At the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty

Therefore, the resistance within the ruling class is the smallest.

Although Guo Peng himself got married early, except for his son Guo Jin, all other sons got married when they were 20 years old, and their daughters were not sent out for marriage until they were 16 years old.

Of course, the royal family also has rules, or in other words, there are such rules in powerful families——

Before getting married, it is necessary to find someone to give special enlightenment to the children of nobles, or the daughter's family who is talking about marriage will send someone to test whether the man is humane, how capable, and so on.

If there is a problem, just pass it, no one wants to let the daughter's family come to be a widow, right?

Therefore, the man's family will generally arrange enlightenment activities for the boy when he is about fifteen or sixteen years old, or take a concubine in advance.

Except for Guo Jin, all of Guo Peng's sons were arranged in this way.

At that time, Guo Jin was still busy with Guo Peng, so he didn't have that kind of thought and didn't notice. Later, his sons all followed this set of rules, which proved that the old Guo's man was strong and strong.

Seeing that Guo Chengzhi was 16 years old, and it was time to operate what should be done, Guo Peng wanted to help him arrange it, operate it, and then discuss and discuss marriage for him.

This is very important.

Before leaving, Guo Jin said that Guo Chengzhi would be officially registered as the crown prince after returning.

As the crown prince, Guo Chengzhi will inevitably attract a lot of attention, and his marriage problem is a huge cake, anyone wants to come up and take a bite.

It is exactly the same as Guo Jin's era.

For Guo Jin's question, Guo Peng used Cai Yong, a harmless mascot to humans and animals, to cover it up, and then took the daughters of Zhao Yun, Zhang Zhao, and Xin Pi as concubines to help Guo Jin.

Doing so can be regarded as winning over the people who should be winning over, helping Guo Jin gather the basic hearts of the people, and not being manipulated by the Yuancong Group.

Guo Jin's problem passed like this.

But right now, the political situation in the DPRK and China is very different from that of the past. The old gentry continue to decline, and the new imperial examination group is constantly rising, and it has increasingly become an indispensable existence among the ruling class of the Guowei Empire.

The emergence and joining of these new officials with no background and ordinary family background made the diversity within the Guo Wei regime continue to increase.

Under such circumstances, Guo Chengzhi, as the third generation emperor who fully accepted the new education and grew up, must make a gesture of embracing the future to show the Guo Wei Empire's firm farewell to the past and the old era, and resolutely move towards the future.

Therefore, when choosing a partner for Guo Chengzhi this time, he must choose carefully, and not send any wrong signals to those who like to interpret the emperor's will infinitely.

So Guo Peng went back to the car and discussed with Cao Lan about driving.

When Cao Lan was the queen, she was not completely idle. She held regular ladies' associations, and specially invited the wives of high-ranking officials and noble families to come to the palace to meet and chat with her. This has not stopped since about three years ago in Yande .

Talking and laughing at gatherings among women can actually reveal a lot of things that many men can't see, which is also very helpful for Guo Peng in foreign courts, so Guo Peng is very supportive of Cao Lan's doing this.

Even if Cao Lan became the Empress Dowager, she would still regularly invite the wives of the nobles and dignitaries of the Manchu Dynasty to the palace to have fun with the new empress Cai Wan, intending to continue this tradition.

I don't know when these noble ladies will bring their own outstanding girls to the palace, introduce them to Cao Lan, and let Cao Lan know the existence of these excellent girls.

So when it comes to women of the right age in the families of dignitaries, Guo Peng really doesn't know as much as Cao Lan.

In this kind of matter, Cao Lan is a professional. Guo Peng respects professionals and Cao Lan's vision.

Cao Lan is very interested in this, but thinks it is too early.

"There are vaguely a few candidates who look good, but there are still four years to go. It's too early to make a decision. We still need to think more about it. Chengzhi's wife must not be worse than Awan."

Cao Lan is still very satisfied with Cai Wan, a submissive daughter-in-law, and feels that marrying a daughter-in-law for her grandson can’t be worse than a daughter-in-law. She needs to conduct a comprehensive investigation of status, character, and other aspects, and find the best one out of ten thousand for her. Guo Chengzhi is his wife.

Seeing her slightly excited appearance, Guo Peng breathed a sigh of relief.

Well, with this matter in her heart, she won't always make trouble for herself.

Finally, I can live a peaceful life.

chapter 1600 one thousand 520 a smile appeared on Guo Peng's face

A few days later, Guo Peng's team finally walked out of the Qinling Mountain Road and arrived in Hanzhong County.

Along the way, the Qinling mountain road is still relatively difficult, but it has been greatly improved compared with the previous difficulties and dangers. It is not meaningless to lose the lives of tens of thousands of people here.

It is the greatest significance of the Shu Road Engineering Bureau to widen the Qinling Mountain Road to the maximum extent, ensure traffic, and reduce obstacles to the mountain road caused by natural disasters such as landslides and debris flows.

The total amount of funds that Guo Peng invested in the Shu Road project so far is second only to the amount of investment in the Grand Canal, and it is the second most expensive project of the Wei Empire.

All this has not come easily.

Fortunately, they have already walked out of the Qinling Mountains, entered the relatively flat Hanzhong Basin, and saw human settlements and cities.

This is the second time that Guo Peng has come to Hanzhong. The last time was when he led troops to fight, and he came to Hanzhong by taking the Meridian Valley Mountain Road.

At that time, there were many difficulties and dangers along the way, and the army of 8000 people went south almost dragged down the logistics personnel in Yongzhou at that time-not because they were poor, but because the road conditions were too poor and the delivery efficiency of materials was too low.

It was fine when the army first set out, but the further they went into the Qinling Mountains, the lower the efficiency of supplying supplies. When they arrived in Hanzhong, only [-]% of a hundred catties of grain was delivered to the army.

But now, their relatively large team can carry supplies to maintain supplies by themselves.

After the road was connected, there was an endless stream of people coming and going on the road, and the entire Xichuan area had been completely revitalized.

For all of this, Guo Peng is still very happy.

He retraced the path he had taken when conquering Hanzhong, and took the time to meet Deng Zhi, the current prefect of Hanzhong.

This young man who helped Pang Xi run errands and came to Chang'an to invite Guo Peng to Hanzhong, is now a prefect of a county and an official of two thousand shi, in charge of Hanzhong, a transportation hub, and taking the opportunity to develop Hanzhong's business.

Relying on business travel between Yongzhou and Yizhou, Hanzhong's commercial development is relatively healthy and safe, and it does not rely much on foreign trade at all, but relies on the internal political situation.

As long as the political situation of the Wei Empire is stable, Hanzhong County can continue to develop. Relying on the growing power of the Wei Empire, Hanzhong County will never decline.

So the Hanzhong County that Guo Peng saw at this moment was completely different from the Hanzhong that was turned into a white field when he came here.

Deng Zhi guided Guo Peng, who came to Hanzhong suddenly, to visit the Tuntian farms around Nanzheng County.

"At the beginning, Hanzhong County was affected by the war, it was very dilapidated, and the population was very small. In the beginning, Hanzhong existed as a military logistics base, so it was mainly farmland. At that time, it was the farmland developed with Nanzheng as the center.

Except for the area from Nanzheng to Yangpingguan, the farmers in the rest of Hanzhong all migrated from the Guandong and Shuzhong after Yizhou was pacified. The imperial court reorganized them and scattered them in places suitable for farming to build new villages. .

Then, townships and counties were compiled on this basis, and Hanzhong County turned back to a normal county on this basis, and gradually developed to what it is today. The Nanzheng area has the largest population and the densest villages. Some of the people here migrated to places with fewer people and more land. "

Guo Peng nodded slowly, paced slowly, and walked on the country road.

Although the country road is also a dirt road, it is obviously compacted, not the kind of naturally formed dirt road.

The way that kind of person walks out is muddy on rainy days, and dusty on sunny days. A gust of wind blows over and kicks up bursts of dust, which can make you indistinguishable from humans and animals ten meters away, and hermaphrodite five meters away.

The compacted dirt road has the function of the basic road.

It can walk people, cattle and horses, and carts, and it will not turn into a funny show because of rain or wind.

The roads with a large demand for traffic between cities require a more professional road construction team to use more professional methods to tamp the foundation, and then use special composite materials to build the road. The process is very cumbersome.

However, this kind of country road does not have such a large traffic demand, and a simple rammed dirt road can meet daily needs.

From this point, it can be seen that the Hanzhong local government did not have a vegetarian meal for the corpse, but really implemented the requirements of the imperial court in the village.

When Guo Peng went to some counties and townships in Yongzhou and Liangzhou, he would find that some villages had no rammed dirt roads, and they were still muddy and bad roads, which was very typical of official malfeasance.

Hanzhong County did not.

Looking up, in addition to the mature cultivated land, there are scattered farmhouses around the cultivated land. Although they are equally low, they do not look dilapidated, and the decoration is simple, but they do not appear to be overwhelmed.

In Guo Peng's memory, the scene around the country roads in Qiao County more than 40 years ago was not like this.

He can't remember the earlier events, but the earliest memory he can recall so far is when he was six years old, Guo Dan once took him to the countryside to do operations in order to do an image project to meet the inspection of the Prime Minister.

So let him see the most authentic countryside of that era with his own eyes.

At that time, what he saw were those dilapidated thatched huts that could almost fall down in the wind, and the broken doors decorated with simple thatch. There was no big difference between closed and unclosed.

When I opened the door, the room was dark with no light, and the lighting in farmhouses was generally poor. Of course, they didn't know much about lighting or the architectural art of facing south.

The art of architecture belongs to the rich and powerful, not to the peasants.

At the door of the dilapidated thatched hut stood a male farmer in ragged clothes or no trousers at all, just wrapped in rags.

Men have no clothes, so they can still stand outside with their shirts off. Women are even worse, because they have no clothes or pants, so they can only stay in the dark house and dare not come out.

The peasant women who could walk outside in those days were all middle peasant families with a little wealth.

Only the peasant households above the middle peasants have a little money to go to the city to pull a piece of cloth to make a dress or a pair of trousers for themselves during the New Year.

It is not easy for a really poor peasant family to get together a set of outfits for going out.

The whole family took turns wearing a piece of clothing or a pair of trousers, and they had to wear them closely to the strong laborers in the family, while the women tried not to wear them or show their faces. They were not as good as a mouse—a mouse dared to cross the street.

If there are girls in the family, they will stay at home all day and not let them out, and they don't know how many times they can put on clothes and go out throughout the year.

When Guo Peng went to the countryside, he was accompanied by a bicycle frame, and those children who had no clothes and could not go out would lie on the window with their heads exposed, looking at him with longing eyes.

Guo Peng couldn't forget that look until now, and every time he thinks of it, he feels a tingle in his heart.

Even those who can wear clothes and walk outside, most of them have dull eyes.

Looking at him in thick and relatively gorgeous clothes, as well as the frame he was riding on, there is a complex emotion in his eyes that wants to envy but dare not envy.

They often look at the frame from a distance, and when the frame is approaching, they slowly lower their heads like thieves, pretending not to see it, and only dare to turn their heads to look at the frame when the car passes by, and then whisper Talking to each other a few words, the head is still lowered, and the back seems to never be straight.

The farmers didn't even dare to look at him openly, for fear of offending him on the frame and rewarding them with a few whips.

In Guo Peng's memory, the peasants at that time were all haggard, ugly, and disheveled. Their skin was a yellow-black color caused by long-term malnutrition. They lived in their 20s and looked like they were 50 or [-] years old.

Most of them are short, stooped, and skinny. They look like a pile of bones wrapped in a piece of skin, forcibly supporting a person.

Because they are too thin, there is no flesh on the face, but the eyes are very big, all of them have big heads and big eyes, and they are a bit piercing at a sudden glance.

And because of his adequate nutrition, he was taller and stronger than some adult farm boys when he left home at the age of 12. Later, he grew into an eight-foot-long battlefield fighter, whose physical fitness can crush most normal people in modern times.

To put it bluntly, this trip to the countryside when he was six years old gave him a huge psychological shock, and made him realize for the first time what kind of tragedy was hidden under the turbulent turmoil of the warlords fighting for hegemony in the late Eastern Han Dynasty.

This is something that is not written in the book, and it is not reflected in the TV series, movies and computer games.

The romantic filter of the heroes of the Three Kingdoms faded from his eyes, and a cold and harsh world gradually took shape.

The seeds of rebellion took root in my heart at that time, waiting for the opportunity to break out and thrive.

So 40 years later, he changed the world.

After changing the world, he almost never saw such a scene along the way.

Although I don't know if there is such a situation in the place he couldn't see, but at least, it is no longer the same situation as what he saw.

At the end of the Han Dynasty, except for him, everyone around him felt that the poverty and misery of the peasants were justified, and even felt that they could be even more miserable.

Occasionally, one or two villages that are slightly richer can even become great achievements of local officials, and it doesn't matter if they don't.

But not now, and if such a situation occurs again, the local officials will lose their heads.

This shows that his years of hard work are not meaningless, and the lives of the people at the bottom have been improved visible to the naked eye.

At least the peasants in Hanzhong he saw now were all cheerful peasants. After taking off their clothes, they could see the flesh instead of a piece of skin covered with bones, and their faces were not so dull, and their expressions were much more vivid.

In the farmyard, you can see a peasant woman in decent clothes holding a basin to feed chickens and ducks, walking around very busy.

Beside the peasant woman, there were still children running around on the ground, and they were also wearing old but not dirty little clothes—well, it seemed that the adults wore the leftover clothes and cut them out.

At least something to wear.

Boys and girls are the same, some wear it, and the family does not need to take turns wearing a piece of clothing.

From the window of the farmhouse, he no longer saw the kind of eyes that could sting him.

Looking from a distance, he could see the smoke from the chimneys of the houses in the village, the aroma of grain wafting from the country roads, and he could hear the barking of dogs.

Very lively village.

A smile appeared on Guo Peng's face.

Chapter 1601 One Thousand 520 One Guo Peng's Heartfelt Expectations

Guo Peng wandered around Hanzhong for several days, and traveled to three counties in Hanzhong. Each county went deep into the countryside to observe the situation in the villages.

The country can only change if the bottom of the country changes.

If only the upper class is changed but the lower class is not changed, there will be no change in this country.

Fortunately, the changes in Hanzhong are visible to the naked eye.