Chapter 508: Banquet

Most of the officials who participated in the banquet were leaders of various ministries and yamen of the imperial court, although Wu Zhi had little power, but he was also the leader of the Hanlin Painting Academy, and it was not a shame to sit among the officials who sat at this banquet.

However, when he greeted the other officials one by one, Wu Zhi met an official who he never thought would appear in Wang Hao's house.

This official is naturally not Zhu Mian, Wang Hao knows that Wu Zhi and Zhu Mian do not deal with each other, and he deliberately befriended Wu Zhi this time, so naturally he will not call Zhu Mian to burp Wu Zhi.

This official's name is Cai Bian, who is the secretary of the Ministry of Industry and the eldest son of Cai Jing, the prime minister of the current dynasty

Now everyone in the court knows that Wang Hao is calculating Cai Jing all day long, and he wishes that Cai Jing would step down, but Cai Bian is Cai Jing's eldest son, why did he appear at Wang Huang's banquet

Moreover, Wu Zhi secretly paid attention to the communication between Wang Hao and Cai Bian, and found that the relationship between them seemed to be very good.

Therefore, Wu Zhi was secretly strange in his heart.

All the officials sat down in turn, and Wang Hao seemed to really want to entrap Wu Zhi, and set Wu Zhi's position at a very high position, next to Murong Yanda.

After sitting down, Murong Yanda seemed to see the doubts in Wu Zhi's heart, and took advantage of Wang Hao's opening speech on the throne to explain to Wu Zhi in a whisper why Cai Bian appeared here.

The so-called is not "a family does not enter the door", the reason why Cai Bian hooked up with Wang Hao is mainly because the two of them have a common enemy to deal with, and this enemy is Cai Jing.

And Cai Bian is really calculating his father, otherwise Wang Hao would not trust him so much, it is said that when Cai Bian and Cai Jing lived in the same mansion, he also set up his father Cai Jing's spirit card in the house, and worshiped every day, looking forward to Cai Jing's early death.

It is normal for Wang Hao to deal with Cai Jing, but Cai Bian is Cai Jing's eldest son, and all his current high-ranking officials and glory and wealth are all his father Cai Jing came for him, Cai Jing has nothing to say to his sons, but why does Cai Bian regard his own father as an enemy

The reason for this is unknown to outsiders, according to rumors, the reason why Cai Bian hates Cai Jing is because of his late mother, it seems that Cai Jing did something sorry for his mother in order to get promoted and make a fortune; Some people also say that it is because Cai Jing always occupies the position of prime minister, and the Great Song Dynasty court has an unspoken rule of avoiding suspicion, father and son can be officials in the same dynasty, but they cannot be prime ministers in the same house, so if Cai Jing is in Dongfu for a day, Cai Bian will never be promoted.

And Cai Bian is now fifty or sixty years old, and he has been wandering from the position of the second grade for more than ten years, and under the restrictions of Cai Jing, he has not been able to rise.

Love doesn't need a reason, but there are thousands of reasons to hate, all in all, Cai Bian completely denies his old and immortal father.

However, Cai Bian and Cai Jing are not father and son, at best, they are just Cai Bian's wishful thinking and calculations against Cai Jing.

And Cai Jing is still very tolerant of his son, very pleasant, no matter how Cai Bian attacks him in the court, he quietly resolves it, but does not fight back, just like Wang Huang, because these two people can't shake the power that Cai Jing has accumulated in the court for decades.

It can be seen that Cai Jing's forces are terrifying.

After Wang Hao finished speaking, there was a soothing sound of vocal music in the hall, and then there were maids entering the hall with trays one after another, and the banquet officially began.

The tray on the table in front of everyone was not a drink, but a cutlery. To say that our Chinese tableware is the simplest, it is nothing more than a pair of chopsticks, one bowl can eat all the food. However, seeing the dazzling array of tableware brought by Wang Hao's family, Wu Zhi couldn't help but be speechless.

I saw that there were not many types of tableware on the tray, that is, chopsticks and bowls, but Wang Hao could play luxuriantly on it. There is more than one pair of chopsticks, there are many pairs, the material is different, there are mutton fat white jade chopsticks, there are ivory chopsticks, there are jade chopsticks, there are agate chopsticks, there are purple bamboo chopsticks, and there are mahogany chopsticks.

There are not so many materials in the bowl, there are only three bowls, a jade bowl, a celadon bowl, and a white porcelain bowl.

Each pair of chopsticks is exquisitely made, with gold wire on it, and now the price of the top blue and white porcelain in the Great Song Dynasty is not inferior to that of jade Wuzhi, and there are dozens of tables of guests, and the chopsticks and bowls in front of each table of guests add up, and the price is nearly one million dollars.

These are the people's fat and people's ointment

These chopsticks and bowls are to be selected by the guests according to their own habits, and all the officials have chosen their own bowls and chopsticks, and Wu Zhi also chose a pair of ivory chopsticks and a white porcelain bowl as usual, of course, there are also people who are particular about leaving all the dishes and chopsticks.

These people are delicate people, pay attention to what dishes to eat, what dishes to use, such as eating vegetables with white jade chopsticks, eating meat dishes with jade chopsticks, eating seafood with ivory chopsticks, eating greasy with bamboo and wood chopsticks, which is difficult for ordinary people to understand.

As soon as the maids with the tableware left, there was another group of maids who began to serve wine and food, this kind of banquet of dignitaries and nobles was divided into three seats: upper, middle and lower, and the specific cumbersome and cumbersome Wu Zhi was not very clear, anyway, the process was similar to that of later generations, and at the beginning were some appetizers and snacks, and everyone slowly enlivened the atmosphere.

Wang's hors d'oeuvres are only four dishes per table, including jellyfish salad, duck tongue in sauce, pumpkin and cucumber, all served on small plates, as well as a fruit platter.

Although the dishes are small, they don't have to be extravagant, these cold dishes look simple, but Wu Zhi knows that the current price of these four small dishes in Fan Lou is one hundred yuan, and sometimes they may not be able to be made. Because this will be ancient times, and now it is the middle of winter, if you want to eat cucumbers, it is difficult to compare with the sky, so the price is so expensive.

But the cold cucumber is not the most expensive, although the jellyfish needs to be transported from the coast, but it cannot be called the most expensive, the most expensive is the duck tongue and small pumpkin, in fact, if the duck tongue is sold in the Fan Building, it is not too expensive, and the duck tongue at the private banquet is not simple.

The rich and noble people make duck tongues are freshly killed, each plate of duck tongue needs to kill nearly 100 ducks, this banquet has dozens of tables of guests, so calculated, just this plate of duck tongue dishes, Wang Huang's kitchen killed thousands of ducks today

And in terms of the urine properties of the Wang Huang family, after they killed the ducks and took the duck tongue, they would never reuse the remaining part of the duck like the restaurant, which is a matter of face, so the thousands of ducks that took the duck tongue were either thrown away for nothing, or thrown away to feed the dogs.

However, I don't like to eat duck tongue, and Wu Zhi's favorite dish is the cold dish of small pumpkin.

Speaking of which, these cold dishes are all derived from the Deyi Building, and some of the dishes are invented and promoted by Jin Lian according to Wu Zhi, and this little pumpkin is one of them.

In fact, this dish is only called small pumpkin by Wu Zhi, and the official dish is called Red Light Gaozhao, which is to take the most tender flesh of the pumpkin and steam it, then cook it, and finally use the kitchen mold to remake it into a small pumpkin.

To make a plate of small pumpkins, you need at least three large pumpkins, so it costs at least a hundred dollars for this dish to be converted into dozens of tables.

Looking at just a few small dishes in front of him, it was enough for ordinary people to spend a year, Wu Zhi was also quite angry in his heart, if this kind of extravagant money came from the right source, it would be fine, but when he thought that these were all obtained by Wang Hao looting the people, and even harming other people's families, even if this dish was rare and delicious, Wu Zhi suddenly lost his appetite.

Symbolically raised a few glasses with everyone, Wu Zhi just tasted these cold dishes, and after a while, Wu Zhi simply ate the fruit.

Although Wang Hao invited Wu Zhi to the banquet to make friends, as long as Wu Zhi passed the banquet safely, everyone's purpose was achieved, and it didn't matter if he was happy or not.

The fruit bowl has been in the corner of the table, and Wu Zhi only noticed it now, and when he pulled it over, Wu Zhi couldn't help but smile bitterly again.

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