No matter if you are a human or an immortal, you can still farm for me after traveling through time!

The time we spend together is short, only separation is truly eternal.

In one’s life, one is either experiencing separation or is about to experience separation.

When they left Ganzhou and headed for Liangzhou, the three of them parted ways.

No matter how reluctant I am, we must eventually say goodbye after sending you thousands of miles away.

Li Erlang tightened the reins and stayed where he was, watching the carriage moving farther and farther to the east with a firm gaze. Only when he could no longer see the carriage did he turn his horse around and return to Ganzhou.

After walking through the trade route completely, Ji Qingyue deeply felt that Dali attached great importance to the trade route. The reason why the trade route in the country can be unobstructed throughout the whole process is inseparable from the support from all aspects.

Not only would the prefectures and counties along the way provide convenience to the merchants and ensure that the goods could be safely delivered to Chang'an, but there would also be troops stationed there to guard the city.

Behind the smooth trade routes is the strict protection that costs a huge amount of money. It is necessary not only to maintain road security internally, but also to prevent foreign forces from cutting off trade routes.

Dali relied on its huge military force to ensure the continuity of trade routes.

The emperor placed most of his military forces in the northwest. The meaning was self-evident: it was to guard against the Uighurs in the north, the Tuyuhun in the south, and the tribes in the Western Regions.

Li Erlang waved his whip and galloped on the road.

Now is the critical period of military reform. Military reform cannot be completed with just one order. It will take several more years in the future before the generals can bring together different forces and use them for their own purposes.

Now is the time when Dali is weak.

This is probably the reason why Tuyuhun has been harassing Dali recently.

Li Erlang did not stop for a moment and immediately returned to the barracks after entering Ganzhou.

He hurried back to the camp before the one-month home visit leave was over. Yang Huang was very satisfied and praised Li Changxiang for his wise thinking.

"General, I heard that Tuyuhun has disturbed the border many times. Is there some hidden reason?"

After receiving the order from His Majesty, Yang Huang immediately sent troops to accompany the envoy to Tuyuhun to see if anything had happened in their country. He even risked breaking the alliance by invading the border of Dali.

"Before the envoys' message came back, there was a rumor that Tuyuhun Great Chanyu Muliyan had died, and his brother Nuogebo took over the position of Great Chanyu. He caused unrest because he could not convince the people."

This was the first time that Li Changxiang came into contact with important information about Tuyuhun. If he was not in a high position, he would not be able to obtain information of this level.

After returning, Li Changxiang began to study the map.

Tuyuhun is located in the southwest of Dali, bordering Longxi, Hexi and Jiannan, and has many mountains in its territory.

If Ji Qingyue were here, he would have recognized that Tuyuhun occupied most of Qinghai and an entire plateau area in the southwest.

Between Tuyuhun and Huihe was Dali, with a long and narrow trade route extending out, forming a "throat" area.

If Tuyuhun and Huihe joined forces, they could easily cut off the trade routes and surround the vast northwestern border of Dali.

Fortunately, Tuyuhun has not broken the alliance yet. The reason why Tuyuhun and Dali have remained friendly to this day is because the two countries established the "Qin-Jin Alliance" which lasted for two or three hundred years.

And dear.

Once something becomes a tradition, it becomes a constraint that is difficult to break.

Every once in a while, Dali would select a princess from among the royal women and send her to Tuyuhun to marry the Chanyu.

It has been forty or fifty years since Dali last sent a princess to Tuyuhun. Now that Tuyuhun has started to make trouble, it seems that Your Majesty may choose to follow the tradition and select a woman from the royal family to be named a princess and go to Tuyuhun to marry.

There is probably only one ending for a woman who is sent to marry a foreign prince - she dies in a foreign country.

No matter how hard I struggle or how hard I resist, there is no hope of returning to the place I long for.

After returning to the barracks, Li Changxiang immediately summoned the captains and began to train the cavalry.

The horses that were snatched back from the Uighurs quickly recovered their vitality after two months of careful feeding.

You have to choose the horses before training.

Of the nearly two thousand horses, after removing those that were too old or too young and selecting those with defects, less than a quarter were left that could be used as war horses.

After careful selection, Li Changxiang and the horse trainer selected five hundred horses.

Two hundred of the horses are between two and three years old, very young and most suitable for training as war horses. The other horses are between four and eight years old and have already developed a certain fierce character, making it very difficult to tame them.

After selecting the horse, Li Changxiang applied to Yang Huang for horse harness. Basic horse harness requires a bridle, saddle, and stirrups, which is another huge expense.

After discussing with Feng Yingman and the other two, Li Changxiang quickly listed a series of training plans and handed them over to Yang Huang.

At the same time, many wooden horses and earthen horses were set up in the camp. The wooden horses were used to train soldiers to quickly mount horses without saddles and stirrups without using their hands, while the earthen horses were used to train soldiers to get on and off horses multiple times while wearing armor and carrying bows and arrows, swords, and spears.

Li Changxiang and four other men selected eight hundred soldiers from tens of thousands of soldiers. After they practiced on wooden horses and earthen horses every day, they let them try riding real horses.

Everything starts with learning how to approach a horse. After successfully approaching the horse, the next step is to learn how to mount the horse. After mounting the horse, the next step is to control the horse.

These three types of training alone are very time-consuming. Except for a few nomadic people living on the grasslands, most Han people do not have the conditions to get close to horses, let alone ride them. Even Li Changxiang only learned to ride a horse in the past two years. His current superb riding skills were acquired when he was forced to practice them when the Uighurs were fleeing.

……

Li Sanlang and Ji Qingyue walked for another ten days and finally arrived in Chang'an at the end of February.

Chang'an, the city that everyone yearns for.

Even though Ji Qingyue arrived in Chang'an for the second time in a sense, he was still shocked by the scale of the city.

They entered Chang'an again from Kaiyuan Gate in the northwest. The streets several dozen meters wide were busy with traffic, and every now and then a team of patrolling soldiers passed by them.

Ji Qingyue drove the carriage with Li Sanlang across Chang'an City and headed towards Pingkangfang, which is famous as the "City That Never Sleeps".

Whenever the imperial examination was approaching, a large number of students would gather at this entertainment venue in Chang'an City. Not only did it have many entertainment activities, it was also very close to the imperial city.

The spring examination is approaching, and all the candidates gather here.

Upon entering Pingkangfang, Li Sanlang immediately discovered a cruel fact: the number of students appearing in the district was beyond his imagination.

The teacher said that in previous years, there were no more than three thousand students taking the exam, but now it seems that the number is far more than three thousand.

The Ministry of Personnel has posted the information about the Spring Examination. The examination will be held in the Imperial Academy and will start on March 9th and end on the 15th, lasting nine days, with one test every three days. After three tests, everything will be clear.

Pingkangfang is extremely lively at night and orderly during the day. It looks no different from the neighborhoods where ordinary people live.

In order for Li Sanlang to reach Chang'an, following the principle of "a poor family means a rich journey", Li A'niang took out most of the money in the family and gave it to him, telling him not to mistreat himself in order to save money and to reach Chang'an safely.

After entering Pingkangfang, the two of them booked a room each. Ji Qingyue no longer disturbed Li Sanlang, but asked him to adjust his physical condition in time and make adequate preparations for the exam ten days later.

Ji Qingyue came to Chang'an this time, of course, to stay, and there was only one way to stay - doing business.

Businessmen are supposed to do business.

On the way, he asked other merchants and learned that if Hu merchants wanted to stay in Chang'an, they not only had to apply for a new permit, but also had to register with the city, apply for business qualifications, and pay fees after passing.

People usually choose to open shops in the East Market and the West Market, but this option is not suitable for the mysterious Ji Qingyue.

So Ji Qingyue decided to rent a shop in South City.

After counting the funds in hand, Ji Qingyue had a rough idea in his mind.

Most of the money was earned from selling vegetables in the mountains, and a small part was earned from selling seeds along the way.

In addition to real silver ingots and copper coins, there was also a lot of flying money.

Feiqian is similar to a deposit certificate. You deposit it in one money house and then go to another money house to withdraw the money with the deposit certificate.

As we all know, the prices in Chang'an are high, and the land prices are even more staggering.

Ji Qingyue came back from the house-hunting office with a dim look in his eyes.

He had thought it would be expensive, but he hadn't expected it to be this expensive.

The rent for a small shop in a good location is as high as 20 or 30 taels! ! This money can buy the whole shop in Shandan.

So he made a request to the agent that the shop did not need a good location, as long as it was large enough, and then the agent told him to come back and wait for news.

With the pass, Ji Qingyue's mind became active. Now, as long as he was not going to a forbidden area, he could move freely in Chang'an City with the pass during the day.

While Li Sanlang was adjusting his mindset to prepare for the exam, Ji Qingyue was driving an empty carriage to tour Chang'an City.

I heard that Banzhengfang is full of temples and monasteries, and is a place for students in Chang'an to study and practice. Kaimingfang has a large bamboo forest. Daozhengfang has many wine shops, which are excellent at brewing wine. People who love wine often go there. Xuanyangfang is full of silk shops and is an important silk trading place in Chang'an. Yanshoufang has gold, stone, pearl and jade shops, and Jinggongfang has a racecourse...

As long as Ji Qingyue could come out of the painting, he would drive the carriage out to play.

After having fun like this for seven or eight days, he gradually discovered some things worth noting.

When I escaped from Lu's house, the spring seemed to appear out of nowhere, inappropriately located outside the pond, in the corridor separated by a wall. Who would dig a well like this?!

At that time, Ji Qingyue guessed that the spring was not dug by humans, but was formed accidentally.

After these days of travel, Ji Qingyue finally knew the answer.

Not only was there a spring in Lu's house, he also found similar springs in other neighborhoods.

Most of these springs were located near water, some were still gushing out clear water, some were about to dry up, and some had already dried up. Only because there was a monument standing next to them did he realize that there used to be a spring on the ground.

Someone familiar with the matter told Ji Qingyue that these springs only appeared after the ground dragon turned over nine years ago. At that time, it was not just a spring, but a crack. Later, after being filled and repaired, the crack turned into springs.

The emperor left these springs in order to monitor the earth dragon. He believed that if the earth dragon turned over again, it would definitely give people a sign through these springs.

It turned out that the emperor's idea made sense.

In recent years, the overall water volume of all springs has been decreasing year by year.

People believed that this was a sign that the earth dragon was slowly leaving Chang'an, and when the spring stopped producing water, the earth dragon would disappear.

Ji Qingyue suddenly realized and secretly praised the emperor for actually knowing how to give early earthquake warnings.

The exam day was getting closer and closer, and soon it was the day of the imperial examination, and the students gathered in the Imperial Academy.

At this time, Ji Qingyue, who was escorting Li Sanlang to the examination room, finally saw with his own eyes the large crowds of candidates queuing up waiting for examination.

It is much larger than the state exam.

Ji Qingyue estimated that the number of candidates this year might exceed five thousand.

If we look at the previous result of admitting 300 people, the admission rate is 6%.

However, this year we probably won’t admit so many students.

The acceptance rate will only be lower.

too frightening.

Seeing Ji Qingyue's unpredictable face, Li Sanlang was relieved. He smiled and comforted Ji Qingyue: "Brother Ji, coming to Chang'an, which is known by everyone, still feels like a dream today. I feel that I have no regrets in this life. No matter what the result is, it will not stop my determination to protect my family."

Ji Qingyue was absent-minded for a moment, and suddenly came back to his senses after hearing the bell. He saw Li Sanlang carrying a basket of dry food and water and slowly walking towards the Imperial Examination Hall.

Ji Qingyue felt very relieved that Li Sanlang thought this way.

Ji Qingyue returned to the inn only after Li Sanlang entered the Imperial Examination Hall.

The waiter in the inn told him that the pawnbroker had been there. After Ji Qingyue knew about it, he turned around and left the inn and went to the pawnbroker's shop.

The place the broker was talking about is in Yongpingfang, which is near Xishi. It is said to be near Xishi, but actually it is not far away if you count the number of miles in the square, but it feels far away when you walk there.

The broker said that there are relatively few people living in the South City, and merchants are reluctant to open stores close to the West Market.

The environment in these areas is too quiet, and most of the people living there are hard laborers. They can do small business, but it is difficult to do big business.

Ji Qingyue is engaged in big business, and he would not be able to operate his business by renting a small shop.

If Ji Qingyue had not insisted that he did not have enough money to rent a shop in a good location, and had not set a rent cap for the broker, the broker would have had to use all his persuasion to persuade him to rent another more expensive shop.

What you see in front of you is a two-story brick-and-wood mixed-use building with a backyard. It is located at the corner of the street, with doors on both sides, good lighting, and a transparent floor, so it can welcome guests from both sides.

"The second floor can be used as a shop for guests to sit and choose goods, and it can also be converted into a living room, which is brighter than living in the backyard on the first floor."

After visiting other shops, Ji Qingyue finally chose the first one.

Large area and good location mean high cost.

After signing the lease and paying the rent, Ji Qingyue touched his deflated wallet with a painful feeling. The broker who received the rent wished him a prosperous business and then left with a smile.

Next comes the decoration.

Ji Qingyue found a craftsman and asked him to lay bricks in the shop and the backyard according to the requirements, not only on the ground but also on the walls. Then he asked people to dig soil outside the city, transport it to the shop and pour it into the space surrounded by bricks.

In this way, vegetable plots, flower beds and three-dimensional vegetation walls are constructed. What needs to be done next is to sow seeds, water and cultivate plants in these places.

After completing the preparations before opening the store, Li Sanlang is about to take his last exam.

Ji Qingyue was standing in front of the Imperial Examination Hall Square waiting. When he saw Li Sanlang walking out of the Imperial Examination Hall, he hurried forward to support him. Anyone who had been tense for nine days inside would not be able to bear it.

Li Sanlang's condition was better than he thought. Although he was physically tired, he was in high spirits. On the way back to the inn, he even talked to him about some interesting things in the Imperial Examination Hall.