Wanli 1592

Chapter 1084 Thrifty Royal Meal

The silver taels spent in the palace are not only these, not only food, but also other aspects.

It is rumored that the palace maids and concubines in the Ming Dynasty cost 40 taels of makeup every month. This is probably an imaginary number, but it’s hard to say how much the difference is. Women love beauty. Flowers are also quite scary.

So the same thing happens to some other departments that need to purchase.

After the audit department added an audit threshold, many things were exposed, and the exposure was so obvious that it looked shocking.

Obviously there is no one who needs to be taken care of, but the expenditure of the inner court is obviously abnormal, Xiao Ruxun immediately sent someone to investigate, and found out a lot of palace people who committed crimes.

They think that today is as lucrative as tomorrow, and that after the initial panic, everything will be business as usual.

As a result, at the most, there were 60 people in the inner court who were cut off within a month.

And after that, the inner court after the big purge, according to statistics, the inner court clothing and expenditures from April to August in the first year of Longwu decreased by 25% compared with the record of the same period in the 90.00th year of Wanli.

Xiao Ruxun deeply felt that there were so many bad habits in the Ming palace, and that there were many collusions between inside and outside to buy silver, and he hated this. On the one hand, he slightly raised the monthly money and living standards of the palace people, and on the other hand, increased the restrictions on them.

The former members of the Ming Palace who committed crimes were dealt with one after another.

Female officials who committed serious crimes were directly killed, those who committed minor crimes were expelled, and those who did not commit crimes were set up according to the rules. Those who were over 23 years old were moved out of the palace, given a sum of money to go home, and promised to marry.

The eunuch who committed the crime was dispatched to do hard work in Zhu Yijun's various mines that Xiao Ruxun took over.

Then recruit innocent people to serve in the palace, and then send relevant personnel to educate them from the beginning, and then assign them to various palaces to serve and increase supervision.

Under Xiao Ruxun's cleansing of the inner and outer courts, the consumption of various expenses inside and outside the palace was greatly reduced, and the old system of the Ming court was completely reformed. The consumption of the least was also reduced by 70.00%, returning to the normal level.

Xiao Ruxun's own royal family's food and clothing expenses are all used from internal funds, and they do not go to the treasury's accounts, which reduces a lot of pressure on the government's finances that are not well-off at present.

For this reason, Ye Xianggao, Minister of the Ministry of Finance, personally went to the palace to thank Xiao Ruxun.

After the Great Cleansing, the cooking level of Guanglu Temple has been significantly improved, and it has been highly praised by the officials who ate there. They feel that it tastes much better. "Guanglu Temple Tea Soup" can be removed.

The imperial dining room selects well-known cooks from all over the country to serve in the palace. At that time, Li Sheng sent more than 100 servants and young supervisors to various places to select suitable cooks for the emperor, and then [-] cooks were selected to enter the imperial dining room. People give a monthly payment of two taels of silver.

The imperial dining room usually only serves the overlord, the emperor himself, the empress, the crown prince and the eldest princess, but there are exceptions.

If the emperor called the ministers into the palace to discuss government affairs for a long time, it was normal for the ministers to stay for a meal, but the emperor suddenly wanted to have extra meals and asked them to serve them, so they needed to be ready at all times.

And Xiao Ruxun's spending amount for the imperial dining room is not high, and the menu recipes are all selected from the special dishes reported by these cooks themselves.

Usually only ordinary food is allowed to be made, and those big meals made of expensive ingredients are only allowed to be made during the holidays.

That's the case, a famous chef is a famous chef, and the dishes they cook are also delicious.

In the morning, Xiao Ruxun likes to eat some simple porridge, side dishes and steamed buns, or fried dumplings, boiled eggs or soy milk, and the whole family can eat like this, and the cost is very low.

Have a hearty meal at noon, roast chicken, roast goose, roast donkey meat, fried lamb, fresh fish and shrimp, plus some vegetables and rice.

Eat a little lighter at night, and take some supplements.

The Empress now eats the baby-raising meal specially ordered by the imperial physician, and the Supreme Emperor also eats a health-preserving meal suitable for the elderly. The ingredients are not too expensive. Li Sheng specially ordered reliable people to purchase them, and the audit department is responsible for inspection and review.

Zhenbang ate with Xiao Ruxun, and Yingying ate with the Supreme Emperor. With the honor of the royal family, the five of them together could only spend five taels of silver a day, and they all felt that they ate very well.

In Xiao Ruxun's opinion, Emperor Ming's consumption of 16 taels of silver per person that day was too much, and this was not counting the food expenses consumed by the concubines in the palaces of Prince Ming, Empress Dowager.

But it’s not like that for others. Now they know that the expenses in the palace have been greatly reduced, but the food they eat is better than before. surprise.

After a long time, people in the palace said that the emperor was too frugal and ate so simple. Some old palace people who stayed in the palace in old age often recalled the kind of food that Emperor Wanli and even Emperor Longqing had when they ate. The scene, thinking of the way the concubines and concubines in the harem were eating, felt that it was no wonder that Daqin was able to win the world.

The royal family was so frugal, and Guanglu Temple did not dare to extravagantly. The officials knew that the emperor always liked frugality.

However, Xiao Ruxun was very interested in the ministers who entered the palace to discuss government affairs. After a long time, they would stay and reward the meals in the imperial dining room.

Wang Xijue and Li Tingji are people who can often enjoy this kind of treatment, and the rest of the halls can also enjoy it.

How dare the food ministers rewarded by Xiao Ruxun be picky?

They were very grateful and planned to swallow it, but they found that it tasted very delicious when they tasted it. Obviously, the dishes are not complicated, and the ingredients are common, but they can be made very delicious.

After a long time, the chefs in the imperial dining room have figured out the preferences of several ministers who are often given food by the emperor. For example, Wang Shoufu likes to eat donkey meat, Li Cifu likes to eat mutton, Ye Butang likes to eat fish, Liu Butang likes to eat roast meat. Goose.

So the ministers gradually felt that when they stayed, they ate more appetizing meals and felt the emperor's care.

They feel very honored, and when they occasionally go to the canteen of Guanglu Temple to eat, they don't forget to publicize the delicious food they eat in the imperial dining room, pretending to be aggressive.

For example, Liu Huangshang told his colleagues that there was a cook in the emperor's imperial dining room who was good at making roast goose. The roast goose was tender and delicious, and the aftertaste was endless and unforgettable.

Some people also asked Wang Xijue how he felt about eating the imperial meal. Wang Xijue said that he had never eaten such delicious donkey meat.

So, invisibly, being rewarded by the emperor to eat food in the imperial dining room has become a very honorable thing.

Anyone who can eat it is something worthy of everyone's envy, and some people even speculate on the direction of the political situation and the emperor's sense of certain people from it, which is very interesting.

Xiao Ruxun felt that the human body needed only so much nutrition, meat, egg, vegetable soup and rice, there were only so many things to eat, and insisting on eating some rare ingredients would only cause unnecessary extravagance and waste.

The emperor is the last person in the world who should not reveal his preferences.

This food list is also arranged considering that Zhenbang eats with him. It is enough to eat meat, fish, shrimp, and vegetables to ensure a comprehensive and balanced nutrition. On weekdays, the luxury is meat, and in winter, the luxury is in the palace. Vegetables grown in the greenhouse and fruits after meals, isn't that enough?

In this era when common people's families of four or five spend five taels of silver a year, his royal family of five spends five taels of silver a day, isn't it enough to reflect the royal honor?

(End of this chapter)