Records of the Cattle and Horses of Chang'an

Chapter 538 Lingnan

Dozens of charming women with stunning looks lined up neatly in the courtyard of the second house. Cui Zhe was sitting at the table with a pen and paper in hand, tilting his head and thinking seriously for a moment: "I remember both your parents are home?"

The woman kneeling on the ground paused in her tear-wiping motion, her eyes rolling as she sobbed mournfully again, "My dear, if I return home like this, wouldn't it be a disgrace to my mother? I hope you will have mercy on me. I will serve you carefully in the future and will never again be so stubborn as to displease my wife."

Cui Zhe sighed. He was an indecisive man.

Although there were reasons for taking a concubine, it was ultimately his own bad thing.

He originally thought that keeping these concubines would only cost a little extra money, but the letter Zhao Yue left for him forced him to make a decision.

What was the letter Zhao Yue left for him?

Very thin.

There were two pages of letter paper in total, and the first page was the divorce letter.

When he happily opened the envelope and saw the letter of separation, his heart sank. His limbs trembled, his lips quivered, and he began to sweat uncontrollably and collapsed to the ground.

It took me a long time to recover and read the second page.

It said that if they did not want to divorce, then all the concubines in the backyard should be dismissed, and the illegitimate sons and daughters should find a way to settle themselves. In this way, the couple would still have room to turn around.

Cui Zhe's mood was so up and down that he had no time to think about all these things. He immediately started thinking about how to do these things.

Concubines are not so bad. At most, you can give them some money and let them go home to find a good man to marry.

But illegitimate sons and daughters are a bit tricky.

After all, they are my own children. I can't let them go home with my concubine, right?

Cui Zhe pondered for several days and finally came up with a brilliant idea: split the family.

Anyway, he, as the father, has been divided into two families, so isn't it only natural for his concubines' sons to be divided into two families as well?

As for concubines' daughters, they were all married off.

The youngest of his concubine daughters is now twelve years old, and it is normal for her to get married at this age nowadays.

The news of the Cui family's division has not been announced to the public yet. With the identity of Cui's daughters, although these concubines' daughters cannot marry particularly well, they can still choose from ordinary clans in Qingzhou City.

Thinking of the letter his wife had left behind, Cui Zhe was once ruthless: "This matter is a foregone conclusion. You can take the money and return home, or I can give you to someone else. You can choose."

Time is tight and the task is heavy. After sending away these concubines, he still has to hurry and ask the official matchmaker to find marriages for his concubines!

"My dear, a day as husband and wife is a hundred days of grace. I can't bear to leave you. Wuuuuu..." The concubine rushed forward and hugged Cui Zhe's legs, begging sadly and tenderly.

"Hey hey!"

This sentence set Cui Zhe's brain on edge. He quickly pulled his foot out, swung his robe, and leaped two meters away, sternly correcting him: "Don't talk nonsense! My wife and I are husband and wife! Don't say that! If you continue to talk nonsense, you'll lose your severance pay!"

If this gets to his wife's ears, will he still have a good life?

This woman is really vicious and wants to plot against me!

The financial alarm sounded, and the concubine dared not say anything, fearing that she would not get a single cent, but she had nowhere to complain!

At this time, Cui Quan and Cui family members were still unaware that Cui Zhe's drastic handling of the harem and his grand marriage of his daughter had triggered various speculations from the outside world about the Cui family. Even many members of the Cui family were in a panic, thinking that something big was going to happen to the Cui family, causing the direct branch to split up and preserve the incense.

Lingnan Road.

Lingnan Dao was a vast region, encompassing most of modern Guangdong, including Guangzhou, Shaozhou, Duanzhou, Chaozhou, Leizhou, and Yazhou.

Guizhou, Yongzhou, Rongzhou, Xiangzhou, and Lianzhou belong to modern Guangxi;

In addition, Danzhou and Zhenzhou in Hainan;

Hong Kong and Macau belong to Anbao County, and Macau belongs to Xiangshan County;

Even Jiaozhou, Aizhou, Fengzhou, and Luzhou belonged to the Annan Protectorate and are now part of northern Vietnam.

Of course, with the passage of time, the borders and coastlines today are slightly different from those of modern times.

"Jiulang, we are almost at Duanzhou City. It's getting dark. Why don't we stay here for a night?" Jian Ming's face was a little tanned after traveling for days.

As men, being dark is not the main issue. The main problem is that the further south you go, the hotter and humider it gets. They are not used to being covered in sticky sweat every day.

Cui Bianxu was also sweating profusely. He squinted his eyes at the vague city wall ahead and nodded without hesitation. "Rest for a night. Buy more food and herbs in Duanzhou, especially pills to ward off snakes, insects, rats, ants, and miasma."

"Yes." Jian Ming breathed a sigh of relief, turned his head and grinned proudly at Li Sheng: You coward, you want to take a break but you don't dare to say it yourself!

Li Sheng: ...

They had to travel continuously without even staying at an inn along the way. Even a strong man would not be able to endure this.

There were eleven people in the group, all of them were young and strong men. The weather this time was not as cold as before the Chinese New Year. The humidity and temperature in the south were higher than in the north, so Jiang Shangxian didn't dare to prepare more food at all.

Without preservatives, technology and hard work, food would easily spoil in a high temperature and high humidity environment. The group simply ate as much as they wanted to avoid wasting good food.

Li Sheng gave him a cold look, then rode forward and reported in a low voice, "Jiulang, the caravan is still following us."

From the moment they switched from water to land, a caravan followed them, and every time they got rid of it, they would catch up again from a distance.

A caravan in this state is simply unworthy of the heads on its necks.

Cui Bianxu didn't even turn his head. One corner of his mouth curled up slightly, and he touched the bronze compass hanging at his waist: "It's okay, let's go our way."

If this person wasn't sent by his grandfather, he would have chopped off his head and given it to that sickly Cui Wei as a chamber pot!

There is a difference between today's Lingnan Road and Nanyue. When the territory of Nanyue was at its peak, in addition to most of Guangdong Province, eastern and central Guangxi, the Red River Plain in northern Vietnam, and Hainan Island, it also briefly controlled the southern border of Changsha, Nanye County of Ganzhou, southeastern Guizhou, and western Fujian.

However, the construction of the mausoleums of successive emperors took decades, and there would definitely not be Zhao Tuo's tomb in these places that were only controlled for a short period of time.

Since ancient times, people looking for Zhao Tuo's tomb have limited their search area to a certain range: the Wuling Mountains in the north, the Rinnan County in the south, which is the Hengshan Mountains in central Vietnam, the Baise and Wenshan areas in the west, and Jieyang in the east.

The population situation in Nanyue was quite complicated. In addition to the Qin Dynasty's garrison and immigrants, there were also local Nanyue people, Xiou people, Luoyue people, Minyue people, Chu people, Li Liao people, and so on.

These people were collectively called Baiyue. The Nanyue Kingdom set up its capital in Panyu because it was located at the northern edge of the Pearl River Delta, where three rivers converged. It had convenient water and land transportation, was easy to defend and difficult to attack, and was enough to intimidate the Baiyue.