nucmednet Chapter 315 Bai Family Banquet 2
Chapter 315 Bai Family Banquet 2
As there were many gentry and merchants from the town and county, a total of three rooms and six tables were arranged to entertain them.
For the two tables of guests in the gentry's room, Bai Jingzhou arranged for his eldest uncle Ning Da, Gu Wenxuan's second uncle Gu Yongqing and two scholars from their Bai family to accompany them. He originally planned to add his eldest uncle, but his uncle refused with a very firm attitude.
In the words of his uncle, he was a farmer who made a living from the soil and was not good at speaking. When he got together with those landlords, he couldn't even breathe.
He strongly suggested that Bai Jingzhou find someone who was knowledgeable, eloquent, and most importantly, courageous and not afraid of the stage to entertain the landlords on his behalf.
Bai Jingzhou couldn't persuade him, so he had to arrange him in the two rooms for entertaining merchants.
In order to do business, merchants have long been accustomed to greeting people with a smile. They are not like those country gentry who are self-righteous and always subconsciously put on airs, which invisibly increases people's pressure.
Plus, his uncle could barely be considered a "businessman" doing wood products business, so he could at least have some common topics with those merchants.
Well, the most important thing is that on the merchant side, Bai Jingzhou also arranged for his eldest cousin, eldest cousin, third cousin, Ning Qirui, Han Yong, and the nephew of the village head Bai Rong to accompany them.
Except for his uncle and eldest cousin, a father and son who are of the same bloodline, the others are all very capable of holding their own. Bai Jingzhou feels relieved to leave the father and son to their care.
Finally, there were the relatives of Bai Jingzhou and Gu Wenxuan, as well as the neighbors from this village and surrounding villages.
Bai Jingzhou arranged for his second uncle to lead these people. Some members of the Bai family, including the Fang brothers and his second cousin, followed his second uncle's command and were required to greet the largest group of guests anytime and anywhere.
When assigning this task to his second uncle, Bai Jingzhou told him in advance that for ordinary welcoming and seeing off guests, and running errands, Second Uncle Bai only needed to order those members of the Bai family who took the initiative to help, but if someone caused trouble on a wedding day, he had to greet the Fang brothers first and must not hesitate.
Bai Jingzhou didn't have the concept of "family disgrace should not be made public". His grandparents and aunt, his aunt and her family, Gu Jin's family, and Gu Tao and Gu Yongmei were not people who deserved to be treated with courtesy.
Although these people were not close to him and Gu Wenxuan, and most of them had severed their relationship, but Bai Jingzhou was a scholar, so how could some people who were only interested in profit not come over?
Bai Jingzhou didn't want to give those who had severed their relationship a chance to get back together, and he didn't want those who hadn't severed their relationship to take advantage of this crowded place to cause any weird trouble.
To be on the safe side, he simply entrusted the Fang Youfu brothers to help control the situation.
As for matters such as preparing food, serving food, receiving gifts, and keeping records, Bai Jingzhou also arranged for appropriate people to follow up the entire process, striving to ensure that no mistakes occurred in any link.
A large group of people worked hard for three or four days to prepare, and the dinner party was finally successfully concluded.
After they finished their side, Bai Lizheng's family also held a banquet to celebrate Bai Yaoheng's passing the imperial examination. Except for the magistrate Peng, the county magistrate, and the county lieutenant who did not attend, the guests were basically the same as those at the banquet held at Bai Jingzhou's house.
Some people said some strange things because of this, but these people were only a minority after all. Most people would not be so stupid as to say something just because Bai Lizheng's family did not invite officials from the county government to the banquet.
After all, although the three of them did not come in person, they sent their trusted subordinates as representatives, and the gifts they sent were clearly written in Bai Lizheng's gift book.
After the banquet at Bai Lizheng's house, Bai Lizheng returned to the academy with the thank-you gifts for his teachers, thick clothes, convenience foods and other necessities prepared for him by his family.
When he returns to the academy, he will first give thank-you gifts to his teachers and the dean of the academy. After that, he will choose a time to invite his good classmates to dinner at a restaurant.
Most of these people sent gifts to their house in the provincial capital. As for the few who didn't, Bai Jingzhou estimated that they would send gifts after he returned to the academy.
It doesn't matter whether the gift is valuable or not. For people who have such a thoughtful heart, Bai Jingzhou has to respond to their polite congratulations.
Fortunately, he brought Yang Wandong and Zheng Rong's family with him when he went back to the academy this time. There were people to help him take care of these trivial matters, so he didn't have to spend too much time on them.
After he left, Gu Wenxuan continued to busy herself with the autumn harvest. She first watched people harvest cotton and rice. After the harvest, she gathered people to continue harvesting lotus roots, fish, shrimps, crabs, etc.
The good harvest is a joy to behold, but the matchmakers who always come to the door are a bit annoying.
As the younger sister of a newly minted scholar, Bai Jingxin became more popular than before.
Many people came to the Bai family to find a match for her, but after Gu Wenxuan had someone conduct a thorough investigation, she discovered that those families that were praised highly by the matchmaker actually all had their own flaws and were not a good match.
The boy's mother was domineering and controlling, and her eldest daughter-in-law suffered a lot after she came into the family.
The man's father was extremely stingy. Not to mention the meat, eggs, soy milk, rice and white flour he ate every day, if the woman who cooked at home accidentally used too much oil and salt one day, he would eat the not-so-watery meals while slamming the table and scolding his wife and daughter-in-law for spending money and not knowing how to live.
The boy appears to be a modest gentleman, but in fact he is secretly a playboy and has two or three concubines at home.
The man's family is wealthy, but the girl he is proposing to is stupid, lazy, uneducated, and only knows how to fight cocks and ride horses every day.
The boy matches Bai Jingxin in both appearance and family background, but he is not sincere in getting married. Instead, he wants to scheme against the girl and gain benefits from her family.
If you put it all together, you can write a guide for women to avoid when kissing someone.
Ning Cuizhi was fed up with it, and finally decided to follow Jia Guizhi's example and reject all the matchmakers who came to propose marriage to avoid wasting her family's time, money and emotions.
As for Bai Jingxin's marriage partner, she planned to ask Bai Jingzhou to help her find one among the students he knew. She didn't ask for perfection in all aspects, but only that the other party's shortcomings were acceptable to them, so that Bai Jingxin would not suffer once she got married.
She asked Gu Wenxuan to write a letter to Bai Jingzhou and tell him about this matter.
Gu Wenxuan wrote a letter without saying anything and asked someone to send it to Bai Jingzhou. What she didn't know was that at this time, Bai Jingzhou was very happy because of what Mu Hanzhi sent.
After entertaining his classmates, Bai Jingzhou took some time to return to their house in the provincial capital.
When brothers Peng Xuan'an and Mu Hanzhi learned that he had passed the imperial examination, they sent servants to bring him gifts and letters, and he had to go back to receive and check them.