To be fair, Qingden was really indifferent to this so-called "high-end banquet".

Because it is a very high-end banquet, you must pay attention to your image.

Crossing your legs and slumping your waist will definitely not work.

Eat a lot of meat and drink a lot, let alone think about it.

The food on the table is kaiseki cuisine with no other merits except that it looks great.

The guests around him were just playing for the occasion. They raised their cheek muscles and skillfully forced out decent but artificial smiles.

To be honest, for Qingdeng, attending this type of banquet is no different from being punished.

The most vulgar and low-level dinner parties he usually held with his brothers in the imperial examination hall were much more interesting than this banquet.

Warm wine, perfectly grilled saury...are these not as delicious as kaiseki cuisine?

Harada Sanosuke tells his 800-year-old hara-kiri joke, Kondo Isamu and Nagakura Shinpachi's passionate dance, Souji's drunken and cute appearance... none of these are as good as the picture before Aoto's eyes.

Want to make a "smile mask" interesting?

In addition, he can secretly flirt with the general secretary, pinching the general secretary here and rubbing the general secretary there.

The people currently sitting on the left and right of Qingnobu are Rintaro Katsu and Seiichiro Otani respectively.

You can't let Qingdeng flirt with them, right?

Looking at the entire audience, the only person who knows Qingdeng well and can play with Qingdeng openly and honestly... is the only one in Tianzhang Academy.

Thinking of this, Qingdeng turned his head sideways without leaving a trace, and quietly looked at Tianzhang Yuan, who was sitting on a high seat a little far away from him.

Today, she wears elegant light makeup on her face, wearing a bamboo green furisode underneath and a crimson blouse on top.

Because she is already a nun, she cannot wear gold and silver, but she still looks good enough.

A good-looking person will look good even if he is just wrapped in a sheet - this is a truth in the world. Even if the "theorem of conservation of energy" is overturned, this truth remains unchanged.

Today's Tianzhang Yuan is in full swing of the "Dayu Taishuo Mode".

Her pair of slender, white and tender catkins rest naturally and generously on her legs.

Her waist is not as straight as a soldier's, as if a washboard had been inserted into her lower back.

But it has a soft curve.

Not only does it not make people feel out of shape, but it also exudes a gentle atmosphere...a very graceful sitting posture.

Obviously she didn't say anything or make any expression, she just sat there, but she could feel an outstanding aura from her body.

People who don't know about it will definitely sigh like this after seeing the graceful and elegant appearance of Tenjoin - she is indeed the princess of the Satsuma Domain and the Grand Odaisho of the Edo Shogunate! She is really extraordinary!

In fact, Qingdeng, who had a very close friendship with Tianzhang Yuan, couldn't help but feel in a trance at this moment.

He was used to seeing the other party's quirky and charming appearance.

But now, the quirky spirit has turned into a lunatic, the charming has turned into a reserved one... Faced with such a huge contrast, Qingdeng felt a little uncomfortable for a moment.

Aoto is also very familiar with Tokugawa Iemo.

But the time he spent with Jia Mao was obviously not as long as the time he spent with Tian Zhang Yuan.

As for Katsurin Taro...

Rintaro Katsu, who was born in the sixth year of the Bunsei reign (1823), is 39 years old this year, almost twice as old as Aoto.

There is no doubt that Aoto and Katsurintaro are good friends who share the same goals.

The relationship between the two is a very typical friendship between gentlemen.

They can share interesting things they have encountered recently, and they can talk freely about each other's ideals, but when it comes to private entertainment... two people with a huge age difference cannot actually have fun together.

On such an occasion, it was naturally impossible for Qingdeng to walk up to Tianzhangyuan in a swagger, let alone laugh and play with her without any scruples as usual.

In private, the two of them can do whatever they want.

But in public places, they still have to obey the etiquette of monarchs and ministers.

Although the banquet was extremely dull, it was undeniable that the scenery blowing up to the courtyard was very charming.

It is now the season when plum blossoms are in full bloom.

Plum blossoms, dyed bright red, were scattered throughout Yu Qingdeng's field of vision.

The plum blossoms on the branches are as dazzling as if they have been washed in water. They are eye-catching, colorful, and red like fire. From a distance, they look like a patch of red clouds under the blue sky. The breeze blows, bringing bursts of fragrance.

If you raise your sight a little higher, you can see the mountains in the distance.

The green mountain is like a long screen, stretched across Qingdeng's field of vision.

Not far away, the white water channel winds and flows, and water mist rises up to an inch high.

Watching the beautiful and delicious scenery has the effect of cleansing the soul.

It would be nice to relax for a while... Qingdeng thought to himself.

As a result, he simply put his whole body and mind into appreciating the plum blossoms and the scenery.

His body and mind, which had been tortured by red tape and unappetizing food, immediately improved a lot.

…

Today's banquet is purely entertainment and not a political rally.

Therefore, whether they are ministers of the imperial court, daimyo of the vassal state, or the "Ichibashi School" or the "Nanki School", they all consciously avoid topics that are likely to cause quarrels.

For this reason, although the atmosphere at the scene was a little subtle, it was generally harmonious.

The topics that everyone talked about were nothing more than "Oh, what a beautiful plum blossom!", "Oh, what a beautiful scenery!", "Oh, what a beautiful everything!"

After enjoying the five flavors, at every banquet - no matter what level of banquet it is, whether it is an upper-class banquet for nobles or a vulgar banquet for ordinary people - there is a link that will inevitably appear: playing games.

Boxing, drinking, strength competition... these vulgar games that are not worthy of being refined naturally cannot appear here.

Incense ceremony, tea ceremony, and poetry writing—these three are the "three-piece set" necessary for high-end banquets in Japan.

The basic process of the incense ceremony played by the upper class in the Edo period was to put spices into the incense burner first. After the fragrance floated out, they took turns tasting the fragrance with the banquets, and then said "Oh! It smells so good!"

"This spice is so powerful!" Wait for bullshit.

The tea ceremony is also similar.

There are two forms of tea tasting in Japanese tea ceremony: "round drinking" and "single drinking".

As the name suggests, round drinking means that guests take turns tasting a bowl of tea, while single drinking means each guest has a separate bowl of tea.

According to the practice of the Edo period, tea masters would brew strong tea first and then weak tea.

The drinking form of strong tea is mostly "drinking in rounds", which means that all the guests present need to drink together, and each guest must drink from the same place in the tea bowl.

After drinking the strong tea, add a light tea.

When drinking weak tea, we usually switch to "drinking alone", with each person holding a bowl of tea.

Qingden also likes incense. The smell of expensive spices is really refreshing.

As for the tea ceremony...he was really afraid of avoiding it!

Never mind that Japanese tea is not to his liking at all.

No matter how bad the tea is, you can still force it into your stomach by pinching your nose.

But the form of drinking tea... to be precise, the "round drinking" in the Japanese tea ceremony, he really couldn't accept it!

So many people drinking the same bowl of tea together... To be honest, he felt disgusted.

Especially since his last tea drinker was Rintaro Katsu - this made him feel even more uncomfortable!

It’s really not that he dislikes Rintaro Katsu, but he really doesn’t want to touch his uncle’s saliva!

…

After tasting the precious spices and drinking the hot tea, everyone finally ushered in the most indispensable part of an elegant banquet like today - composing poetry.

Poems, notes, pen and ink were distributed one by one.

"Everyone, have you got paper and pen?"

Tokugawa Iemo said with a smile while looking at Merlin not far away:

"Since we are gathered here today to appreciate plum blossoms, let's take 'plum blossoms' as the theme! There is no limit to the subject matter, you can paint as much as you like!"

As Tokugawa Iemo finished speaking, everyone, including Aonto, picked up their pens and buried their heads.

There are three main categories of poetry most commonly created by literati in ancient Japan: Chinese poetry, Waka and haiku.

Chinese poetry is easy to understand, it is Chinese style poetry.

As for the latter two, they are unique Japanese poetry genres.

Waka is a kind of Japanese poetry, which was developed from ancient Chinese Yuefu poems through continuous Japaneseization, including long songs, short songs, sheet songs, connected songs, etc.

As for haiku, it is a kind of classical short poem in Japan. It is a poetic form of quatrains in ancient Chinese poetry that was developed through Japaneseization.

It is composed of "five-seven-five", a total of seventeen syllables. That is, the first sentence has five syllables, the second sentence has seven syllables, and the last sentence has five syllables. The requirements are strict. Of course, this is based on Japanese (kana) as the standard.
To be continued...