Hearing Du Zhongxiao suddenly recite such a poem, Liu Ji and the others were a little inexplicable. After Du Zhongxiao finished reading, he walked into the house, and the others shook their heads slightly, not knowing what he meant.

After a while, Du Zhongxiao asked Chai Xin to bring out a copper hot pot, took the charcoal fire from the brazier, and put it in the hot pot.

Putting the hot pot on the table, Du Zhongxiao said: "It's cold today, eat some mutton to get rid of the cold." ”

No one had ever seen this way of eating, and they thought it was novel. When I saw Chai Xin bring a few plates of mutton rolls, I had never seen it.

After carefully looking at the mutton rolls, the meat rolls are very thin and rolled up, Zheng Peng said: "Why is the knife technique of the chef at home so unhelpful, the meat is cut too thickly, it turns out that it is all rolled up in thin slices, but this knife skill is rare." Just want to eat mutton, just cook it until it is crispy, why bother to bring a pot and serve raw meat, it's too troublesome! ”

Du Zhongxiao said: "We have eaten a lot of boiled and roasted mutton, and it is inevitable that we will be greasy, so we will change the way we eat it today." In this pot is the best chicken broth, which has long been cooked deliciously. The meat is cut into paper-thin pieces and cooked in a hot broth, and it is delicious when dipped in sauce. Give it a try. ”

Over there, Chai Xin brought a few small plates, which were dipping sauces made with sesame paste, and put them in front of everyone.

When the county lieutenant Cheng saw it, he cried bitterly in his heart. His official position is low, his income is meager, and his family has a large population, so it is not easy to eat meat once a weekday. Today, Du Zhongxiao has a treat, and when it is time to eat a large piece of meat, I don't want to eat it in such a delicate way. As soon as the meat was served, Cheng County Lieutenant carefully looked at it, it looked like a big roll, but in fact there was only a small thin slice, what kind of taste could you taste in your mouth?

Among the several officials present, Liu Ji and Gu Zhixian are Beijing officials, and Du Zhongxiao has a solid family background and eats finely. Although Zheng Peng, the manager who joined the army, was a state official, he was still a low-level candidate, and he did not have much to do with Cheng County's lieutenants. The two looked at a few large plates of meat, and secretly calculated in their hearts how many plates they had to eat to get their stomachs round.

In Du Zhongxiao's impression, how can an official worry about food and clothing, he didn't have it in his previous life, let alone this era. Today's treat, I deliberately took out the way of eating in my previous life, and the food was a style. And the weather is cold, and it is also very lively around a hot pot.

Chai Xin and his entourage took two wine jars to the table, slapped open the mud seal, poured them into a jade pot, and put them in boiling water to heat.

Du Zhongxiao said: "You all know that my father went to Beijing last time to catch up with the exam, and he lost his family's foundation, which was extremely difficult. Later, he learned the method of steaming wine in sake lees, and only then did he revive the family business. Although the wine steamed from the lees is extremely powerful, it unfortunately has a strong flavor and lacks aftertaste, which inevitably makes wine lovers unhappy. When I got here, I came up with a new idea, which was to make sake directly from sorghum and rice barley, and then steam the sake from sake lees and let it age for several months. This wine is different from the previous wines, not only is it extremely powerful, but it is also mellow and delicious. ”

Liu Ji had heard that Du Zhongxiao was making wine here, and knew that his family was selling wine, so he thought that this wine would not be bad, so he wanted to taste it for a long time. Smelling a burst of wine aroma, he said to Du Zhongxiao: "Just smell the taste, you know that it is good wine." Why do you just have to put it in hot soup and drink it warm? ”

"When the wine is hot, the wine kicks in faster, and it tastes extraordinarily good. And it's cold, but the cold wine is a little hard to drink. ”

Originally, Du Zhongxiao also wanted to say that Guan Erye warmed the wine and cut Huaxiong, how it was, but suddenly remembered that there was no such wine in the Three Kingdoms, and in this era, there were only three points, and there was no "Romance of the Three Kingdoms".

When the wine was hot, Chai Xin picked up the flask and poured a full glass for everyone. This is the sorghum liquor that Du Zhongxiao used to brew the liquor in his previous life, the liquor is already strong, the temperature is high, and the wine strength is exuded, and the wine flavor is immediately full of tables.

Liu Ji took a breath and said loudly: "Good wine!" It's all about strength! ”

After speaking, he took everyone to raise a glass and drank it all.

As soon as the wine entered his stomach, Gu Zhixian, who was not good at drinking, was choked and coughed, and his face turned red. Liu Ji couldn't help laughing when he saw it.

Du Zhongxiao said: "It's okay." People who are not good at drinking will naturally face up when they drink such powerful wine. If you blush and don't get in the way, what you are most afraid of is that your face is blue, that is, you have been poisoned by alcohol and can't drink it anymore. ”

Putting down the cup, Du Zhongxiao said again: "This wine is made of sorghum, which is much cheaper than ordinary wine. The land here is full of brine and is suitable for growing sorghum. It's just that sorghum is difficult to eat and toxic, so it can only be used as feed. It is used to make wine just to save rice and rations, and in the future, the official wine warehouse in the state can also make this wine. ”

Du Zhongxiao brewed liquor here, not to make wine money, but to find a way for future food. As a coarse grain, sorghum tastes very bad when eaten, and it is really poisonous. The soybean sorghum harvested by the imperial court is mainly used as horse feed, not for human consumption. However, the saline-alkali land around here is suitable for planting this crop, and it can also treat alkali. Du Zhongxiao brews liquor, which is to use sorghum instead of rice as a raw material for liquor.

Liu Jidao: "In the future, you will write a letter and send it to the state, and you will have the state to decide." I'm not going to talk about business today. ”

Du Zhongxiao said yes. Seeing that the chicken soup in the copper pot was already boiling, he picked up a piece of mutton roll and said, "The chicken soup in it is hot, just used to scald the meat and eat." As soon as the meat is put in the pot, the color changes and it is cooked, and when it is dipped in the ingredients, it is extremely delicious. ”

As he spoke, he scalded the meat rolls, dipped them in the small plate in front of him, and showed them to a few people.

"Something interesting." Seeing this, Liu Ji also took a piece of mutton roll and ate it, and was full of praise.

Cheng County Lieutenant sighed in his heart, and together with Zheng Sili, he took a slice of meat and put it in his mouth, and before he could taste the meat, it had already melted away. I can only sigh secretly in my heart, it is rare to eat meat today, but I can't taste the meat, and I only eat a mouthful of sauce in my mouth.

After drinking a few glasses of wine, Liu Ji said to Du Zhongxiao: "Tui Guan Shicai chanted a song of seven uniques, which is very interesting. I've never heard this poem before, but it was written by the magistrate? This poem has a lot of meaning, but I don't know what it means at this time? ”

Du Zhongxiao was stunned for a moment, and then remembered the poem he had just chanted unintentionally, and replied casually: "When I was waiting for the exam in the capital, I had nothing to do to practice poetry, and I got such a poem by chance." It's just that when I saw the chrysanthemums withering over there, I felt something, and I didn't have a deep meaning. ”

"Oh-" Liu Ji nodded, only saying that Du Zhongxiao saw things for a while, and remembered the time when he worked hard to prepare for the exam. This poem was written by Su Shi later, and it is one of his famous articles, which is excellent, and Liu Ji couldn't help but chant and praise it repeatedly.

Du Zhongxiao read this poem at this time, but he didn't mean that. When he saw the withered chrysanthemum, he thought of this poem for a while, and remembered the background of Su Shi's poem in history, so he couldn't help but read it out.

At this time, the war in the northwest gradually subsided, and the Song Dynasty was negotiating peace with the party, and there would be no big battle in the short term. The Song Dynasty suffered three major defeats, and in the first Sanchuankou, Liu Ping and Shi Yuansun, two generals in charge of the army, shook China and abroad. Liu Ping was not among the thieves and died without surrendering. The imperial court thought that Liu Ping died in the frontier, and gave his descendants a very generous gift. Later, he learned that he was not dead, and because of his bad face, he took the official position of his descendants, but his descendants had a bumpy career. Liu Ping's youngest son Liu Jingwen and Su Shi are very close to each other, and this poem is Liu Jingwen given by Su Shi in his twilight years, alluding to Liu Ping's story.

Du Zhongxiao traveled through thousands of years, and felt very aggrieved by such an unclear and unclear peace in the northwest. However, his current official position is low, and it is difficult to affect the overall situation of the court, and he is depressed when he thinks of these things.

The so-called body in the Central Plains, heart in the Northwest, unconsciously chanted this poem.

At this time, Du Yan of the imperial court was the prime minister, Fan Zhongyan was appointed as the governor, and Han Qi was appointed as the privy deputy envoy.

Du Zhongxiao, who learned the news from the Di newspaper, knew that the new Qingli New Deal in history had begun.

On the one hand, there is a discouraging peace negotiation in the northwest, and on the other hand, he already knows that there is a new policy of the imperial court, Du Zhongxiao is a little dazed.