I assembled the strongest swordsman group.

Initially, kaiseki cuisine was used at tea ceremonies as a snack while drinking tea. Although the dishes were relatively few and lacked rich and fatty delicacies, the selection of ingredients and cooking methods were quite particular. In the minds of the Japanese, it was still a kind of upper-class cuisine.

In this way, kaiseki cuisine gradually gained popularity among the upper class.

Whether they were shoguns, daimyo from various regions, upper-class samurai, wealthy urban merchants, or literary figures, they all considered it an honor to eat kaiseki cuisine.

Kaiseki cuisine has a relatively fixed set of dishes and etiquette.

The first thing served is a plate containing a soup bowl, a rice bowl, and small dishes of sashimi or fish fillets, followed by rice and soup.

Then, take out the appetizers and wine served on a plate, and pour the wine three times; this is called the first offering of wine.

Next, grilled fish or poultry is served, and wine is poured three more times from a wine pot; this is called the "second offering".

Then the soup bowl and rice bowl are removed, and a high-quality clear soup, called "sukumori" in Japanese, is served. Sake is then poured three times, for a total of "three offerings".

Then add pickles and a bucket of hot water, and wipe the bowl clean.

After finishing the last fruit served, guests rested briefly in the tea garden outside before heading to the tea room for strong tea.

The prototype of Kaiseki cuisine was a simple meal used by monks to stave off hunger... so you can imagine how it tastes.

To put it bluntly, it's "utterly boring."

Whether it was vegetables or soup, it was all tasteless, as if no salt had been added. Qingdeng couldn't even tell the difference between vegetables and fish—they were all equally bland.

Qingdeng prefers stronger flavors and more down-to-earth food.

Rather than eating such so-called high-class cuisine in upscale ryotei, he preferred to drink shochu with vinegared octopus in an izakaya, and eat a bowl of soba noodles for 16 yen at a soba noodle shop, with two extra pieces of crispy tempura.

There was no way around it; no matter how bad kaiseki cuisine was, it was still the upper-class cuisine of the Edo period, and if you wanted to deal with high-ranking officials and nobles, you couldn't avoid it.

For the sake of social interaction, some necessary sacrifices have to be made.

Qing Deng has never forgotten the threat of the Party being executed by law.

He killed the Rakshasa, severely damaged the Qingshui clan, disrupted the production and sale of the Illusionary Affliction, and caused a lot of trouble for the Fazhu Party.

If the authorities were to magnanimously forgive his actions, Qing Deng would certainly not believe it.

God knows what kind of methods these extreme lunatics will use to retaliate against him in the future.

Therefore, in order to protect himself and his family and friends, Qingdeng continued to improve his own strength while making the most of the resources at hand.

The identity of "serving the people and managing the imperial court" is a huge "treasure trove". It is like a sponge that has absorbed a lot of water. With just a little squeeze, you can easily squeeze out the wealth called "connections".

Countless people are eager to get involved with Qing Dengla.

Qing Deng also enjoys interacting with influential people from all walks of life.

He is someone who is very good at making friends and enjoys making friends.

Before he soared to the top and became the "Minister of the Grand Council," Qing Deng already had friends in many industries, including government, business, and the military.

During this long period of 1 year and 8 months, Qingdeng has been working hard to cultivate his network of contacts.

Through his tireless efforts, he has managed to accumulate a considerable network of contacts.

Qingdeng is always ready to fight a major battle against the Fazhan Party.

However... the other side never took any action.

Not only did they not retaliate against Qing Deng, but their other activities also disappeared without a trace.

Neither the Gourd House nor the Shogunate had gathered any information about the next move of the Fa-ju Party; their silence was eerily quiet.

Thanks to this, since severely damaging the Shimizu clan, Qing Deng's life has been unusually peaceful... so peaceful that it makes him feel uneasy.

The banquet proceeded at a leisurely pace.

Although the food was extremely unpalatable and he wished he could vomit it up on the spot, Qingdeng still activated his talent "Emperor's Art" to try to keep his expression in check and put on a calm and composed demeanor, silently cleaning up the food on his plate.

About half an hour later, we finally reached the last step of the banquet – moving together to the tea room for tea.

This is the highlight of today's banquet.

This was probably an unwritten rule in the Edo period—don't talk about serious matters while eating.

Eating while talking is both inefficient and impolite.

Let's focus on eating properly, and leave the important matters for when we're having tea in the tea room.

Inside the tea room of Yoshikawa Ryotei, Echigoya Bunzaburo, holding a tea whisk and tea bowl, personally prepared matcha for everyone.

[Note: Tea whisk: A cylindrical bamboo brush, made by cutting bamboo into fine brush-like pieces.]

Incidentally, the matcha from the Edo period and the "matcha with toppings" commonly found in 21st-century milk tea shops are completely different things.

Although it's just a matter of personal taste, Qing Deng still wants to say: Edo-era matcha was absolutely awful!

It's so bitter, even the water from the headquarters tastes better.

"Lord Tachibana, please have some."

Before long, Echigoya Bunzaburo pushed the prepared matcha to Aoto's lap.

Qingdeng nodded in acknowledgment, then picked up the teacup with both hands, held his breath, and drank the tea in the bowl in small sips with the same awareness and spirit as if he were drinking Chinese medicine.

The group sat together, drinking tea and chatting about mundane, unrelated topics.

However, unexpectedly, Echigoya Bunzaburo subtly steered the conversation toward serious matters—

"Lord Tachibana, it is said that war is about to break out in the capital region. Do you have any reliable information?"

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Today's word count is 8000!

A long, long chapter! Can't complain about the leopard's post being too short today? (crying leopard head.jpg)

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Chapter 489 The Man-Slaying Operation is Underway! A Storm is Brewing!

In an instant, a barrage of gazes, filled with anticipation, curiosity, or nervousness, fell upon Qingdeng.

Qingdeng remained calm, without even raising an eyebrow.

Aoto was not surprised by Echigoya Bunzaburo's question.

Before he even arrived at the banquet, he had already guessed the purpose of the event and what the other party wanted to ask.

What's the situation in Kyoto? This is probably the most pressing question on people's minds right now, not just in the Kanto region, but all of Japan.

"Mr. Echigoya, I'm sorry."

Qingdeng put down his teacup, shook his head with a wry smile.

"I am still observing the recent situation in Kyoto."

This is the truth.

As for how things are going in Kyoto... Aoto really doesn't know much about it, or rather, he hasn't received the latest information yet.

It has only been one year and eight months since Qing Deng took office as a steward and chief steward.

Two years is not a very long time.

However, in this short span of less than two years, countless major events occurred in Japan! The national situation underwent a dramatic change!

In recent years, the ideas of "honoring the emperor" and "expelling the barbarians" have gradually merged. A new group—the "honoring the emperor and expelling the barbarians" patriots (referred to as "honoring and expelling patriots")—has become active.

The core principle of the former was to enhance the authority of the Emperor and the Kyoto court.

The core principle of the latter is to expel all foreigners from Japan.

Logically speaking, these two completely unrelated schools of thought should not intersect.

However, that's how history is; it's full of all sorts of ironic coincidences.

For Japanese people in the Edo period, the reverence for the Emperor may not have been so profound.

After more than 250 years of relentless suppression by the Edo Shogunate, the Emperor and the Kyoto court were excluded from the political and economic sphere, and their influence was greatly weakened.

During the Edo period, Japanese people referred to the shogun as "Kōbō-dōjin" or "Ōki-dōjin" and recognized him as the sole ruler of the country.

The Emperor is the monarch, and the imperial court is referred to as "the inner palace" or "the forbidden palace," a distant and insignificant entity.

However, the Emperor has always existed, as have the court nobles and the Kyoto Imperial Court.

[Note: "Gōke" specifically refers to hereditary nobles residing in the Kyoto region who served the Emperor and the Imperial Court. The counterpart is "bōke," referring to families and individuals within the samurai system.]

Long before the "Black Ships Incident" broke out, the ideology of revering the emperor, centered around the Mito Domain, had already taken root and spread widely.

In other words, there have always been people who uphold the idea of ​​respecting the king, and there are quite a few of them.

However, these people were mostly from the samurai class; the common people might not even know what the imperial court was.

The current Emperor Tonin dislikes foreigners and strongly opposes opening the country to foreigners.

Thus, he became the "embodiment of expelling the barbarians," an excellent and very convenient banner for promoting the idea of ​​expelling the barbarians.

His Majesty has said he dislikes foreigners, so what are we, those who uphold the principle of respecting the King, waiting for? Let us rise up and step forward! Expel all the barbarians from the country and respond to His Majesty's call!

The patriots who wanted to expel the barbarians also became excited.

Although the Emperor has been a figurehead with no military power or supplies since the rise of the Tokugawa family, possessing only extraordinary influence in the cultural sphere, he has always been the nominal head of state of the country, and even the Shogun is his subject.

In other words, as long as one raises the banner of "this is the will of the emperor," one occupies the natural political high ground.

The worst thing in war is to wage war without a just cause.

And now, the "name" of the anti-foreign patriots has arrived!

Our expulsion of the barbarians was a righteous act in accordance with the Emperor's will—thus, the expulsion patriots, taking advantage of the Emperor, carried out their expulsion activities even more recklessly.

Thus, the ideas of expelling foreigners and honoring the emperor merged and quickly evolved into the Emperor's Revere the Emperor and Expel Foreigners Movement.

The capital region, where the Emperor and the Imperial Court were located, became the center of the movement to revere the Emperor and expel the barbarians.

If Emperor Tonin had been an enlightened ruler who welcomed the opening of the country, it is unknown whether these two perspectives would have converged, or whether the movement to revere the emperor and expel foreigners would have continued to sweep across Japan.

The increasingly intense movement to revere the emperor and expel foreigners in the Kinai region deeply worried the shogunate.

Unlike the Kyoto court, which lacked understanding of the true state of the country due to its long-term aversion to politics, and the impeachment patriots who were full of enthusiasm but lacked substance, the Edo shogunate was quite aware of how terrifying the industrial civilization of foreign powers was.