Chapter 5 Meng Tie

Li Shouyi, a Juren, was from Lingzhou like his teacher Long Changqi. Like his teacher, he was a Jinshi who passed the provincial examination and was well versed in the classics. He was proficient in the Book of Changes. However, Li Juren did not achieve the same "fame among scholars and high regard for the two Shus" as Long Changqi did, and was "admired by all the gentry" because he did not meet Wen Yanbo like Long Changqi did. After Wen Yanbo, Tian Kuang became the governor of Yizhou, and he also attached great importance to the provincial school. When Li Juren set out on his expedition, the "Rongming Hall" established by Tian Kuang in the second year of Huangyou was already overstaffed. Tian Kuang approved Li Juren to go and carve the Shu Stone Classics with other Juren. When they came to the fourth sentence of the "Gongyang Zhuan" Ai Gong volume, "Why not mention entering Wei? The father has the son, but the son cannot have the father", a Juren surnamed He (some locals said he was the youngest son of He Tan) said, "He is pretending to be a god."

Mr. Li, assuming he didn't understand ancient Chinese, said, "This is about the official Zhao Yang leading his army to escort the crown prince, Kuai Ze, to Qi. Qi was a city in the state of Wei. Why didn't they say they escorted Kuai Kui to Wei? Because the father of the monarch can depose the crown prince, but the crown prince cannot seize the throne from his father."

Mr. He said, "There's no need to blame a father for his son's kindness. Is it wrong for me to say he's pretending to be a god?"

Li Juren said, "The ruler is the ruler, the minister is the minister, the father is the father, the son is the son. The ruler is the father, the minister is the son. They are both father and son and ruler and minister. A son inherits his father's position. How can it be reversed?"

Mr. He was speechless. To save face, he said casually, "I am from Chengdu and don't know Yizhou's school, but you are from Lingzhou."

Feeling aggrieved, Juren Li went to Tian Kuang, accusing Juren He of failing to distinguish between Confucian classics and provincial studies and being unfit to study the Shu Stone Classics. Tian Kuang disagreed, favoring Juren He, saying, "How can Confucian classics and provincial studies be separated?" He then dismissed Juren Li from his position and assigned him to teach at a local private school. Juren Li taught at the private school for six years before being invited by Meng Yin to teach Meng Xian at the Meng family home. Meng Xian, however, was a reluctant student. His fickleness and lack of learning mirrored his great-grandfather Meng Ji, and his abusive and lecherous nature was even worse than Meng Ji's. Meng Yin had no choice but to assign Juren Li to teach Meng Tie. Meng Tie was a studious man. By the age of ten, he had mastered the major, medium, and minor classics, the main and secondary classics, and could "emulate the ancients." He also had a profound understanding of the works of the founder, Long Changqi. Juren Li admired Meng Tie, seeing him as a reflection of his younger self, and constantly praised him to others, saying, "The second son of the Meng family is exceptionally intelligent." When Mr. He heard that Mr. Li had accepted a talented apprentice, he came to ridicule him, saying that Meng Tie was merely the son of a cunning merchant, and the youngest at that. According to the Meng family's single-son inheritance rule, he probably wouldn't inherit much of the family business. Mr. He said, "As the saying goes, the ruler rules, the minister serves, the father the father, the son the son. His father asked you to teach him, simply so he could become a minor official to facilitate the family business. What good is a talented son of a cunning merchant?" Mr. Li called Mr. He a "brat-headed kid" and Mr. He called Mr. Li a "slut." The two men started fighting in Fuchunfang and were both arrested by yamen runners and jailed. The Siliyuan later ruled that the incident was a misunderstanding. After leaving the yamen, both were unemployed.

At this time, Meng Tie was eleven years old. Miss Bai had returned to the Meng family, and the Huangfu family was at its most vicious. From a young age, Meng Tie had known that there were people in the world who would make him climb a mountain of knives, plunge into a wok, and fry him until he was sizzling, then be crushed to death by a mountain of rocks, and then pounded into a mortar to be used as chicken feed. As a result, Meng Tie feared his mother, and whenever he saw Miss Bai and the steward, he dreaded the sight of them climbing a mountain of knives and frying him until he was sizzling. To avoid this crowd, Meng Tie studied from morning till night. After Mr. Li left, Meng Tie's classes moved from the classroom to the kitchen. The cook taught him to recognize bamboo shoots, bracken, pheasant, radish, sweet potato, taro, cabbage, and yam. Once, the cook cooked a chicken. After it was done, he tore the chicken into tassels and placed them on a plate. He then put the chicken's head, comb, heart, liver, bones, and buttocks in a small basket. Meng Tie pointed at the chicken butt and asked, "What is this?" The cook replied, "My wife hates offal and won't allow her to eat it. Take these back to my house and cook them." Meng Tie asked, "How should I cook it?" The cook said, "Add more ginger and garlic." He then stir-fried the butt and heart for Meng Tie. From then on, Meng Tie came to the kitchen every day, asking for chicken offal with more ginger and garlic.

Another time, after butchering a sheep, the cook wanted to take the head away. Meng Tie asked, "How do you eat the head?" The cook replied, "First, boil it with garlic and ginger, then drizzle it with mustard water and dogwood chili oil, and eat it as a dip." The next day, the cook brought some minced meat from the sheep's head, and Meng Tie learned about mustard water and dogwood oil. At the beginning of the Yuanyou period, Guan Yuan died. The funeral, presided over by Miss Bai, was as grand and solemn as Meng Yin's. The Taoists who came down from Yulei Mountain hung chess pieces and banners, chanting, and were able to calm the water at Feishayan. The cakes and pastries distributed during the ritual offerings were enough to feed ten households for months. It was this grand funeral that scared Meng Tie away. Ever since childhood, Meng Tie had been afraid of ghosts, believing every nook and cranny in his home was haunted by them. Female ghosts hid behind window lattices and door frames, gazing out one eye, while child ghosts hid in cupboards and under bed boards, laughing and scratching all night long. Ghosts lurked in the darkness of shadows, motionless like statues and trees, yet moved at the mere sight of a human. Ghosts are essentially air trapped behind door and window lattices, ashes sealed in cabinets, but at night, they reveal themselves, utter sounds, and come alive. Meng Tie complained to Huangfu and Bai about the ghosts. They told him they were the spirits of Chu Er Niang and her deceased daughter. During the years that Li Juren taught at the Meng household, the ghosts of Chu Er Niang and her deceased daughter hadn't appeared to frighten anyone. Meng Tie saw them again at a funeral in the monastery. Years later, in Luoyang, Meng Tie recounted this incident to a fellow villager. Meng Tie recounted how, while listening to the noisy chanting of sutras, he saw Er Niang leading his younger sister into the house. Er Niang said, "Dad has become an official in Yizhou Prefecture, and she wants to take him to see him." His younger sister came over and took his hand. A group of servants in the courtyard, their backs to them, packed their belongings. A donkey and horse cart was parked at the door, waiting to unload their belongings. He set out with them, and when they reached the river—he didn't know which river it was—he thought of his mother, Huangfu, and called out, "Mother." Huangfu, who was walking among the servants, suddenly turned around, and a blue face startled him awake. He opened his eyes and saw himself standing on the riverbank.

After this incident, Meng Tie did not return home but instead went to the academy on Shisun Street to seek out his teacher. Juren Li offered to escort him home, but Meng Tie refused, even at the cost of his life. Meng Tie returned with his teacher to Longshan County, Lingzhou. By the time he took the provincial examination in the fifth year of the Yuanyou era, he had memorized both the Great Classics and the Middle Classics by heart. If he had only been tested on the interpretation of the classics, with candidates choosing based on their understanding of the principles and principles, he would have surely passed after four exams. However, Meng Tie was tested on both the interpretation of the classics and poetry and prose, and if he failed the poetry and prose, he failed. Years later, in Luoyang, Meng Tie told fellow villagers that all the classics he could recite then and later counted as classics for the purposes of the imperial examination. In terms of classics, literature, and current affairs, the literature of the Yuanyou era was not yet the same as that of later times. While it was more refined and practical than that of the Taizong era, it also lacked the same general structure. Compared to the literature of the Yizhou School, the literature of that era was less forthright and practical. And regardless of current affairs then or later, anything that made it onto the examination paper was not truly current affairs. The people of Shu were not well-versed in the true and false aspects of current affairs. With this realization, Meng Tie applied for the examination again in the year Jichou of the Daguan reign, only taking the sutra interpretation test. After the state examination, he took the provincial examination, arriving in the capital in the early years of the Chongning reign. Before Meng Tie left for Beijing, Li Juren warned him: "You may be a man of good principles, but you are also bold and reckless. When you arrive in the capital, don't be as eccentric and strange as the ancestor." Meng Tie didn't understand what Li Juren meant. He had only the reverence for the ancestor, Long Changqi, like the Buddha. Long Changqi had once been ordered by Emperor Renzong to compose sutra interpretations with imperially granted writings—thus, in Shu, and especially in Lingzhou, Long Changqi was a unique figure. Furthermore, Meng Tie believed that according to the rules of "direct appointment after the palace examination" and "ranking only, with no demotion," simply taking the examination would secure a position, and even a small position would provide him with a stable life.

"As long as I have some achievements, I won't have failed my master." He arrived in the capital with this thought in mind, only to learn that the palace examination would not test classics or poetry, but rather policy writing and government affairs. The so-called "ranking only, no rejection" wasn't realistic; not being ranked was equivalent to being rejected, though rejected candidates never spoke of it. Upon arriving in the capital, Meng Tie failed to enroll in the Imperial College and lived in the streets and alleys with a group of unsuccessful students, studying on his own while awaiting the examination. During this time, he befriended classmates from Zhejiang, Shaanxi, Jiangsu, Hebei, and Taiyuan Prefecture. The classmates would gather in groups of two or three, or occasionally as many as twenty, for outings to the countryside. One time, they went to a teahouse near Wanshou Temple to escape the summer heat, and Meng Tie treated them to a meal. Over tea, the classmates sat in groups of three or five, refusing to speak to anyone else. Someone started the conversation, asking a student from Jingzhao to tell a joke first. The students followed suit, and Meng Tie's story was about Zhang Gongyou. After Meng Tie finished, the students fell silent for a moment, and a student from Pingjiang muttered, their dialect incomprehensible. Student Taiyuan asked, "Are you a disciple of Mr. Wuling?"

Meng Tie said: "I dare not, that is my master's master."

Pingjiang said, "It's the one who was impeached."

The Taiyuan student said to the Pingjiang student, "Liu Chang, the Imperial Edict Master, and Ouyang Xiu both denounced him as absurd. Ouyang Xiu said he was a heretic who was harming the Dao."

Student Pingjiang asked, "But the one who falsely claimed that Duke Zhou and Jin Teng's request was a fraud?"

Taiyuan's classmate said, "Yes, he likes to criticize the ancient Confucian scholars, is bold in speaking, understands the classics, understands the River Chart and the Book of Changes, and perhaps also understands Yin and Yang and the Eight Trigrams. Fan Yong likes him."

The two men talked for a while, seemingly ignoring Meng Tie's lack of hearing. Then everyone began to criticize the poem, doubting the ancients even more than Long Changqi, and without providing any evidence. As for modern figures, whether Wang Anshi or Sima Guang, they were all blindly praised.

Years later, Meng Tie told fellow villagers in Luoyang that he hadn't felt comfortable since then, let alone when it came to taking the exam. Without a good score on the exam, he couldn't stay in the capital, and couldn't seek employment elsewhere. If he returned home, hoping to secure a public office based on his provincial exam ranking, he would have to ask his brother Meng Xian for money to help him. Unable to escape the humiliation, he came to Luoyang. It was somewhere in Luoyang that he heard a storyteller say, "People in Shu know the mountains are high, but not the sky; they know the roads are long, but not the earth's depth." This made him realize the shortcomings of Yizhou learning. But think about it the other way around: the sky is high, but have you ever truly measured it?

When Meng Tie first arrived in Luoyang, he worked as a helper in a mutton shop. Every day, he cooked ginger and garlic, mixed mustard water, and fried cornel oil. Some customers initially disliked the dish, but later developed a fondness for it. As long as the dipping sauce was flavorful enough, stewed mutton head was always delicious. Some people disliked it because it was too strong, but once they liked it, they would definitely come back for more. According to Meng Tie's grandson, Meng Quan, a chef, Meng Tie was selected by the maid Wang and the eunuch Qin to join the East Corridor (the imperial kitchen). Initially, he was not a chef, but only responsible for buying groceries. One night, Meng Tie roasted mutton and served it to the concubine Huang, who praised it greatly. The Guanglu Temple doctor then transferred Meng Tie to the Imperial Household Department. At this time, Meng Tie was only responsible for making pickles and meat sauces, still not qualified to cook, and occasionally roasted mutton for Huang.

Meng Quan reported that during the summer of the third year of the Xuanhe reign, Meng Tie repeatedly brought roasted mutton to Huang at night for about twenty days. The following spring, Huang gave birth to a princess. Meng Quan suggested that Huizong had tasted the roasted mutton prepared by his great-grandfather Meng Tie, suggesting that perhaps it was Huizong, not Huang, who enjoyed it.

I asked, "Then why didn't Huizong transfer Meng Tie to the imperial kitchen?"

Meng Quan said, "Emperor Huizong sometimes ate only refined vegetarian dishes. Sometimes he ate snails, clams, shrimp, mandarin fish, Nanhai jade branches, aventurine jade core, and seafood. He only ate roasted lamb at Huang's house."

Meng Quan added, "Whether he liked roasted mutton or not, who knows? Why did he worship Taoism, why did he build Wansui Mountain, why did he ally with the Jin Kingdom, and why did he leave Kaifeng to meet with the Jin people - who knows? I only know that people talk about Huizong, using his poor virtue as a metaphor for his lack of virtue. But they don't know why he built Wansui Mountain, and just like me, they don't know whether he liked roasted mutton or not."

In short, one thing is certain: in the year of the Guimao reign of the Xuanhe reign, the Guanglu Temple's chief clerk reported Meng Tie for violating palace rules, and Meng Tie was executed. Meng Quan claimed that the cause of Meng Tie's death was adultery with a palace maid, adding that Meng Tie died in the fifth year of the Xuanhe reign, avoiding the destruction of the imperial city and thus dying at the right time.

I asked, "Since Meng Tie had already made a mistake, why did you end up working as a cook in the palace?"

Meng Quan smiled and said, "I also use ginger and garlic to make dipping sauce."

This was Meng Tie's son, Meng Quan. He resembled a rhinoceros, a chiwen capable of breaking off the palace's roof, yet he loved to flatter and molest women. From what I've heard, Meng Quan often imitating the barking of foxes and dogs from behind the east corridor would steal goose livers, egg yolks, fine wine, and other ingredients at night to send to the various imperial servants and maids. Although Meng Tie was executed for adultery with a palace maid, Meng Quan remained undeterred by the palace's restrictions. He used his daily duties to socialize with the attendants, and whenever asked about his intentions, he would claim nothing had happened. Sometimes, when he met acquaintances who knew about the situation, he would simply claim it was all known, and there was nothing more to say.

He hadn't earned his job as a handyman in the Minced Meat Bureau by virtue of his skill in making vinegar sauce. If he were ever punished, foie gras and egg yolks wouldn't be the culprit. The Minced Meat Bureau's annual supply of vinegar sauce reached a hundred kilograms, but only a few bowls made it into the palace. The ingredients and flavor of the vinegar sauce, like the expressions and private concerns of the concubines, were of no importance to the inner court and the forbidden palace.