In the Song Palace, Song Junzixi called Dai Yan into the palace and talked to him. Pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info

"Ziyan, you have made a great contribution to my Song country, with your merits, my brother should have made you Xiangguo. However, the internal situation of my Song Kingdom, you should also know that we must rely on the concerted efforts of the Le family and my Huang family to stabilize the country. Now that my brother has given you Taoqiu, although you can't enjoy the authority of a country in this life, you can also be rich and worry-free.

When you go to Taoqiu in the future, you must also help me stabilize the situation there. Taoqiu, as the most important strategic place of my Song Kingdom, if it is lost like this, I am afraid that my Song Kingdom may be destroyed! However, in just a few years, Zixi, the monarch of the Song Kingdom, has become more and more haggard, and even so, he can't stop telling Dai Yan.

"Brother, don't worry, I will definitely hold Taoqiu firmly in my hands, and I will never let his country take away the strategic land of my Song Kingdom!" Dai Yan solemnly promised.

Hearing Dai Yan's promise, Zixi's face became a little better, and then he said to Dai Yan: "Your wedding with Princess Zhao is not only your private matter, but also the official marriage between my Song Kingdom and Zhao Kingdom. With your financial resources, it is not enough to independently bear the cost of marriage between the two countries. I will use the treasury to bear half of the cost of your wedding, and you will bear the remaining half. ”

Dai Yan didn't take Zixi's promise to heart at all, in his mind, how much financial resources can a wedding cost? Two years ago, he was able to repay 100 million gold and pay off the debts of Chu State. In the past two years, although he was in the Qi State, Fengyi was still producing all kinds of things, the most profitable of which was the tea and horse trade with the Zhao State, and the paper trade that was sold all over the world. With these two financial resources in hand, how could he not afford a wedding?

But soon, Dai Yan knew that he was wrong, very wrong!

Dai Yan was not married in his previous life, but he had experienced a friend's wedding. And the wedding of the nobles of this era, he saw it for the first time. Especially at his own wedding, he married the woman he liked, and he didn't want to be rude!

Before modern times, there was no such thing as free marriage in China. Marriage is the order of the parents, the words of the matchmaker.

Dai Yan and Zhao Xue's fathers are no longer in the world, so the marriage should be decided by the eldest son in the family. Dai Yan's marriage was decided by Song Hou Zixi, while Zhao Xue's marriage was decided by Zhao Yong. Both of them agreed, which is actually equivalent to the agreement of the two families.

And the first step of the wedding is to ask for marriage. Although the marriage between Zhao and Song had already been agreed to by the top leaders of both countries, the steps of Nacai were also essential.

Dai Yan chose the best matchmaker in the Song Kingdom and asked him to bring more than 30 kinds of gifts such as geese, white walls, sheep, and wine to Zhao State. Each of these gifts has a unique meaning, and a small number of them will have a symbol of unhappy marriage, so Dai Yan did not dare to slack off at all, so that people could find all of them.

Among Nacai's gifts, the most important is the goose ceremony. Because geese are migratory birds, the leaves fall in the south, and the ice flows north, people believe that the habits of geese follow yin and yang, and it is the best symbol of marriage between men and women! Dai Yan spent a lot of money to buy a high-quality head goose in the Song Kingdom and add it to the Nacai ceremony.

When the man goes to the woman, the second etiquette of the wedding will begin, which is the name greeting. The man asks for the woman's surname, first name and first name, and then asks for the exact year, month, day and hour of the woman's birth. Because in this era, people said that time was expressed by the heavenly stems and earthly branches, and each of the four items of the year, month, and day was composed of two characters, so people were also accustomed to calling people's birthdays the eight characters of birth.

After the name was asked, the matchmaker sent by Dai Yan returned to the Song Kingdom and reported to Dai Yan to know. Dai Yan picked up the results of asking the name and looked at it, and could only see the results of the woman's surname: the winning surname is Zhao, and the nickname is Xue. And the woman's birthday, Dai Yan can't see it.

After obtaining these results, Dai Yan sent these results to the Zongmiao of the surname of the son along with his own birth date, and asked the elders of the clan to select a priest to divinate the marriage.

The result of the divination was not bad, and he got a good omen, which made Dai Yan breathe a sigh of relief. Although he, as a man of science, did not believe in mysticism; However, when he encountered his life events, he was also worried that he and Zhao Xue would not agree.

After getting the results of the divination, Dai Yan sent a matchmaker to send the auspicious news of the marriage to Zhao to show the official marriage. This step is Najib. In the process of Najib, he also had to bring geese with him and salute the geese.

After Najib finishes it, it's time to take it. This step is the simplest of the wedding steps, and the easiest for future generations to understand: giving a dowry.

Dai Yan often heard people say in later generations that he had been married for three years, and some people even bluntly said that they couldn't afford to get married, and the most important of them was that the woman wanted a dowry when she got married, and the man couldn't bear it. In this era, Dai Yan is the feudal monarch of the richest city in the world, and an absolute tyrant! In his mind, how can he afford the woman's dowry, right?

Therefore, when he went to Zixi to ask Nazheng how much dowry should be given, Zixi attached great importance to this issue. He said to Dai Yan: "Zhao is a big country, and my Song country is a small country. We can't give less to marry the princess of Zhao Guo, so that Zhao Guo looks down on my Song Kingdom; At the same time, we must also take into account the national strength of my Song Kingdom, and the amount of this dowry will be determined by Brother Wei for you.

300 carts of gold (copper), including 100 carts of gold ingots, 100 carts of soldiers, and 100 carts of farm tools; Luo, silk, satin, crepe, silk, and velvet each fifty cars, a total of three hundred cars; 50 carts of pottery and lacquerware, 100 carts of jasper jewelry; In addition, I heard that your Fengyi tea and paper are extremely scarce, so let's add another hundred carts each. All the gifts were put together, a thousand carts in total.

Zhao is located in the north and has a developed animal husbandry, so I can wait for a little bit of meaning. And so it was with the livestock: 300 cattle, 800 sheep, and 600 horses. Thinking about it, Zhao Guo should not be too little.

In terms of population, we can't be stingy, and there are 1,000 armorers, 1,000 male and female slaves, 300 courtesans, wrestlers, and jugglers, and 600 craftsmen of all kinds, making a total of 4,500 people.

My Song Guoguo is weak and weak, and there is only so much I can give. Ziyan, don't think it's too stingy to be a brother, this is also the limit that my Song Kingdom can give! ”

Dai Yan on the side listened to Zixi's levy number, and he was stupid. Although he didn't make any special calculations, the 1,000 carts of gifts in the levy alone were worth more than one million gold! This is equivalent to the income of Song Guo for ten years!

Dai Yan knows why big countries are reluctant to marry small countries in this era. If a small country marries a princess of a big country, just accepting a levy can make a small country completely bankrupt!

Fortunately, Dai Yan is barely a local tyrant now, and Song State is also a medium-sized power, otherwise the princess of Zhao State is really not something he can afford to marry casually!

But even so, after this wedding, Dai Yan estimates that the wealth he has worked so hard to accumulate in the past few years will be wiped out!

Nazheng is completely a stage for both parties to show their strength, and it is also the only ceremony among all the wedding steps that does not involve the goose ceremony! In fact, this is also a manifestation of people's righteousness and etiquette in this era: don't be involved with feelings when you take your possessions! Talking about money hurts feelings, and talking about feelings hurts money!

With a trembling mood, he sent the team away, and Dai Yan had a painful expression on his face!

When Dai Yan's dowry was sent to Zhao State, the matchmaker returned to Song State, and the fifth item of the wedding also arrived, which was the invitation period. The invitation period is when the man informs the woman of the exact date of the formal marriage, and in the process, he must also perform the goose salute. This process of the woman can be prevaricated or rescheduled, fortunately, Zhao Guo did not embarrass Song Guo, the date of the wedding was sent over, Zhao Guo just sent someone to divination, and after confirming that it was a good omen, he agreed very happily.

At this point, the wedding has reached the last and most important step - welcome. Greeting, also known as greeting, is the sixth step of the wedding, which requires the groom to marry the bride himself!

After sending matchmakers and envoys to Zhao State many times, Dai Yan couldn't wait! As soon as the invitation date was confirmed, he immediately went to Zhao with a huge team!