Poor Family Chapter 445

  Chapter 445 Cao Mansion Banquet (2)

Walking into the gate, you will see a three-foot-high Zhulou facing you, majestic and majestic, with flying eaves and green tiles, shining like gemstones in the sun. Although the Song Dynasty was also strict in hierarchy, the other side was more tolerant and didn't care too much about it. It is an act of usurpation, high-rise buildings are often seen in the rich and powerful mansions. Although the colorful building in Cao's Mansion is magnificent, it is far inferior to the Six Crane Hall in Cai Jing's Mansion. The Six Crane Hall is as high as four feet and nine feet. .

Although the Cao Mansion has three entrances and two courtyards in name, the houses are densely packed with thousands of rooms. The alleys in the mansion are vertical and horizontal, extending in all directions. If there is no one to guide the way, it is easy to get lost in it. Today's banquet is held in the atrium, that is, set up In the colorful downstairs, it is divided into the main hall inside the building and the auxiliary hall outside the building, and there are hundreds of banquet tables.

Li Yanqing belongs to the younger generation, and he does not have a prominent family background, nor is he a high-ranking official in the court. Of course, he can only sit in the side hall. In fact, they are still connected together, but women sit together on the west side, and men sit together on the east side, so that they can look at each other, which is convenient for choosing a good son-in-law, or for lovers to look at each other.

Song people are relatively tolerant of marriage. As long as they are in the same circle, if they are in love with each other and tell their parents to each other, they can often achieve positive results. For young men and women, outings or various festival gatherings are all about communication between men and women and the cultivation of feelings. Opportunity.

  But this kind of family banquet is often a time for the parents to visit the son-in-law, or the parents to visit the daughter-in-law, or when the parents of both parties meet. As long as the conditions are not too bad, generally everyone will be happy and return with satisfaction.

   "Yanqing, your seat is here. It's too early to leave the seat. You can walk around in the mansion freely, as long as the door is unlocked, you can enter!"

  Cao Sheng found a seat for Li Yanqing. He was too busy, so he left first.

  Li Yanqing sat down in front of his own seat. Eight Immortals tables were popular in the Song Dynasty, and a table could seat eight people. In the main hall, a table could only seat four people. Li Yanqing sat in front of his own seat, and his name was on the sign in front of it.

  It is still early, and there is basically no one in the seats, only a few old people sitting and chatting together, and the rest are maids or servants who are busy arranging the tableware.

  Li Yanqing stood up and walked east along the main road. Just now he saw a large garden in the east, and there were many young people there.

Li Yanqing is also renting a house these days, so he is more interested in houses. A petty official like him can only rent a house of three to five acres at most. Compared with the huge house of 300 acres in the Cao Mansion, it is like a sky-high. The land, and the Cao Mansion cannot be compared with Cai Jing, Wang Fu and other powerful officials, let alone the royal family's mansion. Just from the residence, Li Yanqing felt his own insignificance.

The architectural style of the Song Dynasty is different from that of the Tang Dynasty. The Tang Dynasty paid attention to simplicity and majesty, while the buildings of the Song Dynasty have two characteristics. One is extremely delicate and beautiful to show the new and unique appearance, and the other is the pursuit of gardening. From the Canglang Pavilion in Suzhou You can also vaguely see the architectural style of the Song Dynasty.

  Li Yanqing walked eastward all the way, and saw that the houses on both sides were beaded households with gold nails, green tiles and eaves, red pink mud walls on all sides, and two carved railings made of jade, just like a fairy cave.

After crossing a nine-curved bridge, he entered the large garden in the atrium. This large garden covers an area of ​​about 20 acres. The Cao family introduced a small river from the Jinshui River, meandering through the entire mansion, and reinjecting it into Jinshui. River, but the mansion is full of aura because of the river. The green grass on both sides of the river is full of weeping willows. With the rich fragrance of sweet-scented osmanthus.

Various pavilions and pavilions are dotted on both sides of the river, and small gardens are scattered among them. It is autumn and the air is crisp. Young men and women are staying outdoors. Groups of people gather together and laugh happily. They are all children of meritorious families and are familiar with each other. It's easy to hang out with each other, basically forming their own circles, but Li Yanqing doesn't know anyone, so he can only walk slowly and enjoy the scenery in the garden.

   "Li Xiandi Li Yanqing!"

  Li Yanqing stopped in his tracks. He clearly heard someone calling him. When he turned around, he saw Cao Xing running up, panting.

   "So it's Brother Cao!"

  Li Yanqing stopped and said with a smile: "Brother Cao is not directing the vehicles outside?"

   "Just received a new mission, Seventh Uncle asked me to accompany my younger brother."

   "Your seventh uncle?"

   "Didn't I enter the mansion with you just now?"

  Li Yanqing finally realized that Cao Sheng was the seventh son. He couldn't help laughing and said, "You have seven uncles?"

   "Just seven." Cao Xing scratched his head and sighed, "Hey! Having seven uncles means that there are a lot of younger brothers and sisters."

  Li Yanqing was very interesting to see him, and asked with a smile: "I wonder if Brother Cao has a sign?"

   "Not yet! It will only be available after the weak crown next year. You can call me Xiao Saburo, and everyone in the government calls me that."

   "Me neither, you can call me Yanqing."

  Li Yanqing looked at the young men and women in twos and threes in the garden, and he asked a little strangely: "I don't know if I should ask. Today's banquet seems to be mostly young people. What's the reason?"

  Cao Xing gave him a strange look, and asked with a smile, "Is Yanqing married?"

  “There is a concubine in the family, but she has not married yet.”

"Then you are right to come here. Our aristocratic families often get together, or birthdays, festivals, etc. There will be such a gathering about once every six months. Everyone takes turns to be the host. It is called a meeting. In fact, it creates a meeting for young men and women. To put it more simply, it is a blind date meeting, now you understand!"

  Li Yanqing suddenly realized, no wonder all the talented men and women looked like a blind date.

Cao Xing said indifferently: "The reason why our meritorious families can last for a hundred years is that they are united, and the foundation of unity is marriage. Although the outside world laughs at our marriage, we understand in our hearts that there is no marriage relationship. The family has long been in disarray."

Li Yanqing also understands that the Song Dynasty was ruled by civil officials. There was a powerful civil official group before, and then there was the imperial power and foreign relatives group. These meritorious families lived in the cracks. Marriage is their inevitable choice, and this is not the same as the aristocratic families of the Sui, Tang and Northern Wei Dynasties, but the situation forces them to unite.

  However, under the impact of the fall of the Northern Song Dynasty, the social class changed drastically. No matter the royal family, foreign relatives, eunuchs or these meritorious families disappeared, only the civil official group dominated, and Qin Hui was the helm of the civil official group at that time.

  Li Yanqing nodded, "I can understand!"

Seeing that he understood, Cao Xing was also happy, and smiled again: "Actually, we are not so closed. The first choice of every household is Jinshi. If you can't get a Jinshi, you can only consider family status and wealth. Jinshi like Yanqing is looking for flowers. Young people who have not married a wife, come to this banquet, why do I feel a little like a sheep in the mouth of a tiger?"

  Li Yanqing also felt that there was a serious problem, and hurriedly warned him in a low voice, "You are not allowed to publicize that I am not married. I just came to the banquet and left after eating and drinking. I have no other ideas."

   "Don't worry! I will never go out to publicize."

  Cao Xing's eyes narrowed into a smile, how could he spread the word to the outside world? This kind of good thing should be obtained first by the Cao family, and he quickly searched in his mind to see which of his younger sisters could impress Li Yanqing more?

   "Where are Gao Chong and Brother Pan?" Li Yanqing suddenly remembered Cao Xing's two good friends.

   "They... they don't know where they went?" Cao Xing was a little absent-minded, he was still thinking about the two sisters he finally chose, which one is more suitable?

  Walking around in the garden, Li Yanqing was a little bored, so he asked with a smile, "Are there any interesting games here?"

  Cao Xing rolled his eyes, suddenly remembered something, and said with a smile: "There is a game that suits you very well, come with me!"

  Cao Xing led him towards the back house, "Is this...going to the back house?" Li Yanqing saw that the direction was a bit wrong.

   "Don't go to the back house, you can't get in the back house, let's go to the Wentang!"

  Li Yanqing vaguely guessed that it must be related to reading.

   When approaching the back house, I saw a group of noble ladies walking out of a osmanthus forest in full bloom, talking and laughing towards them.

"Oops!"

  Cao Xing suddenly saw his mother, he didn't dare to run away, so he had to bite the bullet and stand by the side of the road.

  Cao Xing's mother, Mrs. Pan, is the eldest daughter-in-law of the Cao family. Her main task today is to accompany a group of noble ladies. When she saw her son on the side of the road, she smiled at the noble ladies, "My little Sanlang is in front!"

   "Yo! I haven't seen you for half a year, and Xiao Saburo has become more and more handsome. I heard that he is already engaged to the youngest daughter of the Shi family?"

   "I got engaged at the beginning of the year, and I officially married after the new year."

   "It's a pity! I think Xiaosanlang is more suitable for my daughter." The ladies all praised Cao Xing.

  Ms. Pan was delighted to hear that, she stepped forward and asked her son, "Why is San'er here?"

   "Reporting to mother, Seventh Uncle asked the child to accompany the distinguished guest."

  'Dear guest! ' Mrs. Pan was slightly startled, and looked up at Li Yanqing beside him, seeing that he was very young, he was from some yamen, and he couldn't be called an honored guest.

   "This yamen is"

  Li Yanqing was pretending to admire the sweet-scented osmanthus, but the elders paid attention to him, so he had no choice but to bite the bullet and bowed to salute, "Junior Li Yanqing sees auntie!"

   "So it's you!" A shrill voice suddenly came out from the lady.

  Li Yanqing knew something was wrong. He saw Gao Shen's wife just now, so he pretended to turn his head away to look at Osmanthus fragrans, but now he was recognized by others.

  He raised his head and saw Mrs. Gao's eyes widened, looking at him with surprise on her face. He could only smile wryly, and bowed again, "Junior see Madam!"

Mrs. Gao had always liked Li Yanqing very much, but Li Yanqing's blind date fashion was so stupid that the blind date failed. Later, after Mrs. Gao found out the truth, she hated Li Yanqing very much in her heart, but her daughter and son-in-law were rescued by Li Yanqing in Tangyin County, which made her She was also full of gratitude to Li Yanqing. Her emotions towards Li Yanqing were very complicated, annoyance, regret, gratitude, disappointment, all kinds of emotions mixed together.

   Cao Xing's mother saw that her aunt knew Li Yanqing, so she asked with a smile, "Second aunt knows this Li Yanei?"

   "How could I not know him, he was a Jinshi Tanhualang in the imperial examination last year." Mrs. Gao said angrily,

  The crowd of ladies suddenly exclaimed, this young man is actually Jinshi Tanhualang, immediately several ladies surrounded Li Yanqing and asked, "Has Li Tanhua married a wife?"

  Cao was in a hurry, and before Li Yanqing could speak, he pulled Li Yanqing out of the lady's siege, and said repeatedly: "We still have urgent matters, all aunts, I'm sorry!"

  He didn't bother to say hello to his mother, he pulled Li Yanqing and ran, "Run! I'm saving your life."

   "This little Saburo is so impatient, he doesn't understand manners at all, I will teach him a lesson later, and let him accompany everyone." Cao Xing's mother was a little embarrassed, and quickly apologized to everyone.

   Mrs. Gao looked at Li Yanqing's back, but said meaningfully: "I guess this Li Tanhua hasn't married a wife yet, and Xiao Sanlang is afraid that we will **** his son-in-law!"

'brush! '

  Dozens of pairs of apricot eyes lit up at the same time, looking at Li Yanqing's back in unison.

  (end of this chapter)

Chapter end