fake gentry

The fortified villages of the Eastern Jin Dynasty had public bathhouses.

Small fortified villages have separate rooms for men and women, while larger fortified villages have separate rooms for men and women. Although the facilities are simple, compared to the chaos and war outside the fortified villages, being able to take a hot bath is already the greatest benefit that the fortified village chief can provide to his people.

There were two public bathhouses in Dongshi Wubao. Chen San and Liu Chong were taken to the men's bathhouse.

Inside the bathhouse was a stone stove with a large cauldron on it, continuously boiling water. The steam filled the entire bathhouse with a misty haze, while a stream of water was drawn down from the mountain using bamboo pipes.

Inside the bathhouse, there was a row of wooden tubs. Anyone who wanted to take a bath could simply carry their tub and get water mixed up themselves.

Several sets of clean, coarse linen brown clothes were neatly stacked in the corner, along with a bucket of murky white water and a few clumps of wood ash.

The water in the bucket was rice water, which, like wood ash, was the cleaning agent used by Han Shu for bathing.

The three refugees stared at the steaming cauldron, too timid to move. Liu Chong, however, stripped naked, grabbed a wooden bucket, and began scooping water. He didn't even wait for the water to cool before splashing it on himself, grimacing from the heat but refusing to stop.

He hasn't taken a hot shower in three months.

It's not that I don't want to wash, it's that there's nowhere to wash.

The last time he took a hot bath was in Hefei, where his father had left town. At that time, he had more than a dozen maids serving him baths.

Chen San prepared two buckets of water for Liu Chong before washing himself.

The three refugees then stripped naked, scooped up a bucket of water, and squatted in a corner of the bathhouse to scrub themselves.

Liu Chong, his face glowing with health after washing, changed into the clothes provided by Dong Shi when he came out. He seemed like a completely different person. The refugees had also packed up all the tattered brown clothes he used to wear, so that he could take them back, wash them, and wear them again. At least he had some clean clothes to change into.

After leaving the bathhouse, Dong's servants led several people to a side hall, where Dong had already prepared a meal.

Chen San was led to the main hall by Dong's clerk.

Xie Hong had already finished bathing and changed into the clothes prepared by Madam Dong. With his long hair flowing down his shoulders, he wore a moon-white inner robe with a wide-sleeved shirt over it, and was sitting and chatting with Dong Xuan.

Upon seeing Chen San, Dong Xuan stroked his beard and chuckled: "Chen Dianji, I've already weighed it. The rock honey you brought totals ninety-eight jin. I'll give you 1,700 coins per jin, making a total of 170,000 coins. Do you want to exchange it for money or buy something?"

Chen San bowed slightly to Dong Xuan: "Lord Dong, please grant me pen and ink."

Dong's servants quickly brought over a lacquered tray containing a stack of rough, yellowed hemp paper, a writing brush, a piece of pine soot ink, and a stone inkstone.

Chen San spread out the paper, ground the ink, and began to write.

Before long, he handed Dong Xuan a piece of hemp paper with both hands: "Please take a look, Master Dong."

Dong Xuan took a look, and his eyes immediately lit up: "Beautiful calligraphy! Beautiful calligraphy!"

Xie Hong has loved calligraphy since childhood, and his favorite calligraphers are Wang Xizhi and Huang Tingjian. His imitations of the two are even seven or eight points similar.

From a distance, I noticed that Chen San was writing in running script, which was decent but looked very contrived.

Chen San wrote down on the hemp paper how much grain, cloth, brown clothes, and even wood-chopping knives, pottery cauldrons, and so on he would exchange for.

Twenty bushels of brown rice, two bushels of polished rice, two liters of salt, ten bolts of hemp cloth, fifty brown robes, fifty pairs of straw sandals, thirty straw mats, twenty wood-chopping knives, twenty earthenware jars, and five cooking pots.

Chen San calculated that with over thirty refugees, twenty bushels of coarse rice would be enough to last three months if they were careful.

Two liters of salt should last for six months.

Each person received a brown coat, enough to replace their tattered short coats with some left over.

A machete is essential; you need it to chop wood and build a house.

The earthenware jars were used to store honey. If twenty large earthenware jars were filled with rock honey, it would weigh about 600 catties, which would amount to nearly a million coins. Even the Dong family could not possibly come up with that much money.

Dong Xuan read on line by line. Having come from a family of accountants, he was used to managing accounts and looked very carefully. But halfway through, his fingers suddenly stopped, and he looked up:

"Chen Dianji, these things are worth no more than fifty thousand coins. Do you want the rest? I can give you twelve taels of gold."

Chen San bowed slightly to Dong Xuan: "Please, Lord Dong, prepare an oxcart, curtains, and all necessary items for the young master. If the money and goods are insufficient, I will send honey tomorrow."

Dong Xuan looked up at Xie Hong, his smile somewhat awkward: "My lord, our clan has no objects worthy of your status, so I can only go to the county to procure them."

Xie Hong smiled and said, "No rush. Just pick whatever you need from the Dong clan. But please prepare four oxcarts for me to transport the honey back and forth."

Dong Xuan quickly agreed: "Please rest assured, my lord, I will immediately instruct my clansmen to prepare. If you do not mind, please have a simple meal inside the fortress."

Xie Hong estimated that it was around 3 p.m. Although he had eaten some cured meat at Dong Qi's house around noon, he was really not full.

Thinking that he could get back to the mountains after having a meal at the Dong family's house, he nodded and said, "Thank you for your trouble."

Dong Xuan immediately instructed the clerk to take Chen San to a side hall for a meal, and to prepare the food according to Chen San's instructions. He also had A Ling and A Heng come out to serve, and soon a banquet was set up in the main hall of the Dong residence.

A-Ling brought out a set of black lacquer plates and bowls made of celadon. Although they were far less luxurious and exquisite than those of the gentry, the lacquer was still even and clean, clearly a treasured possession of the Dong family. This was the only set.

The chopsticks were lacquered, smooth and round; the dagger for cutting meat was made of bronze, polished smooth; and the wine vessel was also made of celadon.

Ah Heng was playing the zither on the side, and Xie Hong was taken aback when he heard it.

It wasn't that Aheng played it particularly well, but rather that she was playing Guangling San.

In order to trick viewers into giving tips in the live stream, Xie Hong has some knowledge of the pipa, zither, and zheng, and is quite skilled at them.

The Wei-Jin version of Guangling San has long been lost in modern times. The score he learned was a Ming Dynasty reproduction, but he could still recognize some of the tones and syllables.

Just as Xie Hong was listening intently, A Ling began to serve him food, first bringing him four small dishes: a dish of salted plums, a dish of roasted beans, a dish of dried venison, and a dish of pickled lotus root slices.

The main dish is a stewed chicken in a clay pot. The whole plump chicken is simmered in the clay pot for an hour, resulting in a milky white soup with a layer of fine chicken oil floating on top, and a rich aroma.

Dong Xuan said solicitously, "These are chickens I raised myself, please have a taste, my lord."

Xie Hong picked up a piece of chicken with his chopsticks and took a bite. It tasted pretty good. Although the flavor was a little bland, the chicken skin was chewy and the fat was rich.

Next up was a steamed mandarin fish, steamed with shredded ginger and salt. The fish meat was as white as garlic cloves and melted in your mouth.

Finally, a bowl of fine rice was served. Dong Xuan, as the clan leader, usually ate brown rice, and this kind of fine rice was specially used to entertain distinguished guests.

Having finished eating, Xie Hong put down his chopsticks and said to Dong Xuan, "Master Dong, I have a favor to ask."

Dong Xuan immediately sat up straight: "Please speak, sir."

Xie Hong glanced at A Ling and A Heng and said with a smile, "Miss Dong is intelligent and kind-hearted. I wish to hire her as a maid for a period of three years or a period of one year, with a monthly salary of two thousand. I hope Lord Dong will agree."

During the Jin Dynasty, the status of female servants was so low that it was appalling. Except for the lowest of the low who could not survive, no one would send their daughter to be a servant.

For those from humble backgrounds, sending their daughters to serve as maids for aristocratic families was an even more shameful thing.

However, the aristocratic families also had maids who were not female servants. One type was the daughters of the collateral branches of the same clan who were sent to serve the direct descendants, and the other type was the daughters of respectable families who were hired as servants.

Xie Hong's actions constitute hiring.

The phrase "蕙质兰心" (meaning "a woman of refined character and gentle heart") directly charmed Chief Dong into a smirk.

When Dong's daughter is about to get married, he can simply say that a gentleman named Xie once praised Dong's daughter for her intelligence and virtue, which means she can marry someone of a higher caliber.

So how could Chief Dong possibly disagree?

The power of aristocratic endorsement is terrifying. If Xie Hong becomes a renowned scholar in the future, the value of those four words might be enough to allow the Dong family to form a marriage alliance with a lower-ranking aristocratic family.

Ah Ling and Ah Heng exchanged a blank look, then froze in shock.

The Dong family was not wealthy; the girls in the clan who were fifteen years old or older only received twenty coins a month. Suddenly, they were receiving two thousand coins a month…

That's a lot of money.