I want to ruin the country

According to the old rules, the emperor would have a separate table for this meal, and there would be more than a hundred dishes served.

It doesn't mean that only the emperor eats these dishes. When a dish is served, the emperor will decide whether to eat it or not, and the eunuchs will serve the dish to the table where it is served.

As an aside, the emperors of the Qing Dynasty did not live such a comfortable life.

Take Emperor Daoguang for example. It was common for him to wear patched clothes. His queen usually couldn't even eat eggs. Only on her birthday would Emperor Daoguang be willing to give her a plate of fried eggs.

This is all history, not made up by the author. Don't accuse me of spreading rumors. If you don't believe it, you can check it out online.

There were only two people who were truly extravagant in the Qing Dynasty: Heshen and Cixi.

Heshen embezzled 900 million taels of silver. Although his crime was extremely serious, if we put aside the injustice caused by his corruption, his crime was actually not that serious!

Because all the money he embezzled was saved by Emperor Jiaqing, and not much of it was wasted.

Instead, it was the old witch Cixi who was arrogant, extravagant and licentious and misled the country and the people.

Another major culprit for the demise of the Qing Dynasty was Emperor Guangxu’s teacher Weng Tonghe.

He was at odds with Li Hongzhang and deliberately withheld military funds from the Beiyang Navy to celebrate Cixi's birthday. The Beiyang Navy was completely wiped out, and Weng Tonghe was the second biggest sinner!

Have you ever heard of this couplet?

"When the Prime Minister is in Hefei, the world is thin; when the Minister of Agriculture is in Changshu, the world is barren."

What does this couplet mean? Li Hongzhang was trying to comfort the people of Hefei, while Weng Tonghe wrote the first line to scold him.

"The Prime Minister Hefei is thin all over the world."

Li Hongzhang's identity is the prime minister, and Hefei uses a pun, which means that you get fatter, but the world gets thinner.

Let me say here that Li Hongzhang was not a good person either. It is said that after his death, the amount of silver deposited in Japan alone reached 40 million taels.

Forty million times 1000 equals forty billion.

40 billion RMB, should he be killed or not?

Li Hongzhang saw the couplet and was not willing to be outdone, so he also wrote a couplet to curse back.

"Si Nong Changshu, the world is desolate"

Weng Tonghe was from Changshu, Jiangsu Province. In ancient times, the high-ranking official in charge of money and grain was called the Grand Minister of Agriculture.

Weng Tonghe was the one who was in charge of Daqing's purse, so Li Hongzhang used place names and puns to curse Weng Tonghe.

Judging from the couplet alone, this pair of couplets has neat parallelism and good meaning, making it a rare masterpiece.

However, the story behind this couplet involves the national destiny of Daqing.

Of course, some people say that this couplet was not written by them, but we will not discuss this here.

No one felt sorry for the demise of Da Qing. Even if that "xx immortal" who regarded the Japanese pumpkin as his father had not destroyed Da Qing, our teacher would never let him continue to survive after he appeared out of nowhere.

And have you ever thought about this: if the teacher took Jiangshan directly from Daqing, would the cucumber still be able to enter China?

So, if it weren't for the bald head, the People's Republic of China might have been established in the 1930s.

Let’s not go off topic and get back to the book. This year, Yining changed the rule that the emperor had to eat a large table of dishes by himself, and each table had twenty-six dishes.

It’s the New Year, as long as everyone is happy, it’s okay to waste a little!

This banquet was essentially a family dinner, with basically no outsiders attending.

But every year the emperor would invite some of his most favored ministers to have dinner together, which was also a way to win over people's hearts!

Yining also invited several ministers including Lin Zexu, Du Shoutian, and Seng Linqin.

Although we know that it is not as happy and lively as other families staying at home to celebrate the New Year, isn’t this a blessing? If you didn’t have this, no one might be willing to do it!

According to the previous rules, this meal was eaten while watching the show.

Yining also made some changes this year. People drank wine and watched plays in the afternoon, and performed some shows to pass the time when staying up late at night.

Since it’s the New Year, we have to perform festive plays. Today, the Royal Concubine ordered Dragon and Phoenix and The Monkey King!

The two plays were festive and lively, lasting a total of three and a half hours. Everyone was eating and drinking, and the atmosphere was very harmonious!

What’s different this year is that there is a table of pure foreign beauties, including Famke and the other seven.

Just before the New Year, Wenqing asked Yining for advice.

"Your Majesty, what should we do with these people on New Year's Eve?"

"Which ones?"

"Those foreign concubines of yours!"

Yining asked,

"Who said they are concubines? What should we do?"

Man Hing Road,

"They are the emperor's concubines, how could they be anything else? Logically, they should have a seat at the banquet on the 30th night!"

Yining rolled his eyes.

"Why bother with them? Just let them have fun. They're not celebrating the New Year anyway!"

Wen Qing frowned and said,

"Your Majesty, this is not right. They are now people of our Daqing Kingdom. If people outside know about them, they are all your people.

We've come all the way here, across the ocean, when the whole country is celebrating the New Year, and we've left these little girls alone. It shows how unkind we are!"

Yining looked up at him,

"Did they give you a gift?"

Wen Qing said cheerfully,

"They gave it to me, but I didn't want it. Who cares about their stuff?"

"Haha, they really gave it to me. They even learned how to do public relations!"

Man Hing Road,

"You can't blame them for this. They just left it there without asking questions or even looking at it. Who wouldn't be worried?"

Yining smiled and said,

"Okay, I'm the bad guy and you're the good guy!"

Man Hing Road,

"I don't dare to offend them. Maybe one day one of them will give birth to a prince. Wouldn't that be a huge success?"

Yining looked at Wenqing,

"Okay, you're just heating up a cold stove!"

Man Hing Road,

"I feel so sorry for those kids!"

Yining Road,

"Don't be so fatherly, none of those guys are good people!"

Wenqing said it, and Yining thought about it and it was true!

It doesn’t matter on normal days, but it’s really not appropriate to leave a few people aside during the New Year.

Besides, Wenqing’s face is here!

"Okay, let's arrange a table for them!"

Unexpectedly, these people became the focus of the whole audience.

Let’s just talk about eating. It’s been more than three months since we got on the ship, and if we walk fast we still look like circus clowns.

Some people can spread the chopsticks apart but can't pick up anything, some hold a full handful and dig hard like a shovel turning the soil, and some hold one in each hand and put them in the middle!

Oh my, you made everyone laugh so hard that they almost choked!

Yining thought to himself, "Is it so difficult to use chopsticks?" He ordered,

"Get them spoons and forks!"

After the Royal Concubine laughed, her face darkened and she asked Yining,

"Emperor, it's been so long, and you still haven't taught them well?"

It was New Year's Day, Yining didn't want everyone to be unhappy, so he smiled and said,

"Who taught them that once they entered the palace, they should just fend for themselves!"