A group of more than a dozen people went out of the city gate, got on the official road to Luoyang, and galloped on horseback. The pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info galloping on the official road, blowing a cool wind in the face, with the vitality of spring, which is refreshing.

Xu Ping has been busy for several months, and today he is relaxed, especially happy, seeing that there are few pedestrians on the road, he urges the horse to gallop, and the wind generally goes westward.

The horses of the Xu family are good, and others still feel fun at the beginning, so they run out of more than a dozen roads in one go, and the horse that stepped down gasped for breath, so they didn't dare to be temperamental, and the speed gradually slowed down. Especially Wang Gongchen and Ouyang Xiu, they don't have horses, they ride the horses of Xu Ping's family, and they don't know whether to give them to themselves or lend them to themselves, so they cherish their horsepower even more.

Away from everyone, and even the soldiers with him were left behind, Xu Ping slowed down, chose a high open place on the side of the road, and stopped to wait for everyone.

There were few boats in the Bianhe River not far away, and they slowly approached with their sails open. Farther north is the continuous Taihang Mountain, and on the other side of the mountain is the hinterland of Hedong Road.

This is the Central Plains, a splendid land, not the distant miasma township of Yongzhou, but looking at it on all sides, it is still a series of mountains. Xu Ping didn't know if there was a truly endless wilderness in this world, anyway, he hadn't seen it, in this land where he had lived for generations, standing on the mountain, there were higher mountains in the distance, standing on the flat ground, surrounded by mountains.

Perhaps one day, he will be able to step out of this heavy mountain range and find the plains as far as the eye can see.

I don't know how long I waited, and then the others caught up.

Wang Gongchen saw that Xu Ping's horse ran so far and was still very powerful, and couldn't help but praise: "It is said that the horses raised in the deputy envoy Zhongmu Zhuang are good, and Kaifeng City doesn't feel it, and it will be obvious when he runs out of the city." We couldn't even see your shadow just now, but the horse looks like it hasn't run away yet. ”

Xu Ping said with a smile: "This is bred with Qingtang horses, which is naturally not comparable to ordinary horses." But riding in the capital every day, without its opportunity to have fun, it is almost useless. Let's go, hurry to the village, and you can also pick a good horse to ride. ”

Xu Ping stepped off this horse, if it was sold in Kaifeng City, it would be worth two or three hundred yuan. However, Xu Ping did not have the habit of collecting good horses like many rich and high-ranking officials, and he didn't cherish them very much, just as an ordinary mount, riding up and down.

At this time, the horse was like Xu Ping's car in his previous life, the richer the more he paid attention to riding a good horse, and the more he could sell it for a price. Xu Pingzhuang sells nearly 100 horses every year, basically no less than 100 yuan, and is one of the big horse dealers in Kaifeng Prefecture.

There was no word all the way, and when the sun was about to set, everyone finally arrived outside the grange.

After so many years, Xujiazhuang has become a small village nearby, and many villagers have become tenants, scattered around Zhuangzi in twos and threes. The Xu family's large courtyard has also expanded a little, and there are still more than 200 villagers in it at this time.

According to Xu Ping's idea, it is naturally not as efficient as renting out the fields to be cultivated together, but whether it is Xu Chang or Lu Song, who is now in charge of the village, they can directly manage these two hundred people, and they will not be busy with all kinds of miscellaneous things. Xu Ping couldn't manage it directly, so he could only increase the number of tenants year by year.

Lu Song had already been waiting at Zhuangkou, and when he saw Xu Ping and his party coming, he hurriedly stepped forward to salute and grabbed Xu Ping's horse.

led by Lu Song to move forward, and it didn't take long for him to enter the village.

Since Xu Ping came back, this Zhuangzi has grown a lot, neat and orderly, and lively. Wang Gongchen and Ouyang Xiu and others who followed behind were stunned, they had also been to the wealthy compound, especially Qian Weiyan's garden in Luoyang, which occupied a vast area and was very luxuriously repaired, but it did not have the grandeur of this grange.

To put it bluntly, those gardens are for people to play, and Xu Ping is mainly for farming, farming, forestry, animal husbandry, and fishery in an all-round way, with thousands of hectares of land behind it. The momentum of the production manor is naturally not comparable to the consumption of the garden.

Everyone dismounted, let Zhuang Ke lead the horse to the stable, and followed Xu Ping into the compound.

At this time, it is the busy season of spring, and only the women and children are busy with housework in the courtyard, and the young people are still in the fields. There were more than a dozen yellow dogs lying on their stomachs in the yard, all of which were raised by the villagers, and they rolled their eyes carelessly when they saw strangers coming.

There are no chickens and ducks that are common in the usual farm yards, and the livestock and poultry are kept elsewhere so as not to make the yard dirty and messy. There is no shortage of land in the village, and all of them are their own people, and they are not afraid of getting lost.

Lu Song said: "The officials and guests will sit in the courtyard first, and after a while, the villagers will get off work, and then send you to the garden to rest, it is still too chaotic here." ”

Xu Ping looked at the busy people around him and said, "It's okay, you let people serve a few bowls of tea, everyone is thirsty on the road, moisten your throat first." ”

The chairs had already been set up in the courtyard, and Xu Ping led everyone to sit down and drink tea slowly.

While everyone was looking curiously at this rare farmhouse scene, there was a dog barking outside the door, low and majestic. The sound was obviously different from that of a normal dog, and it only barked a few times before it stopped abruptly. The dozen or so yellow dogs in the yard were obviously frightened by this sound, and they all involuntarily shrunk into a ball.

After a while, I saw a black cloud rolling from the ground and pouring into the door, expanding and shrinking.

Ouyang Xiu was startled, and when he looked at it again, he found that it was more than a dozen thin dogs, with black fur, slender limbs, extremely thin waists, and bright eyes.

Seeing this, Ouyang Xiu let out a breath and said, "Good livestock!" ”

Leading the thin dog was four or five Zhuang guests, and there was a man standing in the middle with a roe deer in his hand, and when he saw Xu Ping and a group of officials, he shouted loudly: "The officials have brought the guests?" I took someone to hunt a few roe rabbits and came back to eat! ”

Xu Ping saw that it was Sun Qilang and said: "There are cattle and sheep in the village, what kind of roe rabbit to eat!" Get these dogs away and don't bump into the guests! The people who came here today are scribes, not rough people like you! ”

Walking horses and fighting dogs, this is Sun Qilang's life. gave him a petty official in the capital, but he couldn't tie his heart, as long as he had free time, he ran back to Zhongmu, and even his home was always in Zhongmu, and he didn't move to the city.

These dozen or so fine dogs were raised in the village by Sun Qilang after Xu Ping went to Lingnan, and they were very easy to use, as long as they were led to go around the fields, they never came back empty-handed.

The thin dog is a native Chinese hunting dog, with long legs and a thin waist, and a very graceful body shape, running like flying in the wilderness. In Xu Ping's previous life, this kind of dog folk was no longer common, and he was curious for a long time when he first saw it. If you think about it carefully, it seems that the barking dog of the legendary Erlang God is like this, but it is too small in the general painting of the previous life, like a pug.

Sun Qilang saw that several civil officials sitting next to Xu Ping were a little afraid of these dozen or so dogs, so he hurriedly confessed and ordered his subordinate Zhuang Ke to lead them to the dog shed. Then he strode forward, threw the roe deer in his hand on the ground, and bowed his hand to everyone: "In Xia Sun Qilang, as an idle official serving in the third class, he lives in Zhuangzi every day, and has seen all officials!" (To be continued.) )