Chapter 33: Sir, Would You Like to Buy a Bolt of Shu Brocade?

In front of each flower loom in the courtyard sat three female weavers: one selecting the pattern, one lifting the threads, one throwing the shuttle.

Seeing onlookers, the weavers showed no embarrassment; instead, a woman seated on a chair, fanning herself with a bamboo reed, rose and stepped forward warmly.

“Sir, would you like to buy a bolt of Shu brocade?”

Lu Beigu quietly stepped back behind the others.

You couldn’t just buy blindly—if you nodded too easily, even half a bolt of Shu brocade would empty your purse.

After all, since the end of the Han dynasty, Shu brocade had been one of the supreme luxuries of Huaxia, utterly unaffordable for common folk.

But even if you couldn’t afford it, watching the craft was still worthwhile—enjoying the sight cost nothing.

Seeing they weren’t leaving, the woman confidently explained to Li Pan: “Each heddle thread corresponds to one filament; to weave the ‘Square Victory Pattern’ requires sixty heddles, to weave the ‘Coiled Tassel Pattern’ requires seventy-two.”

As she spoke, the pattern selector threaded her needle between the ear threads, tying knots with swift, butterfly-like motions—suddenly, the once chaotic gold threads revealed the first outlines of diamond blossoms.

The pattern-lifting mechanism of the flower loom consisted of heddles, drawstrings, and pattern cards; the lifters operated the mechanism from the upper gallery, pulling the warp threads to form openings, while the shuttle throwers passed colored weft threads through those openings, interlacing warp and weft to form the design.

Lu Beigu leaned close and noticed fine markings carved into the bamboo reed beneath the loom—each shuttle throw required tightening the weft by one notch, the force even as if measured by a ruler.

Weaving Shu brocade wasn’t a single layer—it required at least seven layers stacked vertically; even after hours of synchronized labor, with hundreds of precise shuttle throws, the weavers could produce only a patch the size of a thumbnail.

That’s where the saying “an inch of brocade, an inch of gold” came from.

How to put it? After watching for a while, Lu Beigu felt that expensive things truly had their price.

Then, the woman led them to tour the middle courtyard.

In the middle courtyard, newly dyed colored silks were drying—only two colors: yellow silk dyed with gardenia and locust flowers, and blue silk dyed with indigo root.

Other colors might have been dyed in other batches—they hadn’t seen them.

But besides these ordinary hues, there were special ones.

Lu Beigu saw a boy using a bamboo pole to stretch silk threads under a special shaded canopy; from afar, the threads appeared solid-colored, but up close, each held five or six gradations of hue, as if dawn itself had been twisted into filaments—truly dazzling.

These were the threads used only for special Shu brocade.

In the back courtyard lay the area for Shu embroidery.

It was unnaturally quiet; the closest embroiderer was silently stitching a “Lotus Pond and Golden Carp” design.

The finished Shu brocade already bore exquisite patterns; these embroiderers added “flowers upon brocade” for private commissions.

—Literally, “flowers upon brocade.”

Her needle danced across the brocade, each stitch precisely threading through the gap left by the previous filament; Lu Beigu saw that when she stitched the lotus petals, she used a unique stitch: seven shades of pink thread arranged from dense to sparse, giving the petals a dew-drenched, drooping texture.

When she stitched the fish, she used a rolling stitch finer than a hair; at the tail, she switched abruptly to a sand stitch—just a few strokes, and the golden carp’s scales gleamed brilliantly, as if ready to flick its tail and swim away at any moment.

A marvel of skill; Li Pan was momentarily speechless, then sighed.

“I once thought the tale of Zhang Sengyao painting dragons on the wall of Anle Temple in Jinling—how he ‘painted the pupils and they flew away’—was sheer exaggeration. Now I see, I was merely ignorant.”

“Sir, would you like to buy a bolt of Shu brocade?”

The woman asked the same question again.

This time, Li Pan hesitated.

Part of him was tempted; part of him felt trapped—he didn’t want to lose face in front of so many subordinates. No man, no matter his station, felt otherwise.

So he slapped his purse and barked: “Buy it!”

The woman beamed and led Li Pan to choose colors.

Shu brocade came in many hues, but for garments meant to be worn outside, the choices were limited: crabapple red, sunflower yellow, sky blue, indigo, and cypress green.

After much deliberation, Li Pan chose crabapple red—the so-called “Shu brocade red”—dyed with Sichuan’s native honghua and madder root, retaining the vibrancy of red while adding the translucence of pink.

Because “tang” sounded like “tang” (hall), it also carried auspicious meanings like “gold and jade fill the hall,” making it the most commonly used brocade for festive occasions.

One bolt of Shu brocade measured thirty-three Song chi in length and two Song chi in width, priced at forty guan.

As Li Pan paid, Lu Beigu, standing beside him, truly grasped the meaning of “Great Song’s lavish support of scholar-officials” through the sheer purchasing power displayed.

Such a breathtaking bolt of brocade would take an ordinary family years of frugality—six or seven years’ savings after daily expenses—to afford.

For Li Pan, it was merely one month’s salary—fully legal income.

In Great Song, a county magistrate’s base salary was fifteen guan per month, plus twenty guan in official allowances, totaling thirty-five guan; annually, the court also granted twelve bolts of silk, one bolt of gauze, and twenty taels of cotton, amounting to just over forty guan per month in legal income.

Li Pan was generous: after paying four “ten-guan” jiaozi notes, he turned to the woman and said plainly:

“Keep thirteen chi, cut twenty chi, divide it into five portions—four chi each—and wrap them up for them.”

—So this was the perk of traveling with your superior?

Not only the four accompanying guards, but even Lu Beigu felt genuinely pleased.

The woman carefully cut and wrapped the fabric; holding the smooth, lustrous crabapple-red Shu brocade, Lu Beigu thought it wouldn’t be enough for his own clothes, but enough to make a pleated skirt for his sister-in-law, or shirts for his two children.

Then, during festivals, he’d have something decent to wear.

“Thank you, Your Honor!”

Lu Beigu meant it sincerely.

Li Pan patted his shoulder, saying nothing—he likely felt a twinge of regret after his impulsive purchase.

Soon after, the group hurried out of the Shu brocade workshop beside the inn.

At that moment, another group of officials, having just finished eating and drinking at the inn, stepped out for a stroll; the woman seized the chance and stood at the workshop’s entrance, warmly calling out:

“Sir, would you like to buy a bolt of Shu brocade?”

——————

① “Sheng” was originally a headdress worn by the Queen Mother of the West in mythology; the Square Victory Pattern consists of two overlapping rhombuses, symbolizing good fortune. The Book of Song’s “Treatise on Auspicious Omens” records: “Sheng appears when the state is at peace, bandits subdued, and the four barbarians submit.”

② The Coiled Tassel Pattern is a complex, colorful design resembling braided silk cords; it was widely favored by nobles during the Northern Song, but banned for officials after Emperor Shenzong’s Xining era.

③ A loom component through which warp threads pass; its function is to beat the weft into place.

(End of chapter)