Chapter 138: Ritual and the Sword (Part One)

After being undercut in succession by Heifu and Gong Ao, Zhang Bo's show of extravagance fell flat and left him looking foolish…

He could only clap his hands, brush the scene aside, and order the servants to hurry up with the dishes!

Green-robed maidservants in spotless white foot-wraps filed in one after another. Though in Heifu's eyes these women were nothing special in looks, to the few titled Qin soldiers who had come with him, every one of these maids was a rare beauty they hadn't seen in ages, and they promptly swallowed hard.

The maidservants, seeing this bunch of Qin soldiers and toughs staring wide-eyed at them, either knitted their brows or covered their mouths to laugh. They set the dishes and wine before each person on the low tables, then bowed and withdrew backwards out of the hall.

Heifu glanced at the food and wine on the table and thought to himself, "The Zhang clan has really gone all out today."

He saw that besides fine millet, there was plenty of meat: meat on the bone was placed on the left, large sliced cuts on the right; the rice was set to each person's left hand, the soup to their right. The grilled and roasted meats were on the outer side, while condiments like scallion slivers and dipping sauces were on the inner side — all arranged for easy access. The wine was held in a flagon off to the side, and chopsticks, spoons, forks, knives, and the like were all provided.

When Heifu had been a village chief, he had at least been a guest in the homes of a few county clerks and attended several banquets. So he knew that in this Warring States period, when Chinese people ate — especially the feasts of the Central Plains scholar-officials — there were all sorts of rules and refinements, and the dining table held not only chopsticks but also spoons, dinner knives, and dinner forks as common utensils.

And that was just Qin. Wei was situated in the Central Plains; not only did it have a long historical inheritance, but Confucian culture was prevalent there, and the influence of ritual and music was even deeper. The Zhang clan of Huyou Township also styled themselves as descendants of Spring and Autumn period grandees. Their household possessed the Odes and the Documents, and many of their sons studied under Confucian scholars. So although they were merely local worthies and rural magnates, they regarded themselves as a house of ritual and music and insisted on propriety in everything.

As the saying goes, the beginnings of ritual lie in food and drink. In the culture of ritual and music, eating is not just eating — it is also ceremony.

The Confucians even debated specifically: which is more important, ritual or food?

The Confucian answer was unequivocal: "Ritual, of course!"

Knowing the Zhang clan's rules, the township worthies and elders on the east-side seats were all quite mindful: before entering the banquet, one must be composed and unruffled, one's expression must not change, one's hands must lift the hem of the robe a foot off the ground, one must not flip up the upper garment, and still less must one stamp the feet and make noise. When the dishes were served, the placement of the fare on the mats had to follow a sequence, and when eating, one had to be considerate of others…

Beyond polite deportment, the skilled use of the various dining implements was also part of "dining ritual."

Take the wooden spoon before them: in this era, it was called a bi, or sometimes a chi. The spoon and chopsticks were generally used in tandem and would normally appear on the dining table together, but the division of labor between spoon and chopsticks was quite clear — the two could not be mixed up.

On the east-side seats, the company first raised their chopsticks, picked up food from the platter, placed it in their mouths, and chewed in small bites. After swallowing, they put down the chopsticks, picked up the spoon, and brought the steaming hot congee or rice to their mouths…

This was exactly what the "Summary of the Rules of Propriety, Part One" in the Book of Rites says: "For millet gruel, do not use chopsticks," and "For soup that has vegetables in it, use chopsticks; for soup without vegetables, do not use chopsticks."

On the west-side seats, apart from Heifu and Gong Ao, who still had some grasp of dining etiquette, the rest of the Qin soldiers and toughs had no clue at all. Some used chopsticks the whole time, some used spoons the whole time, and some even grabbed rice straight with their hands! They had toiled too long in camp, and now they ate with immense relish — who cared about all that?

It was the same when eating meat: double-pronged, slender-handled bone dinner forks, paired with short, thin bronze knives, were all wrapped in silk cloth. So the township worthies and elders on the east-side seats, much like later generations eating Western cuisine, used the knife to slice large cuts of plain meat — this was what Confucius had insisted on back in the day: "If the cut is not correct, do not eat it" — and then used the fork to spear the meat, dip it in a little sauce, place it in the mouth, close the eyes, and savor the endless aftertaste…

The Qin soldiers on the west-side seats were a very different story. They all ate with great crudeness: some directly clutched meaty bones in their hands and gnawed them, gulping down huge mouthfuls whole. When their mouths were slick with grease, they casually wiped them with their sleeves. They made loud noises when drinking soup. After eating, they laughed heartily and tossed the bones out to the dogs in the courtyard, then picked their teeth in public, and while picking, loudly passed judgment on the food…

These were all actions forbidden by dining ritual. The sight made the several township worthies and elders on the east-side seats, who were chewing slowly and carefully, stare dumbfounded; it made the maidservants attending below the hall put their heads together and snicker nonstop; and it made Zhang Bo, who moments before had been slightly shaken by Heifu's words, once again show a look of contempt.

"Sure enough, a bunch of Qin folk whose customs are the same as the Rong and Di barbarians! They don't even know what ritual means!"

Heifu, however, kept his expression as usual and ate in his ordinary manner — neither breaching etiquette nor observing it excessively — and he did not feel that the soldiers' behavior was anything to be ashamed of.

The meal was served in individual portions to begin with, and still you had to lift the chopsticks and wooden spoon, put them down, lift them again — truly exhausting. As for the fork and small knife, these two implements were specialty items of the upper class, the exclusive preserve of the "meat-eaters," and could not have been very widespread. The Qin soldiers, as "grain-eaters," had no meat in their daily diet, so they had no need to acquire special forks and knives for eating meat, and naturally had no idea how to use them.

So, are we to blame them for being low-born and having no chance, after a full day of toiling at farming and war, to study aristocratic ritual?

Lord Shang put it well: ritual is that by which affairs are made convenient!

What is called ritual is simply moving from the elaborate to the simple — making things convenient for the common people. The knives and forks reserved for the upper class of the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods would, by the Han dynasty, be gradually eliminated from the dining table, because the former black-headed commoners and mud-legged men had overturned the bloodline aristocrats, seated themselves in high office, and inaugurated an era of commoner ministers and chancellors. And they simplified and simplified again this set of cumbersome ritual institutions. Only a few old Confucians clung stubbornly to customs already severed from society and culture, vainly attempting to restore the long-dead Rites of Zhou.

Strip away the red tape and tedious ceremony, and at bottom isn't it just eating, drinking, shitting, pissing, and sleeping!

Ritual confined to a small circle, flaunted and shown off by a handful of public intellectuals and powerful nobles, is empty ritual; ritual that can spread throughout the realm and benefit the majority — that is true ritual!

Of course, Heifu was not making excuses for his own and his comrades' "lack of culture"; he simply felt that…

"If Wei's rule had lasted one more day, the black-headed folk and the township worthies, the base people and the powerful magnates — these two kinds of people could absolutely never share a hall for a meal."

Besides, if one really wanted to argue noble and base, were the people on the east-side seats necessarily nobler than the Qin soldiers on the west-side seats?

If you reckon by bloodline, by family background, by mastery of ritual and music — of course they were.

But now this land had surrendered to Qin, and Qin's way of reckoning noble and base was vastly different from the Six States.

We in Qin reckon by rank. Of the dozen or so men Heifu had brought, every single one had gained rank by taking heads in the last battle at Waihuang; they were either Upper Forgers or Common Knights. The people on the east-side seats, on the other hand — apart from the two old brothers Zhang Bo and Zhang Fu — were all merely common soldiers!

Who is noble? Who is base?

The east-side seats and the west-side seats, the lands east of the mountains and Qin — two understandings of ritual custom, two ways of thinking that distinguish noble from base. Between the two sides lay an enormous chasm, with almost no common language. On this small dining table alone, there were countless clashes.

The victors have their own set of rules and will not readily embrace the ritual and music of the defeated; the defeated will not readily abandon what they have held fast to for centuries.

Heifu thought to himself, "This is only the beginning of the clash between the ritual customs of Qin and the Six States. The days ahead will be long indeed…"

The merging of different states, the intercourse of different classes — these cannot be accomplished simply by using swords to kill everyone different from oneself, nor can they be resolved by a single decree to "make the axle-widths uniform and the writing standardized."

Qin men who rose from black-headed commoner to noble rank and were sent to the former territories of the Six States east of the mountains to serve as clerks needed to painstakingly study the eastern ritual, to blend into new cultural circles, so that the mockery directed at them would grow less and less.

And the aristocrats and township worthies of the Six States also needed to study — under the pressure of superior power, to learn Qin's laws, ordinances, and regulations, to learn to no longer place such weight on old ritual customs, and, holding their noses, to coexist peacefully with the Qin clerks they looked down on. After all, their families still had to survive.

If the time allowed for merging was too short, and the power of superior force suddenly ceased, then what followed would be revolt and collapse.

Fortunately, on the east-side seats, not everyone despised the Qin men as uncouth. The Township Elder Zhang Fu, seeing the atmosphere turning sour, stood up to smooth things over.

He raised his wine cup and said with a smile, "Do not be so preoccupied with the food alone. Today the Patrol Chief has just arrived to take up his post. I offer this wine especially as an accompaniment, to express our feelings of welcome — to the Patrol Chief's health…"

Zhang Fu then looked at the Qin soldiers, who had stopped eating and were staring at him, and forced himself to add, "And to the health of all you stalwart men."

With the Elder taking the lead, Zhang Bo, however unwillingly, also raised his wine cup, and the company on the east-side seats rose one after another.

At an ordinary drinking banquet, the guests on the west-side seats would at this moment have promptly risen from their mats, prostrated themselves, and protested that they dared not accept, before respectfully draining the wine.

Today, however, the Qin armored soldiers did not stir. Not a single one raised his wine; instead, they all turned their heads in unison to look at Heifu.

For one thing, they could not understand what these Wei people were saying. For another, in the Qin army, orders were strictly obeyed and prohibitions strictly observed — even wine was forbidden. Though the men had long been unbearably tempted by the aroma of the wine, without Heifu's order, they still dared not sneak a taste.

"Today is a special exception. A little drink — no harm."

As soon as Heifu finished speaking, the Qin soldiers' eyes lit up. They immediately grasped their wine cups; without standing, still less rising from their mats to show deference, they sat and gulped down that small amount of wine in one go!

The guests on the east-side seats looked embarrassed, feeling insulted, and inwardly they all began to curse. Just as they were about to sit down in a huff, they heard Heifu call to the maidservants below the hall, "Pour wine!"

The maidservants all hesitated and looked to the master. Only after getting Zhang Bo's consent did they hurry over and refill the emptied cups.

Heifu looked at his comrades, who had not yet had their fill, and smiled. He ordered, "My lads, rise, and toast the host a cup in return!"

The moment the words left his mouth, the ten Qin armored soldiers rose as one! At the same time, they raised the cups that had just been filled!

On the east-side seats, the company, whose backsides were nearly touching their heels, only then understood what was going on and had to rise from their mats once again.

"Many thanks to the host for his hospitality, and to the health of the Great King! May General Wang soon take Daliang! May Wei's altars of state be destroyed! Raise the cup!"

"To the health of the Great King! May General Wang soon take Daliang! May Wei's altars of state be destroyed!"

After shouting these slogans with all their might, following Heifu's lead, the dozen or so men then raised their wine cups in perfect unison, drained them in one gulp, and then showed the empty bottoms to the company on the east-side seats — this was "raising the cup."

I've drained mine — what about you?

Zhongming translated as before. The Wei people on the east mat looked at each other in dismay after hearing it, and under the lead of Zhang Bo and Zhang Fu, could only brace themselves and also shout a round of "Long live the Great King." But the thought that they had, in the blink of an eye, changed kings still left them feeling strange. As for that line "destroy the Wei altars of state," it made them even more dazed and distraught, their voices growing softer as they recited...

(End of chapter)