Let's take a look at the meaning of the emperor's meal. The official saying of the emperor's meal is: give a banquet. According to our understanding, it is a great honor for a minister to get a meal from the emperor. After all, this is a rare opportunity to have dinner with the emperor. However, in fact, the emperor's dinner is actually a very hard thing for ministers, as mentioned at the beginning.
Then why on earth is this? It turns out that during the Qing Dynasty, emperors often held routine banquets, such as Jianyuan Dingding Banquet, Yuanri Banquet, Winter Solstice Banquet, Wanshou Banquet, Grand Wedding Banquet and Thousand Banquets, which can be said to be relatively large banquets. The Qing dynasty was a dynasty that paid great attention to etiquette. This is actually very easy to understand. After all, it was still a feudal society with a strict hierarchy. When the emperor held a banquet, there were many ceremonies. If you want to go to the party, you should pay attention to many things. In this whole process, you must not be careless.
First of all, all princes and ministers, regardless of your official position, must dress neatly, wear royal robes and beads to attend this banquet. We must know that most of the imperial robes in the Qing Dynasty are heavy, and it is acceptable to wear them in winter. After all, it is very cold. But if a person wears so many clothes in hot summer, I have to say that after dinner, people themselves are like steamed bread. At such a banquet, people often sweat before they move chopsticks.
Not only that, there will also be special tribute officials standing on the throne of the Hall of Supreme Harmony, presiding over the whole banquet process. Just like when we modern people attend a wedding reception, the whole process is controlled by the wedding host. When the ceremonial officer sings "kneel", every prince and minister attending the banquet will stand up, leave their seats and kneel down to knock the emperor as usual in the morning. After waving, I stood up and still sat in my seat. Do you think this is over? No, this process has to be repeated three times and four times. After several times, the ministers were exhausted and didn't want to do anything, let alone eat.
Some people may say that young people are not that weak. It is true that it is not too difficult for a young man to attend such a party unless he is born too weak. However, even if I haven't checked the historical materials, I have seen several TV dramas more or less. Ministers are mostly old men in their late teens, all of whom are old old bones. Therefore, in order to adapt to this high-intensity banquet, ministers often train in advance to avoid exhaustion.