous than the Song land south of the boundary river, and you can see many small wall dock fortresses, but as far as the eye can see, there is no one that can be compared with the fortress of Ma Zhi.

Ma Zhi laughed when he heard this, and said proudly: "The land on which the castle was built, as well as the surrounding tens of thousands of acres, were originally owned by other families, and they were sold at a high price. After this city was raised, there were still many local tyrants who came to join it, and now half of Wuqing can be said to be Ma someone's territory.

A certain selected 1,000 strong men from those local tyrants' homes, moved into this city with his family, and handed them over to Liu Fan and Li Zheng for training, which is considered to have some strength. In another two or three years, when a certain family has trained these thousand people, they can go to Suzhou to seek the dispatch of the envoy of the Anfu Army. ”

It turns out that Ma Zhi is also building his own private army!

However, his progress is much faster than that of Wu Haogu! Because the land of Yanyun under the rule of the Liao State was the foundation of the manor system, large and small manors were all armed forces. And Ma Zhi is the son of Yan Yunshi's famous family, and he has won Xiao Baoxian's credit, and he has no shortage of appeal and power. Jiehe Shang City gave Ma Zhi the financial resources needed to build a castle and establish a private army, so that he could buy the small local tyrants in Wuqing County and use them for his own use. That's why thousands of strong men have been accumulated in a very short period of time. And these Han heroes are not from a big family, so they do not have a high degree of identification with the Khitan emperor, so Ma Zhi is the monarch they are loyal to.

With these thousands of private soldiers, Ma Zhi was able to further seek the status of the military state envoy. Otherwise, even if he buys a festival envoy through Xiao Baoxian's relationship, he will have no real power when he takes office.

In contrast, Wu Haogu's pace of building an army in Jiehe was much smaller. Although the knights of Northern Cangzhou were all managed by him with Murong Wangwu and Shi Guozhong, most of them were loyal to Song Huizong!

Even those knights of the Ximen family and the Chai family who are not listed in front of the palace and are privately recruited by Wu Haogu cannot be regarded as Wu Haogu's private army - the Song people's recognition of warlords is very low, not to mention Wu Haogu, even if they are figures like Yue Fei and Han Shizhong in history, they can't stand Zhao Gou's power reduction.

Therefore, if Wu Haogu wanted to build up his own strength, he had to find another way to build a new army that was completely different from any previous military model -- armed with the ideas of the Confucian positivists, determined to become benevolent for heaven and earth, to take righteousness for the people, to open up a peaceful armed doctor group for the holy road, and for the world.

This is a new type of soldier armed with ideas!