Chapter 16 Duanyang in Qing Palace

China is divided into three major festivals a year, Chinese New Year, Dragon Boat Festival, and Mid-Autumn Festival. , "Tianzhong Festival".The ancients started with the fifth day of the fifth lunar month as the anode, and at noon that day, in terms of the speed of the sky, it happened to be the middle of the day. Therefore, in the court, it was believed that the emperor was the sun, and this anode festival was more important than the Mid-Autumn Festival when the moon was in season. Much more. As soon as the Qingming Festival is over, the Ruyi Pavilion dedicated to painting in the inner court will send the cinnabar panners who enshrine the "hate the blessing is late" painted by Zhubi to the palace where the queen and concubine live, so that they can consecrate in their spare time.This cinnabar judge wears a soft-winged scarf on his head, scarlet cloak and red scorpion, brows and belly, and a sword in his sleeve, pointing at the flying bat; The consecration point is Zhu, and the eyes are left in advance by the masters who specialize in painting figures in the painting garden.As long as you touch vermilion, it will immediately come to life, as if the judge is always staring at you.In the Peking opera "The Black Pot", Mr. and Mrs. Zhao murdered Liu Shichang. Mrs. Zhao always felt that the portrait of the judge hanging in the house was glaring at any time, and she was timid and guilty, and gouged out the judge's eyes.It can be seen that the figures are well drawn, they are really vivid, and they are not just randomly painted.This kind of cinnabar sentence, except for the queen, can be used to mark the cinnabar for all concubines who are awarded seals and imperial concubines, and leave it for the Dragon Boat Festival to reward close officials.It is said in the palace that this kind of consecrated cinnabar can ward off evil spirits, so those who get it think it is more glorious than rewarding dragons and tigers with blessings and longevity.The heavy five-hanging sachet eliminates epidemics and filth, as is said in folklore, and the palace is no exception.As early as one or two months before the festival, the imperial pharmacy prepared a variety of different sachet materials, packed them in tin cans with double covers (double covers can prevent the fragrance from being lost), pasted roll labels, and made sachets together The colorful and soft Fengjin Zhensi were also sent to the inner officials, so that the officials and Jieyu could sew exquisite sachets with their own ingenuity, refurbished patterns, and skillful needlework.The most exquisite sachet is made of silk in the shape of a tiger, with its head held high and its tail held high, with colorful charms, a string of tassels hanging from each of the four tiger claws, decorated with cherries, mulberries, Zhong Kui, dragon boats, millet horns, umbrella fans, jade pendants, Xizhang is not only colorful and colorful, but also delicate, dexterous and lifelike.If the palace family has an ingenious production, it will be rewarded and honored, so the style of the sachet is refurbished every year, and it has become a competition for female celebrities in the court.

One year, an ingenious palace lady made a dragon boat with a canopy less than half an inch long, with a treasure cover and pearl buildings, a golden ax and jade axe, and colorful flowers.When it comes to May, fans are in season.Long before the Qingming Festival, the Ruyi Pavilion distributed the round fans painted with meticulous brushwork to the Inner Palace for affixing seals, and reserved them for rewarding relatives on the fifth day. At first, the fans mainly featured pictures of fairy mountain pavilions or baby play, all of which were young people who had just entered the Ruyi Pavilion as servants. The enshrined handwriting, imitating the Ming Dynasty and the Song Dynasty, is really a masterpiece, but there is no word on the fan, only a red jade seal of a certain official or a certain empress or concubine.This kind of round fan is smaller in size than ordinary round fans, mercerized with silk, some are sealed with water pattern silk, and some are backed with ancient brocade.However, this kind of round fans were all awarded by Ye Tingchen. As for the emperor's occasional sensibility, most of the poems and songs were written on the folding fan by Yubi Chenhan.Therefore, this kind of Jutou fan is also called poetry fan in the palace.As for the bones of the fan, it is even more bizarre and exquisitely carved. If you are not a minister of Yutang, Jinma and Hanyuan, it is rare to be rewarded with this honor!

On the fifth day of Duanyang, ordinary people put calamus and mugwort leaves on the left and right sides of the main gate and second door of the hall, and then pick them off at the noon of Duanyang, leaving the pupa and mugwort, which is said to be able to drive away evil spirits and epidemics.As for the palaces in the Great Inner Palace, the walls are strict and the palace halls are grand, but there is no custom of planting ai Xuanpu.According to the old official supervisor: "The inner court is too high to be reached by the officials. It is necessary to plant wormwood everywhere. It is necessary to mobilize the people. Therefore, the Yuqing Golden Tower has never been planted with calamus and wormwood leaves in the Qing Dynasty!" The government prepared a kind of Ambergris Zijin Dan, a kind of detoxifying Hunyuan scattered into Chengye Court, from the early morning to noon of the Dragon Boat Festival, it was lit with golden palace fumigation everywhere, the clouds were steaming and the clouds were dense, and the scorpions, flies and ants disappeared for a while.In the summer of the palace, there are very few mosquitoes disturbing people. Perhaps Ambergris Powder is more effective in killing mosquitoes than various modern powerful insecticides!

The custom of drinking realgar wine on the Dragon Boat Festival has been passed down for a long time. In "The Legend of Yi Yao", Bai Suzhen drank realgar wine on the Dragon Boat Festival, and immediately revealed her true form, frightening Xu Xianguan.The fine nectar and jade liquid drunk by the court during the Dragon Boat Festival was prepared by the imperial pharmacy, and presented at the time of lunch on the day of the Dragon Boat Festival.At that time, there was a servant in the house, Li Xiang, who used to work in the imperial pharmacy. According to him, "the realgar wine is prepared with Taoer wine from Suqian, which is the so-called Shuanggou Daqu in the Qing Dynasty." Listed as a tribute of Jiangsu Province, for example, it was purchased by the Xuzhou government and sent to Beijing. The local people commonly call this kind of Daqu Jingliu Erguotou.Since it was listed as a tribute, it was renamed peach wine, which is more elegant and tame.The tribute wine is packed in 75 catties of black-glazed porcelain jars, and when they arrive in Beijing, they will be handed over to the imperial pharmacy for the preparation of realgar wine.Ordinary people's realgar wine is made of white dry wine and realgar powder in the sun for a long time!The realgar wine in the imperial palace does not use ordinary realgar, but is prepared with crystal clear realgar essence ground into powder.In addition, there are seven herbal medicines, which belong to the secret recipe of the official court, so they don't know what they usually get from their errands.However, the endless realgar wine in the palace will be rewarded to the Wanchuntang Chinese Medicine Shop in Dongsi Pailou as soon as the Dragon Boat Festival is over, as a charitable act of giving medicine. Just wipe it off.In order to form a good relationship, anyone who asks Wan Chuntang will not take a penny.

Zongzi is eaten from south to north during the Dragon Boat Festival. Not only do they have their own wrapping methods, but all the materials are quite different from each other.Taking Lingnan as an example, Guangdong Zongzi is available in both sweet and salty flavors. You can use lotus seed paste, egg yolk, mushrooms and dried scallops as ingredients for Zongzi fillings.One zongzi is equal to a bowl of mixed salty eight-treasure rice.There is a special way of wrapping zongzi in Guangdong. It is a rectangular zongzi with a piece protruding from the middle, which looks like the back of a hunchback.The rice dumplings eaten by northerners are rarely made of salty rice dumplings, except for rice dumplings, which are white rice dumplings dipped in sugar or syrup, even the court is no exception.However, there is a kind of rose stew and a kind of sweet-scented osmanthus stew in the palace that are used to dip zongzi to eat. The honey stain is soft red and the jade spirit is fragrant. This kind of delicious food is not something ordinary people can taste.Before Xuantong left the palace, a Zhejiang elder made 50 lake-style zongzi with ham and fresh meat and presented them to Yonghe official Emperor Kanghuang (Concubine Jin) to taste. They live in Chuxiu Palace, Changchun Palace, and Ningshou Palace respectively. Everyone shares and praises each other, thinking that it has a special flavor.Among them, Concubine Yu has a particular preference, so she ordered the imperial dining room to make some lake-style meat dumplings every Dragon Boat Festival for a change of taste.It is important to know that Baohu-style meat dumplings are different from ordinary cooking, and there are other tricks.How much soy sauce to stir and soak, the ratio of rice to meat, the degree of tightness of the package, how much fire is needed, and how long it takes to cook the laizhen are all particular, and it is not easy to learn.Therefore, although the zongzi for the Dragon Boat Festival of the upright officials was sweet and salty, and they tried it several times, the salty zongzi was still unreliable and difficult to invite to appreciate. Jujube, as for the salty rice dumpling meat dumpling, I have never tasted it, but I dismiss it.

Since the abdication of the Qing Dynasty, the rewards that must be bestowed on ministers during the three festivals are gradually exempted. However, every year from the first day of May to the first day of the fifth lunar month, the Ye Ting internal prison still makes a list (limited to the princes and relatives of Dan Chen and the relatives of the near branch). Remembering the old ministers, I am looking for some extra money among the palace supervisors.A small bowl of cherries and mulberries, and a small string of glutinous rice and jujube rice dumplings were delivered to the mansion by the eunuchs with Sura in person.The men and women of the Meng En House are young, and the fare is based on the amount of tribute to the eunuch Sura boots. They go from house to house on this day, and of course they get a lot of money.It is said that there was a duke whose family was in decline. After the People's Republic of China, he often stopped cooking, but Sura, the eunuch of Duanjie, still rewarded him every year.On a certain festival, the Duchess was forced to commit suicide by diving into a water tank because she was unable to pay for the fare.This incident was later spread and known to the concubines, and the evil example of the eunuchs taking advantage of the autumn wind during the New Year gradually faded away.I think modern people must think that it is unheard of for the recipient to commit suicide because he cannot afford the reward!