Chapter 90 Preparing for the New Year Gift

"Dad, when will the New Year's gifts be sent this year?"

In the afternoon, Yang Mingcheng came over and asked.

"New Year's gifts!"

It's already the twelfth lunar month, and it's time to prepare for the New Year's gifts.

Yang Zhengshan secretly calculated that the Yang family needs to send quite a few New Year's gifts this year.

The in-laws are the Wang family, the Li family, the Jiang family, the Liang family, and the Lu family.

These families don't need to send too expensive gifts, just express their feelings.

The main thing is that they are afraid that they can't afford it.

However, some families need to send more expensive gifts.

Zhou Lan, as Yang Zhengshan's big thigh, must not miss the gift.

Zhao Yuan also needs to send one.

There are also the Lu family and Luo Jin, the magistrate of Anning County.

"You should prepare yourself and go back to Anning County in a few days. Bring Wenchun and Wenhua with you and let them go home for the New Year and come back after the New Year!"

"You can handle the other families as you wish. Go to the Liang family in person!"

The Yang family and the Liang family are engaged, but the daughter-in-law has not been married yet, so special care must be taken.

"Send more cotton cloth to your eldest sister, and ask Jiang He if he is willing to come to Yinghebao next year!"

Among the five brothers and sisters of the Yang family, Yang Yunyan is undoubtedly the one who is ignored the most.

There is no way around it. Yang Yunyan has already married, and even if Yang Zhengshan wants to take more care of her, he can't.

After all, they are his own daughter and son-in-law, and Yang Zhengshan thinks he still needs to take care of them.

Jiang He is not too old, he is only 19 years old this year, and it is not too late to start practicing martial arts now.

He cannot join the army, but he can help Yang Mingcheng take care of the Yang family's industry.

"As for County Magistrate Luo, you should discuss with the clan leader and visit him together. This year, he has arranged an inspection post for Minghui. No matter what, we must prepare a generous gift!"

"As for the Lu family, you should go to Guancheng to purchase some furs and expensive medicinal materials and send them there. The number of samples should be larger. Although they may not be interested in our things, the appearance should not be too ugly!"

Compared with the Lu family, the Yang family's foundation is too shallow, and there is really nothing to show for the festival gifts.

Yang Zhengshan explained one by one, and finally took out a silver note of 500 taels and handed it to Yang Mingcheng.

This festival gift is a lot of giving, and a lot of receiving.

Giving festival gifts to the Lu family will definitely not be a loss for the Yang family.

In fact, Yang Zhengshan did not want to take advantage of this. Giving less and receiving more always felt inferior.

But there was no way. The Lu family was big and powerful, and the Yang family could not compare at all.

As for Zhou Lan and Zhao Yuan's festival gifts, Yang Zhengshan had to prepare them himself.

Not only the two of them, but also the officials of Jianning Guard, he had to send a decent holiday gift.

Although he had Zhou Lan's support, he couldn't ignore other superiors.

At least he couldn't ignore them, otherwise they would think he looked down on them.

Since he had to prepare New Year gifts for Zhou Lan and others, Yang Zhengshan thought it would be better for him to go to Guancheng in person.

That afternoon, Yang Zhengshan and Yang Mingcheng went to Guancheng with more than ten elite riders.

Yinghebao was relatively close to Guancheng, and it took less than half an hour to reach it by horseback.

Just passing by Linguanbao, Yang Zhengshan went to Linguanbao to see Yang Chengze.

"If you miss home, you can go back this year."

In the official office of Linguanbao, Yang Zhengshan said to Yang Chengze.

Yang Chengze is now the garrison officer of Linguanbao, but he is still responsible for recruiting refugees. During this period, he has successively recruited some refugees, sometimes hundreds of people, sometimes dozens of people, almost filling up the military households under Yang Zhengshan.

That is to say, Yang Zhengshan now has more than 1,100 military households under his command. However, since some refugees have just been settled and have not yet fully adapted, he currently has only more than 600 soldiers under his command, which is not yet full.

"Sir, is this okay?" Yang Chengze said with some expectation.

After all, he is only a 17-year-old boy. It is the first time he has been away from home for so long, and he still misses home very much.

"Yes, you can let Mingwu take care of the garrison for you!" Yang Zhengshan said with a smile.

Yang Mingwu had gone back before, and he also brought his wife and children here, so he definitely can't go back for the New Year.

As for the other Yang family members, Yang Zhengshan will also give them a holiday to go home in turn.

He has been out for nearly a year, and he should go home to see his relatives.

"But I can only give you five days. If the time is too long, it will not be appropriate!" Yang Zhengshan said again.

"Thank you, sir!"

Yang Chengze, who has always been calm, grinned, just like a sunny boy.

Yang Zhengshan patted his shoulder and then looked around Linguan Fort.

Although Yang Chengze is young, his management ability is not bad. He managed Linguanbao in a proper manner.

Yang Zhengshan encouraged him a few more words before leaving Linguanbao.

At dusk, they entered Chongshanguancheng. They definitely couldn't go back today, so they stayed in Yang Zhengshan's courtyard.

There was no conversation overnight. The next morning, Yang Zhengshan and Yang Mingcheng went their separate ways.

Yang Zhengshan first went to the snack shop to buy some snacks, then went to the butcher shop to buy half a sheep, and then took people to Luo's house to sit.

This can be regarded as a New Year's gift to Luo's family.

After sitting at Luo's house for a while, he went to Lu's grain shop to sit and also gave Lu a New Year's gift.

Although these two people are not important figures, they have helped Yang Zhengshan a lot in the past year, and it is worth Yang Zhengshan's personal trip.

After visiting these two shops, Yang Zhengshan prepared a New Year gift for Zhou Lan.

What to give Zhou Lan?

Yang Zhengshan was really troubled.

Most women like gold and silver jewelry, but Zhou Lan is not an ordinary woman. Yang Zhengshan rarely sees her wearing any jewelry.

Besides, even if Yang Zhengshan prepared gold and silver jewelry, Zhou Lan might not like it.

"Dashan, what do you think we should give General Zhou?"

Yang Zhengshan walked along the street for a long time and looked at more than a dozen shops, but he didn't find a gift he liked.

Song Dashan was originally a small flag officer of a fire road pier. He was in his early thirties this year. He looked tall and burly. Standing with Yang Mingwu, they looked like two door gods.

Before, Yang Zhengshan inspected various piers and beacons and found that Song Dashan was not only a martial artist at the level of refining strength, but also good at riding and shooting, so he recruited him to be his captain of the personal guard.

Well, this guard was just set up by Yang Zhengshan privately, and it was composed of the ten scouts he had selected at the beginning.

In theory, he, a thousand households, was not qualified to have a guard.

Song Dashan was naturally grateful for Yang Zhengshan's appreciation.

Although Song Dashan was a warrior, he was relatively taciturn, and his family was poor.

He had been a warrior for more than ten years, but he had been a small flag officer for more than ten years, which showed that he was really not good at scheming, otherwise he could at least get a general flag, or enter the war camp to get a position like a team leader.

Hearing Yang Zhengshan's question, Song Dashan scratched his head, "Sir, I don't know!"

"..."

Yang Zhengshan was sweating, he had forgotten what kind of character this guy was, and telling him about this was like playing the lute to a cow.

Suddenly his eyes accidentally caught a glimpse of a shop.

"Bookstore!"

There were relatively few scholars in Chongshan Town, and there were relatively few bookstores in Guancheng.

Yang Zhengshan had visited bookstores before, but he only bought some pens, inkstones, and paper, and rarely bought books.

"Buy some books for General Zhou?"

"Some rare classics or unique copies seem to be suitable as gifts!"

"I just don't know if General Zhou likes reading books!"

Yang Zhengshan thought about it and walked into the bookstore. Anyway, he didn't have a target now, so he might as well come in and take a look.

This bookstore is not small, and the decoration is very simple. I think it is a bookstore with a bit of history.

There is a shopkeeper and two clerks in the shop. One of the 16 or 17-year-old clerks saw Yang Zhengshan and his party coming in and hurriedly came forward to greet them: "What does this guest want?"

"Let me take a look first!" Yang Zhengshan waved his hand and walked to a row of bookshelves.

His eyes swept over the books one by one.

There are many books, including classics, travelogues, and some miscellaneous books on medical skills. Yang Zhengshan even found some martial arts techniques.

They are all relatively low-level martial arts techniques, just like the ancestral spear techniques of the Yang family.

Yang Zhengshan's eyes lit up when he looked at these skills. Although he already had acquired skills such as Kui Niu Jin, he also needed other skills.

For example, knife skills, sword skills, footwork, body skills, etc. He could practice some of them. Even if he didn't want to practice some of them, he could learn about them. If he met an enemy who had learned these skills in the future, he could predict the enemy in advance based on the skills.

In fact, there were also some skills in Yinghe Fort, such as the knife skills practiced by the sword and shield soldiers and the iron arm fist practiced by the archers, which were all low-level martial arts inheritance.

And as the Qianhu defense officer of Jianning Guard, he could also go to Jianning Guard to receive some skills.

In short, he had no shortage of low-level skills to practice.

It was just that he thought he could not chew too much, so he had only practiced the Yang family's ancestral spear skills and Kui Niu Jin.

Yang Zhengshan casually opened a sword skill and took a look.

Sword skills are not suitable for fighting on the battlefield because the sword is too short and too light. On the contrary, many martial artists like to practice sword skills.

The sword technique Yang Zhengshan saw was called Suifeng Sword Technique, which had a total of 32 moves, and each move was mysterious and casual.

This kind of sword technique is very suitable for single combat between warriors, but it is a bit useless on the battlefield.

On the battlefield, there is no need for mystery and casualness. Once fighting, it is desperate. Many soldiers only have one chance to attack, and they can't be casual even if they want to.

However, Yang Zhengshan still likes this sword technique very much. After thinking about it, he put it away and asked about the price later. If it is not expensive, he will buy it back.

In fact, low-level skills like this are very cheap, usually only a dozen taels of silver.

Then Yang Zhengshan chose a spear technique, which is very similar to the Yang family's ancestral spear technique, but it is somewhat different from the Yang family spear technique, which can be used for mutual reference.

After selecting two skills in a row, Yang Zhengshan flipped through the miscellaneous books again.

He felt that Zhou Lan would definitely not like those books such as Confucian classics. Perhaps Zhou Lan would like some miscellaneous books, or military books.

"Wait, a military book?"

A flash of inspiration flashed through Yang Zhengshan's mind.

"Shopkeeper, do you have the Thirty-Six Stratagems?"

"Thirty-Six Stratagems? What are those?" The shopkeeper looked confused.

"No!" Yang Zhengshan's eyes suddenly lit up.

Others copied poems and songs when they traveled through time, but we copied military books!

This pattern, this face, this level, seemed to be raised all of a sudden.

Yang Zhengshan's eyes were bright.

As for ancient military books such as Sun Tzu's Art of War and Taigong's Six Strategies, he definitely hadn't read them.

But these thirty-six strategies, well, he didn't remember them all, but these thirty-six strategies can be turned into twenty-four strategies, so it doesn't matter if there are a few less.

In addition, he also knew Qi Jiguang's "New Book of Notes" and "Records of Training Soldiers". He didn't know the specific content, but it didn't prevent him from writing it himself.

Let's also write "Records of Training Soldiers", combining modern military, integrating some military strategies of this world, and adding thirty-six strategies.

Maybe I can also become a master of military strategies.

Thinking of this, Yang Zhengshan no longer hesitated and swept away all the military strategies in the bookstore.

In fact, there are not many, only six military strategies in total.