Chapter 204 Chapter 204 Update.
Speaking of Ji Xu, the nearby nuns all asked about Tian Shi:
"Auntie Tian, your mother Xu has celebrated the New Year, but she is already nineteen?"
"She's the same age as Si Niang from the Yangcheng family. Have you told her anything? As a mother, how come you don't worry about this at all?"
"As the saying goes, a woman can have children at the age of 27 and a man at the age of 28. Your daughter is 19 years old. If she hasn't found a husband yet, it's a bit too late."
The current trend is to marry early. The saying this girl said should have come from the Suwen chapter of the Yellow Emperor's Classic of Internal Medicine, which states: When a woman is 27 years old, the Tiangui arrives, the Ren meridian is open, the Taichong meridian is strong, and menstruation comes on time, so she can have children.
It also says: When a man is 28, his kidney qi is strong, Tiangui arrives, his essence and qi overflow, yin and yang are in harmony, so he can have children.
Girls at the age of fourteen and boys at the age of sixteen are already old enough to have children, which shows that the age for marriage and childbearing at that time is still relatively young.
However, there are still a few girls who get married at the age of fourteen or younger. There is also a saying that if a woman marries too early, the woman and her husband will not know how to be parents, and if they have children, it is easy for them to fail to educate them and raise them well.
Therefore, women would usually arrange their marriage in the boudoir and wait until they reached the age of 15 before getting married. It was common for women to get married when they were over 15 years old.
How could Tian not care about her daughter's marriage? After the age of 15, a girl is of marriageable age. The year they first arrived in Chang'an, many families heard that her daughter was good-looking, gentle, and skilled, so they asked matchmakers to come and arrange a marriage for her.
But they were all peddlers and butchers from the market, and at most were merchants from relatively wealthy families.
The eldest daughter of her sister-in-law Jin married a man who worked as a market official. He had two rooms and a horse next door. Tian was still renting someone else's warehouse at the time and was somewhat jealous.
Therefore, he also wanted to find a husband for his daughter who was an official, so he refused the matchmaker who came to his house on the grounds that he wanted his daughter to stay at home for another one or two years.
Later, he became friends with Xiaoyao's biological mother, Song, and asked her to keep an eye out for eligible young men from good families in Maoling County and introduce them to her daughter.
At that time, Ji Xu was still a rich girl who worked as a chef for other people. Later, she opened Ping'an Restaurant in Gao City. Because her business grew big and it was her own shop, she had to register as a city citizen.
However, like many Chang'an merchants, her family also selected reliable retainers to obtain citizenship. Her family also issued a gold bean indenture to free her from slavery and allow her to become a citizen of the city. The annual taxes were still paid by her family.
People with city status cannot become officials. Although they are not as good as civilians, they are more respectable than slaves. In other words, if things don't go well in the future, they have the right to come and go freely. Jindou is also proud and feels that she is being relied upon. Her monthly salary is also the highest in this family.
Because Ping'an Restaurant had the city registration of Jindou, it was able to continue to operate. This was a common thing, and it was done by the briber Zhang Er.
This is where the embarrassment lies. Although Ji Xu was not a city citizen, he actually did business as a businessman. No matter how famous he was, he was just a city chef and the noble families would look down on him.
Song acted as a matchmaker twice.
One family was a minor official who sold salt. Traditionally, salt merchants were not allowed to become officials. This was especially strict in the early Western Han Dynasty. However, later, when the salt and iron industries were state-run, the salt sellers in the shops were also replaced by minor officials. Moreover, there were many minor officials in various government offices, and they were diverse, including some merchants.
There was another family whose husband had a title, a fifth-rank official, but it was bought. At that time, there was an order to sell the title, especially when the finances were tight or when soldiers needed to be recruited, then orders to sell the title would be issued in various places.
At that time, the Huns were invading the border of Youzhou, so there was an order to sell the title. The family sent slaves to fight on the border and donated a sum of military funds, and obtained the title of Wu Dafu.
Although it is a small title, at least it can "revive" a person.
To be reinstated means to be exempted from military service and labor service. Don't underestimate this effect. At this time, men have to serve from the age of seventeen, and may do military service or labor service until they are fifty or sixty years old. If they don't want to go, they have to pay to buy service, and the money is not cheap.
Therefore, buying a title could give one the right to be exempted from military service, so many wealthy merchants would still buy it.
Song's husband's family made their fortune by trading salt, and they also bought titles, but they were not officials in the court. For them to be able to arrange these two families, they were considered to be pretty good families.
At least one of the men’s family members was a salt official, a minor official; the other was a fifth-rank official, a minor noble.
Even if they were of humble status, they were all restored to their former selves, so they did not have to worry about their husbands having to serve in the military after marriage. Moreover, they were all good-looking and innocent women who had never taken concubines.
With her acting as a bridge, both families sent matchmakers to propose marriage. Asking a matchmaker to come to one's home to propose marriage is called "jie".
Tian was interested in the family with the title of Five Great Officials. Later, she gave her daughter's birth date and horoscope to the boy's family, who then asked a wizard to ask for her name and divination, which was also a necessary step in concluding a good marriage.
Through divination, they checked whether this marriage was auspicious, but unexpectedly it turned out to be extremely unlucky, so the marriage could not be held.
Tian then thought that the salt official's family was not bad. She wanted to make a small fortune by losing a watermelon. However, the fortune-telling of the salt official's family also showed a bad omen, and there was no news from this family anymore.
This made Tian very angry, and she cursed the two families at home:
"Why hire any random person to tell your fortune? You should hire Taoist nun Ma from Baqiao. Her predictions are accurate!"
However, it wasn't long before her family offended the Li family because she refused to be the concubine, and everyone avoided her. Naturally, no one was interested in her daughter's marriage, as no one wanted to take on the trouble.
At this time, when talking about Ji Xu's marriage, some neighbors still remembered those two families and said:
"I saw a matchmaker come to your house more than half a year ago. I even asked and was told it was from the Fifth Master's family. Why didn't it work out?"
After hearing what others said, Tian was still angry. She did not say that it was a bad omen from the divination, but said stubbornly:
"That family is unlucky. My daughter is now an official with a bronze seal and a yellow ribbon. If she wants something better, she can do that."
"It's better to get married early. If you waste your youth, you will only be able to marry an older man in the future instead of a handsome man."
A nun living nearby said something that really touched Tian's heart. It was indeed a bit late for her to have not yet decided on a man at the age of nineteen.
When people asked Jin about her daughter, she said with a bright face:
"My eldest daughter is pregnant and about to give birth."
"You are so lucky! You will be able to become a grandmother this year!"
"Yes, even though my second daughter is only sixteen, I'm slowly looking for a partner for her. If she waits until she's eighteen or nineteen, it would be a sign of a mother's indifference."
Jin was also happy when she heard this, but when she said the last sentence, she glanced at Tian and saw that her face had turned pale, not as bright and energetic as hers at all.
After the banquet, Tian was still thinking about this matter. The next morning, when she was about to look for a matchmaker to come home, unexpectedly, matchmakers came to her house one after another.
"Mrs. Tian, Mrs. Tian, congratulations to you, congratulations to you!"
One of the matchmakers was wearing a big red silk flower in her hair, smiling happily, and came up to Tian.
"Matchmaker, tell me, where does the happiness come from?"
Tian Dou, who was beside Tian, asked first.
"Your daughter was just promoted to the rank of Tang Guancheng, a position equal to six hundred dan yesterday, and you didn't even know about it?"
After hearing what matchmaker Cai said, Tian's face lit up and she said:
"My daughter has always been quiet. That's just her nature. She's very stable."
"Yes, we matchmakers all know that Madam Tian has a smart and gentle daughter who is an official. In just six months, she has been promoted several levels. Many men in official positions have not been promoted as fast as her."
Tian was flattered to the point of being completely lost in thought. The matchmaker took a sip of the tea Tiandou brought and continued:
"I have a marriage proposal that will bring double joy to your family. The man's family is a wealthy family with three million in wealth who moved to Maoling a long time ago. Their life is just as good as yours!
He also inherited his ancestor's military rank of Seventh Great Officer, thus being able to be exempted from military service. His son, now twenty years old, has been well-versed in classics since childhood, studied at the Imperial Academy, and later learned medicine. He now serves as a physician in the Imperial Medical Bureau, and he and your daughter both hold the position of Minister of the Imperial Household! This is truly a match made in heaven."
If Tian agreed to the matchmaker's marriage, she would have to give the matchmaker a gift of money.
When the man's family receives the good news from the matchmaker, they will send someone, usually an elder, with gifts to meet the woman's family to see if the girl's appearance is decent and whether she is as the matchmaker or outsiders say. This is also called "Nacai".
Last year, the salt official and the five-rank official families arranged by Tian both carried their daughters on their backs.
Her daughter was devoted to cooking and refused to cooperate with her, so she came up with an idea. She asked the two families to wait on the Weishui Bridge one after another. When her daughter returned home, she would ride past there on horseback, and Tian would wait there to welcome her when she dismounted. Then the two families could see her from a distance, watch her walk, and see her appearance.
Tian was very confident about these things. Her daughter's appearance was naturally impeccable. She would even ride a horse instead of a sedan chair when going out. Neither family was concerned about such red tape, so they were very satisfied with Ji Xu.
After they were satisfied with the look, they went to ask for divination, that is, they took the woman's name and birth date to have divination to see if it was auspicious or not. Unexpectedly, things went wrong at this step one after another.
"There are so many beautiful girls in the neighborhood who want to marry him. I finally found his matchmaker, so naturally I'm thinking of you, Madam."
The matchmaker said,
"Mrs. Tian, you must make a decision early!"
With double happiness coming together, Tian was so excited that she almost agreed.
After some thought:
This family is not like the one introduced by Miss Song, who knows me well. I can't just agree blindly and invite them to come and see me. What if it turns out not to be good? Wouldn't that ruin my daughter's life?
Yin said:
"Well, let me think about it and get back to you another day."
When the matchmaker left, he told her not to delay this good marriage. Tian originally wanted to go to Maoling County to ask Song about this family, but then she thought it would be okay to ask Qiu Gu nearby, so she went to her house. Her son Wang'er was studying at the door, and his handwriting was better than before.
Qiugu was winding thread around the window in the room, and Tianshi came to help her. When she mentioned the marriage, Qiugu shook her head and said:
"What does 'dai zao' mean? It means waiting for an imperial order. The one in his family can only be considered a temporary imperial physician, not yet an official one, so he's called 'dai zao'.
Your official rank is not even a little bit lower than that of Xu Niang now. You just said what your surname is, Fang? Is there a military rank of seven doctors in your family?
No, no, his family was indeed a wealthy family with three million when they first moved to Maoling. Unfortunately, their descendants were not up to standard and squandered the family fortune. Now they are in dire straits. I'm afraid they saw that your Ping'an Restaurant was doing well and Xu Niang was the official in charge of Tang, so they were planning to help his family prosper! "
Tian couldn't help but curse after hearing this:
"Matchmaker Cai is so good! He talked so much that he almost fooled me. Fortunately, we have Qiu Gu here, a know-it-all."
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