Ask Sword

  Chapter 52 Tour Guide

   "Why wait for Luan He in three mountains, this place is Yingzhou every year.

  Changan is just ahead. "

  The boy in gray who was in charge of entertaining the students to visit Chang'an took the lead with his chest up and proudly walked at the front of the line, followed by students from several prefectures such as Yunzhou, Xuanzhou, and Xiangzhou.

  Song Shaoyuan, Zhai Yiming and others looked up at the thick city wall that seemed to be towering into the sky in front of them, and expressed their admiration from the bottom of their hearts.

   "Scholars, please follow me. Our current location is Mingde Gate in the south of Chang'an."

  The gray-clothed boy named Wu Shiqi, like the tour guide in Li Ang's memory in another world, smiled and led the students from various states to the mainland, standing in the queue leading to the gate of the tower.

  The population of Chang'an can reach 3 million, and a large number of envoys, officials, businessmen, farmers, and laborers need to enter and leave the city every day.

  It is only the beginning of the morning (seven o'clock in the morning), and there are long queues on the roads of the gates of the towers, and as time goes by, the queues continue to grow.

"The overall shape of Chang'an City is a square. There are three gates on each of the four sides of the southeast, north, and west. The north is Guanghua Gate, Jingyao Gate, and Fanglin Gate. The east is Tonghua Gate, Chunming Gate, and Yanxing Gate. The west is Kaiyuan Gate, Jinguangmen and Yanpingmen. To the south are Anhuamen, Mingdemen and Qixiamen.

  The six avenues connected by twelve city gates are the main traffic arteries of Chang'an City.

During the reign of Yongchang, the Holy Queen planned to open a few more gates on the city wall to ease the daily transportation pressure in and out of Chang'an, but this resolution was rejected by the three provinces on the grounds that the school optimized the procedures for entering the city, so there is no need to As before, hundreds of soldiers are required to take turns guarding the gates of the city, and carefully unpack the packages of every person entering the city."

  Accompanied by Wu Shiqi's tour guide's explanation, the speed of the queue gradually accelerated,

   Soon Li Ang saw under Mingde's gate, sitting behind the guardrail, the soldiers in strong and sharp clothes, and the hounds they were leading.

   Those who want to enter the city, whether they are envoys, officials, merchants, or farmers, need to walk up to the soldiers, and let the hounds carefully sniff their clothes and luggage.

  If the hounds do not bark at all, they can pass quickly,

  And if the hound barks, the soldiers will stop it and open the package for careful inspection.

   "Those hounds were raised by Zhenfu Sizhong's family."

  Wu Shiqi said with a smile: "In the pre-Sui period, their family had a Xuegong Shanzhang, and since then they have been raising various breeds of hounds for the royal family and the Xuegong.

  From the palm-sized, teapot-like pug,

  To a blood-seeking mastiff that is as tall as a person and can tear tigers and leopards apart,

  The fine dogs used by Lianzhen Fusi and local government offices to track bandits were also bred by them in a special way.

   Every hunting dog bred by the Zhong family has a booklet, which records in detail the dog's pedigree and the various training procedures it has received.

  Such as tracking wild animals, trekking long distances,

   Or understand the instructions, guide the blind to go out,

  Or sniffing the smell, helping the governor to catch the bad guys, and helping the hostess catch the husband's mistress. "

  Wu Shiqi curled his lips playfully, and said with a smile: "I don't know how many officials and wealthy businessmen are chased out of Pingkangfang by Fulin dogs every year."

  What is Pingkangfang?

  The female students in the crowd also had bright eyes, and it seemed that they wanted to raise an almighty hound to identify scumbags and beat up mistresses.

   "However, although there are many dog ​​businesses in the world, only the Zhong family is the best. Without the family registration book stamped by the Zhong family, a dog is just a dog and cannot be counted as a hunting dog.

  The price of each hound produced by the Zhong family is more than a thousand,

  Those that can sniff and track scents over long distances are not for sale, and cannot be bought through ordinary channels. "

  Wu Shiqi added with a smile: "Of course, you are all elite scholars, and you will definitely be admitted to the academy. By then, you will be classmates with the Zhong family's children. It is not a problem to ask for a hunting dog."

   "One thousand strings"

   Li Ang in the crowd clicked his tongue. All his possessions are only four hundred and ninety pennies now, and he can't even afford a half-price Zhong family hound.

   "With a thousand pens, you can buy ten ordinary houses in Weizhou."

Chai Cuiqiao on the side was also stunned and said, "How many single-cage golden milk crisps, manduo-shaped pancakes, Jushengnu, imperial concubine red, Brahman light high noodles, royal yellow queen mother rice, long-lived porridge, and Shengjin can be bought here?" Duck flower soup cake."

   "Would you like to put the name of the dish here?"

   Li Ang rolled his eyes, "I'm not full for breakfast."

   "Breakfast is over, don't we have to have lunch now?"

  Chai Cuiqiao said seriously: "I haven't eaten for half an hour."

   "Wu Shiqi, it's so early today?"

  The soldiers guarding the Mingde Gate knew Wu Shiqi, and asked with a smile, "Are you bringing the school candidate You Chang'an?"

"yes."

  Wu Shiqi clapped his hands and smiled cautiously, turned sideways, and asked Song Shaoyuan and other students from various states to step forward, and took out paper documents such as the pass (equivalent to a pass) to verify their identities.

"Um?"

  Li Ang raised his eyebrows in a little surprise. When Wu Shiqi cupped his hands just now, there seemed to be a cyan tattoo on the skin of his arm under the cuff.

   Member of the gang?

  Although the tour guide was not directly sent by the Academy, but a department under the Taichang Temple that assists the admission of the Academy, but a member of the gang was sent here.

   Forget it, it’s not an important thing anyway. Snakes have snake paths, rats have rat paths.

   Li Ang didn't think about it for too long, and followed Song Shaoyuan and others to go forward.

  Just like the security check at a traffic station in a different world, everyone untied the iron tools they carried with them in advance, especially the saber and dagger, and sniffed them one by one through the hounds.

  When it arrived at Li Ang, the black and orange hound squatted on the ground, hesitated for a moment, and barked at the medicine box beside Li Ang's waist.

"Um?"

  The soldiers at the city gate looked over, "Xiao Langjun, you are in this box"

   "Oh sorry, almost forgot."

  Li Ang opened the medicine box and showed the surgical knives inside, "This is a doctor, and these are my medical equipment in the box."

   "Knife, silver needle, and silver thread?"

  A soldier curiously picked up the strange-looking silver midwifery forceps from the medicine box, "What is this?"

   "Don't move around."

  The leading sergeant frowned and reprimanded his subordinates, "If it is not contraband such as steel armor, bow and crossbow parts, or fuel for fireworks and firecrackers, you can let it go. The team behind is still waiting."

   "Yes, Captain!"

  The young soldier was so frightened that he quickly put the forceps back into the medicine box carefully, and stepped back half a step to let Li Ang and Chai Cuiqiao pass.

   It's pretty strict.

  Li Ang and Chai Cuiqiao walked through the city gate, and the moment they passed the city gate, they had the illusion of being drenched by rain.

"Um?"

  Li Ang looked up at the top of the city cave, only seeing thick and dark bricks and stones.

  Chang’an’s city defense system does not seem to consist of only city guards and Zhenfu department hounds.

   "Thousands of houses are like a chess board, and Twelfth Street is like a vegetable pit"

  Amidst Wu Shiqi's explanation, the students officially stepped into the most powerful city in the world.

  Chang’an City is like a huge chessboard, with straight and wide streets from north to south and from east to west, dividing the city into hundreds of rectangular areas.

  Each area is surrounded by walls, with houses and buildings inside, thus forming an independent residential community, which is the "fang" of "one hundred and eight squares".

  Standing at the entrance of Mingdemen, Yongyangfang, Zhaoxingfang, and Daanfang are on the left, Zhuquemen in the imperial city is farthest in front, and Tongjifang and Quchifang are on the right.

   "The right side of Quchifang is Qujiang Pond, one of the two major tourist areas in Chang'an."

  Wu Shiqi walked at the front of the team and introduced: "Every spring and autumn season, the residents of the city compete to swim in the Qujiang Pond. The so-called 'colorful tents and emeralds line the embankment, fresh cars and horses, shoulder to shoulder',

  The noble families travel with their families. When they are playing, they will also pay attention to the outstanding young people in the past, and find a partner for the daughter who is waiting for her.

  The setting sun makes Chang’an move, and thousands of horseshoes are flying on Moshang.”

  Wu Shiqi is articulate and clearly enunciating words. Obviously, this passage has been read many times to students from all walks of life every year.

  Under his leadership, students from Weizhou, Xuanzhou, Xiangzhou and other prefectures first went to Qujiang Pond for a stroll, then circled Qinglongfang and headed north.

   Along the way, everyone saw a large number of Hu people with different skin colors and eye colors, as well as temples with completely different styles.

  Buddhist temples, jacket temples, Taoist temples, Persian temples and other temples are harmoniously co-located in a square city, with constant singing and prayer sounds, as well as a strong smell of incense.

  Whether it is Wushiqi or students from various states, it is not surprising that this is not surprising. The Haotian Daomen, located in Taihao Mountain in the northwest of Xijing, is a religion that is commonly believed in by all countries in the world.

  However, under Haotian Daomen, various sects are still allowed to develop—as long as they follow Haotian’s teachings, agree that Haotian rules everything in the world, and recognize that the sages of various sects are just messengers sent by Haotian to the world.

  Haotian is not a person or a **** with independent will,

  Haotian dominates and masters everything. Ordinary people cannot understand and will never be able to understand. All you need to do is to believe in and be grateful for everything Haotian brings.

   This is the consensus of almost all Yu people, and even the people of the world. It has been so for thousands of years, and gradually no one asks the reason.

   It is under such constraints that Buddhist temples, jacket temples, Persian temples and other temples can coexist harmoniously—at least on the surface.

  When those believers go out to fetch water, they will smile and greet each other when they see each other.

  But as soon as he turned his face away, he remained expressionless, and silently quickened his pace.

  Wu Shiqi led the curious crowd across the Ao Temple in Jinggongfang and came to Dongshi.

  This is the largest centralized market in Quanchang’an and even in the whole world. There are countless shops, a wide variety of goods, and people with different accents shouting loudly and crowding shoulder to shoulder.

   "Students, stand a little closer. Although Chang'an has good public security, there are many barbarians in Dongshi, and it is inevitable that good and bad will be mixed up. It would be bad if things were taken along."

  Wu Shiqi led the students from the next week, passing by the edge of the East City, but did not formally go in, which disappointed many students.

  They were not disappointed because they didn’t see the wide variety of luxury goods or delicacies,

   It was because I missed Orchid holding a drink at the door of the restaurant.

  Those blond-haired, blue-eyed, high-nosed Hu women, dressed in elegant clothes, spoke with an authentic Chang'an accent, and attracted customers with wine, attracting the attention of the students.

   "Orchid wine as the base, long white nose, picking lotus and throwing it on the water, Lang intends to float flowers."

  Wu Shiqi smiled and said: "The wine shops opened by barbarians mainly sell wine, and Li Taibai, the poet and sword fairy of this dynasty, likes to hang out with them the most."

   "Where can we say goodbye, Chang'an Qingqimen. Orchids recruit plain hands, Yanke drunk golden cups."

   Song Shaoyuan didn't have time to think, and read out Li Taibai's "Two Poems of Sending Eighteen Pictures of Pei to the South to Songshan".

   "Exactly, scholars are highly talented."

  Wu Shiqi nodded slightly in surprise, and introduced: "However, Chang'an has a custom of giving tips when going in and out of restaurants, and when facing orchids, the tips are often more—you can't let people take it lightly.

  Therefore, only aristocratic teenagers will continue to patronize the wine shop where Orchid is waving to serve wine. "

   "They are also a group of poor people."

  Different from the fascinated scholars, Ji Linglang, who was standing among the female students, frowned slightly, and sighed: "I want to go to a foreign country and force a laugh in a wine shop."

   "Who isn't."

  The loneliness in Wu Shiqi's eyes was fleeting, and in the blink of an eye, he regained his attitude as a professional tour guide, and said with a smile: "Everyone, please follow me, Pingkangfang is to the west of Dongshi."

  The eyes of the scholars lit up, and they quickened their pace silently under the disdainful eyes of the female classmates. Ji Linglang sighed helplessly, feeling helpless for the honesty of the fellow students.

  She turned her gaze, but saw Li Ang and Chai Cuiqiao walking at the end of the crowd, not looking at Pingkangfang, but standing in front of a building.

  The people of Yanzhou finally have someone reliable.

  Ji Linglang smiled and asked, "Risheng, what are you looking at?"

"ah?"

   Li Ang turned his head and replied casually: "I'm looking at the sickroom inside."

  Pail, or sad field sickhouse, is the product that is closest to the concept of hospital in this era.

  (end of this chapter)