Chapter 137: Flaunting Wealth

As the leading family of Huyou Township, the Eastern Zhang residence was indeed sizable, especially the banquet hall, with its soaring eaves and upturned corners, round corridor pillars, and a main room large enough to seat thirty-four people.

Though it was not yet dark, the hall was already lit with candles, seemingly to flaunt the host's wealth, with two rows of three-foot-tall bronze lamp stands placed against the walls. Their design was hardly exquisite — mostly small bronze figures of kneeling slaves, holding lamp trays in both hands, filled with animal tallow, the wicks burning quietly and giving off a faint scorched smell.

Further in from the lamp stands were lacquered wooden low tables uniformly painted black, each with a rush mat behind it, arranged in two rows to the east and west.

The tall, corpulent Zhang Bo barely fit alone in the central host seat, with two green-clad maidservants sitting on small stools beside him to attend. In the end, he had not sent his own clansmen to invite Heifu to the feast, feeling he had gained the upper hand in this contest, and so, brimming with confidence, he raised a hand and invited everyone to take their seats.

The guests who had come today were divided into east and west seating, as clearly distinct as the Jing and Wei rivers.

Seated on the east side were members of the Zhang clan and the local elders. Apart from the village elder Zhang Fu, who sat at the head of the east seats in brocade robes with wide sleeves, most of the others wore ordinary hemp and ramie clothing.

These people were all local clan members and fellow villagers; their ties were based on blood, and even if they did not share the same surname, they were connected through marriage. Every twelfth month, all the families of the same town would go together to sweep the ancestral graves, and they would also eat and drink together in the same hall — they were all flesh-and-blood kin and neighbors, just separated by nearer or more distant branches of the family. Such a group was naturally well acquainted with one another, and as soon as they met, they greeted each other in the local dialect and struck up warm conversations, while the corners of their eyes glanced toward the "outsiders" across the way.

Meanwhile, Heifu, Gong Ao, Zhong Ming, and the ten armored soldiers Heifu had deliberately brought along sat on the west guest seats. Very conscious of being "outsiders," they all wore light armor, swords hung at their waists, and sat upright in military posture on their knees, each with a solemn expression and few words, appearing entirely out of place amid the lively banquet atmosphere.

Seeing that everyone had arrived, Zhang Bo clapped his hands to quiet the chatting elders and fellow villagers. He spoke at length in the local dialect, of which Heifu only grasped the gist — nothing more than that today's feast was to introduce everyone to the new Patrol Officer, and that they should all eat and drink their fill without restraint.

Then, led by the village elder Zhang Fu, everyone on the east side rose together and bowed with clasped hands toward Heifu at the head of the west seats, and Heifu returned the gesture with a cupped-hand salute.

Although the customs of the Wei region differed greatly from those of Nan Commandery, fortunately, a country magnate's banquet lacked the elaborate etiquette of aristocratic feasts in the great cities. After the introductions were complete, the feast officially began.

"Is Zhang Bo trying to flaunt his wealth in front of me?"

Watching the candles burning in broad daylight behind him, and the servants and maids filing in carrying lacquerware food boxes, Heifu thought to himself.

In the Spring and Autumn period, even the eating vessels used by feudal lords, ministers, officers, and commoners were governed by different ritual regulations, and those of low status could not use bronze vessels.

But gradually, some nobles grew poor while some officers and commoners became wealthy. Though still restricted by ritual and not daring to excessively overstep by using bronze ding and gui, another type of utensil became popular. Just as bronze represented status, this became a mark of wealth — lacquerware.

The Liang-Song region was said to have "a thousand groves of lacquer trees" and was the handicraft center for lacquerware production in the Central Plains. Zhuangzi himself had once served as a minor lacquer garden official in the state of Song. But the lacquerware here was still not cheap; fine pieces could rival gold in price.

Looking at the lacquerware before him, the small serving dishes were black, while the lacquer bowls were uniformly red. The wine cups were eared cups, likewise adorned with red-and-black cloud patterns, simple yet vivid. Regardless of the type, the style was completely uniform — something that could not be produced in a small county town or village, and must have been custom-ordered in a great city...

At that moment, Zhang Bo spoke, a long string of words in the local dialect, and when he finished, the fellow villagers on the east side burst into laughter, their gazes all turning together toward Heifu.

"What did he say?" Heifu tilted his head and asked his "interpreter," Zhong Ming.

Zhong Ming looked somewhat embarrassed, but still truthfully relayed it to Heifu: "Zhang Bo says that all this lacquerware was made for him at great expense, commissioned from the finest lacquerware workshop in Daliang City. It is extremely exquisite, and even his own family rarely uses it on ordinary days. Today, to entertain the honored guest who has come from afar, he has brought it out. He also said..."

Seeing Zhong Ming hesitate, Heifu pressed, "What else did he say?"

"He also mentioned that a few days ago, when he was hosting a group of traveling merchants at his home, one merchant grew so greedy that he hid a lacquer eared cup from the table in his bosom, trying to steal it! Zhang Bo finally asked the Patrol Officer: such exquisite vessels — surely you've never seen anything like them in the counties and villages of Qin, have you?"

Heifu immediately frowned. This Zhang Bo was not only flaunting his wealth, but his words were barbed!

He shot a glare at Gong Ao, who was furious and about to slam the table and rise, and shook his head at him. Then, facing the crowd on the east side, he began to speak with composure.

"Relay my words to them in the Liang-Wei dialect. Do not miss a single sentence."

Zhong Ming assented, and so Heifu spoke one sentence at a time, and he relayed each one.

"The Patrol Officer says he has seen lacquerware ten times, a hundred times more exquisite than these!"

At these words, the east-side crowd was stunned and looked at each other, while Zhang Bo burst out laughing, saying Heifu was boasting.

Unhurried, Heifu began to recount the tomb-robbing case he had cracked when he had just become a Village Chief.

It was the tomb of the Ruo'ao clan, a ducal house of Chu with a lineage stretching back hundreds of years.

Compared to the history of the Ruo'ao clan, the Zhang clan, which could only be traced back two hundred years — especially this Yangwu Zhang clan that had not yet known wealth for three generations — was like the light of a grain of rice trying to rival the sun and moon.

In the massive outer coffin chamber of Ruo'ao Dou Xin, apart from the bronze ding and gui that marked his status, there were also mountains of lacquerware in every shape imaginable.

Heifu could name only a few types.

There was an openwork carved lacquer jin, that is, a wine table. Heifu remembered that its surface was carved from a single thick wooden board, incised with cloud patterns and painted in red, with two dragons carved in relief at each of the four corners and the four legs fully sculpted into beast forms. The table base was painted with cloud and grass-leaf patterns, the beast-shaped feet with scale and spiral patterns, the whole body using black lacquer as a ground with red painted designs...

"Is this object not ten times, a hundred times more exquisite than these low black-lacquered tables?"

There was also a mandarin-duck-shaped painted lacquer box. Heifu described how its head, body, wings, feet, and tail were all done in shallow relief, the carving fine and the image lifelike. On the black lacquer ground of the vessel's surface, red, gold, and yellow colors were used to paint patterns: feather patterns on the duck's body, a pair of symmetrical phoenixes looking back painted on either side of the tail, and spiral and interlocking cloud patterns on the handle and base...

"Is this object not ten times, a hundred times more exquisite than these ordinary lacquer boxes with hardly any patterns?"

As Zhong Ming relayed Heifu's words, Zhang Bo and the entire east-side crowd were struck dumb with astonishment.

The Ruo'ao clan had been nobles whose wealth rivaled that of a state. From what Heifu had seen, the scale of their burial goods was fully comparable to the "Tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng," which had yielded countless national treasures. Thus, the rarity of their lacquerware forms and the exquisiteness of their craftsmanship were the pinnacle of their age.

When those objects were excavated, even he, a widely knowledgeable modern man, had been shocked and nearly unable to resist secretly pocketing a few. How much more so the Zhang country magnates before him.

When Heifu finished, he smiled lightly and calmly. Though he did not say it outright, the meaning was self-evident.

Compared to the true nobility of the Ruo'ao clan, what the hell was your country-magnate Eastern Zhang? And you dare flaunt your wealth before me — do you really take me for some uncultured Rong-Di army grunt who's seen nothing?

The east-side crowd was speechless. Zhang Bo opened his mouth as if to speak, then stopped. He had asked whether Heifu had ever seen such things, not whether his family owned them, so Heifu's answer was perfectly valid.

At this moment, Gong Ao, awakened by Heifu's words, also began to boast.

Wasn't it just about flaunting wealth? Their Mi-surnamed Gong clan was also a distant branch of the Chu ducal house, and their ancestors had once been wealthy too. Though they were far from what they had been, the lacquerware used in their clan's sacrifices and feasts was also custom-made in Jiangling. Chu customs favored bolder, wilder patterns, and compared to them, Central Plains lacquerware truly lacked imagination. Now it was Zhang Bo and the east-side crowd's turn to be embarrassed, and they began to retort one after another. A great battle over regional aesthetics seemed about to erupt.

Seeing Gong Ao's boasts growing ever larger, Heifu stopped him and said with a smile, "The Ruo'ao bloodline is so ancient that no clan in the world can rival it. Their fief was ten times larger than Huyou Township; the registered households they ruled numbered as many as the entire Yangwu County; their wealth was so vast that even the King of Chu would sweat. And yet, when our Qin army under Lord Wu'an arrived, the descendants of the Ruo'ao could only hastily bury their riches, abandon their ancestral tombs, and flee eastward in panic. From this, one can see..."

Heifu struck his sword scabbard heavily against the lacquer table, startling everyone at the feast.

He said coldly, "No matter how exquisite the lacquerware, it cannot withstand the hewing of bronze and iron swords. No matter how dazzling the wealth, if one wishes it to endure, one must be respectful and deferential before the officials of Qin!"

PS: The afternoon update will be at 4 PM.

Also recommending a Warhammer fanfic: "I, Ork"

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As heavy metal rock resounds across the whole universe, Meng Nan decides to leave his own bold and colorful mark on this wild and joyful story!

(End of chapter)