The court sealed the government office for holidays in the New Year, but Zhao Bing, a miserable emperor, had no rest throughout the year, and there were more things than before. According to the convention, he would meet with the envoys of the Fan Kingdom, accompany the Empress Dowager to Xiangguo Temple to burn incense, and meet the officials who entered the court in the local court... Anyway, there were endless people to see and endless meals every day. He had to wait until the Lantern Festival of the Shangyuan Festival before he could take a breath.

Today is the beginning of spring. Legend has it that Shennong tasted hundreds of herbs and divided them into five grains. They all attached great importance to agriculture. During the Zhou Dynasty, the affairs of farming were mentioned in court discussions. While preparing the calendar, local officials were ordered to hold a ceremony to welcome the spring. According to customs, "beat the spring ox" at the spring welcoming ceremony, also known as whipping the spring.

Farming is the foundation of all industries, and spring is the first of the year. Of course, this "welcome spring" ceremony is grand. The day before the beginning of spring, officials from all over the country had to take a bath, wear plain clothes, not sit in sedan chairs or ride horses, walk to the suburbs, gather villagers, set up a table to offer sacrifices. In addition to burning incense and kowtow, they also had to make a calves in front of the altar, and let those who pretend to be the god of gou Mang raise and whip the calves. This calves is called "spring calves".

In the Song Dynasty, all dynasties attached great importance to welcome spring and gradually rose to national rituals. Beating spring ox is an important part of the ceremony. "Beating spring ox" is mostly used to beat earthen oxes, and some places have been replaced with paper oxes. A paper-paste cow is filled with grains and is regarded as "Spring oxes". At the Spring Festival welcoming meeting, Jumang God raised a whip to beat him hard. The ox was knocked down and the paper was broken, and the grains inside flowed out, which symbolized that a year of harvest was harvested.

Due to the popularization of spring ox-fighting activities in the Song Dynasty, the demand for spring ox-fighting increased greatly. In addition to the country's attention to this activity, it is necessary to regulate the content of the activity and the production of spring ox-fighting. A special book, "The Sutra of the Earth ox", was even born in the Song Dynasty. This was written by Xiang Meng in the Song Dynasty. After review, it was promulgated by Song Renzong.

The content of the "Tu Niu Sutra" consists of four parts: one explains the color of spring ox, two explains the clothes of ox people, three explains the positions of ox people in front and back, and four explains the reins of dragon heads. Through the color of ox people, the clothes of ox people in front, back, left and right positions of ox people, the texture and color of ox lines of ox lines, the texture and color of ox lines, the yin and yang and five elements, in order to achieve good luck and follow the will of heaven to obtain auspicious harvest.

The spring cattle fighting activity attracted a large number of farmers and citizens to participate. While enjoying the holiday, people went forward to grab spring cattle and other goods to benefit the market. At that time, the spring cattle was still made of soil, so the spring cattle was naturally broken. The farmers and citizens went to grab broken earth cattle blocks, because people believed that "the one who gets beef is suitable for silkworms and cures diseases."

Because the Song Dynasty was very standardized in the fighting of spring cattle, the local cattle was well-made, the activities were more standardized, and the participation was more extensive, which became an activity for the whole nation. Therefore, it gradually spread across the country and spread to ethnic minorities such as Khitan and Jurchen in the north. The Khitans also made the same spring cattle and held the "Learn Spring Ceremony" on the day of the Spring Festival.

The Imperial Heavenly Regulatory Commission set the beginning of spring as the third hour of Mao on the sixth day of the first lunar month. During the New Year, Zhao Bing had to fast the day before. After taking a bath the next morning, he worshipped the emperor's statue with the company of all the ministers, and then went out of the palace and came to the square outside the palace city. At this time, the earthen cattle produced by Lin'an Prefecture had been delivered and placed on the field with red color.

Zhao Bing looked at the square with a crowd of people waiting for Dianyi. Some people were eager to try and were preparing to grab the "local beef". If there were no military soldiers to stop it, the local beef would collapse immediately.

"Found incense, libation wine!" As Si Li shouted, Zhao Bing stepped forward, burned incense before the earthen cow, and libation wine three times.

"Spring is here!" After the toast was over, Si Li shouted loudly.

Zhao Bing then took the whip and hit the earth cow three times in a row. Then he grabbed a handful of the hopper in the small yellow gate holding the beans and threw it on the earth cow. Then a soldier stepped forward to smash the earth cow with a stick. At the same time, he hurried into the palace city under the escort of the ministers. The soldiers who were deploying the defense immediately retreated. The people who had been eager to flock to compete for the "beef".

At this time, Zhao Bing had already gone up the city tower. Looking down, he saw the heads twitching and the people were rushing to be the first. If he didn't know that there was a turmoil in the capital, someone would attack the imperial city. And a small yellow gate also sent the spring plate to the ceremony and divided it with everyone who attended the ceremony, called "Yachun". At this point, the ceremony was basically over, and everyone could go back to their own houses.

"Haha, our square is still too small!" Zhao Bing suddenly smiled as he looked at the crowds of people rushing in the square outside the city. He found that there were not only people snatching 'beef', but also countless small vendors, all of whom were selling things that were in line with the time.

Spring ox is not only the protagonist of the Spring Festival ceremony, but also becomes the mascot of the New Year. The Spring ox is limited, and many people may not be able to grab it, so there is production when there is demand. In order to satisfy the people's beautiful wishes of love Spring ox and make up for the regrets that citizens have not grabbed the Spring ox, hawkers in the square and even extend to the Imperial Street also specially imitated and made small spring ox betrayed.

These small spring oxen sitting in the pen, listing of hundreds of opera characters, are very beautiful. People rush to buy them, take them home as artworks to appreciate, or as gifts to others for good luck. At the same time, when men "whip spring", women "dress spring". They wear colorful headdresses and also use cut spring swallows and butterflies as accessories. The elderly and children do not forget to "bite spring", which means eating spring rolls and spring cakes. This series of customs has given birth to many small businesses, adding a bit of prosperity to the city.

"The official family is too narrow here, it is difficult to squeeze so many people!" Wang De said beside him.

"Yes, if it is bigger, it can accommodate more vendors and tourists, sell more things, and make their lives easier!" Zhao Bing said with regret. "In a few days, it will be the Spring Festival. Aoshan will be built in front of the venue and many colorful sheds will be built. The place will be even smaller, and the vendors will have to be expelled from the venue!"

"Official family, do you want to repair the old palace?" Wang De asked with a smile.

"The restoration of the old palace is a huge project and it costs a lot, so this matter can only be postponed!" Zhao Bing said.

"So should I move some of the residents around me be moved away? The square can also be expanded?" Wang De suggested again.

"That's even more disturbing the people, and it's not suitable to move!" Zhao Bing said. It was a helpless move to choose Chongde Palace as the imperial city at the beginning, but the location was really bad. This place is on the side of the Imperial Street, which is inconvenient to travel, and is limited to the surrounding environment, and it is difficult to expand, resulting in the current problems becoming a dead end...

After the noisy first month, Zhao Bing ushered in another Dianyi - personally farming and encouraging farmers. This is his first experience.

Establishing a country with agriculture was the basic national policy of ancient China. It emphasized agriculture and encouraged agriculture. The note of "The Book of Zhou" says: "In ancient times, the kings were the emperor and were rich in the world. They had to place private land, which was because there were three meanings. One was to serve the ancestral temple to fulfill their filial piety, the second was to teach the people to be diligent, and the third was to hear that their descendants knew the difficulties of farming and no laxity."

Then, personally farming became an important part of many emperors' daily work. Unlike today's leaders who plant trees on the Qingming Festival and dig shovels of soil on the project, there were several emperors in the Song Dynasty who not only had "private land", but also went to the ground to experience the difficulties of farming, inspected and studied agricultural technology and production conditions. Some emperors seemed to have a good level of agricultural skills.

The "private land" of the emperor of the Song Dynasty was divided into two parts. In addition to the inner garden of the ban, there was also the "rural fields" in which the emperor and his ministers participated in agriculture. Thermal fields began in the Zhou Dynasty and were inherited from the past dynasties. Although they were nominally farmed by the emperor, they were actually state-owned farms set up in the suburbs of Beijing. The Northern Song Dynasty set up a thousand acres of land in the southeast of the capital as thermal fields, and set up a member of the Rural Field Order, built a farmhouse in it, and built a Shencang in the southeast corner, and selected people with agricultural knowledge among the soldiers to be Rural Field Soldiers.

In addition to planting grain, the fields also include fruit, trees, vegetables, and livestock. The products on the fields are first used to recommend new products. All the sacrifices used for sacrifices in the palace for a year must be provided by the fields. Then, if there is still a surplus, they will be used to sell them to pay for other miscellaneous expenses. The rest will be handed over to the warehouse, which is a exclusive place for royal sacrifices.

In the past, the emperor's "private land" was distributed around the capital and bordered by the suburbs. However, there were also farmlands distributed within the imperial palace, which was quite strange. You should know that the Houyuan was originally a place for the imperial palace emperors to visit, but in the Houyuan of the Southern Song emperor, agricultural scenes were everywhere. These places became places for the emperor and ministers to understand agriculture, understand the people's conditions, observe crops, and even conduct agricultural experiments.

As early as April 24, the second year of Shaoxing, Emperor Gaozong of Song said to his ministers: "I heard that there was a wheat-burning palace in the ban of ancestors. Now I have sent water to irrigate the rift in the back garden to plant rice. Not only do I work in farming and heavy grains, but also show Wang Zheng to the forefront, but also want to know the difficulty of cropping." It can be seen that Zhao Gou began to study rice planting technology during the war. Not only that, he also has a lot of experience in silkworm breeding technology.

In contrast, Zhao Bing was much worse. When he was in Qiongzhou, a large number of people flocked to the city, and there was no place to live in the city. He lived in a palace that was many times smaller than now. The inner garden was even smaller and could not open up a piece of "private land" for the emperor to farm personally.

After returning to Jiangnan, the old palace city had been burned by a fire from the Mongol Yuan. In addition to the remaining few temples, there were still a ruin. If Zhao Bing had come back a few days later, the foundation would probably have been sent to build a temple by the demon monks, and he would not care about his own acre of three-point land. Later, he led his troops to fight in person, and he had been under Yangzhou City in 2009, so he would go there to farm.
Chapter completed!