Why is "slight drunkenness" the highest level of drinking? (1)

Flowers are half open, and people are slightly drunk. The sentence comes from Caigentan which is a book written by Hong Yingming who was a Taoist in the early Ming Dynasty. Later, it is widely quoted to describe the best state of drinking and a state in which Chinese people have a proper sense of propriety in all activities. It is an art of Chinese people in doing things.

In Shuowen, slight drunkenness means that people feel mellow after drinking. The ancients thought that slight drunkenness was the best state of drinking. Shao Yong's Biography of the History of the Song Dynasty: In the morning, I burn incense and sit around. I drink three or four glasses of wine from 3:00 to 5:00 in the afternoon. If I'm a little drunk, I don't drink any more. In Chapter 42 of Water Margin (Song Jiang Meets the Mystic Queen of Ninth Heaven in Circular Road Village and Receives Three Heavenly Books): After drinking three cups of immortal wine and eating three plates of immortal dates, Song Jiang feels a little bit drunk an he is afraid of losing his dignity after getting drunk. Even the Liangshan heroes were afraid of losing their dignity after getting drunk. It can be seen that the ancients praised highly the state of slight drunkenness, so they regarded slight drunkenness and drunkenness as two different states of drinking.