I was the richest man in Da Song

Chapter 57
After praising the deliciousness of pork for several days in a row, He Shao went to Wu Yong's butcher shop in Xiuyifang to test the results.

"Feng Lang? You haven't been here for a long time."

After seeing He Shao, Wu Yong stuck a knife in the case, rubbed his hands on his clothes, and smiled on his face.

"Business manager Wu is doing well recently?" He Shao asked with a smile.

"Recently, Kaifeng City seems to eat more pork every day. In the past, seven or eight pigs were slaughtered, but now there are [-] or [-] pigs a day. Of course, you still can't compare with Fenglang."

The current He family is no longer the original He family that only operated corner shops. He Anwen built a luxurious restaurant, and He Shao also opened several hot pot restaurants.

Wu Yong is already very satisfied with this progress, but He Shao feels that the effect is not very obvious, and more publicity is needed.

For this reason, He Shao also specifically went to find Li Hang, and asked Li Hang to write an article about the changes in Han people's eating habits and publish it in tabloids.

"The meat of the Han people is mainly pigs. "Zuo Zhuan" records that "the banquet has good goods, and there is an accompanying tripod." .

In the Qin and Han dynasties, the grazing animals were set up to feed the hogs. In the Jin and Han Dynasties, the weak and the Hulu became stronger. The land produces the most, and the wind of eating sheep is soaring.

By the time of the Tang Dynasty, the Li family of the royal family was three-thirds of the Han blood and seven-seventh of the Xianbei blood. For a total of five hundred years, the Han food was transformed into Hu, and the last generation ate pigs.

Since Shi Jingtan, a traitor of the Han people, presented the sixteen prefectures of Yanyun, seventy-eight out of ten of the sheep eaten in Kaifeng came from Dangxiang and Khitan, and lost their wealth to foreign lands every year. "

He Shao was very excited after reading this piece of "On Sheep and Pig".

However, He Shao was not very satisfied with Li Hang's articles, not because he was dissatisfied with his literary talent but because he could not stir people's hearts.

"When Wang Su entered the Northern Wei Dynasty, he mainly worshiped Tuoba as a Han, and in order to welcome him, he praised sheep as the most produced on land." This is what He Shao added later.

Linking the custom of eating sheep with Wang Su, although it is not explicit, but it is very implicitly implied that eating sheep is actually a fashion caused by a "traitor", especially now that the Song Dynasty is surrounded by powerful foreign enemies. The sympathy of the people in Kaifeng City mobilized the emotions of the people.

Sure enough, the tabloid's "On Sheep and Hogs" stirred up a thousand waves. Many people threatened to loot the ancestral grave of Wang Su's family.

However, mutton is four to five hundred yuan per catty, and most of the people who can afford it are wealthy businessmen and officials, and these people have chosen to remain silent.

Most of the people who scold the street are ordinary people who could not afford to eat mutton in the past. This "On Sheep and Pig" only provides them with a theoretical weapon, allowing them to despise those superior people openly and aboveboard.

The previous tabloids only told the people that pork was delicious on the sidelines. As the prime minister of the court, Li Han personally went down to prove the pork, which instantly dragged the court into the dispute between pigs and sheep.

It would be impossible for any one person to cause such a sensation. On the second day, the Yushitai in charge of Wang Qinruo heard the rumors and used this tabloid to reprimand Li Hang.

He Shao had revealed to Zhao Heng a long time ago that pork would be substituted for mutton for the benefit of the country, so Zhao Heng didn't make any decision on the dispute in the court, just made peace with each other.

Led by Li Hang and accompanied by Long Jiuchen, the whole people believed that pigs should be eaten by the whole people, and Wang Qinruo led by mutton. The two sides had a fierce debate, but they could not get the support of the emperor in the court. Therefore, the battlefield of the heated debate between the two sides also spread to the tabloids.

Wang Qinruo, the head of Yushitai, thought that "hogs are kept in the latrines, and grow on the side of the filth. Their meat is unclean, and gentlemen do not eat them."

Si Nong Cheng Wu Bingzheng argued in a tabloid newspaper, "It's not that the pig meat is unclean, but that the people feed it with unclean things. The pigs in the toilet are black and thin, and the meat is dirty and woody. The pigs raised intensively are fat and fat. Very different."

All kinds of bigwigs left the court in person, and a protracted debate began. At the same time, the most talked about in the whole Kaifeng city was whether pork was edible or not, and whether it was good or not.

"The meat pigs are raised in two tanks a year, and a meat pig can get [-] catties of white meat if it is raised for six months, and what it eats is nothing but bran, melons and fruits.

The largest sheep are only fifty or sixty catties. Farmers in Gyeonggi raise eleven goats and need [-] catties of feed a year. Among them, the farmers provide only more than one thousand catties of mulberry leaves, and the remaining dead grass and dead leaves each seven A thousand catties need to be purchased elsewhere, and each only costs two guan. "

From the Kaifeng mansion to the princes and nobles down to the peddlers and pawns, the dispute over pigs and sheep has intensified. In this debate, either the east wind prevails over the west wind or the west wind prevails over the east wind. But no matter who prevails, it has become a consensus that pork is edible and cheaper than mutton .

He Shao himself was not idle, and summoned Yang Shiliang and Xie Andao, the shopkeepers of these restaurants in Dongpoju.

These shopkeepers are a little confused about the competition between pigs and sheep in recent days. Da Song has eaten mutton for decades, and the meat they operate in their restaurants is also mutton. Why does eating mutton become a national thief when the wind changes suddenly? ?

"I invite all of you here today to discuss something important," He Shao said.

"Is it related to the pig-sheep dispute in the tabloid?"

The newsroom was run by He Shao, and Yang Shiliang knew very well that He Shao might have been the initiator of this big debate that has spread throughout the city, but it is not clear what the purpose is for the time being.

"Yes, I hope that we can gradually eliminate some dishes that are mainly lamb and add some dishes that are mainly pork."

These restaurants are the vane of Kaifeng city's diet, as long as they can make changes, it will have twice the result with half the effort.

"It's not that simple." Xie Andao was a little embarrassed.

"I remember that the most expensive dish in Fan Lou is called Cuisi Whole Milk Lamb in Xujue. The price of this dish is five guan. Pork is cheap meat, but it can't be sold at such a price."

The price of mutton is indeed high, but the cooked dishes can also earn more, and the profit margin of pork is also limited.

"Pork has a strong earthy taste, which is very different from lamb"

They all run restaurants and know very well that taste is the most important factor affecting the business of restaurants in times when there is no famine.

Everyone didn't dare to refuse directly, after all they still wanted to make a fortune by relying on the Da Song gourmet magazine, and what you said was just complaining, He Shao could of course see that these people were just trying to shirk.

"Since everyone makes it difficult, I won't force it"

After the banquet was over, after everyone had left, two people left and returned. Yang Shiliang and Pei Yong came in one after the other.

"Why are you two back?" He Shao asked with a smile.

"Of course I'm interested in Brother He's proposal just now."

Yang Shiliang is very shrewd, and he is not optimistic about the substitution of pork for mutton, but he bet on He Shao.

"Sanlang told me that when you are in doubt, you will not be wrong if you follow shopkeeper Yang and shopkeeper He."

Pei Yong is Pei Yi's eldest son, he can be mediocre only if he has a mediocre personality, but he believes in the principle of listening to people's advice to eat enough, especially He Shao and Yang Shiliang who persuaded him.

"Haha, please go upstairs, both of you."

(End of this chapter)