Siling patrol village is located in the southwest of Ruhe County sixty miles, just three forks of the road, the north is Guwanzhai (now Fusui), the southwest is the detention of Zhongzhou, belongs to the Taiping Village (now Chongzuo) jurisdiction. This small cottage surrounded by mountains is the key point, choking the passage of the county around the 100,000 mountains into Yongzhou.

There are sixty-seven soldiers stationed here, led by Zhu Zongping, who was born in the forbidden army, and the official is a third-class borrower of the miscellaneous ranks, and directly belongs to the name of the Ruhe County Commander Duan Fang.

Since May, Zhu Zongping has found that there are people who have set up stalls two miles outside the inspection village, and there are barbarians in the mountains and local natives, where they exchange goods. At first, he didn't care about the small number of people, but he didn't think that it would not be long before there were more and more people setting up stalls, and it developed to the point that there were people trading there every day.

The market for trading with barbarians is not opened casually, and if it is not handled properly, countless disputes will arise, and it must be ordered from above. At this time, the Great Song Dynasty could not talk about effective management of Yongzhou's subordinate prefectures at all, and was basically laissez-faire, as long as nothing happened. There is no official Boyi field, and the transactions between the two sides basically rely on the itinerant merchants who come and go.

Zhu Zongping's official position was low, and he didn't dare to be the master, so he hurriedly reported it. Duan Fang's answer was to let him leave it alone and let it develop naturally. Two days later, he even received a letter from the general judgment of the state, saying that it was a kind of folk grass market that was sold by small people, and that there was no exchange, and it was not counted if it was not levied according to the law, and he just needed to maintain order.

Shangguan can say it lightly, how can he dare to take this responsibility for a small inspection? Every day, I look at the grass market not far away in the inspection village, and the goods sold are becoming more and more miscellaneous, and I am worried.

It wasn't until one day that he saw the county lieutenant of this county, with more than a dozen people driving large boxes and small boxes of ox carts to trade with the barbarians, and he was very arrogant and didn't care, so he was relieved. The county lieutenant has done this, why did he do that with a small inspection?

The grass market on the edge of the inspection village is becoming more and more prosperous like blowing air.

Early in the morning of June 12, the sun on the horizon was still nesting under the mountain, just spitting out the glow to wipe the top of the mountain, and the hazy morning light and cool dew sprinkled with fresh breath on the sticky loess road.

Xu Ping rode a horse and walked on this path with Tan Hu and a few accompanying soldiers. At the back of the team, Gao Daquan led the horse with one foot high and one foot low, and immediately sat Xiuxiu, who looked around curiously.

couldn't walk much, Gao Daquan sighed: "Xiuxiu, what are you doing here?" We're not going to play, I'm going to patrol the grass market with the officials! ”

Xiuxiu pouted and said, "The grass market is full of barbarians selling things, how fun the things they sell!" There are also long-singing chickens, and there are emerald birds, and I heard that there are also little monkeys for sale, so of course I want to go and see them! Otherwise, when I return to the Central Plains in two years, Su'er asked me, Xiuxiu, you have been in Yongzhou with the officials for many years, and you have seen something that you can't see in the Central Plains? Did I tell her that we built a restaurant in Yongzhou City, just like Baisha Town, and sold liquor, and when we came to the countryside of Yongzhou, we opened up the land and planted rice in the same way as in the village? Then she can't laugh at me to death! ”

Gao Daquan smiled bitterly and shook his head: "Then you are riding an ox cart!" ”

"I've learned to ride a horse!" Xiuxiu said proudly, "It's all thanks to my good pony, I am familiar with it, and I learned it as soon as I got on this horse!" ”

"Then you still want me to hold you?"

Xiuxiu said: "Brother Gao, how did you learn to be lazy?" Look at the soldiers in front of you, they are walking on the road just like you, and they don't talk so much about you! ”

Gao Daquan only sighs, can this be compared? Xu Ping's treatment is higher than Tan Hu's, not to mention that he will reward him with something from time to time, Tan Hu's eyes are hot when he looks at it, who made him his own person who has been with Xu Ping for several years? But Tan Hu is riding a horse, why does he have to lead a horse for others when he is tall?

But he could only sigh. Xiuxiu, a little girl in her early tens, was thousands of miles away from home, and with Xu Ping coming to this miasma-ridden frontier, she didn't need Xu Ping to speak, others coaxed her as a little princess. What's more, since when he was in Zhongmu, Xiuxiu, who was in power, gave Gao Daquan a lot of benefits, what did he say.

The group set off before dawn, stepped on the dew in the grass, and finally came to the grass market at the edge of the inspection village before the sun came out of the mountain.

In a large open space, hundreds of people were scattered around, and all kinds of strange things were placed in front of those standing or squatting, and more people were carrying large bamboo baskets on their backs, slowly walking and watching.

There is no order here, where you can set up a stall where you fancy it, and you don't have to pay attention to the roadside or anything, it is chaotic, so that Xu Ping, who is used to an orderly society, shook his head.

Xiuxiu came to Xu Ping's side, looked around with a pair of eyes, and suddenly pointed to a place and shouted: "Official, look, there are little monkeys for sale there!" ”

Xu Ping glanced at it casually and suddenly froze. The little monkey in the cage turned out to be black all over, except for a handful of white hair on the top of its head.

This, this turned out to be the world's most endangered monkey in the textbooks of the previous life - the white-headed langur!

It seems that this place is the habitat of the white-headed langur, but of course it is still everywhere in this era, and it is not so noble as other monkeys.

Taking a breath, Xu Ping said to Xiuxiu: "What's so strange about monkeys, don't talk about it here, the corn planted in our vocational fields in Yongzhou has been trampled miserably by monkeys, and Li Lushen wants to raise a tiger to watch there." ”

"But that's a little black monkey! I've never seen it! Xiuxiu looked at Haoyuan intently and said, "The tiger eats people, and you scare me again!" ”

"Scaring you?" Xu Ping kept shaking his head, "I can tell you, no matter where you go, there are people around, and there are a lot of tigers around in recent days, and there are already tiger hunting rewards in the state!" ”

The tigers of this era are not lying in the zoo like Xu Ping in his previous life, but all over the country, not to mention this remote place surrounded by mountains. A few days ago, there was a tiger eating people more than ten miles away from Yongzhou City, and Cao Keming offered 20 rewards for Orion to hunt and kill, and the document was sent to Xu Ping to sign on the same day. There are so many tigers here in Ruhe County that the government can't afford to pay for it, so it doesn't matter.

Xiuxiu didn't care about that, looked at the little monkey and said to Xu Ping: "Official, let's buy that little monkey back, I'll take care of it, and when I return to the Central Plains, let Su'er look at it too." ”

"What are you thinking? The monkey could not be fed at all, and would die in a few days, and the barbarians would catch it and deceive people. Not to mention how cold it is in the Central Plains, this monkey froze to death all at once! ”

Where is Xiuxiu willing to believe, turned her head and ignored Xu Ping.

When Zhu Zongping was in the village, he saw Xu Ping and his party, and because there was a notice, he knew that his boss had arrived, so he hurriedly brought more than a dozen soldiers to greet him.

After coming up to see the ceremony, Xu Ping asked him: "Zhu Inspection, when will this grass market generally disperse?" ”

"Back to Shangguan, on normal days, the sun rises a pole high and disperses. Now that it's summer, the heat is too strong during the day, who can stand it? ”

Xu Ping nodded, the people in the mountains are scattered, and they have to walk dozens of miles to catch a market, and they can't go home when they are late and dark.

Getting off the horse, Xu Ping said to Zhu Xun: "You follow me to the grass market to have a look." ”

The raw barbarian vertebrae are on the left, which is obviously different from the Han people, and it can be seen at a glance. They are the main body of this grass market, accounting for seven or eight out of ten of the total number of people. Most of the others are familiar barbarians, and Han Chinese are extremely rare.

Xu Ping and his entourage were particularly conspicuous, and the official uniforms on their bodies showed their identity, and the people in the mountains avoided them far away when they saw them, and their eyes were full of vigilance.

During the Chunhua period of Taizong, Feng Zheng practiced the "Kuoding Law" when he was in Zhiduanzhou, and made the Dongman Tuding a household under the rule of the government, which aroused the vigilance of these natives. The household had to pay taxes and serve, and the boycotted chieftain took the opportunity to spread rumors, saying that the court taxes were terrible and frightened his subordinates.

Of course, the people who are not included in the national version are not free, they belong to all the large and small Xitong barbarian chieftains, and they have been slaves for generations. The fate of them and their descendants is completely controlled by their masters, and they are beaten and killed, and even the law cannot protect them, and their fate is even more tragic than that of the editors.

In contrast to the Dingkou under the control of the court of the household, the people under the chief of the mountain could not be controlled by the court, and it was called the family in the Song Dynasty. This is supposed to be the origin of the word jiading, indicating the last remnants of feudal serfdom in the barbarian region, these people were outside the law and different from the tribal slaves in the Han region before the Song dynasty. After the Song Dynasty, the dynasty family became a popular word, but it was just the reverse spread of barbarian culture, the resurgence of slavery among the Han people.

Xu Ping walked slowly, looking coldly at the barbarians around him. In the past few months, after hard work, he led people to plant more than 5,000 acres of sugarcane, more than 1,200 acres of rice, and also opened a lot of mountainous land, preparing to wait for all the corn in the Yongzhou vocational field to mature and use it as seeds, and fill the mountainous land with corn and sweet potatoes.

However, at this time, his plan encountered the biggest problem, Yongzhou was short of manpower. Only the agglomeration of the population can form economies of scale, but Yongzhou, which is vast and sparsely populated, does not have this condition, and Xu Ping cannot wait for the current people to have children slowly, so he naturally hits the idea on the barbarians in the surrounding mountains.

Feng Zheng did it in Duanzhou, and he Xu Ping could do it in Yongzhou, but the power of the surrounding chieftains was huge, and none of them had the same consciousness as Huang Tianbiao, so they could only think about it in the long run.

There are a few stalls in the grass market with a lot of people, without exception, all of them are Huang Tianbiao's original clansmen, selling two products, a large brick tea and a jar of chopped pepper. These two products have opened up the market in the surrounding area, and they happen to be perfectly integrated into the life of the mountain people and have become hot sellers.

After taking over this messenger from Xu Ping, Huang Tianbiao understood the truth of businessmen at once, and combined officials and businessmen without a teacher, and became a second-class dealer. Wholesaled the goods from Xu Ping and distributed them to his clansmen to sell, he sat on the ground to collect money, and recently he had a very good time, and he no longer coveted Gao Daquan and Tan Hu to make more money, and invited guests from time to time.

Just as Xu Ping was walking and thinking, suddenly a businessman in the crowd who was buying goods approached, gave Xu Ping a deep salute, and said in surprise: "The student has seen the general judgment, I really didn't expect to meet here!" ”

Xu Ping looked up and saw that it was the same Li Anren he met when Yuxian Building opened a few months ago, and he was looking at him with surprise and an eager look on his face.

After Li Anren and Li Xin were taken away that day, they were both interrogated by Cao Zhizhou, and Xu Ping was not involved, so he didn't know what happened next.

I didn't expect to meet here, Xu Ping asked him with a smile: "It turned out to be you, how did you get here?" ”

Li Anren said: "The student is a businessman, and the newly opened grass market here has complete goods, and you can make a lot of money by transporting them to the mountains, so of course you come here to buy goods." But I didn't expect that the general judge would come to patrol. ”

Xu Ping looked at him, and then looked behind him, five or six Dali horses, and a few retinues were carrying goods to the horses, most of them were brick tea, mixed with straw bundles of chopped peppers.

Xu Ping had an image in his mind of the later generations - the horse gang on the Ancient Tea Horse Road. Unexpectedly, Li Anren was such an identity, trading with barbarians, he must have a good relationship with the barbarian chiefs, no wonder he would take Li Xin to Yongzhou to play.

Nodding, Xu Ping said meaningfully to Li Anren: "You were originally doing this business, okay, follow me to see this grass market, and then sit in the inspection village, I have something to say to you." ”

Li Anren bowed with joy on his face: "Obey the instructions of the general judgment!" ”