A Good Landlord in the Tang Dynasty: Starting from the Village Chief

Chapter 785 Unwritten Rules
Today is Zhang Dashan's big day.
But as his bride was about to enter the house, there was no joy on his face. He was wearing a narrow-sleeved crimson robe that his father had borrowed for him a few days earlier.

This is the official robes of officials outside the official ranks. Ordinary people can borrow these robes for their weddings. They cannot wear them casually at other times, and it is only on such a joyous occasion that one is allowed to borrow a robe from a higher rank.

The crimson official robe was slightly too big on Da Shan.
Da Shan, in his early twenties, was rather thin. Day after day of hard work had left him with little flesh on his body, making it impossible for him to fill out the robe.

"You've married a new bride, why are you still looking so gloomy?" Da Shan's father scolded when he saw his son squatting outside the newly tidied bridal chamber.

“Father, I’ve inquired about it. It’s the Yu family’s daughter, she, she.”

The father squatted down next to his son. "What's wrong with her?"

"She slept with the monk Shodaji."

"So what?" Old Zhang glared at his son. "You're already twenty-five. You should be lucky to find a wife at all. Why are you being so picky? There's an old saying: 'Desperate people will choose any road, starving people will choose any food, and poor people will choose any wife.' Look at our family's situation!"
What right do generations of tenant farmers have to let you choose them?

"If the war hadn't ended these past two years, would you still want to get married?"

Zhang Dashan felt aggrieved. He was indeed twenty-five, but he didn't want to marry a woman who had slept with a monk.

The old man earnestly advised his son, "Son, it's good enough if you can marry a woman, have children, and carry on the family line. Who cares what she did before?"

She'll do your laundry, cook for you, and have your children—that's enough.

"How many men remain single their entire lives without ever finding a wife?"

During times of war and chaos, some people had no choice but to seek out refugees, trading a few bushels of grain for a woman to bring them home to live on, or to work as caretakers for widows and raise their children…

Zhang Dashan squatted on the ground, holding his head and burying it in his knees.

“My child, this land of Baiguwu has been the temple’s tenants for over a hundred years. What do people call us? Temple slaves!”

"We've farmed the temple's land for generations; the temple is our world. For the past hundred years, everyone knows the unwritten rules here: those of us who are temple tenants—those with daughters farm irrigated land, those with good wives farm good land, those with bad wives farm bad land, and those without women farm reclaimed land."

Among us tenant farmers in the temple, who can protect their own wife and daughters?

"If we dare not agree, the temple will seize our land at any time. Without land to cultivate, how will we survive?"

When the old man said these words, there was little anger, but more numbness.

He went through the same thing.

Back then, he was in his mid-twenties and still unmarried. His father took him to the temple's estate management office to ask for a loan to help his son get married, but he still owed the temple a lot of old debts.

The monk said, "Don't worry, I'll find a way for you, but you have to do me one thing."

When his father asked what was going on, the monk said, "I'll lend you the money for this boy's wedding, and we can agree on the interest. But I'll go to the house on the first night after the bride arrives."

At that time, Lao Zhang was still Xiao Zhang. He was also very angry when he heard these words, but his face turned red and he was eventually pulled back by his father.

Later, the father and son put their fingerprints on the document, borrowed the money, and went back to arrange a marriage.

"No one wants to marry the daughters of us tenant farmers in the temple, and no one wants to marry the young men. Alas, it has been like this generation after generation."

Zhang Dashan also knew these things.

But when the time actually came, it was still hard to accept.

"Just think of it as marrying a young widow. You'll sleep in the woodshed tonight."

Da Shan clutched his head, feeling frustrated and unable to vent his anger.

Old Zhang was still nagging, "Don't do anything foolish. We borrowed money from the temple to marry this new bride."
Just bear with it.

After tonight, do not consummate your marriage with your new wife. Wait until her period has started and she is clean before you consummate your marriage with her.

Dashan looked up, puzzled, at his father.

"You rascal, this is the only way to ensure the child is ours."

"Hurry up and go to the riverbank to pick up your bride. Put on a smiling face; today is your big day."

Zhang Dashan couldn't laugh.

He always felt that everyone was laughing at him.

"Everyone in this area lives like this, so who's going to laugh at whom?"

This is how Old Zhang got through it, and this is how Old Zhang's father got through it, and this is how his grandfather got through it.

His grandfather had fled famine from another place. Because he was hardworking, he later rented a piece of land in the temple. A monk in the temple saw that he was honest and paid for him to marry a woman. However, for the first month of their marriage, it was always this monk who slept with him.

A month later, the new bride was given to him, but the monk still came frequently.

Old Zhang's father borrowed money from the temple monks to get married, and the monks slept with him on the first night of the wedding. The same thing happened when Old Zhang himself got married.

Now it's his son's turn, and it's the same.

Old Zhang is used to it, and even the tenants here are used to it.
This has been the case for over a hundred years.

Outsiders cursed them.

The girls here can't get married, and the boys here can't marry women from other places either; everyone's become numb to it.

Life must go on, so we have no choice but to make do.

Old Zhang was calculating that his son had married a new wife, and the steward monk from the Zhuangtian Division had already promised to replace their land with better irrigated land next year, without increasing the rent or deposit.

"If we could rent a good piece of irrigated land, even if we work harder, we could save more grain. After a few years of hard work, we could pay off our debts."
Things will gradually get easier from now on.

Although the land for irrigation can be exchanged, it must be done with the exonerated daughter-in-law who is about to marry into the family.

It cost a lot of money to get his son married.

Because the family had no money, and everyone knew the rules of the tenant farmers in their area, no girls from other places were willing to marry into the family. In the end, Old Zhang found a girl from the Yu family in a village across the river for his son.

The villagers in that village were all tenant farmers who cultivated the temple's fields, so most of the young women and wives in that village had been violated.

Old Zhang didn't pay attention.
Or perhaps the Yu family could ask for less betrothal gifts.

When survival is a struggle, people don't really care as much about things like propriety, morality, and a sense of shame.

When pushed to the limit, some resort to theft and others to prostitution. Tenants like them, known as temple slaves, are completely dependent on the temple for their lives. They've become accustomed to their wives and daughters being bullied by the monks.

In Lao Zhang's words, even those from other places, as long as they were tenant farmers or servants, lived similar lives. They were all exploited and oppressed by landlords, and their wives and daughters were also bullied by those landlords with bad character.

Li Yi changed his clothes, disguising himself as a passing scholar. Seeing the dried-up riverbed and dock...

The two teams met.
On one side were those who came to escort the bride, and on the other side were those who came to pick her up.

The bride wore a green dress, held a fan to cover her face, and had a silver hairpin and several combs in her hair.

A middle-aged man was leading a small donkey, which was being ridden by several women.

On the wedding side,

He was a thin, dark-skinned young man, wearing a narrow-sleeved crimson robe and a black turban, with a somewhat wooden expression.

Dozens of people from both sides gathered together.
They exchanged auspicious words.

Most of the people's clothes were patched, but they were all clean.

Li Yi, along with Cunli and Cunyi, stepped forward, claiming they were just passing by and had stumbled upon the wedding celebration, wishing to share in the joy.

As he spoke, Li Enze presented a congratulatory gift of money.

A bolt of floral cloth, two hundred coins.

The groom, Zhang Dashan, was somewhat surprised that these passersby were giving him gifts and wanting to attend his wedding banquet. He was even more astonished by their generosity, as they were giving him a bolt of floral cloth worth two hundred coins.

The villagers are simple and honest.

It's not appropriate to refuse gifts given as congratulations.

"I hope you all don't mind that our wedding banquet in the countryside is simple; it's just plain food and drink."

Li Yi smiled and said he wanted to share in the joy.

The couple's wedding was rather simple.
There are no complicated formalities like the three letters and six rites. Today, when people get married, the groom only picks up the bride on the way and doesn't go directly to the bride's house to fetch her.

A middle-aged man who was accompanying the bride claimed to be the bride's elder brother.

He said that this was because everyone was a tenant farmer and they were all poor and couldn't afford to entertain guests, so they chose an auspicious day for the bride's family to send her over, and the groom would pick her up halfway.

There were none of the traditional wedding rituals that Li Yi experienced, such as the "bridal poem," the "fan-removing poem," or the "beating the groom."

The groom takes the bride home.

It's a simple courtyard house in the village, with thatched roofs, mud walls, a simple fence, and small houses with few rooms.

The courtyard was not decorated with lanterns or colorful streamers.

A lot of people had already been waiting for a long time.

The bride entered the house,
There weren't many formalities before the meal began.

The meal was served in a continuous banquet style. Only a few tables were set up in the courtyard, and each table was filled at a time, with the remaining guests waiting to be seated in the next batch after they finished eating.

The dishes consist of eight large bowls.
But as Li Yi sat there watching the dishes being served one by one, he finally understood the secret behind these eight dishes.

The phrase "eight bowls" sounds nice and sounds appealing, but in reality, there are no eight bowls of dishes at all.

The first dish was braised fish, but what was served was a fish carved from wood.

A real wooden fish.

He had heard people say that some poor people would borrow fish to entertain guests, coat the fish with batter, fry it until it was crispy, and then only eat the batter without touching the fish meat. Afterwards, they would return the fish and give them some leftovers.

He had never seen anyone serve a wooden fish and call it braised fish before. This fish really wasn't even coated in batter and was just fried.

These tenant farmers don't have the means to both coat the food in batter and deep-fry it.

Of course, if there's fish, there has to be meat. The second dish was stir-fried pork liver, which was also the only meat dish on the table.

The remaining six dishes, three cold and three hot,
Cabbage stewed with bean flour is already considered a substantial dish.

Other soups and broths, cornbread and flatbread were also included to make up the numbers.

However, no one commented on whether the meal was good or bad. Everyone ate as soon as they sat down. Except for the braised fish made with wood, which was inedible, the other portions were not large, and everyone shared the food tacitly.

Soon, the food was completely eaten, not a drop of soup was left.

Everyone got up and left the table, and another group of people came up to the table. Wooden Fish didn't move, and the other seven cold and hot dishes were served.

There is no alcohol.

The banquet lacked that lively atmosphere.

As darkness fell,

The wooden gate of the farmhouse courtyard was pushed open.

A group of monks walked in.

A middle-aged monk entered with a big laugh and started shouting. The groom's father and the groom quickly went to greet him.

"Has the bride been brought back?" the monk asked.

"They've already been taken home and are in the east wing." The groom's father bowed and said, "Master, please sit down and have some food."

The monk waved his hand, "Sitting at the table eating wooden fish? I have no interest. Alright, you all go about your business. I'm going to see the bride. Don't bother me."

"Yes, we understand the rules."

"That's good. It's a pity that this Yu family girl was defiled by that guy Tan Feng long ago, but I heard she's quite pretty..." He said with a lewd look as he headed towards the bridal chamber in the east wing.

This guy spoke without any restraint, his voice was so loud that Li Yi could hear him even several tables away.

His brows were furrowed.
I never expected that coming to a wedding banquet to join in the fun would lead to something like this.

"Wait a moment!"

A loud shout,
It attracted everyone's attention.

Monk Tanman turned his head and looked at him with a hostile expression.

(End of this chapter)