Strangely enough, there has been no snow in Liaoxi County in winter so far.
When Liu Yi comes, snow comes!
Light snow floods, auspicious snow heralds a good harvest!
...
The welcoming light dinner was still held in the living room.
Compared with the simplicity and simplicity that Liu Yi saw in the afternoon, the hall was covered with a brand new red carpet, and a pure white soft rabbit blanket was placed under each table. The vigorous earth dragon made the hall steaming, and the tables were placed on the table. There is also a small hand stove for warming hands. Everything is exquisitely arranged, showing that Xie Anxin is as fine as a hair.
On Liu Yi's side, six people, Qiao Miaoqing, Bei Youwan, Li Erniu, Wang Dali, Yun Yi, and Su Di, all appeared. On Xie An's side, Wang Kai, an old acquaintance who recorded events, and Su Daoyun, the county guard chief, were in the lead, accompanied by several officials with more than 500 shi, and everyone gathered together happily.
Thanks to your compliments, the room was very lively.
The Han Dynasty always respected women, so Qiao Miaoqing also got a second bedroom and banquet, and was closest to Liu Yi.
When she thought of the wine like a pond and the meat like a mountain, the little girl was very happy and beaming, her beautiful red and phoenix eyes kept floating around in the hall, looking forward to the start of the banquet.
After Xie An and Liu Yi exchanged polite greetings, the maid placed the steaming bowls on everyone's desks.
This vessel, called a cone bucket, is supported by three Kui-shaped flat feet and is very stable. It has a round, shallow belly, two straight ears, and a neck decorated with an animal mask band. A ridge protrudes from the middle of the animal mask, just like the nose of the animal mask. There is a plate-like partition in the middle of the foot. The charcoal plate has been placed by the maid and is filled with red charcoal fire.
Inside the cone, two horizontal and vertical lines divide the interior into four areas, which are not connected to each other. They are filled with soup and sour, spicy, numbing, and salty bases. Thinly sliced meats of various colors are placed on the table, and the banquet is served. When drinking, everyone has one pot per person, rinse and "dye" as they please, and eat in separate meals. It is suitable for all ages, rich and poor, and can enjoy it.
This is the original hot pot.
In the early winter in Saibei, if the family can have such a hot meal, and then drink it with a sip of wine, everyone will feel satisfied and no longer think about the so-called ambitions and pride.
Liu Yi is naturally familiar with this way of eating. It is commonly known as hot pot and commonly known as big pot stew. When wealthy people eat it, they put beef, mutton, and roe deer meat. When poor people eat it, they put river crab, pickled cabbage, and noodles. In short, as long as the base ingredients are well prepared and paired with two hot mouthfuls of roasted knives, you will be sweating and devouring no matter how you eat it.
Liu Yi said "thank you" to Xie An and waved to Qiao Miaoqing and the others. Everyone understood and immediately filled the grids in the cone bucket with ingredients. They all looked at the cone bucket like wolves and tigers.
Xie An looked at the state of several people under Liu Yi's command, and felt that Pingtian in the five counties was a hard job. They had to eat and sleep all the way, so these people must have been exhausted. So Xie An said to Liu Yi softly, "Pingtian is hard work, and the soldiers are tired tonight. Good wine and good meat, drink as much as you want, don’t let your hands and feet slide!”
Liu Yi narrowed his eyes, raised his eyebrows and cupped his hands, smiling, "Thank you for your praise, Commander, for being able to benefit the people of the five counties. My officers and soldiers in Pingtian are willing to contribute, and it can't be said to be hard work."
Then, while Liu Yi stared straight at the ingredients that were about to be cooked in front of him, he said humorously, "We idiots can't fight, and we can't chew words, but if you want to compare your appetite, I am a soldier of the Pingtian Army." Who haven't you served yet?"
Wang Dali swooped out, booed at the right time, and shouted in a loud voice, "Yes, yes, your Excellency is right!"
The whole audience laughed.
In the building door covered with light snow, at this moment, a young dancer with a spiral-shaped bun hanging down close to her forehead, elegantly dressed, came on the stage with brisk steps to the music of the musician, and then followed the rhythm of the music, dancing in the red Dancing on the carpet. This dancer is as light as a swallow and spins rapidly, as if she is about to fly to the sky. She really wants to be caught by the hairspring in the air, just like a fairy who is about to fly into the sky.
Except for Liu Yi, who was still staring closely at the boiling hot pot, and Xie An, who was sizing up Liu Yi, everyone was attracted to the dancer and unconsciously gave them a look of infatuation, even Qiao Miaoqing.
The dancer's hands were as bright as jade, and she wore dancing shoes embroidered with mandarin ducks. She took a low step and half-hidden her lower legs, which were like frost and snow. The snow lotus was extremely cold. After a while, the musician slowed down the tempo and floated away like catkins without even a speck of dust attached. Everyone felt like they were falling into thousands of stars, completely forgetting about the delicacies that were ready to be cooked.
After the song was played, the musicians withdrew and the dance stopped. While the dancer was still moving, the red flowers on her head were still swaying tremblingly, like the cotton wool behind the willows in the spring breeze, which made people have endless aftertaste.
After a burst of applause, the atmosphere in the venue reached a climax.
The room was steaming with heat. Xie An took advantage of the opportunity to raise a glass of wine and said loudly, "Come! This glass is for the heroes and young men of the world!"
The generals of Pingtian Army felt sweet in their hearts, and they raised their bottles and shouted in unison, "Thank you for your kindness, sir!"
Liu Yi and Xie An raised their bottles at the same time, and amidst the excitement and joy, they bumped into each other.
There was snow falling outside the hall, and the soft couches and felts in the hall were warm. Distinguished guests gathered together. Xie An, whose family had been a writer for several generations, was very popular in poetry. When his mood was waning, he raised his glass and stood in the hall, facing the half-open hall door. The poem says, "The fire burns in the lamp, the frost dews under the sky, and the snow falls in the clouds."
After finishing the sentence, Xie Jing stood by the door, looked at the snow and drank, her body like a green pine, waiting for the poet.
Naturally, the only person who faced Xia Que was Liu Yi, and Liu Yi did his part. He stood side by side with Xie An and immediately confronted each other neatly. "There was a sound of joy in front of the hall, and there was no trace of a horse following."
As Wang Dali drank deeply, he unconsciously exclaimed at the top of his voice, "What a poem!"
Xie An secretly approved of Liu Yi's neat battle. He paused for a moment, turned to look directly at Liu Yi, and said again, "Saibei Huan soldiers don't count their years, how can Xingtun waste less money?"
Different from the previous lyric, this poem has a profound meaning. Soldiers on the Han border, especially the northern border, are stationed on the border all year round. They do not participate in farming, which consumes a huge amount of the empire's finances. If farming occurs in the northern border, the harvest may be eaten by the Qin wolf. Taking them away is futile, and simply garrisoning them will consume a lot of military supplies, which is of no benefit to the country.
This dilemma has become more acute with the increasing border conflicts between Qin and Han in recent years and the arms competition between the two empires. The consumption of the western and northern frontier armies has accounted for five percent of the Han Empire's annual fiscal revenue. One in 1, which is an extremely scary statistic.
Liu Yan, the emperor of the Han Dynasty, summoned ministers many times to discuss countermeasures. Some people said that the frontier army should be stationed in the fields, some suggested that the troops should be streamlined, and some planned to lower the supply standards of the frontier army. There was a lot of discussion in the court. In the end, Prime Minister Lu Zheng believed that these suggestions were not the best solution to the problem. method.
This difficult problem is still pending in the court.
Therefore, Xie An's sentence is not so much a poem as a test question, asking Liu Yi about the placement of border soldiers.
If the first line of Xie An's poem was a test of Liu Yi's literary talent, then this line is a test of Liu Yi's political talent.
Xie An didn't expect this young man to answer questions that even the central talents of the empire had not answered. His original intention was just to see if Liu Yi could hear what he was saying. In Xie An's eyes, as long as Liu Yi could hear what he meant, In a deep sense, he is an incredible young genius.
After Xie An asked the question, Liu Yi stayed on the spot. He himself did not expect that Xie An would suddenly raise such a question in such a harmonious atmosphere of a happy gathering, and it was also such an unpredictable problem.
How can it be that a junior civilian of my generation can decide on major military and national affairs?
In other words, he may have no countermeasures at all.
Liu Yi smiled helplessly and turned to look inside the room. People in the room were looking over in groups, and he suddenly became the focus of the audience.
Liu Yi suddenly remembered that after the great plague in Zhangwu in the early spring of last year, Fan Tingnan hosted a banquet for Lu Ling and other officials. Over the wine table, he and Yu Mei were greedy for wine. Fan and Lu took the opportunity to question them. The situation at that time was actually different from now. same.
At that time, Yu Mei, who was throwing wild punches and doing things willfully, actually won a pot of wine, and that aspirational answer was remembered by Liu Yi at this moment!
"If the bandits can go, I will go too, looking for a feudal prince three thousand miles away."
Liu Yi's stroke of genius.
Everyone, including Xie An, was stunned for a moment, and everyone in the room was talking about it!
"It is a good move to go north to attack the Qin Dynasty and restore peace to the northern border. This decision was also mentioned by someone in the court." Xie An was used to his tense face and suddenly asked with a smile, "But now, inside the Han Dynasty, The situation must be like a mirror in Liu Pingtian's mind. Local tycoons are like leprosy, eating away at the national power. Han Dynasty has Piao Yue in the south, sixty-one countries in the north and south of the Western Regions in the west, and Da Qin in the north. The vast territory of the Han Dynasty is surrounded by enemies on three sides. We The Han Dynasty has already been more than capable of defending, so it is possible that the attack will not be neglected! But to rely solely on the soldiers from the northern frontier to conquer the Qin Dynasty is tantamount to encouraging a sheep to devour the tiger, asking for trouble! Therefore, in the end, this problem has become a dilemma. "
With a row of white teeth exposed, Liu Yi gave a rogue smile, raised a bottle of wine, drank it all, and then said calmly, "Master Xie only asked one question. What you say next is not within my consideration."
Xie An was a "serious man" from a high-ranking family and was good at the affairs of the country. He was helpless to Liu Yi's sophistry. The Tunqi Guards among the two inner guards are good at running thousands of miles, and they can move as fast as thunder. Commander Xie is well-informed, do you know whether this is true?"
Liu Yi raised a cup to invite the bright moon, "The horse is driven by the wind, and the order is as fast as the thunder of the wind. It goes straight to the den of thieves thousands of miles away, and the cavalry guards are stationed."
Xie An instantly understood what Liu Yi meant, but he did not reveal it, pretending not to be honest, "Ah? Liu Pingtian, you and I are talking about the Han frontier army. What does the phrase "Twelve Internal Guards of the Han" have to do with it?
Liu Yi looked at Xie An meaningfully and asked with a smile, "Does Sheriff Xie really don't understand or is he just pretending not to understand?"
Xie An's face turned red, and he argued forcefully like a child, "Of course I really don't understand!"
Liu Yi looked up to the sky and smiled, "Hahahahaha! Then I will follow the moonlight and unravel the words for Commander Xie!"
This banquet is getting more and more interesting.
Some people died, but not completely...
