Chapter 1 Imperial City

A flying boat broke through the sea of ​​clouds and slowly descended. The boat was covered with wisps of water vapor, and water droplets kept rolling down. A hazy drizzle fell on the lake below the flying boat.

After a while, the flying boat successfully landed on the lake, slowly approached the shore, and then lowered a gangway to connect with the dock.

Qi Xuansu, wearing a crane cloak formal dress, a pure yang scarf that symbolizes the identity of a fourth-grade priest, and a "Chu Zhenjing Lu" hanging around his waist, followed the team down the gangway.

Walking in front of him was Shi Bingyun, the second deputy lord of the Imperial Capital Dao Mansion, who was also his half-boss for a period of time in the future.

This is a special flying boat. There are no idle people. The passengers are all Taoist priests who came from Yujing to work in the Imperial Capital. Most of them are transferred, and only a small number of them are seconded.

There are two situations for secondment, one is gilding, and the other is to do "dirty and tiring work". The former will undoubtedly go back. The latter mostly want to stay, but many times, those who want to stay cannot stay, which is equivalent to working in vain.

To put it bluntly, secondment is to help. Some institutions are busy with official business and lack of staff, but for various reasons, they cannot add staff at will, so they draw staff from other institutions, and the treatment of the seconded people remains the same.

For example, the head of a clan temple is seconded to Ziwei Hall, and his salary is still solved by the clan temple. Ziwei Hall holds power and undoubtedly has a better prospect. Therefore, most people seconded to Ziwei Hall want to take this opportunity to stay in Ziwei Hall, so they work extra hard and try to perform.

However, Ziwei Hall mostly does not regard these seconded people as their own people. They use them without any burden, and put all the dirty and tiring work on them. Then they draw a big pie, under the beautiful name of: train well, strive to stay, and finally kick them out, so it is said that they are busy in vain.

However, there are exceptions. One is that a very small number of people have outstanding performance, which makes the deputy hall master or even the hall master see it, and they love talents and decide to keep them, which is considered a success. Second, the person being seconded has certain background and connections, and they can take advantage of this opportunity to make some efforts and stay. However, people with real ability are regarded as treasures by all halls, and they will not be seconded out easily. People with strong background and connections can be directly transferred, and there is no need to go through so many twists and turns, so these special cases are also rare.

Qi Xuansu is naturally not here to do "dirty and tiring work", but he is not here to "gild". In a sense, he has both. He shoulders a special mission. If he can complete it smoothly, he will naturally go back and be promoted. He may be sent to a deputy palace master, or promoted to deputy hall master, or at least an assistant. Even if he fails to complete it, he will return to Ziwei Hall to continue to be the master. Such a young fourth-grade priest, even if the Imperial Capital wants to keep him, Donghua Zhenren is reluctant to let him go.

In short, Qi Xuansu will not take root in the Imperial Capital. It will take a few months at the shortest and a few years at the longest. Sooner or later, he will return to Yujing.

Qi Xuansu walked down the gangway and officially set foot on the territory of the Imperial Capital.

This place is called Penglai Pond. It has a vast water area, which is even better than Xingye Lake. It is located in the inner city of the Imperial Capital, adjacent to the Imperial City, and connected to the Taiqing Pond in the Imperial City. The famous Yanbo Palace is located on the bank of the Taiqing Pond.

If we count from the short-lived entry of the Golden Horde into the Central Plains, the Imperial Capital has been the ancient capital of three dynasties.

In the early years of the Imperial Capital, the plane outline was square, with only nine city gates. The central axis of the city starts from Zhengyang Gate in the south, runs through the Imperial Palace, and reaches the Bell Tower in the north.

In the early years of the Wei Dynasty, the country was strong. Emperor Taizong of the Wei Dynasty took the offensive against the Golden Horde tribe and led his army to the north five times, but the problem was not prominent. Later, the power of the Wei Dynasty declined, and the Golden Horde army came to the city many times. During the Ming and Yong years, officials suggested building an outer city with a circumference of about 80 miles outside the Imperial Capital for safety.

The construction of the outer city began in the 32nd year of the Ming Yong period. Because the southern suburbs were relatively prosperous at that time, and there were royal altars such as the Tiandi Altar and the Sheji Altar, the outer city was first built from the south line. However, it was difficult to continue construction due to insufficient funds soon after the construction began.

As a last resort, the court had to change the plan and only build the southern line of the city wall, and the other three sides would be built later when there was money. The length of the southern line of the city wall was also reduced from the original 20 miles to 13 miles, and its east and west ends bent northward to meet the southeast and southwest corner towers of the inner city. But no one expected that the so-called "let's talk about it later" was not mentioned until today when Liaodong entered the pass.

In the 43rd year of Ming Yong, the outer city of the imperial capital was completed, with a total length of 28 miles and seven city gates. Because the motivation for building the outer city was to strengthen the security of the imperial capital, the names of the city gates mostly carried the meaning of "stability" and "peace", such as "Zuo'an Gate", "You'an Gate", and "Guangning Gate". The main gate of the outer city, "Yongding Gate", means "eternal stability".

After the outer city was built, the central axis of the imperial capital extended from Zhengyang Gate to Yongding Gate, and it was 16 miles north of the bell tower.

Since only the southern part of the outer city was built, the plane outline of the Imperial Capital City formed a "convex" shape. Moreover, the name "outer city" is not worthy of the name, it is not outside the inner city, but to the south of the inner city, so the outer city of the Imperial Capital is also called "South City".

After the Great Xuan replaced the Great Wei, the national strength was strong and began to expand the Imperial Capital City, or in other words, the East City, West City, and North City that the Great Wei court failed to build due to lack of funds were added in the other three directions, completing the "convex" character into a "return" character.

In this way, the earliest ancient imperial capital was completely wrapped up, and the area of ​​the entire new imperial capital increased by more than one time, exceeding the area of ​​Xijing Prefecture and Jinling Prefecture, becoming the world's largest city in name and reality. Although Yujing is often mentioned in parallel with the imperial capital, it is far from comparable to the imperial capital in scale due to the terrain of Yuxu Peak.

Generally, the capital city is only a three-layer structure, namely the outer city, the inner city, and the imperial city. The imperial city and the palace city are just two different names, but they are actually the same thing. After the Daxuan court changed the imperial capital into a four-layer structure, the original outer city became the inner city, the original inner city became the imperial city, and the original imperial city became the palace city. The imperial city and the palace city have been clearly separated since then, and the palace city is located within the imperial city.

The new outer city is divided into four parts: east, south, west, and north. They are also called East City, West City, South City, and North City according to the old name of the South City. The inner city is the middle city, and the so-called Five City Army Division is finally worthy of its name.

Generally speaking, the royal family lived in the palace city, the royal palaces of the royal family and various government offices were located in the imperial city, the residences of the nobles, officials, and wealthy merchants, Taoist temples, guild halls, various shops, some government offices, Taiping money houses, Taiping inns, and merchant warehouses were located in the inner city, and ordinary people lived in the outer city.

Because the inner city is the ancient imperial capital, it covers a large area and is not comparable to the inner city in the ordinary sense. Therefore, the inner city is divided into eight large squares according to the location with the imperial city as the center, namely: Yubao East Square, Taimiao West Square, Xuanzhen South Square, Xuanshang North Square, Duxian Northeast Square, Haosheng Southeast Square, Tailing Southwest Square, Wuliang Northwest Square.

Generally speaking, the residences of the nobles are located in Yubao East Square, the residences of the officials are located in Duxian Northeast Square, the wealthy merchants live in Wuliang Northwest Square, various shops, merchant warehouses are located in Taimiao West Square, Taiping inns and guild halls are located in Tailing Southwest Square, Taiping money houses and some government offices are located in Xuanzhen South Square, and the imperial capital Daofu occupies Xuanshang North Square exclusively.

As for Haosheng Southeast Square, most of its area is occupied by Penglai Pond, and the surrounding buildings include both the mansions of the rich and powerful and the branch of Taiping Inn.

People who first arrived in the Imperial Capital, if there is no one to lead the way, can easily get lost in the huge Imperial Capital City.

Strictly speaking, only the Taoist Palace of the Imperial Capital Daofu is located in the inner city, and there are many Taoist temples distributed in the outer five cities and the prefectures and counties of Zhili. Even the Taiping Temple located in the palace city is under the name of the Imperial Capital Daofu, but its status is too special, and the Imperial Capital Daofu will not take the initiative to intervene in the various affairs of the Taiping Temple.

The Taoist Palace of the Imperial Capital Daofu is called the Jade Emperor Palace, which belongs to the state palace level. However, compared with the Taiping Palace of the Luzhou Daofu, the Summer Palace of the Zhongzhou Daofu, and the Great Snow Mountain Palace of the Xiyu Daofu, because it is located in the inner city, it occupies a limited area, is slightly inferior in momentum, and has less fairy atmosphere and more imperial wealth and grandeur.

At this time, Qi Xuansu was in the southeast of Haosheng. If he went to Xuanshangbei by land, he had to pass through the east of Yubao and the northeast of Duxian. If he went by water along Penglai Pond, he could go directly to Xuanshangbei.

The Imperial Capital had already prepared a pleasure boat, which was docked not far from the pier. However, before taking the boat to Xuanshangbei, the Imperial Capital also arranged a welcoming banquet in the Taiping Inn by the lake. The banquet hall imitated Western architecture, with glass floor-to-ceiling windows. Outside the window was the vast lake. At night, not only could the lake reflect the stars, but also the thousands of lights of the imperial city, which were almost integrated with the stars in the sky.

It can be seen that the Imperial Capital also put a lot of thought into it.

Qi Xuansu couldn't help but sigh, it was really an eye-opener and a glimpse of the world.

Shi Bingyun had been in the Imperial Capital for many years and was used to it. He introduced it to Qi Xuansu: "This branch of Taiping Inn by the Penglai Pond generally does not receive outsiders. It is used exclusively by our Taoist sect. After high-ranking Taoists come to the Imperial Capital, if they do not want to live in the Jade Emperor Palace, they can stay here temporarily."

Before Qi Xuansu left Jade Capital, Zhang Yuelu introduced him to Shi Bingyun, the Immortal Master Shi. Before that, Zhang Yuelu also introduced Qi Xuansu to the various glorious deeds of this uncle.

Qi Xuansu did not have any prejudice, especially Shi Bingyun's behavior of going to the Western Regions to collect the corpse in person, which made Qi Xuansu feel that she was a person of temperament.

After a short period of getting along, Qi Xuansu and Shi Bingyun had a harmonious relationship, at least there was no apparent conflict.

Shi Bingyun had a pretty good impression of Qi Xuansu. The relationship with Zhang Yuelu was only one reason. More importantly, his various achievements would not lie. To be able to be among the high-quality Taoists at such a young age was a sign of a tree standing out in the forest. He was very eye-catching in the Taoist community. He must have had real achievements or had reached a realm of heaven and man, otherwise it would be easy for others to use him as an excuse. Qi Xuansu now had both achievements and realm cultivation, and could be considered a veritable young talent.