xymnovel Chapter 52 A Powerful Father-in-Law and a Generous Dowry That Shook Hebei
Chapter 52 A Powerful Father-in-Law and a Generous Dowry That Shook Hebei
The idea of using a handsome man as a weapon was, of course, a joke told by Tian Feng.
However, a marriage alliance with the Zhen family would undoubtedly be in Liu Bei's interest.
As Zhen's maternal uncle Zhao Le said, those who aspire to achieve great things throughout history not only possess heroic ambitions but also need wise and capable assistants.
If Emperor Gaozu of the past had not possessed the talents of Lady Lü, how could he have risen from Fengpei? If Emperor Guangwu had not married Empress Guo and taken over the people of Zhending, how could he have revived the Han Dynasty?
So, after Zhen Yu also expressed his intention to marry, the two sides quickly reached an agreement.
The marriage between these two families was far more significant than any clandestine union.
Both families attached great importance to the wedding, and the ceremony was formal and solemn.
In the Han Dynasty, weddings involved six rites, with the betrothal ceremony being the first. The betrothal ceremony was the formal proposal of marriage between the groom's family and the bride's family, with a matchmaker and gifts delivered to the bride's family.
According to etiquette, geese are the most precious gifts—geese fly south and return north, following the principles of yin and yang, symbolizing the harmony of husband and wife.
Besides geese, there were also black and red silk bundles, mutton, wine, millet, and other items.
The term "玄紁" (xuán xūn) refers to the color of the sky (玄) and the color of the earth (紁), signifying the harmonious interaction of heaven and earth, and implicitly representing the unity of yin and yang.
The betrothal gifts sent by Jian Yong from Liu Bei's side were more focused on symbolism, but the dowry given by Zhen Shi was incredibly generous!
The Zhen family was a prominent clan in Zhongshan County, with generations of officials and a vast fortune.
This time, the marriage was to Liu Bei, who was famous throughout the land. Zhen Yu intended to help Liu Bei achieve great things, so she specially prepared an extremely grand dowry.
In the Han Dynasty, the richness or poverty of a daughter's dowry depended on the social status of her family and the prestige of her in-laws.
The Discourses on Salt and Iron states: "Nowadays, when the wealthy get married, their carriages stretch for miles, and their silk curtains line the road."
The dowry of the Zhen family this time was far beyond what could be described as "carriages stretching for miles"! Her dowry was stored in more than a hundred warehouses, and the carriages could stretch for dozens of miles!
Its scale was so grand that it amazed the people of Zhongshan and even the aristocratic families of Jizhou.
Among the dowry, the most eye-catching item was the first hundred carts of gold!
During the Han Dynasty, gold was primarily circulated in the form of gold ingots, but also included items such as horseshoe-shaped gold ingots and hoof-shaped gold ingots. The *Shihuozhi* states that a square inch of gold weighs one pound.
All of the more than one hundred cartloads of gold were packed in vermilion-lacquered wooden boxes. When the boxes were opened for inspection, the room was filled with dazzling gold!
Gold ingots were stacked high, with horseshoe-shaped and hoof-shaped gold ingots mixed in among them.
Even if each cart only carries a hundred or so pounds of gold, then a hundred carts of gold would still weigh tens of thousands of pounds!
To put this into perspective, according to the Han Dynasty system, one jin of gold was worth approximately ten thousand coins.
Cao Cao's father, Cao Song, paid a "one hundred million coins" to a eunuch to buy the position of Grand Commandant, which was only about ten thousand catties of gold!
In other words, the dowry that Zhen gave to Zhen Jiang was enough for them to buy a position as one of the Three Dukes and Nine Ministers from the Han Dynasty!
Of course, such behavior was despised by the aristocratic families.
For example, although Cui Lie was a famous scholar in Ji Province, his reputation plummeted after he bought the position of Grand Commandant, and he was despised by the world, who all said that Cui Lie was greedy.
Even when the court was debating the border troubles of Liangzhou, Fu Xie, a court advisor, angrily rebuked him for his inappropriate remarks, saying: "Only by beheading the Minister of Works can the world be at peace."
Besides the ten thousand catties of gold, the Zhen family's dowry also included thirty thousand bolts of silk and two hundred bolts of Shu brocade. The brocade was intricately patterned, and each bolt was worth tens of thousands of coins. For ordinary wealthy families, receiving even a few bolts as a dowry for their daughter was considered extravagant. The fact that the Zhen family took out two hundred bolts at once demonstrates the extent of their wealth.
In addition, there were nearly a hundred cartloads of treasures, including pearls, rhinoceros horns, ivory, tortoiseshell, glass, cinnabar, and jade.
There were also ten cartloads of books on bamboo slips, including copies of the Five Classics (Book of Poetry, Book of Documents, Book of Rites, Book of Changes, and Spring and Autumn Annals) as well as historical books such as Records of the Grand Historian and Book of Han, all of which had been collected by the Zhen family for generations.
But the most noteworthy were the five hundred guests!
This was the highest standard for a wealthy and powerful family to marry off their daughters in the Han Dynasty—not by marrying off servants, but by giving away the entire household of guests.
Each household has able-bodied men and women, some skilled in farming and weaving, some proficient in crafts, and some knowledgeable in commerce. They are all reliable households that have relied on the Zhen family for many years.
Zhen Yu meticulously compiled their names into a register, placed it in a vermilion lacquered wooden box, and personally handed it to Liu Bei. This was entrusting the lives, deaths, honors, and disgrace of five hundred households entirely to him.
Although the five hundred households included both men and women, their numbers were less than the two thousand slaves and servants given by Mi Zhu, but because they all possessed skills, their value was no less.
On the day the dowry was ready to be delivered, the scene outside Wuji City was truly as described in "The Peacock Flies Southeast": golden carriages with jade wheels, dappled blue horses, and tasseled, gold-embroidered saddles. Carrying thirty million coins, thousands of colorful bolts of silk, and four or five hundred attendants, they marched out of the city gate in a grand procession.
At that time, carriages and horses lined up one after another, stretching for dozens of miles.
One after another, carts carrying money and grain rolled across the snow-covered official road. The escorting guests, young and old, drove carts and oxen, heading south in a grand procession. The people along the roadside stopped to watch, all marveling at the spectacle.
An old man leaning on his cane sighed, "In the past, Liu Yang, the King of Zhending, helped Emperor Guangwu by contributing tens of millions of coins. Now, the dowry of the Zhen family's daughter is so lavish that it rivals that of kings and nobles."
This was only the dowry sent to Xiaquyang during the betrothal ceremony, intended to alleviate Liu Bei's immediate financial crisis.
On the day of the wedding, there will also be the bride's red makeup, such as a dressing case, jewelry, clothing, jade, coral, porcelain and other valuables.
Whether or not one has a good father-in-law can indeed have a significant impact on the foundation of a hero's career.
With the gift of ten thousand catties of gold, over thirty million coins, and tens of thousands of bolts of cloth from Lady Zhen, Liu Bei's agricultural settlement project was able to proceed at full speed.
With the approval of the governor and the presence of the renowned scholar Tian Feng, this land reclamation method was rapidly implemented in various counties.
Tian Feng divided the land reclamation policy into three parallel approaches, proceeding in an orderly manner.
The first step was to investigate the suitability of the land during the winter.
Then, the ownerless wasteland in the four counties of Julu, Anping, Zhao, and Changshan, which were the most severely affected by the disaster, was re-registered, and six major reclamation areas were drawn up according to the three water systems of Zhangshui, Hutuo, and Jiangshui.
Each garrison was headed by a Sima, who was appointed by Tian Yu, Qian Zhao, Jian Yong, Cheng Pu, Yan Rou, and Liu Deran to oversee different areas and command varying numbers of households, ranging from several thousand.
The surrendered soldiers were organized into units of fifty households, each given five hectares of land, and provided with seeds, farming tools, and oxen.
Tian Feng personally drafted more than ten articles of the "Tuntian Order," which covered everything from land allocation standards to rent and tax ratios, from cattle registration management to agricultural supervision, all of which had rules to follow.
He truly deserves the reputation of being a talent fit to assist a king. After Liu Bei entrusted him with all the military farms, he personally supervised and encouraged the farms. Just after the spring planting season, more than 3,400 hectares of fertile land were reclaimed in the six major military farm areas!
While developing the land and establishing military settlements, he also simultaneously promoted a second matter: reassigning surrendered soldiers and utilizing their talents accordingly.
At the end of the year, he personally advised Liu Bei, saying, "A fine jade, before it is cut, is no different from a piece of tile or stone; a famous steed, before it is galloped, is mixed with a nag."
"When it is cut open and polished, and then tested by galloping, it is found that jade and stone are of inferior quality, and only then can they be distinguished."
"When virtuous men are not employed, they are mixed in with ordinary people. How can they be distinguished from ordinary people? Only by entrusting them with important tasks and holding them to a high standard can they be clearly distinguished from ordinary people."
So he ordered Guan Yu, Zhao Yun, Jian Yong, Qian Zhao and others to go to each garrison to identify the artisans, doctors, merchants and literate people among the surrendered soldiers.
Besides the strong and skilled warriors who were recruited into the Gengshi Camp and disciplined by military law, those skilled in crafts were assigned to the Kaogong Camp, specializing in the casting of agricultural implements and the repair of water conservancy projects.
Those who could read and write were appointed as clerks in the military farms, in charge of bookkeeping, collecting taxes, and investigating corruption.
The elderly, the weak, women and children were incorporated into the garrison households, where they cultivated the land and worked in peace.
After this policy of promoting virtuous and capable officials was implemented, the atmosphere under Liu Bei's command was completely transformed! It was now teeming with talented individuals!
He had fewer than three thousand men under his command, but more than three hundred of them were literate!
These were virtuous men selected from tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of surrendered soldiers. The literacy rate among ordinary people was at most one or two percent, but under Liu Bei's command, it reached nearly one-tenth!
This laid a very solid foundation for Liu Bei to further popularize education and promote moral teachings.
Liu Bei then ordered that 100 elite and able-bodied men be selected from among them and assigned to various garrisons, squads, and units within the army, instructing them to teach the soldiers to read and write.
The remaining two hundred or so people were assigned to various positions, such as military law, medicine, warehouse management, and clerks, based on their talents.
The ten cartloads of bamboo slips and books sent by the Zhen family were just what they needed.
Finally, during the off-season, Tian Feng mobilized his soldiers to carry out water conservancy projects, digging three ditches and building two ponds along the Zhang River to ensure a good harvest.
Under such governance, the six major reclamation areas took shape in just a few months.
Along the banks of the Zhang River, fields and paths have reopened, oxen plow back and forth, and cooking smoke rises again.
The 170,000 surrendered soldiers were transformed from bewildered refugees into registered households.
By the second year of the Zhongping era, when the spring snow melted and all things began to revive, hundreds of thousands of acres of official fields had been sown with seeds of spring wheat and beans.
While Tian Feng was fully promoting the land reclamation policy, Liu Bei and Guan Yu were not idle either.
Liu Bei's troops and loyal followers were the foundation of his rise to a high position this year, so he and Guan Yu personally participated in the streamlining and training of the troops.
By February, the preparations for military training had already yielded initial results.
On the banks of the Zhang River, Guan Yu excitedly reported to Liu Bei: "Brother, the strategist is truly a genius of the world."
"In accordance with its method of reducing the army and recruiting brave soldiers, 1,500 weak soldiers were dismissed from the army, and the elite were retained. In addition, 1,000 brave and desperate soldiers were recruited from the surrendered soldiers to fill the ranks, eliminating the weak and retaining the strong, and eliminating the redundant and keeping the elite."
"Now, every soldier in the army is eager to fight and dares to die; the atmosphere is completely different from before."
When his pride was mentioned, he stroked his beard with a proud look on his face: "Especially the Jing Sai Iron Cavalry - the strategist said that all those who came to recruit would be given three full meals before they could enter the training ground to practice martial arts and teach skills, which attracted a large number of surrendered soldiers and refugees, and made the Jing Sai Iron Cavalry famous."
"So much so that almost all the heroes of Youzhou, the powerful barbarians beyond the Great Wall, and the elite soldiers from all directions knew the name of the Jingsai Iron Cavalry."
"Currently, the army has over a hundred elite cavalrymen! These are all brave warriors selected from among the 170,000 surrendered soldiers and heroes from the four prefectures of You, Ji, Bing, and Qing. They are all exceptionally strong, capable of drawing a two-stone bow, galloping on horseback and shooting arrows with fearless courage!"
Liu Bei was overjoyed upon hearing this and said, "Excellent! The Jing Sai Iron Cavalry is the elite force of the entire province. If we can obtain three thousand such iron cavalry, then we can easily subdue the barbarians on all sides!"
It should be noted that among the five schools of the Northern Army, which were built by the entire Han Dynasty, the Yueqi Colonel's Division only had a few hundred people.
Now Liu Bei has over a hundred elite cavalrymen, capable of defeating ordinary bandits and feudal lords in a single battle.
Then Guan Yu continued, "The strategist also ordered us to dismiss more than two hundred Wuhuan cavalrymen last winter, and to give them generous rewards. One-tenth of the gold in Zhen's dowry was lost because of this! Each dismissed Wuhuan cavalryman received three thousand coins, twenty bolts of cloth, and thirty shi of grain, which had to be transported by oxcart to be taken away."
"This scene immediately caused a sensation among the Wuhuan, attracting a large number of elite Wuhuan warriors to join us this year! The number of Wuhuan cavalry in our army has not decreased but increased, reaching over four hundred. Although the number has only increased by a hundred, their fighting strength is incomparable! Among them are also dozens of eagle hunters!"
The archers were the elite among the elite of the Hu people.
During the reign of Emperor Wu of Han, Li Guang served as the governor of Shangjun. When the Xiongnu launched a large-scale invasion, the emperor sent a high-ranking official to join the army and practice warfare.
The nobleman led several dozen horsemen on a galloping expedition and encountered three Xiongnu soldiers, with whom he engaged in battle.
The three men fired arrows, wounding a nobleman and killing several dozen of his riders!
The nobleman fled and informed Li Guang. Li Guang said, "He must be the one who shot the eagle." He then led a hundred cavalrymen to pursue him, personally shooting and killing two and capturing one. It turned out to be the Xiongnu eagle shooter.
For the next several centuries, among the Hu people, those skilled in archery considered it an honor to shoot eagles.
Three of these archers could kill dozens of ordinary halberd-wielding knights.
This was precisely the purpose behind Tian Feng's generous reward when he previously dismissed the Wuhuan.
You should know that Zhen gave Liu Bei ten thousand catties of gold, and this move was one-tenth of that gold, which was meant to buy a horse with a thousand catties of gold!
The result was, of course, a resounding success. Each of the disbanded Wuhuan cavalrymen returned with a cartload of wealth. How could their return to their tribe not cause a sensation? Even the Xianbei tribes heard of it.
Those true warriors from the Xiongnu, Wuhuan, and Xianbei tribes, seeing that even some weak soldiers who had been dismissed could receive so much wealth and rewards, how could they not yearn for the treatment of the truly brave and fierce soldiers in Liu Bei's army?
The extravagance of Lady Zhen's dowry was renowned throughout Hebei. The Wuhuan people all knew that Liu Bei was now famous throughout the land and possessed immense wealth. Therefore, they had no more worries and flocked to him.
Tian Feng then set up strict tests and secretly spread rumors that "only true warriors can enter Liu Lang's cavalry. Only those who can enter his army are the top warriors of the Wuhuan; those who cannot are just weak men, and even if they get gold and silk, they are not worthy of being called heroes."
He also ordered the military band to play several songs, which were then taught to the displaced people to sing.
One of the poems is particularly well-known, and it reads: "Mount up, I grasp a long spear; dismount, I drink milk. The barbarian lads roam freely again, and a thousand pieces of gold are not enough to reward them. If you ask who the hero is, he should return east to join Liu Lang."
The ballads were catchy and easy to sing, composed with rhyming words in the Hu language. The brave and fierce Wuhuan warriors, skilled in riding and archery, were all stirred by the song and eager to try their skills.
Being able to join Liu Bei's ranks not only meant receiving generous rewards of gold, silk, and grain, but also being regarded as a "true warrior" by his clansmen—an honor far more enticing than gold and silver.
As a result, the number of Wuhuan cavalry not only increased, but the strength, archery skills, and courage of those who came to join them were far superior to those of the past.
Liu Bei's military equipment this time was far superior to that of the past. With a wave of his hand, he equipped all the Wuhuan cavalry with excellent weapons. Each man was equipped with a two-piece armor, with a thick cowhide lining and a black lacquer finish that was so shiny it could reflect a person's image.
They also gave each a spear shaft, a horn bow, two saddlecloths hanging from the side of the saddle, one containing thirty armor-piercing awls, and the other containing thirty ordinary birch arrows.
The warhorses were selected from the more than a thousand warhorses in the army, and the best and strongest were assigned to each horse, with each horse receiving two bushels of fine feed (beans and beans) per month.
As for the number of Xuanjia Iron Cavalry, it was reduced to only two hundred or so, mostly sons of powerful Han clans and heroes.
The entire army consisted of nearly eight hundred cavalrymen, all of whom were elite soldiers in black armor, fierce and daring in battle.
It is no exaggeration to say that cavalry has always been the elite of the elite.
Just as Liu Bei was about to continue his conversation with Guan Yu, a rapid sound of horses' hooves suddenly came from behind him, followed by Zhang Fei's signature booming voice, which preceded his arrival: "Brother! Brother!"
A moment later, Zhang Fei arrived at full speed, his leopard-like eyes wide open and his face full of excitement: "Brother, today while I was training troops on the west bank of the Zhang River, I encountered a hero who chased a tiger across the ravine!"
"His strength is unparalleled, and his bravery surpasses that of the entire army. I was itching to challenge him, so I went up and fought him, but I could only manage a draw! Such a hero is perfect for our elder brother's service!"
Guan Yu's hand, which was stroking his beard, paused slightly, and a glint of light flashed in his phoenix eyes.
There are very few heroes in the world who can make their third brother say "a draw".