History of Women in the Wei Dynasty

Chapter 4: A New School Order is Here!

The eight imperial families of the Great Wei Dynasty, along with the eight meritorious families of Mu and Wei, had all their primary schools conduct joint examinations every month, starting from the twelfth lunar month, in conjunction with the primary schools of the Han aristocratic families such as Cui and Lu, as well as the state and county-level schools.

All Xianbei students were ranked according to their individual academic performance in their respective schools. The student who ranked last in each assessment was suspended from school for a year, and the announcement was made throughout Pingcheng. The students who ranked in the top three were allowed to audit classes taught by famous teachers from the four prominent clans of Lu, Cui, Zheng, and Wang for a period of ten days.

When Master Duan announced the new school decree, the students were in an uproar. Even those who were usually unruly, like Wei Mao, knew about the accumulated prestige of the four great families!
Qu Rong and others who hadn't even learned ten characters were filled with anxiety and fear, not daring to imagine how humiliating it would be if they came in last place during the assessment!

After school, Wei Yao walked faster and faster because Wei Mao was always behind her. When they arrived at the Dongsi Fang calligraphy and painting market, she pretended to go to the outhouse. When she came out, Wei Mao was leaning against the outer wall of a shop watching her.

What's infuriating is that he had a strip of soft cloth stuffed up his nose and mumbled, "I need to discuss something. You take notes for me during this time, and I'll help you find the 'Shuowen Jiezi' (a dictionary of Chinese characters)."

This was a deal that Wei Yao found hard to refuse, and she agreed: "Alright. But I have to have Master Duan look at every copy of the Shuowen Jiezi; fake ones don't count."

"Whatever you like. There's one more thing. On my day off, I'll be competing in archery and horsemanship at the garden outside Yongning Temple. Should I reserve a spot for you?"

"Then Xie Mao will be my fellow disciple."

When Wei Yao got home, she took down her braids, and a long, suspicious strip of cloth fell out. What a bastard! Wei Mao had stuffed it in her nostrils; when did he put it in her hair?

As she combed her hair, she recalled scenes from her past life, which slowly appeared in the mirror. It was during this archery competition that Master Duan encouraged all the students to go and watch, to broaden their horizons. That's how she first met and became acquainted with Xi Jiao.

Whether it was her riding and archery skills or her beautiful appearance, Xi Jiao was the most outstanding among the younger generation of Xianbei. At that time, she was a real eight-year-old girl. How could she not be attracted to Xi Jiao when she shot an arrow that hit the copper ring and nailed it into the tree?
The young women threw flowers at him, but she only had a string of grass beads on her wrist, which drew laughter from the people around her when she threw them.

But Xi Jiao picked up the string of grass beads, put it on her wrist, and smiled at her.

Recalling this, Wei Yao suddenly slammed the bronze mirror down, cold sweat seeping out. As for whether the wetness in her eyes was sweat or tears, only she herself knew.

The next day, at the academy.

"The poem 'Peach Blossom' was written by the empress and concubines. If they were not jealous or resentful, then men and women would be properly matched..."

Even the most unmotivated students could recite the poem "Peach Blossom," so in the first lesson, Master Duan spent most of his time explaining the preface and reciting the poem.

"When a daughter marries, she will be a good wife and mother... This daughter is a married woman."

The commentary states that "suitable" means that both the man and woman are of suitable age and age.

Wei Yao listened and took notes, but only her writing speed could keep up with Master Duan's explanation. When he explained that "Zhenzhen" meant "the most prosperous appearance", she paused slightly and glanced at her fellow student Wei Zhen, who was sitting at the front against the inner wall.

Of the fifteen students, only two were female disciples, and Wei Zhen was the other one. In her previous life, Wei Yao heard that her fellow disciple Zhen had married a member of the Wang family of Taiyuan. Then, like a grain of sand in the ocean, she heard news of her death during pregnancy.

Break during class.

Qu Rong called out, "Fellow disciple Yao, may I see your notes?"

"I can't give you the ink that's not dry."

Qu Rong took it and mumbled "thank you," her voice so soft it was barely audible.

Wei Mao left his seat and coldly remarked to Wei Yao, "Don't forget to make another copy of the notes!"

Qu Rong's hand trembled, and he hastily abandoned his plan to scatter the bamboo slips and secretly replace them. He wasn't foolish enough to replace all of Wei Yao's notes with his own; he only wanted to pretend that he had dropped them on the ground and mixed them up, so he could only exchange a portion and then quickly leave the schoolhouse. Wei Yao couldn't possibly chase him to his house to ask for them back, could she? In this way, he could spend the whole night copying her notes without owing her a favor.

This was a method he had racked his brains to come up with, but unfortunately he dared not use it. If he had known, he would have been better off focusing on listening to the teacher's lectures.

Extremely frustrated, Qu Rong returned the bamboo slips and tentatively asked, mimicking Mao Gongzi's tone, "Could you copy one for me too?" Wei Yao refused, "I have to stay up late and get up early to copy one more, I can't squeeze out any more time."

"If it's not going to work, it's not going to work. Why make excuses?"

"Then I won't make up an excuse to refuse you. You want me to help you copy notes for free? No way!"

Qu Rong's face flushed and her heart pounded. She had spoken so loudly that all her fellow disciples must have heard her, and she wondered how they would laugh at her afterward.

At this moment, Wei Mao returned with a strutting gait, tossing down an old bamboo scroll: "The servant just brought this."

Wei Yao glanced at it quickly and handed it back: "I already have the definitions of these words."

"That can't be right. In Dongsifang, only my family's Yingju Bookstore has the most complete collection of the Shuowen Jiezi. Where did you buy it from?"

Yingju Bookstore is run by this guy's family? Wei Yao didn't have much contact with him in her previous life, so she really didn't know. But now that she knows, he must have discovered that she was trading bamboo slips with pine soot ink! She was definitely in the wrong, so she should pretend to be confused and accept the bamboo slips first.

Master Duan has arrived.

Wei Mao quickly said, "Let's put the matter of ink aside. I'll bring you a new copy of the Shuowen Jiezi tomorrow."

Wei Yao stared at the other person for a moment, then sat up straight. Only after today's class ended did she have time to ponder.

The past was too long ago. She tried her best to recall and remembered that when she was in elementary school in her previous life, Wei Mao had asked her to help him copy notes. She agreed, but she didn't copy them many times, and Wei Mao soon stopped mentioning it.

She knew why Wei Mao disliked Qu Rong. Qu Rong's elder sister was the favorite concubine of Wei Mao's uncle. The Qu family, ungrateful for her status, insisted on arranging for Qu Rong to study in the same dormitory as the Book of Poetry, which is why Wei Mao hated her.

In conclusion, even if she ruined the other party's intention to tease Qu Rong with the meaning of "graceful", since Wei Mao couldn't possibly know that she did it on purpose, that guy should have come up with a new trick to tease Qu Rong next.

But these past few days, Wei Mao has ignored Qu Rong, but he's been paying attention to her...

Wei Yao shook her head. No, that's impossible. If Wei Mao liked her, she would have noticed it in her past life; she couldn't have been completely oblivious.

September twenty-eight.

Tomorrow is a day off, but the schoolchildren all looked dejected, as if they had collectively lost a precious treasure. Because a new school policy has been implemented: starting next month, the first day of each month will be considered the first day of school, meaning they will lose a day off each month. The latter half of the month will be connected to the first half of the following month—how many days of school will that be? It's going to be so long!
Today's poem is "Ru Fen".

As usual, the first lesson is to memorize the poem, and the second lesson is to explain the overall meaning of the poem.

Master Duan: "Following the banks of the Ru River, cutting its branches and twigs. This means that the woman walked along the banks of the Ru River and cut down the branches and twigs of the trees there. The branches are called 'tiao' and the trunks are called 'mei', so what can we see from these two sentences?"

Only Wei Yao raised her hand: "Master, it can be seen that the heavy work of chopping firewood, which should be done by men, is being done by women."

Master Duan nodded with satisfaction and continued to interpret the poem: "Ru refers to the Ru River, which connects the Yellow River mentioned in the poem 'Guan Ju' and the Han River mentioned in the poem 'Han Guang,' thus tracing the area covered by the 'Zhou Nan' chapter..."

The poem "Ru Fen" is very short, but with a studious disciple like Wei Yao asking and answering questions, Master Duan's understanding of the poem became more and more profound, while the other students yawned incessantly, and had headaches and stuffy noses.

The Eight Surnames of the Northern Wei Imperial Family: Also known as the Eight Kingdoms of the Xianbei. Originally, they consisted of seven tribes that branched off from the Tuoba tribe, plus the Tuoba clan, making a total of eight tribes. After adopting Han surnames, they were Yuan (Tuoba clan), Hu (Hegu tribe), Zhou (Pu tribe), Changsun (Baba clan), Xi (Daxi clan), Yi (Yilou clan), Qiu (Qiudun clan), and Hai (Sihai clan). [The Shusun and Che clans are not included; the details in the novel are entirely fictional and should not be taken literally.]

The eight families of meritorious officials are: Mu, Lu, He, Liu, Lou, Yu, Ji, and Wei.

State-level academy: Here, "state" refers to "Hengzhou". Before the Northern Wei Dynasty moved its capital, Pingcheng belonged to "Sizhou", and Luoyang belonged to "Luozhou". After the capital was moved to Luoyang, "Luozhou" was changed to "Sizhou", and the original "Sizhou" was changed to "Hengzhou". The capital of Hengzhou was Pingcheng. The division of prefectures during the Northern Wei Dynasty was very chaotic, so I won't go into details in the novel.

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(End of this chapter)