Wife's Observation Log

After the banquet, he arranged to stay temporarily and had a good night's sleep. The next morning, Yao Chengsi, who didn't have to sit in the yamen, invited Lan Wei to have a private talk in his garden. In terms of time, but in fact, it can be served on the table as a dish, and there is no vegetarian.

Yao Chengsi boiled the wine, put the paper-thin mutton into his mouth, and said leisurely, "Do as the Romans do, I'm a Changzhou native, and I've gotten better from the spicy ginger."

"You are so spicy, it looks like meat, there are lamb, chicken and pig's head in the morning-have you had breakfast?"

"I've eaten. I'll eat what you have for breakfast. My cook treats everyone equally." Yao Chengsi pursed his lips lightly, like a polite smack, and looked at Lan Wei while pointing down with his chopsticks. He ordered some dishes, and motioned for her to sit down and join him, "If you don't eat, you won't be able to calm down."

Lan Wei picked up the chopsticks and stretched them out to the plate Yao Chengsi just ate. The sliced ​​meat was really thin, and it was caught in his mouth, and he smelled a strong smell of wine. It was as if he had eaten a piece of rice paper made of wine. The spiciness of red ginger and aged wine rushed to the head together.

"This is mutton head meat boiled directly with raw glutinous rice. You know, Meng Chang, the empress of the later Shu Dynasty. You can see that pepper, fennel, and salt were added to his imperial dishes at that time. My cook loves to study, and he also added a little bit more flavor. , do you know what it is?"

Lan Wei gave her a white look.

"You can't do this, Wei, the dishes in the capital have ruined your taste? I've already said that, that place is really..."

"Osmanthus fragrans." Lan Wei quickly stopped her mouth.

Yao Chengsi is also quite decent-looking, and has enough knowledge in the city government to be the official of the frontier, but her mouth is quite broken, and she has already talked a lot of nonsense when she sat down to eat the dregs.Chang Yuan is a black-bellied person who will come to things, cunning and cheating, so her words are purposeful and never aimless; Li Jingxian, Dayan is easy to be a child, and she is also in power outside, she is basically caring and reliable; Yao Chengsi Well, you don't see her thinking in her heart that she is a talented and powerful person, somewhat similar to His Highness, and when she sees her, she will find that she is totally different and can be yelled to death by her.

"Okay, I won't waste my pickled sweet-scented osmanthus." Satisfied, Yao Chengsi began to eat another plate of barbecue, "There is also broiled mandarin ducks. They are all classic Sichuan dishes. You should eat more when you come here."

People are Wu Nong's soft language, saying that they are soft and tactful like Yingyan, and Yao Chengsi is reflected in chirping like a bird.

After being complained by Lan Wei, she pretended to be sad and gouged out Lan Wei's eyes: "Okay, okay, let's take a break before eating, and I will tell you about the business first."

"You said."

Yao Chengsi let out a "huh", put down his chopsticks, and immediately changed his face. Although he was not as cold as he was mocking Shengcheng at that time, he looked more serious: "How did you start? Let's say it's Shanxi merchants. The Shanxi merchants are actually The development is not bad, summing up the experience, I found some key points that the banknotes of the previous dynasties were not promoted enough, I will talk about this later. Well, so I shouldn’t start here, let’s go back to Sichuan.”

"You know, when you want to promote a pilot project in a place, you can rely on it for money, policies, and manpower. It can't be said that a pig can fly, but without it, it takes a lot of effort. Sichuan merchants can’t do things with paper money, and they are reluctant to part with paper money.”

"So the provincial prime minister and the new political envoy are colluding with Sichuan merchants? If you follow your logic, Shanxi merchants should celebrate that the good thing happened to them. Why should they prepare troops in Shanxi? Shouldn't the Marquis of Linhuai and them come to Sichuan?"

"Oh, as for the Jin merchants, I thought His Highness told you that the problem with the Jin merchants is that the internal relationship is disordered. I am afraid that the imperial court has given too much benefit, and they will form cliques to deceive the upper and lower when they develop. The credit of the ticket number is not For a trivial matter, if they take the money from the imperial court to collect the trilogy, and use the power of the imperial court to get the people to exchange real money for its paper, then put it in their own treasury and put it in their own pockets, and then threaten the little Pengmen with the trilogy. Households, at the least, they will cause chaos and the people will not be able to live, and at the worst, they will rule the central government, so what should we do?"

It was only then that Lan Wei remembered that Xie Zhen mentioned it at the beginning, but she didn't expand on it, so Lan Wei didn't fully understand the logic of the disordered relationship to the center of chaos.It is easy to understand what Yao Chengsi said. Sichuan has Sichuan's advantages, and Shanxi has Shanxi's disadvantages. It's just that Lan Wei knows that history chose Shanxi, and it's too simple to think backwards from the results.

"Then do you think Sichuan will be chaotic?"

"How should I say it? Your Highness doesn't think so, but my master thinks so."

Lan Wei thought in her heart, His Highness also thinks it will now, otherwise she wouldn't tell herself those things, but she only asked, "Then what do you think?"

"I don't think so." Yao Chengsi became irritable when she said this, she didn't look directly at Lan Wei, she grabbed her sleeves and let go, so she sat up and leaned over, picked up the chopsticks to pinch the mandarin ducks, It seems that eating has become her main method of relieving anxiety. In Lan Wei's impression, this seems unhealthy, but she couldn't think of any solution for a while.

Mandarin Duck Roast is roasted rooster and one hen cut into slices. The condiment, Lan Wei, looks not too different from wine bone lees. It is nothing more than wine, sauce, salt, pepper, etc., but it is barbecue after all, not like Yao Chengsi didn't abide by the rule of not saying anything when the wine bones tasted like soup, and he opened his mouth before swallowing: "Wei, do you think Shengcheng and the others are smart people?"

"To be honest, I think everyone is very smart."

"Everyone is very smart. It is enough to fight with a knife. There is no need to stab a knife. Your Highness promoted me to the position of chief governor of the five provinces and handed me an extra knife; Sichuan has a new chief envoy, and Shengcheng stands on the side, and Shengcheng has an extra knife. Because of the tie, I can take back the benefits to Shanxi, and Shengcheng can also twist with Sichuan merchants and refuse to cooperate. Now, His Highness sent you and Feixiongwei to take the lead The firecrackers are here, and I have a very heavy knife; if Shengcheng has no other foreign aid, he should just give up after weighing it."

"I don't really understand, Sister Yao." Lan Wei said, "I only have one question. His Highness's support itself is one of the most important knives in the world today. If Sheng Cheng is 'smart' enough, then from the very beginning, There should be no illusion of a tie."

"Do you think that I am clearly a member of His Majesty from the very beginning?" Yao Chengsi laughed jokingly, "Who is not a disciple of the emperor who came from the imperial examination? Why can't the new chief envoy represent His Majesty's people?"

Lan Wei thought about it for a while, and took a bite of mandarin duck stew with brown sugar. The taste was quite magical: "No, if it is His Majesty's person, how will His Highness treat himself? If there is no consensus, His Highness will not Self-assessed."

"What I mean is, which side the superiors support depends on how much favor we can win. For example, we, Dayan, may also want to go to sea to conquer some sea nations. Should you accept the head and bow? Generally not, as long as there is still profit, who would not try to resist, negotiate, and bribe first? Your Highness has [-] million knives, how many is she willing to pay for this matter? She If you support doing this, but you are only willing to pay the budget of one knife, then the sea country with two knives can also resist."

"The logic is indeed reasonable, but I always feel that it is more than that... I can only say, Sister Yao, judging from the days I stayed with His Highness, the situation in Sichuan is not so easy to resolve, please You have to be careful, anyway, I will make some preparations for Feixiongwei and Huozhu."

"...Okay." Yao Chengsi took a moment to respond, she chewed the pig's head meat until she gnashed her teeth, maybe she was really gnashing her teeth again, "I'm telling you, I hate your metaphysics and intuition the most."

Lan Wei discovered that Yao Chengsi should have a story, and her current anxiety may not be due to the difficulty of the task His Highness entrusted to her, but a certain link in the story was triggered during the process.Therefore, Lan Wei needs to be more careful, and Yao Chengsi's current judgment may not be so reliable.

Another thing she discovered was that due to their own regrets, people tend to have unique shortcomings. She thought that Yao Chengsi, who was so talented and turned green, was like this, so would His Highness who is far away in the capital be the same?

"Hey, I said—"

Yao Chengsi looked at Lan Wei, as if he was listening attentively.

"Actually, it's not surprising that you like this Sichuan dish. You put brown sugar in this dish. Except for the spicy ginger, it's just a little bit peppery. It's not much different from the taste of your Changzhou."

"It's too far away. The rich want to cook it with icing sugar. My family can't afford it. The ones I can eat are like water chestnut lotus root and wild rice stems, which are naturally sweet. The boiled meat of river and lake shrimp and crab also has a slight sweetness; Goose, when it’s the most extravagant, just add some honey. If you have to say, add a little more salt and five spices, which is incomparable with the taste of today.”

"Okay, okay, since you're not thinking about eating, don't bother me, I'll eat by myself." Yao Chengsi started to drive away the guests, but Lan Wei had no reason to stay any longer, so she got up and left.

Walking to the door and turning back, Yao Chengsi was chewing mechanically, but his brows were furrowed, unable to tell whether he was relaxing or thinking.

Lan Wei thought that in the past two days, she must go down to the guards to ensure the equipment of the firecrackers, and at least be familiar with the scheduling of the five guards in Chengdu, so as to be prepared.This is one, her own judgment.

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Additional historical background:

Cheung Chau: present-day Suzhou, Jiangsu.