What the ancients said daily introspection is not false, Gu Yuanbai so a introspection before going to bed, examining some of their own so far what they have done, the mind momentarily sober a lot of things to do for the aftermath of a clearer and clearer.
Soon after, Tian Fusheng will be the capital of the famous flowers to find out, purposely went to several royal spring village, will be one of the careful care, should not be in the winter bloom of the famous flowers also one by one to pick.
These flowers, each plant is worth ten thousand gold, think of the late emperor in the time, the palace had a Xifu begonia strayed into the folk, was a rich man to ten thousand gold to buy offer. Today's saint of the palace in strict control, no one dares to take the flowers in the palace to sell outside, so it is even more expensive, as long as it is what the flowers on the royal name, can be exchanged for silver.
When Tian Fusheng picked these thousands of flowers to air-dry, his heart ached to the point of dripping blood.
Xue Yuan said it was a flower that needed to be imported, so there were a lot of formalities involved in dealing with the petals, and it would take half a month's work to go back and forth. After Gu Yuanbai ordered the matter down, he seldom asked about it, but I don't know when the rumor that the saint loves flowers started.
For a while, the price of flowers in the capital has seen another batch of highs.
Time slowed down and finally came to the heel of the year.
In the northern frontier, two days before the New Year's Eve, Daheng soldiers also began to prepare for the celebration of the New Year under the vigilant watchful eyes of the nomads.
Spring Festival, the first day of the lunar calendar, commonly known as "New Year's Day", this day is the most lively and festive day of the year since ancient times. As generals and soldiers, this year can not go back and family with the joy, although regret, but they also have to make a lively, to let the generals and soldiers with the joy, to usher in a new year together, meat on the table, good wine filled, eat and drink goodbye to the plague of locusts, so that those dusty nomads to see some of the bottom of their big Heng dynasty.
The post station sent enough seasonings and salt to the border before the year. Early in the morning, Old General Xue led the men to slaughter the sheep and cows, and then sent another group of men to pluck the feathers of the ducks and cook the duck soup in advance.
The Daheng soldiers at the border were busy handling ingredients this very day. Strips of red meat were hung out to dry on the ground covered with a layer of cloth, and a glance over the ground was filled with bones and piles of duck feathers, easily reminding people of a good harvest; the soldiers were busy coming and going, and the occasional glance at the ingredients made them feel doubly satisfied.
That night, these batches of meat were processed by the head soldiers and placed outside to freeze and store overnight. The next day, everyone got up early again and started to prepare the dumplings.
The filling for the dumplings had long been prepared by the mess hall a few days in advance, and the mess hall people were not polite at all, with a ready-made large number of soldiers to use, they handed over the heavy responsibility. Those who went to the battlefield were all big old men, wielding swords, guns and sticks in their day-to-day life, the soldiers looked at the noodles and fillings, looked at each other in disbelief, and most of them felt at a loss for words.
Elder General Xue and the generals were among them, slowly wrapping the dumplings together with the soldiers, and when all the famous generals put the wrapped dumplings, each of them was oddly shaped, and there were not many of them that could be looked over.
Old General Xue laughed out loud and pointed at General Yang Hui, "General Yang, are those dumplings you're wrapping?"
Yang Hui scratched his ears, looked around, and grimaced bitterly, "General, look, there aren't many wrapped up nicely."
When Old General Xue took a look, he was amused again, and suddenly noticed that there was no shadow of Xue Yuan in the group, his eyebrows jumped, his heart was not good, "Where is that boy Xue Yuan?"
"Xue Jiuyao led the men to pick the bones," someone explained, "the mess hall's messenger was short of men, and the bones were hard, so Xue Jiuyao was strong, so he led the men over to chop the bones first."
"This is to simmer bone soup," Old General Xue was relieved and smacked his lips, "Start simmering it from today, when two days pass, it won't smell so good that you'll swallow your mouth?"
Dumplings are also, meat stuffed vegetarian stuffing are available, from the border of these cattle and sheep from the oil can be really quite a lot, mixing the filling, oil and seasoning are as if no money sprinkled in the dumpling filling, chopsticks clamped on a piece of stuffing, you can see the stuffing pinched out of the oil to.
The iron pots in the army are cleaned, when the time comes, the oil is poured into the pot, whether it is Teng dumplings or beef and mutton into the pot, the fragrance can be wafted for ten miles.
Just thinking about it makes me feel that my stomach has already started to growl, and I am so greedy that I can't wait for the New Year's Eve to come now, so I can hurry to have a bite of the oily wine and meat.
General Xue and his colleagues wrapped dumplings for a while on the companion to go to the dining room to see, good guy, a walk into the dining room is the fog-like aroma. A group of people follow the aroma to follow to see, duck soup on the pot stewing, pot lid lifted, the flavor of the aroma, immediately so that the subconscious mouth of all the saliva, are about to die.
The generals wiped their mouths haughtily, glanced again toward the simmering large-bone broth, and asked worriedly, "Are there enough of you?"
"The army and the people who know how to use one hand have been found by us to help, there should be enough people, is certainly to be busy dizzy," the head of the soldiers sweating, his men do not stop, "Aigoo generals ah, if you do not have anything to do to go to make a dumpling, what is the point of getting together here ah. "
Elder General Xue left with his men sardonically and ran back to wrapping the dumplings.
The soldiers' morale was extraordinarily high these past two days, following two days of burying their heads in the sand and working feverishly to process the ingredients, and waiting in high spirits for the Spring Festival.
In addition to the Spring Festival, they also have to pay attention to whether there will be nomads come to violate. Soldiers muttered in their hearts, hoping that the nomads would grow some eyes and not come to commit crimes on such a good day, if they really came to attack at this time, the soldiers of that side of the pass would really be full of anger and have no place to come out.
And for the moment, there really were nomads not far away keeping an eye on things.
Daheng soldiers with the day Lian Na fighting action is too big, the Khitan tribes have been informed, for Daheng seem to send troops and their attitude, the Khitan tribes are both a little incredulous, but also stored in the annoyance and a little bit of uneasiness.
The ties between their clans were sparse, and fighting in the winter did the Khitan no favors, so they could only send men to station at the border, keeping an eye on the Daheng soldiers for any offensive moves.
These two days, the north wind whistled, blowing the aroma of the Daheng soldiers' side one by one to the north, blowing the eyes of the people sent by various tribes to keep an eye on them all green.
It smells so good, it really smells so good.
The rich aroma of food, there is the smell of meat, there is the smell of bones, and there is also the smell of rice and noodles mixed with sweetness. This fragrance into the nose, the mouth and mouth are raw Jin, howling wind and full of snow, but also can not freeze this fragrance.
The nomads standing on the border looking toward the pass had their necks stretched out long enough to reach over and see what the Daheng soldiers were doing.
Why does it smell so good? It's the end of the year, are they preparing for the new year?
They even got meat, and among the aroma was the scent of meat and oil, and they had oil.
Aren't they all affected by the locust plague? How can they eat so well!
The dryly watching Nomad was surprised, "Do you guys smell this?"
"Smell that," another sniffled, "Isn't it just meat? What's the big deal, we used to march and fight and eat dried meat, the Daheng people eat chaff that even pigs won't eat, they can't even compare to us!"
"Yes," the nomad ruefully said, "I never thought that these Daheng soldiers at the border would have a day when they could eat so well. But now, they're all eating meat, and we're eating grass."
The others stopped talking and were not in the mood to stand here and continue staring. A group of people returned to the tent, but the tent could not isolate this aroma, and once smelled, it was still an aroma that made people's stomachs unable to bear it.
The nomads didn't have iron pans, they hadn't eaten stir-fry, they couldn't imagine meat that could have such a strong flavor, and wasn't it the same as the jerky they used to eat?
Why didn't jerky used to have this flavor?
Maybe there is, just in the past they never noticed, this will be a long time have not eaten jerky, not tasted the meat flavor, only to think of a mouth full of saliva, gulping and rising envy.
They were keeping an eye on the Daheng people on the front line, but the food and equipment sent to them from the rear was becoming more and more perfunctory. Everything they ate in their mouths was left over from the clans, and the grass and grain that their horses could eat was getting smaller and smaller, and at this time of the year, they smelled the aroma coming from the Daheng side, and thought in their hearts, when will they be able to eat these things?
After taking Daheng for yourself?
*
On the evening of the New Year's Eve, a large bonfire was lit majestically, and the soldiers gathered around it, each with a smile of expectant delight on their faces.
When the time came, the drums prepared by the army were beaten with a roaring sound. Amidst the drums that resounded through the heavens and earth, Old General Xue raised his wine cup and shouted loudly and loudly: ''In remembrance of His Majesty's constant remembrance of us, we are able to eat so many good things on this day. Today, regardless of quantity, all of you will eat with open stomachs! The old year is gone and the new year is here, congratulations to all of you for a safe next year!"
The soldiers answered in unison, their voices resounding for a hundred miles.
The campfire was warm, tongues of fire gulping down firewood. The soldiers got their share of the food and devoured it, laughing and huddling with their comrades to warm up.
Duck soup in the head of the duck meat are stewed, spices and salt put enough, with the hot duck soup a piece of mouth, every chewing feel lips and teeth, did not chew a few it, throat a swallow, which is in a hurry to give swallowed.
At this time, everyone who still cares and who the contradiction it, where there is still the difference between the new soldiers and the old soldiers, everyone hitching shoulders leaning a piece, in the firelight only feel incomparable pleasure.
When there are a lot of people, it's just lively, it's festive, and you can't suppress the laughter.
Some new recruits chewed the dumplings with meat filling and inhaled the cold air with huffing and puffing, not forgetting to ask the soldiers who had been stationed in the northern border in the past, "Did you all have such a fast time on New Year's Eve in the past?"
The Northern Frontier soldiers buried their heads in the meat and followed suit, so hot that they couldn't speak clearly, "How can I, this is the first time!"
The soldier from the capital kept in mind, "That's because the saint didn't have any money in the past, now the saint has money, wait for it, there's more good stuff."
The Northern Frontier soldier nodded and sighed, "It's delicious."
He smacked his lips, thinking that just saying that wasn't enough, "It's really good."
The soldiers at the bottom were eating and drinking, and the officers and generals did not lag behind. After the people had finished their toast, they looked at the roasted meat and dumplings, as well as the duck soup and bone broth that the mess hall had sent up, and their appetites suddenly widened, and they began to wind up with chopsticks in hand.
Xue Yuan was among them, he ate and drank and rarely spoke. General Xue looked at him for a few moments, mulled it over, and asked, "Do you want to return to the capital?"
Xue Yuan shook his head, "Can't go back."
It's can't not don't want to, General Xue glared at him, "You're still beating a dead horse with me?"
"Since General Xue said so, I'll be straightforward," Xue Yuan put down his chopsticks and picked up the wine jug to drink, "I do want to go back, but I don't want to go back either. The saint hasn't even done anything yet, where am I going back to?"
"It's only right to think this way," General Xue was slightly satisfied, "Say, what do you want to do when you return to the capital, can it be that it's really the same as the words in your mother's letter, that you have a sweetheart in your heart?"