Chapter 802 Farewell

Chapter 802 Farewell

Chapter 802 Farewell
When Yu Mie left the capital, Shao Xun brought Princess Yu Wenjun, Prime Minister Yu Chen and others to see him off.

As a relatively good talent among the second generation of the Yu family, Yu Mie's journey was not easy.

Because their father gave up his official career too early, they brothers started taking care of livestock when they were young. When they were a little older, they learned to read and write with their mother while also working in the fields.

If there are foreign enemies invading, we must follow the people of the fort and fight them with weapons.

To be honest, he has never had a good life. Even now, he is still dependent on Yu Chen's family, regards them as his master, and works together for the prosperity of the Yu family.

This mission is it.

However, he also thought clearly that without Yu Chen and Yu Liang, father and son, his career would not be smooth.

Some of the Yingchuan nobles thought that if Yu Liang could not make it, they should change families. It can only be said that this was a helpless choice, and it was better not to do so, because these families lacked a key thing: the affection of King Liang.

Prince Liang knew Yu Chen and Yu Liang, father and son, very early on and they had a close relationship.

In addition, it is said that the King of Liang favors Mrs. Pei, but does the King of Liang really dislike Princess Yu? The truth may surprise you.

"Yuandu, be careful on the road." Yu Chen let go of his nephew's hand and warned him.

"Don't worry, uncle. I will not fail in my mission." Yu Mie said solemnly.

"Yuan Du." Shao Xun waved his hand.

"Your Majesty, Queen." Yu Mie walked over and saluted Shao Xun and Yu Wenjun.

"When we get there, find out more about the inside story and see how powerful the Helan tribe is and what Helan Aitou, Tuoba Yihuai and others think," Shao Xun said.

"Yes, sir." Yu Mie replied.

"Yuandu, don't try to act tough when you go there." Princess Yu Wenjun looked at Baba Rui and the others and said worriedly.

"Yes." Yu Mie replied expressionlessly.

Then he smiled bitterly in his heart, how could a diplomatic mission be so simple?

There are only a few occasions where the emperor can perform the ceremony in person, and one of them is when a minister is on a diplomatic mission to a foreign country, because this is an extremely dangerous action with too many unpredictable risks.

The princess did not understand, but the Prince of Liang did. However, the Prince of Liang only wanted to achieve his goal, and everything else was secondary, including his own life, Yu Mie.

After the farewell, Yu Mie and the Xianbei envoy mounted their horses and headed north under the escort of one hundred Yiyi army knights.

Shao Xun returned with Yu Wenjun and others.

Yu Wenjun is pregnant and will stay in the palace to recuperate.

Before her, Queen Hui Yang Xianrong was also pregnant.

For the entire month of April, Shao Xun would not go out and would spend most of his time handling government affairs in Guangji Hall and Jianshi Hall.

Tuoba Heli's envoys are still stranded in Pingyang.

They also came to ask for enthronement, not as Duke of Dai, but as King of Dai.

Moreover, Tuoba Heli did not put forward any conditions except not to violate the rules again, and he seemed very confident.

Shao Xun discussed with his staff and felt that Qi mother and son were not very eager to be enthroned. Although it would be good to get the title of King of Dai, it would be acceptable if they could not get it.

They might really be confident. After all, the fact that they were able to kill Tuoba Yulu itself explains a lot of things: although they have many opponents among the Suotou, they also have many supporters.

Shao Xun had no intention of conferring a title on Tuoba Heli to endorse his legitimacy. He received his envoys only to show his courtesy.

The Honglu Temple has received an order to find various excuses to detain He Li for a few months until there is news from Yixinshan and Daijun.

******
After Yu Mie and Helan Nugen went north, they stayed at a post station outside Yang County (near today's Hongdong County) in the evening.

When the post commander saw such a huge scene, he immediately complained: only a few hundred horses would eat most of the fodder they had stored.

Each post station has large tracts of arable land and grassland, which is a benefit for them.

Correspondingly, if you get benefits, you must assume obligations, such as entertaining business travelers according to certain standards and providing horse-changing services when necessary.

But there are too many people coming this time...

The officer in charge of escorting Yu Mie and the others was a junior officer of the Yicong Army named Duan Shaoyu. Upon seeing this, he handed over a document and said with a smile, "This is a post for the army, so don't send it out at the post station. The county will give you money, so just use this to ask for it."

Diedun or Dundi is a professional term, which originally meant a post station for resting. Over time, it evolved into the expenses that the local government needs to bear when a large army passes through.

One hundred cavalrymen escorted a delegation of nearly twenty people from both sides. The scale was not small and it was indeed not something that a small post station could afford. The expenses had to be paid by the county, so Duan Shaoyu got the corresponding documents before leaving, corresponding to the counties he would pass through.

But regulations are regulations and reality is reality, and the post commander still felt bitter: the county might not pay the full amount, and he might have to pay for it himself.

However, there was no need to tell this to Yu Mie and the others. In addition to calming down, he sent people to boil water, cook, and take care of the horses.

Helan Nugen stood beside the post road, silently looking at the farmlands in the distance.

That was the post station's farmland, which was about several hectares in size, spread across both sides of the Fen River and connected by a wooden bridge. Most of the people who cultivated the farmland were the families of the post station commanders and post station soldiers.

Outside the post fields, there are larger mountain forests and grasslands, where there are children grazing cattle and sheep - they are also the postmen's family members.

Nugen was not very interested in the post station system, although it was a very critical "infrastructure". He was more interested in the wheat growing well in the fields.

The main crop of the Tuoba Xianbei was millet, but that doesn't mean they didn't know other crops.

At least, in addition to millet, they also grow a small amount of foxtail millet and beans, and occasionally you can see people growing wheat, but it is very rare.

The Xianbei climate was bitterly cold, so they naturally planted spring wheat.

With Nugen's knowledge, he really didn't understand why the wheat planted in the spring would grow so tall and almost mature - unless, this was not spring.

Thinking about the lush crops I occasionally saw on the road when I arrived, I finally realized: these were planted in the second half of last year. After successfully surviving the cold winter, they are growing steadily and will be mature in more than a month.

May - Haha, in some colder places in Dai State, people start sowing millet in May. For example, on the southern foot of the Daqing Mountain, it takes ninety days to harvest.

In slightly warmer places, such as Shengle and Pingcheng, seeds are sown in April.

Further south, for example inside Yanmen Pass, seeds are sown in March.

The earliest sown millet takes four months to harvest, but it tastes good and produces high yield per mu.

If you sow the seeds the earliest, it will take more than a hundred days.

The latest sowing only takes ninety days, but the taste is the worst and the yield per mu is the lowest.

Yes, the same millet will have very different yields when sown in different places. In their long-term agricultural practice, the Tuoba Xianbei divided millet into three varieties: late-maturing, mid-late-maturing, and early-maturing, corresponding to different sowing seasons and growth periods.

They knew very well that the further south they went, the warmer it was, the higher the crop yields would be, and the more people they could feed, which was why they had to go south to Bingzhou.

Who doesn’t want good land? Not to mention farming, even grazing is far better than grassland, the difference is five or ten times.

After a rain in Luliang Mountains, the grass grew wildly.

There is little rain on the grassland, and the grass grows weakly.

This is the difference.

"The Daqing Mountains only start planting millet after the wheat harvest in May. If the people of Jin also planted millet, it would be feasible. Perhaps they could grow millet that grows for more than a hundred days, which is delicious." Nugen sighed softly, "It's too different. Fortunately, the people of Jin don't graze. If they also half-graze and half-cultivate, it would be too easy to cultivate the grassland. Uh, that is-"

"What are you looking at?" Yu Mie came over and took a closer look at the east bank of the Fen River before saying, "That is the Yongguang Mausoleum of Liu Han. Liu Yuanhai was buried here. There are dozens of families guarding the mausoleum. King Liang ordered them to cultivate the mausoleum fields and regularly sweep and repair the Yongguang Mausoleum."

"Why is it so?" Nugen was not actually looking at the mausoleum, but the group of people who were grazing on the east side of the mausoleum. However, he was also attracted by Yu Mie's words and asked casually.

"Liu Yuanhai is an old friend of King Liang." Yu Mie briefly explained, then pointed to the large farmland and grassland on the hills behind the mausoleum and said, "Those are the people of Yang County. If my guess is correct, they must be Di Qiang."

"In the past, Liu Can captured dozens of Di and Qiang chieftains and tortured them in various ways to falsely accuse Liu Yi. After the chieftains died, there were still tens of thousands of Di and Qiang people in Pingyang. King Liang gathered them together, registered them as households, distributed land, and half of them were herders and half were farmers, treating them like children."

"Your Highness has a really kind heart," Nugen praised.

Nugen knew that it was not so easy to register all citizens, especially for non-Han people.

Otherwise, why were the Xiongnu and Wuhuan who migrated inland during the Later Han and Cao Wei periods not registered as civilians? Wasn't it because they were afraid they would rebel?

It was only because these Di and Qiang chieftains were killed by Liu Can and lost their benefactors that there was no one to organize and call on them to rebel, which is why they were able to be incorporated into the population smoothly.

However, there are also many people in Bingzhou who are engaged in both herding and farming, so there must be a lot of horses raised.

These people have ridden horses since childhood and hunted from time to time. By the time they grow up, they have mastered various tricks. They can keep their body shape when going up and down the hill, shoot arrows and stab guns while standing or leaning sideways, ride bareback, and jump and change horses during a charge...

After they enlist in the army, they hardly need any training in riding and archery. They only need to practice a little with the spear and saber, but they may need to practice with the lance for a longer time.

What we practiced the most was probably discipline, as well as getting familiar with new fighting styles and sophisticated equipment.

If there were no such people, and if a farmer was pulled from the fields to be trained in cavalry warfare, it would only take Emperor Wu of Han's cavalry one year to go from not knowing how to ride a horse to being able to ride a horse, but it took them eight years to become proficient in cavalry warfare, which was really too expensive.

After defeating Shi Le and Liu Cong successively, Shao Xun was able to recruit more and more herdsmen cavalry. Although these herdsmen cavalry were definitely not as good as the Xianbei herdsmen in combat, they were enough to protect the infantry.

Yu Mie looked at Nugen quietly, probably knowing what he was thinking, and immediately sneered.

It would be good to let him see more along the way, so that he would not be confused about himself and make random demands after returning.

After resting for a night in Yang County, the delegation continued on its journey, passing through Yong'an and entering Guanjuejin to arrive in Jinyang.

At this time, they did not go north to Yanmen via Xinxing because it was too dangerous. Instead, they waited for ten days until hundreds of Xiongnu cavalry were sent from Dagancheng. Then they turned west, entered Kelan County, and headed north again.

Although the Qi family killed Tuoba Yulu in Shengle and the New Party controlled the power of Dai State, contrary to what most people imagine, there are a large number of Old Party tribes entrenched around Shengle, so it is safer to go there.

They stopped and walked along the way, and when they finally arrived at Yixin Mountain, it was already mid-May.

(End of this chapter)