My father-in-law is Kangxi

Chapter 1674 Official Camp (Seeking monthly tickets)

The shabu-shabu hot pot in the middle of the table is one and a half feet in diameter.

One is filled with boiling red oil, and the aroma of chili and Sichuan pepper is wafting in the air; the other side is also red, and the soup base looks rich, this is a tomato base made with tomato sauce.

The ingredients for the shuangxiang hotpot include fresh-cut lamb slices from various parts of the lamb, tripe, lamb blood, bean curd sheets, vermicelli, kelp, fungus, magnolia slices and other water-fried vegetables, and finally two platters of seasonal vegetables, and the buns on top are sesame paste pancakes and scallion pancakes.

Each person is placed in front of a condiment plate with sesame paste, chives, fermented tofu, etc.

When Kangxi started eating, the other four also started eating.

The Second Prince Consort listened to the recent hustle and bustle in the garrison and didn't take it seriously at first. They were both mutton, so why did the mutton taste better when eaten in a hot pot than when eaten by hand?

But it was not until the lamb slices covered with sesame paste entered his mouth that he noticed the difference.

Kangxi looked at the menu and was quite satisfied.

Finally, the Ninth Prince understood the seriousness of the matter and did not drag the cow over to eat its meat.

You should know that among the officials from the six ministries who accompanied the Ninth Prince this time, half were Manchus and half were Han. If the Ninth Prince directly ran a shabu-shabu beef restaurant in Rehe, he would not have to return to Beijing, or a memorial of impeachment would have been issued.

When Kangxi and Princess Rongxian were ordering food, they asked the shopkeeper. In addition to mutton, other meat dishes such as chicken slices and fish slices were also prepared.

There are no precious ingredients, just a rare base and a delicious dipping sauce.

This delicious and unluxurious diet is exactly what Kangxi advocated.

Although there were no outsiders, the presence of the true god Kangxi made Princess Rongxian and the Ninth Prince okay, but the Second Prince Consort and Shushu were still a little restrained.

Even so, most of the food on the table had been eaten, and only one sesame paste pancake was left on the full plate.

Even Kangxi felt that his belt was a little tight, but he couldn't loosen the belt buckle in front of his daughter-in-law and husband.

He thought about what he had just eaten. He had a plate of lamb slices and half a plate of lamb blood in the spicy hot pot, bean curd, vermicelli, magnolia slices and cabbage cores in the tomato hot pot, a sesame paste pancake and three scallion pancakes.

The main reason was that the orange juice tasted delicious. I drank several cups of it directly from the well.

After leaving the restaurant, Kangxi was about to return to the palace, so he said to Princess Rongxian and the Second Prince Consort, "Now that you are full, you two can take a stroll here..."

Princess Rongxian also enjoyed her lunch very much. She nodded and said, "Then my daughter will go shopping around the shops here."

The Second Prince Consort stood half a step behind Princess Rongxian, nodded, and said, "I will accompany the princess..."

Kangxi looked at Shushu again and said, "The Queen Mother had a stomachache yesterday, so she should have some plain food. Ask someone to prepare a vegetarian pot and send it to the Queen Mother later."

Shushu also responded respectfully.

Kangxi finally looked at the Ninth Prince and said, "You accompany me back. I have something to ask you."

The Ninth Prince blinked, feeling somewhat apprehensive.

don't want to go.

Are you handling things okay today?
But he knew there was no room for refusal, so he smiled and said, "I just ate too much, and I missed Khan Ama's good tea. I want to make a cup of strong tea."

Shushu and Princess Rongxian and her husband watched Kangxi and his entourage leave.

Princess Rongxian took Shushu's hand and praised: "I have really seen it for the first time. It is well-deserved and tastes better than ordinary pots."

Shushu said, "The ingredients are ordinary, but the way of eating is new. The people in the mansion brought a lot of spicy base and tomato sauce from the capital. They are all storable. Second sister will bring some back later."

Princess Rongxian didn't bother to be polite with her, and said with a sincere smile: "Okay, then I will take advantage of my brother's wife."

With the second prince consort present, the two of them couldn't say much.

Shushu said goodbye to Princess Rongxian and her husband, got on the carriage, and went back to the Prince's Courtyard.

The remaining Princess Rongxian and the second prince went to the teahouse nearby.

In addition to the Pu'er tea cakes that are common in Mongolia, there are also many loose teas from Jiangnan. There are not many types, but there are about seven or eight.

Knowing that it was a business for the Ninth Prince's Mansion, Princess Rongxian asked for twenty bottles of Pu'er tea. Other loose teas were expensive, in limited quantities, and also had sales restrictions, so she just took two kilograms of each.

One piece of Pu'er tea weighs about 50 kilograms, and 20 pieces weigh 1,000 kilograms, which is equivalent to 220 taels of silver.

There were more than ten pounds of loose tea left, which cost between half a tael and one and a half taels of silver, and I spent another ten taels of silver.

In fact, this price is almost the same as the price of tea sold by tea merchants in Mongolia.

Princess Rongxian said, "Look at the Ninth Prince. He has been in office for a few years and has become very sensible. If you open a tea shop here, it won't be good if the price is too high or too low. Comparing the prices of tea merchants will save you a lot of trouble."

If the price is set too low, even if the sales volume is large, the company will still be known as "competing with the people for profits"; if the price is set too high, even if the Mongolian princes who come to pay homage give the Ninth Prince face and buy some tea, they will still be suspected of taking advantage of the rich.

No one is a fool.

The Second Prince Consort felt that his brother-in-law, the Ninth Prince, did not act smart, otherwise he would not have scolded the Third Prince Consort at the Crown Prince's banquet.

The Third Prince Consort's disrespect was not his fault, but after that incident, the only one the Third Prince Consort would blame would be the Ninth Prince, and the Crown Prince would also remember it.

However, in front of his wife, he nodded and agreed, "If it weren't for the Ninth Prince's ability, he wouldn't have been in charge of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for several years..."

*
At this moment, the Ninth Prince had already followed Kangxi back to the main hall of the palace.

Since he asked for strong tea, Kangxi asked someone to make him a cup.

It’s just steaming hot, and I don’t know when it will cool down.

The Ninth Prince had eaten a bit too much salt at noon, and his mouth was dry. He sat there, impatiently waiting, and said to Liang Jiugong: "Is there any warm tea or boiled water? An Da, pour me a cup. My throat is about to smoke..."

Seeing Kangxi looking so pitiful, Liang Jiugong glanced at him, and seeing that he didn't say anything, he went over and poured him a cup of warm tea.

The Ninth Prince gulped down half the cup before he calmed down.

Kangxi asked, "Then orange juice is made from orange marmalade?"

He knew that the Ninth Prince had an orange orchard on Dongshan Island in Suzhou, and that he had sent half a shipload of oranges to Beijing last year.

The Ninth Prince nodded and said, "That's right. Fresh oranges don't last long. Before the Lunar New Year, my son wrote to the manager there and asked them to make orange jam to avoid wasting it. Fu Song came back from Jiangnan a while ago and brought them back."

Kangxi coughed lightly and said, "If anyone is rich, please send a few bottles of orange jam to the kitchen of the palace..."

The Ninth Prince looked at Kangxi and was speechless: "..."

He remembered the crickets from a few days ago!

It’s not over, right?
Is this the legendary "old house on fire"?!

When he sees something to eat, he thinks of Concubine He, and when he sees something to drink, he thinks of Concubine He again?

For some reason, he felt vaguely relieved.

If Hepin gave birth to a prince, she would probably not be able to stop at the title of concubine, and might even be promoted to noble concubine.

The Ninth Prince is also a man, so he knows what it feels like when a man likes a woman.

She is at the top of my heart and held in the palm of my hand. I would not let her suffer any grievance.

If Hepin is really to be promoted to Imperial Concubine, then the people who will be embarrassed will not only be the concubines in the palace, but also the senior concubines above them.

Kangxi felt uncomfortable being stared at and asked, "Is there no one rich?"

The Ninth Prince said hurriedly, "Yes, it's just that the orange jam is sour. You need to add a lot of sugar to make orange juice with it. I didn't offer it to you before because I thought that Khan Ama doesn't like sweet food. I will ask Cao Shun to bring it to you when I go back..."

Kangxi glanced at him and said, "For the remaining shops, I plan to let the Ministry of Internal Affairs run a few shops. Maska is a military man, he can lead troops to fight, but he is not familiar with economic affairs. How to open the shops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and what to do, you can help figure it out in your free time."

The Ninth Prince knew his limits. The favor of the imperial concubine was not something a prince could question, so he turned his mind away and thought about the cement that he had mentioned to Shushu.

He said, "The others are just small matters. Let's not talk about them for now. I can open a cement shop..."

Then he talked about the use of cement to build the foreign temple.

This is about education and sounds decent.

It can be jointly operated by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of Works.

After listening to this, Kangxi pondered for a moment. In addition to the foreign temples, he was also thinking about the Mongolian stations and official roads.

There is no natural barrier between Mongolia and the Qing Dynasty except the Great Wall.

If all the Mongolian tribes were connected by official roads, the cavalry would not only be able to arrive at a rapid speed, but also travel more conveniently.

But this convenient transportation is a double-edged sword.

The Eight Banners could travel freely to Mongolia, and Mongolians going south could go directly to the Great Wall checkpoints.

But our dynasty used Mongolia as a barrier and did not build the Great Wall.

The Great Wall of the previous dynasty has many damaged and collapsed parts and cannot be used as a line of defense.

The road construction issue should be put aside, and the construction of stations and foreign temples can be carried out.

He said: "Then ask people to search for lime mines nearby, and then build a cement kiln in Rehe..."

The Ninth Prince praised: "Khan Ama is very thoughtful. My son even thought about transporting cement directly from Haidian..."

The imperial court had a mining ban, but it referred to gold, silver, copper, iron, lead, etc. In order to prevent the people from causing unrest, lime mines were not included.

The Ninth Prince thought of Prince Balin and said, "Should we open a royal pharmacy? Only Mongolian princes who come to the court are allowed to buy medicine. This is also a grace from Khan Ama. Otherwise, there will be more than one or two people who are like Prince Balin who are thinking about buying medicine from the Ministry of Internal Affairs..."

Anything that has something to do with Royal sounds like a good thing, and the price won’t be much cheaper.

Kangxi thought that the ginseng, deer antler and other medicinal materials stored in the Six Treasury of the Imperial Household Department were about to rot due to their age, so they could be made into medicines.

He nodded and said, "But, what about the other shops?"

At the moment, the Ninth Prince couldn't think of anything else, so he asked, "How many rooms does Khan Ama want the Ministry of Internal Affairs to build?"

There were a total of forty-two shops in that commercial street.

Previously, the princes awarded a group of people and distributed ten rooms. Today, the emperor awarded two rooms each to Princess Rongxian and Princess Chunxi, leaving twenty-eight rooms.

Kangxi reviewed it in his mind and said, "From eight to ten..."

The Ninth Prince said, "Then my son, think about it again. It should be both respectable and profitable..."

He was thinking of a liquor shop, a jewelry shop, a spice shop, etc., but he didn't think it through, so he didn't say it out loud.

Kangxi said, "Then think about it carefully and write a petition and submit it to me."

The Ninth Prince nodded in agreement.

Kangxi thought of Cao Shun and said, "How about Cao Shun as a clerk? He looks like a capable person."

The Ninth Prince said, "It's true. If we really want to talk about the people that my son needs in his mansion, Cao Shun is the first one. After all, he has been trained under the textile manufacturer Cao for more than ten years. I feel relieved to give him the job. It's just that he is a bit of a waste of talent. After a few years, when he is old enough and has accumulated experience, I will let Khan use him..."

(End of this chapter)