preface
After Xu Shiyou retired, his salary shrank sharply, and he had no money to entertain guests, so the banquet was mainly "wild meat"!
"Do you have Xu Shiyou's amount of wine?"
Xu Shiyou loves to drink, and the amount of alcohol is as big as an ox!
Someone once calculated that General Xu Shiyou drank an average of one kilogram a day in his lifetime, drinking a total of more than 23,000 kilograms.
If calculated according to the standards at that time, then with the PLA brand truck, you can pull three or four cars. Xu Shi was friendly and drinking, not only famous in the Nanjing Military Region, but also hung up in the whole army.
General Xu Shiyou has always been proud of his drinking, and he has repeatedly mentioned to the guards:
"I started drinking when I was 8 years old, I learned martial arts in Shaolin, I learned two things, one is martial arts and the other is drinking."
Of course, when General Xu Shiyou entered the temple, he was only 8 years old and was just a small miscellaneous servant, which determined that he could not drink too much wine, and could only be said to cultivate his yearning for wine.
The real increase in alcohol consumption for General Xu Shiyou was during the Red Army period. Xu Shiyou, who came out of the ranks of the old warlords, had already become addicted to alcohol, and in the ranks of the Red Army, he was specially approved by the chief to drink alcohol.
Xu Shiyou, who was a military commander at that time, had a porter with a troop configuration, and the burdens of other chiefs were generally luggage and newspapers. Xu Shiyou's porter's burden is full of wine, and it is said that there is a special correspondent for Xu Shiyou to drink wine.
Some Red Army generals also liked to drink, but they could only drink secretly. Some unconvinced generals found the leaders of the Four Fronts, Zhang Guotao, Xu Xiangqian, and Chen Changhao, to complain, and after learning of their complaints, the three of them invariably threw out a sentence
"You drink, do you have xu Shiyou's amount of wine?"
After these generals listened, they didn't say a word anymore!
Since the beginning of the Red Army, Xu Shiyou has been drunk, and the kettle is full of wine. Often he drinks, all with strong emotional overtones. When he was happy, he drank; when he was sad, he drank; when he encountered ups and downs, he borrowed wine to dispel his sorrows.
After winning the battle, Xu Shiyou would organize a "celebration banquet" and invite his cadres to participate. Wine is a sorghum wine brewed by ordinary people's homes, and often everyone sits in a circle, and everyone puts a large bowl in front of them.
After Xu Shiyou sat down, he first poured wine into everyone's bowl, and then toasted one by one, and everyone "dried" bowl by bowl. As long as it is a subordinate toast, Xu Shiyou will not resign, and directly raise his head to drink.
Xu Shiyou not only can drink it himself, but most of his subordinates are also massive. At the time of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, several of the leaders of the Ninth Corps led by Xu Shiyou also had "invincible hands all over the world", for which this corps was also known as the "Wine Corps". In the war years, no one will advise anyone to drink less, after all, no one can say for sure, who will be "absent" at the next party.
"Never saw Commander Xu, lost his temper after drinking"
Xu Shiyou drank wine all his life, and after the founding of the Country, he became obsessed with Moutai wine, and a bottle of Moutai was not a problem at all. On a certain founding day, Nie Fengzhi and his wife came to see Xu Shiyou and asked him if he was happy or unhappy during the festival. Xu Shiyou then said:
"I drank a bottle dry at noon today, a bottle bottomed out in the evening, two bottles of Maotai a day, do you say I'm happy today?"
Xu Shiyou himself is hospitable by nature, as long as someone comes to visit him, then he will be warmly welcomed. Often the scale of this kind of hospitality is still quite high, drinking only Maotai, so that at that time, "Commander Xu invited me to drink Maotai", which became a synonym for his banquet. As for the money to buy Moutai wine, it mainly depends on the nature of the hospitality.
If it is because of an official banquet, it is naturally paid by the Nanjing Military Region, and if it is a private banquet, it is General Xu Shiyou who pays with his salary.
In 1955, Xu Shiyou was awarded the rank of general, set as the fifth administrative level, and a month's salary was enough for him to spend. It was only in the following two decades that his salary fell for various reasons. In the early 1980s, he earned only $400 a month.
Part of Xu Shiyou's 400 yuan is used for family expenses, part of it is used to buy wine and drink, and part of it is used for banquets. Although the Nanjing Military Region has its own subordinate farms, it can be sold to Xu Shiyou at a preferential price. However, General Xu Shiyou's banquets were very frequent, and they were private guests, so the consumption was very large, which could easily lead to no money for guests in the back.
In order to solve this problem, Xu Shiyou set up a banquet, mainly based on wild meat. Delicious, cost-effective and characterful! As for the source of wild game, of course, Xu Shiyou personally went out hunting, and at that time the country did not ban hunting. According to the memories of Xu Shiyou's daughter
"My father liked the wild, didn't like urban life, and would go out in the wild once a week. As long as the father moves, it must be the wolf fox dog rabbit fully loaded. ”
Ordinary people or frequent guests are mainly drinking alcohol and eating a few dishes by the way. Unless it is a kind of VIP, Xu Shiyou will let the chef prepare two days in advance. Guests who have tasted Xu's "wild game" have all praised the delicious taste. At the beginning, Ye Jianying, Li Xiannian and others had also been entertained by Xu Shiyou, and afterwards when they talked about this meal, they all nodded their heads in praise.
Xu Shiyou's "wild game mat" consists of sparrows, doves, ducks, hares, pheasants, dog meat, water snakes, and beavers.
At the dinner table, Xu Shiyou is generally mainly drinking, and he often "drinks too much". His old subordinate Zhou Zhijian once said:
"I have known Commander Xu for more than ten years, and I am afraid that he has drunk wine thousands of times, but I have never seen him lose his attitude after drinking, which is strange."
As Xu Shiyou himself said, "Only drunk more, not drunk."
"Advise Xu Shiyou not to let him drink so much wine"
General Xu Shiyou himself was not drunk, nor did he allow his men to get drunk. Once Xu Shiyou went out to a banquet, there was an entourage of staff, drinking and drinking almost to the point of vomiting. Xu Shiyou himself drank almost the same, so he didn't eat any light meals and left when he got on the bus. In the car, the staff member spat away.
Xu Shiyou half-closed his eyes and said unhurriedly: "If you can't drink, don't drink hard, if you want to vomit, spit outside, don't spit in people's homes, live and lose people!" ”
Chairman Mao was also clear about Xu Shiyou's alcohol consumption. However, as he grew older, Chairman Mao was a little worried about Xu Shiyou. On May 5, 1973, Chairman Mao specially received Li Desheng after attending the meeting.
After inquiring about the relevant work, the chairman instructed Li Desheng
"When you go to Nanjing, you heard that Comrade Xu Shiyou drinks alcohol every day, and that drinking too much alcohol hurts his liver, so you go and persuade Xu Shiyou not to let him drink so much wine."
Li Desheng knew Xu Shiyou's temper and did not directly persuade him, but instead ate with him first. Slowly, in the course of drinking, he relayed the chairman's meaning to him. After hearing this, Xu Shiyou said:
"Drink less, it's not not to drink, when I drink, when not to drink, I have a number."
After this conversation, although Xu Shiyou liked to drink Maotai as always, he still controlled his alcohol consumption.