[I couldn't update something yesterday, and there will be two more updates in a while. 】

Cai Qu's Prime Minister's Mansion, Han Gang has not been here much.

Its scale is slightly inferior to Wang Anshi's Pingzhang Mansion, but it is much larger than Han Gang's mansion.

The moorings at the door had been tied up with ropes, and thanks to such a large front, they were able to stand the officials who came every day and the messengers who greeted them.

At dusk, Cai Qu's mansion was still full of guests, and the streets and alleys that could accommodate ten horses in parallel were blocked by hundreds of cars and horses.

However, no matter which Zaifu Mansion Han Gang went to visit, it would make the officials who were guarding in front of Zaifu's door waiting to be summoned in chaos. When Han Gang appeared at the entrance of Caifu Alley, the officials and their entourage who were waiting to meet him immediately made way for him.

discussed with Shen Kuo about the funding of Kaifeng Mansion, and the next day Han Gang sent a letter to Cai Qu and made an appointment to visit.

was admitted to the mansion by Cai Qu's younger brother Cai Shuo, and Cai Qu greeted Han Gang at the middle gate.

Han Gang stepped forward, and when the prime minister of the court met him, he smiled loudly: "Yukun is a rare guest, rare, rare." ”

Han Gang bowed: "At the beginning, it was embarrassing and inconvenient to come to the door, but now it is convenient." ”

"Yukun is not in the court, so there will be fewer people to answer questions."

"Xianggong is far-sighted, why do you need Han Gang to say more in the court?"

Han Gang and Cai Qu humbled each other, exchanged a few words of greeting, and Cai Qu raised his hand to welcome Han Gang to the inner courtyard.

Cai's mansion is much more luxurious than Wang Anshi and Zhang Dun, who are frequented by Han Gang. There are rows of glass lamps hanging under the porches on both sides, reflecting the transparency of the courtyard. The number of servants who ran was also large, and the distance of a hundred paces was fifty or sixty

"Yukun came to the door today, but did you have any advice?" Leading the way for Han Gang, Cai asked slowly.

"Just coming over and begging for a cup of tea."

"Tea?" Cai Qu laughed, "Yukun, your family occupies more than a dozen century-old tea trees, and all the good tea produced in Qinzhou has entered your house, not to mention a little profit, but you come to my house to drink tea, you can be regarded as robbing a poor family, and you should be guilty of one more degree." ”

"It's a worthless wild camellia. Who drank in the past? No one looks. It's only now that it's expensive, but it's just a gust of wind. If Xianggong wants it, Han Gang Ming'er will let someone send some over. ”

"Then I'll be disrespectful."

Cai Qu smiled, took Han Gang's hand, and entered the small hall of the guest together. Humilly sat down, and the two cups of green hot tea soup brought by the servants of the Cai family were the roasted green loose tea that Han Gang was accustomed to.

According to Lu Luyu's Book of Tea, tea was drunk in the world in the past, and the popular one was steamed green. The tea leaves are steamed in the upper drawer and washed with cold water, squeezed to remove the water, squeezed to remove the tea juice, and then placed in the tile basin to mix with water and grind finely, and then enter the dragon and phoenix molded cake and dried, which is for the group tea.

When drinking group tea, it is necessary to grind it into powder first, then mix it into a paste, and then pour hot water into the cup, and then stir it while rinsing to stir out a thick foam. The world fights tea, just to see the level of this set of tea-making techniques, as well as the patterns condensed on the foam after the most slugging. This tea fighting ethos, from the princes to the pawns, has this hobby.

But Han Gang is troublesome, and he is not used to the taste, so he only drinks fried greens. After picking the tea leaves, stir-fry them in an iron pot, and you can just drink boiling water and soak them. In his early years, he was ridiculed for being from a small family, and he was used to shabby.

However, with his reputation for being proficient in medicine, especially after the advent of the pox method, his identity suddenly became special, and his every move attracted people's attention, and the habit of drinking fried green was recognized by the world as a method of health preservation, and even those wild tea trees in the deep mountains of the Qinling Mountains were worth a thousand gold at once.

Tianshui County, Qinzhou, is the origin of the camellia that Hangang usually drinks, located in the south of the Qinling Mountains, and now how many people have begun to pick wild tea in the mountains, which has become another business for subsidizing the family, although it has just begun, but it has flourished when it is seen.

Cai did take a sip of tea soup: "After drinking too much fried green loose tea, the group tea is hard to drink." ”

"Fried green can see the true taste, bitter and sweet, and the aftertaste is long. Today's group tea, mixed with too many spices, feels too mixed in taste and loses its true interest. ”

"Miscellaneous? Yu Kun said this well. It's really too miscellaneous, it's not pure, and it's not as it is. Just as the text should seek authenticity, the embossed carvings have lost their original flavor. ”

Cai is to the point. Nowadays, the article pays attention to natural retro, and the painting is also heavy on the atmosphere and artistic conception, 'those who learn all things, not those who learn all hearts'. Like the dragon group, it is decorated with gold and silver on the outside and spices on the inside, which looks precious, but it deviates from the natural and truth-seeking atmosphere that has gradually become popular in Shilin in recent years. On the contrary, it is fried green loose tea, but it is very suitable for this popularity.

"Xianggong is a good word. Only by seeking truth can we see clearly. ”

"Yukun, you don't leave your profession in three sentences." Cai Qu Ha laughed.

Han Gang stroked the teacup. He doesn't know porcelain, and he doesn't know where this teacup is produced, but what the prime minister's house takes out to entertain guests will not be ordinary.

"Tea is genuine, pure and not mixed. However, loose tea is not good, that is, it is not suitable for transportation, and it will break if it is pressed, and the tea cakes and tea balls are much better, and the Tubo people and Liao people like it. ”

After steaming, it is pressed and the tea cake made is naturally more convenient to transport than loose tea, and it is also more popular with the Tibetan people and the Yi people. It is thousands of years later that steamed green has developed into brick tea, which is still the best choice for the daily diet of the northern and northwest ethnic groups.

Cai Qu raised his glass and smiled: "Keep the good things for yourself." ”

Xianggong is right. However, on the Liao side, whenever there is anything good in China, they will try their best to get it. Every year, almost all the New Year's coins come back after a turn in their hands, porcelain, tea, and all kinds of utensils. Nowadays, there are more and more people drinking loose tea in the capital, and I am afraid that the Liao people will not be stingy. ”

"Plus now you've made a lot of money from Japan......?" Cai asked. He waited for Han Gang to go around, and finally got to what he wanted to say.

Han Gang nodded, he had just left office now, and he was not cold. However, after a long time, it is difficult to say that if you want to maintain your original influence on the government. At least to maintain their right to speak in the field they are good at, so that the court must borrow itself.

"Japan has a lot of gold and silver, and the Liao State attacked Japan this time. If Han Oka is not bad, the harvest from Japan every year may not be less than the New Year's coin. ”

Cai Qu nodded: "Yukun, we all believe your words." ”

Han Gang sighed: "This time, the Liao Shuai who advocates entering Japan is Yelu Baoning, the eldest son of Yelu Yixin. If Japan's gold and silver production was caught in his hands, his position was immediately secured. ”

"Nature." Cai Qu nodded again.

The matter of Jeruethin and his son had already been discussed in the court. At the beginning, when the court and the Chinese government discussed the internal affairs of Liao, they all felt that Yelu Yixin was old and had no longevity, and his son Yelu Baoning was not famous and had no prestige. Even if Yelu Yixin usurped the throne, after his death, Yelu Baoning would not be able to hold it, and the Liao State would inevitably be in chaos.

But now the Liao army has occupied Goryeo and seized Japan at once, and the land, population, gold, silver, and specialty products of Goryeo have all become the wealth of the Liao State. This made the position of Yelu Yixin and Yelu Baoning in the Liao State ten times more stable than in the past. And daring to advocate crossing the sea to attack Japan, Yelu Baoning was not a simple figure in mind.

"The people's hearts are wanted, and there is money in their hands, and there is no one in the Liao country who can stop Yelu Yixin."

Cai did sigh, sounding a little envious: "I really won for this chaotic thief." ”

"However, Liao has money, and there will be mold in the treasury." Han Gang laughed lightly again, "After all, I still have to use it." It is used to buy Chinese specialties. No matter how much gold and silver they dig out of the ground, they will send it to the country at the very end. ”

"Didn't the Liao people take things away?" Cai did snort, it's not a year's coin, it's a sale.

"There is always a time when the mine is hollowed out, but tea, silk, cloth, porcelain, these goods are endless, and they will never be broken. The people got their livelihood, the country got gold and silver, and the Liao people had money, so they didn't have the idea of going south to invade the border. Isn't that a good thing? ”

Cai did groan for a moment and nodded pleasantly. sighed: "If Yelu Yixin had conquered Japan a year earlier, maybe there would not have been the big battle last year." ”

"I can't say for sure. The northern captives are like tigers and wolves, and if they want to stop eating people, they have to be beaten to the ground. If you don't eat the lesson for decades, you have forgotten the pain. Even if you get Japan's gold and silver mines, but the Great Song Dynasty is a sea of gold and silver, how can Japan compare? ”

"That's right." Cai Qu picked up the teacup, took a sip of tea, and asked slowly, "Yukun, you came to mention Japan's gold and silver today, do you plan to let the Mint mint mint money and silver?" ”

"Big coins are always useful. The imperial court used it to pay the bills, and it was always inconvenient to use copper coins. ”

Cai did think for a while: "In the pile sealing warehouse, it is more suitable to store gold and silver coins than copper coins. ”

"It's better to use the out. The copper coins were put in the treasury, and the treasurer stole only one hundred or two hundred, and exchanged them for money and silver, but it was ten or twenty yuan. If you really want to put it in the warehouse and cast it into hundreds of pounds of gold and silver, it is easy to count, and it can make the thief unable to move. ”

Cai Qu laughed and said, "This makes sense. There are many places where the imperial court spends money, but it does not include raising rats. ”

"This generation of rats is inexhaustible."

"I can only try to prevent it."

"There are many places to spend money, but there are many places to save. How much is the military budget alone? ”

"I didn't save last year, but this year it's fine. The imperial court can also have more money. ”

Western Xia perished, and there was no external trouble in the hinterland of Guanzhong. The Western Army, which originally accounted for at least half of the world's military spending, has seen a sharp drop in expenditure. The cost of maintenance alone is much less than in wartime. If it weren't for the invasion of Liao last year, the military spending on the head of the million-dollar army would have been reduced by at least 10 million yuan.

"Without Liao's troubles, of course you can save the wartime military spending. There is also the reduction of the Western Army, which can save a sum of money. ”