Chapter 3 Chung's Manor

At the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the Yellow Turban Rebellion arose, and the world was in turmoil. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 infoBecause the weakly defended county towns and villages were invaded by anti-people, homeless people, and bandits, a large number of people were displaced, and most of them relied on the local wealthy families for their survival and became tenant farmers, who brought new labor to the wealthy family, and also made his estate wider and more productive.

The chaotic situation has brought about a pathological development for the local wealthy families, and the manor of the Zhong family in Yingchuan is a vivid example, in the manor of the Zhong family, there is not only agricultural land, but also forestry, animal husbandry, fishing and other industries, the scope is staggering: bamboo and wood into forests, six livestock grazing, sandalwood and mulberry hemp, closed doors. It is the best interpretation of the Zhong family manor.

Cao Cao's father and son and Le Jin rode through the cultivated land in the vast manor, the mulberry forest, the grazing pasture, the fish pond, and came to a group of buildings. The Han tiles are unglazed and are basically blue-black, while the bricks on the walls are colored with lime, which looks like white walls and black tiles. The building in front of you has three floors, the top is designed to be composed of a positive ridge and four vertical ridges and a total of five ridges, it looks like a four-sided trapezoidal roof, which is called the four A roof, and later generations are called the top of the palace, because of the beautiful atmosphere, so many rich and noble people will use this design now, and similarly, this is more with the top material.

The walls of the houses of the Han Dynasty only played the role of partitions and wind blocks, and the supporting roles were the internal beams and columns, so the houses of the Han Dynasty were known as "the walls did not collapse", because the walls did not support the role, the design of doors and windows was not limited, the window edge carving of the building in front of them was exquisite, the shape was novel, and the bucket arches under the eaves on the door were also complex, in general, every brick and tile showed the style of the family.

At this time, there was a group of people in front of this magnificent building, and the leader was a middle-aged man, who had an elegant temperament and a handsome appearance, wearing a white silk jacket and a long robe. On the head is worn a hat that is completely different from Cao Cao and Le Jin, this hat is surrounded by a crown around the hairline, and the head is made of silk cloth (black cloth) to cover the top of the head, which is the most popular Jinxian crown in the Han Dynasty, this kind of hat is popular because the method of identifying the identity is relatively simple, the more beams carved out of the hat beam, the higher the status. The man's hat was only one beam, which meant that he had no official position.

When the man saw the three of them riding their horses, he immediately stepped down the road and stood still, with a warm smile on his face, while hiding his hand in the sleeve of his robe, pressing his right hand with his left hand, raising his hand to increase his forehead, and bowing ninety degrees. On the one hand, he said: "Zhong Ya often visits Sikong. ”

Cao Cao laughed, jumped down and picked up the other party, and pretended to be angry: "Yachang is so outside, it really makes the lonely heart chill!" ”

Sikong, the official position of the three dukes, there is a way to be the three dukes and nine qing, the three dukes can be said to be above 10,000 people under one person, and he is a very popular minister, and he already has the qualifications to be called a lonely widow. Long before coming to the manor, Cao Pi already knew that the Zhong Ya in front of him was Zhong Yan, the younger brother of Zhong Xuan in Dongwu Pavilion, and the word Yachang was Chang. He is the person in charge of the Zhong family in Yingchuan today, after all, Zhong Xuan is not at home now, but on an errand in Xudu. The reason why Cao Cao is so kind to this person is because the Zhong family is a big family in Yingchuan, and now Xu Du also belongs to Yingchuan, and it is necessary to have a good relationship with the head snake, and the second is that Cao Cao admires Zhong Xuan very much.

In fact, when Zhong Zhuo had not yet taken refuge in Cao Cao, he had been on an errand beside the Son of Heaven in the Han Dynasty, and the official was the Huangmen Shilang, and later Dong Zhuo was autocratic, and the princes begged for Dong, and then the Son of Heaven was taken captive to Chang'an, and after Lu Bu killed Dong Zhuo, Li Dao Guo Yan expelled Lu Bu, and then the two were infighting, Zhong Miao took the opportunity to join Shang Shulang Han Bin to jointly plot to offer the emperor to escape, so that Cao Cao picked up the cheap, and the Son of Heaven was fortunate to be in the capital, from a magistrate to a member of the imperial court, in this relationship, Zhong Xuan helped Cao Cao a lot, so Cao Cao was blue-eyed to the Zhong family.

Zhong Yan heard the words and said that he was terrified, first stepped forward to greet Cao Pi and Le Jin, and then ordered his subordinates to take the three horses away, which led the three people up the stairs into the inner hall, and during the walk, Zhong Yan also confessed to Cao Cao, because the Han Dynasty welcomed guests in formal clothes to greet each other in front of the door, because the Zhong family manor was huge, and the main gate was not repaired, and it was a walled gate to defend against the rogues. The main entrance can only be based on the residential building, so it is greeted inside the estate.

Cao Pi now has a large stack of contemporary classics in his mind, and naturally knows these etiquettes, but he still sighs in his heart that the meticulous attitude of the family who has learned to govern the family may be pedantic, but it is also respectable.

Cao Cao Lian said that it was not in the way, and followed Zhong Yan into the spectacular house, the interior of the Han Dynasty was dominated by dark colors, whether it was a case, a few, or a screen with dark paint, and the style of placement paid attention to symmetry. At this time, China's painted lacquered wood craft has reached a very high level, the decoration of the main hall of the Zhong family is classical and elegant, and Cao Pi's father in the last life is also intoxicated with the classical decoration style, and his home decoration is quite a legacy of the Han Dynasty.

At this time, the banquet is still one person and one seat, and there is no era when a group of people eat around the table, the top is Cao Cao's seat, Zhong Yan sits in the next head to accompany, Cao Pi is opposite Zhong Yan, and Le Jin is below, in addition, there is no one else in the banquet, and a group of people who followed behind him just now are standing outside the house. Obviously, in Zhong Yan's opinion, except for him, no one else is qualified to accompany him. Another point is that Cao Jun has just suffered a defeat, and he is not suitable for a big feast, and Zhong Yan still has a good grasp of all kinds of proportions. It is said that it is a seat, but in fact there is no stool, everyone is legs together, kneeling on the ground, and sitting on the legs with their buttocks, which is the standard sitting posture of the Han Dynasty, also known as sitting.

After a while, all kinds of dishes were presented by the maidservant, these days of marching, Cao Pi ate all corn and dried meat, corn was called millet in later generations, here people called the crops that grow corn called He, and later the world called dogtail grass, in modern times, corn is mostly used for winemaking, in today's time, it is the main component of military food, and it is also the main food of some people with average family background.

When marching and fighting, only the commander and senior generals will have such a thing as dried meat in their food, which is actually bacon, and ordinary soldiers can only eat dried meat when they are in a big battle or when they undertake a surprise attack with heavy casualties, otherwise they can only eat corn.

The Zhong family's family background is good, the manor is huge, naturally it is impossible to have only corn, and the staple food presented to Cao Cao and other characters is sesame cakes made of wheat flour, which were popular in the north at that time, and rice, which is rare in the north. You must know that in these days, one bucket of rice in the north can be exchanged for two and a half buckets of corn, and eating rice is a very luxurious thing. Cao Pi hasn't eaten rice for a long time, although he is not a picky eater, but he is really happy to see it, after all, millet is a coarse grain, you can eat it fresh, and it will not taste good if you eat too much. I ate two bowls of rice in one go, including the whole roasted lamb and the pork soup stewed with vegetables and pork.

During the meal, there were also people who brought wine and jasmine wine, and the winemaking process of this era was indeed much worse than that of later generations, but it was better than the original taste. Grapes were introduced to China from other regions after Zhang Qian's envoy to the Western Regions to open up the Silk Road, after all, it is a foreign thing, it is not easy to cultivate, and it is rare and expensive, wine is already the highest grade wine in this era, and jasmine wine is because the Zhong family is good at making this wine, so it is presented together.

The banquet of the Han Dynasty people is not happy without wine, and this kind of wine is not high, and it can help the fun, so although Cao Pi is young, he can also drink a few sips, after all, there is no saying that minors cannot drink alcohol here. At the end of the Han Dynasty, the popular wine container is called the cup, in fact, it is an oval flat bowl, the material of this bowl is mostly wood, the rich and noble people like to paint on the outside of the bowl, it looks beautiful, at this time there are two pieces on the Cao Pi table, one is filled with wine, and the other is filled with jasmine wine.

After everyone drank a few drinks, Zhong Yan smiled and said: "The fish at this time is not fat enough, otherwise it will be a good accompaniment to wine and food." ”

Cao Pi has accepted all kinds of knowledge in this body, and when he hears this kind of rare word, he already understands it in seconds, and it means to cut it into thin slices, to put it bluntly, Zhong Yan said that he wants to eat sashimi, for this, Cao Pi is not accompanied, after all, the fish in this year do not know if there are parasites or something, and now that medical treatment is not developed, the parasites may be hung up directly.

Cao Cao also smiled when he heard Zhong Yan say this, and only said, "Cooked food is enough." ”

Zhong Yan smiled, and began to say some anecdotes in the literary world, for Zhong Yan, reading and studying is what he should do as the head of the family, after all, he has his brother Zhong Xuan, Zhong Yan's task is to let himself cultivate batches of scholars in the Zhong family, or become officials, or take care of the family business, in any era, knowledge is very important, to maintain the vitality of a family is also to continue to cultivate knowledgeable people, these people are either fickle, or scheming, or calculating, or good at politics, As long as people make the best use of their talents, they can have an official and a half-job, and they can apply what they have learned at home, which is the foundation for a family's long-term prosperity.

For example, Cao Cao's Cao family, and his cousins Cao Hong and Cao Ren are not unlearned, and can even be called both literary and martial arts, and the descendants Cao Pi and Cao Zhi are also brilliant scholars, which also proves from the side that people in that era attached great importance to reading and learning.

Compared with Cao Cao and Zhong Xuan, who are officials, Zhong Yan is a purer literati, and he also cares about the affairs of literati.