Three Kingdoms

  Chapter 1070 The style of that bowl

  Does Liu Xie's words express pity for the old peasants, or lament that Pingyang is still so heavily taxed, or lament that life is not easy for grassroots farmers like Dahan?

   Which one is more and which one is less, Fei Qian does not know, but it is difficult for Fei Qian to answer this question, and as for the old farmer, he is even more silent.

   What about Fei potential?

   It is said that the world is very big, but in fact, your majesty, do you have time to go around by yourself?

   It is said that the world is very poor. This is the reason for land ownership. How about land reform?

  It is said that the world is in chaos. If the land rent is not collected, where will the money and food come from to compete with the princes of various places?

In fact, in the final analysis, it is still a kind of exploitation, the exploitation of the proletarians by the occupants of the means of production and living, and the biggest occupier, or the occupant in name, is Your Majesty yourself, or you can just make up your own mind up?

  This world is like the emperor's new clothes. If it is broken, there will only be ugliness left.

   At the moment of embarrassment, perhaps the son of the old farmer in the village came out, saying that he had prepared some wine and food to entertain the nobles...

   Naturally, there is no decent table case in the village, so I can only find a relatively flat stone slab, put a few stones under it, and then use this stone slab as a table case.

   Fei Qian looked at the four dishes on the table, and fell silent for a while.

  One is boiled beans, it looks like red beans.

  One is roasted leaves of some kind, but they have been mixed together, only a black and green mass can be seen, and it is hard to tell which kind of leaves it is.

   One is steamed egg custard. There is nothing to say about this. It is simply to knock the eggs into a bowl, add some water, beat them well, and then steam them over water until they solidify.

One is poached chicken, probably boiled in a hurry, the hair on the chicken skin has not been completely removed, a little gray, a little white and a little black, as for the reddish-brown blood residue that was boiled out, it is even more reluctant to give up, floating on the soup surface together, and slightly Yellow chicken fat mixed together.

   Liu Xie raised his head and looked at Fei Qian, his eyes revealing the meaning of questioning.

   Feiqian nodded, then bowed his hands to the old farmer, and said, "Thank you for your hospitality, I'm sorry."

   The old farmer was obviously very happy about Fei Qian's rudeness, he laughed and said repeatedly: "Don't dare to be, don't dare to be, I don't take good care of you, I don't take good care of you, please, please..."

  People in the Han Dynasty, regardless of life or death, are extremely good-faced, and this habit has even been passed down for thousands of years. No matter how embarrassing it is, the guests always have to entertain them when they come, and even if they are trying to sell the iron, I am afraid they have to get together. Although these dishes are simple, I am afraid that people in these villages may not be able to eat them during the Chinese New Year.

  Liu Xie sat down, and when Fei Qian sat down, he leaned slightly, moved to Fei Qian's side, and said in a very low voice, "Why?"

  Fei Qian smiled, and said softly, "If you don't eat, they won't be at ease."

  Although I told the old farmer just now that I just came to take a look, but who would believe it? Therefore, to be on the safe side, the people in the village must prepare some food. Even if they cannot supply all the soldiers, they must ensure that Fei Qian and Liu Xie who take the lead can eat, otherwise these people in the village must be worried and restless.

  Eating such a meal is to show that he is willing to give this face, and it also proves that Fei Qian and his party are indeed without any malice. Therefore, when Fei Qian expressed his acceptance, the old farmer smiled happily. This is the reason.

  But this dish...

   It can only be said to be pure natural.

   More specifically, it means that these foods hardly contain any seasoning.

  No oil, no pepper, no spices, no monosodium glutamate, almost no salt, well, there may be a little bit among boiled beans and boiled chicken, and only a little bit...

Salt is also extremely precious in this era. Generally speaking, among the two meals in a meal, only a little salt is added to the meal in the morning, because it takes a day of work and sweat. No.

  Of course, these salts are completely different from the salts of later generations. In Bingzhou, there is more rock salt, which is a brown-black stone with a salty taste. As for how much sodium chloride this stone contains, or potassium chloride, or sodium sulfate, or even sodium hydroxide, it is unknown...

This kind of rock salt, or salt rock, can’t be put in too much, because it’s expensive, and most of it is usually wrapped by the hostess of the family with cloth, hidden in the cracks in the wall or the gaps between beams and columns, and only used When it was time, I secretly took it out and rubbed some powder in the kettle.

   This is the state of ordinary people in the Han Dynasty.

  So crossing is not fun at all, crossing is risky, so be careful when jumping off a building. If Fei Qian was not considered a branch of the gentry at the beginning, he still had some family support. If he came to an ordinary farmer's house, either Fei Qian would go crazy, or the farmer would go crazy...

   But for Fei Qian, these are not too big a problem.

Fighting with the army from south to north, although it is definitely different from the big soldiers, sometimes there is a way to cook a small stove every day, and you have to mix in the same pot with the guards around you. Naturally, it is impossible to eat and so on all the time. It's very delicate, like rough wheat grains with cut throats, bitter and sour wild vegetables, half-cooked beans, and lumps of meat that are charred on the outside and raw on the inside, Feiqian has eaten them all.

Therefore, although these foods are simple, they are nothing to Fei Qian, but looking at Liu Xie's slightly frowned brows, Fei Qian suddenly had an uncontrollable evil taste in his heart, and smiled to the side Looking at it, the real old farmer who was sitting with him said: "Old man, do you have any 'stick paste', let's have a bowl..."

   "Huh?" The old farmer was taken aback, "My lord, you... you want to stick it? That..."

   Feiqian smiled and said: "Old man, you must have it, just bring a bowl."

  The old farmer opened his eyes wide, and then carefully looked at Fei Qian's expression. After making sure that Fei Qian was not joking, he called a villager and asked him to make a bowl of "stick paste".

  Gar paste, whether it is this "rod", or "liver", or some other word, Fei Qian is not quite sure, even the farmers who eat the stick paste are not too clear. Perhaps only those who are specialized in plants can know what the specific scientific names of these edible wild vegetables that grow by the water should be.

   This wild vegetable by the water looks a little like duckweed, but not exactly like it. Because of its vigorous growth in summer, it is often harvested by farmers as a food supplement, and even becomes a main ingredient in summer.

Because there is a thick ring of rough fibrous tissue in the middle of the stem of this plant, it cannot be eaten directly, so most people smash it with stones or wooden sticks, remove the fibrous tissue, and add a little Beans, or millet, or worse, add some wheat bran, etc., boiled into a mushy state, so it is called "rod mush".

   Not long after, someone brought out a wooden bowl from the middle of the village, and inside the wooden bowl was the so-called rod paste. Although the sound of this rod paste is closer to Gan, it is not sweet at all. It can even be said that the taste is similar to drinking mud soup.

The stick paste is green, if only from the appearance, it should be not too different from the appearance of spinach soup or jasper soup in later generations, pure green, without any variegated color, even if there is, it is generally What is inside the sunken sand and stone cannot be seen on the surface.

   But as long as you get closer, a muddy smell will come to your face. This earthy smell is like standing on the edge of a green ditch in summer, and under the transpiration of the hot sun, it is like a light green force coming from the respiratory tract, from the bare skin, The desperate infiltration, the feeling of drilling in.

  As soon as the rod paste was put on the stone slab, Liu Xie smelled it, couldn't help but frowned deeply, and turned his head a little bit in disgust. Although the dishes just now are not very good, but compared with this bowl of so-called pole paste, it is a world of difference.

"...This is what the old man eats every day..." Fei Qian said, pointing to the stick paste, and then pointed to the few simple dishes on the stone slab, "And these... are for entertaining guests, and they themselves probably only have New Year's Eve I will eat some when…”

   Fei Qian said, picked up the paste, and looked at Liu Xie: "How about it? Would you like to try some?"

   Don’t you want to understand the life of Dahan farmers?

  The farmer in Dahan can prepare four dishes every day, and can he still eat boiled chicken?

  In this season, when the crops are green and yellow, is there any real farmer who is not looking for some wild vegetables that can replace food, mixing various rice bran and wheat bran, and then eagerly waiting for the crops to grow taller, waiting for the arrival of autumn?

   This green mud-like thing is really the food for the current farmers.

According to Liu Xie's age, this time should be regarded as the rebellious period of later generations. When the second disease broke out, even God dared to chop with a knife, but Fei Qian did not see such signs in Liu Xie. .

  Maybe it was too early to experience the ups and downs of life, so the rebellious period was reduced? Or do people in the Han Dynasty develop earlier, and the rebellious period has passed? Or the individual understands that rebellious behavior will not bring any benefits at all, so it has been suppressed on the spiritual level?

  Liu Xie hesitated, then gritted his teeth, and nodded although his face was still turned aside.

Fei Qian raised his eyebrows. He didn't expect Liu Xie to really be willing to try this bowl of green mud soup, but Fei Qian didn't continue to say anything, and didn't ask for confirmation again, so he took the bowl in front of Liu Xie , Scooped some with a small wooden spoon and put it in the bowl, and then pushed the wooden bowl back to Liu Xie.

   Such behavior, I am afraid that Fei Qian can do it at this time. Liu Xie's attendants, guards, etc., although not many in number, there are still some, but most of these people are still in Chang'an, and did not come with Liu Xie, and the two who survived are in the camp. Prepare a place for Liu Xie to sleep, and the queen needs someone to take care of her, so there are no eunuchs around Liu Xie for the time being...

It is only temporary, no matter who it is, whether it is Zhong Shao or Zhao Wen, the first thing to do when returning to Chang'an is to send all the eunuchs and guards who belonged to Liu Xie in Changle Palace to Pingyang as quickly as possible. Maybe these people are already on the way now.

   But now, Fei Qian is the only one who takes care of Liu Xie. Although this kind of behavior is somewhat rude, it reveals a kind of ease and casualness.

   After scooping some into Liu Xie's bowl, Fei lifted up the remaining half of the bowl of rod paste, gestured to Liu Xie, and poured it into his mouth without borrowing any tools.

The green rod paste is sticky, bitter, and fishy. When it slides in the mouth, it is like swallowing the corpses of countless dead flies, or drinking green stagnant water full of duckweed. This taste It will make the tongue and throat resist instinctively. These human tissues and organs will try their best to create a very strong sense of nausea and vomiting, and the person who eats this rod paste is either like Fei Qian, that is, they are fighting with their own tissues. Organs fight against each other, before the vomiting sensation reaches the red line, eat the sticky paste, or like old farmers, day after day, year after year, gradually numbness and habit, the body's tissues and organs are no longer there Any resistance, silently accept...

   Fei Qian poured all the rod paste down his throat, saving even chewing, and then gestured to Liu Xie with the almost empty wooden bowl. This thing is like drinking traditional Chinese medicine, um, even worse than traditional Chinese medicine, you can't stop halfway, you must drink it in one gulp, otherwise you will easily lose the courage to take a second sip.

  Liu Xie picked up the bowl, picked up the wooden spoon, hesitated for a while, finally dug a spoonful, and put it in his mouth...

   "Evil..."

  Liu Xie couldn't restrain the resistance of his digestive organs, so he just put the stick paste in his mouth and sprayed it out in one gulp.

   "Bring water!" Fei Qian waved back, and then handed the water bag to Liu Xie.

   "Evil...evil..." Liu Xie took the water bag, rinsed and vomited, and managed to get rid of the nausea. Panting, he looked at the small half bowl of rod paste, like avoiding snakes and scorpions.

   "My lord... oh my lord, I, this, that..." The old farmer was so frightened that his dark face turned pale, he couldn't speak clearly, and he didn't know how to position his hands and feet.

  Fei Qian waved his hand and said, "Old man, it's okay, it's okay... May I ask how many bowls of this paste can be eaten per person? Are there other ingredients?"

The old farmer replied: "The nobleman is joking, and he still eats a few bowls... At present, the nobleman knows farming and mulberry at a glance. Where are there other ingredients, that is, these pole pastes... One meal can barely make one bowl for one person. It's not bad..."

Fei Qian nodded, then turned to Liu Xie, was silent for a while, and said: "Only men who work in the fields can eat these things every day, and they can only eat one bowl for a meal. Half... a day's work, just two bowls of stick paste, nothing else..."

  This is the ingredients for the farmers of the Dahan, and this is the life of the people of the Dahan. Fei Qian looked at Liu Xie and said silently in his heart, welcome to the real world.

  Liu Xie looked at Fei Qian, then at the stick, then at the old farmer, and then at the plowed field in the distance.

   "Come here, fetch the millet!" Fei Qian cupped his hands to the old farmer and said, "Thank you for your hospitality! We came here, and if there is any disturbance, I will use this millet to make up for it..."

The old farmer repeatedly waved his hands and said, "No, no! It's already a sin to have a distinguished guest at the door, and it's already a crime not to entertain them properly. How can you accept things from a distinguished guest? If this spreads, it's not a good thing to be a human being... Don't let it... "

  Fei subtly signaled the guards to put down the bag of corn, and then said: "You don't have to refuse, old man... If you really compare it, this bowl of stick paste is no doubt more valuable than the corn in this area..."

After finishing speaking, Fei Qian took Liu Xie, and the group embarked on the journey back, leaving an old farmer who was confused, staring blankly at the remaining pole paste and the bag of corn, He murmured, "This rod of paste...how could it be more valuable than corn?"

  (end of this chapter)