Chapter 4: Dai Bo's Envoys Visited Again and Again...
Fu Li leaned against the door frame, looking at her master worriedly. Every time Dai Bo sent someone, Hua Jing would be unhappy for several days.
When the messenger came out, he saw a girl in her early teens holding the door and looking in, and he couldn't help but take a second look. Fu Li nodded to him, maintaining a polite attitude, but that was all she was.
But the messenger obviously knew her identity, so he stopped and bowed to Fu Li before leaving again.
In this world mixed with mythology, the inheritance between master and apprentice is second only to the inheritance of blood.
Just like Fu Li was an orphan abandoned by her clan, but Hua Jing adopted her and formally took her in as a disciple. The entire Dai family recognized her identity, but it was not recorded in the family tree.
Of course, if Fu Li shows special value in the future and can bring enough benefits to Dai State, they will rush to record her in the family tree and invite her to serve as an official in the Dai State court.
If she showed enough value, Dai Bo would even give her a fiefdom.
This is similar to the history of the Shang Dynasty that Fu Li had learned in her previous life. Women could lead troops to fight, serve as officials in the court, and even receive titles and become monarchs with fiefdoms.
After everyone left, Fu Li immediately climbed over the high threshold, ran to Hua Jing, looked up and shouted, "Master, he's gone."
Hua Jing exhaled a breath of foul air and said firmly, "My brother won't give up." Then he couldn't help but shake his head and sigh, "The monarchs of Dai State are really getting worse with each generation."
Her father was unfaithful to the king. When the Han clan rebelled, he neither supported Yi Yin for the sake of Shang Tang's foundation, nor supported the Han clan for the sake of the exiled Taijia.
Now it is her brother's turn to succeed to the throne, but he is even more short-sighted and even covets the money she has left for ancestor worship.
Fu Li couldn't get involved in her family affairs, so she could only say firmly, "Master, I will always follow you. And Su Rong, Su Heng, Fu Yao, Fu Yue, and the others will all firmly follow in your footsteps."
Fuyao, Fuyue, Fushuang, and Fuguang were the four registered disciples accepted by Empress Huajing. They were all seven or eight years older than Fuli, and were descendants of retainers of the Dai family.
The entire family of the Dai Kingdom was exiled, and the parents of these four people were implicated and died tragically. Hua Jing decided to adopt them and let them take care of Fu Li and accompany her to study and play.
Hua Jing felt comforted by her sensible disciple, and the chill she felt towards her brother's incompetence and stupidity dissipated a lot.
She squatted down, holding her whisk, and gently touched Fu Li's twin buns. Her tone was gentle but firm: "Fu Li, your teacher does not ask you to be a great person, but only asks you to be an upright person and not let down the world and the people."
Although Fu Li didn't take it seriously, she knew that what her master taught her was exactly what was advocated in this era.
The master was teaching her the right path.
So, Fu Li nodded firmly and swore secretly in his heart: As long as my life is not in danger, I will do what my master says.
After all, in the education she received in her previous life, life is the most precious thing.
Hua Jing smiled with relief, and thinking of his deceased father, he couldn't help but sigh: "The history books will not record that my father was a wise ruler."
The historians of each country were sent from Boyi and recognized only the king as their sovereign. They would record the words and deeds of the kings and queens of each country truthfully.
The ancestor of the Dai Kingdom was a fence-sitter during the Han clan's rebellion, and the reputation he left in history books was even far less than that of the Han clan and other tribes that participated in the rebellion.
Because Yi Yin did exile King Taijia, the Han clan's rebellion was under the banner of restoring order for Taijia.
Even if Taijia did not pardon them after his return, their loyalty to Taijia would still be recorded in history books.
Moreover, Yi Yin had already passed away, and the reigning Wo Ding was trying to eliminate Yi Yin's influence in the court. After a few years, when Yi Yin's influence in the court completely faded, either Wo Ding or his successor would find an excuse to recall them.
It's not as if Dai Bo didn't understand this principle. It was precisely because he understood it that he dared to sit on the fence and wait and see. He simply didn't expect the rebellion to be quelled so quickly, leaving him no chance to speculate.
Hua Jing took Fu Li to burn incense to the emperors, empresses and ladies of all dynasties. He took her hand and went to the back hall where the books were stored to get a scroll of bamboo slips. They knelt together under the litchi tree to teach.
The bamboo slips in the library were all copied from the royal palace in Boyi by kings of successive dynasties. They include laws on herding people, commanding the army, controlling floods, and farming.
In addition to these practical classics, the royal capital Boyi would send a large number of poets to travel around the country every year to collect the local customs and habits, strange stories and events under the rule of the Shang Dynasty, and compile them into poems to present to the king.
The princes of various states would pay tribute every three or five years, depending on the distance between them. Every time they paid tribute, someone would copy the poems compiled over the past three to five years.
After returning to the fiefdom, the poems copied back from the royal capital would be copied twice again, one copy would be kept in the palace, one would be sent to the ancestral temple to worship the ancestors, and the other would be given to the king and the crown prince for daily reading and study.
The royal family of Dai was exiled for ten years. Although they had fiefdoms in a cold and remote place, they were not qualified to pay tribute because they were criminals.
The poems in Huanghuaguan were missing for a full ten years.
What Hua Jing taught her to read today was a scroll of books on farming and agriculture.
Because the royal family was exiled, Hua Jing was not sure when he would be pardoned. As early as the second year, he led Su Rong and Su Heng to increase revenue and reduce expenditure to ensure that they could offer sacrifices to their ancestors for a longer period of time.
They reclaimed wasteland in the relatively flat area near Huanghuaguan, planted hemp, mulberry trees, raised silkworms, and also planted drought-resistant corn.
In the first few years, they did not know how to process hemp, so they had to take the grown hemp down the mountain and ask the slaves who were good at weaving to help process it.
Later, he asked the slave to teach them. Hua Jing was clever and skillful, and learned it quickly. He then taught Surong and the others himself.
When Fuli was five or six years old, she began to learn silkworm rearing, silk reeling, and cloth weaving from Hua Jing.
Originally, she also wanted to learn how to process hemp, but Hua Jing felt that the hemp rope was rough and her hands were too tender and could easily get cut, so she refused to let her participate.
At first, Fu Li didn't care. She just thought that everyone was doing it, so she followed suit to make her master happy.
Later she learned that raising silkworms, reeling silk and weaving brocade were compulsory courses for aristocratic women in that era, and only aristocratic women had the opportunity to learn them.
Ordinary people mostly wore linen, while those with abundant wealth wore hemp cloth.
As early as the era of the Three Kings, Yao, Shun, and Yu, fine gauze was a tribute to the common ruler of mankind. After Yao chose Shun as his successor, he rewarded Shun with only one piece of fine gauze, which shows how precious it was at the time.
However, as productivity increased, more and more people were able to weave hemp cloth, and its value gradually decreased, but it was no longer affordable for poor people.
When Fu Li was picked up by Hua Jing, she was swaddled in fine gauze. So, just by looking at the fabric, Su Rong guessed that her family must have been well-off.
Hua Jing was frugal and diligent, and the women in Huanghua Temple were self-sufficient in food and clothing. The slaves at the foot of the mountain used their earnings from farming to offer sacrifices to their ancestors, and she never took advantage of them.
Even so, without the tax subsidies from the Dai Kingdom, Hua Jing and his eldest sister's dowries had already cost a lot over the past ten years.
Of course there are some left, but since Hua Jing has Fu Li as his personal disciple, he naturally has to leave some for her.
Otherwise, after a hundred years, Fu Li would have no money, and the Dai family would not treat her disciple well.
Judging from the character of the new Dai Bo, since he has set his sights on her dowry, he will probably not give up until he achieves his goal.
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As Hua Jing expected, five days later, the envoy from last time arrived again, accompanied by a little girl who looked about the same age as Fu Li.
The messenger brought the little girl to meet Hua Jing. The little girl called Hua Jing "Aunt", which made people take a second look at her.
The messenger smiled and said, "Yuan Jun, this is the eldest daughter of the King and Queen—Lady Ziyue. Lady Ziyue said that Yuan Jun is well-versed in poetry and literature, and would like you to help tutor the young lady for a few years."
He was afraid that Hua Jing would not agree, so he revealed another piece of news: Dai Bo intended to marry into the Xue Kingdom, and Zi Yue was the best candidate.
"Xue Guo?" Hua Jing couldn't help but sneer, "He really dares to think so."
Cheng Tang's conquest of the world and replacement of the Xia Dynasty as the new ruler of the world was inseparable from the assistance of two people.
The first one is naturally the famous Yi Yin, and the other is Zhong Kui, the former king of Xue State.
Unlike Yi Yin, who was born a slave, Zhongkui's Xue State existed as early as the beginning of the Xia Dynasty. Like the Shang State, it was an old aristocratic state.
Zhong Kui was the first Xia noble to surrender his entire nation to Shang Tang, a move of great significance. Furthermore, his own talents were exceptional. Not only did he formulate a grand strategy for pacifying the world for Shang Tang, but after the founding of the Shang Dynasty, he also wrote "Zhong Kui's Proclamation," laying the legal foundation for the Shang Dynasty to replace the Xia.
After Shang Tang became the common ruler of the world, he not only expanded the fiefdom of Xue State, but also appointed Zhongkui as the right prime minister, and ranked him with Yi Yin in the court, with equal status.
If Zhongkui had not died early, he would have definitely had a place among the ministers entrusted by Shang Tang to take care of his son.
Although Dai was a vassal of the royal family, its status was not comparable to that of Xue. The current monarch of Xue married the daughter of Shang Tang, the sister of Taijia. How could the crown prince marry a daughter of the royal family?
Zi Yue was a simple-minded man. When he heard this, his body stiffened and his face turned red and white. He was obviously indignant, but he forced himself not to say anything. It was obvious that his parents had warned him severely before he came here.
The messenger continued to smile as he explained, "Your Majesty naturally wouldn't dare dream of marrying your daughter to the Crown Prince of Xue. However, Your Majesty doesn't have many daughters of marriageable age. When your daughter marries, you will certainly choose a lady from the royal household as your bridegroom."
Hua Jing was stunned: "Brother actually let his eldest daughter be a concubine?"
Is he crazy to lower his own value like this?
"The elders in the office actually agreed?"
Even though the envoy had experienced countless embarrassing moments, he couldn't help but smile awkwardly after hearing this and said vaguely, "The king has his own plans for this matter."
He had his own plans, which meant he made the decision privately without consulting the elders in Dai Guogong's office.
She said that even if the Dai Kingdom was impoverished, the elders in the royal family still had to maintain their dignity. Anyone with any dignity would die to protest against the king's eldest daughter being married off as a concubine.
Hua Jing's face turned cold, and he said decisively: "Take Ziyue back. I dare not get involved in such a thing that insults our ancestors."
The messenger seemed to have anticipated this scene.
He did not try to persuade her any further. He simply bowed to Hua Jing and was about to take Ziyue away.
Obviously, he also disagreed with Dai Bo's plan.
Zi Yue breathed a sigh of relief, bowed with the envoy, glanced at Fu Li who was standing beside Hua Jing with her hands hanging down, and followed the envoy out.
Hua Jing sighed, "Although my father is unbearable, I still feel ashamed. I only hope that my brother will wake up soon and not let Ziyue be humiliated and our ancestors be dishonored."
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