I wonder if there would be an accident, but Liu Qiong'er, Ge and Xiao Huan did not act separately. Instead, they hid with Xu Wuliang to the west bank of Baijian River before nightfall, waiting for Xu Huai and Su Di to sneak out of the military camp.

Afterwards, everyone set out to Lutai Village where the Xu family lived together.

However, Lutaizhai is located east of Baijian River. At this time, you cannot take a boat from the ferry, so the road will be difficult to walk.

The terrain near Huaiyuan Town is flat, which is about the undulating mountains and hills on both sides.

After leaving the army camp, we went south along the west bank of Baijian River. There were no ready-made roads. The hills and valleys were crisscrossed, and there was no way to go. After preparing three horses, we only dared to take them carefully. We walked south along the river beach where the water was rising, among the reed grass with its high calf.

Fortunately, Xu Huai, Xu Wuliang and others were familiar with the terrain along the Baijian River. They stumbled all the way to Huangshitan. At this time, they wade through shallow water that was deep in their thighs and reached the east bank of Baijian River.

Even a strong man like Xu Wuliang was a little exhausted at this time.

Fortunately, Su Di, Ge, and Xiaohuan can endure hardships and have good physical strength; only Liu Qiong'er is delicate and weak, and the road is dangerous late at night, and she is afraid that she will fall off the horse's back, so Xu Huai will carry her on her back from beginning to end.

After crossing the Baijian River, walking eastward and about a mile, it is the dirt road to Yuhuangling. At this time, only five or six miles away from the Lutai villages where the Xu family lived on the northern slope of Yuhuangling.

However, Xu Huai and the others did not rush back to Lutai Village overnight.

Suddenly, everyone rushed back to the village in a mess in the middle of the night, which was easy to arouse suspicion. When the official officer arrived at Yuhuangling to confront each other, what words would they use to win the trust of their tribe members?

The more we reached this point, the less we could not get lost. Xu Huai and the others changed into dry clothes and rested in the mixed woods beside the dirt road.

After eating dry food in the early morning, Xu Huai, Su Di, Liu Qiong'er and Xu Wuliang's family of three took three horses to Lutai Village at the foot of the northern slope of Yuhuangling.

Huaiyuan Town is more than 20 miles from Yuhuangling. When the sun rises to the treetops, they can claim to be starting from Huaiyuan Town at dawn.

Yuhuangling is one of the many mountains in the southern ridge of Tongbai Mountain. It extends from southeast to northwest and stretches eleven or two miles. Its west is steep in the south, while the east and north slopes are gentle.

In addition to the trees on the top of the mountain, the northern slope is lush with lush grass on the hillside, and occasionally a few thick trees dotted it. It is a rare and excellent pasture in Tongbai Mountain.

At this time, hundreds of cattle and horses had been released and were gnawing on the north slope to thrive weeds. This was also the basis for Xu's family to manage mule and horse markets in Huaiyuan, Biyang and other places.

On the edge of the grassland, a shallow stream flows out from the southeast valley and flows into the Baijian River to the northwest; this is Qingliu River, a tributary of the Baijian River.

In the early years, Lutaizhai was several villages where the Xu family lived together along Qingliu River. Later, in order to prepare bandits to prevent theft, the tribesmen built earth walls to encircle the villages into several Tujia Villages, collectively known as Lutaizhai.

The dirt road from Huaiyuan Town extends to the bank of Qingliu Creek, and there is a wooden bridge spanning the Qingliu Creek.

The Lutai Village is also the North Village of Lutai Village. It is opposite the wooden bridge and is also the largest in scale.

Xu Huai and his team rode up a gentle slope. On the other side of Qingliuxi River was a rammed earth hamlet wall of about two miles, enclosing two or three hundred large and small courtyards and located at the foot of the mountain on the northern slope of Yuhuangling.

The land along Qingliu Creek is relatively flat and close to water sources. Most of the land is cultivated and is also a small number of large farming areas near Yuhuangling. At this time, many tribesmen and farmers worked hard in the fields.

The Xu family is the strongest in the family head Xu Wufu. They have many industries in Huaiyuan Town and Biyang City, and there are many tribesmen. The merchants were sent out to manage these businesses.

In the past two days, seeing Xu Wuli, Xu Wukun and others return to Yuhuangling with the head of the family Xu Wufu and his eldest son Xu Heng, the tribe members on the Yuhuangling were naturally confused.

In the morning, I saw Su Di, Xu Huai, Xu Wuliang's family, who usually never returned to Zhuangzi, and Liu Qiong'er, who looked like jade, rushed to Zhuangzi. The tribesmen who were farming in the fields also greeted him curiously and joked with Xu Huai even more curiously: "Xu Huai hasn't returned to the village for a while, why did he come back after asking such a beautiful wife? It's really a fool who is so lucky!"

Xu Wuliang prepared three horses overnight. Xu Wuliang and his wife Ge shared a horse, Su Di and Xiaohuan shared a horse, and Liu Qiong'er could only snuggle in Xu Huai's arms and came to Lutai Village.

Xu Huai didn't mind riding a horse with Xu Wuliang, but the horse couldn't bear their weight.

Xu Huai reached out to pick up Liu Qionger's waist, pushed her out of the saddle, and explained to his tribe members: "Miss Liu is not my wife; I don't want to find a wife, it's not fun at all!"

Liu Qiong'er sat on the back of the skinny horse. She felt so uncomfortable that she pinched Xu Huai with her hands on her back and said in a low voice: "If you want to pretend to be stupid, you can't be gentle to me; what's wrong with me?"

"Di Niang, Di Niang, why are you back today?"

Su Di's father, Su Laochang, is very hardworking. He has taken root in Lutaizhai for many years and has been farming in the fields. He is considered a farmer of Xu Wu's wealthy family, the eldest wife of Xu family.

He was taking Su Di, her twelve-year-old brother Su Zun to the field. When he saw Su Di and Xu Huai rush back to the village early in the morning, he walked over barefoot and asked.

The Xu family was a war refugee who fled from Yuzhou to Tongbai Mountain during the war in the previous dynasty. At first, there were only two or three hundred people. At that time, the war in Tongbai Mountain was just over, and another plague broke out. There were less than seven or eight families left near Yuhuangling and Qingliu River, and the Xu family took root and settled down here.

It has been 150 years since the Xu family has reproduced more than 2,000 people. In addition to the family of Xiao family, a total of 3,000 people live in the four villages of Lutai. However, even if there are large grasslands to grazle cattle and horses, it is far beyond the land carrying capacity.

Before Xu Huai's father's generation, more and more tribe members were forced to go out of Yuhuangling to make a living, but most people still guarded the slopes and mountain fields of poor ridges and lived a very hard life.

In mid-spring, the weather is not very warm, but in order to save a pair of straw sandals, Su Di's father, Su Laochang, always wore barefoots and cracked holes when he went to the fields.

"Wujiang has been sent to the military camp recently, so I will go back to the village to stay for a few days," Su Di said to her father, then reached out to grab her younger brother Su Zun's ear and asked, "Why don't you go to the school at this time?"

The Xu family owns a lot of clan property, which is under the jurisdiction of the head of the family Xu Wufu and several clan elders. In addition to the daily savings of the tribe, the widows, the sick and disabled, the autumn training of the tribe, the construction of ancestral halls, the village walls, and the establishment of village sacrifices, the Beizhai also set up clan schools and martial arts halls, which include children of other families and their dependent families.

This is also the main reason why the Xu family has strong cohesion in Tongbai Mountain, and the clan has played some role.

However, boys will be less than half a strong laborer at the age of twelve or thirteen. Poor families do not expect their children to have any prospects for studying and practicing martial arts. They will spend three or four years together in school and will almost be taken to the fields to participate in farming, or find ways to learn the skills of making a living.

Su Di can still help her parents' home when she married Xu Wujiang, but she hopes that her younger brother can read a few more years, and even if she goes to the inspection department or county to find a job in the future, she can say goodbye to the fate of burying her head in the fields and working hard all her life.

"What's the use of reading? I want to practice martial arts!" Su Tan said stubbornly.

In order to prevent the rebellion of the vassal states, the country was established by culture and military affairs.

Deng Gui was a regular and eight-classical Wu Jinshi, but he had been circulating in various places for nearly twenty years and was still only a ninth-rank inspector. He had no special merits and could not be promoted without any vacancies, let alone the status of a civil Jinshi in the officialdom was far beyond that of a martial Jinshi.

The generals and other important positions such as the commanders and chief officials who commanded the imperial guards along the way were mostly appointed as scholars and civil servants, and even the possibility of eunuchs as commanders was far higher than that of military officials.

This has led many people to become military officials, but ultimately they do not join the army, but instead take the path of promotion to civil servants.

The military commanders of prefectures and counties have always been civil officials of scholars who were both scholars and never easily granted them to military officials.

This shows how big the gap between practicing martial arts and learning literature is in this world.

No matter how many bandits were killed in Tongbai Mountain, there was no hope of becoming a common person in this life. Jin Longquan and Xu Huai's father's position in Jingsheng Army were the ultimate things that children of martial arts in Tongbai Mountain could see.

If conditions permit, Su Di certainly hopes that his brothers will learn literature rather than martial arts.

However, now is not the time to worry about this.

"Wujiang said when he was sent out of the military camp that his father had his 60th birthday today, and he asked me to come back and handle it lively - we rushed back from Huaiyuan early in the morning. Dad, please clean up and find Xu Sihu, Xin'an and his family, and call them all to Nanzhai for help. Xu Huai and I went to Nanzhai first to work hard." Su Di said to her father.

"Old Man Xu's 60th birthday today? I haven't heard anyone mention it. Why are you here to come back today? It's almost time to prepare?" Old Su asked in surprise.

The inspectors dare not walk at night, but they are likely to arrive before noon.

No matter what, even if it is a fraud, we must first gather everyone's small masters in Nanzhai, and we will not ask the inspectors to take the opportunity to catch them directly.

If a young man falls into the hands of the inspection department, it will be difficult to force Xu Wufu to find the inspection department to pick people with a tough attitude.

"We have brought everything we need to prepare from Huaiyuan," Xu Wuliang patted the big bamboo basket hanging on both sides of the saddle and covered with cloth, and said, "Wujiang cannot come back. I specially invited Miss Liu, who had just redeemed from Yuehonglou, to come over to celebrate his father's birthday! Daddy Su, go and call someone quickly. My third uncle is deliberately calculating the time. If anyone is half a step slower, he will have to scold him for a long time..."

"Old Man Xu has a bad temper!" When talking about Xu Wujiang's father, Su Laochang was also dissatisfied and complained.

Su Di urged her father and his brothers accompanied Xu Wuliang to call for someone quickly to make sure that Xu Xin'an and the relatives of the Wushu were gathered in Nanzhai before the inspection department arrived; she, along with Xu Huai, Liu Qiong'er, Xu Wuliang's wife Ge, and her daughter Xiaohuan, rushed to Xu Wujiang's home in Nanzhai with Xu Wujiang's letters to ensure that Xu Wujiang's father's 60th birthday was not exposed.

What they can rely on now is mainly the support of the Xu clan. Whether this birthday party will be interrupted by the inspector's personnel, it will be believed...
Chapter completed!