Gu Tingye said: "This time, out of the original 68 companies, only 23 companies have confirmed to participate, and together with the newly added Yuan Wenshao, there are a total of 24 companies.
They are Yang Wenyuan of the Lingguo family, Zhu Liangzu of the Yongjia family, Meng Shan of the Tongan family, Wu Fu of the Anlu family, Jin Chaoxing of the Xuande family, Cao Xing of the Huaiyuan family, Ye Sheng of the Jingning family, Cao Zhen of the Jingchuan family, and Huining family. Zhang Wen, Zhou Wu of the Xiongwu family, Wang Bi of the Dingyuan family, Chen Huan of the Puding family, Hu Hai of the Dongchuan family, Yuan Wenshao of the Zhongqin family, Li Yixing of the Weining family, Zhang Xing of the Anxiang family, and Wang Yu of the Wucheng family , Yong'an's uncle Xu Xiangxing, Xincheng's uncle Zhao Mi, Rongchang's uncle Chen Xian, Tianshui's uncle Zhao Tianlin, Longxi's uncle Niu Hailong, Anding's uncle Cheng Guosheng, and Kang'an's uncle Sun Hu.
Song Qiping, who was the one who took the lead in causing trouble, has not continued to participate in the competition. It seems that you have no chance to correct them. "
Li Hao said: "It means they are aware of current affairs, otherwise I would not have to entertain them well." Then someone asked: "Let's not talk about them, how did these people participate in the competition, and how much did they apply for each of the two events."
Gu Tingye replied: "Everyone has signed up for polo, and sixteen companies have signed up for Cuju. I said it before when I notified them. They can participate after we notify them."
After hearing this, Li Hao said: "That's good. In addition, the time of this competition is tight, so the rules will be simplified to the simplest. The opponents will be determined by drawing lots, and the two will compete directly. The winner will advance.
Then the winner and the loser draw lots again and continue to compete against each other until all the rankings are determined.
In addition, since polo is played by everyone, the polo rankings will be reported to the officials in the end, and positions in the army will be arranged accordingly. "
Gu Tingye asked in surprise: "Will everyone participating in the competition this time join the army?"
Li Hao replied: "Yes, I went to Mr. Ouyang's house today. I heard Mr. Ouyang said that the officials were extremely disappointed when they learned that a large number of nobles had withdrawn from the competition, so they were very disappointed with the young nobles who participated. They are more fancy, so we simply list them all in the army, and let us arrange the position report according to the situation.
In addition, I also brought the grace of the government. In addition to our signature plaque, the other is the lottery. This time, based on Cuju and polo, Mr. Ouyang helped us get an imperial iron plaque. The style is modeled after the founding of the country. It is made of a lucky iron plate, with the name of the league engraved on the front and the name of the top player on the back. "
After hearing this, Gu Tingye was shocked and said: "The officials allowed us to carve characters on the things given by the emperor."
Li Hao explained: "Of course that won't work. The engraving still has to be handed over to the engraver in the palace. After the engraving is completed, it will be distributed to us and let us hand it over to the first place this time.
This is what Mr. Ouyang worked so hard to get for us. "Speaking of which, I have to thank Ouyang Xiu for his kindness.
Gu Tingye sobered up after hearing this, and then questioned the appointment again: "Then this appointment is too casual, and the impact will not be good."
Li Hao said: "This time I didn't expect to really rely on these dandy boys to charge into the battle. In this case, there is no need to say how much should be used.
Therefore, it is most straightforward to arrange them directly according to ranking. The top five are battalion commanders, followed by five battalion deputy commanders, and the five battalion commanders are Yuhou. The remaining nine will all serve as Dutou.
Just when arranging positions, you have to remember not to let people with grievances get together. You are familiar with this, so it is up to you to arrange it.
Anyway, I will have to adjust after I return to Beijing. I will make adjustments based on the situation then. "
After hearing this, Gu Tingye said: "What you said makes sense. Let's do this first. Then set the starting time."
Li Hao said: "It is scheduled to start on time five days later. We will arrange the draw two days in advance to divide the teams, and then stagger the time according to the participating events without overlapping.
As for the time for drawing lots, it will be set three days later, so that all participants can come to the stadium to draw lots in person to show fairness. "
After hearing this, Gu Tingye thought it was feasible and agreed.
After discussing the ball game, Li Hao asked Gu Tingye about the formation of the imperial camp. Gu Tingye said: "Everything went well. Full troops have been mobilized from the upper four armies. Now they are training in the western suburbs camp. There are people watching, so don’t worry.”
At the end, Gu Tingye was a little hesitant, and Li Hao guessed that Gu Yankai must have given some help, which made Gu Tingye very uncomfortable.
However, Li Hao didn't want to be troublesome, and the relationship between father and son couldn't be settled in just one or two sentences. He would wait until there was a chance to talk about it later, so he wouldn't ask in detail.
After the matter was finished, the two of them dispersed to rest.
In the next few days, in addition to staying at the western suburbs camp every morning, Gu Tingye had time to supervise the work with Li Hao at the polo ground in the afternoon.
On the day of the draw, Li Hao and Gu Tingye arrived at the stadium early as hosts, waiting for the contestants to come over.
Then people started to arrive one after another. The people who came this time were undoubtedly more positive towards Li Hao. They all knew that Li Hao would become their superior, so they had to leave a good impression.
It wasn't until midnight that everyone arrived.
Li Hao and Gu Tingye stood up and welcomed everyone.
Then he explained the rules of the draw to everyone, "This time there are 24 teams participating in polo and 16 teams participating in Cuju. After a while, a lottery tube will be taken out for everyone to draw lots. There are numbers written on the lots. After the lots are drawn, Compete head to tail according to the numbers on the lot, that is, the one who drew 1 will compete with the one who drew 24, the one who drew 2 will compete with the one who drew 23, and so on.
The rules of polo are the same as those of Cuju. Those who drew 1 will compete with those who drew 16, those who drew 2 will compete with those who drew 15, and so on.
After the first round of competition, the winner and the loser draw lots to compete to confirm their ranking. "
Then he paused for a while and said: "In addition, the imperial plaque from the official family has been invited and will be hung up on the day of the competition. The first place in the other two competitions can receive the imperial plaque with their own name personally given by the official family. Give me an iron plate to show the emperor's favor."
As soon as this sentence was said, the following immediately started to make a fuss, and I felt that the enthusiasm for participating was greatly increased.
Finally, Li Hao announced that the imperial army would be appointed according to the ranking of the polo match this time, which immediately aroused everyone's competitive spirit.
After all, in their view, this position was either appointed by an official or arranged by Li Hao and others based on their connections.
I didn't expect it to become so casual, but that's why it can't be faked and everyone has a chance to compete.
Li Hao saw that the atmosphere below was already in place, so he asked someone to bring up the two prepared lottery buckets, and then said: "Please draw lots by yourself to decide the order."
After saying that, he asked everyone to leave the lottery box, handed the lottery table to those who wanted to participate, and signaled that they could go up and draw.
Seeing this, the people below began to come to the stage to draw lots one by one. In this state, no one actually paid much attention to the Cuju competition. Everyone was looking for who their opponent was. The strong ones looked sad and the weak smiled happily.
But some of the smarter ones just took the team and occupied the field to train.
And those who didn't get a spot could only quickly take their people to find other places to train, for fear that it would not look good if they were defeated.
Seeing everyone getting busy, and most of the things on the court have been taken care of.
Seeing that Li Hao had nothing to do, he asked Gu Tingye to take him to the western suburbs camp to see how the imperial army was being trained.
After all, this army was waiting for the battlefield, but it had to protect its own life, so the two of them took a car to the western suburbs camp.
