Thirty miles east from Qingchai County, this place is called Sanpian. The terrain is flat and unobstructed, and it is connected in all directions. There is an official post station located right here, right in the middle of the three parallel lines.
Parallel means two horses driving abreast and one cart. As the name suggests, three parallel means driving six horses abreast. There is still no congestion on the road. This is enough to know that the official road here is flat and spacious.
The post station is divided into three parts: post, station and shop. A post station is a place reserved for reception and arranging the transportation of government materials, while a station is a place for transmitting important documents and military information. It has always been a place used by the military.
The delivery shop is responsible for the transmission of official documents and letters between cities and counties. All official documents are delivered by the delivery shop. The three perform their own duties and cover the entire area airtightly. During the war, battle reports were conveyed as quickly as possible, and horses were provided with water and fodder to eat. If the post envoy was exhausted, he would change the post envoy and rush to the next station.
In fact, upon closer inspection, the establishment of this post had already begun to take shape during the Daqi period. This was the time when the war was getting serious. Emperor Qi gathered the civil and military forces from the DPRK and China and came up with a clever plan after thinking hard for several days. The Qi State fell apart, but this post system has been used to this day and has not been replaced for a long time.
Military affairs were a top priority during the war. In those days, post stations were scarce and the distances between adjacent ones were too long. There were often tragedies in which post envoys and good horses ran away and died on the way. Later, it was convenient to set up many post stations in various places, firstly to reduce the loss of post envoys, and secondly to save horses.
Horses are hard to find, not because horses are worth thousands of gold, but because most of the best horses in the world come from the Yuan Dynasty, and horses from the Yuan Dynasty rarely leave the country, so they are valuable but not marketable.
Master Xun Yuantuo and Zhou Kefa drove away. Thirty miles out of Qingchai County, night began to fall. The two of them were also a little hungry, so they decided to rest for one night at Sanpian Station and start their journey again tomorrow. It is better to say that we are on the road than to see the customs and customs of various places and see the various aspects of people's livelihood in the world.
Now that the world is at peace, the rules of the inn have naturally changed a lot. Usually this inn welcomes people from the government and is rarely open to passing guests. If you really have nowhere to go, you can rest here for the night without having to worry about eating or drinking. Nowadays, unlike during the war, merchants and bodyguards will also receive guests. The price of a meal is fair, and there is no problem of gouging customers like other restaurants.
Where did Xun Yuantuo drive a carriage? Not only did the little girl have fine clothes and food, but she didn't even go out or take a step out, and even took a few rides. I could only watch as the gentleman neatly took off the yokes, tied the two horses to the hitching posts, and then He walked out of the carriage with a rather unnatural look on his face.
There is no reason in the world for the master to take action and the apprentice to sit back and enjoy the results. Mr. Xun blushed for the first time.
As soon as he blushed, a burst of laughter like silver bells came from the backyard of the inn, which was also mixed with a little shyness. Xun Yuantuo frowned, not because he was angry, but in the few years he had been in Qingchai, no one had ever dared to make fun of him in person, so he naturally didn't feel good about it for a while.
Mr. Xun asked toward the backyard, "Why are you laughing? Could it be that you are making fun of me?" At this time, through the dim twilight, he could see clearly that there were two girls on the wall of the backyard, holding up the wall with half of their heads exposed to look at him. At the moment, I felt a little ashamed, and it was childish talk. What's more, the person didn't say clearly that it was indeed impolite to ask such questions.
But before Mr. Xun could apologize, the door of the inn was already wide open. Before anyone arrived, the woman could be heard scolding angrily, "Hey, what kind of young man is this coming to visit in the middle of the night? My daughter just laughed twice and she was treated like this by you." I want to ask, if it disturbs the rest of the two eldest masters, do you want to silence us?" The woman clearly showed that her anger was getting stronger, and she also called Xun Yuantuo from the young master to the eldest master, with a strong sense of irony.
Seeing the two of them confronting each other, Zhou Kefa, who had tied up his horse, hurriedly came to smooth things over, "Girl, calm down. This disciple has just come out of the world. He is arrogant and doesn't know the rules. Don't be the same as him. If you really can't get rid of the anger, just Just blame me for being incompetent as a master." Seeing that the old man's words and gestures were quite polite, and his clothes were quite simple, the woman couldn't help but feel her anger subside a little. He gouged out the young man's eyes fiercely, then waved his hand to let the two of them in.
As soon as he entered the hospital, even Mr. Zhou's face turned from sunny to gloomy.
This is still a government inn. It is poorer and poorer than the common people. The entire courtyard was empty, with almost no other furnishings except for an old cracked water tank in the southeast corner of the courtyard. Through the tiny oil lamp in the shop, the furnishings in the house could be vaguely seen, and it was so shabby that the two of them were stunned: there was only one narrow old couch in the house, and Mr. Zhou was already considered thin, but if he rested on this bed, I'm afraid that if I change my sleeping position even slightly, I'll fall off the bed.
Xun Yuantuo looked to the right again and saw two young girls coming down from the wall and standing timidly behind the woman. Their clothes were very thin and starched. Look at the woman's clothes in tatters, with most of one of her arms exposed.
It is extremely abnormal that there is no man in the post station set up by the government, and he is so poor.
Although there was some quarrel before, Xun Yuantuo still couldn't help asking: "If I remember correctly, the government should pay monthly salary. Even if the salary is not very generous, it should not be so miserable."
The woman didn't pay any attention to Xun Yuantuo, but patted the dust that the two girls had scratched when they climbed up the wall, and told them to go play elsewhere. It was already getting late, so they shouldn't go too far out of the inn.
"Government? Salary?" The woman sneered, "If the government cares about our life and death, how can the furnishings in this courtyard be so thin? The post station is a tenth of the land. If the government does not pay salary, my mother and daughter How could the three of them end up in this situation?"
Xun Yuantuo was stunned. There seemed to be something hidden behind Ting Ting's words, but then the thought flashed past. In his opinion, all the officials in Qingchai County and even the county magistrate were agreeable, and there was no hint of the bullying that others said. Who in the world doesn't know who doesn't know that the official style of Shang Qi is prevalent, and everyone from top to bottom has character and integrity? He has always despised the remarks made by some scholars and scholars in criticizing the government.
People who have never been an official don't know that it is difficult to be an official. They just go to criticize someone even if they are slightly dissatisfied. In the end, they still can't get rid of the despicable behavior of saying sour things in their mouths.
"Looking at the clothes you are wearing, you must be a high-ranking young master. How can you understand the household affairs of ordinary people like us." The young master's expression was noticed by the woman, and the look of contempt in his eyes became stronger.
The woman left Xun Zhou and went to the backyard to prepare meals alone.
Mr. Xun was walking around the courtyard casually, wondering why the inn was so poor. Mr. Zhou was not idle either. He took out two silk handkerchiefs he had brought with him from the carriage and handed them to the two girls.
The second girl had never seen such a fine silk handkerchief before. After hesitating for a long time, she finally agreed to play with it for a while, but she vowed that she would return it to her husband when she left tomorrow morning. She was just borrowing it for a look.
Mr. Zhou agreed with all his heart, with a smile on his face.
