"Younger Brother Li Yi, look what I've brought you."
In the morning, Li Yi was looking after the forest that the steward was desperately trying to persuade him to leave when Li Chengqi came.
"Steward, listen to me. Sell it. Dig it up and sell it to whoever wants it. Then plant grapes for me."
Li Yi instructed the steward and went to welcome Li Chengqi.
The 80 mu of mulberry trees were said to be used to raise silkworms and weave cloth.
Li Yi firmly refused. He would hand over the land to the imperial court and sell the wheat that he could plant.
He would buy the rest with money and was determined not to leave any mulberry trees.
He wanted to plant grapes, a large area of grapes.
When he approached Li Chengqi, Li Yi saw that this somewhat capable person had brought him a cow.
A cow that had been killed and bled.
"Younger Brother, here's the cow. I'll eat it at your place at noon." Li Chengqi was very happy to see Li Yi's surprised expression.
"I'll immediately ask them to extract the soybean oil." Li Yi didn't refuse.
He took Li Chengqi to the oil extraction workshop and the manservant came to work.
Li Chengqi and the eunuch next to him watched.
Li Yi asked someone to serve tea while he ran to the kitchen to process the whole cow.
During lunch, the forty-two students all got to eat beef bones, tofu, and wild vegetable soup.
The staple food became rice, which was a normal meal. It was too extravagant to eat noodles every day.
Li Chengqi and the eunuch also ate this, including Li Yi.
He spent the whole morning processing the cow. He wasn't a professional beef seller, so he had to do it slowly. He didn't have time to cook other dishes.
Fortunately, he braised the tendons so that Li Chengqi could take away two large pieces of marinated beef at night.
The oil extraction process hadn't been completed yet. They were making the base and could only smash the wooden wedges in the afternoon.
He also used 10 hours of his lifespan to exchange for 500 grams of chili powder, not including chili seeds.
If he wanted to exchange for chili seeds, he would need to spend 50 thousand hours of his lifespan.
Not to mention that he didn't have that much lifespan, he was reluctant to give up nearly 11 and a half years of lifespan.
Li Yi made some spicy beef mince and chili oil.
Tonight, he would let this big brother, who had the means to get the whole cow, take away half of the beef tendons.
As for the other things, he planned to freeze them on ice for two days and barbecue them the day after tomorrow.
Because he was rich, he took away the soy sauce yesterday. Today, his brother, who had the same surname as him, said that he would bring 55,000 copper coins in the afternoon.
He wanted to buy 500 kilograms first. At the same time, he discovered that his lifespan had increased by three hundred and twenty hours.
Li Yi didn't know why selling soy sauce would increase one's lifespan.
But now that he had money, he was prepared to organize a poetry gathering for the forty-two students.
He invited other friends to come to Zhuangzi to eat and drink, and then helped to promote the soy sauce.
There were a hundred vats, and each vat could produce two hundred catties of oil at a time.
"Younger Brother, do you know that there will be more cows and sheep soon?" Li Chengqi took a bite of the delicious pickled vegetables and asked Li Yi.
"Where did the cattle and sheep come from?" A map appeared in Li Yi's mind. Above Gyeonggi Province was the Turks, and there were grasslands there.
"The Turks." Li Chengqi acted as if he knew a lot about the international situation.
Li Yi smiled and shook his head. "That's impossible. Moxi is too ambitious. He took advantage of the unstable succession of the Tang Empire to attack repeatedly. How could he stop the war?"
"Especially now, His Majesty is worried every day about the situation in the country. He has to coordinate with the generals."
"The local government is in chaos. The Turks, Western Turks, and Tubo are eyeing covetously. Tubo is even more so. "
"The Tang Empire is rejecting Tubo and resisting the Turks. If I were Moxi, I would fight too. "
"Otherwise, when the Tang Empire stabilizes the borders of the Tang Empire, will there be a day for the Turks to rise?"
Li Yi briefly explained the situation.
The eunuch next to him dropped his chopsticks on the table.
Li Chengqi widened his eyes, wondering if he was talking to his brother and the prime ministers.
Rejecting Tubo and resisting the Turks was a matter of the imperial court.
How did a young man like you, who owns Zhuangzi, know about it? Who leaked the news?
"Brother, how do you know so much? Are you talking nonsense? "Li Chengqi asked.
"Know? What's there to know about something that is obvious? "
"Brother, please take a look. Tubo's workshops and agriculture are not bad. There are constant conflicts at the borders of the Tang Empire. The Tang Empire attacks more but rarely wins."
"The prince is young. The prince regent two years ago died before his mother. The prime minister, Wei Qili Xu Shangnian, took over."
"At this time, Tubo's internal situation is unstable. Naturally, it's better to send troops to the outside world. External military affairs will gather the people's hearts. "
Li Chengqi was speechless.
He didn't know what to say. You are a young man who finally inherited Zhuangzi.
Why don't you focus on farming? Why do you think about Tubo so far away in the northwest?
Is Tubo related to you? Did you buy the cattle in Zhuangzi from Tubo?
"Brother, why are you so … studious?" Li Chengqi wanted to know the purpose of Li Yi's understanding of these things.
"When the country is in chaos, the family will be in trouble. When the country is defeated, the family will be lost. How can there be eggs intact when the nest is overturned?" Li Yi said righteously.
Li Chengqi could only nod. He was speechless for a moment. The young man was right.
Li Yi continued, "Besides, when I'm old enough to become an official and enter the imperial court, how can I not have a good plan when His Majesty asks for advice?"
Li Chengqi's eyes lit up. "Brother, you want to enter the imperial court and become an official?"
"Of course! If you are poor, you should take care of yourself. If you are rich, you should do good to the world. Becoming an official is not being an official. It's educating the people of the world, "Li Yi answered.
Li Yi was speaking from the bottom of his heart. Only by becoming an official could he better promote the development of society.
When society developed, he would be able to increase his lifespan.
According to his calculations, if he didn't do anything, he could live for another 108 days.
Li Chengqi, whose heart was touched, finished his meal and went to watch the soybean oil extraction.
The process of extracting soybean oil was not difficult at all. The difficult part was how to extract it better.
Li Yi urged the steward to find someone to buy trees.
He didn't want mulberry trees. He could only make a little money by planting trees and raising silkworms in 80 mu of land.
He planted grapes. Grape wine was wine, which was much more expensive than turbid wine.
Raisins were also fruits, so the price was not low.
Using the money from selling wine and raisins to buy cloth and make wine, he only needed a small part of it.
Li Yi had better planting methods and brewing techniques.
What he needed now was the old vines that bore fruit. He didn't want to raise them for a few years to produce grapes.
Fortunately, the people of the Tang dynasty loved to drink grape wine. Many people planted grapes.
Some people planted grapes that bore few fruits, and the grapes were not sweet.
Li Yi had a way to deal with these situations, but he was anxious.
The grapes were about to bloom. How could they be transplanted when they bloomed?
They were usually transplanted in autumn. After a winter, the warm spring would promote the growth of the roots.
Transplanting the old vines in spring was very harmful to the vines.
It was very doubtful that the vines could bear grapes in the past.
Li Yi was anxious, but the steward, Song De, was even more anxious.
Because the money came. A hundred bolts of silk worth 55,000 copper coins were sent.
The money was enough for five jars of soy sauce. There were still so many jars, and each jar could still produce oil.
His Dongzhu was awesome. He could make money.
Dongzhu said to sell the trees, so he sold them.
Steward Song De rode the only horse in Zhuangzi and went out to find people to sell the trees and buy three to five years' worth of grape seedlings.
After dinner, the sleepy students ran out to help carry the silk.
They didn't have the slightest bit of arrogance when facing Li Yi, a Dongzhu.
Dongzhu was not a rough person who couldn't read. Occasionally, Dongzhu would accompany him to write and discuss policy.
Dongzhu's calligraphy could be written in regular script, and he could also write the kind of characters that looked very thin but were unyielding.
Before dinner, Li Chengqi personally lit the methane lamp, praised it, and left.
He also took away Li Yi's marinated beef, cold and spicy beef tendons, and spicy beef mince.
The most terrible thing was that he didn't even let go of the brine used to make the beef mince.
He took away all of it. It was a big pot.
"Remember to heat the brine every day. When it gets cold, ice it."
Li Yi was very afraid that the other party would have a stomachache. When he sent the Zhuangzi out, he still reminded him.
As for whether the other party would ice the brine, Li Yi didn't need to worry.
After sending Li Chengqi away, dinner was still beef bones and wild vegetable soup, but there was no tofu.
Tofu was more expensive than rice, and the yield of soybeans was low.
One jin of beans could usually make two jin and two taels of tofu.
Of course, Li Yi used the bean cakes that had been squeezed to make tofu.
Then, even if he used the bean cakes to make tofu, he could make three jin of them per jin.
If the beans had not been squeezed to death, he could make at least four jin of tofu.
People in the Tang dynasty used brine to make tofu, but he used plaster.
After cooking the tofu, the pulp was separated into the dregs, and the dregs were eaten.
He cooked the dregs repeatedly. In winter, he burned coal for warmth. He put a pot on the stove and cooked it.
Now that there was methane, he continued to cook it.
In the end, the dregs couldn't be eaten by humans at all. They could be used to feed pigs and chickens. Cows didn't like to eat them.
In this way, he was still thinking about using the bean cakes to make tofu, and picking out a layer of tofu during the boiling process.
Now that the beef bones had been stewed to the soup, he had to continue cooking.
Then, he would continue to stew the wild vegetables.
Until nothing could be cooked, the bones would become fertilizer.
In the Qi People's Essentials, it was written that in addition to farm manure, bone dregs and the dregs of other crops other than sesame seeds could also be used to fertilize the fields.
However, Li Yi wouldn't use the bones on Zhuangzi to fertilize the fields. Instead, they would be turned into bone powder and fed to the chickens.
When the chickens lay eggs, the eggs would be soft-shelled when calcium was lacking. They wouldn't even lay eggs.
Li Chengqi didn't know that Li Yi had a set of scientific methods to use Zhuangzi.
He didn't eat dinner and hurried back with food.
Fortunately, the road was not far. This time, he took the Tonghua Gate and entered the palace while the palace gate was open.
He entered the Baifu Palace from the side door and met his father, the emperor emeritus.
When he entered the Tonghua Gate, someone had already run to Anxing Market to find other brothers to go to the Baifu Palace together.
When Li Longji heard the news, he also rushed over with Empress Wang.
The other brothers also came with a princess consort each.
After greeting Emperor Emeritus Li Dan and Noble Consort Lu, everyone began to taste the food that Li Chengqi brought back.
Yesterday's soy sauce had opened a new window for them to become a foodie nation.
Today, a new door had been opened.
They had all eaten beef before, but the beef in this sauce was delicious enough without the garlic sauce.
When the beef was dipped in the garlic sauce, everyone's expression was so happy.
Then, they took a bite of the spicy beef tendon. Oh, how could there be such a taste in the world?
This spiciness, why did the spicier it was, the more they wanted to eat it? It was so spicy.
The two beef tendons and two beef tendons were quickly eaten by everyone. Everyone was still hungry.
"Big Brother, why don't we recruit Li Yi to the Shangshi Bureau?"
Prince Xue, Li Longye, licked his lips and said the same thoughts in many people's hearts.
"Ye 'er, don't talk nonsense." Li Chengqi disciplined his younger brother.
Then, he said, "That Li Yi is ambitious. Today, when we talked about the Tubo and the Turks, he said …"
Li Chengqi told the others what Li Yi said.
When everyone heard it, they were shocked, just like Li Chengqi at that time.
It turned out that the young man was very ambitious.
If that was the case, why would he cook in the Shangshi Bureau's imperial kitchen?
While sighing, the noodles were ready. Tonight's main dish was soup pancakes mixed with beef and chili sauce.
"Big Brother, I heard that you bought more than a thousand catties of soy sauce. I wonder how much Li Yi and Zhuangzi have left?"
Li Longye, who had just suggested that Li Yi be a chef in the palace, was thinking about the soy sauce again.
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