Chapter 6 Meng Xian
Meng Tie died in the year of Guimao during the Xuanhe reign. Thirty-seven years had passed since he left the Meng family. Let's go back to those days. After Miss Bai's death, Meng Xian took charge of external affairs, leaving the Meng family's internal affairs in the hands of Liu Xiucai, the housekeeper. Liu Xiucai was the son of a prominent scholar from Shifang County, Hanzhou. His father, Liu Di, worked as a clerk in the government office and attended court trials. He was known as Liu Sili. Liu Di was adept at using etiquette and law to judge right and wrong and advise the county magistrate, and Liu Xiucai was equally adept. Upon his arrival at the Meng family, Liu Xiucai agreed to Meng Xian's proposal to establish a separate courtyard for the women. He said, "Husband and wife are the foundation of human relations. A wife is the head of the family; how dare I disrespect her?" Following the principle that "disharmony leads to failure," Liu Xiucai not only agreed to allow Meng Xian to establish a separate courtyard for his wives and concubines but also oversaw the opening of the gated courtyard. By this time, the Meng family's grounds covered seven mu (approximately 1,000 acres), four times larger than when Meng Yin was still alive and six times larger than when Meng Bao first arrived in Chengdu. After renovation and carving and painting, the Meng residence became a luxurious mansion that attracted the attention of the locals.
The locals said Meng Xian was incredibly bold, daring enough to purchase the courtyard of the wealthy Qi family in Jinmafang for four times the market price. He even spent over a thousand strings of cash on a single boat banquet at Jiangduchi. So, following the principle of "everything that rises must fall," the locals said the Meng family was about to fall, like a pod that has swelled to its limit, its surface glossy and shiny, a sign it's about to burst. Yet, everyone who had attended the banquets at Xueshe Mountain wished the Meng family would remain rich forever. They were officials, chief clerks, and county magistrates from Yizhou Prefecture and surrounding counties and towns. Some were in charge of official kilns and tributes, while others served in judicial and household affairs, participated in military affairs, selected personnel, and held staff positions. Every April, officials and dignitaries gathered at Xueshe Mountain for a banquet, where they could eat pearls from clams. The corners of the rice cakes were wrapped in gold and silver foil, and the soup was made from jade cabbage. Locals who had never been to a banquet at Xueshe Mountain asked if guests would be poisoned if they accidentally swallowed pearls or gold or silver foil. The answer was: No one who has been to Xueshe Mountain has been poisoned by gold and silver. However, there were always a few people absent from this banquet piled with gold and silver. They were the senior officials of Yizhou Prefecture, headed by the prefect.
The local officials and nobles never mentioned their chief, the prefect. Though they knew him personally, they could hardly discern his intentions. The prefect, arriving from the capital, was like a child born without an umbilical cord cut. He was not a native of Shu, not a member of the imperial family or a son of a high official, but an official of the imperial court, and he never brought his family with him. Each official had a role to play, but the prefect was not only the governor of Yizhou Prefecture but also the chief military commander of the prefecture. After the Jingde era, he often held several other positions. Furthermore, Chengdu Prefecture lacked a transportation bureau and the power of life and death to "act at one's own discretion." To the local officials and nobles, who had never been to the imperial court, the prefect's power was like that of the Shu emperor. They assumed: "With military power, you can exercise absolute authority over my territory." However, they never knew what the prefect and the magistrate were actually seeking. What they knew was this: For the emperors, represented by Emperor Renzong, the danger of Shu was greater than that of the entire nation. The Shu people's vast numbers could be converted into both financial resources and military strength for traitors. When the imperial guards plotted rebellion, the people of Beijing said, "Chengdu is worried about the garrison troops." Every Jiawu (1894-1895) war, slave laborers would revolt, and the Shu people were considered "foreigners," the very people who would bring about another Jiawu (1894-1895) rebellion.
The people of Shu also knew that there were traitors among them. A few local nobles had betrayed their thoughts and tempers to the imperial court. They not only characterized the people of Shu, but also frequently changed their characterizations—first, they said the people were chaotic, then they said Wang Jian and Meng Zhixiang were not from Shu, but were bandits occupying a local area. This statement was meant to excuse the people of Shu, but the purpose was to help the imperial court "rule Shu." The locals watched the imperial court from afar, only to know that the court officials' analysis of the governance of Shu was full of strange things, such as saying, "The rebellion in Shu was not caused by the people of Shu, but by ministers appointed by the court." It was as if your son came to my house, he would bring my son to rebel against you. Those old officials who had watched the imperial court from afar their entire lives said, "How can a domestic thief not be more difficult to guard against than an external thief? You treat it as your master, but it treats you as a thief with unrepentant intentions. Rather than a master, it is more like a powerful neighbor who has already ruled your family, but still argues about your family's property and bloodline."
However, from the time Zhang Fangping took office as Yizhou prefect in the Jiawu year of the Huangyou reign, to the time of Zhao Yan and Han Jiang during the Zhiping reign, and finally to Wu Fuzhong—all prefects had military or political achievements, all were benevolent, virtuous, and respectable men, and Chengdu residents had a weak sense of imperial power. It was only during the Xining and Yuanfeng reigns, and then to the time of Lü Gong's accession, that a series of measures made Chengdu residents realize that they had not yet fully understood the imperial court.
This series of measures began with the tea monopoly. At that time, Lü Gong hadn't arrived yet. When Emperor Shenzong of Liao conquered the Liao Dynasty, the tea monopoly was used to buy horses, and Li Qi came to buy horses. The original Tea and Horse Office was renamed the Duda Tizhu Tea and Horse Office. "Tea farmers were burdened by losses, merchants had low profits, vendors were few, and prefectures and counties were collecting taxes day by day"—a story that came later. Before the Duda Tizhu Tea and Horse Office trapped the tea farmers, Chengdu residents always pronounced "duda" (dou) as "dadu" (dou), referring to anyone entering or leaving the government office as "dadu." Someone reminded them that it was "duda." The locals then pronounced the "du" in Chengdu as "du" (dou) as in "quandu," and referred to those in the government office as "dudaduda." Later, Lü Gong arrived. Lü Gong explained that the word "du" should be pronounced "du," the "du" in Chengdu. Even "quandu" (quandu) would still be pronounced "du" (dou) in Chengdu.
Lü Gong was fond of fortification, and water control was a key priority. However, Chengdu was not flood-prone, so Lü Gong dug a stone canal to divert water from the Qingyuan River into the city from the northwest corner, providing drinking water and firefighting. This was considered one of Lü Gong's achievements. However, Chengdu had no shortage of drinking water, yet it still rained constantly. During the Shaosheng reign, the canal silted up. Prefect Wang Di inspected and repaired it, enabling it to drain floodwaters. The people were deeply grateful, and the canal became known as Wang Gong's, and his achievements were credited to him. The locals said Lü Gong should not care about the change of ownership of this achievement, as building the canal and diverting water was a minor matter, so minor that it hardly counted among Lü Gong's achievements. The locals remarked that Lü Gong had a sense of humor. Upon taking office, Lü Gong jokingly asked his subordinates, "The people of Ba worship ghosts, and the people of Shu revere immortals. Do you have any ghosts or immortals here?" Soon after, several of the Cao officials, chief clerks, county magistrates, and military officers who had attended the banquet at Xueshe Mountain resigned, just as they often did when a new prefect took office. Later appointments, however, were not made from the selection process or staff positions. In the year Jiwei of the Yuanfeng reign, the Meng family did not organize a banquet to celebrate the art of shooting at Mount Xue, and from that year onward, the banquet ceased forever. A descendant of an official who had visited Mount Xue, recounted that in the first year of the Yuanfeng reign, Lü Gong had visited Mount Xue. During the banquet, Lü Gong even asked Meng Xian about brocade weaving techniques, praising the Meng family's brocade as "the best in the world." Meng Xian was deeply honored, and upon his return, he hung a plaque reading "The Best in the World" above the signs of each brocade workshop. Encouraged by Lü Gong, Meng Xian and his weavers, following the dozens of varieties woven by Meng Baoshi, such as the "Panqiu," "Lantern," "Liuba Dayun," "Shizi Yunyan," and "Zhenhong Baihua," also created animal and bird designs. The patterns of Meng brocade evolved from conventional floral patterns and decorations to more specific bird and animal designs.
However, not long after, the looms of the seventeen brocade and silk mills came to an abrupt halt. Meng Xian walked into the Qingcheng County government office and confessed to the crimes of blatant bribery and bullying the market. Chengdu Prefecture, together with Qiongzhou Prefecture and Huaian Army, ordered all the halls, courtyards, shops, and halls of the Meng family to stop work immediately. The owners of the mills were detained pending trial, and the machinery was awaiting confiscation. The incident was very sudden, but there was a reason for it. The Meng family bribed officials. From Meng Bao to Meng Xian, there were at least hundreds of officials bribed by the Meng family. Whenever the officials of the government office went to study archery in the mountains, they would lead a donkey, and when they left, the donkey's back was full of goods. The Meng family controlled the production of the most difficult tribute goods - the brocade materials with the highest prices paid by the government, such as palace bedding, red brocade, and brocade for the jackets of seventh-rank officials. They also bribed officials to set prices twice as high as the market price and four times as high as the cost. Weavers suffered under this pressure. On the one hand, they had to endure the officials' price cuts, which were often reduced to less than half, and on the other hand, they were often unable to make payments on time. Their only profit was the remaining profit after the government purchased Meng's brocade at a high price. On the other hand, the silk and silk sold in the market were also unable to make a profit due to the Meng family's price pressure. As a result, "the weavers in western Sichuan suffered from the Meng family for a long time."
Besides brocade, there were also medicines. Weaving and silk producers, as well as drug dealers in Chengdu and Zizhou, silkworm farmers, and medicine merchants all wished the Meng family would have no descendants. Once, a silk producer named Mi wrote a letter in blood and sent it to the government. This letter was delivered to the secretary by a servant, and then to Lü Gong. After reading it, Lü Gong smelled the paper, said, "That's too much," and returned it to the secretary. Ten copies of this letter were posted on the notice wall, visible to everyone, including those who should and shouldn't have seen it. Chengdu Prefecture, Qiongzhou Prefecture, Huaian Army, and Qingcheng County united and issued dozens of documents demanding the confiscation of the looms used to commit Meng Xian's crimes and the release of the slave laborers who toiled day and night. However, due to the sheer number of his crimes, he had to be retried after the trial. After two or three trials, the Sili Court still did not sentence him. At this time, Meng Xian's concern was not serving his sentence and the confiscation of his property, but whether his beastly brocade would ever see the light of day. After being imprisoned, Meng Xian used hair and hay as warp and weft. While weaving, he pondered and muttered to himself, as if he was still trying to weave some patterns. His roommate said that he had been crazy for a long time. When he went to court for trial for the third time, the eighth-rank military officer was still in court, and the judge who came from the capital was still the spectator. Lu Gong was still unable to attend due to his busy official duties. There was a Taoist priest in black outside the hall. The Taoist priest stood outside the hall and looked at the hall, motionless like a pillar. Meng Xian confessed to his crimes again. After the trial, everyone dispersed. Meng Xian returned to the cell, only to realize that he still had not been sentenced this time. Two days later, the Taoist priest in black came to the prison, looked at Meng Xian, and asked, "Are you crazy?"
Meng Xian put down the handful of hair in his hand and said, "No."
The Taoist in black said, "You are crazy."
The locals said that Lü Gong was a calm and kind person. After Na Haohua was imprisoned, Lü Gong said calmly, "The annual tribute of brocade is paid in advance for silk, safflower, labor wages, and looms. The debts owed to the poor and the poor will not be met from now on." Lü Gong was not only calm but also pragmatic. So in the year of Guihai in the Yuanfeng period, Lü Gong made a statement to the imperial court, saying, "The annual tribute of brocade, silk, and gauze is 14,000 pieces, of which 730 are particularly difficult to produce. The total cost of the tribute is 2.7 million. Recruiting workers and registering them for the imperial court will cost 30,000 per year, and 80 people will be enough. This way, we won't have to worry about money and can obtain high-quality goods to pay tribute." He then built a brocade courtyard east of the government office.
The Jinyuan initially employed eighty artisans, all newly mastered military craftsmen who had mastered the art of weaving large materials with delicate techniques. The following year, after expansion, the number of artisans reached five hundred, and it's said they dyed ten thousand taels of silk annually. Hired workers filled the gap between the military craftsmen and earned wages, but their work schedules were limited, and latecomers incurred penalties. Thus, in every way, they truly labored tirelessly. Production at the Jinyuan was conducted with no regard for cost, and over time, these workers wove brocades like balls, lanterns, six-eight halberds, lions and clouds, and true red flowers. "True Red" was once known as Lü Gong brocade. The rest of the brocade for the imperial court had to be purchased from the market, and the prices offered to the weavers were no higher than during the Meng family's "bullying and monopolizing the market," because by then, Lü Gong had left office and taken up the "powerful position of Kaifeng Prefecture."
Meng Xian was also released from prison in the Guihai year of the Yuanfeng reign, reportedly on a special pardon. The reason for his pardon was his refusal to go to Jinyuan despite his guilt to organize the workers into shifts. Half of the workers at Jinyuan at the time were Meng's family weavers and flower weavers, yet they arrived at Jinyuan without any weaving skills. When they first started weaving transparent back weaving, a knowledgeable warehouse manager from the household department observed the work and said it was worse than that of a military craftsman. When they saw the finished pieces of Panqiu and Tianxiale, some farmers couldn't tell which was which. Officials believed the workers were deliberately slacking, and tried fines and deducting wages, but they still couldn't produce a good-looking piece. They later learned that workers, when weaving, didn't pick out the patterns, and those pulling the patterns didn't tie knots. Weaving a single piece of brocade required more than a dozen different steps. Experts say that to achieve the "Sumeru in a square inch," the more steps and the more complex the process, the finer the finished product. Brocade, which requires more than ten steps to weave, can be woven more quickly with more detailed divisions. The current situation is undoubtedly a sign of misplaced work. However, when it came to assigning tasks to people, no one with expertise could be found. The former head of the Meng family brocade courtyard or the flower painter was not willing to come because they were scolded by everyone because of the government office last year. The knowledgeable people in the imperial court were unhappy when they saw the brocade made by this amateur. If the Shu brocade was not good, the masters of Shu would lose face. So, Chengdu Prefecture joined forces with Qingcheng County and ordered Meng Xian to be the chief engineer of the brocade courtyard. After Meng Xian had been there for more than 20 days, the brocade courtyard had woven Liuba Dayun, Shizi Yunyan, and Zhenhong Baihua, and Meng Xian was put back in the cell. In the following months, he was like a sweet potato. He was picked up and gnawed by hungry people several times, and then thrown back into the pigpen. The Taoist in black came to see him again and asked, "Unfilial son, how can you give away your ancestors' things to them?"
Meng Xian smiled and held up the painting in his hand. It was a tiger, somewhat reminiscent of the brocade robes of foreigners, with an odd posture and uneven lines, not unlike a brocade pattern. The Taoist in black asked, "Did you go out just to paint this?"
Meng Xian said, "It's not that I want to paint it, it's that I want it to be painted into the world, and nothing can stop me."
The Chengdu government often sent Meng Xian to the Brocade Court to divide the work. Every time he was released from prison, Meng Xian would draw new patterns for the Taoist in Black. He had drawn a total of ten animals and gave them to the Taoist in Black, saying, "Take them and try to piece one together." The Taoist in Black took the pieces of paper, drew multiple copies of each, and pieced them together at random. After piecing them together hundreds of times, he found that no matter how he pieced them together, the same animal or bird looked different in different places, and the animals looked like they were fighting each other. And no matter how he pieced them together, the geese and cranes looked fierce, while the lions and tigers looked docile and cute. The Taoist in Black wove the patterns he had pieced together ten times into a sample brocade, and then came to Meng Xian's cell and said, "It's time for you to get out."
Upon hearing this, officials from Chengdu Prefecture and Qingcheng County were filled with worry, saying that if the corrupt and treacherous were not eradicated, the people would not have enough food to eat. When Lü Gong heard that the Taoist in black wanted to release Meng Xian from prison, he simply said calmly, "Release him."
After being released from prison, Meng Xian followed the black-robed Taoist to Lu Gong's residence. That day, with Lu Gong as witness, the Brocade Court offered 990,000 strings of cash and purchased ten of Meng Xian's brocade patterns, all paid in gold. After leaving Lu's residence, Meng Xian asked the black-robed Taoist what to do with the money. The black-robed Taoist replied, "Open a brocade market."
Meng Xian asked, "Are you one of Lu Gong's men?"
The black-robed Taoist said, "No." He added, "I am not from this world. I am currently serving under Lord Zhang. Lord Zhang and I are both from Mianzhu, Hanzhou. The Xining prince rebelled against the law, the Su family suffered, and Lord Xian (Yu Qun) was harmed by treacherous people. I observed a total eclipse of the moon tonight, its light completely lost. I knew that the rebels were committing crimes and that the country's politics were at stake, so I came down to the secular world to help them in this urgent situation."
The Taoist in black was about to leave. Meng Xian stopped him and said, "You can't leave. If you leave, Qingcheng County will arrest me again."
The Taoist in black said, "Don't forget, those 990,000 strings of cash were given to you by Mr. Zhang."
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