From the masses, to the masses—following the mass line and conducting mass work.
This was the selection policy that Emperor Hongwu established for Hu Shanwei.
Hu Shanwei immediately felt tremendous pressure and said, “Your Majesty, selecting beauties from the common fields is unprecedented. This is not selecting ordinary palace maidens to fill the inner court. This time we are selecting the Crown Prince’s consort, heir apparent consorts, and some prince consorts. The stakes are enormous—it could be said to affect the Ming Dynasty’s future national fortune. Please reconsider, Your Majesty.”
When the superior opens their mouth, subordinates run their legs off.
It wasn’t that Hu Shanwei was deliberately shirking responsibility, but rather considering the practical situation. Most commoner empresses or princess consorts were originally concubines who were elevated to primary wife status. By the time they climbed to that position, they were battle-tested figures with high intelligence, high emotional intelligence, and high-level skills. Their cultural knowledge had long transcended their initial commoner class. How could imperial nobles throughout history possibly marry a commoner as their original primary wife?
Moreover, the Crown Prince’s consort and heir apparent consorts would all become clan matrons in the future, bearing the important responsibility of educating children and serving as models for the realm or their fiefdoms. Among common people’s children, even the boys might not know a few characters—what about daughters?
Emperor Hongwu was born a farmer in Fengyang and was completely illiterate, but Empress Xiaoci came from a proper wealthy landowner family, having learned to read and write from childhood. Her father supported many heroic retainers and frequently aided various “heroes”—figures similar to Song Jiang from Water Margin.
Had her father not died and the family property not been seized by clan members, forcing the widowed mother and orphaned daughter to seek refuge with the hero Guo Zixing who had previously received assistance from the Ma family, Empress Xiaoci would never have become the adopted daughter of a minor peasant rebel leader.
Even Hu Shanwei herself, though born into a merchant household, had ancestors who were a great clan from Jining, Shandong—a scholarly family. Judging from the books in their family collection, the Hu family’s scholarly foundation was quite solid.
Emperor Hongwu’s casual remark about “selecting beauties from among the people, forming marriages with the common fields” departed from the actual needs of the royal family. If it were someone else, they would simply say “I obey the imperial decree” and be done with it. After all, it wasn’t their own family marrying daughters-in-law—just hold a general selection, pick a few, and call it complete.
But Hu Shanwei never blindly followed anyone, which was one of the main reasons Emperor Hongwu chose her as Palace Supervisor. If he wanted a yes-woman, the entire harem was full of them.
Faced with Hu Shanwei’s objections, Emperor Hongwu used her own previous words to counter her: “Just because it’s always been done this way, does that make it right? Selecting beauties from among the people and forming marriages with the common fields doesn’t mean we must find completely illiterate village women or marketplace shrews. Daughters of small landlords and minor officials are all acceptable, as long as they have proper appearance, can read and write, are well-educated and reasonable, possess both virtue and talent, and come from clean backgrounds—they all have a chance to marry into the imperial family.”
“Just because it’s always been done this way, does that make it right?” was what Hu Shanwei had said when proposing changes to the national mourning system regarding Noble Consort Sun’s funeral protocols and her “parents equally honored” viewpoint. This time, Emperor Hongwu finally found an opportunity to use her own method against her.
This old emperor was quite wicked!
Hu Shanwei was left speechless by the counter-argument.
Seeing her deflated, Emperor Hongwu felt secretly pleased: You have this day too.
Actually, Emperor Hongwu’s idea to “select beauties from among the people and form marriages with the common fields” wasn’t a sudden brainstorm. As early as the seventeenth year of Hongwu, the harem no longer had women from noble families being made consorts—they were all of commoner origin, or simply tribute women from Goryeo.
In the first month of the twenty-sixth year of Hongwu, Emperor Hongwu bestowed titles all at once: Lady Li as Worthy Consort, Lady Ge as Worthy Consort, and Lady Liu as Benevolent Consort. Consort Cui, who wielded power over the harem, was simply a former palace official—Cui Shangyi who had risen through the ranks. So Emperor Hongwu was the first to follow the mass line, taking the lead in making his vast harem common.
These past two years, due to the “Lan Yu Case,” there had been bloodshed and storms outside the palace, but it hadn’t affected the harem. Besides the reason of having Consort Cui and Hu Shanwei maintaining order, the substantial reason was that after the harem’s commoner transformation, it had clearly become calm and peaceful, unable to stir up any major waves, because these consorts of common birth had no real connection to the turbulent official world.
Otherwise, even if they invited mountain-guarding deities and sea-patrolling demons to help, the harem would have continued with constant upheavals and “good shows” like in the days of Noble Consort Hu, Consort Dading, and Noble Consort Duanjing.
Emperor Hongwu had tasted the sweetness of harem commoner transformation and wanted to use this selection to let his grandsons taste that sweetness too.
However, faced with Emperor Hongwu’s wishful thinking, the grandsons, including Crown Prince Zhu Yunwen, were actually resistant. Outwardly they laughed along, but inwardly they were scoffing.
The Lan Yu Case was winding down. In this special period, those who deserved to die had been killed, grass on their graves was already two feet tall, and the risk of forming marriage alliances was extremely low. Who wouldn’t want to marry a wife whose maternal family had strong influence and could assist their career?
What selecting beauties from common fields? I refuse!
However, this was completely useless. Emperor Hongwu wouldn’t care about his grandsons’ thoughts. The grandsons were also chess pieces—he would arrange them however he wanted. He thought he was considering their future domestic tranquility, believing “this is all for your own good.”
Emperor Hongwu issued an edict to conduct selections in major economic and cultural provinces like Henan, Beiping, Shandong, Shaanxi, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Jiangxi. Newly developed places like Yunnan or remote impoverished areas were directly excluded due to shallow foundations and generally poor population quality, to avoid passing the initial selection only to be completely eliminated during the final selection in the capital—not only embarrassing, but requiring the court to pay travel and accommodation expenses.
The first round of mass selection: unmarried women between thirteen and sixteen years old, brought by their parents to prefecture offices for initial selection. Prefectures would select the outstanding ones to send to regional prince residences for secondary selection, with princes and princess consorts in charge, court female officials and eunuchs assisting the prince residences to select about one hundred excellent candidates, conveniently bringing them to the capital together with excellent selections from other prince residences for successive rounds of competition.
For the first time in history, there could be commoner princess consorts—overnight they could soar to the treetops, achieving a class leap that others couldn’t accomplish in several generations of struggle.
Once the imperial edict was issued, how many families with unmarried daughters lay sleepless through the night. The next day they brought their women to register at prefecture offices. Outside the offices, crowds of people pressed together—all young maidens with “princess consort dreams.” It was truly selecting one from ten thousand. Though hopes were slim, what if they were chosen?
The court female officials had to travel again, going to various prince residences to select beauties. As Palace Supervisor and chief administrator of the first selection focused mainly on commoners, Hu Shanwei called a major meeting for all female officials before departure.
The female officials who entered the palace with Hu Shanwei, besides top scholar Shen Qionglian, including Chen Er’mei, Jiang Quan, and even her disciple Huang Weide, were all at least Director-level officials now. As the backbone, they all had to be dispatched to oversee the selection.
This was Hu Shanwei’s final assignment—failure was not acceptable. Moreover, the prince residences were far away, and older female officials couldn’t withstand the travel fatigue, so this time only young elite officials were dispatched.
Hu Shanwei explained in detail the selection rules and various regulations. By the time it was dark and dinner time, Hu Shanwei said, “Let me add one final point—”
All the female officials inwardly rolled their eyes. From experience, the final point always turned into a long speech.
Hu Shanwei said, “When you go to the prince residences, you must remember that nothing is more important than your personal safety. Safety first, selection second. If you don’t pay attention to safety, friends and family will shed two lines of tears.”
Hu Shanwei kept the brutal incident of Liu Siyan’s tongue-cutting deeply in mind. She didn’t want tragedy to repeat. Beauties could be reselected, but if lives were lost, they couldn’t be recovered.
The next day, the female officials set out under Brocade Guard escort. Hu Shanwei remained in the palace, preparing for the upcoming secondary and final selections.
Meanwhile, at the brothel theater that the Imperial Music Bureau had opened at Wuding Bridge in the capital.
Today’s performance was the classic southern opera “Tale of the Pipa.”
On stage, the female lead Zhao Wuniang was singing the most classic song “Shanpoyang”:
“In these chaotic, barren, unfertile years, with a husband who went far away and never returned, anxious in-laws who have no patience, and my own weak, helpless, solitary self.”
Zhao Wuniang’s husband had gone to the capital for examinations and hadn’t returned for years. During famine, she gave the grain to her in-laws and secretly hid to eat pig feed, yet her in-laws still suspected her of secretly eating good food.
The Zhao Wuniang on stage was a famous actor from the Imperial Music Bureau, performing the female lead’s grievances and sorrow with vivid intensity. The audience below applauded enthusiastically, but at the best square table directly facing the stage sat only an old man. That old man neither applauded nor threw broken silver or small jewelry onto the stage as rewards. He just sat there quietly listening to the opera and drinking tea, as if immersed in the play, deeply feeling Zhao Wuniang’s sorrow, his eyelashes seemingly somewhat moist.
A group of young men wearing gaudy pink wide-sleeved Daoist robes and black silk caps came rushing in, playfully bantering with each other, apparently discussing something amusing. They surrounded two small, thin young men, who were relatively quiet, seemingly visiting the brothel theater for the first time, curiously looking around.
This gaudy pink with black outfit was currently the “hit” combination in the capital. This group was fashionably dressed and imposing—clearly wealthy young masters.
A male official slave wearing a green cap hurried over to receive them, pointing to two large tables on the left. “Please, gentlemen, this way. What tea would you like?”
The standard uniform for male official slaves of the Ming Dynasty’s Imperial Music Bureau was a green cap. Those with slave status couldn’t intermarry with free citizens—they could only “consume themselves internally.” Official slaves married official slaves, and their descendants remained official slaves forever. Imperial Music Bureau female entertainers sometimes provided sexual services, and over time, having one’s wife involved with others came to be called “wearing a green hat.”
This group of young men found the left side had poor visibility for watching opera, so they pointed to the large table in the middle: “We’ll sit here.”
Green Cap hurriedly explained, “Only one table remains in the middle, and you gentlemen are five people—one table won’t fit you all.”
The leader was a plump, white young man who looked very amiable and easy to talk to. He said, “In that case, we’ll sit on the left.”
“No way.” Next to the plump young man stood a tall, sturdy, imposing youth. That young man pointed to the two small, thin boys with delicate features beside him. “The two… younger brothers finally got to come out once—they should have the most fun.”
The tall youth took out a piece of silver for Green Cap, pointing to the old man watching opera alone in the middle. “Give him this silver and ask him to move. Combine the two middle tables into one large table. I’ll cover all his tea expenses today—he can eat and drink whatever he wants.”
Green Cap didn’t accept, looking troubled. “This… won’t work.”
“Think the money’s too little?” The tall youth pulled out an official silver ingot worth five taels. “This should be enough.”
“It’s not about money.” Green Cap said, “He’s a regular customer at our theater—he’s been coming to listen to opera on and off for fifteen years. We’re old acquaintances. He usually sits in that spot to listen to opera. We can’t very well ask him to move.”
The tall youth grew somewhat impatient, pocketing the silver. “You don’t dare offend an old customer, so I’ll go. I don’t believe it—he won’t even want free silver.”
“Second brother, you—” The plump youth tried to stop him, but the tall youth wouldn’t listen. He had already stridden over with his long legs, reaching the old man in three steps. He placed the silver on the table and politely explained his request.
The old man suddenly snapped out of Zhao Wuniang’s story, looking somewhat confused. “Ah? Oh, no problem. Watching opera—sitting anywhere is the same. I don’t mind. Since you can’t all fit at one table, this one’s yours to combine.”
With that, the old man stood up to yield his table. The tall youth hadn’t expected the old man to be so agreeable and hurriedly pushed the silver over. “Don’t forget to take the silver.”
The old man refused to accept it. “It’s just a small matter. I’m older—how could I have the face to take your silver? How would I show my face in the future? Never mind, never mind. You young people have fun.”
The plump youth felt somewhat embarrassed. “Sir, let us pay for your tea.”
The old man quickly waved his hands. “No need. I don’t accept rewards without merit—I can still afford tea at the brothel.”
The plump youth was about to persuade him further when the tall youth forcibly stuffed the silver to the old man. “Just a small token—please take it.”
The old man stubbornly refused to accept it. The tall youth clearly had an explosive temper. “If I’m giving it to you, just take it. Why are you being so obstinate, old man?”
As soon as he finished speaking, a slap came whipping over, hitting the tall youth squarely on the back of his neck with stinging pain. The tall youth got angry and grabbed the teapot to smash it at whoever had ambushed him from behind.
“Stop!” The plump youth looked fat but was surprisingly agile, catching the teapot in one motion.
The tall youth felt somewhat wronged. “Big brother, someone actually dared ambush me. Today I absolutely must crack his head open.”
The plump youth gave him meaningful looks and frantic eye signals. The tall youth sensed something was wrong. When he turned around and saw the imposingly mighty man, he was instantly scared out of his wits, stammering, “Unc… Second Uncle, you’re here. What a coincidence, haha.”
The slapper ignored him, straightened his clothes, and bowed to the old man in apology. “Member Hu, my nephews don’t know better. Flaunting a few stinking coins—who are they trying to insult? Sigh, they’re all from remote countryside areas, been in the capital less than three years, usually locked up at home studying. They have no eyes for people. Please forgive them, Member Hu.”
Member Hu was clearly an old acquaintance of this “Second Uncle” who had appeared midway. Hearing this, he straightened the half-worn blue straight robe that had been wrinkled from pushing the silver back and forth, saying mildly:
“Master Xu Er is also here to listen to opera—what a coincidence. Your nephews meant well, wanting to compensate me. But I’ve always refused to accept gifts from anyone, regardless of the amount of silver—I reject them all. So there was some misunderstanding.”
“Member” was a sinecure that commoners could purchase with money, called “Member of Personnel.” In feudal society with strict hierarchies, no matter how wealthy commoners were, they had to kneel when meeting officials. If they didn’t want to kneel, they could buy a sinecure to stand as equals with officials.
This Member Hu was none other than Hu Shanwei’s father, Hu Rong—the small bookstore owner.
Master Xu Er was Xu Zengshou, the second master of Duke Weiguo’s residence, second son of the late Marquis Zhongshan Xu Da, eldest son-in-law of Prince Zhaojing Mu Ying, and eldest brother-in-law of Duke Qianguo Mu Chun.
The five young men wearing gaudy pink Daoist robes who were “from remote countryside areas” were all Xu Zengshou’s nephews.
Duke Weiguo’s residence had produced three princess consorts: Miss Xu the First was Princess Consort of Prince Yan, Miss Xu the Second was Princess Consort of Prince Dai, and Miss Xu the Third was Princess Consort of Prince An. Of these three princess consorts, except for Princess Consort of Prince An who remained childless, the other two were quite fertile.
After all, they were daughters of Xu Da, the foremost founding hero. All three daughters had fierce personalities at their core. Princess Consort of Prince Yan had once disciplined her brother Xu Zengshou’s gambling by tying his hands and dragging him behind a horse for several li, even pretending to chop off his fingers.
Princess Consort of Prince Dai married Zhu Gui, son of Noble Consort Guo—who was like a ninja turtle in the harem. The couple had children and also frequently quarreled. When they fought severely, Princess Consort of Prince Dai would take up weapons and fight her husband without backing down.
Princess Consort of Prince An remained childless and also forbade her husband Prince An from taking concubines, declaring “I’m not even thirty yet—how can you say I can’t bear a legitimate son? Until I give birth to a legitimate son, Prince An’s residence cannot have concubines.”
Princess Consort of Prince An being childless meant Prince An’s residence was the only one without an heir detained in the capital—in a sense, this was a blessing in disguise.
These six young men wearing gaudy pink Daoist robes were: Prince Yan’s heir apparent Zhu Gaochi, second son Zhu Gaoxi, third daughter Princess Ancheng, fourth daughter Princess Xianning—the two princesses dressed as men—and all Prince Yan’s children were born to the same Princess Consort of Prince Yan, making them full siblings.
Because Prince Yan’s residence had the greatest power and strong military forces, Emperor Hongwu was quite wary of them, so he kept four children from Prince Yan’s residence as hostages at once. Other prince residences only had one heir detained.
The other was Prince Dai’s heir apparent Zhu Xunhong.
Since they all came to the capital from their fiefdoms, Xu Zengshou calling these five nephews “from the countryside” wasn’t wrong.
After Xu Zengshou apologized to Hu Rong and had him return to his original seat to continue watching opera, he led the six nephews to a private room upstairs.
Once in the private room, Xu Zengshou’s expression darkened as he put on his uncle’s authority.
Xu Zengshou was in his thirties. During his wild youth, he was the chief dandy of the capital, pampered by his amazing father Xu Da. He married Mu Ying’s eldest daughter as his wife.
Lady Mu had remained childless and was in poor health, passing away early. Xu Zengshou and Lady Mu had a good relationship, so he decided not to remarry or take concubines, planning to adopt a son from his older brother Duke Weiguo Xu Zuxi in the future.
Xu Zengshou was a flamboyant widower who still wore fashionable gaudy pink Daoist robes in his thirties. Not only that, he had recently become obsessed with various gemstones. With a flourish of his gaudy pink robe’s wide sleeve, he revealed his right hand—all five fingers wearing rings with red, blue, yellow, green, and black gemstones set in them, completely resembling Thanos from five hundred years in the future.
Xu Zengshou slammed his five-ringed hand on the table. “You have such nerve, bringing Ancheng and Xianning to a brothel! Is this a place for girls to come?”
Ancheng and Xianning stood on either side of Xu Zengshou. “We insisted on coming—it has nothing to do with our three brothers. We’re bored to death staying in the palace all day.”
Since the two Xu family sisters married two brothers from the Zhu family, Prince Yan’s four children and Prince Dai’s heir apparent were both cousins and cross-cousins, naturally closer than other cousin brothers. Both Prince Yan’s princesses called Prince Dai’s heir apparent Zhu Xunhong “brother.”
Xu Zengshou said, “If you two are bored, come to uncle’s house. Uncle will invite the best performers from the Imperial Music Bureau to sing opera. You can request any opera you want. Wouldn’t that be more comfortable than listening in a brothel?”
But Duke Weiguo’s residence wasn’t as lively as the brothel! The two princesses thought this in their hearts but said aloud, “Yes, we remember. We’ll never dare again.”
The plump youth was Prince Yan’s heir apparent Zhu Gaochi. He deliberately wanted to change the subject to avoid being lectured by his uncle, so he asked Xu Zengshou, “Second Uncle, what’s the background of that Member Hu just now? Someone of your status was so respectful to him.”
Rather than helping, this made Xu Zengshou even angrier. “He’s Palace Supervisor Hu’s biological father. Member Hu has always been low-key and absolutely never touches other people’s money. You insisted on stuffing five taels of silver to him—how embarrassing is that? Palace Supervisor Hu is currently presiding over the beauty selection, choosing wives for you. If she knew you bullied her father, she might select some fool as your wife, and you’d regret it too late.”
He was actually Palace Supervisor Hu’s father?
All five gaudy pink youths were stunned.
The tall youth was Prince Yan’s second son Zhu Gaoxi. He felt very regretful and found it hard to believe. “That Member Hu doesn’t resemble Palace Supervisor Hu at all! Palace Supervisor Hu is so imposing in the palace. When we study at the Grand Academy and occasionally encounter her, we’re always respectful and dare not act improperly. But that Member Hu seemed ordinary, even somewhat weak. Are they really related by blood?”
This angered Xu Zengshou so much that he waved his five-ringed Thanos hand and slapped his nephew again. “Nonsense.”