Cao Cao and Cao Mengde, it can be said that in the extravagant and decadent environment of the late Han Dynasty, a wind of frugality suddenly blew, this person is not good to eat, nor easy to wear, nor does he like to live in a big house, except for women, it seems that there is no common greed of ordinary bureaucrats. Later generations said that Cao Cao's daily cloth and vegetable food, there are patches on the quilt, and the female dependents do not wear ayaluo, which is somewhat exaggerated, it is what Xun Zhi saw, and the dishes are ordinary if they are not feasts, but there is still meat, and there is no lack of silk and splendid household clothes, but they are not of the highest quality.

As for the patches on the quilt, Ye Xun didn't pay attention to it, anyway, he had stayed at the Cao family many times, and the quilt he covered for a guest like himself must be clean and tidy, not broken or repaired.

But even so, not to mention Cao Cao's current identity and status, even if an ordinary county-level official is so frugal, it is very rare - in recent years, the wind of frugality has blown, and officials have imitated or even overcorrected it, that's another story. For example, if he is Hongfu, he can't do it, not only does he not get tired of eating, but he also doesn't get tired of fine food, and in this era when there are no cotton and down jackets, you let him wear kudzu without silk in summer, and he can't wear hemp and fur in winter, and he can't do it if he is killed!

Looking back on the hard years in Lelang when I was a teenager, I really knew that it was easy to go from thrift to luxury, and it was difficult to return from luxury to thrift.

In fact, the same is true of Cao Cao, the reason why he lives frugally is due to his nature, and the second is forced by the environment - the money has to be spent on military spending, where is he willing to eat and wear - when the horse's teeth grow and the production in the Central Plains gradually recovers, and the treasury is full, it is inevitable that he will start to study good food and clothing. In the original history, Cao Cao later wrote "The Four Seasons Food System" - it is hard to imagine that a person who does not care about food at all can deliberately collect so many delicacies - and also built the super glorious Tongque Terrace under Ye.

Only at this time. "Food System" is not authored. Tongquetai doesn't even have a shadow yet. Cao Cao remained a self-respecting and frugal bureaucratic outlier.

However, when Shixun arrived at Cao Pi's villa on the outskirts of Xudu, he was really startled, and saw that the walls were towering, the buildings were three high, and the carved beams were painted, which was really rich. And if you look closely, you can see that the layout and layout are very ingenious, and they are not owned by the rich landowners in the countryside - think about it. The master is not only the prime minister's son, but also a famous writer of the time, and he is also a master of the arts—and these ingenuity must be perfectly embodied by spending a lot of money.

Shixun couldn't help but frown: "Wunai is too extravagant? "I don't care much about the flow of time because I'm the in-law of the Cao family, it's a luxury in the eyes of the world, but I didn't expect you kid to be even more excessive-I stopped with you, and it was like Wang Kai bumping into Shi Chong...... Boy, you are so extravagant, did your father make it?

Cao Pi stretched out his hand triumphantly and pointed: "Uncle, please take a look." "I saw that this villa was built in the middle of the mountain col, and it can be green in spring. You can escape the heat in summer and enjoy flowers in autumn. Winter can avoid the hustle and bustle, there is only one road to the outside world, and there are few pedestrians - "Hidden rich in the mountains, who knows it?" But if you don't raise it, you can't blame the family for being strict. "As long as no one whistles me, my dad will open one eye and close one eye.

After finishing it, he deliberately gave Shixun a deep look: "Pi has to govern the family, and they are all the virtues of the uncle's son-in-law." ”

In the past, Xun advised Cao Cao to pay attention to industry and commerce, and Cao Cao partially adopted his Jianyiì - of course, not really changing the traditional idea of heavy agriculture, but only to increase the source of military spending - on the one hand, he relaxed the various prohibitions of the relevant merchants, encouraged the colonization of goods, and on the other hand, allowed the private sector to semi-contract the benefits of the mountains and forests that originally belonged to the royal family (equivalent to public-private partnerships), and at the same time built large workshops, and gradually abolished the checkpoints and unified the commercial tax. As a result, commerce flourished and the treasury was filled, and those families who had lost their land in troubled times, or the nouveau riche who had not had much land, invested in industry and commerce—the oil mills, paper mills, and bookshops that had risen were the most numerous, and the others were charcoal mills, weaving mills, mills, and so on.

Among them, the Cao family is the most convenient to take Xun's hitchhiker, in order to reduce resistance, it is Xun who first dragged Cao Hong and Cao Zilian, who loves money the most, into the water, and built several workshops with Cao Hong, and Cao Hong is happy to smile all day long. Then tell him, you remove all the private checkpoints in various places, otherwise the merchants are unwilling to come and go, and our goods will not be easy to sell, Cao Zilian weighed the income and expenditure, hesitated, and finally agreed.

As for Cao Pi, that is also one of the main beneficiaries - as a concubine, Cao Cao could not give him much land, if the daily income only comes from the output of land, it is estimated that it is to ask Cao Hong to borrow a lifetime of money (Cao Hong may not be willing to lend him money). That's why he thanked Shixun and said: "Pi has to govern the family, and he is also the virtue of his son-in-law." ”

Shi Xun smiled slightly bitterly, and said in his heart If Cao Cao knew that you were so extravagant, he might not turn a blind eye, if he knew that your wealth was mainly from the workshop of the joint venture with me, maybe even I would have to be reprimanded. Relying on his own elders, he gave Cao Pi a few words of advice, but looking at the lazy appearance of the kid with a shy smirk, it is estimated that he couldn't listen to a word.

The courtyard of the villa is full of exotic flowers and flowers, covering a wide area, and the banquet has been set up at this time. Cao Pi naturally occupies the main position, his younger brother Cao Zhi sits on the side, and the two brothers want to give the most respectful guest position to Shi Xun, but Xun waved his hand again and again, and then helped Handan Chun to sit down. In any case, people are over 70 years old, but they are really "old poets", how dare Shi Xun proudly stand on them? As for the others, most of them are young and young, and there are a few who are older than Xun, but they are not doubled, and their reputation is not higher than that of Xun, and when it comes to rank, Xun's can also look down on him—so he honestly and unceremoniously entrenched himself in the guest position of the second honor.

The meeting was quite grand, with no less than thirty attendees, only half of whom were known to Xun, and the remaining half had never even heard of their names—it must have been the literati and ink writers recruited by the Cao brothers themselves. Cao Pi introduced Shixun one by one, one of them was born long and thin, like a bamboo pole, and a horse face, which can be brightened with Zhuge Jin for a while, so he listened to Cao Pi pointing and saying: "This is the same county (Peiguo County) Zhu Yancai also." The other party also hurriedly saluted Shi Xun: "Zhu Shuo is not talented, and he has to pay a visit to the public today, and he is very happy." ”

Ah, Zhu Shuo, that was one of Cao Pi's "four friends" alongside Wu Zhen, Chen Qun, and Sima Yi in the original history, and I can't imagine that he is also a scholar. The record of this person in the history books is very brief, just knowing that he was anxious, he entered the curtain of Cao Pi very early, and then became the leading general of the army, as for his talents and achievements, all of them were missing. It was Xunxin who said that now Wu Jizhong is my guest, Sima Zhongda is my old official, and even Chen Changwen, because Cao Pi, your kid is not a son of the world, and he may not come to hug his thighs again, and there is only this one Zhu Shuo left by your side......

It should be said that although the previous life has been a mirror, its environment is still deeply imprinted in his bones, and he has not yet learned to put on a stand in front of people (unless there is a reason for it, it is deliberate), so those who come to see the ceremony, whether they are famous or not, have a job or not, know or not, and return each other one by one. It was like this for a long time, and all the big guys had talked, and then the guests and hosts began to sit down, and then the delicacies were about to come up.

And Cao Pi slapped his face, his own musicians played the sound of silk and bamboo, and eight dancers dressed in splendid colors came to the banquet, twisting their waists, shaking their skirts and sleeves, and dancing. In these years, the rich and noble families are drinking and feasting, and similar performances are generally indispensable, but Shixun is not interested at all - there is no steel pole, and he wears a lot, what is there to see about this kind of dance?

He is also strange sometimes, does everyone like to sing and dance? If you don't eat well when you eat, what kind of performance are you distracted from? But after thinking about it again, when I was alone eating alone in my previous life, I didn't like to turn on the TV, and I didn't have to look at it, at least as a background sound...... But if it's a dinner party with friends, there's no such bad thing.

After three rounds of drinking, Cao Pi began to come up with the topic - Wenhui, you can't just eat and drink and chat all the time - "You can use this banquet and this dance as the theme to watch the masterpieces of the kings." Shi Xun hurriedly glanced at him, Cao Pi understood, and then explained: "My aunt-in-law has been on official business recently, and he is not a singer and dancer. "Yeshun won't let go, but he can be a judge.

So all the people racked their brains and searched their stomachs and began to conceive the psalm. It takes a long time, or it takes a short time, and one after another, there are works presented to Shixun. It's Xun unfolded and took a look, hey, it's all new, I haven't read it in my previous life - if this is passed down to the world, future generations will naturally have a taste, and I am quite interested in the literature of the Han and Wei dynasties, most of them have read it, just copy the comments, this is all new works, but how to evaluate?

However, as the saying goes, "I am familiar with 300 Tang poems, and I can't make poems and can chant", after all, I have seen a lot and have enough experience, and he soon found out some ways. These works have their own high and low, but even if they are made by Wang Cang, Ruan Yu and other seven sons, it is difficult to call them masterpieces that can be passed down - it is estimated that there were also in history originally, but because they were not beautiful enough, they could not be handed down.

So when the Cao brothers asked him about their evaluations of each person's work, Shi Xun first divided the poems into two stacks - one stack was for the seven sons (six present), plus Cao Zhi (Cao Pi did not end the scene) and Zhong Changtong, and the other was for other people, and then roughly commented:

"Zhong Xuan (Wang Cang), Zijian, and Axiom (Zhong Changtong) are the works of the gentlemen, which can be of the highest grade, and the rest are of the middle grade...... of course, you can't slap your face on the spot, saying that what you write is inferior or not in the stream at all - no matter how bad the writing is, people are also poets, and they must be better than themselves.

Chen Lin arched his hand and asked, "Is it a public can be a month?" "Don't be too general, be careful, and comment one by one. Is Xun Xin saying that I don't have that ability, or: "No, I can generalize ......"

As soon as he put all the poems on a few cases, he was honest and unceremonious, and began to endorse them. (To be continued......)