Chapter 90 Preparing for New Year’s Gifts
"Dad, when will the New Year's gift be delivered this year?"

In the afternoon, Yang Mingcheng came over and asked.

"New Year's gift!"

Now we have entered the twelfth lunar month, and it is time to start preparing for the New Year gifts.

Yang Zhengshan secretly calculated in his mind that the Yang family would need to give quite a lot of New Year gifts this year.

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

You don't need to send overly expensive gifts to these families, just express your gratitude.

The main reason is that they are afraid that they can’t pay it back.

But for some families, you have to give heavier gifts.

Zhou Lan, as Yang Zhengshan's close friend, must receive gifts.

Zhao Yuan also wants to send one over.

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. They can come back after the New Year!"

"You can handle the other ones 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 yet been married, so she needs special care.

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

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

There is nothing that can be done about it. Yang Yunyan is already married, and even if Yang Zhengshan wants to take care of her more, he can't.

After all, they are his own daughter and son-in-law, so Yang Zhengshan feels that he should still take care of them.

Jiang He is not very old, only nineteen years old this year, so it is not too late for him to start practicing martial arts now.

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

"As for County Magistrate Luo, please discuss with the clan leader and go visit him together. This year, he has arranged a patrol post for Minghui. We must prepare a generous gift no matter what!"

"As for the Lu family, go to Guancheng and buy some furs and expensive medicinal herbs and send them over. Bring as many samples as possible. Although they may not be interested in our stuff, we can't make it look too ugly!"

Compared with the Lu family, the Yang family's background is too shallow, and they really don't have anything worthwhile to give as holiday gifts.

Yang Zhengshan explained everything one by one, and finally took out a silver note worth five hundred taels and gave it to Yang Mingcheng.

This festival brings a lot of gifts, and a lot of gifts are received.

The Yang family will definitely not suffer any loss by sending holiday gifts to the Lu family.

In fact, Yang Zhengshan didn't want to take advantage of this. He gave little and received a lot, so he always felt inferior to others.

But there is no way, the Lu family is rich and powerful, the Yang family can't compare to it.

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

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

Although he has Zhou Lan's support, he cannot be compared with other superiors.

At the very least, you cannot ignore others, otherwise others will think that you look 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 cavalrymen.

Yinghe Fort is relatively close to Guancheng and can be reached in less than half an hour by horse.

Yang Zhengshan happened to pass by Lingguan Fort, so he went to Lingguan Fort to visit Yang Chengze.

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

In the government office of Linguan Fort, Yang Zhengshan said to Yang Chengze.

Yang Chengze is now the garrison officer of Linguan Fort, but he is still responsible for recruiting refugees. During this period, he has recruited some refugees one after another, 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 the full quota.

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

After all, he was just a seventeen-year-old boy. It was the first time he had been away from home for such a long time, and he missed home very much.

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

Yang Mingwu had already been back before, and he also brought his wife and children with him, so he definitely couldn't go back to celebrate the New Year.

As for other members of the Yang family, Yang Zhengshan would also give them turns to go home for vacation.

It has been nearly a year since he was released, and it is time for him to go home and see his family.

"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!"

The usually calm Yang Chengze grinned, like a sunny boy.

Yang Zhengshan patted him on the shoulder and then looked around Linguan Fort.

Although Yang Chengze is young, his management ability is not bad. He manages Linguan Fort in an orderly manner.

Yang Zhengshan encouraged him a few more words before leaving Linguan Fort.

Around dusk, they entered the mountain city. They certainly couldn't go back today, so they stayed in Yang Zhengshan's courtyard.

Nothing happened that night. The next morning, Yang Zhengshan and Yang Mingcheng went their separate ways.

Yang Zhengshan first went to the dim sum shop to buy some dim sum, then went to the butcher shop to buy half a lamb, and then took his people to the Luo family to sit for a while.

This can be considered as a New Year gift to the Luo family.

After sitting at the Luo family for a while, he went to the Lu family's grain shop and also gave Manager Lu a New Year 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 families, Yang Zhengshan prepared a New Year gift for Zhou Lan.

What to give Zhou Lan?
Yang Zhengshan really had a headache.

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 be interested in it.

"Dashan, what do you think we should give to 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 the gift he liked.

Song Dashan was originally a small flag officer at a fire road pier. He was in his early thirties this year, tall and strong. When he and Yang Mingwu stood together, they looked like two door gods.

Previously, Yang Zhengshan inspected the watchtowers and beacon towers 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 his side and appointed him as the captain of his personal guard.

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

Logically speaking, as a captain, he is not qualified to have his own personal guards.

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

Although Song Dashan is a warrior, he is rather taciturn and his family is very poor.

He has been a warrior for more than ten years, but has been a small flag officer for more than ten years. It can be seen that he is really not good at scheming, otherwise he could at least become a general flag, or enter the combat camp and get a position like a team leader.

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

"..."

Yang Zhengshan broke out in a cold sweat. He had forgotten what kind of temper this guy had. Talking to him about this matter was like talking to a cow.

Suddenly his eyes accidentally caught a glimpse of a shop.

"Bookstore!"

There are relatively few scholars in Chongshan Town, and there are also relatively few bookstores in the city.

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

"Buy some books for General Zhou?"

“Some relatively rare books or unique copies seem to be suitable as gifts!”

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

Yang Zhengshan thought about it and walked into the bookstore. Since he didn't have any target at the moment, he might as well come in and take a look.

This bookstore is not small and its decoration is very quaint. I think it is a bookstore with a bit of history.

There was a shopkeeper and two shop assistants in the shop. One of the shop assistants, who was about sixteen or seventeen years old, saw Yang Zhengshan and his group coming in and hurried forward to greet them, "What would you like, sir?"

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

His eyes swept across the books.

There were a lot of books, including classics, vernacular novels, travelogues, and some miscellaneous books on medical techniques. Yang Zhengshan even found some martial arts techniques.

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

Yang Zhengshan's eyes suddenly lit up when he looked at these martial arts techniques. Although he already had acquired martial arts techniques like Kui Niu Jin, he also needed other martial arts techniques.

For example, sword techniques, footwork, body techniques and the like, he can practice some of them, and even if he doesn't want to practice some of them, he can still learn about them. If he encounters an enemy who has learned these skills in the future, he can predict the enemy's future actions based on the skills.

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

As the thousand-household defense officer of Jianning Guard, he can also go to Jianning Guard to learn some skills.

Simply put, he has no shortage of low-level skills to practice.

However, he felt that he could not digest too much, so he only practiced the Yang family's ancestral spear skills and Kui Niu power.

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

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

The sword technique that Yang Zhengshan was learning was called Suifeng Sword Technique. It had a total of thirty-two moves, and each move emphasized mystery and spontaneity.

This kind of swordsmanship is very suitable for one-on-one combat between warriors, but it is a bit useless on the battlefield.

There is no need for mystery or casualness on the battlefield. Once the fight begins, it is a fight of life and death. Many soldiers only have one chance to attack, so they cannot be casual even if they want to.

However, Yang Zhengshan still liked this sword technique very much. After thinking about it, he collected it and would ask about the price later. If it was not expensive, he would buy it.

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

Afterwards, Yang Zhengshan chose another spear technique, which was very similar to the Yang family's ancestral spear technique, but also had some differences from the Yang family's spear technique, so they could be used for reference from each other.

After selecting two skills in succession, Yang Zhengshan started flipping through the miscellaneous books again.

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

"Wait, a military book?"

A flash of inspiration came to Yang Zhengshan’s mind.

"Boss, do you have any thirty-six strategies?"

"Thirty-Six Stratagems? What's that?" The shopkeeper looked confused.

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

Others who travel through time copy poems and songs, but I copy military strategies!

This situation, this situation, this level, seemed to have been raised all of a sudden.

Yang Zhengshan's eyes were bright.

As for ancient military strategies such as Sun Tzu's Art of War and Taigong's Six Strategies, he definitely has never 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 Military Training". He did not know the specific content, but this did not prevent him from writing it himself.

Let’s also write a “Record of Military Training”, combining modern military affairs with some military tactics from this world and adding the Thirty-Six Stratagems.

Maybe I can become a master of military strategy.

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

In fact, there are not many, only six books of military strategy in total.

(End of this chapter)