In the 20th year of Guangxu (1894), that is, on June 26 of the year of Jia Wu, the Guangxu Emperor celebrated his birthday and feasted on the Taihe Hall. In He Gangde's "Dream record of Chunming", there is a record of the process of the birthday feast, which is worth seeing.
He Gangde was a native of Guangdong, a scholar by birth, and served in the Examination Department of the Bureaucracy. The emperor held a birthday banquet, and each department could send two officials to participate, so He Gangde and Pu Zhuoyun attended the banquet.
The banquet was a table for two people, both seated on the floor, and there were several layers of dumplings on the table, as well as a layer of fruit, plus a plate of whole leg of lamb, as well as milk tea and wine. These wines have a sweet taste, which is not quite the same as ordinary wines. Some of the fruit on the table can be eaten, and the remaining fruits and dumplings can be taken away.
Because of the large number of participants, the Taihe Hall could not be lined up, and it was lined up all the way to the outside of the hall. It was a sunny day, and it was the height of summer. The officials were dressed neatly, sat cross-legged, and obeyed the orders of the celebrant, and kept standing up, kneeling, and congratulating the emperor on his birthday, all of them sweating heavily. But the same advantage is that you can let the servants fan the wind for themselves in the back.
The whole banquet was very solemn, and there were also performances of song and dance, which lasted for two hours.
In the book, He Gangde specifically mentioned that in addition to the princes and ministers, there were also Korean envoys who attended the banquet. The messenger held a wat in his hand and wore a round neck and large sleeves, and his attitude was particularly obedient. This was probably the last time a Korean emissary sat at a birthday feast for the Emperor of the Qing Dynasty. A few months later, war broke out between China and Japan, and Korea was annexed by Japan.
Judging from the records, the Guangxu Emperor's birthday feast carried a strong taste of ceremony. To attend such a banquet, the most important thing is an honor, do not expect to eat any delicacies at the table. On the day after the banquet, there will be some utensils to reward, including blessing characters, three inlaid ruyi, porcelain bowls and porcelain plates, robe materials, hat wefts, white ribbons and so on. These utensils are more worth cherishing than the food at the banquet.
It was also in this year, a few months later, on the tenth day of the first month of October, the sixtieth birthday of Empress Dowager Cixi. In order to organize the empress's birthday banquet, the imperial court set up a special celebration office.
Officials and leading figures at all levels should of course also express themselves, such as on the fourth day of the first month of October, the seventy-fifth generation of Yan Sheng Gong Lady Peng Shi and the seventy-sixth generation Of Yan Sheng Gong Lady Sun Shi respectively presented a table of breakfast to Empress Dowager Cixi. One of Peng's meals reads as follows:
Two dishes in the sea bowl: eight immortal duck, pot roasted carp.
Four large bowl dishes: bird's nest "ten thousand" word gold and silver duck pieces, bird's nest "shou" word red and white duck silk, bird's nest "no" word three fresh duck silk, bird's nest "Xinjiang" word mouth mushroom fat chicken.
Four dishes in the middle bowl: steamed white fungus, gourd daji wings, Shouzi duck soup, yellow braised fish bones.
Four dishes in the bowl: braised fish fillet, braised duck loin, braised shrimp, chicken wings.
Six dishes of bowl dishes: osmanthus wings, fried zibai, fried meat with buds and leeks, cooked shrimp, honey golden legs, and fried king melon sauce.
Two products on a plate: hanging stove pig, hanging furnace duck.
There were also two tables for the subordinates to eat: four plates of steamed food, four plates of stove food, four plates of pork, and four plates of lamb.
Four products of rao: Shouzi oil cake, Shouzi wooden cake, Baishou peach, Ruyi roll.
Bird's nest eight immortal soup, chicken noodles.
The table that Mrs. Sun offered was basically the same. One of the most prominent of the two dishes is that most of them use duck as raw material, for the simple reason that Empress Dowager Cixi likes to eat duck the most.
According to the analysis, the two tables of breakfast offered by the two ladies are the so-called "Tian'an meal". Funded by the Yansheng Gongfu, all the dishes were cooked in the palace by the chefs of the Imperial Dining Room, and finally presented in the names of the two Yansheng Gongfu, and the whole cooking process did not allow outsiders to interfere.
According to the usual standards of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, an egg costs three or four taels of silver, and the cost of these two tables of bird's nest mats must be a big number, and for them, the Yansheng Gongfu will spend a lot of money.
On her birthday, Empress Dowager Cixi left the palace and rode a specially made giant shrine, shaped like a Buddhist shrine, carried by sixty-four people. The Guangxu Emperor walked in front of the throne as a guide.
In front of the Guangxu Emperor, there were two other princes, holding Ruyi, walking backwards as a guide.
Unfortunately, the Sino-Japanese war that broke out earlier affected Empress Dowager Cixi's birthday celebration plan, and the scale of the entire birthday banquet was greatly reduced and sloppy.