Chapter 109: Discussing a Marriage Proposal (With gratitude to book friend Xiao Chou for the dual alliance sponsorship for Master Jin)

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Though the Wu family had many members, their numbers were not evenly distributed among the five boats.

The servants and guards, along with the other common attendants, naturally occupied three of the boats. They were assigned to the first, second, and fourth vessels, with nearly thirty or forty people crammed onto each, not counting the boatmen.

Wu Anshi and the women of the Wu household traveled on the third boat. Apart from the crew, it held only their personal maids and elderly female servants.

As for Zhang Yue, Huang Haoyi, one Yuhou, and one superintendent, they were seated on the rearmost vessel.

The passenger boat assigned to Zhang Yue had two levels. Above it rose a tall, A-shaped mast, and beneath the mast were several low cabins roofed with thatch. These were where the boatmen and servants lived. Everyone aboard, with the exception of the helmsman, was generally called a boat hand.

In The Water Margin, Zhang Heng was known by the nickname Boat Hand.

Zhang Yue went up to the top deck for a look around. There were clothes hung out to dry, luggage piled up, and various objects serving as ballast.

Below the deck lay the true cabins. Windows had been installed in all four walls in the manner of a house, while railings ran along both sides of the boat. Curtains had been added for further decoration. Inside were tables, chairs, beds, tea, and food. Passengers could sit comfortably while admiring the scenery along the river.

So this was how the wealthy lived!

Seeing all this, Zhang Yue could not help sighing inwardly. Compared with the other passenger boats on the river, which were so crowded that there was hardly room to put one’s feet down beyond the place to sit, this was worlds apart.

It was rather like the difference between a hard seat and a hard sleeper on a humble green train.

Of course, Young Master Wu’s boat was certainly furnished with soft sleepers, not to mention a proper reception room and the like.

Before a boat could pass through the customs, the ferry crossings and checkpoints would send people to inspect it.

During the Song dynasty, every ferry crossing had an official superintendent. In truth, the Song government had managed to block off every profitable opportunity.

There were only two kinds of ferry crossings in the Song: official ferries and purchased ferries. In other words, every crossing was either operated by the government itself or had obtained an operating license by bidding for the right through the authorities.

At the same time, all private ferries were prohibited.

Yet private ferries, like beef and wine, could never be eradicated completely.

The government set up checkpoints at important locations to eliminate competition from the common people, but as for ordinary private crossings, it usually turned a blind eye.

The policies of Emperor Huizong’s reign were constantly playing this same game.

The Fang La Rebellion had been sparked by the slogan of “official oppression and extortion.”

The cause of Song Jiang’s rebellion was the court’s declaration that the eight-hundred-li marshland was public property. Whenever commoners entered the lake to fish, gather lotus roots, or cut reeds, they were charged heavy taxes according to the size of their boats.

After Zhang Yue and Huang Haoyi entered the cabin, the Wu household’s Yuhou Yan and Superintendent Zhang had already prepared tea and were waiting for them.

After exchanging greetings, they sat down to drink.

Yanhou smiled and said, “The two of you are still young, yet you have already come to the capital to take the examination for admission to the Imperial Academy. Once you pass, earning a place on the palace examination list will only be a matter of time.”

Zhang Yue merely smiled without replying. Huang Haoyi, seated beside him, said, “You flatter me, Sir. In my county and prefecture, I was worth less than a copper coin. I was selected only because no one else wanted to go, which happened to benefit me. Even setting aside whether I can somehow get through the Imperial Academy entrance examination, the academy is filled with hidden dragons and crouching tigers. How could someone like me, no more than a small fish or shrimp, ever distinguish himself?”

Zhang Yue thought to himself that this was excellent. With a man like Huang Haoyi beside him, he would be spared a great deal of talking along the journey.

Superintendent Zhang smiled. “Scholar Huang, you certainly know how to belittle yourself. At your age, you still have a long road ahead. How can you call yourself a mere fish or shrimp? Neither of you has yet married, I take it?”

Zhang Yue thought, Ever since I set out for the Imperial Academy examination, why does everyone I meet ask whether I am married? Have I really become such a desirable catch?

Huang Haoyi continued, “What ordinary family would think highly of men like us? My family has given a strict order: ‘No marriage before passing the examination.’ So I dare not even think about it. Am I not right, Third Brother?”

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Zhang Yue nodded repeatedly in agreement. “Yes, yes.”

“It is hardly unusual for a scholar to remain unmarried into his thirties,” Huang Haoyi went on. “There are even plenty who reach their forties without marrying. Sometimes I truly wonder why I ever chose the path of scholarship. Ah, never mind, never mind.”

Zhang Yue thought that he had a point. The great scholar Shao Yong had not married until he was forty-five, and even then it was because one of his students could no longer bear to watch and offered his own younger sister to the teacher as a bride.

Superintendent Zhang smiled. “To tell you the truth, Yanhou and I have been in the capital for more than twenty years. We have seen many wealthy households. In Bianjing, families with assets of a hundred thousand strings of cash are so numerous that they could pave the streets with them. Even families worth a million strings are far from rare.”

“If either of you young gentlemen is interested, your status as students of the Imperial Academy may not win you a bride from a family worth a million strings, but arranging a marriage with one worth a hundred thousand should still be possible.”

Zhang Yue smiled knowingly when he heard this and recalled a line from one of Wang Anshi’s poems: “I remember the road beside Golden Bright Pool, where girls in red robes competed to admire the young men in green.”

He thought, Being seized as a son-in-law beneath the examination results board—is that not simply eating soft rice in broad daylight?

Yet such arrangements were extremely common in the Song. Dowries were often larger than bride prices. In the charitable estate established by Fan Zhongyan, for instance, thirty strings were provided when a daughter was married, but only twenty strings when a son took a wife.

Marrying off a daughter was far more difficult than taking a wife, and families often had to provide a substantial dowry.

Thus many scholars declared, “No marriage before achieving distinction in the examinations.” Clearly, He Qi and Huang Haoyi had both followed this principle, hoping to find themselves an excellent marriage after passing the examinations.

At the time, this was not criticized. On the contrary, it was widely approved by the government, the common people, and the scholarly class alike.

As a result, there were indeed many unsuccessful scholars in their thirties who married “late.”

As for Zhang Yue, his family was not wealthy. In Pucheng, his household could be considered a respectable family with several hundred strings of cash in property. But in Bianjing…

Housing prices in Bianjing were the highest in the entire empire. Even a prime minister such as Kou Zhun could not afford to build a house. To put it bluntly, an ordinary family’s ramshackle room would be enough to crush Zhang Yue’s entire fortune.

Huang Haoyi seemed to be in much the same position. In a small place, he was the envy of everyone; once he reached a great city, however, he would probably disappear into the crowd.

He wondered whether Yanhou and Superintendent Zhang had come to propose marriage because Young Master Wu had arranged it in order to win the two of them over.

At that point, Yanhou said, “If the two of you find it inconvenient, I can privately arrange a marriage for you here. I have a close friend who is also a Yuhou. He has a beloved daughter who has reached twenty without marrying. He comes from a military background and possesses a modest family fortune. He merely wishes to find an Imperial Academy student for his son-in-law.”

“You should consider establishing a household in the capital. Of course, let me make this clear beforehand: you must first be admitted to the Imperial Academy.”

Zhang Yue suddenly remembered that besides the practice of seizing a son-in-law beneath the examination results, there was also the practice of choosing a son-in-law before the examination. Wang Zeng and Fu Bi, for instance, had both been selected before the examinations by the prime minister Li Hang and Yan Shu. They later passed the examinations, and Wang Zeng even achieved the rare distinction of placing first in all three examinations.

Of course, choosing a son-in-law before the examination carried enormous risks. It was a game only a prime minister could afford to play.

Thus there were arrangements in which the engagement was made before the examination and the wedding held afterward. Such marriages were also very common in the Song.

Naturally, many promises were broken. Though the tale of Chen Shimei, who passed the examination and then abandoned his wife and child, was largely a popular anecdote, there must certainly have been many men who broke their word.

Yet for every Chen Shimei, there were also upright men. Before Liu Tingshi passed the examination, he had become engaged to a woman in his native village. She later lost her sight because of illness and was living in extreme poverty. After learning that Liu Tingshi had passed the examination, she did not dare mention the engagement.

Someone advised him to marry her younger sister instead.

Liu Tingshi merely laughed. “My heart has already been given to her. How could I betray the intention with which I first made the promise?”

Later, he lost his betrothed. Several years afterward, she died of her illness, and Liu refused to marry again.

Su Shi once asked him, “Sorrow is born of love, and love is born of beauty. What, in the end, did you love about her?”

Liu Tingshi replied, “When beauty fades, love wanes, and my sorrow would fade with it. If one chooses a wife for her appearance, then whenever one sees a beautiful woman, must one marry her and bring her home?”

Returning to the matter at hand, the Judicial Secretary Zhao had also chosen his own second brother as a son-in-law before the examination.

However…

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Superintendent Zhang seemed to notice their confusion and quickly asked, “What is the young woman like in appearance? She is twenty and still unmarried—surely that does not mean…”

“Her looks are quite ordinary. A woman of surpassing beauty may be difficult to live with even after bringing her home, would you not agree?” Yanhou said with an ambiguous smile.

Zhang Yue and Huang Haoyi both nodded. Exactly. If one brought a beautiful woman home, she would only distract a man from his studies. Men of the Song were quite practical in such matters. For marriage, the ideal woman was one of ordinary appearance who could offer assistance, whether in wealth or in a husband’s official career.

Huang Haoyi said, “Precisely. My mother says that beautiful women are tiger spirits who will eat a man until not even his bones remain.”

Zhang Yue was rendered speechless. Your mother’s intentions were good, but ultimately she was simply afraid you would become addicted to the pleasures of the bedchamber!

By then, the boat had raised its sail and set its oars in motion, proceeding slowly toward the middle of the river.

In the Ming dynasty, people spoke of The Night Voyage Boat, referring to the way travelers on night journeys, unable to see the scenery and bored with the darkness, amused themselves with conversation.

The scenery along the Qu River was beautiful, but the two young men found this subject fascinating. With the tedium of the journey added to it, they talked without stopping.

Under the encouragement of Yuhou Lu and Superintendent Zhang, Huang Haoyi had already decided to visit the Yuhou’s daughter in person. Zhang Yue hesitated for a moment. Since Huang Haoyi had taken the lead, it would feel awkward for him to say anything more.

In his previous life, he would certainly have exchanged contact details first, looked through her social media, and chatted for a while before making a decision.

Superintendent Zhang also introduced another young woman to Zhang Yue, though she seemed somewhat less impressive than the one Yuhou Lu had recommended. Zhang Yue considered the matter and decided not to refuse. For one thing, he could not bear to offend the other party; for another, he genuinely wanted to see her.

When a man drifted alone in a foreign land, not everyone could withstand the loneliness.

In his previous life, he had experienced that feeling while living far from home. Otherwise, why would he have hurried to arrange blind dates immediately after graduating? He had simply wanted to meet a woman suited to running a household, marry early, and happily spend the rest of his life as a house slave paying off a mortgage.

Now that he was going to Bianjing, Zhang Yue was afraid of falling into the same loneliness. If he could establish a household early with a suitable woman, that would not be a bad thing. His elder brother had already told him that he could decide his own marriage. After all, Pucheng and Bianjing were separated by such a great distance; his brother could hardly make the decision on his behalf.

And if one day he happened to encounter a family trying to seize him as a son-in-law beneath the examination results, he could pretend to struggle a little before yielding.

Thus, amid conversation and study, the boat traveled from the Qu River into the Qiantang River and eventually arrived at Hangzhou.

Zhang Yue had originally intended to remain in Hangzhou for two or three days. He wanted to see what West Lake had looked like before the Su Causeway was built, and what Broken Bridge had been like before Xu Xian and the White Lady met there.

Yet Young Master Wu’s party seemed to be in great haste. They hurried straight toward Bianjing, stopping nowhere in Hangzhou and immediately changing boats for the journey north.

Hangzhou was not yet called Lin’an, but Zhang Yue learned from others that the city already had two hundred thousand households. Even Suzhou and Yuezhou could not compare with Hangzhou’s prosperity.

The annual government revenue from wine alone amounted to two hundred thousand strings of cash.

After changing boats, they continued north.

One night, Zhang Yue was sleeping in the cabin when he was suddenly awakened by Tang Jiu.

Postscript 1: Many thanks to the longtime reader Xiao Chou for the generous double alliance gift. I am deeply grateful.

Postscript 2: My thanks once again to the Nanmu Alliance for the magnificent gift of two hundred and fifty thousand cash.

Postscript 3: The days before the New Year have been hectic, so I apologize for the delayed update.

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