Shangshi female official

Li Niangniang is not afraid of meat and meat, and no one mentions it. On the first day of the ceremony, the Empress Dowager personally issued a decree, saying that Li Niangniang had not tabooed food for three days, and it was not appropriate to perform silkworm rituals, so as not to offend the silkworms that preceded them.

When the maids talked about this matter, they couldn't help laughing. It always felt like they were shooting themselves in the foot. Although the emperor loved his concubine too much, this time he stood by the empress's side.

The Silkworm Sacrifice is the biggest ceremony for empresses and concubines. It was a serious matter, but Li Niangniang was domineering in the first place, so the emperor probably felt embarrassed to protect her.

After the silkworm sacrifice is completed, the empress will lead the ministers and wives to have meals in the Wuying Hall. The main food is vegetarian, but the silkworm ceremony lasts a long time, and the time of the meal is uncertain, and it can only be estimated in the afternoon.

This makes it more difficult to cook. For vegetarians, only bamboo shoots or potatoes can be stewed for a longer time. If vegetables, melons and eggplants are kept warm on the fire for a long time, they will become soft and lose their flavor, especially vegetables.

In order to time the cooking, when it was almost noon, Mo Xi went to the empress's dining room to ask for news. When she came back, she frowned slightly. Wang Yifu knew something was wrong when she saw it, and asked what was wrong.

"Something happened at the Silkworm Festival today."

"Is something wrong with the empress?"

Mo Xi nodded, and Chunxi and the others also moved closer to listen to Mo Xi's explanation.

"The morning ceremony went well, and the empress held the silkworm king to pay homage to the first silkworms, and it went well. Later, the silkworm king died when he put it on the sacrificial plate."

Juanzi gasped as she said, "I heard that the silkworm king chose the strongest silkworm from the silkworms raised in the palace. It is a very unlucky sign to die a silkworm at the silkworm sacrifice. .”

"Dead silkworms at the Silkworm Sacrifice are unlucky, and all the wives are present. After returning, it is inevitable that they will have criticisms against the empress. Especially this superstitious thing, there are so many people talking about it, it is scary."

"What about the ritual?" Wang Yifu asked.

"The sacrificial ceremony has to continue. I heard from the empress's dining room that the empress made the sacrificial plate and the dead silkworms guarded, and changed the sacrificial plate to offer sacrifices to the silkworms. The second silkworm was fine, but the ceremony became more complicated and took a lot of time. "

"Then let's prepare the dishes and wait a little longer."

"Wait for an hour first, and I will go find out the news after an hour."

At the end of the day, Mo Xi went to ask when the meal was, and it said that the empress told the concubines to get up and go to the Hall of Martial Arts, and she was still confessing in the silkworm altar, and asked the imperial dining room to take good care of everyone in the Hall of Martial Arts, so there was no need to wait for lunch she.

So they started to cook vegetarian banquets. In addition to some simple boiled or fried vegetables, their dining room also made bamboo shoot mushroom soup, vegetarian braised pork made of tofu, rouge lotus root, and mixed vegetables with bean curd.

This vegetarian utensil was also picked from the warehouse. Mo Xi picked out a small light emerald green cup to hold a large spoonful of soup. The soup has no oily smell, and the color is like light tea. It is decorated with two or three pieces of bamboo shoots and two or three white jade mushrooms. and a caterpillar fungus.

Three slices of rouge lotus root are stacked together and served in the same color butterfly. The color of lotus root slices is like rouge, pink and tender and beautiful. , one serving per customer, served in a shorter porcelain cup.

Today's silkworm sacrifice can only be vegetarian, and most of the visitors are female relatives. Mo Xi puts extra effort into the selection of plates and decorations. The pale emerald green of the utensils will not tire the eyes for a long time. White and yellow, it looks very good when placed horizontally in a cup.

However, vegetarian food is still not as attractive as meat and fish. After half an hour passed, the concubines and wives had finished their meals. Mo Xi went to look at the discarded things, and most of them were tasted, but they were all lightly tasted, and most of them were wasted.

When Mo Xi came back, Wang Yifu asked a lot: "Where is your mother? Are you still repenting at the silkworm altar?"

"Haven't come back yet, today is really strange, the empress repented, it took about a quarter of an hour, she shouldn't have left the wives like this."

"The empress is not here, who will host the banquet?"

"I heard it's Empress Debi."

"This... isn't there two concubines, Concubine Xian and Concubine Zhuang?"

"These empresses in the palace all have their own opinions. The concubine Xian is always in a bad mood, and she probably didn't come to the ceremony today. No matter what happens to the concubine Zhuang, she is known to have nothing to do with herself. Only the concubine de concubine is considered a highly respected concubine. .”

Wang Yifu was puzzled, and asked again: "According to etiquette, Empress Debi has sons and daughters, and her reputation is so good, why is she still under those two empresses? Logically speaking, it is right to adjust with Empress Li .”

"Of course it's because our emperor doesn't like the temperament of Empress Debi so much. Empress Dewei values ​​virtue more than anything else. How can there be Empress Li to make the emperor happy?"

"The so-called virtuous concubine has no position, but the non-virtuous concubine has taken the position instead."

Mo Xi warned with an "ah", and said, "If you talk too much, you will lose, so don't say any more."

The luncheon was late, and they had a short rest before preparing to make dinner. Just as they put the things to be washed in the wooden basin, Chunxi came trotting from a long way away and said to the dining room: "Today's silkworm festival , and there is a new statement."

Mo Xi and Shen Ci listened while working, while Wang Yifu moved the cutting board to Chun Xi's side, and several people leaned over to ask what's wrong.

Like a storyteller, Chunxi said in detail: "The sacrificial plate where the silkworm king was placed was checked by the people from the imperial hospital. I don't know who put the arsenic on it. The silkworm king is a good silkworm king. He died on that plate."

Wang Yifu sighed in her heart, she knew that the Empress Empress was not a stupid person in her early years, and it was exactly as she expected.

"I heard from the maid of honor of the empress that the empress did not repent at the silkworm altar just now, but checked who placed the sacrificial plate on the spot, and who had the sacrificial plate passed through, and checked them one by one. I heard that she was still tortured at the silkworm altar. gone."

Xiaobai asked: "Have you checked it out?"

"A few eunuchs and maids have been arrested, but they are still at the silkworm altar."

"Dare to frame the empress, I'm afraid there will be no good fruit to eat."

The girls nodded solemnly, not daring to say anything more about this important matter, Mo Xi coughed twice, and everyone immediately returned to their work positions, the most important thing was to prepare the dinner for Empress Debi.

To the surprise of the court ladies, after the silkworm sacrifice, the weather was calm and nothing happened, as if the empress had sincerely repented for a long time because the silkworm king who was used for the sacrifice had died. Leave the silkworm altar.

I also heard that the court lady and eunuch who was caught by the empress that day disappeared overnight, and the empress seemed to be fine, what should she do every day.

So it came to the Qingming Festival, when the family members of the palace changed their clothes, the copper tanks in the palace were replaced with new water, and the water flowed into the ditches.

The folk Qingming sacrifices ancestors, and the royal family's children are also. However, in addition to ancestor worship, a swing will be installed in each palace for the concubines and family members to play around. Let's play too.