Chapter 194: Spice Island Tang people love incense, the most exaggerated example, it is none other than Xue Yaoying's relatives.
"Du Yang Miscellaneous Edition" said that Yuan Zai's favorite concubine Xue Yaoying: "Good at singing and dancing, fairy and jade, light muscle deodorant, although Xuanbo (the beauty of Yue in the Spring and Autumn Period), Yaoguang (Xiao Yaoguang), Feiyan (Zhao Feiyan), Luzhu (the favorite concubine of Shi Chong in the Western Jin Dynasty, a famous beauty), can not pass." ” It can be seen from this that her beauty is not all due to her nature, but also to her good intentions.
Xue Bi has not been smeared since he was a child, but fed Xue Yaoying with various spices.
After a long time, the spices soaked into Yaoying's internal organs and blood texture, and it was difficult for her to think about it not to be fragrant - not so much incense, but the taste of pickling.
The Tang people, in the luxury of lingering fragrance, are extremely hungry for luxury.
"The bright moon and white dew are cold at night, and the fragrant clothes are empty and the mountains are empty", the clothes are fragrant, the placket is touched, and the dark fragrance floats in the dusk of the moon; "The five-flowered horse steps on the white clouds, and the seven-incense car rolls over the moon", the car is fragrant, the sound of the wheel extends forward, and the fragrance overflows backwards, they respectively tell the driver of the car, the desire for the front and the lingering of the past; "The glow invades the green Zhu incense and warms, and the building leans on the Qingyun Palace", the quilt is fragrant, covered on the body, and the dreams are honey-flavored; "The song is dripping from the distant mountains, and the tears of the incense candles are rippling", even the candles are incense, and the firelight jumps, illuminating the heart and the room, and also fragrant the night.
What's more, the fourth volume of "The Remains of Kaiyuan Tianbao" records: "......
Guozhong (Yang Guozhong) also used agarwood as the pavilion, sandalwood as the column, musk, frankincense sieved soil and mud to decorate the wall.
Every spring, when the wood peony is in full bloom, gather guests to enjoy the flowers in this pavilion.
The pavilion of agarwood in the forbidden is far from this magnificence. ” It can be seen how extravagant and erosive Yang Guozhong's life is.
According to legend, Emperor Tang Ming loved Yang Guifei very much, which can be described as a collection of three thousand favors.
So in order to invite Xuanzong, An Lushan even used a different fragrance into an aphrodisiac and presented it to Tang Xuanzong.
The first volume of "The Remains of Kaiyuan Tianbao" records: "The Ming Emperor is favoring his concubines and ignoring the government.
An Lushan first inherited the holy family, because of the help of the love of flowers and fragrance, the size is like japonica rice and the color is red.
Whenever you go to bed, you will have a grain of incense.
Help the emotions to be happy, and the muscles are tireless. ” Xuanzong was addicted to wine, indulged in indulgence, and ignored the government and politics, 'the spring night is bitter and short, and the king will not be early from now on'. led to the later Anshi Rebellion, and caused a mutiny internally, all of which pointed the finger at Yang Guifei, as if the culprit who caused this rebellion was her alone - this is the temperament of ancient Chinese men, and it is also the most despicable point, always returning the fault to a woman, but I don't know how much influence a woman can have on the king?
If it weren't for the king's own indulgence in wine and his own depravity, how much of a role could a woman make?
kept shouting about all kinds of discrimination against women, but once a woman has a use value, she immediately beautified it in various ways (such as when she was married, such as Wang Zhaojun, such as Princess Wencheng...... ）。
Tang Xuanzong was originally a generation of male masters, he couldn't control it, and in the luxury of the strange fragrance, he dragged the Tang Dynasty into a situation of no return.
It can be said that Datang and spices have always been inseparable, but there is a truth that is common in ancient and modern times - that is, the price of imported goods is never too low.
The price of local spices in China is already ridiculously expensive, and those imported spices are even one or two spices and one tael of gold.
We talked about Yuan Zai's favorite concubine Xue Yaoying before, so we have to talk about his husband, Yuan Zai, the prime minister of the Tang Dynasty.
Speaking of this Yuan Zai, he was the prime minister of the Tang Dynasty, with power leaning towards the government and the opposition, and being extremely poor and luxurious.
When someone denounced him, Daizong asked people to raid his mansion, and dozens of tons of pepper were found in his home.
Daizong was furious, originally he didn't want to do things to the end, after all, Yuanzai had a great merit for him (helped Daizong eradicate the power of the powerful minister Li Fuguo), and he didn't want to be said to unload the mill and kill the donkey, but this pepper matter made Daizong angry, and he ordered the people of the Yuan family to be beheaded all over the house.
Why?
The reason is that pepper was very, very, very expensive in ancient times.
Pepper pepper, as the name suggests, is a pepper from Hudi, that is, an imported spice.
Pepper is from the Western Regions, and in ancient times, due to the underdevelopment of planting technology, the yield was very small, not to mention the Tang Dynasty, even foreign countries were not enough.
Therefore, in the Tang Dynasty, pepper was a precious ingredient, and even pearl powder was not as expensive as it, because those spices were relatively scarce compared to the Tang Dynasty, where the sea area was relatively large.
Most of the pepper was passed down from the current Western Regions, but pearl powder was made in China, and it was definitely much more expensive than pepper.
And more importantly, pepper is not only a food thing, but also a symbol of wealth.
Pepper, like gold and silver, can be stored as a treasure and is a symbol of wealth, which is probably why Yuan Zai stores so much pepper.
More than 60 tons of pepper are really worth a huge amount of money, even if they are dispersed across the country, it is enough for the people of the country to use for a long time.
Yuan Jae was ordered to commit suicide, and many times in ancient times suicide was to find someone to strangle himself.
The person in charge of strangling Yuan Jae asked according to the usual practice before he started, "Do you have any other wishes to fulfill?"
Wonjae replied, "I just want to die quickly." ” This man pondered that the former prime minister was also afraid of pain, so he took off the stinky socks on his feet, stuffed them into Yuan Zai's mouth, and pulled the white ribbon hard, and there was not much time for Yuan Zai to return to the west.
It's really pitiful for those 64 tons of pepper, grab a handful and stuff it in your mouth, it's more flavorful than stinky socks!
Yuan Zai died, and then he was constantly ridiculed by later generations, and the Song Dynasty Luo Dajing "Helin Yulu" also specifically mentioned this matter, and gave a poem to the prime minister of Yuan, saying "Stinky socks must eventually come to plug the mouth, and collect 800 peppers in vain"!
After Yuan Zai's death, his wife and children were all executed, and all the pepper noodles belonged to the Tang Dynasty.
Li Daizong, who looked at a handful of powder, became even more angry, so he ordered to dig up his ancestral grave, cut off the coffin and whip the corpse to ashes, and demolished the Yuan Zaijia Temple and burned the tablet of the main god, which dissipated his anger.
The 16-year-old prime minister was afraid that he would never expect that he would end up planting on this pepper.
Through this, you can also know how precious spices are.
Therefore, after hearing Li Zhen say that the island in front of them was a spice island, why were Pei Xingjian so crazy - compared to this spice island, Silver Island or something can really only be regarded as pediatrics.