Chapter 183 Chapter 183 Update.
On the way, looking at the Li family's guards around, Ji Xu couldn't help but think of the restaurant being closed down on random charges. This was the second time she was plotted against by the Li family.
Even if her restaurant is reopened in the future, there is no guarantee that it will be able to open a third or fourth time. Even if she has a fortune or unique skills, she will only attract more wolves and tigers.
But she has no power and influence, and these things can disappear overnight. She can't protect them at all.
Ji Xu thought, if she was not a three-foot-tall white woman, it would be better if she held an official position. At least when the Li family wanted to plot against her, they would have to think twice.
But nowadays, whether in the Central Court, the Outer Court, or at the local level, female officials are very rare, except in some relatively special areas.
For example, the female doctors and wet nurses in the palace were subordinates of the Imperial Physician, and had official positions with ranks and salaries.
As for the Chief Physician, he was a subordinate of the Shaofu, one of the Nine Ministers. The Shaofu was in charge of the imperial finances and some of the imperial household's internal affairs.
For example, the Imperial Medical Bureau under the jurisdiction of the Shaofu was naturally a medical team reserved for the palace, with the Imperial Physician as the head.
There was also the Food Bureau, responsible for the meals for the palace and sacrificial ceremonies. Within the bureau were the Taiguanling, who oversaw the main meals; the Tangguanling, who oversaw side dishes like cakes, fruits and vegetables, and wine, soups, and other side dishes; and the Daoguanling, who oversaw the selection and preparation of raw materials, such as selecting and pounding rice. Under these three officials were hundreds of subordinate officials and palace maids.
There is also Ye Ting, which is where Ji Xu stayed when he was a slave for three years. The head of the Ye Ting was Ye Ting Ling. There were many palace maids there and the affairs were very busy. Some concubines who were convicted were also imprisoned there.
Ji Xu once did rough work like washing clothes in the Yun Ting. Because the Food Bureau was short of staff, they came to the Yun Ting to borrow palace maids, and Ji Xu was loaned out. Therefore, he also did rough work like pounding rice and making fire in the Food Bureau for a while.
During that time, she watched the eunuchs prepare meals in the palace, such as roasted lamb stomach and Qiang boiled lamb, these Western Han Dynasty dishes, which she learned secretly by making fire.
However, she had no memory of her previous life at that time, and she thought that it was because she was greedy that she remembered those tedious steps. Later, she used these dishes when she worked as a chef in the county magistrate's mansion.
Ji Xu recalled that most of the cooks in the Food Bureau at that time were men. Most of them were palace slaves in the Food Bureau. They were selected by the Imperial Eunuch, the Soup Eunuch and the Guide Eunuch to develop their culinary skills so that they could take over their positions in the future.
However, since this is a place where cooking skills are judged, there are also people in formal attire. For example, there is a food supervisor who is a woman. The food supervisor is responsible for supervising the entire meal process and is also responsible for tasting the food. He is a subordinate of the Taiguan, but his official position is higher than that of the chef.
Ji Xu remembered that the food supervisor originally came from outside the palace. It was said that she worked as a cook in the downtown area. When the eunuchs were off duty outside the palace, they ate the dishes she cooked, so they recommended her to the Meal Bureau and she became an official cook. She had an extraordinary status and was later promoted to the position of food supervisor.
Ji Xu's reputation as a golden girl is indeed widely known, but in the final analysis, no matter how famous she is outside, she is just a city cook and officials can easily control her.
If one could enter the Food Bureau under the Shaofu and become an official chef, there would be a path for promotion to the food official.
Therefore, she thought that coming to this shelter was not entirely a bad thing. First, she could earn tax money; second, the more famous she became, the easier it would be to be recommended as an official.
The prerequisite is that she has to protect herself and not get infected with the plague. Also, who can recommend her is also a problem.
Along the way, she chatted with Youlu. When they reached the eastern suburbs, the smoke from the burning became thicker and thicker.
This shelter was built temporarily, with only a circle of wooden fences on the outside and a three-story watchtower next to the door. The guard looked at their line of credit, opened the door wide and let them in.
There are rows of straw huts here. From a distance, you can see Yu Lin Lang holding half-burned medicinal herbs for fumigation beside the huts. There is a thick smoke all around, and coughs come from the huts one after another. It is not clear whether they are caused by the fumigation or the coughs of illness. Just listening to them is quite scary, as if the air is full of epidemic air.
There was a bonfire further away, and the dirty clothes were thrown into it and burned. Ji Xu watched from a distance and saw that no one was burned.
According to Youlu, the construction of this shelter was originally proposed by the Imperial Physician, who was the head of all the imperial doctors and an old man with a cunning personality.
The construction and management of this shelter was the responsibility of his brother Zhuang Gaiyi, the General of the Imperial Guards who was investigating the plague at the time.
He discussed with the Imperial Physician and chose a location in the eastern suburbs, far away from the Five Tombs, nestled in the mountains and facing the water. He deployed four temporary camps there:
They were the Plague Office, which received people infected with the plague. These were the rows of straw huts that Ji Xu saw from afar when he came in.
The Imperial Medical Bureau, where the imperial physicians and doctors who treated the plague gathered;
The Internal Affairs Department is, of course, responsible for the entire shelter's food, horses, laundry, and other internal affairs;
The last one is the Yulin Guard, where the Yulin guards change shifts and rest.
However, ever since Li Dan wanted to get involved in the shelter, he transferred 200 of his own soldiers here, and a new area called "Li Shu" was built in the southeast corner of the shelter.
Steward Li was directing the construction there. He said:
"The General of the Central Army has many responsibilities. There's also a shelter like this outside Hangu Pass that he has to worry about. Furthermore, the General of the Central Army has been busy with the closure of Hangu Pass recently. I, General Li, will be in charge of all matters, big or small, at the shelter in the eastern suburbs. You all need to be more attentive."
When the Yulin Guards saw the Li family soldiers stationed here, they were filled with righteous indignation and were ready to fight.
"Bah! They've been infected with the plague. They came here alive but never returned alive!"
"Because of the plague, several of our brothers in the Imperial Guard have been infected and are lying there, not knowing whether they can survive. And yet they are the first to take credit for it!"
This is the truth. Because the silk cloth was scattered in the Five Tombs, it spread the plague. The Yulin Lang went to collect the silk cloth and brought back the plague-infected people, and it was inevitable that some of them were infected.
However, the palace guards and the Yu Lin Lang who were responsible for tracking down the plague were two completely different groups of people and had no intersection with each other. However, Li Dan used this as an excuse, saying that he was afraid that the Yu Lin Lang would bring the plague into the palace walls, and thus stuffed his own people in.
How could they obey? They stared at Manager Li with sparks in their eyes.
You Lu could not tolerate this the most and started fighting with the Li family soldiers. Fortunately, Chen Juan arrived and he was good at speaking and persuaded the two sides to leave.
However, the Yulin Guards and the Li family soldiers were still unwilling to obey each other in the shelter, and no one could order the other around.
That was a power struggle among the higher-ups. Ji Xu came here to work in the kitchen. After standing there for a while, he was hurried away by a soldier and taken to the Internal Affairs Bureau.
The walls here are also made of rammed earth and the eaves are covered with thatched grass. The walls are only half a person's height, and one of the doors is blackened by fire.
The room was open on all sides, and she could see some cooking utensils on the earthen stove from the outside. The soldier pointed to that place and left.
Ji Xu walked in alone. It was noon and there was no one inside. There was a three-legged bronze cauldron on the ground, which probably weighed a hundred pounds and was as high as her ribs. There was a fire underneath.
That half of the earthen wall was close to the fire, and it was blackened and cracked by smoke.
I don't know how long this pot has been burning. There is a burnt smell, and the things inside have become mushy. The thick smoke chokes my eyes, and I can't see clearly what is inside.
Ji Xu looked around. There wasn't a drop of water here. The water jars and buckets were all empty. She found a shovel and was about to shovel out some of the burning sticks when she heard a loud shout:
"Where did this wild girl come from!"
The man was so tall that his head could touch the thatched roof. He came in with his head lowered. His curly beard covered half of his face and hung down to his fat belly. He stood in front of the huge cauldron, making it look miniature.
Ji Xu recognized this man!
He is Tang Guancheng in the palace!
The so-called "Cheng" is the second-in-command of the "Ling". Tang Guancheng is the second-in-command of Tang Guanling. He is in charge of making food such as cakes and dumplings. He has dozens or hundreds of subordinate officials and kitchen maids under him.
This official named Tang's surname was Wang. Because he had a big beard, when Ji Xu was in the palace, he heard the palace servants privately call him Wang Huzi.
When she was making the fire, she also saw him directing the chefs to make a dish of swan meat. Swan meat was a dish that had to be served in a jade tripod and was a delicacy bestowed by the emperor, symbolizing the grace of the emperor.
The process was extremely complicated, from selecting swans from the garden, to plucking the feathers, removing the meat, and making the broth, but Wang Huzi was able to do it perfectly, which was completely different from his rough appearance. That's why she remembered Wang Huzi.
At this moment, he lifted the bucket in his hand and poured it all into the cauldron. In the pungent smoke, he pulled off the wine jug on his waist and took a gulp.
He threw down the bucket casually, walked to a wooden table, and started chopping a large basket of cabbage. Ji Xu saw that not only were the rotten leaves of the cabbage not picked out, but there was also mud on them.
She didn't dare to recognize him for a moment. Was this the rough-looking but delicate Tang Guancheng in the palace - Wang Huzi?
She said, "I'm here to help in the kitchen too. You can call me Xu or Yijinnvniang. I'll help wash the vegetables."
"I don't care if you weigh one or half a pound. With your physique, you won't last more than three days. You'll definitely catch the disease from those plague pigs. Then, like them, you'll have to eat the stew I, Wang Huzi, made."
As Wang Huzi spoke, he poured the muddy cabbages into the cauldron, stirred them with the shovel in the corner, and knocked on the side of the cauldron, saying:
"Bring the bucket."
Ji Xu did as he was told. When he heard him call himself Wang Huzi, he knew he was not mistaken. He was puzzled by his change of heart.
"Uncle Wang looks familiar. Four or five years ago, Uncle Wang was the official steward in the palace. Back then, you led the preparation of a swan soup dish, and I once cooked for you."
He shoveled two large buckets, carried them to the Plague Office, one on the left and one on the right, and ignored Ji Xu's words.
The thatched huts here were inhabited by people infected with the plague, about seventy or eighty of them. Coughing sounds could be heard from all directions, but Wang Huzi was not afraid of them. He held a bucket in one hand and an iron spoon in the other, and scooped the porridge into the wooden bowls sticking out of the huts.
An old woman took the soup and cursed:
"Wang Huzi, have you been so busy drinking that you burned the soup? This is all you've been eating all day."
Some had their teeth bruised by stones, some ate insects, and some picked out a curly beard from the soup and complained bitterly.
Some of them were infected with the plague and had no money to see a doctor or take medicine, so they had no choice but to come to the shelter on their own initiative. They didn't have to pay here, and they could take medicine prescribed by the imperial physician and have food every day, which gave them more hope than waiting to die at home.
"Where's the chef named Li? His meals are better than yours. Why doesn't he cook for us?"
"Chef Li, it's time to eat."
But Wang Huzi knocked on the iron spoon and shouted, and the chef Li trembled and took out a bowl from the straw shed.
When Wang Huzi came back after distributing the soup, Ji Xu was standing on a block for chopping firewood, with half of his body stuck in the bronze cauldron, brushing the burnt cauldron with a stove broom.
She fetched this water from the stream. The shelter was near the water and the mountains. The Plague Department was downstream, and they were upstream. The layout must have been designed for rational water use when it was first built, so she could safely fetch clean water.
It had been a long time since she had brushed this cauldron. She brushed it three times, but the water she scooped out was still black. However, she didn't stop until the cauldron wall had returned to its original color.
Even the cooking utensils in the kitchen, from the stove to the bottles and jars, and even the floor, were wiped and cleaned. Seeing the originally messy place become tidy, she felt better. This is what a kitchen should be.
Wang Huzi saw this and said:
"You're asking for trouble."
Having said that, he dropped a pair of buckets and went to take a nap on the bamboo couch under the shade of the tree, taking a sip of wine from time to time.
Ji Xu carried the two buckets on a fire stick to the stream, rinsed them with running water, and then put them in a large cauldron and boiled them. Only then were they clean and put them aside. Wang Huzi, who was standing in the shade of the tree, said again:
"You're asking for trouble."
Ji Xu wiped the sweat from his face and said:
"Wouldn't it be better to clean it up? Leftovers and dirt are more likely to breed pestilence."
She originally wanted to say germs, but changed the wording. Wang Huzi disagreed and said:
"Why should we eat clean food when a plague patient is dying?"
Ji Xu said, "Who said he was going to die soon? The Imperial Medical Bureau here has the best doctors in the world. They will definitely be able to develop a prescription to cure the plague."
This was what Youlu said when she came in the morning and asked him if the plague could be cured.
"We feed them delicious and clean food, which is also beneficial to their recovery. Moreover, if we clean up the place, we ourselves will be less likely to contract the plague. It's a win-win situation."
"Well said."
Ji Xu looked back and saw that the person coming was a middle-aged nun with her hair tied up and wearing palace clothes. She recognized her because she had seen the head female official wearing such clothes when she was a slave in the Ye Ting.
"You're the golden girl they were talking about, right? You look so young, why did they let you come here?
I'm Yi Gu, the laundry lady here. I've brought you two sets of outerwear. Wear them when you go to the plague office to deliver food to people, and take them off when you come back and put them in that bamboo basket."
Yi Gu pointed to a bamboo basket under the eaves. When she saw it was empty, she urged Wang Huzi to take off his beard.
"You have to take off your dirty clothes before serving food. I've told you so many times. If you continue like this, you won't be able to drink my wine."
Wang Huzi, who was sleeping under the shade of a tree, took off the clothes and gave them to her. She took the clothes back and had to wash them, steam them in a steamer, and then expose them to the sun. This was the instruction from the Imperial Medical Bureau to prevent the plague from spreading through the clothes.
"Don't be afraid. This plague sounds scary. No maids from the Ye Ting Palace dared to come. We were ordered to come here. At first, we thought we were going to be infected and die, but more than half a month has passed and we are still fine.
It's okay to receive these dirty clothes every day. The imperial physician said it depends on each person's constitution. All we need to do is eat well, stay in a clean and ventilated place, and take precautions as much as possible."
Then he gave Ji Xu a prescription and some medicine.
"This is the prescription for warding off the epidemic that Mr. Chen asked me to give you. It was developed by the imperial physician."
Ji Xu looked at the prescription, which was six parts of mulberry bark and six parts of gardenia, boiled in eight parts of water, and then taken.
"This is for warding off epidemics. You should boil some water and drink it every morning and evening. After you're done, go get some from the Imperial Medical Office. It's very close, just over there."
He pointed to it and said, "If you take it after you've caught it, it won't be effective. There are also people in this shelter who have been unlucky enough to get infected. However, I heard that the imperial physician's prescription for curing the epidemic is getting some results, so there will be a cure in the future."
After hearing what she said, Ji Xu felt much more at ease and looked at her with much more kindness.
"I think Yi Gu's clothes look familiar. Is Yi Gu a female official working in the Ye Ting?"
The two chatted for a while. This Yi Gu was a female official in the Yunting who was in charge of a small group of palace maids who did laundry. She was sent to the shelter by the Shaofu to help.
She heard that Ji Xu had also stayed in the palace. Although it was their first meeting, they felt somewhat close, so she told her more:
"Wang Huzi was drunk and neglected his duties, so he was demoted from Tang Guancheng to cook, a demotion of four levels. He was also transferred here to cook for those suffering from the plague. He was resentful, so he indulged himself even more. Alas..."
Although the chefs in the palace were official chefs and had a higher status than city chefs like her, their rank was lower than that of a two-hundred-stone official, so they did not have official seals and used the half-pass seals used by government offices, which was at the level of minor officials.
Tang Guancheng's rank was higher than that of a six hundred stone official. He had his own bronze seal and yellow ribbon, and many cooks and maids at his command. It was obvious that there was a huge difference in their status.
Yi Gu had no idea that Ji Xu actually wanted to become an official chef first.
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