Everyone returned to the city lord's palace together. Because Liu Bei had just returned, Jian Yong had just arrived, and Guan Yu was not there, Li Mengxi went to change his clothes, washed the mud from his face, and then entertained everyone as he should. He led the way for everyone.

, please let Liu Bei and Jian Yong come in and sit down first.

As soon as he entered the house, Li Mengxi felt a little embarrassed. The house was in a mess. There were two iron pots propped up in the middle of the house, and firewood was placed on the floor. Here was an abandoned pressure cooker that was blown up, and there were a few used as targets.

A straw man trying out a crossbow, not to mention a crude first version of a curved shaft plow, was still lying across the door, in a mess and chaos.

Li Mengxi immediately felt that a guest was coming. When he entered the room, he saw that the room was as messy as a doghouse, which was embarrassing.

Quickly, Li Mengxi hurriedly went to clean up.

When Liu Bei saw this, he said to Jian Yong, "Xianhe, come in and rest first. I'll call everyone here."

After Li Mengxi hurriedly packed up the iron pot, firewood and other items, he took a broom from behind the door to clean up the plant ash in the house. He didn't sweep the broom a few times before Liu Bei led a group of people.

After Liu Bei led the people into the house, he introduced the people behind him to Li Mengxi, "Xi'er, these dozen or so people are scholars from Zhuozhou. They are here together on this trip, so they can accomplish great things with us!"

When Li Mengxi heard this, he immediately understood. He immediately looked at the people behind Liu Bei, Zhuozhou scholar Zi'ao, there were people who had come to join Liu Bei.

It seems that Liu Xuande fought against the Yellow Turban and won the first victory in the fight against the Yellow Turban. The statement has already spread.

Li Mengxi showed a bright smile and said to a group of scholars, "Everyone has been tired from traveling and traveling. Please sit down and rest first. When someone cleans up, I can quickly give you a banquet to clean up the dust!"

All the scholars hurriedly said, "Don't worry about it, little brother!"

What a little brother, the scholars probably don’t know who Li Mengxi is, and Liu Bei may not have had time to tell the scholars the details.

All the scholars were seated and saw Li Mengxi busy cleaning the house. Seeing how busy he was, Jian Yong came and took the broom and said he wanted to help. Li Mengxi had no choice but to let Jian Yong go. He looked around and said, "

The short ones are not enough, I’ll go find some more.”

With that said, Li Mengxi turned around and walked out of the house.

Li Mengxi's actions looked exactly like the owner of this place.

Soon after, Guan Yu, who was busy elsewhere, came back first. When Guan Yu saw many distant guests coming to Zhuozhou, he said he would organize a banquet.

Liu Bei stopped Guan Yu and said with a smile, "Yun Chang, you don't have to go and work, Xi'er has already gone to organize the affairs."

In and out of words, Liu Bei obviously trusted Li Mengxi's ability to do things.

Guan Yu found a seat at random. He chuckled and said to Liu Bei, "Brother, when you didn't come back, Xi'er prepared several dishes, which are delicious! It's very suitable for him to prepare a banquet."

When Liu Bei heard this, he knew that many interesting things must have happened in Julu City during the time he returned to Zhuozhou.

After a while, Li Mengxi, who had gone to prepare a table for a meal, came back with a group of soldiers. When he entered the room, Li Mengxi looked at the empty seats on both sides and pointed, "Place one there."

"Then, put one too, close to it."

After placing the short ones in the left and right rows one by one, Li Mengxi found that there were still not enough seats and they still couldn't fit.

So, he ordered the soldiers to form another line at the door, which happened to be a circle.

After the seats were set, Li Mengxi asked Liu Bei, Jian Yong and the other scholars what they wanted to eat. This was just a polite conversation.

Liu Bei smiled and waved to Li Mengxi, and called Li Mengxi to him. Liu Bei smiled and asked, "Xi'er, just now Yun Chang said you made some delicious food, such as sweet and sour fish, steamed buns, etc.

Get it and let everyone try it!"

Li Mengxi smiled, "Okay, I'll get ready!"

After saying that, Li Mengxi ran out in a hurry.

Li Mengxi was going to get the fish. On the way there, Li Mengxi said to himself that luckily there were still fish and not all of them had been made into fish balls, otherwise he would not be able to entertain guests today.

I calculated in my mind, one for Liu Bei, one for Jian Yong, fifteen scholars from Zhuozhou, plus one for Guan Yu, Xiao Zhuan and myself, that is, twenty sweet and sour fish.

Li Mengxi arrived at the city wall and picked up strings of dried fish from the battlements. When selecting carp, Li Mengxi thought that this time was different from the past. This was a serious banquet occasion. In addition to his own people, there were also a large number of people.

Travelers from far away, so you have to consider the details.

For example, the size of the fish should be the same. Otherwise, one fish will be bigger and the other will be smaller. This is the late Han Dynasty. Scholars attach great importance to etiquette and face. If some people screw up a little and see that the fish is small, they will

Thinking that the rebels looked down upon him, he walked away in a huff.

Although, how can such a narrow-minded guy be such a powerful person who just walks away in anger because of the size of a fish or the owner's unintentional mistake? There is nothing to lose if such a person leaves.

However, it would be very bad if this disturbs everyone's enjoyment. As the saying goes, a gentleman does not stand behind a dangerous wall, so it is best to reduce the possibility of trouble happening as much as possible.

Therefore, Li Mengxi spent a long time picking fish at the top of the city. He picked out almost all the largest carps in the store, twenty big fish, all of them were very big.

Twenty big fish were put into a basket. Li Mengxi carried it down and asked the soldiers patrolling the city to help him carry it down.

After returning to the city lord's palace with the fish, Liu Bei was chatting with the scholars. When he saw Li Mengxi coming back, Liu Bei stopped talking and asked with a smile, "Xi'er, have you got enough fish?"

As he said this, he casually pointed at the scholars sitting in the room and said with a smile, "Fifteen noble scholars are here today. It's okay if I don't have anything to eat. Don't neglect the guests!"

Li Mengxi immediately heard the string and knew its elegant meaning. He continued what he was talking about, looked at the scholars, and said, "That's enough! Someone is taking it. How can I neglect a distant visitor."

Liu Bei and Li Mengxi played well together. Liu Bei also went out of his way to praise the scholars, and even said that there were fifteen high scholars. He also specifically said that if he doesn't eat fish, he shouldn't neglect the talents.

Is this intentional? Let’s just say that Liu Bei should know the methods of replenishing food and grass in the army, the methods of gathering, fishing, hunting, and stocking. Moreover, Liu Bei should know that the carpenter camp is building ships every day, and the number of fishing boats is increasing day by day.

, the fishing team is running around fishing every day, and the army's food and grass may be exhausted, but the fish are definitely coming in every day.

This chapter is not finished yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content! So, Liu Bei knew that there were enough fish, and he knew that Li Mengxi would not miss one or two, and he said that deliberately.

Then I saw that all the scholars were smiling, obviously they felt Liu Bei's attention.

Li Mengxi set up the stove in a circle of low tables, prepared all the necessary pots and pans, and placed a pile of things.

Before starting to prepare for the banquet, Li Mengxi also thought that if it was a banquet, only one fish would be too thin, so after thinking about it, he decided to fry some eggs, cut some beef, cook some meatballs, and put the steamed buns

When the steamed bun is warmed up, it becomes like a meal.

After making a plan, Li Mengxi went out again.

Li Mengxi went to the military medical camp. The cauldron was near the military medical camp, the steamer was there, and the steamed buns were also there. Li Mengxi asked military doctor Tian Bu to boil water and steam the steamed buns, saying that he had a visitor today.

When leaving the military medical camp, Li Mengxi asked Tian Bu for a few heads of garlic and took them away.

After that, he went to collect many sets of food plates, bowls, snacks, etc., and also went to get some cooked beef and some fried meatballs. After everything was ready, Li Mengxi brought many baskets of things and returned to the city lord's mansion again.

After everything was settled, Li Mengxi finally started cooking. The meal was already prepared, including sweet and sour fish, fried eggs, cooked beef, meatball soup, and steamed buns.

This counts as three dishes, one soup and one steamed bun.

At this time, there is another question, which is a co-ordination issue, asking in what order should the dishes be cooked so that when all the dishes are ready, the hot dishes are still hot and have not become cold due to being left out for a long time.

Okay, after thinking about it for a while, Li Mengxi came up with a strategy.

Of the three dishes, one soup and one steamed bun, the steamed bun is the hardest to cook, while the easiest to cook and cool is the fried egg, so the fried egg should be cooked last.

With the strategy in place, Li Mengxi began to get busy.

He took out the sweet and sour fish recipe and read it, re-read the experimental data and reviewed it. Then, he prepared the sweet and sour sauce, took water to make the noodles, heated the oil, and while the oil was hot, Li Mengxi cut the carp open with a knife.

Then put the fish into the lake and roll it, then use a long stick to thread the carp upright and prepare it for later use.

After a while, the butter in the iron pot began to boil. Li Mengxi saw that the oil was already boiling hot. He carefully held the head of the big carp with one hand and held the tail with the other, and carefully threw the fish into the pot.

Li Mengxi has no talent for cooking. His method of judging the frying temperature is based on data and after many tests. It is known that the butter frying time is about three minutes for the fish to be fried just right, so after the fish is put into the pot,

, he stared at the oil pan, staring with all his heart, silently counting in his heart, one second, two seconds, three seconds...

Li Mengxi was so busy that he had no time to think about anything else.

At this time, everyone in the room, including Liu Bei, Jian Yong, and fifteen scholars from Zhuozhou, stopped chatting and all looked at Li Mengxi in unison.

If ordinary servants were preparing meals here, who would pay attention, but the person busy holding the pot was not an ordinary servant. Jian Yong knew that the person busy in front of the pot was the rebel military counselor. Seeing that Liu Bei and Li Mengxi were acting close, the scholars had guessed that Li Mengxi was here.

His status was unusual, so for an extraordinary person to prepare the dishes for everyone, it made the newly arrived Jian Yong and the Zhuozhou scholars feel that they were very valued.

Li Mengxi checked the number of one hundred and eighty, picked up the colander, took the fish out of the pot, and put it aside in a bamboo dustpan to control the oil.

The first fish came out of the pot, and Li Mengxi suddenly realized that there was a problem.

If you eat as usual and fry one or two fish, the fish will be fried for a while and the sweet and sour sauce will be poured on it. At this time, the fish is still hot.

But today, I fried twenty fish in a row, and the pot was not big, so I had to fry them one by one. It took three minutes to fry one fish, and half an hour to fry twenty fish. From the beginning to the end, the fish was cool, and then the sweet and sour sauce was poured on it.

, the sauce was hot, but the fish inside was cold, it was so embarrassing when it was brought to the table.

This made Li Mengxi realize that it was not feasible. If he specialized in banquets, there should be a more professional team with more than a dozen pots and a large number of chefs busy at the same time, so that a large number of hot dishes could be prepared in a short time.

Scholars have come to vote this time, and there will surely be more in the future, so banquets are common. Therefore, there must be a special team for hosting banquets, and preferably, there must be a special venue such as a guest house.

The main hall of the city lord's mansion is really not big enough to accommodate too many people.

Thinking that frying fish would take too much time, Li Mengxi put two or three fish into the pot at a time and fried them at the same time.

Even so, a few moments passed after the twenty big carps were fried.

Next, Li Mengxi saw that a pot of hot water next to him was about to boil. He put the water there and let it boil.

When I came to the low table on the side, the low table was covered with white silk cloth, which looked very clean and tidy.

Several exquisite small pottery bowls were placed on the low table. Li Mengxi took out a good piece of beef from the basket. He knelt down behind the low table, pressed the beef with his hand, picked up the knife, and slowly and carefully bit by bit.

of filleted beef.

As we all know, cutting vegetables requires knife skills, but Li Mengxi had no knife skills. In addition, the knife was a bit blunt, and he was afraid of cutting with his hands, so he cut very carefully. In the eyes of a circle of Zhuozhou visitors who were watching, Li Mengxi felt that Li Mengxi was elegant in his movements.

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To be continued...