"I walked more credit on Xishan Road, and I saw more than 100 families on the side of the road. The wind and smoke do not change the customs of Lu Long, and the dust is still the sand of the sea. Zhu plate carved flag village food, green felt through the noble car. The emperor's grace is 100 years old and the wilderness is desolate, and the customs are vaguely admired. At the beginning of September 1682, Zhao Chuyan and his party rode on a plain in the southern part of the central valley of Chile on horseback.

This is the Northern Song Dynasty Xining period Su Song envoy to the Liao State made a poem, called "Xishan Road", to the effect that he was ordered to envoy to the Liao State, the road is very far away, after entering the Liao State Zhongjing boundary, see the road on both sides of the many shops, dwellings and wineries, and the Tang Dynasty Lu Longsai near the customs are very similar, nothing has changed. There are woodcarved red signs hanging at the entrances of those sake shops, which are used to attract customers.

The diplomat who accompanied Zhao Chuyan was not of high rank, he was a demobilized cadre, and he had no education, so he could not understand what the envoy from the Korean Kingdom was saying, but he felt that he seemed to be reciting something that was melodious and rhythmic - please forgive this poor fellow, he had made great achievements in fighting and killing on the battlefield but had nowhere to place him, and in the end he could only transfer to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and playing poetry was not his forte. What's more, this time, Zhao Chuyan temporarily decided to go to Chile to have a look, and no one in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was willing to accompany him to that remote corner to play, so it was the turn of this benevolent brother, and there was no way.

However, he didn't understand, but the several deputy envoys and attachés who followed behind Zhao Chuyan all understood. Most of them are readers who read poetry and books, everyone has a reputation, listening to Zhao Chuyan reading poems like this at this moment, although he feels that he is somewhat in harmony with the surrounding scenery, there is always an indescribable strange smell. After thinking about it carefully, it seems to be satirizing the people of the Eastern Kingdom for not following the saints, not preaching famous religions, and having been immersed in Hu Feng for a long time, and they have become farther and farther away from the Chinese Taoism. At this moment, he Zhao Chuyan seemed to be incarnated as Su Song, a courtier of the Song Dynasty who had sent an envoy to the Liao State, and pointed at him with a condescending attitude after entering the territory of the Liao State, and that kind of cultural self-confidence made Zhao Chuyan fascinated, slightly smoothing out the painful impact on his thoughts in recent months.

After reading this poem, Zhao Chuyan seemed to be in a better mood, only to see him directly turn the dock and walk towards a small village not far ahead.

The village looks quite small, there are about 100 households, because of the proximity to the traffic arteries, some savvy villagers have set up a shed at the intersection to sell common foods such as cured meat, salted fish, cakes and other foods that are common on the east coast, and also provide some home-brewed wine. Of course, if the guests need to name and need tea, this small restaurant can also provide green tea, yerba mate, white tea and other teas, which is also strange, which is probably related to the establishment of a branch of Sun Chunyang South Shop in Boling County, and at the same time, it also shows that the import volume of tea has grown to an extremely alarming point on the east coast, so that small shops in the countryside have tea sold, although this is only a relatively low-grade brick tea produced in Ningbo.

At this time, everyone had been walking for a long time, and they were all a little hungry, so Zhao Chuyan proposed to go to the small shop to sit down and eat some water, and everyone naturally complied. When the shopkeeper saw so many people, he was a little panicked for a while, and subconsciously wanted to pick up the spear leaning against the wooden wall to defend against the enemy, but at first glance, it was a group of brightly dressed people, and he suddenly relaxed again, and smiled and beckoned the two of his own nephews (who are also helpers) to go to the kitchen to inform his mother-in-law, so that she felt that she was preparing drinks and food, which was a big business coming to the door.

Zhao Chuyan didn't like to drink, so he directly asked the servant Zhao Zhengda to come forward and ask the store to serve tea directly, and the store should be again and again. Drinking tea, in today's East Coast, whether in the daily life of ordinary people or high-level political life, is indispensable, and coffee and wine are known as the three major drinks on the East Coast. What's more, the people of the East Coast claim to be descendants of the former Song and Miao, and since the Song Dynasty, the trend of tea drinking in the Central Plains has intensified, so it is not surprising that the people on the East Coast are fond of tea.

Moreover, in terms of dietary habits, because the Pampa Plain and the Patagonia Plateau provide a large number of cheap beef and mutton, and at the same time, the offshore fishery resources are also very rich, and the people on the east coast eat a lot of fish and meat on weekdays, and there are also a lot of dairy products, so it is very common to drink tea to help digestion, so it is very common for tea drinking culture to be popular in the north and south on the east coast.

About half of the tea consumed on the east bank is produced in the Ningshao area, and the rest is produced in the areas controlled by the king of southern Zhejiang and western Zhejiang, some are purchased from the Zheng clan in Fujian, some are smuggled from Qing merchants, and of course, it is indispensable to buy from the Shun country, in short, all from Chinese mainland, except for a very small part of the tea grown on the cloud-shrouded Xuanwu Plateau in the north of the river.

The tea served to Zhao Chuyan was Wuyi green tea bought from Fujian Province - it was also the largest amount of tea purchased in China by the Dutch and British - and the taste was not very good, but it was by no means bad. The East Coast military cadre who accompanied the North Koreans did not order green tea, but ordered a pot of milk tea by himself, and then beckoned a few entourage guards to drink it together. This kind of milk tea is made from crude cheap brick tea with salt and milk, and in addition to tea, it happens to be a very abundant thing on the east coast, so it is also relatively popular.

However, this custom of drinking milk tea is even more hehe in Zhao Chuyan's opinion, it is completely a Hu people! Which of the Huns, Xianbei, Khitans, and Mongols doesn't drink milk tea? How many people in the Central Plains drink milk tea? The people of the East call it Huaxia in vain, but they didn't expect to learn this kind of Hu Feng, which is really sad and lamentable. And I heard that this custom of drinking milk tea was originally passed on from some big families in the Eastern Kingdom, it is even more ridiculous, they are embarrassed to call themselves descendants of the Great Song Dynasty? Fool whom?

Zhao Chuyan secretly slandered the Hu Feng and customs of the people on the east coast in this room, but a few people from the east coast ate very happily and didn't know anything about it. Or, even if they found out that Zhao Chuyan was very disdainful, what if the opinion of an envoy of a client state was important? Is it worth the East Coast fuss about this? There are so many cattle and sheep in our country, dairy products are naturally very rich and cheap, and the milk of horses, cows and sheep is made of cheese, which is nutritious and easy to preserve, and it is the standing food of the East Coast people at home and hospitality.

No, seven or eight people from the east coast will sit around the two tables of eight immortals, and after drinking milk tea, they will let the store bring eight bowls of milk porridge. This kind of milk porridge is also the traditional food of the East Coast, which is made of common wild vegetables in the countryside and horse, cow and goat milk, which is the most cheap and fragrant, and is very popular with ordinary people. Especially in the Hejian area, where rice production is high, people often eat milk porridge in the morning and evening, especially after the official propaganda that eating more dairy products can strengthen the child's system and height, it is even more popular.

After Zhao Chuyan drank a cup of tea, one of the store's nephews carefully brought a plate of dim sum, with two colors of food on it, namely honey cake and pine cake, which were somewhat similar to those in the Central Plains, but they were different, and I don't know where they came from. Zhao Chuyan picked up a piece of chopsticks and tasted it, and found that the ingredients were quite good, which surprised him. He is a glutton, and naturally tastes that the muffin cake is made of pine nuts and walnuts soaked in honey and made of glutinous rice flour, and a lot of sucrose is added to the glutinous rice flour, so it tastes quite good.

This realization made him even more silent, because a small place in the countryside on the east coast uses a lot of ingredients to process all kinds of delicious food, and it can still be sold, which in itself says a lot. In North Korea, this kind of muffin cake or honey cake (a simplified version of muffin cake without pine nuts and walnuts) is not impossible to see, but it is mostly seen in the homes of the two classes of nobles, and the Chinese can occasionally eat some, but it is definitely not the norm, so it is very precious. But what's going on on the East Coast? Why this small shop in the countryside can also stock these ingredients that are not cheap in Zhao Chuyan's opinion at any time, and it is obvious that there are still people who consume them, this comparison is obvious.

North Korea is still too poor! And not only North Korea, it seems that the land of China is also poorer! Looking at the notes and travelogues of the predecessors when they went to China, even in Beijing, the best place at the foot of the Son of Heaven, it is impossible to achieve such wealth as the East Coast, which may be the gap in "productivity" that the people of the East often talk about! Zhao Chuyan thought silently.

Disdain is disdainful, but the gap still has to be faced! At this point, Zhao Chuyan didn't want to be the ridiculous shrinking turtle.

Of course, in fact, Zhao Chuyan was a little exaggerated, not all the rural wild shops on the east coast will be like this one in a village in Wangdu Township, Boling County. Even on the east coast, honey is not a cheap commodity, and it is impossible for ordinary people to consume it as a daily food, not to mention that the production of pine nuts and walnut kernels is not abundant enough to be a mass food. The reason why this shop is like this is simply because of its proximity to major traffic arteries, and from time to time there are soldiers, engineers, technicians, and officials coming and going. These people have strong spending power and high grades, so this store has prepared these ingredients, and most of them are for these high-end consumers. As for ordinary consumers, their consumption level is obviously the level of the guys who are eating milk porridge and steamed buns now, although this seems to Zhao Chuyan to be quite low.

While everyone was eating tea and drinking porridge, a transport team passed by far away on the side of the road, and a lean man rode a horse to the front of the shop, and then shouted directly in a rough voice, asking the shopkeeper to hurry up and make a few baskets of easy-to-carry food, they were inconvenient to stay, and they had to hurry up to the north. When the shopkeeper heard this, he hurriedly ran out, and after negotiating with the man, he decided to ask for four large baskets of cooking cakes, Hu cakes, meat oil cakes, and steamed buns.

Cooking cakes, hu cakes, and steamed buns (beef filling) are all ready-made and can be loaded into baskets directly, while meat pancakes need to be fried in the pot, so the man still needs to wait. The man didn't think it was angry, and at this time, the transport team had already gone away, and the man and a few entourages who came to buy dry food together asked for a table, and directly ordered some food and devoured it.

Zhao Chuyan found that they ordered a lot of things, and they were not cheap, including pine nut sugar porridge, cake paste, and grouting steamed buns—somewhat similar to the famous Kaifeng soup dumplings in the former Song Dynasty—dangyang cakes, lung oil cakes, and wontons. Zhao Chuyan thinks that these people should be tolerance-like people, and they belong to the middle-class class in North Korea, and their income cannot be considered low, but it is definitely not high, and they should not be able to afford to consume these things.

At this time, he was already numb, and he no longer cared about these East Coast "Chinese people" talking, laughing, eating and drinking tea, and concentrated on dealing with the muffin cake in front of him. At the same time, he also had a vague idea in his heart, that is, after returning to China, he would complain to the king and ask for innovation. Of course, this kind of innovation is not like the Dongguo people to lose or even destroy their traditional culture, they are too utilitarian, too impetuous, although the country is rich and the people are strong, but Zhao Chuyan does not recognize this model.

His ideal model is to use Confucianism as the backbone, supplemented by the application of some new technologies, in order to improve that—well, social productivity, and make the country's wealth grow on a large scale. But this overall increase in social wealth is not endless, Zhao Chuyan felt that at least those copper-smelling merchants could not be like dogs like the Eastern Dynasty, the social order must still be controlled by the Confucian gentry and the two classes of nobles, this kind of idyllic life in a state of high productivity is the most favored by Zhao Chuyan, and he believes that others also agree with this - everyone has made great achievements in the shadow, and he has studied poetry and books for so many years. How can those merchants who do not understand etiquette and lowly craftsmen suddenly rise to power? This is something that must not be allowed to happen!

Of course, Zhao Chuyan did not think carefully about whether his idea could be realized or not, whether it was a castle in the air. He doesn't have this kind of consciousness yet, even if he has been around the East Coast for so long, but he hasn't lived, studied, and understood deeply for ten or eight years, how much deep understanding can he have? To have the current idea of using new technologies to improve social productive forces is already a worthwhile trip, but we still can't ask too much.

It is difficult to say what his ideal feudal social life of the new pastoral will develop in the Korean Kingdom, whether it will continue, and whether it will give up halfway. In short, everything depends on the subsequent development, no one is omnipotent, and it is impossible to predict what will happen in a few decades.

Half an hour later, everyone was almost finished. Zhao Chuyan knew some accounts, but remembering that his financial situation was not very rich, he still gave up silently, and let the fellow East Coast diplomats pay the bills - the funds obtained by the North Korean mission from the sale of medicinal herbs, furs, and special products have been almost consumed, and Zhao Chuyan has even recently begun to write calligraphy for the nobles of the East Kingdom to obtain the pen polishing fee, which is a graceful thing in the eyes of the literati, and Zhao is not so bad that he can't pull his face and not do it.

After that, the people left the shop and continued their way north towards the Boundary River (Bueno River).