Chapter 71

Chapter 71

[The Male Chauvinist’s Victory – 12]

When Liu Che first arrived in Shouzhou, he allied with local magnates close to the Li Family and several related clans. Together, they destroyed several small aristocratic houses and eliminated a few powerful magnates, confiscating their property. Half the land went to the government, and half fed the magnates allied with him.

After so many magnates died, were those remaining afraid? Did they grieve that cold lips followed the loss of teeth?

No.

As the old saying went, better a fellow cultivator die than this poor Daoist. My household wasn’t confiscated. Why should I worry?

Besides, the inspector was the Li Family’s son-in-law and shared kinship with my house. Thanks to that relationship, I followed behind and ate until every ditch overflowed.

What was there to fear?

Liu Che treated them courteously, smiling as he called each one Uncle. He frequently entertained them at home, and they exchanged visits during festivals, intimate as one family.

The Yan Family had no previous ties with local magnates, but the Li Family did. The relationships were not especially close, yet the Li Family of Lingnan possessed such an imposing name that every distant cousin wished to borrow its light.

Li Jiangyue and Li Jiangxue were both Li daughters. Li Jiangxue especially was the current patriarch’s legitimate eldest daughter and a renowned noblewoman even in Jiankang. Arriving in Shouzhou, she seemed a heavenly maiden descended to earth and looked down her nose at everyone.

In Jiankang, others might call her Lady of the Right out of respect for the Li Family, but they privately despised her. In Shouzhou, backed by the influence of both Li and Wei families, she truly began to stand almost equal with Li Jiangyue.

The Wei Family had local relatives surnamed Lu-the wife of a cousin of Madam Wei’s sister-in-law had a younger brother in that house. It was the sort of kinship connected only after eight poles barely struck one another.

Because of her mother, Li Jiangxue naturally treated them warmly. Unexpectedly, just after summer, the Lu Family sent Liu Che a remarkably beautiful concubine-born daughter. Her tiny face inspired pity, while her voice was as crisp and lovely as a lark’s.

Liu Che took one look and thought, Wow! A great beauty! Love it!

He accepted her happily, brought her home, told Li Jiangyue to arrange quarters, and formally took Lady Lu as a concubine.

Li Jiangxue nearly died of rage. Thereafter, she refused even a pleasant expression when meeting Madam Lu. Seeing Li Jiangyue smilingly call Lady Lu “younger sister” and instruct her how to conduct herself in the household only angered her more. She wanted to curse that nothing good ever came from a concubine’s line, but then remembered she was now a concubine herself and that her children would be illegitimate. Splitting bamboo would inevitably strike the shoots, so she forcibly swallowed the insult.

Li Jiangyue also socialized outside. Unlike Li Jiangxue, who gathered large, imposing circles, she more often invited the families of Liu Che’s lowborn confidants to visit. She asked whether they faced difficulties and whether their elders were healthy. At other times, she raised silkworms and made clothing with the wives of officials in the inspector’s residence, worshiped at temples each month, or distributed porridge at the city gate.

When Liu Che heard reports of the sisters’ differing styles, he merely smiled. When he saw Li Jiangyue, he encouraged her diligence in household matters. When he saw Li Jiangxue, he called her his darling treasure. Both believed they had obtained their own pleasure, and that was enough.

Guan Pu was twelve, and Guan Sheng eight. The elder already knew horsemanship, while the younger’s aptitude was high. Liu Che still set aside time each day to teach them strategy and martial arts. When away, he had Qu Guangqi supervise their studies and seldom allowed them idleness.

Liu Che had brought his household and confidants to Shouzhou in the third month of the previous year. Winter passed, spring returned, and in the blink of an eye, their second year arrived.

During the past year, Qu Guangqi and the other advisers implemented policies lending farm tools and oxen, encouraging production, and promoting agriculture and sericulture. Liu Che reserved a small portion of confiscated wealth for emergencies and used the rest to repair Shouzhou’s neglected waterworks and encourage births.

With more independent farmers, each family owning a fixed amount of land, government loans of tools and oxen, and coordinated policies on water and taxation, favorable conditions accumulated until Shouzhou’s stagnant pool finally came alive.

Once households possessed surplus money, simple ideas about childbearing asserted themselves. By the second year, children’s cries had grown more numerous.

Qu Guangqi and the advisers surveyed the region. Shouzhou was originally a lower prefecture with fewer than twenty thousand registered households. Yet magnates had concealed more than ten thousand people as household slaves. Liu Che’s earlier bloody purge uncovered at least four thousand. Even counting four people per family, that added a full thousand households.

In the second spring, Liu Che repeated his method. Allied with clans closely tied to the Li and Wei families, as well as newly risen houses he had fostered, he struck like thunder and destroyed more than ten established Shouzhou magnates. He recovered more than ten thousand concealed servants and tenants-nearly twenty-five hundred households-and confiscated immense wealth.
After succeeding, Liu Che invited the magnate families who shared the profits to a banquet. He personally poured wine for the two most honored guests.

“This achievement was possible only through the assistance of my two uncles!”

Li Jiangxue sat beside them in brilliant clothes, radiant and smiling.

The men stroked their beards and laughed proudly, each helping carry the other’s flowered sedan. “Worthy nephew is young and accomplished. Your future is limitless-truly limitless! Ha ha ha!”

Dusk deepened, and night rain whispered. Lady Lu knelt with eyes swollen red from weeping.

“Madam, this concubine is insignificant and dares not discuss official affairs with His Lordship. But the Lu Family is my natal home, my closest kin. I truly cannot watch them suffer disaster…”

Li Jiangyue had recently been diagnosed as three months pregnant. Wrapped in fox fur, she sat in a chair and replied with difficulty, “You said yourself that this is official business. How can I, a woman of the inner household, speak to my husband about it?”

Lady Lu wept silently. After a long while, she suddenly kowtowed. Her forehead struck the floor so hard that thuds sounded even through the carpet.

“Madam, please! This concubine truly has no other way!”

Compassion appeared on Li Jiangyue’s face. She sighed. “Rise. I will try asking. I cannot promise the Lu Family will be pardoned, only that perhaps they may be granted a path to survival.”

Lady Lu sobbed, “This concubine will never forget Madam’s great kindness!”

Seeing her thin clothing, Li Jiangyue found her a cloak and sent servants to escort her back beneath an umbrella.

The matron beside her watched Lady Lu leave, then said quietly, “Madam, you said yourself this is official business. Why mention it and risk displeasing His Lordship? The physician said your pregnancy is still early and told you to avoid worry and rest carefully.”

“They’re only a few words. How could that count as exertion? Since she begged me, there is no harm in asking once.”

Li Jiangyue gazed at the rainy night outside and murmured almost inaudibly, “Besides, she today may well be me tomorrow. Creating goodwill is always worthwhile.”

The matron did not hear. “What did you say?”

“Nothing.” Li Jiangyue smiled to conceal it. “Is Jiangxue still entertaining them?”

The matron frowned. “You are pregnant and cannot attend His Lordship, so she has become terribly smug. She acts entirely like the mistress of the household. Before, they at least called her Lady of the Right. Now she has people call her simply Madam!”

Li Jiangyue smiled dismissively. “Let her. It is only a form of address. Don’t quarrel with her side over it even if you hear.”

Though indignant, the matron nodded reluctantly. “Yes, this old servant understands.”

Li Jiangyue rose and looked into the distance through the window. Her smile remained, but did not reach her eyes.

Lady Lu was young and incomparably lovely. She had entered the household only half a year ago and still enjoyed her husband’s favor. He visited her seven or eight nights each month and remembered to give her a share of every amusing trinket.

Her natal Lu Family had also been honored guests of the Yan household when her husband purged magnates the previous year. He had treated them generously.

Yet none of that stopped him from striking the Lu Family mercilessly.

Clearly, beauty and friendship were worthless before interests. One moment a man could laugh warmly with you; the next, he could take your life without blinking.

Then what of the Li Family?

What would happen to the family that owed its survival to her husband’s father, yet had neglected him for years?

Even today, her legitimate elder sister still hated her for stealing love the previous year. Li Jiangxue believed Jiangyue had destroyed the perfect marriage meant for her and forced her to enter the Yan household as a concubine. But was that truly the truth?

Li Jiangyue had never intended to steal her sister’s fiancé.

Who could imagine that her whip-wielding elder sister held affection for the man she beat?

Who could imagine that the beaten man supposedly loved his attacker in return?

With Lady Lu’s fate as a lesson, Li Jiangyue reconsidered her elder sister’s claims of childhood affection and mutual love. Standing by the window and hearing music drift from the front hall, she gave a mocking laugh.

“Pitiful creature.”

Then again, she was only traveling fifty steps and laughing at one who traveled a hundred.

But she had chosen to enter the Yan Family and selected this husband herself. A released arrow never returned to the bow. Whatever happened, she had to walk this road well.

Beauty would fade with time. Tenderness and attentiveness were minor tools her husband could obtain with a crook of his finger. What he needed was a qualified household mistress, a capable assistant, and…

Li Jiangyue lowered her head and gently stroked her still-flat belly, smiling.
…

In little more than a year as Shouzhou’s inspector, Liu Che had raised its households from fewer than twenty thousand to twenty-five thousand. The treasury was full, and the waterworks renewed. His pride and ambition were easy to imagine.

After seeing off the previous night’s guests, Liu Che felt no sleepiness. He discussed affairs with his advisers until late before they dispersed.

Hearing that he had slept in the study after working so late, Li Jiangyue knew he would not rise early. At the estimated hour, she had a restorative soup prepared and carried it to him.

Liu Che smiled. “Why are you here? Sit.”

Li Jiangyue spoke first of household trifles: his brothers had grown taller and last year’s clothing was now too short; one trusted subordinate would soon marry; an elder in another family had recently fallen ill and should be visited when time allowed. Only after talking for some time did she say, “Lady Lu came to beg me yesterday. She wept pitifully over her natal family. I thought that since Husband has inventoried and distributed the lands of the convicted magnates and confiscated their wealth, their lives might be spared. Publicly, it would display mercy; privately, it would settle Lady Lu’s heart…”

Liu Che drank several mouthfuls of soup and nodded. “That has some reason.”

After a pause, he added, “Pardoning only the Lu Family would be too conspicuous. I will select several more households whose death sentences can be remitted. That will better display benevolence.”

Li Jiangyue smiled. “Husband is merciful. I will tell Lady Lu later. She will certainly be grateful.”

Liu Che accepted the praise happily, never feeling that mercy had nothing to do with him. He stroked her still-flat belly and asked with concern, “What did the physician say? Have you felt any discomfort?”

Her expression was gentle and serene. “Everything is well.”

Liu Che nodded in satisfaction.

When he finished the soup, Li Jiangxue placed the empty bowl on a maid’s tray. She paused, then cautiously asked with some worry, “Does Husband want a son or a daughter?”

“Does that need asking?” Liu Che replied without hesitation. “A son, of course!”

Li Jiangyue: “…”

In his previous life, Liu Che had longed for a son until his eyes nearly turned green. Several daughters were born before his eldest son, Liu Ju.

Before that, even his maternal uncle Tian Fen had exchanged secret signals with the Prince of Huainan and said, “The present sovereign has no Crown Prince. Your Highness is a close grandson of Emperor Gao and practices benevolence and righteousness, known throughout the realm. If one day the imperial carriage should not return, who but Your Highness ought to succeed?”

Liu Che: Damn you!!!

The affair had left him with severe psychological scars. Thus, when Li Jiangyue asked, he answered without hesitation.

Very direct. Very decisive. Very painful.

“Wow!” Emperor Gaozu clicked his tongue. “Zhi’er, you don’t have the fate of a straight man, but you’ve caught the disease! Anyone considerate would say he liked sons and daughters equally.”

Liu Che sneered. “Hypocrisy!”

Emperor Gaozu declared proudly, “That is exactly what I told my Empress Xu!”

Li Shimin said proudly, “And what I told my Guanyinbi!”

Zhu Yuanzhang said proudly, “Whether Old Ma bore sons or daughters never changed my feelings for her!”

Ying Zheng said indifferently, “I had too many sons-more than twenty, perhaps. I had them early and never cared much.”

Emperor Gaozu suddenly remembered, “Come to think of it, I had more than twenty sons too.”

Zhu Yuanzhang suddenly remembered, “Come to think of it, I also had more than twenty.”

Li Shimin waved modestly. “Fourteen or fifteen. I dragged down the average.”

“…” Liu Che: “?????”

“What’s wrong with all of you? Does mocking me every morning make you happy for the entire day?!”

Liu Che raged, “What’s wrong with wanting a son? Is it a crime? I really do have a throne at home that requires an heir!”

He planted his hands on his hips, righteous and confident. “Put ‘I want a son’ across the public screen!!!”