The ninth day of the ninth month, Double Ninth Festival.

Double Ninth Festival, also known as the 9th Festival, the autumn festival, has the custom of climbing high on this day. In the golden autumn, the sky is high and the air is cool. In this season, climbing high and looking far can achieve the purpose of relaxing and refreshing, fitness and curing diseases. Double Ninth Festival and the third day of the third month are both family members coming out. On the Double Ninth Festival, all relatives will go out to enjoy the autumn together, climb high and look into the distance, and enjoy chrysanthemums. At the same time, this day is also a traditional four festival for worshiping ancestors, known as New Year's Eve, Qingming Festival and Zhongyuan Festival.

Early on, Zai Tian was waiting outside the Meridian Gate. Today he would go to the west of Jingxi with King Chun and his family. According to custom, King Chun and his family would go to Bada Tower on this day to burn incense and worship, and also climb high and set foot on autumn. Although Zai Tian is now the emperor, he can no longer be regarded as Prince Chun and his family, his endless family affection still found a reason to travel with his parents.

This is also one of the reasons why the bet between Jianning and Liu Shaoqing was set on the ninth day of the ninth month.

As it was dawn, King Chun Fujin accompanied Concubine Li to slowly come out of the palace by carriage. Zai Tian first stepped forward to meet Concubine Li to greet Concubine Li, and then King Chun, Jianning and Nara also greeted the emperor and the imperial concubine respectively. Then everyone boarded the frame and headed west to Beijing.

The eight major places are located at the southern foot of the Xishan Mountain, about 30 miles away from the palace city, surrounded by CW Mountain, Pingpo Mountain, and Lushi Mountain. The three mountains are shaped like chairs, Chang'an Temple, Lingguang Temple, Sanshan Temple, Dabei Temple, Longquan Temple, Xiangjie Temple, Baozhu Cave, and Zhengguo Temple, eight ancient temples are scattered among the three mountains. The natural "twelve landscapes" are even more famous.

After arriving at the Eight Great Places, Nara first accompanied Concubine Li to rest in Sanshan Temple, and then went to Lingguang Temple, which was a rare spiritual relic in the world, to enjoy incense. Zai Tian changed to a horse and took King Chun and Jianning to the schoolyard not far away to prepare to start a bet with Liu Shaoqing.

When they arrived, Liu Shaoqing had been waiting for a while to lead 30 guards. Ten foreign gunmen selected by Shenji Camp were also standing on the other side. In addition, the emperor came to patrol himself, and there were his own military guard camp. Thousands of soldiers from Shenji Camp were guarding the surroundings.

Prince Chun's rectification of the Eight Banners Military Camp in the past two years has extended from the Shenji Camp to the Guards, the Forwards Camp, the Xiaoqi Camp and other military units of the Eight Banners Jing Camp. The matters that the Prince of Real Power personally arrested were somewhat effective. At least from the soldiers on duty now, they stood quite straight.

Seeing the eight banner soldiers standing solemnly, Zai Tian felt a little relieved, and he was more looking forward to the next competition.

Today, the emperor is watching the fun. All the rituals are simple. Du Xing'a, the manager of the Shenji Camp, brought ten gunmen and ten guards selected from the palace, and ten guards selected from the royal palace, and joined the thirty personal soldiers of Liu Shaoqing.

In addition to these contestants, in the temporary stands, several princes and ministers also joined in the fun.

Zai Tian sat down on the dragon chaise in the middle of the stands, and everyone knelt down and shouted long live. After Zai Tian called Du Xing'a and Liu Shaoqing to come closer. "Do you know the rules?"

Du Xing'a looked at Liu Shaoqing who was standing solemnly on the side. The rules of the clogging were set by him. The emperor naturally asked himself what he said. So after just glanced at the opponent, Du Xing'a stepped forward and said, "If you go back to the emperor, you will know everything. This first game is the speed and endurance of the game. Within the specified time, all the players on that side got the token and returned, which is a victory."

Zai Tian nodded and then reminded: "Speed ​​is one aspect, and endurance is also important. After all, you need to run through eight temples in the eight places during the journey, and then you have to go to Xiangshan to get the last token. So you have to ask the guards to pay attention to allocating their physical strength."

Previously, Liu Shaoqing's plan was to run forty miles with a long distance with a load, and the time limit was one hour. However, after Du Xing'a received the imperial edict, he specially organized people to make some attempts and found that except for a few large inner guards who could run forty miles, almost three-quarters of the team members could not hold on at all. Not to mention that there was still a time limit.

In order not to lose the royal face in the first game, Du Xing'a was too long to let the emperor and the princes and ministers waited for a long time, so it was not appropriate to persuade Jianning Princess Jianning to force Liu Shaoqing to agree to shorten the distance of the game. It was originally planned to run from Badalu to the Summer Palace and return, but now it has been changed to Xiangshan.

However, although the distance was greatly shortened, Liu Shaoqing managed to increase the difficulty. Originally, there was no such link as "off-road", but now he needed to go around the eight temples in the eight major places. Of course, for this reason, he also lost the preferential treatment of "if you lose, you don't have to learn from puppy."

Zai Tian naturally knew why Jianning and Du Xing'a forced Liu Shaoqing to adjust the content of the competition, so he specifically reminded Du Xing'a to pay attention to allocating physical strength.

The rules of the competition were clear, so everyone took their place. When the two sides stood up, Emperor Guangxu waved his hand, and a eunuch stepped forward and whispered: "The competition began!"

The equipment for the competition was ready last night. To be fair, the two 10-pound sandbags carrying weights were prepared by Shenjiying.

With the sound of a gong, thirty soldiers from both sides picked up the load in front of them as fast as possible, and then quickly rushed out of the starting line.

“Huh?”

Carefully, Zai Tian quickly saw the difference from the two groups of people.

"Did King Chun see any difference?"

As the emperor asked, Yihuan hurriedly said, "Please give me some advice."

Knowing that King Chun was not able to find out, Zai Tian had to say himself: "Where are guards or elite soldiers in the Jing camp, they basically have bare hands when picking up heavy objects. They either hold a bag of each hand, or carry two bags of sand and soil on their shoulders. But no matter how they do it, they are bare hands. But Liu Shaoqing's soldiers are different..."

After the Emperor said this, Yihuan also realized it.

When picking up the weight, Liu Shaoqing's soldiers untied a rope wrapped around their bodies, tied two sandbags to their backs, and then set off in unison.

"This...maybe it's because they made some preparations in advance."

Zai Tian nodded: "It's certain that we made some preparations in advance. Haven't our guards and elite soldiers practiced and prepared long ago? The question is why did they do this? Is there any benefit of tying up the sandbags like this?"

Yihuan had no clue about the emperor's questions. The king and his minister could only talk about the problem and put it in their hearts. After the result came out, let Liu Shaoqing answer it.

Because it took a little time to wear a strap, when Liu Shaoqing's soldiers started to set off, the contestants in the court could no longer see their backs. The little princess obviously felt that victory was in sight, and she slapped her hands red, looking extremely excited. The ministers invited to watch the gambling competition looked at each other and smiled.

Everyone was tacit, and it was obvious that Liu Shaoqing could be a good person. In everyone's opinion, the soldiers of the Black Flag Army deliberately delayed some time and asked the princess to run away first, in fact, to make the princess, princesses and the emperor happy.

As for those who lose, they have to kowtow and learn to bark. In the hearts of all the ministers, it is not normal for those who are slaves to please their masters.

But Zai Tian didn't think so. He looked at the process of Liu Shaoqing's soldiers playing the straps carefully. This behavior was obviously trained. Everyone's straps were exactly the same, and they were very fast. Thirty people completed almost at the same time. Not only that, after carrying the weight-carrying objects, no one was in a hurry to set off. Instead, the team was unified again, and the thirty people were divided into two rows, and then they set off in unison.

Looking at the smile on the corner of Liu Shaoqing's mouth, Zai Tian felt keenly that there must be something tricky here.

As time passed by minute by minute, the little princess was originally excited, as the people on both sides could no longer see the shadows, she also became depressed. She gradually became a little impatient.

At this moment, a fast horse came over.

In order to facilitate the emperor to receive information in a timely manner, a fast horse was specially set up at two key nodes. As soon as the news came, a fast horse would inform him.

The latest news is that the palace guards were the first to arrive at Xiangshan Glazed Tower. Now they have already received the famous brand and have started to return.

After winning the first place in the halfway line, the little princess immediately became excited again. Then again news came, saying that the guards had arrived in Xiangshan and returned with the token.

Soon, more than a dozen guards or soldiers from Shenji Camp had taken the token and began to return. Judging from the information reported, there was no one from Liu Shaoqing so far.

The little princess clearly felt that she was sure to win. Her little face was red with joy.

Zai Tian glanced at Liu Shaoqing standing below the stage with a corner of his eyes, and saw that the boy still looked well-rounded.

At this moment, a fast Malay newspaper, and thirty soldiers of the Zhennan Army arrived in Xiangshan at the same time, received the license plate, and began to return.

After hearing the news, Zai Tian felt something was wrong.

Liu Shaoqing took out his pocket watch from the audience and took a look. In twenty-three minutes, the results were OK. So he put away his pocket watch with confidence and began to close his eyes and rest in the warm sun in late autumn.

Ten minutes later, the last horse came to report, and the thirty guards had already obtained the license plate and began to return.

Another stick of incense passed, and the first figure appeared on the road in the distance.

The first person to reach the end was a guard selected by the palace. Zai Tian still had the impression of this man because he was one of the guards selected from Han martial artists after he took power, named Cheng Tinghua, who seemed to be practicing Baguazhang.

When the little princess saw that it was her own person who had come back, she immediately became happy and ordered the eunuch to reward ten taels of silver.

The second one is also a guard, who is also a Han Chinese, named Wang Zhongquan, who practices Bajiquan. The little princess also rewards ten taels of silver.

After that, a few people came back one after another, all of whom were from guards, some from the palace and some from the royal palace. They were basically Han people, with only two Mongolian Eight Banners. The little princess naturally had rewards each, but from the third person, the reward of silver became five taels.

Looking at the time, forty-five minutes have passed, six or seven people have returned from the guards, and there is not one from Liu Shaoqing.

While the little princess was clapping her hands to celebrate, a neat slogan suddenly came from a distance: "One, one, one, two, one, three, four." Then came the sound of neat footsteps. Soon, a team of figures appeared in front of everyone.

Liu Shaoqing's personal soldiers were back, and there were thirty people, one of them was not bad, and they lined up in an orderly manner, shouted slogans, and reached the finish line at the same time.

Liu Shaoqing checked the watch again, and the whole journey was about nine kilometers, which took a total of fifty-three minutes. After looking at the neat military appearance of the troops, there should be still more energy. Liu Shaoqing nodded with satisfaction.

The personal soldiers returned to the finish line, handed over the famous brand, and then stood automatically on Liu Shaoqing's side. From afar, Zai Tian noticed that Liu Shaoqing's soldiers sat down to rest according to the unified command, and everyone put the sandbag on their backs as a seat cushion under their butts when they were resting.

Not only that, even if these thirty soldiers sat down to rest, they still maintained a neat formation. In addition, there was no sound in the entire team except Liu Shaoqing. Even Yang Yong and others were just standing by and watching without saying a word.

Looking back at the Beijing camp and the guards, hey...

While Liu Shaoqing was rectifying the soldiers and resting, the guards and soldiers came back one after another. The more people came back, they looked more embarrassed. They were sweating and panting. As soon as they returned, they sat on the ground and gasped, like fishes leaving the water; some of them could sit still, and a few of them lay down directly. What's more, they simply tied the sandbag on their waists with their belts. The sandbag had been worn out along the way, and the filling inside was naturally sprinkled clean.

In short, compared with Liu Shaoqing's neat military appearance, he is a scumbag.
Chapter completed!