I traveled with them to the Northern Song Dynasty

Chapter 377 Zhao Yu: I'm Not Simply a Lustful Person
...

After the emperor had taken Li Ziqian's concubines to bed, the eunuchs interrogated Li Ziqian's four women with far more rigor than when they were tried in court. Every question was like a fine needle, trying to pierce through all their pretenses.

This includes the names, family backgrounds, life experiences, health conditions, and whether the women are virgins; if not, the date of their last sexual encounter, etc.

The questions asked by the eunuch were so blatant that they stripped the four women bare, leaving them with no secrets whatsoever.

The eunuch also took out a specially made inquiry form, which listed dozens of private acts and asked the four women to confirm whether they had experienced them one by one.

Not only that, the eunuch meticulously recorded every single answer the four women gave, even noting their expressions as they answered: "When answering this question, their eyes flickered, and their fingers unconsciously twisted the hem of their clothes; this needs to be verified carefully."

Moreover, before asking these questions, the eunuch made it clear to the four women that someone would definitely verify their answers. If they concealed anything or deliberately misled the public, they would be severely punished, and even their relatives would be implicated.

In fact, long before the four women were to serve the emperor, experienced female physicians had taken turns examining them with their eyes, ears, nose, and palpation, and had conducted full-body examinations on each of them. The female officials who were to serve the emperor had also inquired about their conditions.

If they didn't pass those checks and inquiries, no matter how much Zhao Yu liked them, they would never be able to serve him in bed.

This was mainly to prevent Zhao Yu from contracting a disease like the Tongzhi Emperor, or even dying from one, or from becoming a father unexpectedly and giving someone else's descendants the opportunity to seize his throne, and also to prevent women from assassinating Zhao Yu.

no way.

Zhao Yu was indiscriminate in his affections, accepting all women, from the mothers of his enemies to their wives and daughters, as long as they were young and beautiful. Moreover, he was sometimes impatient, often sleeping with these women as soon as they entered the harem.

If the truth is not thoroughly investigated, the consequences could be dire.

Therefore, the inspection and questioning of women entering the palace were extremely strict, especially for women from enemy countries.

Li Ziqian's four daughters, after undergoing rigorous questioning and physical examinations, all passed and were successfully chosen to serve him in bed.

The next day, when the sun was high in the sky, the four women finally woke up.

The exhaustion from last night's ordeal and the fatigue accumulated from days of wandering and anxiety were completely released at this moment, allowing them to sleep soundly for a long time.

As soon as she sat up, a group of palace maids rushed into the hall to offer their congratulations, attentively serving them as they washed and dressed, and serving them lotus seed soup.

This kind of luxurious life, where everything was done for them, was no different from life in Goryeo, and gradually the four women accepted their situation from the previous night.

As soon as they finished washing and dressing, the four palace officials entered the hall, and a new round of questioning began.

This inquiry was far more private than before, and even Consort Li and Empress Dowager Shunde, both married women, blushed with embarrassment.

The officials remained patient, slowly explaining, "We are asking these questions in such detail for the good of all the ladies. If any of you manage to conceive a royal heir this time, this inquiry will serve as legitimate proof of the prince's birth..."

Then, the Secretary gave the four women an example that had happened not long ago.

Not long ago, when Zhao Yu personally went to inspect the newly expanded Xiuzhou Port, he happened to catch the return of the official fleet of the Song Dynasty.

At that time, the Crusades were raging, and the Salju dynasty was beset by internal and external troubles. After the deaths of Liqsa and Nizam Mullek, the Salju dynasty fell into division, with sons vying for the throne, feudal lords carving up their own territories, and the Ismaili Assassins taking advantage of the chaos to cause trouble, and its national strength gradually declined.

Not long ago, Sultan Mu'ejodin of the Salz dynasty, citing defeat in battle, executed the male members of the family of the ruler of Basra, Giasdin, and auctioned off the female members in public.

Tan Zhen, the chief eunuch in charge of this maritime trade, happened to be there and immediately spent a large sum of money to buy all the young and beautiful women of the Giasdin family and bring them back to present to Zhao Yu.

Moreover, Tan Zhen also recruited many beauties from the Turks, Persians, Arabs, India, and even the West for Zhao Yu, and presented them to him.

At that time, because he was away from home, Zhao Yu was only accompanied by Zhang Chun, Li Lin, Liang Hongyu, Liang Damei, Liang Xiaomei, Fang Baihua, Chen Miaozhen, Li Qingzhao and other women whom he had already had his fill of.

So Zhao Yu couldn't resist and took his concubines among the foreign beauties that Tan Zhen had presented to him.

During this process, five foreign women became pregnant.

Zhao Yu clearly remembered that four of them were virgins, and the identities of the children in their wombs were definitely not in question.

Kyjasdin's wife, Mahraha, was also pregnant.

This made Zhao Yu somewhat unsure whether the child she gave birth to was his own.

Mahraha repeatedly defended herself, claiming that Giasdin had not touched her for more than three months before the fall of her kingdom, and that they had been sailing at sea for several months without having any contact with other men. She asserted that the child in her womb must be Zhao Yu's, and even had her personal maidservant testify to this.

But no one believed Mahraha, suspecting that she colluded with her personal maid to fabricate evidence, and even speculating that Mahraha had an affair with the crew members who escorted them.

Many people in the court advised Zhao Yu to give red flowers to Mahlaha so that she could have an abortion. Some radicals even advocated that all five pregnant women should have abortions in order to eliminate the danger of "bloodline contamination".

The five foreign women, especially Maheraha, were in dire straits. They tearfully pleaded with Zhao Yu, begging him to believe them.

Under Zhao Yu's protection, the four foreign women who were originally virgins passed through the checkpoint very easily.

When it came to Maheraha, whom even Emperor Zhao Yu was unsure about, he ultimately decided to let her give birth to the child first. His reasoning was that he was a pure Han Chinese, while Maheraha was a Turk. After the child was born, he could determine their bloodline to some extent by observing whether the child had Han Chinese features and whether it resembled him.

Several months later, Mahlaha's child was born, with obvious Han Chinese features and a resemblance to Zhao Yu.

This proves that there is a high probability that the child born to Maheraha was Zhao Yu's.

Even so, Zhao Yu still stripped the child and his descendants of all the qualifications to inherit the throne, allowing his lineage to hold the highest rank of prince.

This is tantamount to putting a huge question mark on the identity of this child and his descendants. In a feudal era where bloodlines were highly valued, the impact on this was immense.

After saying this, the eunuch and the lady-in-waiting all looked at Consort Li and Empress Dowager Shunde.

The two women, seeing this, had no way to express their suffering.

Yes.

They weren't virgins.

The problem is that their man, Wang Yu, has been captured by the Jurchens for more than two years.

Moreover, Wang Yu hadn't touched them for several years before he was captured.

How could they possibly have a problem?
However, upon hearing of Maheraha's ordeal, Queen Dowager Li and Empress Dowager Sundeok dared not be careless, fearing that the paternity of their future children might also be questionable. In the days that followed, Jo Yu lavishly favored daughters of the Goryeo royal family, the imperial clan, and noblewomen.

In just a few months, apart from a few Goryeo women like Wanyan Wule, almost all the other Goryeo women were sexually exploited by Zhao Yu...

in fact--

The reason why Jo Yu has recently shown an unusual enthusiasm for taking in the daughters of the royal family, clan women, and noblewomen of Goryeo is by no means simply because he is indulging in the pleasure of war spoils; there are profound political considerations behind it.

Many people believe that Cao Cao's fondness for other men's wives stemmed from personal fetishes.

Admittedly, women in the Han and Wei dynasties married very early, with many becoming wives at the age of twelve or thirteen, before they had fully matured. Meanwhile, other men's wives were mostly around eighteen, nineteen, or twenty years old, in their prime, full of charm and beauty, and having experienced the trials of marriage, they knew better how to serve men.

But the deeper reason is that Cao Cao often favored not ordinary women, but the widows of enemy lords or his generals.

This contains a sophisticated set of political logic.

Behind these women were mostly powerful and influential families with deep-rooted influence. By marrying them, Cao Cao was able to naturally absorb the power of their maternal relatives, turning potentially hostile forces into allies. This played a crucial role in his rapid expansion of power and consolidation of his rule.

Cao Cao was naturally happy to gain both beautiful women and increased power, achieving two goals at once.

Zhao Yu's logic of doing things is remarkably similar to that of Cao Cao.

But Jo Yu's method went a step further. He adopted a more direct and thorough strategy, which was to capture almost all the royal daughters, clan daughters, and noble daughters of Goryeo.

This means that Jo Yu could directly take over the political marriage network that the Goryeo Dynasty had cultivated for hundreds of years without having to arrange marriages one by one.

By controlling these key women, Jo Yu effectively grasped the crucial link in establishing connections with the various powerful families of Goryeo.

Take Zhao Yu's acceptance of the Tuo clan as an example.

By taking in Yi Ja-gyeom's second wife, Lady Taku, as well as her two younger sisters and three nieces (i.e., Taku Jun-kyung's other two sisters and three daughters), Zhao Yu was able to establish close ties with Taku Jun-kyung.

Tuo Junjing was born in Xijing, Goryeo. He participated in several campaigns against the Jin Dynasty and the Song Dynasty, and made many military achievements.

Among the Goryeo people, especially in the Goryeo army, Tuo Jun-kyung was highly respected.

Back then, it was by joining forces with Tak Jun-kyung that Lee Ja-gyeom raised an army to rebel, burned down the royal palace, and imprisoned King Gae, thus seizing control of the Goryeo court.

After the Song army decisively defeated the Goryeo army, Tuo Junjing led the remaining Goryeo troops and fled to Goryeo's western capital with Wanyan Zongfu.

Currently, most of Goryeo's army is under the control of Tuo Junjing, and even Wanyan Zongfu, who was defeated by the Song army, has to act according to his wishes.

In other words, Tuo Junjing is now the biggest obstacle for the Song Dynasty to recover the northern part of Jidi. If Tuo Junjing can lead the Goryeo army to surrender, the Song Dynasty can quickly quell the rebellion in Jidi and then launch a general offensive against the Jin Dynasty.

This was not just wishful thinking on Zhao Yu's part.

As long as Jo Yu works hard to cultivate relationships with Tak Jun-kyung's sister and daughter, and they give him children, he can give Tak Jun-kyung and his Goryeo soldiers hope.

By then, perhaps Zhao Yu wouldn't need to send anyone to persuade Tuo Junjing and his men to defect; Tuo Junjing himself would lead the Goryeo army to surrender to the Song Dynasty.

The current disparity in strength between the Song and Jin dynasties is enormous, something that anyone with discerning eyes can see.

Against the backdrop of Ji being about to be incorporated into the territory of the Song Dynasty.

For the sake of his family's future, Tuo Junjing is highly likely to surrender to the Song Dynasty on his own initiative, without even needing Zhao Yu to send someone to persuade him to defect.

To put it simply, in the future, many former noble families of Goryeo will inevitably try every means to find a way to revive their families in the Song Dynasty.

Zhao Yu's acceptance of daughters of the Goryeo royal family, the imperial clan, and nobles opened a direct "window" for these former Goryeo nobles to communicate with him, allowing them to establish relationships with the Song Dynasty's high-ranking officials without having to go through roundabout ways.

Some may wonder why Jo Yu, whose policies in Giji were clearly aimed at cracking down on the high-ranking officials, gentry, wealthy families, and merchants of Goryeo, and winning over the common people and slaves of Goryeo, especially the latter, would now want to establish connections with the old Goryeo aristocracy.

From a broader perspective, it was correct to crack down on the old Goryeo aristocracy and support the lower classes of Goryeo.

Zhao Yu's move aimed to distribute the land held by the former Goryeo nobles to Goryeo commoners and slaves, thereby gaining the support of the lower classes in Goryeo and laying the foundation for the Song Dynasty's rule over the region. At the same time, he confiscated the wealth, provisions, and supplies of the former Goryeo nobles to provide financial and material support for the military operations to liberate Goryeo and attack the Jin Dynasty.

But this does not mean that he intends to exterminate all the former nobles of Goryeo and deny them any chance to rise again.

Governing a region requires a large number of talented individuals.

While it cannot be said that there were no capable individuals among the common people and slaves of Goryeo, due to their upbringing and education level, it was indeed difficult for them to produce enough talented people capable of governing the region in the short term.

Therefore, regardless of Zhao Yu's subjective intentions, in the early stages of governing Giji, he had to rely on those talented individuals from the old Goryeo aristocracy who possessed governing experience and abilities as a transitional force. Even if he hoped that Giji would be governed by Goryeo commoners and Goryeo slaves in the future, he would need to first provide them with long-term education and training, which could not be achieved in the short term.

Moreover, although Jidi had long been a vassal state of the Central Plains dynasties, it had been separated from the Central Plains for a long time, and there were huge differences in language, customs and traditions.

If the government were to rely solely on Song Dynasty officials for governance, it would inevitably encounter problems of being out of step with the local conditions, making it difficult to win the hearts of the people, and might even trigger new conflicts.

Therefore, employing talented individuals from the former Goryeo aristocracy who were familiar with the local conditions was an inevitable choice for achieving a smooth transition and effective governance of Giji.

In fact, Wu Yong and others had already begun to mobilize the former nobles of Goryeo who had survived the public trial, inviting them to serve the Song Dynasty.

Furthermore, the beauties that Wu Yong and his men searched for for Zhao Yu in Jidi were mostly not from the commoner or slave class of Goryeo, but from the old aristocratic class of Goryeo.

Once a woman from his family was selected to enter Zhao Yu's harem, her family members would be exempted from public trial and instead sent to the Song Dynasty for labor reform and ideological education.

When the time is right, Zhao Yu will grant amnesty to these families by taking their daughters as concubines, and eventually bring them under his control.

This strategy was not only Zhao Yu's original idea, but also his years of accumulated successful experience, as well as the wisdom summarized and refined by Song Dynasty officials afterward.

In conclusion, this was a set of political methods that had been tested in practice and proved effective. It cleverly combined Zhao Yu's personal desires with political goals, consolidating his rule in the newly recovered territories while also attracting a large number of capable individuals to the Song Dynasty, laying a solid foundation for subsequent governance and expansion.

……

(End of this chapter)