The first major event after the ancestors and grandchildren of the Zhao family moved into the Hou Mansion was to put warm wine.

This time, the warm house wine invited a lot of guests, acquaintances and not very familiar people, but there were no relatives, and it was the first large-scale banquet after the three grandparents left the social circle in the capital, so they attached great importance to it. The Zhang family repeatedly told his grandchildren and the people below that there could be no mistakes at this banquet, and if there was a scandal in front of the guests, the face of the Jiannan Hou Mansion would be thrown on the ground and let others step on it. Even if it is ten or eight years later, when people in Beijing talk about it, they will take out the Jiannan Hou Mansion and step on it again.

Zhao Wei and Zhao Xiu naturally knew that this banquet was very important. The brother and sister are also much more attentive than usual. Zhao Wei put down his books for the time being, and worked with the stewards to prepare the banquet in the outer courtyard, while Zhao Xiu took Lu's mother to prepare the banquet for the female guests. The siblings worked together to ensure the best in terms of reception, seating, waiters, and the dishes, pastries and drinks served at each of the tables.

The banquet was separate from the civil and military guests, and the male and female guests were separated. The banquet for the male guests was placed in the front yard of the middle road, and professionals from Beijing were invited to set up a wedding tent and prepare for eight seats. The feast of the ladies was set up in the garden.

The garden has been renovated, and although there is no large pond, there is a small pond that is located right at the foot of the rockery. This rockery is the style of Cheng using the Taihu Lake stone in the old garden of the Hou Mansion to re-pile up, the highest place has more than two zhang, there is a small pavilion on the top of the mountain, said "Lanyue Pavilion", there are stone steps that meander to the bottom of the mountain, ten chic. And there is a mechanism under the pavilion, the water flow forms a small waterfall and rushes straight down, forms a pond at the foot of the mountain, called "Reflecting Moon Pool", plants some duckweed water lotus, and then raises a few goldfish koi, which is enough to be the eye of a garden. This pool is not closed, but there is a water outlet, forming a stream, the widest part is only less than three feet, the thinnest part is not more than a foot, dotted with several small bridges of different styles, twisting and turning, bypassing the buildings by the pool, and flowing to several flower forests in the garden, and then going back to the pool behind the rockery, being re-pumped on the rockery by the mechanism, forming a waterfall to flow down. And so on and so forth.

The building by the pool, "Tingfeng Hall", is the largest building in the park and one of the main venues for this banquet. It is not far from the entrance of the garden, and it is convenient to go to various places in the garden to enjoy the scenery, but it is quite a distance from Zhao Xiu's residence, as long as you guard the door, you are not afraid that anyone will enter by mistake. The most important thing is that after the renovation of the garden of Jiannanhou Mansion, not only the area has been reduced, but also it has become much more open and flat. Although there are rockeries and a lot of flowers and trees, as long as the people who enter the park are not blind, no matter where they are, they can find the location of the rockery for the first time, and then go straight over, return to the listening hall by the pool, or go straight out of the garden gate along the three-foot path paved with cobblestones, there is no possibility of getting lost, which greatly eliminates the probability of common bloody accidents in various novels and TV series. Zhao Xiu felt that maybe the guests would find it boring, but if someone wanted to use her garden to do something bad, such as Fang Huizhu, then don't think about it.

There are also eight seats on the female guest's side, and each table is eight people, all of which are large round tables, and there is no distinction between upper and lower positions, so as to save the fighting spirit of letting go and go. Zhao Xiu asked Mrs. Cao and Fang Renzhu in advance about the private relationship between the female guests of the civil and military factions, and arranged for those who had a good relationship and equal status to sit together, and separated those who had a bad relationship. The female dependents of officials who belong to the same faction in court affairs are also arranged in one place as much as possible. If a girl from any family has a grudge with a girl from another family, they will never be arranged to sit too close, lest someone meet and quarrel, which will ruin the good atmosphere of the feast.

Zhao Wei and Zhao Xiu then selected people to serve as waiters during the banquet.

Among them, Zhao Wei carefully selected from the male servants of the Hou Mansion, and selected forty people with good facial features, tall figures, and clear speech from among the male servants between the ages of twelve and thirty-five, who came out as small servants at the banquet. Among them, twenty of them were literate and courteous, and their manners were arranged on the side of the literati seat, and the other twenty were arranged on the side of the warrior table.

Fifty of the female subordinates were also chosen. Twenty of them were girls between the ages of ten and eighteen, all of whom had delicate facial features and moderate figures, no yellow muscles, no shrugging shoulders, no stammering and dull ones, and were ready to wait at the women's table. The other twenty are daughters-in-law with good facial features, able to speak well, and skilled in etiquette, ready to welcome guests, pass the word, deliver food, etc., and then there are ten powerful and good-looking mothers-in-law, ready to carry sedan chairs and other rough servants.

In fact, these male and female servants are already the best among the servants at the bottom of the Hou Mansion, and if they perform well at the banquet, they will be reused in the future. At present, the courtyard of the three masters has not yet gathered the people to wait, and the teams of the big and small stewards have never been full. Everyone knows in their hearts that this is an excellent opportunity to get ahead, and everyone is gearing up to do their best and strive for a decent and well-paid errand.

Zhao Xiu selected a few subordinates from the old servants who had been stewards and knew the etiquette norms of the servants of the noble family, assisted Lu Ma, and conducted surprise special training for these male and female servants. How to answer in front of the guests, how to carry out the action of serving tea and food, how to say when introducing the scenery of the house to the guests, as well as talking and walking, saluting movements, etc., all the things that need to be shown in front of the guests, all have been thought of in advance and taught one by one. Most of these servants are old servants in the palace, and they all have a foundation, and three days is enough time for them to put aside their years of idleness and restore the image that a servant of the Hou Mansion should have. As for those who really don't perform well, they will be sent to do jobs that don't have to show their faces in front of people. And such a person will obviously not have a very good future in the future.

Zhao Xiu also made new clothes for all the servants, and in order to save time and manpower, he found a special garment workshop outside the house to make them. They are skilled and skillful, and they not only make all the clothes in a short time, but also basically make them tailor-made, and no servant will appear in front of the guests wearing clothes that do not fit. Zhao Xiu was very satisfied with the quality of the work in this clothing factory, and decided to order new clothes for the people in the house every year in the future. The owner of the clothing shop got this long-term deal, and he earned a lot of money, and he worked more and more hard for the Hou Mansion.

As for the dishes and drinks at the banquet, Zhao Xiu was also very attentive. In order to meet everyone's tastes as much as possible, and not lose their own characteristics, Zhao Xiu decided to arrange the main dishes for half of the Beijing flavors, and the other half is the Jiangnan characteristics, and then add a few dishes of sour and spicy, spicy, spicy, spicy, sweet and sour and other flavors, in order to prepare for the needs of guests from Sichuan, Hunan, Guizhou, Guizhou and other places.

There are four kinds of tea, in addition to the white tea produced in his own garden, the high-quality Pu'er tea specially purchased by Liufang, and the West Lake Longjing, which is currently popular in Beijing, as well as the rose eight-treasure tea, which is exclusively for female guests. This tea is sweet and delicious, and can nourish the skin, which is suitable for all the ladies to drink.

There are also four kinds of wine, Huiquan wine, which is popular in Beijing, Shanxi Fenjiu that is ready for military generals to drink, wine from the West, and fruit wine made by the Zhao family.

In addition, there are four kinds of fresh fruits such as plums, melons, early peaches and loquats, four kinds of dried fruits such as peanuts, almonds, pine nuts and hazelnuts, and four seasonal pastries of pea yellow, vine and radish cakes, rose cream rolls and acacia dumplings. Everything is finely made, served in a beautiful white porcelain plate, and the flowers carved from radish and cucumber are placed next to it, which not only fits the season, but also does not make people feel that the dim sum is too close to the ground. The mold for making the cake was also drawn by Zhao Xiu himself and asked the carpenter to make it. The cake made from such a mold will definitely not be able to find a second one in the capital.

In addition, Zhang also made a suggestion that when these snacks are served, a bowl of almond tea is included as a snack to satisfy hunger before the feast. The recipe of almond tea is the flavor of Fengxian's hometown, and it is more fragrant and delicious than the taste that most people in Beijing are used to.

All the ingredients used to make food must be fresh, and some fresh fruits and vegetables must be purchased by Liufang if they are not available on their own farms or hot spring farms. Fortunately, the capital is the richest city in the world, as long as you have money and a way, you can buy anything, otherwise it will be really troublesome. However, Zhao Xiu naturally can't spend a lot of money for this feast, so the proportion of mountain delicacies and sea delicacies, abalone and fish maw is very small, and the main materials are still the chicken, duck and fish meat that can be purchased in Beijing at the moment.

Zhao Xiu racked her brains for this menu, asked the chef to make samples of everything, tried the taste herself, and then improved the deficiencies. She has traveled through the past since modern times, tasted a lot of food, and has a good taste for food. Although she has never eaten some ancient famous dishes that have long been lost, if you want to be well-informed in terms of food, she is definitely above most people in the capital.

Zhao Xiu didn't decide all the affairs by himself. In addition to discussing with Zhao Wei, Wang Fulai and Lu's mother from time to time, she will also report what she has done to the Zhang family every day. Although Zhang does not like this kind of occasion, he has a lot of experience, and he has been to other people's banquets in the past, so he is very proficient in all affairs. Although her experience is ten years ago, and many of her ideas are outdated, the general specifications are still known. Zhao Xiu went to Cao's house to ask Mrs. Cao for advice, and then went back to the Guangping Palace, and asked the head of the Hou Mansion to help the counselor one or two, and a decent banquet arrangement came out.

The first time I feasted guests, I didn't seek to stand out, but only to be stable. Jiannanhou Mansion doesn't need to have a reputation for being good at banquets and having fun, as for the future? That will be for the future.

There is another hiccup in it. Because Zhao Xiu did not arrange entertainment activities such as opera troupes and singing songs, Zhang was once troubled, what method should be used to give the guests some time? The male guests talked about literature, talked about martial arts, bragged, ate and drank, and half a day passed. The same is true for the female guests. But the problem is that at present, the banquet in Beijing pays attention to having some pastime before the official opening of the banquet, waiting for the arrival of other guests, while passing the time. Zhang suggested that Zhao Xiu should hold a poetry meeting in the east, but Zhao Xiu was too busy preparing for the banquet, so where did he have time to consider the theme of the poem? According to Fang Renzhu, the last poetry meeting should have been carried out normally, and the next poetry meeting has also set a date, and another club will be set in the middle, which is inevitably nondescript. Zhao Xiu is not a resident member of the poetry club, and all the ladies who participated in the poetry club are not included in the guest list - such as Miss Wang, who has no friendship, and Zhao Xiu is not pleasing to the eye, Zhao Xiu naturally will not invite her to add to her blockage.

In the end, when Zhao Xiu went to the Guangping Palace, Gao Zhen gave her an idea: "The last time you told me in your letter about your newly renovated garden, you said that the stream flowed out of the pool, and you went back to the pool after half the garden. So, it seems that you can play a game of 'Flowing Water'? ”

Zhao Xiu was reminded by him, and after thinking about it carefully, it seemed that it was really possible. Although her "Qushui" occupies a relatively large area, the terrain is flat and open, as long as you choose a good location, you can play games. It is also good to write poetry, and it is also good to make wine orders, both of which are very elegant. It's a pity that the March 3rd Festival has passed, otherwise it would be even more appropriate.

In the blink of an eye, the day of the banquet of the Hou Mansion of Jiannan has come. Zhang, Zhao Wei and Zhao Xiu's ancestors and grandsons all cheered up to welcome the arrival of the guests.