Arrangements for Zhuge Xuan's funeral began that night, and the funeral ceremony was officially carried out before dawn the next day.
The so-called small coffin is to dress and change the bedding for the deceased.
Funerals in the Han Dynasty had a complete set of procedures, including a dozen steps such as purification, burning incense, mourning, coffin, vigil, burial, funeral, and burial.
In later modern times, these procedures have been simplified a lot. Generally, funerals only last three to seven days, but in ancient times, the process would be very cumbersome.
Ordinary people's families may not be that complicated, but from humble families to nobles to officials, princes and nobles, the higher the status, the more troublesome the funeral process will be and the longer it will take.
Historically, the funeral of Emperor Ling of the Han Dynasty took almost two months. In the Spring and Autumn Period, due to poor roads, the emperor of Zhou might even have to wait for a year after his death, waiting for princes from all over the country to come all the way.
Condolences.
Although the Zhuge family is not a big family, its ancestors also produced two thousand stones like Sili Xiaowei, which is slightly better than the humble and powerful families. It is considered a low-level family, so the process of the main family's funeral will be a little more complicated.
I just didn't expect that a small problem would arise on the first day of the funeral.
Before dawn the next day, Zhuge Liang walked out of his uncle's room after not resting all night. All his uncle's friends had left last night, and only Shen Chen was still with him.
Zhuge Liang went to wash up first. When he came out of the backyard, he saw Shen Chen standing behind him at some point.
"Brother."
"Brother."
Shen Chen looked at him with some worry and said, "I haven't slept all night, and I have to pay my respects today. You have to pay attention to your health. At least you can get some sleep."
Zhuge Liang held on and waved his hands and said: "It doesn't matter, my uncle died of illness, and I couldn't sleep even if I wanted to sleep last night."
"Um."
Shen Chen nodded and said: "After my family moved to Nanyang, we have held a large number of funerals for dozens of people who died in the family. I am quite experienced. If you want to take a rest, let me help you."
"good."
Zhuge Liang forced a smile: "Then you can help me receive the guests when I get tired."
"clear."
The two of them walked back to the room as they spoke.
There is a child squatting outside the door, drowsy.
Zhuge Liang woke him up and asked him to call some strong male servants at home.
There are strict regulations on the funeral process. The deceased must lie in his or her own bed the same way he did the day before and let him rest in peace for the last night.
This custom is called "mourning", and then in the early morning of the next day, the "small burial" begins, which is to wash the body of the deceased and put on the burial clothes.
After a while, six young male servants came to the room, one of them was still yawning, with a rather impatient look on his face.
Zhuge Liang ordered: "You carry your uncle to the backyard hall, get a plate of hot water, scrub your uncle's body, and put on new clothes. I wrote some funeral greetings. In the afternoon, you go to the city and follow the names written on the funeral greetings."
I’m going to visit the master’s house one by one, do you understand?”
"only."
Several slaves agreed.
But when the yawning servant heard that he had to clean Zhuge Xuan's body and go around Xiangyang to report the funeral, he immediately became unhappy and said, "Da Lang, can I not do it?"
"Um?"
Zhuge Liang glanced at him majestically and said in surprise: "Are you sick?"
The servant shook his head and said: "No, it's just that when the doctor bought the son, the contract only stated that he would look after the house. There was no agreement that he would clean the doctor's body and go to the city to pay his last respects."
Hearing this sentence, Shen Chen and Zhuge Liang looked at each other, and their brows wrinkled at the same time.
I met a lazy slave.
Slavery has been basically abolished since the Qin and Han Dynasties and moved toward feudal society. But this does not mean that slaves have completely ceased to exist. At least until the Qing Dynasty, slaves were a symbol of the property of the ancient powerful.
The late Han Dynasty naturally retained a certain slave culture. The Yuan family of the fourth generation and the three princes had countless slaves. If a top wealthy family did not have thousands of slaves, they would be embarrassed to go out. It is common for ordinary aristocratic families to have hundreds or even thousands of slaves. Even Mi Zhu, a wealthy businessman in Xuzhou, had tens of thousands of servants.
Although Zhuge's family was in decline, Zhuge Liang's father was once a county magistrate and the second-in-command of Taishan County. His basic social status and wealth were still considerable. Therefore, there were dozens of slaves in the family, most of which were male servants. .
Later, when Zhuge Jin became the head of the family, considering that he was only fifteen years old, and that his stepmother was alone and widowed, there were too many male servants, and he was afraid that the master would be weak and the slaves would be too strong to provoke criticism, so he sold most of the male servants, leaving only four loyal slaves.
The rest of the remaining slaves are mostly child servants. The male servants can do some manual labor, while the child servants accompany the two young brothers to study, serve the husband, and do some simple chores for the master's family.
When Zhuge Xuan came to Xuzhou to pick up Zhuge Liang and others, Zhuge Jin separated his family and went to Jiangdong, taking the four adult male servants with him.
After arriving in Jingzhou, Zhuge Xuan hired a large number of local villagers for construction, and also bought six male servants because the family had to start over, building houses, cultivating fields, raising livestock, etc. Manage these things.
In ancient times, wealthy families actually preferred to train slaves from an early age, so that their loyalty would be much higher, so they were called house slaves.
The newly purchased slaves were not loyal enough. If they were too good to them, they would become arrogant easily. If they were not good to them, they might abandon their families and run away. Therefore, during the Han Dynasty, especially in the late Western Han Dynasty and the late Eastern Han Dynasty, there were many disputes between masters and slaves.
All the original male slaves of the Zhuge family were taken away by Zhuge Jin. Most of the current slaves are children in their teens. Only the six newly purchased slaves are young and strong, so their help is needed.
It turned out that one of the male servants turned out to be a lazy slave.
In the past, these male servants managed the properties purchased by Zhuge Xuan outside, while the inner house was mainly managed by the child servants of the Zhuge family. These male servants would only be called when heavy physical work was required, so although Zhuge Liang knew these male servants, But the relationship is not very close.
In the past, Zhuge Xuan worked as an official under Liu Biao all year round. He went to work at midnight every day, left early and came back late, and had no time to manage these slaves. As a result, after his death, there was a lazy slave who wanted to shirk his duties and contradict his master. Home.
Although such things are actually very common, when the princes in the north were fighting for hegemony, due to the breakdown of official order, the proliferation of thieves, and the breakdown of the legal system, even if the slaves of large families ran away, few people could take care of them.
Especially during the turbulent period of the Yellow Turban Rebellion and Dong Zhuo's Rebellion, conflicts between masters and slaves broke out very fiercely.
Occasionally, there will be cases where the old master dies of illness and the new master is too young. The master is weak and the slave is strong, but the slaves occupy the master's property. Even during the Yellow Turban Rebellion, there were many slaves who devoured their masters and participated in the rebel army and killed them. Your own home.
But this is Jingzhou.
Liu Biao's rule was relatively stable, the rule of law was strict, and the government had sufficient control.
If this slave named Ding thought that after Zhuge Xuan's death, Zhuge Liang, a teenage boy, could not become a householder and he could bully his young master, he would be totally wrong.
After hearing Ding Ling's words, Zhuge Liang thought for a while, then turned to look at Shen Chen and asked, "Brother, are you in need of servants?"
Shen Chen immediately understood and said to the child outside the door: "Anu, go and call Shen Qi and Deng Pi in."
"only."
Anu jumped up and ran outside.
Shen Qi and Deng Pi were not his slaves, but distant relatives of the Deng and Shen families, two bodyguards who specially protected Shen Chen.
Ding Liao was puzzled and asked: "Is Dalang going to sell Ding?"
Zhuge Liang was too lazy to pay attention to him.
After a while, Shen Qi and Deng Pi came in and asked, "Xiao Lang, what are you calling us for?"
"Hold him down."
Shen Chen pointed at Nading and said.
Shen Qi and Deng Pi were tall and powerful. When they heard Shen Chen's words, they immediately rushed toward Ding with a ferocious look and pushed him down.
The other slaves around him didn't dare to say anything.
After all, there are only a few treacherous and cunning slaves, and there are still many honest people.
Ding Liao immediately shouted: "Dalang, what mistake did Ding Liao make? Why did you arrest me?"
Zhuge Liang ignored him and just said to Anu: "Anu, go and get the sealed coupon."
The bond contract is the so-called master-servant contract, which can also be called a slave contract. This contract can prove the master-servant relationship, and it also contains some relevant provisions.
For example, clarify some of the responsibilities of slaves.
However, due to the limited space, the specific content will be relatively general. Ru Ding's contract only stipulated that he be allowed to look after the house. There is indeed no requirement that he must scrub the dead owner's body.
But the problem is that the reason why the contract is not written in detail is because it is inconvenient to record. The social rules at that time were that the master's orders must be obeyed by the servants, even if it was not written in the contract, they must abide by it. Therefore, Ding actually wanted to get into the law. Loopholes and laziness.
Soon Anu brought the signed contract, which was a bamboo slip. There was a copy of this bamboo slip in the local government, so there was no fear of being stolen.
Moreover, the owner can use this bamboo slip to trade with others privately. He only needs to report it to the government after the transaction is completed. Therefore, the bond contract is very important to the slave, commonly known as the contract of sale.
Zhuge Liang took the bamboo slip from Anu, glanced at the content, and said to Shen Chen: "Brother, take a look."
Shen Chen took it and took a look at it. It was a very formal contract. Zhuge Xuan had originally bought Ding Liao for eighteen thousand and five baht. The content and regulations in it were indeed relatively general, so he took the bamboo slip and said to Ding Liao. : "Does it mean that if I want to use you, I have to put in the coupon? If I don't write it in the coupon, you won't do anything?"
"Of course, it must be evidenced by the coupon."
Ding Liao bit this sentence to death.
Generally speaking, if the master is powerful, the slave will not be so lazy, because even if the slave is killed, the master will only lose some money and does not need to pay for his life.
The problem is that fools are everywhere. Historical records from the Han Dynasty record that there were countless stupid slaves like Ding Liao.
In addition, Zhuge Xuan had just died, and Ding Liao felt that the new master was young and could be bullied, so he wanted to be lazy and strike. However, he did not know that Zhuge Liang had just become the head of the family and was about to rule the family and establish his own authority, so he jumped on the pole and hit him. Go ahead, you can't blame anyone if you want to die.
The two looked at each other, and Shen Chen smiled and said: "In that case, let me read it first: On March 8, the second year of Jian'an, Shen Chen, a man from Xinye, bought the house of his late uncle Shi from Zhuge Liang, a man from Longzhong, Xiangyang. When the slaves are strong, they will kill 20,000 servants. The slaves should serve as servants for hundreds of people, and there should be no two words."
"From the 9th day of the third month onwards, we will sweep in the morning, eat and wash. We will put on mortars and bind brooms, cut bowls and chisel buckets, dredge canals and tie them up, build gardens and moors. Dubi will lay on the ground, carving wood as frames, and bending bamboos. Make loquats, cut and prune deer and deer. Complete the above in one day. If you don't listen to the instructions, you will be flogged a hundred times."
"On the 10th day of the third month, the weaving of shoes was made, and the sticky sparrows spread their crows. We built nets to catch fish, and collected wild geese to shoot grunts. We climbed mountains to shoot deer, and went into the water to catch turtles. We raised more than a hundred wild geese and ducks in the back garden. We drove away the ostriches and held their shoots. Herd pigs, plant ginger and raise taro, raise dolphins and foals, remove manure from the halls, and eat horses and cattle. If you complete the above in one day, if you don't listen to the instructions, you will be whipped a hundred times."
"On the 11th day of the third month, the territory was blocked by embankments, and mulberry bark was planted. Melons were planted to make gourds, and eggplants and green onions were planted. The chaffs were burned, and the ridges were collected and broken. In the middle of the day, there was an early fire, and the roosters crowed. The horses were regulated. Household, and three floors. If you complete the above within one day, if you don't listen to the instructions, you will be flogged a hundred times."
"March 12"
Just after he finished talking about the work that Ding was going to do on the third day, before he even said what he was going to do on the fourth day, Ding already knelt down, kept kowtowing, and shouted: "Stop talking about it, young man, these tasks are among them." If you have to do any of the tasks in one day, how can you finish ten days of work in one day? Xiaolang is going to beat Ding to death."
Shen Chen glanced at Zhuge Liang, who said coldly: "In that case, do you know you are wrong?"
Ding Lio slapped himself several times, with tears and snot flowing down his face. He kowtowed to Zhuge Liang and said, "Ding Liang realizes his mistake. Ding Lio will definitely listen to Dalang's words from now on. I really don't dare to do evil anymore."
"Then I'll give you ten lashes as a warning to others."
Zhuge Liang looked at the other servants and said, "You are going to pull him down and whip him ten times. Don't be slow, I want to see blood."
All the slaves suddenly felt sad, knowing that although the new master was young, he was strict in running the family and could not be bullied. So they quickly dragged Ding out, tied him up in the yard, and gave him ten whips in front of Zhuge Liang. , each whip is extremely heavy, and blood can be seen from the whip.
On the sidelines, Shen Chen admired his brother's good tactics, showing kindness and power at the same time. He said he would give him a hundred lashes, but he reduced it to ten lashes, which not only punished the lazy slave, but also did not make the lazy slave feel resentful, and his method was clever.
Soon after he died, he was dragged back and knelt down in front of Zhuge Liang. Not only did he not dare to hold any grudges, but he kept thanking him for his kindness, with snot and tears streaming down his face.
After all, it was Shen Chen who was the bad guy, and Shen Chen's contract was completely to get him to die. If Zhuge Liang really sold him to Shen Chen, it would be better for him to die, so he seemed to have come out of the gate of hell. Even though he was beaten ten times, he was still grateful to Zhuge Liang for saving his life.
Zhuge Liang asked him to do things immediately, and Ding and other slaves did not dare to neglect and hurriedly followed his instructions. From the first day Zhuge Liang took charge of the family, he shocked all the slaves and improved the family tradition.
I'm going back to my hometown today and may have to update later.