One Piece of Song Dynasty

Liang Xing asked, "Do you have any other instructions, sir?"

Li Xin said, "No, the mansion is going to hold a wedding ceremony for the servants in the past few days. You can leave after attending the wedding, and you can spend more time with your family. Once you start working, you will have less time to spend with your family." biquge "

The two said in unison, "Here, sir."

Li Xin thought for a while and said, "Liang Xing, I allow you to take two thousand taels of gold with you when you leave. You can go directly to the housekeeper to collect it. You can take a cook with you, and then pick a few people from the Xiang Barracks in Hui'an County to take with you." , I will inform the county lieutenant in advance."

Liang Xing replied, "Well, sir, I understand."

Li Xin continued, "Zhao Yun, you follow the convoy going to Yan'an Prefecture in a few days. The shopkeeper of Yan'an Prefecture Restaurant will come over tomorrow. I will tell him that you don't have to choose the personnel. When you get to Yan'an Prefecture, , the restaurant owner will recruit a group of dead soldiers, so you should use them first."

Zhao Yun replied, "Well, sir, I understand."

Li Xin yawned and said, "You have been tired for the whole day, so go and have a rest. I am also going to have a rest."

The next morning, the three new shopkeepers arrived.

The three of them cupped their hands and said, "Hello, Master."

Li Xin said, "Come on, everyone, sit down first. Here are three pieces of paper with special tasks for the three restaurants written on them. You three can take them as you like. Whichever one you get will be the shopkeeper of that restaurant."

The three of them each took a piece of paper, opened it and read it.

Li Xin continued, "You all know that % of the restaurant's profits can be used to establish a news network and recruit dead soldiers in each restaurant. In addition, you must protect the characters written on the note. Once If there is a major change in the city where you are, you must escort these people out of the city by any means. If there is any major change, I will send a carrier pigeon to you. When the three of you leave, I allow you to take two thousand taels of gold each."

The three of them answered in unison, "Yes, Master."

Li Xin nodded and said, "Well, the shopkeepers of Qingjian City and Fuzhou Restaurants can leave first. The shopkeepers of Yan'anfu Restaurant will stay here. I have something else to tell you."

Qingjiancheng left with the shopkeeper of Fuzhou Restaurant.

Li Xin asked, "You are the shopkeeper of Yan'an Mansion Restaurant. What is your name?"

The shopkeeper replied, "Go back to the master's house and call Liu Zhi down the line."

Li Xin said, "I asked you to come here to tell you something. There are two characters written on your paper. When you leave in a few days, you will take one person with you. This person's name is Zhao Yun. When you arrive at Yan'an Mansion, you must fully cooperate with this." You need to secretly protect General Liu Fa first, but it’s just a year since the restaurant opened. After one year, you don’t need to worry about General Liu Fa. After one year, you can secretly protect Li Yongqi’s family.”

Liu Zhi replied, "Yes, Master, I understand."

Li Xin nodded and said, "Okay, it's okay. You can go down first."

The three new shopkeepers have left, and the decorations in the home have become more and more festive. There are three newlyweds getting married this time. After all, it is the first time to get married. Of course, it must be festive and set an example for the servants. The head of the family, Xin, keeps his word.

Before the Song Dynasty, whether it was from the royal family to the common people, marriages generally followed the six rites formulated by Confucianism: accepting gifts, asking for names, accepting auspiciousness, accepting invitations, asking for dates, and welcoming in person.

In the Song Dynasty, the two steps of asking for names and requesting dates were simplified to the four steps of accepting, accepting, accepting, and welcoming. This process is basically the same as the marriage process in later generations, except that weddings in the Song Dynasty still strictly followed "Parents' orders, matchmaker's words".

Nacai is a marriage proposal. The man proposes to the woman through a matchmaker. If the woman is interested, the two parties exchange birth dates and family information. After calculating the birth dates and both parties are satisfied, they then exchange engagement letters, which must state specific details. Betrothal gift and dowry.

During the Great Song Dynasty, men and women can still go on a blind date, and both parties agree on a place to meet and see each other. After meeting, if the man likes the woman, he will insert a gold hairpin into the woman's hair, which is called "inserting hairpins"; otherwise, he will give the woman two pieces of colored satin, which is called "suppression", which means that the marriage will not be successful.

Naji is the etiquette in which the man informs the woman of the good omen of the marriage and gives her a gift to express her intention to get engaged.

Nazheng means that the man gives a betrothal gift to the woman, and the betrothal gift must include wild geese and empty wine bottles. In the cosmology of the ancients, men are yang and women are yin. The union of men and women is naturally the process of the blending of yin and yang. The wild goose is a migratory bird, traveling south and north. In the eyes of the ancients, this is an act of "following the flow of yin and yang". And the wild goose is also a dedicated animal, and this dedicated character just symbolizes the fidelity of marriage; secondly, take a pair of empty wine bottles, put them into clean water, fill them with four goldfish, a pair of chopsticks, and two green onions, and put them in the bottles, which is called "Fish chopsticks", if you belong to a wealthy official family, usually use gold and silver to make a pair of fish chopsticks, and use colorful satin to resemble two green onions, hanging outside the fish bottle, which means that the couple is in harmony and is like a fish in the water.

Personal greeting means welcoming the bride. During the wedding ceremony, the groom leads a float or sedan to the bride's house, and the sedan greeting begins. It is also customary for the bride to ask for auspicious money and wedding wine after getting into the sedan chair. When the bride arrives at the groom's house, she comes down and performs the practice of "throwing beans" for good luck. After the bride enters the wedding hall, there is another activity of "paying homage to the bride." Newlyweds hold "handkerchiefs". The newlyweds first hold a scarf to worship heaven, earth and ancestors, then enter the bridal chamber and the husband and wife pay homage. After paying homage, the newlyweds sit on the bed and perform the ritual of "spreading the tent" and "closing the bun". The bun is when the newlyweds each cut a strand of hair and form a concentric knot as a token of the wedding. After that, there are rituals of removing flowers and fanning fans until the candles are extinguished. During the period when the candles are extinguished, guests, young and old, can play pranks and make things difficult for the newlyweds. This is the predecessor of "bridal chamber trouble" in later generations.

At this point the entire wedding ceremony is over. Because it was a servant getting married and he didn't have any relatives, Li Xin simply canceled the three steps of Nacai, Naji, and Nazheng, and just had a wedding ceremony. But I don’t know if Li Xin can hold a complete wedding ceremony in this life, because Li Xin plans to marry several women, and it seems that both of his parents are gone.

On the day of the wedding, the house was decorated with joy, and the servants' faces were all filled with happy smiles. On that day, Li Xin gave each servant a red envelope of a certain amount of money. The house killed many pigs and chickens, and bought a lot of fish. The cooks also tried their best to prepare tables of sumptuous meals. The delicacies that the servants had never eaten on weekdays were open to eat today, which also opened the eyes of the new families in the house. It turned out that this There is such delicious food in the world.

In the evening, the men drank and bragged to their heart's content, the women sang and danced, and the children played in the fireworks. It was really a rare beauty. Seeing this beautiful scenery, Li Xin felt satisfied and felt that her visit to the Song Dynasty was not in vain. Once upon a time, Li Xin hoped that all the Han people would see this beautiful scenery, and then Li Xin would be satisfied.