Pirate Song

And with the arrival of the slack season after the autumn harvest, the autumn bow and arrow club competition that Gao Huaiyuan had already planned began to sound.

This is a rare and lively event in Daye County over the years. Even civil officials like Liu Zhi County, because they are in a good mood during this time, came here to watch the competitions of bow and arrow clubs in various townships with great interest.

As the host, Mr. Wei Gao of Gaoxian County will naturally host it in person. This time, he did not hesitate to use Xue Yan's name to gather some wealthy people from Daye County, and together they offered a thousand guan as a bounty. , To reward the winner who won the first place, such a big reward is a big pie in the eyes of the braves of the townships, and everyone is very excited about it. Sharpen the knife, if you want to win the first place in this competition, let's talk about fame and fortune.

After more than half a year of practice, the bow and arrow clubs in each township have produced some good players, and after hearing the news of the post-autumn competition, this group of people sneaked into the so-called training camp, so before the competition, they were all as angry as bullfights Gathered at the temporary school grounds outside Daye County, waiting for the moment of opening.

There were a total of twelve towns in Daye County, not counting Gao Huaiyuan's county archer team, each of which sent 20 people to participate in the competition.

The items of the competition are also very simple. It is a competition of shooting skills. One group No.1 is selected, and the other is the individual No. [-]. The second competition is offensive and defensive. It also emphasizes the cooperation of the group. Of course, there are individual performances. There are separate wrestler awards , The competition is about strength, whoever has the most strength will win, and in the end there will be a competition of fists and feet, and the first name will be taken out and rewarded.

In terms of awards, it is very rich. Gao Huaiyuan originally planned to set a ranking for martial arts with swords and guns, but Liu Zhixian and others objected, saying that once the sword is used, there will inevitably be no casualties. To be on the safe side, it is better not to conduct such a competition For good reason, Gao Huaiyuan had no choice but to give up and set up such an award for the bow and arrow clubs of each township to send personnel to compete for.

It is said that it is a bow and arrow club. In fact, the bow and arrow clubs of each township are not just training the archery of the township braves. In order to practice, not only the skills of boxing, kicking, swords and guns, but also the method of offensive and defensive coordination are basically practiced. Basically, it is a relatively comprehensive training for the village braves from actual combat. The purpose is of course very simple, that is, to hope that these village warriors If one day goes into battle, it won't be a gang of mobs.

As for the autumn competition, Gao Huaiyuan and Ji Xiancheng discussed the method at the beginning. The purpose was to stimulate the villagers in the bow and arrow clubs of various townships to pay attention to this matter. The purpose of setting up heavy rewards is also the same. Wu, gradually in the area of ​​Daye County, subtly develop a sturdy folk custom, which will only benefit and not harm the Han people in the future!

Therefore, Gao Huaiyuan worked hard on this matter regardless of cost, and pushed the matter to such an extent that he finally had to review his achievements in the past half a year.

For more than half a year, his father Gao Jian, who is far away in Shaoxing, has been paying attention to his performance as an official, and has been communicating with him constantly, urging him to be his county captain in a safe and stable manner, and not to make troubles. That's right, he was quite disapproving and unhappy about these things he did, but he was far away in Shaoxing after all, and he stared blankly at Gao Huaiyuan's actions, so he sent someone to send a letter to Ji Xiancheng, asking Ji Xiancheng to restrain him. Gao Huaiyuan took a moment, and it turned out that Ji Xiancheng had completely fallen for Gao Huaiyuan now, turned a blind eye to Gao Jian's instructions, and even colluded with Gao Huaiyuan to be ignorant of the old man Gao Jian.

However, Gao Jian found out about Gao Huaiyuan's situation through other channels, which was quite gratifying to Gao Jian. Anyway, Gao Huaiyuan has been doing well on the ground in Daye County for more than half a year. The handling of the relationship between them and the reputation in the countryside are quite good. Although they disagree with Gao Huaiyuan's promotion of the establishment of bow and arrow clubs among the people, he is quite pleased with his overall performance, so he gradually feels relieved.

After a loud gong sounded, Gao Huaiyuan, as the host, announced the start of the match. Such a grand event is rare in Daye County. Many people flocked out of the city to watch the bow and arrow club competition, and even many people in the townships did not hesitate to put down their work and ran to the county town to cheer for the archers of their bow and arrow club.

The archers from the twelve bow and arrow clubs lined up and made their debut on the school grounds. Each of them stood upright in the field with their chests and stomachs folded. Although they were not wearing armor, they were all in new clothes and looked very energetic. At the scene, the Lizhengs from each village didn't want the people from their own villages to come out and be ashamed, so they spared no expense to make a tailor-made outfit for each person, to show the strength of their village's bow and arrow club, and try to overwhelm each other in terms of momentum first.

But when these twelve teams came out to stand together, they were really evenly matched, making it hard to tell from their appearances which team could win.

Liu Zhixian also attended today with great interest as the parent official of a county, and was invited out by Gao Huaiyuan. He spoke eloquently and said a lot of encouraging words. Put some color on his face, and by the way, he also praised Gao Xianwei, which is an affirmation of Gao Huaiyuan's work during this period. In short, after the call was over, not many people understood it, but there were quite a few. What a group of rough people heard was drowsy, and some couldn't cheer up.

After Liu Zhixian complacently made it to the stands, someone brought tea over, and he sat down with a bunch of officials such as the county magistrate, boss, and secretary, and Gao Huaiyuan stood up and explained the rules of the game again.

The first competition is archery. Each archery club sends five people to participate. No one has five arrows. After shooting, the top three will be selected for the finals, and then the final team No.1 will be determined, and then the best score will be selected. The top five individuals in the competition will conduct individual competitions to determine the individual's first place.

The team competition is very simple. There is a target in front of each participating archery club team. The archers are [-] steps away from the target. After shooting, whoever has the most arrows on the target will determine. Draw the ring, and take out the target paper set of later generations. If the number of arrows saved is the same, there will be no winner.

There is a special person responsible for recording the number of rings of each person. In this way, the top few rankings can be taken out. This kind of competition is not difficult, but when it comes to the individual competition, there will be a moving target. If you want to hit the moving target The goal is not easy!

As the competition started, each team immediately selected the best archers in their own archery clubs to enter the arena, and were led to their respective targets, and then began to shoot arrows in turn, and someone specially recorded their results.

Since this is the first time this kind of competition is held, the difficulty setting is not too high, and the rules of the competition are relatively simple. After passing a round of competition, twelve teams have shot the prescribed arrows one after another, and the results will be counted soon. The applause from the spectators was one after another, and it was very lively. Many people cheered for their favorite teams, and even women came to watch the biggest event in Daye County in recent years. It was very lively inside and outside the stadium.

The only thing that Gao Huaiyuan didn't expect was that there was a gambling house involved in this game. They set up bets early on outside the game, allowing the guys who like to gamble to buy the teams they like to bet on, and then according to the Odds, the person who buys wins money, and the person who fails to buy will naturally lose everything.

Gao Huaiyuan only found out about this on the same day. The gang of Catcher Xing kept it from him, and even went to bet secretly. Angrily, Gao Huaiyuan cursed inwardly. , I made up my mind that after this matter is over, I will settle accounts with the boss of the gambling shop, and I will pay him out of everything I say, so as to make up for my spiritual loss!

The three teams with the best results were immediately selected. This result is very fair. If you win, you win, and if you lose, you lose. They looked dejected, and the guys who made the wrong bet were even more sad. They tore off the betting vouchers in hand one after another, and went to find a place to lick their wounds.

Among the three teams, Gaojiazhuang's team is naturally indispensable. This team was trained by Zhou Jun sent by Gao Huaiyuan. If they can't even enter the top three, Gao Huaiyuan probably doesn't need to reprimand him. Zhou Jun will find a place to hit him to death. up!

Gao Huaiyuan is very satisfied with the performance of the bow and arrow club in Gaojiazhuang. Zhou Jun himself is good at archery. In addition, Gaojiazhuang belongs to their land, and the selected Xiangyong also obeys orders, and there is Zhou Hao These experts give pointers from time to time, and the level is naturally quite good. The selected ones are all good archers in the bow and arrow club. All 25 arrows hit the target, and none of them missed the target. In the first round of competition, they stood out. No.2 and No.3 have a few arrows, and I dare not say that they are the winners. At least I can say that if there are no accidents, they are sure to win.

At this moment, people turned their attention to the inconspicuous Gaojiazhuang Bow and Arrow Club. Some people thought about it and regretted it. Although there are not many people who have seen his skills, it is rumored that Lieutenant Gao County is absolutely skilled, and Gaojiazhuang is also the place where Lieutenant Gao's family is located. If you can't train a few decent archers, wouldn't it be ridiculous? Yet?So those gamblers who didn't bet on the Gaojiazhuang Bow and Arrow Club before, now their intestines are turning green with regret.

As expected, in the next competition, the bow and arrow club of Gaojiazhuang really took the lead and took the lead, convincing the other teams.

The final is not as simple as the preliminary round. Not only is there a fixed target to be shot at [-] paces, but also a fixed target that is [-] paces away. The target is not so simple. At this time, the comparison is not only the eyesight and arm strength, but also the feeling of the bow and arrow. To put it bluntly, in addition to aiming accurately, you also need to feel the influence of the wind and the timing of the shot. To grasp, the more difficult thing is not to use direct aim, but to shoot the bow and arrow as far as possible from the angle of upward shooting. In this way, if the strength cannot be well controlled, the difficulty of the arrow to hit the target will be A lot has been added.

After the sound of the drum, the archers of the three bow and arrow clubs took turns to take turns again. They still used the arrows in turn. The fixed target at 25 paces is okay. However, the experienced Zhou Jun and the others had mastered the long-range shooting skills before the battle, and passed on this valuable experience to the archers of the bow and arrow club. At least half of the arrows hit the target, while the other two teams competing for the top spot were much worse. After [-] arrows were shot, very few hit the target, so the arrows either fell in the distance or fell on the arrows. In front of the target, in this way, in the group archery competition, the Gaojiazhuang Bow and Archery Club did their part to come out on top, which drew applause from the audience.

Gao Huaiyuan nodded slightly, expressing his satisfaction with Zhou Jun. Zhou Jun strode to the front of the stands, and bowed down to salute Liu Zhixian and others in the stands.

"I didn't expect that our Daye County is also a land of hidden dragons and crouching tigers! Now, in just half a year, so many good archers can emerge. If this continues, why worry about my hometown of the Song Dynasty? Come! Come! There is a reward! "Liu Zhixian was also in high spirits today. Seeing that there are so many good shooters in Daye County, he couldn't help feeling a little emotional. He stood up excitedly and waved Zhou Jun to stand up, and said loudly to the crowd below.

After Gao Huaiyuan heard this, he was quite moved. In his opinion, a civil official like Liu Zhixian, who is always cautious all day long, has already cut off his desire to restore the old land. But today, he is still wrong. Among the Han people Most people will never give up on the idea of ​​looking north to the mountains and rivers. The north that raised the Chinese nation will never be forgotten by the Han people. Even people like Liu Zhixian still have the desire to restore the old land in their hearts. Ideally, because of the failure of the Kaixi Northern Expedition, the morale of the Song people was low, and after Shi Miyuan, who advocated a policy of compromise, came to power, many people gradually hid the enthusiasm in their hearts. It can't help arousing the enthusiasm of literati like Liu Zhixian, but it's a pity that now let alone recovering the old land, I am afraid that the Southern Song Dynasty will never have a chance again!

After the team competition was over, someone reported the results of the previous statistics and reported the names of the top five shooters. The five people were called and walked out, and they came to the stands for a medical examination together.

Two of the five archers were from Gaojiazhuang, among them was Zhou Jun himself, and now Zhou Jun is also a young man from the old Gao family in name, so he is eligible to participate in such a competition.

Except for him and another archer from the Gaojiazhuang Bow and Arrow Club, the other three are from different bow and arrow clubs, and their archery skills are all good. The reason why one of them failed to enter the team finals was mainly because he was dragged down by his peers. As a result, he was hindered, and his strength should not be underestimated. It can be said that these five people basically represent the higher level of people who are good at shooting in Daye County. !

Gao Huaiyuan first praised the five finalists, and then announced the rules of the competition. The rules of the individual competition are not complicated. In addition to the [-]-step and [-]-step fixed targets, there is also a moving target. Originally, Gao Huaiyuan wanted to have a riding and shooting competition, but in Daye County, there are not many people who can ride horses, and even decent horses can't be found, so he had to give up and simplify the competition method .

Even so, with the addition of movable targets, the difficulty has increased a lot again. The fixed target competition is not too difficult for five high-level archers like them. Each of them has three arrows. After shooting, Zhou Jun actually only ranked third, and the top two were in the number of rings, even ahead of Zhou Jun.

As for the next moving target, no one dared to carry the target and let them shoot. If they were not careful, the person carrying the target might be shot over, so Gao Huaiyuan found another way, pulling a rope in the air, hanging on it. Pointing at the target, pulling it back and forth with human control, the erratic target immediately increased the difficulty.

Shooting dead objects is much simpler than shooting moving objects. This is a consideration of the archer's real ability.

Such a strange competition immediately turned up the appetite of the onlookers, and everyone couldn't help but start to quiet down, hold their breath, and look towards the field.

Gao Huaiyuan felt drowsy sitting in the stands. For a master like him, such a competition is really nothing to watch. If such a target can't be hit, it will be really disappointing up!

But this kind of competition aroused the interest of civil servants like Liu Zhixian. A group of people stood up and stretched their necks to look towards the field.

Compared with the group competition, the atmosphere of this competition is more tense. For the contestants, there is a kind of pressure invisibly. There is an archer who is good at archery. The target, the arm trembled, and after setting the arrow and shooting the bow, I aimed for a long time, but the arrow went out, and the arrow was almost desperate. The arrow didn't hit the target, and then he left the arena in despair, hiding among the crowd.

The defeat of the first person obviously affected the swing of the second person. This person also shot three arrows, but only one arrow hit the side of the dangling target. Seeing that he was about to be eliminated, he dropped his bow and arrow in frustration and strode forward. Retired into the team.