Chapter 483: Rowing a Boat, Forging Iron, and Grinding Tofu

"Daming Palace?"

Li Shimin muttered the name, and immediately thought of the "Daming" chapter in the "Book of Songs".

Then he was a little envious - in the Tang Dynasty, Li Longji had the Daming Palace, and Wu Zetian had the Wanxiang Palace.

Only he and Li Zhi had to live in the hot and humid Taiji Palace in summer and suffer from the heat and humidity?

So Li Shimin was immediately unhappy.

For example, two years ago, when he was suffering from dampness, Changsun Wuji suggested building pavilions to keep fit and avoid dampness, and he hesitated for a long time before deciding.

Why are the descendants so unyielding in building large-scale projects?

No wonder they all have the appearance of a tyrant, and no wonder the emperor fled nine times!

So Li Shimin changed his mind on the spot and whispered:

"When the Western Regions are at peace and the sea waves are calm, I will build this Daming Palace!"

This made Empress Changsun burst out laughing, and then she quickly covered her face and said:

"If your majesty had this intention earlier, why would you suffer from dampness every year?"

Li Shimin didn't care and nodded in agreement.

Of course, he would not waste the people's power to create a "wonder" like the Wanxiang Palace and "harm the country".

But the Taiji Palace, which was passed down in the second year of Kaihuang in the Sui Dynasty, is indeed not in line with the prosperous Tang Dynasty atmosphere he wants to create with his own hands.

The couple's flirting stopped briefly, but Empress Changsun took the pen and paper seriously, and on the low table on the couch, she also carefully copied the things about the New Year mentioned in the fragments of later generations.

Li Shimin looked over and saw that the queen's record was quite concise, such as the key point that Laba porridge is made of mixed grains and fruits, such as the dispute over sugar and honey related to the New Year's Eve, and "maybe the new method of raising bees can be tried in the Forbidden Garden" was written in beautiful small characters on the side.

Li Shimin also tasted the queen's thoughts in an instant.

Leizu was the first wife of Emperor Huangdi and invented silkworm breeding. Although Jiang Qi invented the bee training now, if the method of bee breeding in later generations can be found, it can also be called a merit.

So Li Shimin just smiled and said nothing more.

The prime ministers nitpicked about etiquette and explored how the harm of mosquitoes and flies could be equated with mice?

Yan Lide kept working, trying to guess the location based on the simple words "Xiang" and "Gan".

As a person familiar with architecture, Yan Lide is probably the person who understands its role best in this palace.

The paste and paste made of lime are all top-grade for wall painting and brick and tile bonding.

When the supervisor added lime to the iron smelting, it could also make the iron purer and easier to forge steel.

Now that he knew that this thing could also kill mosquitoes, Yan Lide seemed to have seen its broad prospects.

…

"This Xiang-Gan should refer to the land of Jingyang."

Pang Tong felt that this judgment was too simple.

After all, he had been to the Xiangjiang River when he was in Jingzhou. This river runs through southern Jingzhou, and it is hard to forget.

And Gan is just as easy. After all, the seat of Luling is in Gan County, and he remembers it clearly.

Kong Ming silently wrote the three words "high temperature kiln" on the paper, and then drew a line between high temperature and kiln.

When he knew that there were methods such as firing porcelain in the future, Kong Ming thought about how to fire it.

The good news is that he finally saw the hint of the younger generation. The bad news is that after going through Jingyi, he had already broken the misunderstanding in his thinking. When he was in Chengdu, he tried out the method of raising the temperature with charcoal as the bottom and yellow mud sealing the kiln.

The hint was very good, but it was a pity that it came a little late. Kong Ming smiled helplessly and crossed out the three words at the same time, but he did have some sense of accomplishment in his chest.

But he immediately remembered another thing:

"This Ming Dynasty's "Heavenly Creations" can be called a treasure for us, and it can also be called a treasure book for the Ming Dynasty. It is hard to doubt its omissions."

"The future generations can look down on it and see its mistakes, so I wonder how the future generations will look at this generation that has been unrivaled for five thousand years?"

Although it was difficult to understand, Pang Tong easily understood the meaning, but it was difficult to figure out the key points in a short time, so he could only shake his head and say an answer that was not an answer:

"Change can lead to communication, communication can last long, and change again after a long time, which may be the reason for the past."

[Twenty-five, grinding tofu.

Some people say that the history of China is a history of "eating".

And in this history, tofu is definitely the most colorful one.

China is the indisputable birthplace of tofu, but who invented tofu in Chinese history is now untraceable.

In the "Song Shiyi Lu" written by Xie Chuo during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, it is said that the art of tofu... The King of Huainan in the Han Dynasty also started the art in the world.

Zhu Xi of the Northern Song Dynasty wrote a poem "Tofu" and annotated it: The method of tofu began with Liu An, the King of Huainan in the Han Dynasty.

But relatively speaking, it is quite strange that in the history books, there has never been the word tofu in the nearly one thousand years from the Han Dynasty to the Tang Dynasty.

After the fall of the Northern Song Dynasty, Meng Yuanlao, who lived in Bianliang for generations, was forced to move to Jiangzuo. The "Dongjing Menghualu" written in memory of the prosperity of Bianjing became the last elegy of the Northern Song Dynasty.

This work describes the prosperity of the capital of the Northern Song Dynasty before the fall of the country in detail, and there are more than 300 records of food alone, but there is no tofu among them.

Therefore, some people in the early years believed that tofu was actually invented in the Song Dynasty, but the Confucian scholars of the Song Dynasty liked to respect the past and despise the present, so they gave the King of Huainan the title of the inventor of tofu.

Of course, this is not the case, and the reason is very simple. According to the current records of Japan, in the same era as the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, they included "Tang Fu" among the offerings offered to the gods.

This thing has many names such as Doufu and Doufu in the writings of Japanese literati, but no matter from the name or pronunciation, it can be confirmed that it is tofu. And from the name of Tangfu, it is not difficult to guess that this thing was introduced to Japan from the Tang Dynasty.

It was not until the demise of the Southern Song Dynasty that Wu Zimu recalled the prosperity of Lin'an City in the Southern Song Dynasty and wrote "Dream of Lianglu" that the records of fried tofu and tofu soup appeared for the first time.

Regarding these two kinds of food, Wu Zimu commented that "they are the places for the younger generation... the lower class people go to buy them for coarse food."

This record can make people guess why there is no record of tofu in the Han and Tang Dynasties:

It is probably because the price of paper had not been completely suppressed before the Song Dynasty, and tofu was a food that was not presentable at that time, so it was not worthy of being recorded in books.

In fact, the four simple steps of grinding beans, filtering slurry, boiling slurry, pressing into shape, and removing slurry water that are familiar to modern people are extremely difficult to study for the ancients whose inheritance was sometimes interrupted, not to mention the step of slurry. Depending on whether gypsum, acetic acid, or brine is used, the appearance of the tofu produced is also very different.

It was not until the Ming Dynasty that the craftsmanship of tofu had made great progress, and the appearance gradually became as smooth as water and as bright as a mirror. This kind of food finally entered the elegant hall and was sought after by literati and scholars.

Therefore, it can be said that the "25-grinding tofu" in the New Year custom that has been passed down to this day can probably only be traced back to the Ming Dynasty.

However, tofu can be said to have exploded in the Ming Dynasty with a powerful effect that no one can imagine. 】