The Northern Song Dynasty's "Song Xing Tong" stipulated: "Anyone who intentionally kills an official or private ox shall be sentenced to one and a half years of penal servitude." "Anyone who kills an ox shall be sentenced to one year of penal servitude."

The Southern Song Dynasty stipulated that "anyone who kills an official or private ox without cause shall be sentenced to three years of penal servitude."

The idea that the so-called heroes of the outlaw world in "Water Margin" always had three catties of beef and a catty of good wine is pure nonsense.

Its main purpose is to highlight the chivalrous spirit of these people and the Liangshan heroes' "using martial arts to break the law".

However! On the other hand, people are inanimate, but systems are flexible.

After all, no cow can live its whole life without getting sick or having any minor accidents.

Therefore, the beef sold in the market is mostly from cattle that died of disease or fell to their deaths.

Even so, the price of this beef is sky-high, with a pound of beef costing at least 100 coins.

If calculated using honeycomb briquettes, one pound of beef would be enough for an average family to burn coal briquettes for a month.

While butter can be bought with money, the most expensive ingredient in this hot pot broth is undoubtedly the chili peppers.

After all, if we follow the normal timeline, chili peppers were not introduced to China until the Ming Dynasty.

Previously, the main sources of spiciness were ginger spice, mustard spice, and eugenol spice.

Therefore, the hundred catties of chili peppers that Mu Zian possessed can be considered a unique item of this era.

This solved the problem of the two most crucial ingredients in hot pot: butter and chili peppers.

As for spices such as cardamom, cinnamon, cloves, galangal, star anise, bay leaves, nutmeg, and dried tangerine peel, they are much easier to find.

After all, according to Chinese custom: what can be eaten is eaten directly, and what cannot be eaten is used as Chinese medicine.

At this moment, the piece of beef tallow at the bottom of the pot in Mu Zi'an's hand was worth as much as gold.

As water was poured into the pot, a spicy aroma wafted out.

Liu Rushi, who was standing to the side, blushed slightly from the smell alone.

Looking at the bubbling red soup in the pot, Mu Zian felt a surge of turmoil in his mouth.

However, there aren't many ingredients available for hot pot right now. Besides beef and mutton, the only other options are tofu and bean sprouts.

The pork from Dali pigs is not the mainstream nowadays, mainly because these pigs have not been castrated, so not only is the meat quantity small, but it also has a fishy smell.

Mu Zian invited everyone to sit down and enjoy the hot pot, since hot pot is more lively when eaten with a large group of people.

"What a wonderful smell! It seems I've come at the wrong time."