The Empress Dowager Cixi was so powerful that the emperor had to look at her face. But she was even more afraid of death. Empress Dowager Cixi in order to ensure "personal safety", in order to prevent poisoning, and even set up a meal-tasting officer, but the meal-tasting officer's descendants to decipher: "When my grandfather, not to taste the poison, but just to check the temperature of the dishes is suitable for the mouth." Do you know how this is? I'm here to reveal the secret for you.

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Cixi is really afraid of death, we see Cixi's living utensils, we will find that this old Buddha is really cautious. A lot of her spoons and dishes were made of silver. Why use silver? We all know that the highly toxic arsenic contains a small amount of sulfur and sulfide, silver will react to generate black "silver sulfide". Therefore, Cixi also made a large number of test poison silver. In the subtle changes in the color of silver, distinguish test dishes contain poison.

What is the test silver? Test poison silver plate of silver compared to silver tableware, a little more flexible. Craftsmen use to go through a special processing of silver, making a strip of shape, and then let the eunuch test poison. However, the test poison silver plate is disposable, after staining the soup and oil and water, and then test the second dish is not so sensitive. If Cixi really eat full meal at all times, it is necessary to make hundreds of test poison silver plate, if you want to use a second time, you need to re-wipe, rejuvenate and remove the oil. But these two hurdles do ensure that Cixi's food safety.

However to this point, Cixi is still not assured. Cixi in order to eat more peace of mind, and set up a tasting food officer. After all, test poison silver is "dead", and people are "alive", the task of tasting food officer, is to try to eat the dishes to see if they are poisonous. If these poisons can go through the heavy test of the silverware, but once into the mouth of the tasting officer, the tasting officer will be the first poisoned to death, for the subsequent meal Cixi early warning.

Cixi curtain rule, each meal of the dishes are in the hundred kinds of about. As long as the eunuch called "pass meal", the vast eunuchs team, will immediately carry the meal table and food box in a row. Historical records, Cixi's time, there is a family name Knight's food tasting officer, his task is to taste these meals in the Palace, Cixi ate every dish, are to be tasted by him.

There's a question out there, is it really for tasting the food officer and the existence of poison? This question is whether to consult the historical data, or read more books, can not get an accurate answer. In fact, we can get the final correct answer directly from the mouth of the descendants of this food taster. Because this Knight tasting official, after the fall of the Qing Dynasty, out of the palace, opened a restaurant, and later, he taught his son many of the palace food recipes and practices, and then passed them on to his grandson, Mr. Knight. He once personally told his heir that his task was not to test for poison, but to test for temperature, to get a handle on whether the dishes were the right temperature for the mouth and to prevent scalding the empress dowager.

Why the tasting officer is not to test the poison, because the imperial kitchen anti-poisoning facilities of thousands of people, want to poison in the Empress Dowager Cixi's meals, it is simply more difficult than the world's sea.

Tasting officer without poison can be identified, he can not be idle, therefore, his task is changed to try the temperature of the dishes, hot or not hot to be tasted? It's true, Knight told his descendants, "This is no small matter."

Because which dish scalded Cixi, Cixi as long as a moment of pain, she has a thousand ways to make whoever for life.

We can totally know how luxurious Cixi's life was from the words of Knight Tasting Catering Officer. The amount of silver she spent on one meal was enough to cover a year's living expenses of the common people. Finally, the temperature of her meals, even need to find a special "special person" can be for their own gatekeeper, simply poor and extravagant encountered the extreme point.