ushernet Chapter 295 After two years of hard work
Chapter 295 After two years of hard work
After traveling for nearly ten days through the desert, they reached a fork in the road. The Third Cavalry Brigade, led by Li Dian, separated from the main force and headed northwest. Their mission was to make a large detour, attack the Great Xia army from the flank, and join forces with Yu Jin's main force to break through the enemy's blockade and enter the heart of the Great Xia Kingdom.
While the three armies were winning one victory after another, a major event occurred in the country that shocked the emperor.
Xu Jing, a renowned scholar and the head of Guanghan Township, is 62 years old, yet he took a 16-year-old concubine at the beginning of this year. It is said that this girl, named Honglian, came from a poor family and worked hard with her parents from dawn till dusk in business. Although young, she is shrewd and capable, and is a well-known heroine in the area.
This woman, Honglian, is capable and incredibly beautiful. Thanks to her long-term labor, she has a healthy and well-proportioned figure. Before she was even 14 years old, wealthy families everywhere were proposing marriage to her.
Honglian was proud and looked down on the young masters in and around the town. Her parents couldn't bear to let their daughter become a stay-at-home wife at such a young age, so they endured it for two years.
Unexpectedly, Xu Jing, being an old man of no respect, happened to meet Honglian, a young girl who was still working hard to make a living during the New Year when he returned to his hometown. He suddenly seemed to become thirty years younger, full of energy and desire. After finding out about Honglian's family background, Xu Jing asked a smooth-talking matchmaker to come and propose marriage.
Although the emperor's twenty years of reforms had brought about tremendous changes in major cities, in the remote mountainous areas and rural towns, most girls still followed the tradition of arranged marriages by their parents and matchmakers. Therefore, Honglian and her parents had no idea who Xu Jing was, what he looked like, or that he was already a 62-year-old man.
The matchmaker, defying convention, brought 1,000 yuan in cash to Honglian's house that very day, claiming it was a gift for meeting her parents. She told Honglian's parents that Xu Jing was a promising young man who was not only skilled in poetry and painting and already famous in official circles, but had also risen to the position of township head (formerly prefect) of Guanghan, with a bright future ahead of him.
The mansion boasts numerous pavilions and courtyards, and hundreds of acres of fertile land. If Honglian agrees to marry into the family, she will receive hundreds of acres of fertile land as a dowry, along with a mansion and courtyard. The Xu family's wives and concubines are all old; if Honglian marries into the family, she will surely be the most favored, never lacking food or clothing, and enjoying a life of wealth and luxury.
Honglian's parents were tempted and accepted a thousand yuan as a gift on their first meeting, promising to consider it.
After the matchmaker left, Honglian's parents praised her relentlessly, saying how wonderful it would be to marry into the family, how happy she would be, and that as a concubine, she would never have to worry about food and clothing, enjoy wealth and luxury for the rest of her life, and no longer have to work hard from dawn till dusk like she does now.
Honglian was still young, and although she didn't really want to get married, she couldn't resist her parents' persistent persuasion and eventually agreed.
More than a month later, Xu Jing had returned to Guanghan. After some necessary pre-wedding rituals, Honglian was married on February 10th. After a long journey of more than ten days, the bride finally arrived at Xu Jing's residence in Guanghan. After a joyous wedding banquet, as a concubine, she was not required to undergo the traditional wedding ceremony and was directly sent to a side room.
After waiting for ages, night fell, and Xu Jing, drunk outside, entered the room, lifted the veil, and Honglian was nearly scared to death. She never expected that the so-called young and promising Guanghan Township Chief the matchmaker had described was actually an old man with white hair. Now she regretted her decision; she shouldn't have listened to the matchmaker and agreed to the marriage without carefully investigating the facts.
Xu Jing truly loved Honglian. He coaxed her and made many promises before Honglian finally realized the truth and married Xu Jing.
The matter could have ended there. Although the quality of their sex life wasn't great, at least they were financially secure and wouldn't suffer like they did back at their parents' home.
Unexpectedly, while it was true that Xu Jing's wives and concubines were all old, they were still young at heart and jealous of each other, vying for his affections. In particular, Xu Jing's first wife, Zhang, was a shrew, and her family was extremely wealthy and powerful, which fostered her arrogant and domineering personality, making her intolerant of Xu Jing taking concubines.
Before Honglian, the other concubines were either of average appearance or maids under Zhang's command, all of whom had to obey her orders. On many occasions, when Xu Jing took a fancy to several women in the area, Zhang would take the initiative to suppress them, preventing Xu Jing from succeeding.
This time, Zhang fell slightly ill and did not return to her hometown with Xu Jing for the New Year. Xu Jing took advantage of this and preemptively arranged the marriage. The betrothal gifts were sent out, and the wedding date was agreed upon and could not be changed.
Within three days of Honglian entering the mansion, Xu Jing was completely infatuated with her, spending the night in her room for three consecutive nights, which infuriated Zhang.
Starting from the fourth day, Honglian was ordered to pay her respects to the First Madam every morning; to make way for Zhang Shi when she saw the First Madam; and to line up at the place where Lord Xu rested every night.
If Xu Jing went to Honglian's room, Honglian would have to kick him out; whatever the First Madam arranged, Honglian had to carry it out without fail... There were so many rules and regulations, all because Honglian was young, her family was far away, and she had no help.
Unexpectedly, Honglian was also seething with anger. She had been tricked into coming here by Old Man Xu, lost her virginity to this man in his sixties, and hadn't even tasted the joys of marriage before he became impotent. Hearing Zhang Shi's domineering attitude, her competitive spirit from her business days back home surfaced, and she started arguing with Zhang Shi.
Zhang was outraged. Since ancient times, men were responsible for external affairs, and women for internal affairs. As Xu Jing's legal wife, she was naturally in charge of the household. This concubine, Honglian, had only been in the household for a few days and was already rebelling—had she no manners at all?
So he ordered the servants to grab Honglian and beat her with a board. Honglian was stubborn and not only refused to beg for mercy, but also cursed Zhang as an old, sallow, and emaciated shameless woman.
Zhang nearly fainted and was about to personally beat the woman with a board, but Xu Jing, who had received the news of the trouble in his own backyard, rushed over and stopped her. From then on, Xu Jing paid special attention to protecting this beautiful concubine, and for several days he did not allow Zhang to find an opportunity to punish this "vixen."
On February 26, a murder occurred in a county under the jurisdiction of Guanghan, involving an organization leader. Xu Jing had no choice but to go and offer condolences. He repeatedly told Zhang not to cause any trouble at home, and then left Guanghan to go to that county to offer condolences to the family of the murdered leader.
Zhang ignored Xu Jing's instructions. As soon as Xu Jing left, she used her authority as the First Madam to subdue the two servants Xu Jing had left behind to protect Honglian and tied Honglian up.
Although young and weak, Honglian was sharp-tongued. Her everyday slang, honed from her business dealings, flowed from her tongue, enraging Zhang, a woman from a wealthy family. Zhang hung Honglian up and beat her mercilessly, determined to mold her into an obedient maid. Honglian, stubborn and unyielding, refused to back down. Even bruised and battered, she continued her verbal assault, and tragedy struck…