Han official!

Chapter 53: Ox Prison
Most of the houses in the village have thatched roofs. They are not solid houses built using the rammed earth method, but dilapidated earthen houses built using the pre-Qin method of bamboo and mud.

As the sky brightened, the villagers began to go out to do farm work. They were all dressed in tattered clothes. The weather was still relatively cold after the Beginning of Spring. The villagers only wore a thin, worn jacket and pants, and went barefoot or wore a pair of straw sandals.

Most of the villagers were pale and thin, with their ribs clearly visible on their chests. They carried plows and rakes to the fields to cover the ridges with soil, store manure, and dig out millet from the land to sustain their households.

"Two or three."

Yi Zong was very pleased with the wine the clerk had mentioned. A smile crossed his stern face. "When you go to inspect the prison, remember to be careful and walk around a few times. I want to drink a few cups with you."

When the clerk heard the word "carefully", his heart tightened. When he heard the jailer say "drink heartily", he secretly breathed a sigh of relief.

It turns out he is a heavy drinker.

However, when the clerk heard that the last word was a few cups instead of wine cups, his face almost turned green.

The market price of fine wine is quite high.

I don't know how much money a few glasses of wine cost.

Ugh.

The clerk sighed and considered it a loss of money to avoid disaster, after all, the jailer was Zhang Tang's subordinate.

"Mainly look for it in the barn inside."

Guo Jie said solemnly, "Qiu Jing will most likely hide Yi Shuo if he learns that the jailer is on the lookout. A place where he won't be easily discovered is in the barn. If he's mixed in with the cattle and pigs, he'll be hard to spot."

Zhang Qian's willingness to take risks was once again on display: "Qiu Jing might have hidden Yi Shuo inside the mansion. I will go there myself. If I find any trace of Yi Shuo, I will use a small crossbow to fire a bronze arrow to alert my brother."

The fifteen garrison soldiers mentioned by the village official were also the most brave and combat-ready soldiers in Kunchi Village. They lived in the Jiashe courtyard where Qiu Jing lived.

There was a new law in the Chang'an government, the purpose of which was to restrict the many Dutingchangs under the Dou family, the foreign relative. Guo Jie, Zhang Qian and others who were Dutingchangs were among them.

You cannot leave Duting with the red ribbon and armor.

When the two sides fight, wearing armor and not wearing armor are two completely different things.

Zhang Qian faced fifteen frontier garrisons alone, all of whom were brave soldiers holding red-painted double-arc shields and ring-handled swords. They might also have some hunting bows in their hands. Although hunting bows were weak bows with little power, they could kill people within a few dozen steps.

Holding a shield and a hunting bow.

It was very dangerous for Zhang Qian to go there alone.

"No."

Wei Guang was eager to go to a more dangerous place: "You got there first again. You broke into Qiu Jing's Jiashe compound alone. It would have been such a glorious story if it got out. I was just about to say I'd go there alone when you said it."

He stepped forward in his finery and said, "You go with my brother to the barn, and I will go to Qiu Jing's Jiashe compound alone."

"You two go together."

Guo Jie thought for a moment and said, "I and Mang Tong will go to the barn, and you two will go to Qiu Jing's Jiashe courtyard, so that you can look after each other."

The four of them split up, two by two, and headed for the place they were looking for. The barn was located at the back of Kunchili, about a hundred steps south of the right school at the back door.

The place where horses are raised is called a stable, the place where cattle are raised is called a cowshed, and the place where sheep are raised is called a sheepfold.

The pig farming area is the most special, it is together with the toilet.

Dukes and nobles never ate pork, considering it as inferior meat and mutton as superior meat, because pigs were raised in toilets and ate feces, while sheep were raised on grass.

For the common people in the neighborhood, having meat to eat was enough. Living was already difficult, so they were not so particular and did not distinguish between top-grade meat and bottom-grade meat.

All you can eat is meat.

"Something's wrong."

Guo Jie arrived at the stables and noticed something strange: "Stables are for horses, and cowsheds are for cows. Look, there's not a single horse in this stable; it's full of cows. Go over and look carefully."

From a distance of twenty or thirty steps, Guo Jie could hear the occasional mooing of cows, but no neighing of horses.

Mang Tong held the iron hammer in his hand, put the corn in his hand back into the bag around his waist, chewed the remaining corn in his mouth, and looked around vigilantly.

When Guo Jie got closer, he saw that there were indeed many oxen working in the stable.

The front half of the stable is surrounded by railings. Unlike the free-range cattle and sheep, the stable has a tiled roof. It is not the thatched roof of the common people, but a small double-eaved roof built with tubular tiles.

The market price of bricks and tiles is not low, and ordinary common people cannot afford them, but they are used to build stables.

Each oxen is tied to a ang next to the fence. An ang is a pillar used to tie horses, also called a horse post. It is usually made of thick and hard wood to prevent the stable horses from tearing the ang apart.

There is a basket hanging next to the tree.

A basket is a container for feeding horses.

Baskets are usually used to feed horses, but can also be used to feed some other livestock.

"Mr. Guo."

Besides killing, Mang Tong's greatest passion was eating. He poked the basket with his iron mallet and said, "Most cattle are raised on fodder. It's fine to raise cattle in a stable, but the grass they eat is mixed with mo."

Horses are precious, and the shortage of horses in the Han court made them even more valuable.

The grass for feeding horses is generally divided into concentrate and roughage.

Concentrated feed is called 秣, which refers to the millet such as corn and sorghum that people eat.

The coarse feed is fodder, fodder is grass, and draft is straw, which need to be chopped and minced before feeding.

Guo Jie said in a deep voice, "Go find the groom at the stable and ask him in detail."

(End of this chapter)