Chapter 210 Chapter 210 Update.
Jin's pair of grandchildren, one named Du Ziteng and the other Du Efei, were delicate and dainty, and could already sit and crawl, and were at the toddler age.
Jin dressed them in plump cotton-padded clothes, held them one on each side, and walked them on the flat ground in the alley at the door, shaking the rattle in her hand to guide them.
The neighbors in Mulberry Alley admired the children and clapped their hands to entertain them.
"Ziteng, Efei, come to Aunt Liu!"
"Rattle, fun rattle!"
Zi Teng was a lazy brother. He fell after taking a few steps and simply sat on the ground without moving. E Fei was smart and knew to hold on to the wall. She walked steadily to Jin and took the rattle to play with it.
"The car is coming. Whose car is coming?"
After hearing what the nuns said, she cleverly turned around and pointed at the carriage entering the alley and said:
"Car, car!"
Zi Teng also turned his head and saw the carriage, he was extremely excited, stood up and clapped his hands, saying:
"Car, car! Mama!"
Jin also looked at it. The carriage looked unfamiliar and she had no idea whose it belonged to. When it approached, a matchmaker dressed in gold and silver got out and asked them:
"Is the wife of this family surnamed Tian?"
"Yes, you are here to arrange a marriage? Her family has a daughter who is about to get married, and she is also a food official. Which family do you want to arrange a marriage for?"
"It's General Zuo's marriage."
As they were talking, they knocked on the door. Jindou opened the door, asked about their background, and told it to Tian. Then Tian spoke loudly and invited the person in. Then she closed the door, and they could no longer see him.
"General Zuo?"
Aunt Liu didn't understand this, but fortunately Aunt Qiu was here and said:
"The Left General is Guanglu Xun, a meritorious official who conquered the Xiongnu. He was given the title of Left General upon his return. In terms of rank, the four generals, Front, Rear, Left, and Right, all have a rank of 2,000 stones, which is a high-ranking official in the imperial court!"
"It's him. I knew it was him when you said it was him. That day, the Han army came back from a victorious battle, and I went to watch the excitement. The one in the lead was riding a tall horse and wearing a black armor. He looked very majestic. Many girls on the street were crowding to see him!" Liu Laogu slapped her thigh and said.
"It's him."
Jin also remembered that this now famous General Zuo had once worked as a farmer near his hometown. It was said that he was strong enough to lift a tripod and was stronger than all the strongmen near and far. No wonder he was now able to conquer the Xiongnu. Now, seeing the matchmaker coming to propose marriage to General Zuo, she thought:
In terms of distance, my family is also from Lingshui County, and I met him before. My second daughter is still several years younger than him, so why doesn't she come to talk about my family's relationship?
"Oh, I'm afraid that General Zuo has already set his sights on Xu Niang, otherwise he wouldn't have sent a golden plaque to Ping'an Restaurant, letting the outside world spread that he is the backer of Ping'an Restaurant." said Aunt Qiu.
When this was mentioned, Jin recalled that in the past, Mr. Tian had bought steamed buns made from small trotters. When he hunted pigs on a snowy day, he chose to distribute the pork to the villagers from the second house next door. The family that contributed firewood to boil water could also get a share of the pork even if they did not contribute any labor. After figuring it out, she muttered:
"I was wondering why you went to her house instead of mine."
She was filled with jealousy. How could such a person become her, Tian Guinv's, son-in-law?
The girls chattered for a while outside when they heard the door open. It was Jindou who brought the matchmaker out. Jin asked:
"I heard that this General Zuo has a higher rank than the Li family's former official. Could he also be talking about concubines?"
"Madam, your words are not pleasant to hear. If you are engaged, you become a wife, but if you run away, you become a concubine. Who says a concubine needs a matchmaker? This is of course a formal marriage, so they sent me here to act as a matchmaker."
After the matchmaker finished speaking, the girl watching the excitement at the door also said:
"When the Li family incident became such a big deal, everyone knew that Xu Niang would not marry someone else. Now that she is an official, who would bother her with this trouble?"
Jin was choked by their words and pretended to lower her head to comfort the child for a while. After the matchmaker left, they were still talking non-stop, saying how good this marriage was, the man was talented and the woman was beautiful, and they had mutual affection. Jin listened sourly and said:
"Don't get too excited. Think about my eldest niece. She's so focused on being her food official that she hasn't even visited him all year. Even if a god descended from heaven, I'm afraid he wouldn't be as interested in her as being an official."
Jin said that she was not making this up. Even her second daughter had learned this bad example. She always said she didn't want to get married and always had wild ideas about becoming a female official.
Jin was naturally looking forward to it, thinking that her daughter Tian Guinu had become an official, which was obviously higher than the official rank of 600 shi, and several ranks higher than her son-in-law Du Xian. Every day, there was an old coachman from the Shaofu to pick her up and drop her off at work. Seeing this, she was jealous and said to her second daughter Ji Zhi several times:
"Forget about being an official. If you can really enter the Shangfang Bureau and become a craftsman with an official salary, I will thank the gods for their blessing."
Now, Jin said:
"If my niece doesn't agree, I'm afraid it will be difficult."
"Yes, I still don't know what Xu Niang's idea is?"
Aunt Liu said that they had all seen Xu Niang's stubbornness. Normally, when the Li family said that taking her as a concubine would have been a very good destination for an ordinary family, but Xu Niang was put in such a difficult situation and refused to give in.
Jin regretted it so much. If she had known that Mr. Tian would become the Left General today, she should have been nice to him and given him two steamed buns. In this way, she and he would have become old friends.
Even if I can't establish a relationship with him, I can still ask him for help. In the eyes of a Zhongchao official like him, getting his daughter a job as an official craftsman and his son-in-law a promotion is just a matter of moving his mouth and snapping his fingernails. The more he thinks about it, the more he regrets it.
Naturally, she hoped that Ji Xu would not nod, otherwise her sister-in-law would be even more proud.
"I agree to this marriage."
Tian was thinking about how to convince her daughter all day long. Unexpectedly, when her daughter came back, she agreed as soon as she asked her, as if she had expected it, and even arranged the day for the marriage proposal.
"Well, it's set for January 11th. I have a day off that day and won't be going out. Mother and the matchmaker said we'll meet at our house."
On the day of the betrothal ceremony, everyone in the alley came out to watch the excitement. There were four mounted officials leading the way, and behind them was a carriage with red reins, a black roof, and vermilion lacquered carved wheels. As Sangshu Alley was narrow and long, the carriage could not turn around. The carriage came in from the North Street of Jiaomen City, making the old alley seem more noble.
Following the carriage were servants with red cloth tied around their waists, carrying gifts from the man's family. They saw a pair of wild geese, a pair of lambs, a pair of deer, two stones of gold lacquer, two stones of fish bladder glue, and so on.
The main features are the loyalty and sincerity of wild geese, the auspicious pairs, and the inseparable good meanings, as well as various fine wines that are not available on the market and may be gifts from the emperor.
"This is just a betrothal ceremony. If you don't know, you might think it's a betrothal proposal."
Everyone who saw this along the way was amazed. The carriage stopped at the door of the Tian family, and the person who got off was eight and a half feet tall, handsome, and imposing. The people here had seen the Han army returning to the court on the street, and they all had a deep impression and could recognize him.
The person who was helped down from the rear carriage by servants was an old man with white beard and a cane in his hand.
"I heard that General Zuo's parents are both deceased. This must be some elder from the Qingzhou clan."
Some people in the crowd said that these things about Zhuang Gaiyi's life, as he was becoming more and more famous, naturally became the topic of their conversation after dinner.
This was the first time that Zhuang Gaiyi had come here. After entering the threshold, there were two neatly tended vegetable plots beside the courtyard wall. Going inside, there were mulberry trees, swings, black cats and starlings. There were five large vats in the yard, which must be where she was making some kind of slurry. There was also a row of unknown small flowers planted in the corner of the wall.
Tian and the old man from his clan exchanged greetings, and the old man said:
"I heard that Madam Tian has a daughter who is gentle, intelligent, kind, forgiving, and prudent. I have prepared a small gift and come to ask for your hand in marriage."
Just as a man's family looks at a woman, a woman's family naturally looks at a man. Tian sized up General Zuo. He was tall and graceful, with a handsome and imposing appearance. He came to see her today in his casual attire with a wide belt. He looked less fierce and aggressive than when he returned from the battlefield. However, his aura was still naturally cold and intimidating. He didn't seem like someone who was easy to chat with or laugh with. Tian asked:
"I heard you were wounded by an arrow. Where is the wound? Is it better now?"
"I thank my aunt for her care. My injury was on my right shoulder, but it's much better now."
Later, when he was drinking tea, he held the teacup with his right hand. Seeing this, Tian felt relieved. She was also afraid that he would suffer from a lifelong disability and ruin his daughter.
During the conversation, she also found out clearly that this Left General also had a title, Marquis of Muping, which was the highest rank among the twenty military ranks and an aristocratic title that could be inherited. It was the title bestowed upon his ancestors during the time of Emperor Gaozu. Although many counties and towns were cut off due to the early years of the robbery, and only 500 households were left in the end, what the Tian family valued was that the title could protect their descendants and exempt them from military service. Moreover, as he won battles again and again, the scope of his fiefdom was increased to 10,000 households, which was much larger than the entire Lingshui County where she was from!
To be honest, it was only because his daughter was an official that a commoner would have to kneel down to pay homage to a noble. But when Tian saw that he bowed to her and performed the etiquette of a junior, she became more optimistic about him.
Later, I heard from an elder in the clan that Nacai had hunted all the geese, sheep, and deer he had presented to the emperor, all of which he had already hunted before he left for the war. At the time, he had been accompanying the emperor on a hunt at his own palace, and while others sought to gain prestige by hunting tigers, leopards, bears, and other animals, he was the most skilled hunter of wild beasts among the accompanying officials. Instead, he focused on hunting these animals and kept them at home, where he still lives today.
Knowing that he had been concerned about this matter for a long time, Tian had no choice.
In the kitchen, except for Candou who was in Ping'an Restaurant, the other three Dou were all watching secretly. They were all curious about what their future son-in-law looked like. Tian had instructed them a few days ago to dress neatly and decently and not to run around, as it would be impolite in front of the guests.
Feng and Zhu, who had also heard these words, were now staying in the west wing, and were also peeping out through the cracks in the window. Ji Zhu said:
"It's that Mr. Tian! I wonder if he will be as bad as before and bully my sister."
I don’t know why, maybe it was because Jizhu still remembered the scene when he whipped someone when he was a child, and the military man had a strong aura, so Jizhu still felt nervous when she saw him.
She is ten years old now and has finished elementary school. With the introduction of Master Fan, she followed a teacher to study medicine. However, she is not sure whether it is because she did not have enough nourishment in the womb or did not eat good food when she was a child, but she has always been thin and small.
Tian cooked goat's milk for her every day, but she still didn't look tall, a head shorter than her peers. People who first saw her thought she was only seven or eight years old, and now she has to stand on tiptoe to reach the window.
Ji Feng had grown taller and taller, and had put on the nice clothes newly made by Tian Shi in the morning. She had been amazed by the wild geese, sheep, and deer in the yard, and when she heard this, she said:
"If he dares to bully my sister, I'll beat him up with a big stick."
Tian invited the guest to sit on the couch, said a few words, and asked Jindou to call the young lady out of the room.
According to Ji Xu's idea, she should just wait outside, but Tian insisted on imitating the style of those rich families, burning incense and arranging flowers in the main hall, and ordered her to wait inside with dignity. This was all taught to her by Qiu Gu.
When Jindou came to call her, Ji Xu went out. She had a sad brow, powdered face, and her hair was as silky as silk, combed into a bun. She was wearing a Xiangfei-colored skirt, which made her look like a lotus in clear water.
In fact, she already knew what was going on. This was just a formality. She glanced at him, sat down and had some tea. She felt Tian pinch her, so she went back to her room on her own initiative. Later, the elders naturally exchanged their birth dates, reported to the ancestors of both families, and asked for divination.
If nothing unexpected happens, she will get married.
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