Crossing over reveals a waste's difficult journey home

The king and his ministers looked at the clay pot and found that the salt inside had been completely boiled dry and spread out on the bottom.

"This salt looks much finer and whiter than ordinary salt."

Su Zhao's family was poor when he was young, and he knew better than most people present what the salt that ordinary people eat looked like.

The salt eaten by the emperor and nobles had actually been carefully selected and was considered good salt. Only people like Jiang Tuan who had seen the world would think that the salt was not good and needed to be purified.

The salt that the common people eat is not so white, not so fine, and more bitter. However, even that kind of salt is not available to some common people, because salt is also precious to them.

Jiang Qi didn't ask the eunuch for help. He picked up the spoon himself, scooped a spoonful of salt from the clay pot, looked at it carefully, and then licked it with his tongue.

It's salty, but it's definitely not that bitter anymore.

He put down the salt spoon, took a bite of the tofu pudding, and was immediately amazed by its delicious taste.

Does this thing that tastes smooth and tender and runs from the throat to the stomach without being careful really exist? When he thought that this thing was made of beans, he became even more excited.

Beans are the most abundant crop in Daxia. They are cheap and available in large quantities, but they are very difficult to eat and require a long time to cook.

Not only does it waste firewood, but many children and elderly people are unable to eat it. Now that it can be made into this soft and tender tofu pudding, it is no longer a problem.

Jiang Tuan finished the tofu pudding in his ceramic bowl and sighed.

"Mr. Jiang, why are you sighing?"

Jiang Huai finished the tofu pudding in his bowl, savored it with a lingering aftertaste, but did not eat any more. He was the prince, he had to maintain his image, and he should not eat anything when he was hungry.

After he finished eating, he was about to ask Jiang Tuan why the tofu pudding was so tender and why beans could be ground into pulp and then condensed into blocks, but he saw the other party sighing, so of course he had to ask.

"I think this tofu pudding is not tasty enough."

"Not tasty enough? What's not tasty? Is it because it's not cooked well?"

Jiang Huai thought the food tasted good and didn’t understand why Jiang Tuan said it was not tasty.

"Because there is no marinade, this tofu pudding lacks soul."

“What is marinade?”

"It is a sauce made with oil, chopped green onions, thirteen spices, soy sauce, black fungus, etc., plus water and starch. When eating tofu pudding, pour two spoonfuls of it on it, it is fresh and salty and delicious.

Oh, yes, it would be even more delicious if it were paired with two fried dough sticks. It would be a perfect breakfast.”

As he spoke, Jiang Tuan's saliva almost flowed down. Even though he had only been in the Great Xia Dynasty for two days, he felt like he had been here for almost two years. It was really hard!

The main thing is that the food here is really not tasty, with few ingredients and few varieties, and almost no seasoning except salt, vinegar and animal oil.

The people of the Daxia Dynasty probably realized that the food on their tables was too monotonous, so they invented sauce.

However, due to the production method and lack of seasonings, most of the sauces here are not tasty enough, and the one or two remaining ones that are tasty enough cannot be eaten every day.

To him, the sauce of the Great Xia Dynasty was like pickled mustard tuber. It was ok to have it as a transitional food when he ate too much meat and fish occasionally, but if he really ate it as a proper dish, he would not be able to stand it for one day.

After all, who is a good person who eats pickles every day?

Jiang Huai could understand few of the things Jiang Tuan said. Fortunately, he remembered that his father had told him that if he had any questions about Jiang Tuan's words, he should not ask outside but wait until privately.

So, he suppressed his curiosity and just asked, "Mr. Jiang, is breakfast the same as morning meal?"

Jiang Huai thought his words were very restrained, but they made Jiang Tuan burst into tears of grievance.

If the food is bad, Jiang Tuan can barely accept it, but what the hell is two meals a day?

The Daxia Dynasty had two meals a day, which were called "breakfast" and "dinner" respectively.

Breakfast is roughly the same time as modern people eat breakfast, and dinner is eaten in the mid-afternoon.

This means that after breakfast, you have to wait seven to eight hours before you can have your second meal. After the second meal, you have finished your meal for the day and have to wait another ten hours until the next day before you can have another meal.

Jiang Tuan could understand such a lifestyle.

In ancient times, productivity was low and food was scarce. Two meals a day might not be enough to fill a family, but it wouldn't kill them. If they had three meals a day, the food might not last until the next harvest and would be gone.

Furthermore, there was no electricity or lights in ancient times. Oh, by the way, in the ancient times of the Xia Dynasty, there were not even candles. The nobles could still use bronze lamps made of oil at home, but ordinary people could only use torches at home.

There are too few lighting equipment, so people are used to doing everything before daybreak, including eating.

After dinner, it was dark and I couldn't do anything, so I had to go to bed early. Moreover, the whole night passed by in the blink of an eye, so I didn't get hungry that easily.

But this lifestyle is simply abuse for Jiang Tuan, who is used to three meals a day and most of the time wants to have a midnight snack.

On the second night here, he couldn't stand it anymore and couldn't help asking Ning Ling for food.

Fortunately, the place he came from was the imperial palace, so it didn't matter if he had eaten a few more meals. If he had come from a commoner's home, he would have starved to death.

Jiang Huai rarely saw people cry. In his memory, apart from his younger brothers and sisters who cried when they were very young, he had hardly ever seen anyone else cry.

Even his younger sister, who is not even three years old now, has rarely seen her cry.

Especially since he had heard from his father that Mr. Jiang was older than him and had never thought about the fact that one of his questions would make someone cry.

He looked at Jiang Tuan and asked Jiang Qi for help helplessly.

"Father, what's wrong with Mr. Jiang? Did I say something wrong?"

Seeing Jiang Tuan crying, Jiang Qi was surprised at his unconcealed emotions and marveled at the wealth of the place where he once lived.

She would cry just because she didn't eat enough or well. She is even more pampered than his little princess.

"You didn't say anything wrong, it's my fault."

Jiang Qi was not a monarch who was unwilling to admit his mistakes. On the contrary, he was more self-reflective than any other emperor before him.

After losing a battle, he would wonder if his decision was wrong.

When people are not living well, he will think about whether he has not done something well enough.

When his ministers accepted his advice, he would wonder if he was too willful, and so on.

Jiang Qi's success in conquering the world fully demonstrated his ability, and his ability to reflect on himself was one of the important factors that enabled him to bring the world back to its feet as soon as possible.

Because of this, when he said he was wrong, he was not trying to comfort his son, nor was he pretending, but he really felt that he was not good enough. In other words, he thought he had not done enough.