Ch26 - The Gathering

In the afternoon of the next day, Jing Shao sent his Wang Fei to Hui Wei Restaurant and asked Zhou Jin to take him to the monthly male wives’ gathering in the capital. Zhou Jin did not wear brightly colored clothing today, and his dark blue changpao made him appear much more settled.

“Elder Brother Zhou, I’ll be entrusting Jun Qing in your care.” Jing Shao cupped his hands in salute to Boss Zhou. 

“Don’t worry, Wang Ye.” Zhou Jin conducted himself in a very candid manner, and he was also older than all of them. After becoming familiar with him, even Mu Hanzhang followed along calling him Elder Brother Zhou.

Mu Hanzhang looked at Jing Shao, who was being as long-winded as if he were really entrusting a child to him, and smiled helplessly: “Wang Ye can be at ease when heading back, it’s not like I’ll get lost, right?”

Jing Shao scratched his head and mounted his horse. Most of the male wives attending the gathering in the capital were from high-ranking and distinguished families, but since Jun Qing was so intelligent, he shouldn’t suffer any grievances. Thus, feeling reassured, he left the carriage and Yunzhu behind, and riding Xiao Hei by himself to find his elder brother for tea.

The scenery in the south of the city is good. Many aristocratic families had gardens built here. The monthly gatherings are mostly in the Mo Garden of Duke Mao’s household. 

It is an unwritten rule for second sons and bastard sons to marry male wives, though not necessarily to always obey it. However, Duke Mao’s household has always established this as a family rule. Even if they didn’t like men, any bastard sons must marry a male wife. Therefore, the number of male wives in Duke Mao’s household is the largest among all the aristocratic families in the capital.

After entering Mo Garden, one could hear the sound of a Sizhu. After walking through the layer upon layers of ink bamboo, an expansive waterside pavilion appeared. There were tables and chairs placed on the pavilion as well as tea and refreshments. On the shore, there were women performing music, one zither and two bamboo pan pipes, the sounds faintly entering one’s ear, nothing more beautiful could be imagined.  

“This place is quite elegant.” Mu Hanzhang looked at the several people sitting quietly on the waterside Pavilion listening to the music. His original worry of a lively scene like when women came to visit each other’s homes did not appear. He could not help but feel relieved.　　

“Elder Brother Zhou is here.” Seeing Zhou Jin, several people got up in succession and politely cupped their hands in greeting.

“Who is this?” A man dressed in a light blue long gown who led the rest on the pavilion asked. He was about 25 or 26 years old, similar to Zhou Jin, his facial features were elegant, though having very deep lines between his eyebrows, likely caused by frequent frowning.

“This is the Cheng Wang Fei, Mu-Gongzi.” Zhou Jin introduced him to everyone with a smile. Males wives usually didn’t like other people to call them Fu Ren, or Young Mistress, so between them, they addressed each other as “Gongzi”.

“Greeting Wang Fei.” Hearing this, several people looked at each other, and came forth to make their salutations.

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Zhou Jing introduced them to Mu Hanzhang one by one. The leader, surname Lin, was the male wife of the second young master of the Marquis Ding of the South. The others were basically all wives of various court officials.

“How come the ones from Duke Mao’s household aren’t here?” Zhou Jing asked Lin-Gongzi.

“They and the gongzi of the Marquis of Yongchang’s household went to fight cocks in the back woods. We didn’t want to participate, so we stayed to listen to music here.” When Lin-Gongzi spoke, he involuntarily wrinkled his brow and looking rather worried.

“What’s wrong?” Seeing Lin-gongzi’s worried frown, Zhou Jing couldn’t help asking.

“The second young master insists on marrying the young lady from an official’s family as a secondary wife,” Zhang-gongzi, who was sitting at the side cracking melon seeds, said for him. “Elder Brother Lin’s life is already difficult, but marrying again, to a secondary wife of high birth… ai…”

Mu Hanzhang slowly tasted the tea and quietly listened to the few people talking to each other. These men all had gotten educated and their words were full of hidden meaning. In every case they would touch on a subject but not say too much, but with just a word or two, he could still tell that for most male wives, their lives at home were not very good. 

Their husbands were mostly bastard sons, and sometimes they were forced to marry their male wives. Moreover, few sons were raised to become male wives, and most of them did not know how to manage the household. Moreover, the concubines would be even more difficult to manage once they had sons. So if they did not have their husband’s favor, even if they could reach the point of treating each other with mutual respect as husband and wife, men who were trapped in the inner court would slowly have their will whittled away, and it would be very hard for them to get anything according to their own wishes.

“I heard that last month Cheng Wang requested an imperial decree to demote his secondary wife to a third rank concubine. How did Mu Gongzi manage to do that?” The talkative Zhang-gongzi suddenly steered the conversation to Mu Hanzhang.

“Everything was what Wang Ye wished to do.” Mu Hanzhang put down his tea cup and indifferently said, regarding his own family’s matters, he wasn’t planning to say too much.

“You rascal, why are you acting like a woman now? Always prying into the matters of other heads of households.” Zhou Jing gave Zhang-gongzi a slap on the head stopping the subject of the conversation.

Mu Hanzhang picked up his teacup once again. He found that although Zhou Jing’s husband was only a little assistant minister and he being only a restaurant owner himself, he still had a high reputation among these noble male wives. Everyone honored him with the name of “Elder Brother Zhou”. Besides his straightforward personality and easygoing manner of treating people, in Xiao Yuan’s seven or eight years of marriage, and not having a concubine serving in his husband’s bedroom was the real reason why people admire him. A male wife couldn’t leave behind a son, but could learn how to become a shrew, managing a husband to preventing him from getting concubines, really needed some extraordinary methods.

“Yo~ I was wondering who this Gongzi wearing such a splendid clothing was, it turns out it’s Hanzhang?” A peculiar voice came from outside of the pavilion. When everyone looked up, they saw five or six men coming out of the bamboo forest, each bringing several attendants with them, grandiosely making their way toward the pavilion.

Mu Hanzhang frowned, recognizing the speaker, it was none other than Du Yinghao, who had been his classmate for five years. The scholar that the Mu family learned with was none other than an uncle in the clan who came in third in the imperial examinations. Due to his great fame, other relatives in the family would also send their children to come study. This Du Yinghao was the North Marquess’ own nephew, because he hated Mu Hanzhang since he always received praise from the teacher, he set himself against him every and anywhere.

“I haven’t seen you for two years, but I actually thought you went to go take the triennial provincial imperial exam, turns out you married into the Duke Mao’s household.” Mu Hanzhang sat still, glancing at the overbearing Du Yinghao, and continued to drink his tea peacefully.

“Hmph, even though you were a successful candidate in the imperial provincial exam weren’t you still married off by your aunt?” Du Yinghao sneered. The Du household was not some distinguished or noble one. Even though he was the second son of the official wife, he was still used to establish connections and was married off to Duke Mao’s third young master.

“Don’t be rude!” Du Yinghao intended to say something more, but was stopped by his second sister-in-law’s exclamation.

This generation of the Mao Dukedom’s household had three male wives, after giving their greetings, they seated themselves one after another.

“Yesterday, I went to the North Marquis’ Residence to give birthday congratulations, and saw a rather interesting thing.” Du Yinghao seeing that even if Mu Hanzhang was married off, he was still the object of other people’s admiration and respect, and also had a respectful husband, his heart felt it was not fair, so he couldn’t help but want to hurt him with a couple of sentences.

After growing tired from playing, people were chatting over tea, but hearing this they asked him what he was talking about.

“Cheng Wang saved a very beautiful woman under the horse of the fourth prince,” Du Yinghao said, smiling and looking towards the expressionless Mu Hanzhang, deliberately drawing out his words, “I heard that Cheng Wang liked her so much that she was brought directly to his villa to become another concubine.”

Hearing this, the originally lively atmosphere suddenly cooled down, and everyone became awkwardly silent, not knowing how to continue the conversation. In their hearts, however, they thought about how the Cheng Wang Fei turned out to not be favored much either. They had heard that Cheng Wang had demoted the secondary wife for him, but in a twinkling of the eye, he had found another concubine.

Mu Hanzhang looked at Du Yinghao, who had a face of mockery, and only felt amused. Even after so many years, this person was still so childish. Looking up at the sky: “It’s getting late, I’ve been staying in the villa these days, so I need to leave a bit earlier.” Saying that, he put down the teacup and got up to take his leave.

Cheng Wang’s villa is in the east of the city and the Mo garden is in the south of the city. Truly a bit far away. It was no good to detain him, so everyone got up to send him off.

“Third younger brother is not sensible, asking Wang Fei to not take offense.” After sending him outside of the Mo Garden, the Second-gongzi of Duke Mao’s household apologized to Mu Hanzhang.

Mu Hanzhang smiled, but did not answer. Yunzhu drove the carriage over and was waiting for him to get on. From the distance sounded the clip-clopping of horse hoofs.

“Neigh~” A bright and clear whinny sounded, a fine black steed quickly stopped in front of the crowd, the man on the horse’s back was tall and straight, and extraordinarily handsome, he was the person they had just been discussing, the fickle Cheng Wang Jing Shao.

When everyone saw the visitor clearly, they knelt down one after another and saluted, “Greetings to His Highness Cheng Wang.”

Waving his hand to let everyone rise, Jing Shao seeing that his Wang Fei was already standing in front of the carriage, lightly smiled and said, “I was afraid that if you left late it’d be hard and too dark to travel, so I especially came to pick you up.”

“I was keeping track of the time.” Mu Hanzhang hooked up his lips and watched the man slowly drive his horse forward, stretching out a hand to himself. He didn’t want to be excessively intimate in front of outsiders, but after seeing the jealous and fiery expression of Du Yinghao in the corner of his eye, it was like the demons and gods were at work making such a situation occur. He put his hand into his palm, borrowing the strength of the person on the horse to flip onto the horse, sitting in front of Jing Shao.

“Yunzhu, send Elder Brother Zhou back first before returning to the villa.” Mu Hanzhang told the little boy servant standing at the side of the carriage, and after saying his farewells to everyone, confidently left with Jing Shao, disappearing behind the clouds of dust.

Du Yinghao was so angry his entire face turned red, Lin-gongzi and the others showed envious and admiring eyes. Only Zhou Jing, climbing into the carriage was extremely happy, being able to ride a luxurious carriage with the imperial canopy without having to pay for his way home.

From that day on, the news that the Cheng Wang doted on his Wang Fei spread quickly among the upper circles.

In view of the fact that the book of “The Art of War” was way too thick, with only one person to copy it, the fastest it would take would still be one month. In order to free up time to play and also appear to have acknowledged his mistake with a good attitude, Jing Shao and Mu Hanzhang began to copy it together. Every morning, one would practice martial arts, one would deal with the inner household’s affairs, and in the afternoon, they’d set up a table in the garden to admire the flowers together, copy books, and in the evening, soak in hot springs together. The days passed extremely contentedly.

Regarding the matters with Ge Ruoyi, Jing Shao wrote a letter and passed it on. After waiting for three days, there was still no news. Just after lunch today, Jing Shao was lying in the rocking chair with his Wang Fei in his arms basking in the sun. Jing Shao was ordered to the palace by an imperial decree.

“What is your opinion on the matter in the Southeast?” Emperor Hongzheng clasped his hands behind his back, looking at a map of the whole country in the imperial study and asked Jing Shao, who was kneeling behind him.

Jing Shao carefully worded: “The Ge family is not an influential clan, this matter may not have spread outside of the southeastern region, it’s just that the woman came to the capital to complain. Er Chen also does not know how to handle this matter, only to report to Imperial Father and explain clearly.”

Emperor Hongzheng nodded but did not let Jing Shao rise. Still looking at the map of the country that occupied the whole wall in front of him. “Do you know why □□ was conferred the title of Fan Wang King of a vassal state)?” 

“In the former dynasty the government was cruel, □□ and three others led a revolt against the government and seized power, and he preceded the others in capturing the capital, making himself Emperor,” Jing Shao looked up, glancing at the numerous maps dating back to his first ancestors, the Southwest, Southeast, and the region of Huainan, those three pieces. Adding on the time he took to placate the rioting Southern barbarians, it was quite disorderly and he fought for an entire ten years, “His Benevolence □□, received the whole country, then conferred the Southwest, Southeast, and the region of Huainan to the three who aided his attack, making them Kings of those feudal territories.” 

“The issue regarding the vassal states, Zhen is not willing to manage too much.” Emperor Hongzheng’s back was towards Jing Shao and he couldn’t see his expression, but Jing Shao knew what his Imperial father was thinking, thus speaking with a clear voice, “Although the Southeast is a vassal territory, it is also the national land of the Country of Dachen. The citizens in the Southeast only recognize Imperial Father as their one Emperor.”

When Emperor Hongzheng heard this, he suddenly turned around and strictly stared at Jing Shao who was kneeling on the ground. Jing Shao bowed his head slightly and let him stare. 

After a long time, Emperor Hongzheng suddenly burst out laughing loudly: “You are worthy of being Zhen’s son! Ha-ha-ha!” Walking to Jing Shao’s side, he patted him on the shoulder and quietly said, “The third bout with the barbarians is what Zhen is worrying about, however, it is still not the right time yet.”

Jing Shao’s pupils suddenly contracted, but nothing was visible on his face. He kowtowed and said, “Er Chen understands.” What his Imperial Father meant was that it was not yet a good opportunity to pacify the three vassal states. This matter first needed to be kept quiet about first. No wonder in his previous life Jing Yu brazenly tied her down to be his concubine. In the end, he forced her to have to personally go and take her revenge. It was also no wonder that Jing Yu during that time was the first to suggest taking away the power of the feudal territories. As it turns out, by this time, he had already received an affirmative answer from Imperial Father.