GBP Chapter 182 This official will treat you to a good meal!
Chapter 182 This official will treat you to a good meal!
In order to avoid being labeled a lecherous man by Empress Ma, Emperor Zhu Chongba wisely changed the subject: "The New Year is almost here, and after the New Year it will be the second year of Hongwu. I wonder what kind of five-year plan Li Shanchang and Liu Bowen will come up with."
"And this bastard is really something. If he had brought it out earlier, we could have started planning from the first year of Hongwu, and done a cycle and audit every five years. Now, we have to start from the second year of Hongwu, work until the sixth year, and the next time will be from the seventh to the eleventh year of Hongwu. The numbers are all odd and even, which is not convenient."
"However, it's not too late for him to bring this up now. The five-year plan proposed by Li Shanchang and his group is also very much to our liking. It basically takes care of all aspects. As long as we slowly move forward according to that plan over the next five years, the Ming Dynasty in five years will definitely surprise you."
Distracted by Emperor Zhu Chongba, Empress Ma became very curious and asked, "What do you mean?"
Emperor Zhu chuckled and took out a memorial from his robes, handing it to Empress Ma. He said with a smile, "Sister, take a look at this first. This is a general plan for the next five years, formulated by Li Shanchang and the Grand General's Office."
Empress Ma took the memorial and glanced at it. It included a whole host of contents, such as the complete recovery of the Sixteen Prefectures of Yan and Yun within the next two years, the complete expulsion of the Hu Yuan court from the northern desert, the number of roads and bridges to be repaired or newly built within the next five years, the number of state schools, county schools and prefectural schools to be built within the next five years, and the first county examination, township examination and palace examination to be held within the next three years.
Indeed, as Emperor Zhu Chongba said, as long as we strictly follow this five-year plan and move forward step by step, the national strength of the Ming Dynasty will surely reach a new level in five years.
After reading it once, Empress Ma did not immediately approve of the memorial. Instead, she shook her head slightly and said, "This plan contains both fact and fiction, and it's hard to tell what's going on right now. Why don't we wait and see?"
After thinking for a moment, Empress Ma added, "You just said that he had sent Limpy Wu with the medicine to find Xu Da and Chang Yuchun. After the Lantern Festival, shouldn't there be a result regarding the medicine? If you ask me, you might as well wait a little longer. Once there's a result regarding the medicine, then have Li Shanchang and Liu Bowen add the matter of the medical clinic and pharmacy to the list."
Zhu Chongba chuckled again and said, "Don't worry, sister, we haven't been fooled by their five-year plan report—at least not until that bastard's report is in our hands, we won't make a final decision."
Empress Ma couldn't help but roll her eyes. "Alright, enough of that nonsense. Let's talk about his marriage. When do you plan to finalize it?"
Emperor Zhu Chongba pondered for a moment and said, "How about the end of the second year of Hongwu? So-called spring planting, summer management, and autumn harvest, we certainly can't let him come to the capital to get married in the first three seasons. At the beginning of winter, he might still need to clear wasteland or something, so it's not very suitable either. It would be better to do it at the end of the year."
……
On the 28th day of the twelfth lunar month, while Emperor Zhu Chongba and Empress Ma were preparing for the New Year, Magistrate Yang was watching pigs being slaughtered at a pig farm in Ningyang County.
There are 563 households in Ningyang County. If each household receives an average of two jin of meat, that's more than 1,200 jin. Since each pig weighs about 200 jin, six pigs would need to be slaughtered.
If you include all the yamen runners and wounded soldiers, plus the incredibly picky Magistrate Yang, then at least seven pigs would be needed to barely divide the entire Ningyang County.
Of course, seven pigs are nothing to Ningyang County now. After all, Magistrate Yang has made a lot of money from Lao Xu and Lao Chang. Just from luncheon meat, sausages, smoked meat, fried noodles and other miscellaneous things, he has earned enough money to buy seventy fat pigs.
This money only represents the portion distributed to the people and then allocated to the county government; it doesn't belong to Yang Shaofeng himself. Naturally, Magistrate Yang doesn't feel the pinch when spending it.
Then, Magistrate Yang simply waved his hand and ordered all the dozens of fat pigs that had recently been collected from the Jiangnan area to be slaughtered. The ribs were smoked and kept to sell to Lao Chang and Lao Xu later, and the remaining meat was distributed to the people of Ningyang County.
According to the standards set by Magistrate Yang, each household was allocated five catties of meat. Families with elderly members over fifty years old received an additional two catties of fatty meat, and families with children under seven years old received an additional two catties of large bones.
In short, the goal is to ensure that the people of Ningyang County have a prosperous New Year.
To make the New Year atmosphere even stronger, Magistrate Yang specially ordered twenty stoves to be temporarily set up in the courtyard of the livestock farm, and borrowed twenty large pots from the villagers. Seven of these pots were used to braise the pig heads, ears, trotters, tails, hearts, lungs, and other offal that had been dismantled. The remaining thirteen pots each contained a large pot of cabbage and mung bean vermicelli stew, and each pot also contained a pig leg bone that had been broken in half. With the help of the five-spice powder that Magistrate Yang had prepared, the rich aroma made people's mouths water.
The young widows from the steamed bun shop also brought their pots and steamers. Some of them were busy kneading dough and rolling out wrappers, some were busy wrapping buns, and some were looking after the stove and steamer. Every time a batch of buns came out of the steamer, the rich aroma of the buns would compete with the aroma of braised pork offal.
That's half cabbage and half meat, the meat filling seasoned with five-spice powder and frying oil, plus a strong wheat aroma, who wouldn't be mesmerized by it?
After a dozen or so steamers of buns were cooked and the vermicelli in the pot was almost done, Magistrate Yang had people take the pig's head, ears, heart, and liver out of the pot of braised offal, slice them, and sprinkle them into the cabbage pot. He then used a spoon to stir the offal, cabbage, and vermicelli evenly, and continued to stew them.
A pig's snout, a piece of pig's ear, and a pig's tail, which had been deliberately left out, were chopped into pieces by the cook, then topped with a layer of thin garlic paste, and served to Magistrate Yang.
The common people think very simply: the officials eat first, and only after the officials have eaten can they eat. Otherwise, they will be laughed at for not knowing the rules and gratitude of the people of Ningyang County.
Yang Shaofeng naturally wouldn't stand on ceremony—"I've worked hard all year, what's wrong with enjoying myself first? The fact that the people are willing to let me eat first shows that they care about me, and I'm happy about that!"
After picking up a piece of pig snout with his chopsticks, dipping it in minced garlic, and eating it, Magistrate Yang instructed the cook, "Put the freshly cooked blood sausage in the pot, serve each person a bowl, and give each person two steamed buns. Today, I'm treating the people of Ningyang County to a meal. Tomorrow, everyone can stay home and enjoy the New Year!"
As Magistrate Yang finished speaking, Liu Sanshier and the others surrounding Yang Shaofeng grinned.
Liu Thirty-Two was the first to stand up, took a bowl of cabbage and vermicelli from the cook and placed it on the table. He then took two steamed buns from the young widow next to him, took a big bite, and mumbled, "Thank you for the reward, sir!"
With Liu Sanshier taking the lead, the other commune leaders and village chiefs also went to get cabbage and vermicelli, and took steamed buns. Each of them imitated Liu Sanshier by taking a bite of the bun and then shouting, "Thank you for the reward, sir!"
After being messed up by these few scoundrels, the other people naturally followed suit. In the end, Magistrate Yang heard "Thank you for your reward, Your Excellency" more than two thousand times. He listened to them shout this phrase for almost half an hour.
These damned people are a bunch of troublemakers, deliberately preventing me from having a proper meal!
Then, Magistrate Yang asked the cook to fetch the tea set, boiled a pot of water, and carefully took out a small dragon tea cake, pried off a corner, and began to slowly savor the tea.
This magistrate enjoys watching the people wolf down their meat!