CHAPTER TWO Family and Gender
A GOOD DAUGHTER-IN-LAW
A commoner from Dangtu [Anhui], a menial surnamed Shao, made his living weaving reeds. He served his mother with filial piety. His mother had suffered from blindness for a long time. Every day as Shao returned home to wait on her, he always would buy food to give to her. His mother cherished him. One day Shao went out, and his wife got several scarab larvae and cooked them to give to her mother-in-law. She lied, saying, “These are fine delicacies from my parents.” The mother-in-law ate them, thought them very tasty, and saved two or three to give to her son. The son saw them and was speechless as he cried in sorrow. The mother was startled, and she suddenly could see as clearly as she had in the past. Shao wanted to drive his wife away. His mother said, “It was not your wife poisoning me. My eyes are fit to see again. Heaven sent the wife to use these things to cure me.” Shao then kept his wife for his whole life. I heard this from Jiang Mengzhen from the Ministry of Personnel. (SZ 3.31; GD 75.1639–40)
PHARMACOLOGICAL EXPERTISE
China’s traditional medical heritage enlisted the perceived attributes of multifarious natural phenomena to cure human illness. The fruits of this effort appeared in encyclopedias of materia medica, starting from the second century BCE. These investigations climaxed with the vast Bencao gangmu (literally “Outline and Detail of Roots and Plants”) of Li Shizhen (1518–1593). The passage below, an excerpt from Li’s compendium, concerns scarab larvae, also known as dung beetles. As is typical of traditional Chinese encyclopedias, the work openly draws on earlier collections and makes comments and corrections where deemed appropriate.
Pharmaceutical preparation: [Lei] Xiao [fl. early fifth century]: All collected [scarab larvae] are to be dried in the shade and then they are fried together with glutinous rice until the rice is scorched or has turned black. Then [the larvae] are taken out, with the rice being discarded, and also the hair from their body and to the side of their mouth, as well as the black dust. They are cut into three or four segments, ground to powder, and then made use of. [Li] Shizhen: All [relevant] recipes include either those dried and ground, or those [pounded] alive to obtain their juice. One need not cling to the one example [of preparing them] provided here [by Lei Xiao].
Explication: [Tao] Hongjing [456–536]: When eaten prepared together with pig trotters to a thick soup, they cause a profuse flow of a mother’s milk. [Su] Song [1020–1101]: In his treatment of various diseases, Zhang Zhongjing [fl. 168–196] made use of them in his “major recipe for pills with wingless cockroaches” to eliminate sensations of hardness and fullness from below the flanks. [Li] Shizhen: … According to Chen shi jing yan fang, “the mother, a Ms. Wang, of Sheng Yan, a library official in Wu, as reported in Jinshu, lost her eyesight. One of her servant girls obtained scarab larvae, steamed them thoroughly, and had her eat them. [Ms.] Wang considered them to be delicious. When [Sheng] Yan returned home and learned of this, he embraced his mother, felt deeply sorry for her [to have been given such detestable food], and wept. The mother, though, opened her eyes [and could see again]. This is in agreement with the records in Bencao that [scarab larvae] ‘cure greenish shades and white membranes in the eyes,’ and in the Yao xing lun that ‘their juice dropped into the eyes will eliminate shades and screens.’” I myself have often successfully treated others with them, and hence have recorded it here to spread the message to everybody.1
1 Li Shizhen, Clothes, Utensils, Worms, Insects, 342.
MURDER AND VENGEANCE
During the Hongwu reign [1368–1398], there was a Mr. Shi, a commoner in the capital. He worked as a servant for a friend. Shi’s wife was beautiful, and the friend plotted in his heart to get her. The men were on business outside the capital, and Shi drowned in a river. The wife had no children and lived alone as a widow. After she finished her mourning duties, the friend requested that she become his wife, and she accepted. After several years, they had two sons.
One day heavy rains fell, and the accumulated water filled the courtyard. A toad fleeing the water climbed the stairs. One of the sons played with it and knocked it into the water with a stick. Later the second husband said to the wife, “When Mr. Shi died, it was just like that.” The wife asked how and only then understood that her second husband had plotted to get her. The next day, she waited for him to leave the house. She then killed her two sons and rushed to lodge a complaint at the court. The Hongwu emperor lauded her passion. Then the government tried her second husband according to the law and acknowledged her with a celebratory banner. An enthusiastic individual made the The Biography of the Toad (Xiama zhuan) to extol her good deed. It has not been transmitted to the present day.1 (SZ 3.31–32)
ADULTERY AND HONOR
During the Hongwu reign [1368–1398], there was a beautiful wife of a commandant in the capital. Every day she leaned on the outside gates of her home and showed herself off. There was a youth who admired her, and so he caught her eye. As night fell, the youth entered her home and hid under the bed. On the fifth night, she rushed her husband to go out on duty. He had not gone two or three strides and then came back. He covered his wife with a robe, sealed off the place, and left. The youth heard it. Having already become intimate with her, he asked, “Does your husband love you like this?” The wife spoke in detail how her husband had loved her in the past. When dawn came, they separated and again made an evening appointment. When the time came, the youth entered, carrying a sharp knife. As soon as they met, he cut the wife’s throat and left. No one in the household knew what had happened. They reported the husband to the authorities. When he returned home, he seized one or two people with whom he had bad blood and made accusations to the officials. One person could not endure the torture and recklessly implicated himself. The youth could not bear this injustice, turned himself in, and admitted to the crime. He said, “I saw that the husband was devoted and loving like that, but this wife betrayed him. So I killed her.” The judicial authorities submitted the information to the emperor and asked that he deliberate. The emperor said, “To be able to kill the unrighteous—this is a righteous man.” Then the emperor pardoned him. (SZ 3.32–33)
THE DISAPPEARING BRIDE
During the Jingtai reign [1450–1456], a family living outside Jiagang Gate in Nanjing took a wife. When the bridal procession reached the groom’s family gates, the procession was led in, and the sedan chair was empty. The groom’s family suspected that they had been tricked and made accusations to the judicial authorities. They arrested the porters and attendants and interrogated them. All verified the matter, saying, “The woman got into the sedan chair.” The judicial authorities could not decide and then ordered that she be searched for everywhere. They found her in an abandoned cemetery. They asked her what happened, and she said, “Along the way, they rested and put down the cart. Two men pulled me into the gates. At the time, I already felt faint and confused. Moreover, there was something covering my face, and I did not exactly understand what was going on. When daylight came, I was startled at first to be in a wooded graveyard, and that is all.” The ancients had Records of Beauties and Miraculous Wonders (Yanfen lingguai ji), a one-chapter work. Looking at this story, I know that this book is not all nonsense. (SZ 3.34–35; GD 75.1644)
ANOTHER DISAPPEARING BRIDE
My friend and colleague, Office Manager Sun Hui, was a native of Xiao County in Xuzhou [Jiangsu]. He said that during the Zhengtong reign [1436–1449], a daughter of Mr. Wang in his village had married. On the road to the groom’s home, she got down from the cart to relieve herself. Suddenly a great wind raised the dust and blew the daughter into the sky. Soon she was nowhere to be seen. The villagers rumored that ghosts and spirits had taken her off. The parents and relatives cried without stopping. That day, she fell fifty li away onto someone’s mulberry trees. They asked her and learned that she was the daughter of such-and-such family from such-and-such village and that she had been blown away by the wind. They asked what she had seen in the sky. She said, “I only heard the wind by my ears, going huo-huo. Beyond that I saw nothing. The higher I went, the colder the wind became. My mind and body could not take it.” The families probably were old friends. The next day they sent her back and finished the wedding. (SZ 3.35)
BURYING MOTHER
Among the commoners in Huating [Jiangsu], there was a mother who gave birth to a son, remarried, and then gave birth to another son. On the day she died, her two sons fought in their desire to bury her. They made inquiries to the officials. The verdict of county magistrate so-and-so read, “When she was alive, she remarried. In the end, she did not love in her heart the first son. After she has died and gone to the grave, it will be difficult for her to look in the face of her first husband. It is fitting to have the second son take her and bury her.” My paternal uncle Songting passed down this story.2 (SZ 3.36)
TIGERS AND DAUGHTERS
The two daughters of Mr. Zhang during the Tang dynasty were picking mulberry leaves, and their mother was taken off by a tiger. The daughters howled and beat the tiger. The tiger then let her go and left, and the mother was saved.
Madame Nie of Dangtu [Anhui] during the Southern Tang dynasty went with her mother to collect firewood. The mother was taken off by a tiger. The daughter took out a knife and jumped on the tiger’s back. She grabbed the tiger’s neck and stabbed it to death. Then she brought back home her mother’s corpse.
During the Jiayou reign [1056–1063] of the Song dynasty, a daughter of the Peng family in Fenning in Nanchang [Jiangxi] accompanied her father to the mountains to chop firewood. Her father encountered a tiger. The daughter took out her knife and beheaded the tiger, and the father’s life was spared. The event was made known to the court, which bestowed the family an award of grain and silk.
In the case of the daughter of the Tong family in Yin County [Zhejiang] during the Song, a tiger had her grandmother in its mouth. The daughter held onto the tiger’s tail and prayed to take her place. The tiger abandoned the grandmother, took the granddaughter in its mouth, and left. The affair was made known to the court, and a shrine was established to make sacrifices to her.
A daughter of the Lu family in Yongjia [Zhejiang] was walking with her mother. A tiger was about to eat her mother, and the daughter used herself to substitute for the mother. The tiger got the daughter, and the mother was saved. During the reign of Emperor Song Lizong [r. 1225–1264] in the Song, the court enfeoffed her with a temple and called it “Filial Woman.”
As for the daughter of the Yao family in Yuhang [Zhejiang] during the Yuan dynasty, her mother was drawing water from a stream and encountered a tiger. The daughter beat the tiger’s flank with her fists, and the neighbors picked up tools and followed suit. The tiger put the mother aside and left.
In the case of Madame Guan in Jianning [Fujian] during the Yuan dynasty, her husband was hoeing in the fields and was taken off by a tiger. Guan put aside the food she was taking to him, jumped up, and struck the tiger repeatedly. The tiger let go of the husband and left. She took her husband on her back, and he died on the road. The affair was made known to the court, and the government gave the family a celebratory banner.
In the case of Madame Hu, the wife of Liu Ping in Binzhou [Shandong] during the Yuan dynasty, she accompanied her husband [who was] deployed on the Zaoyang frontier. They spent the night by the roadside, and the husband was being eaten by a tiger. Hu took her knife and stabbed it to death. The husband escaped, but she died while they were on the road.
The father of Madame Wang of Jiande [Fujian] during the Zhida reign [1308–1311] of the Yuan dynasty was weeding in the fields beside their house. He was taken off by a leopard. It dragged him and climbed the mountain. The father yelled loudly. Wang took a saw, which the father had thrown aside. She used it to strike the leopard’s head repeatedly, killing it, and then the father was saved.
A guest had a picture of Liu Ping’s wife killing the tiger and asked me for a colophon for it. I investigated this sort of matter and found these people. (SZ 4.39)
AN HONORED MAID
When his excellency Yang Shiqi [1365–1444] was at the Grand Secretariat, his wife had already passed away. Only one maid waited on him with towel and comb, and that was all.3 One day, the Empress Dowager held a celebration. Titled wives of high civil and military officials all paid court and sent their felicitations.4 The Empress Dowager learned that his excellency did not have a wife with a title and ordered her attendants to summon the maid. When she arrived, the titled wives had already withdrawn. The Empress Dowager saw that her appearance was indeed dispirited, and her clothes were simple and shabby. She ordered the imperial consorts to comb her hair and tidy up her appearance, change her clothes, give her a headdress and clothes for the palace, and send her off. She also said with a laugh, “This time Mr. Yang won’t be able to recognize her!”
The next day the court ordered the responsible authorities to enfeoff the maid according to the usual system. It was not to be taken to be used as a precedent. The grandeur of the Empress Dowager’s ritual generosity was like this. I heard that the maid was the mother of Yang Dao [d. 1483], vice-minister of the Court of Imperial Sacrifices in Nanjing. Dao’s courtesy name was Shujian. He was skilled at poetry and prose, and was fond of discussing affairs. It was through being chief minister of the Seals Office that he rose to be vice-minister. (SZ 5.63)
FRATERNAL ENMITY
In the Zhang family from Wubao in Kunshan County [Jiangsu], two brothers worked as surgeons. Whoever wanted to be cured would invariably go to the younger brother and not to the elder brother. Subsequently, the younger brother daily grew richer, and the elder brother daily withered away. The elder brother was jealous and wanted to wait for him to leave the house. Then he would gratify his feelings and take revenge.
One day the younger brother hired a boat to go into the county seat. The elder brother prepared and hid in the boat. When it got to Xinyang River [Jiangsu], he rose suddenly and seized his younger brother. The people on the boat were scared and quickly punted the boat to the shore, and the younger brother was able to get away.
The younger brother was about to press charges in court. At the county seat, there were elders who said, “That course of action lacks heavenly principle and will bring you harm. Now since his plan failed, this turn of events accords with heavenly principle. If you press charges against him, it will entangle witnesses and certainly will bring harm to the people on the boat. It would be best to stop.” The younger brother obeyed this advice.
A while later, the elder brother one evening slept until dawn the next day. He could not open his eyes. In the end, he went blind and died in poverty. People took his fate as brought on by his unethical behavior. (SZ 8.100–101; GD 80.1723–24)
FULFILLED PREDICTIONS
A capital official from Songjiang [Jiangsu] lived at home while tending to his illness. According to the words of an astrologer, it was unclear if he would die or not. Each day, with wine and poetry, he lingered by the pond and garden. Although neighbors invited him to drink, he still did not go out. One day while playing the zither beneath the artificial mountain in the garden, a stone fell and crushed him to death.
In Fujian, a courtesan’s looks were fading. She wanted to marry as she planned for the rest of her life. Others slighted her, and there was no one to turn to take care of her. Then she decided to go to a physiognomist fortune-teller. He said that when she reached sixty, she would enjoy the care of someone noble and rich. The courtesan did not take this to be so.
Several years later, there was a Fujian native who entered the court and became a high-ranking eunuch. After he learned that his mother was still alive, he sent people to search for and find her, and lodged her at a residence outside the palace. The next day he went to pay a visit to her. He saw from a distance that she looked decrepit and was ashamed of her. He left without visiting her. He said to his aides, “This is not my mother. You should search for her again.” The aides took note of his intentions. They went to Fujian to search for someone with a beautiful appearance, got the old courtesan, and returned. When she arrived, she and the eunuch looked at each other and cried with great sorrow. Every day he served her in extravagant fashion. Over ten years passed, and then she died.
When the Earl of Weining, his excellency Wang Yue [1426–1499], was regional commander of Datong [Shanxi], a man of the occult surnamed Yu one day visited the government quarters. I questioned him. He said, “It will not be long before Wang is ruined.” I asked him what year it should take place. He said, “This year.” In a short while the court sent down an edict to tell him in person. The court stripped him of his honors, made him into a commoner, and settled him in Anluzhou [Hubei].5 I heard about these two matters from guests and can personally attest to Wang’s downfall. (SZ 8.102; GD 80.1725)
A FILIAL SON
Chen Zongxun [fl. late twelfth century] was the elder paternal uncle of a Great Lady of Suitability (Taiyiren). He dabbled in the Confucian classics and histories, and served his mother with the utmost filial piety. Each time he ate and drank at homes of relatives and friends, if there were new foods and his mother had not tasted them, he inevitably would offer the excuse that his mother would be envious and so he would never reach with his chopsticks to take them. The next day he always would enter the city and buy these foods to serve his mother. Sometimes he would travel to distant places and came upon things rarely acquired. If he could carry them on his person, he would always take them back home. His mother delighted in him, and he never slackened in old age. The Great Lady of Suitability had served her late mother-in-law with complete filial piety and prudence, and this was the source of her conduct. (SZ 9.106)
SHAMELESS RELATIVES
Among the local people, there was a son ill with measles. The family prepared blood sacrifices and wine to pray to a god.6 The father spoke clumsily and could not find the words to express himself. So he wanted his father-in-law to pray to the god. The father-in-law’s grandson [by his son] also happened to be sick with the same illness. The father-in-law then secretly spoke to the god and prayed for his own grandson [by his son]. At the time, the son-in-law was bowing behind him. He felt it strange that his father-in-law mumbled his words. He advanced on his knees and listened to them, understood their intent, and did not dare to speak. Later the father-in-law’s grandson got better, and the son-in-law’s son died. Consequently, the son-in-law was extremely furious with him and told others about the affair. Other people thought the story was amusing.
During the Chenghua reign [1465–1487], a grand coordinator censor-in-chief faced accusations at court. Among his relatives was a supervising secretary. The grand coordinator entrusted him with considerable bribes to pay off the eunuchs and ask for help. The supervising secretary took the bribes as his own funds, submitted them to the eunuchs, and asked for a promotion. Consequently, he became vice-director in the Ministry of Personnel, and the grand coordinator was sentenced to exile at the frontier and died.
Furthermore, a position as director of war was unfilled at one point. A vice-director in the Ministry of War wanted to get it. Among his relatives was a man who had been a director in the Ministry of Justice. He was familiar with the eunuchs, and so the vice-director entrusted the matter to him, using bribes. The director’s scheme for himself indeed resembled the affair with the supervising secretary. Thereupon the director left the Ministry of Punishments and shifted to the Ministry of War. The vice- director knew about this, was bitterly resentful, developed a gangrene infection on his neck, and died. Contemporary opinion regarded the affair as contemptible.
The cases of the two men and the father-in-law who used his son-in-law were very similar. Alas! One was a high official and one was a remonstrating official. If they acted like bandits in such fashion, how can one criticize a humble man from a village? (SZ 9.109; GD 81.1735)
VIRTUOUS COURTESANS
The Nanjing courtesan Liu Yinjing as a young girl was doted on by a merchant. The merchant died, and Liu dressed in mourning clothes. On seasonal occasions, she made vegetarian meals [in accord with Buddhist mourning rites] and presented offerings. Her crying was most sorrowful. Every day she supported herself with women’s work and vowed never to take customers. Her family could not change her will. The merchant’s family later declined, and she was able to pass on her property to provide for the wife and children. A rich old man heard of her worthiness and wanted to marry her. Liu refused, and that was that.
Guo Qigongzi of the capital was a nephew of Guo Deng, Earl of Dingxiang [?–1472]. He was on intimate terms with a courtesan, who was just entering her prime. The son died, and the courtesan cut off her hair, untied her foot bindings, and became a nun.
Tu Baoshi was a big merchant in the capital. He committed a crime and was sent to Liaodong [Liaoning] to serve in the army. Because his family was poor and had nothing to rely on, he took ten thousand pieces of gold and entrusted it to the household of a courtesan he was on intimate terms with. Several years later, there was an amnesty, and he was pardoned and returned. The courtesan’s household returned to him the money he had entrusted, sealed up as in the beginning.
This world has places where the rich and noble reside, and they are licentious and shameless. When disaster strikes, most are greedy and forget righteousness. How can one know that, amid the wind and dust, there are outstanding exceptions?7 Human nature in each case is good; how can one not believe it? That being so, in observing people, one cannot judge them by their category. (SZ 9.109)
A GREAT ROMANCE
I have heard the story of Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai since I was a child, and because it had no basis, I had not recorded it.
Recently I looked at the Ningbo gazetteer. Liang and Zhu were people of the Eastern Jin dynasty [317–420]. The Liang family was from Guiji [Zhejiang], and the Zhu family was from Shangyu [Zhejiang]. They had been classmates. Zhu first was engaged to be married. Liang later passed through Shangyu. He sought to visit the Zhu family and only then first learned that she was a woman.8 He returned home and informed his parents. He wanted to marry her, but Zhu had already been promised to the son of the Ma family. Liang was crestfallen and at a loss.
Three years later, Liang became county magistrate of Yin [Zhejiang] and died of illness. In his will, he instructed that he be buried below Mount Qingdao. The following year, Zhu married Ma. As she passed the spot, there were great winds and waves, and the boat could not go forward. Zhu then went to Liang’s tomb and was so grief-stricken that she could not speak and shook in her sorrow. Suddenly the earth split open. Zhu threw herself in and died there.
Ma made the event known to the court. The chancellor Xie An [320–385] asked that she be enfeoffed as a Righteous Woman. During the reign of Emperor An [r. 397–418], Liang’s spirit further performed wondrous miracles. He served the dynasty in meritorious fashion and was enfeoffed as Loyal and Righteous. The authorities built a temple for him in Yin County.9
Wu has colored butterflies, which are the metamorphoses of orange larvae. Women and children call them Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai.10 (SZ 11.135–36)
FRONTIER POLYANDRY
In Leqing County in Wenzhou, near the sea, there is a village called Sanshan Huangdu. Among the commoners, brothers shared a single wife. If there were no brothers, the women’s families did not willingly associate with them. It is because the families feared that they would be unable to support the women if the husbands were by themselves. After they married, the brothers each would use a hand towel as a signal. In the evening, if the elder brother first hung up the hand towel, then the younger brother did not dare to enter. At times, if the younger brother first hung it up, then the elder brother did not dare to enter. So they also named the place Hand Towel Lair.
During the Chenghua reign [1465–1487], Taizhou Prefecture [Zhejiang] established Taiping County. The authorities cut away the village and attached it to the new county. When I first heard about this custom, I did not believe it. Later I made the rounds in Taiping and visited it. It turned out to be so. I daresay it is a custom of foreign islanders. It has come down from previous ages, and they have followed it for a long time.
In the fourth year [1491] of the Hongzhi reign, I first discussed it at court and requested that it be prohibited. If there were those who could not correct their behavior, they would be expelled to places beyond civilization. The judicial authorities discussed it. They proposed that, before the order was promulgated, the authorities should send out an accompanying set of prohibitions. Later, if there were violators, their cases would be discussed in accord with the statute concerning wives who committed adultery with their brothers-in-law. The emperor approved it. There are precedents where this law has been enforced. (SZ 11.141)
A MARTYR AND HER MEMORY
Qingfeng [Pure Customs] Crest is on the border of Sheng County [Zhejiang]. At the end of the Song dynasty, the chaste woman Wang of Taizhou [Zhejiang] was taken there by the caitiffs.11 She threw herself in the river and drowned. The crest’s original name was Qingfeng [Green Peak]. People later prized her chastity and so changed the crest to its present name. The events are set down in full in the biography written by Li Xiaoguang [1270–1348], and literati have recorded them.
Only Yang Weizhen [1296–1370] expressed a different opinion. He made a poem, which reads:
The horses at the border are laden and packed, a hundred-li journey,
At Green Peak late at night, a letter is written in blood.
She just was the same as Liu and Ruan at Peach Blossom River
and does not match the purity of the Han River or Mount Baling.12
Ye Sheng recorded the words of Censor Xia: “In the past there was someone who regarded the death of Chaste Wife Wang as a bad affair. He made a poem and condemned it as wrong. This person later had no descendants. The poem said:
Biting her finger and composing a poem, it seems pitiable.
in great profusion the words climb the green moss.
At first the poem seemed to carry the meaning
did she consent to follow the general as he came on horseback.13
His meaning was the same as that of Yang Weizhen. His lack of descendants was not necessarily linked to this poem. But chaste women and gentlemen of integrity are just what those people, who stoop to anything to survive and will endure humiliation, detest to hear about. These people invariably want to secretly find the weaknesses of worthy individuals and then ruin them. How can gentlemen of substantial virtue bear to abet the abuse by such sorts of people? Every time I read this poem, I always feel pity for Yang Weizhen. (SZ 12.145; GD 58.1518)
MADAME WANG’S POEM AND LI XIAOGUANG’S BIOGRAPHY
“WRITTEN ON THE CLIFF STONE AT PURE CUSTOMS CREST”
My lord was unfortunate, this concubine faced disaster,
Amid abandoned girls and discarded boys, the pursuing horses come.
My husband’s face—I know not what day I will see it,
This concubine—when will she return?1
Two lines of bitter tears—ceaseless, secret drops,
A pair of distressed brows—how can they relax?
Gazing in the distance for my hometown, where is it?
The two words, “survival” and “death,” how bitter and sorrowful!2
“THE BIOGRAPHY OF CHASTE WIFE WANG”
In the winter of 1275, the royal [Mongol] armies went south. The Chaste Wife, her husband, and parents-in-law were all taken prisoner. A battalion commander in the army noticed the wife’s beauty. He quickly then killed her parents-in-law and husband, and wanted to have her for his own. The Chaste Wife was furious and sorrowful, and set about to kill herself. The commander seized her and held her, and she was unable to commit suicide. He ordered various women prisoners to guard her. The wife wanted to die and could not find an opportunity to die. She herself thought that she faced violation.
So she cleverly said, “You are the one who killed my parents-in-law and husband, and seek me for your own to be your wife and concubine. You desire that I serve my lord and master well for the rest of my life. My parents-in-law and husband are dead. If I do not grieve for them, this is not in accord with Heaven. If I do not act in accord with Heaven, how could milord use me? I wish permission for you to allow me to mourn for them the prescribed full year. If you do not heed me, then I will simply die in the end and cannot be your wife.” The commander feared that she did not regard dying as a calamity and so consented to her request. Yet he increasingly kept her under guard.
In the spring of the following year, the army returned north. They took her through the Tu and Sheng Mountains in Zhejiang. The guards trusted her and gradually slackened their watch. As they passed through Qingfeng [Green Maple] Ridge, the wife looked up to Heaven and sighed to herself, “I have found the place to die now.” Then she bit her thumb and drew blood, and, just as it came to her, wrote a poem on the mountain rocks. When she was finished, she faced south, looked into the distance, and cried. Then she threw herself off the cliff and died.
Some saw the blood seep into the rocks. When it stopped, it had already become stone. A while later, the skies darkened and rained, and they again saw the blood bubble up as it had originally. At the time, empresses and imperial consorts did not die because of this [sense of loyalty]; the Three Dukes and the Nine Chief Ministers did not die because of this; the country’s great officials at the frontier did not die because of this. On the contrary, only a chaste wife died preserving her virtue. She descended and followed her parents-in-law and husband.
Yet what kind of person was this? There always exists a human nature that is grounded in normative good customs. When common men and women demonstrate it, their behavior startles and moves people for all time. If everyone considered it, then metal walls and boiling moats would not be enough to illustrate its steadfastness, spears and halberds would not be enough to illustrate its keenness, and brave warriors would not be enough to illustrate its strength. How could there be anxiety over the loss of the nation and the collapse of the family? What would that chaste wife do? She was stirred and did what ardent men would not necessarily do. How tragic, when it is fitting to act so but not to do so!
Assistant Magistrate Cheng in Guiji [Zhejiang] made a stone building for her sake and set up a stele in the temple to honor her spirit there. I said, “At first I see that the elders said that chaste wives could not follow their relatives in death. It was tragic. Later I personally passed by this place and saw that her thumb’s blood had turned to stone. I recalled the time when the Chaste Wife decided to die. Grief-stricken, I hesitated and could not leave. Could it be that her spirit was not yet extinguished and still could move people? Alas! Commoner men and women suffer mightily as they are forced from their homes and must wander. It truly can move Heaven like this. How can Heaven keep its distance from people? How can Heaven keep its distance from people?3
1 “Concubine” here is used as a form of humble self-address, used often by wives.
2 Guojia Tushuguan Shanben Jinshi Zu. Liangzhe jinshi zhi, 356 (15.40b in the original pagination).
3 Li Xiaoguang (1297–1348), “Wang Zhenfu zhuan,” in Liu, Quan Yuanwen, vol. 36, 24–25. For an analysis of this tale, see Bossler, Courtesans, 373–75.
CHANCE MARRIAGES
Mr. Xia of Kuncheng [Jiangsu] was a relative and friend of a Chuzhou [Zhejiang] garrison commander. The commander learned that Mr. Xia had a beautiful daughter. He wanted her for his son’s wife. After several years, the betrothal remained uncompleted, and his requests grew more insistent. All family members approved except the grandfather. So they assembled the guests and used dominoes to decide who would take charge of the drinking game. The grandfather set up a scheme that was difficult to bring off. He said to those who sought the marriage, “If we play chaupur, and you can get all the heaven, earth, and humanity game pieces and the four colors; then we can make a match.”14 As soon as they drew them, the four colors came out perfectly. Everyone was astonished, and then they agreed to the marriage.
Cao Yongwen and Zha Yongchun of Taicang had long been good friends. It happened that their concubines were both pregnant. One day they were drinking at a banquet and playing with dominoes to tell their fortunes. They said that if the two of them at a single throw turned up all six pieces red, then the children would certainly be a boy and girl, and there should be a marriage match. At one throw, everything came as they had divined. Later Zha’s concubine gave birth to a boy, and Cao’s concubine gave birth to a girl. Zha married off his son to be Cao’s son-in-law. These two events were extremely similar, and I daresay were not a coincidence. (SZ 15.184)
POWERFUL ABORIGINAL WOMEN
At present in several places in Yunnan and Guangxi, when native officials have died without heirs, wives and daughters replace them in office.15 The local people call them “mother aboriginal officials.” During the Sui dynasty [581–617], there was Madame Shen, Lady of the Qiao Kingdom. She was the wife of Feng Bao [507–557], governor of Gaoliang [Guangdong).16 His family for generations had been leaders in southern Yue. They occupied the mountain caves, and their villages had over one hundred thousand households. The madam resided at her mother’s home. She comforted and relieved the villagers, and was skillful at carrying out military operations and using troops, as she subdued and brought to heel the various Yue tribes. Later, because of her accomplishments, the court extended honors to her and enfeoffed her. This was the start of aboriginal women officials.
Only the madam’s father’s family had elder brothers, and her husband’s family had sons, which is different from the present-day situation.17 (SZ 15.189)