The Duke of Yu's Daughter Read online

  The Duke of Yu’s Daughter

  A Tale of Ancient China

  by Commander James Bondage

  Copyright 2015 Commander James Bondage

  Published by Strict Publishing International

  (first published as “The Lotus of Yu”)

  Chapter One: Old Hundred Daughters

  This story takes place in the Middle Kingdom over 4000 years ago, during the reign of Emperor Yao the Great, from a time so ancient that some now believe the tale that follows to be nothing more than a legend. They are wrong, however, because the story of the unfortunate Duke of Yu and his even more unfortunate daughter, the Lotus Flower of Yu, was recorded by the historians of the royal court and it is true in every respect and detail.

  In those days, the Duchy of Yu was the most important of the Nine Provinces of the Middle Kingdom, and for this reason its rule had been given to the collateral line descending from the younger son of the Yellow Emperor himself, who was the founder of the Xai Dynasty and ancestor of Yao the Great. The Duke at this time was named Shen-Li, and he managed, through a combination of bad luck and poor planning, to bring the Duchy of Yu, which had hitherto been the wealthiest as well as the most important province in the Kingdom, to the verge of financial ruin.

  Shen-Li did not gamble or imbibe spirituous beverages, nor was he cruel or miserly. He was, moreover, a pious man, who never forgot to make twice-monthly offerings of fruit and burning incense in the tombs of his distinguished ancestors. Indeed, he was in almost all ways an admirable man and a fair and just ruler of the province of Yu. But he did have one vice. He was fond of beautiful women to an unusual, some might even say excessive, degree. As the Duke of Yu was rich, powerful and well connected, and was reputed to be one of the most handsome noblemen in the entire Middle Kingdom, it was not difficult for him to find beautiful, intelligent women from the most ancient noble families willing to marry him. By the time he was twenty, he had accumulated four wives, all of whom were very fond of him, as he was of them.

  Nor was there any reason for his wives to feel anything but affection toward their noble husband, for the Duke treated them with great kindness and generosity, and built each a fine palace of her own, lavishly furnished and fully staffed with servants. This was expensive, to be sure, but Yu was, after all, a prosperous province and the treasury was bulging with bronze and golden coins, so the Duke’s expenditures on his wives was not an undue or unbearable burden for the taxpayers. At least, not at the beginning.

  Shen-Li wasted little time putting his four comely wives to work producing a male heir for the Duchy. The four women were young, healthy and fertile, so it was not more than eighteen months after the Duke had celebrated his fourth wedding that he was the father of four fine infants.

  Unfortunately for Shen-Li, all four of his offspring were females. As the odds against such an occurrence were sixteen-to-one, this was thought of as no more than curious coincidence, a story to marvel over for a little while before passing on to some other news, but was not anything of any real significance. The Duke’s wives were all young and healthy, and in due course at least one of them would inevitably give her husband a male child who would then inherit the Duchy and continue the family line.

  Over the course of the next year, each of the Duke’s four wives’ bellies again grew large with child, and each presented him with living proof of their (and Shen-Li’s) fertility. But once again, to the astonishment of the province, and later as the tale spread, of the whole Middle Kingdom, all four newborns were girls, pretty little creatures as no one could deny, but nonetheless definitely female. The odds against this were two hundred fifty-six to one, and the matter was no longer a seven-day wonder but quickly became the talk of the kingdom, from the simplest peasant plowing a field behind his buffalo to the perfumed, silk-robed courtiers of Emperor Yao’s court.

  Self-proclaimed wise men, quack doctors, magicians, astrologers and charlatans of every stripe from all over the kingdom descended on Yu, each promising to find the cause of and cure for the Duke’s inability to father a male heir. After a year of divinations, tealeaf readings, consultations with oracular books, colonic purges, doses of vile medication, testicular massages, and more, Shen-Li’s wives gave birth in due course to another round of girls.

  The Duke decided to take matters back into his own hands. He dismissed the horde of would-be healers from his court and ordered them to leave Yu immediately, with any who remained after one week to be put to death. Then, he sent messengers throughout Yu and to neighboring provinces, bearing the news that the Duke of Yu was searching for suitable young women for purposes of matrimony, as it was his intention to acquire as many more wives as necessary until at least one produced a son.

  Having gained a well-deserved reputation as a considerate, generous spouse from his first four marriages in addition to his wealth, power and family, Shen-Li was now a more attractive matrimonial prospect than ever. He was therefore soon swamped with offers from the most outstandingly beautiful noblewomen of the finest families in all the Middle Kingdom (and not a few plain and even downright homely ones as well). The Duke selected from among these many candidates the six most promising, and married them. He built each of the new wives a palace like the ones in which his first four resided.

  This new round of palaces was not so easily borne by the Ducal treasury. By the time the six new wives were settled in their lavish new homes, the pinch was definitely beginning to be felt. The Duke’s advisors warned him that the provincial treasury would be empty by the time the additional palaces were completed, and this was no less than the truth.

  If Shen-Li was worried about his finances, he gave no sign. He paid less and less attention to state affairs, as his obsession with obtaining a male heir grew. He spent a great deal of time in the palaces of his various wives, making certain that they were impregnated, and the majority of the remainder of the time talking and thinking about his prospects for producing an heir.

  The Duke of Yu’s wives obligingly produced more children for him, in ones and twos (there were three sets of twins), and each case they were girls. The remarkable story of Shen-Li’s misfortune quickly became known in every corner of the Middle Kingdom and inevitably he became something of a legend. He was given many jocular nicknames, but he is best remembered by one: “Old Hundred Daughters”, and it is under this name which he has come down through history. This was, of course, something of an exaggeration, as he almost certainly did not father more than fifty or so daughters, before he finally accepted his fate and gave up his attempts to sire a male child.

  The most serious consequences of Shen-Li’s misfortune did not become evident until many years later, when his many daughters became young women, all seeking noble husbands for themselves. The Duke loved all of his numerous offspring, and did not hold them responsible for failing to be boys, as some lesser men might. He wanted to provide for each one of them as a good father should, and tried to find them all good marriages.

  Unfortunately, in order to contract marriages with appropriate men of the noble class, the Duke was expected to provide suitable dowries for his daughters. It was this expense, or, rather, this series of expenses, which emptied the provincial coffers (which had accumulated some reserves after the Duke ended his marriage spree) and sent the Duchy spiraling into debt. After meeting the normal costs of his very large household and governing Yu, in addition to the massive sums paid out as dowries for his daughters, there was less than nothing left. Shen-Li was obliged to borrow money, large amounts of it, and mortgage his personal holdings as security for these loans.

  Eventually, he reached the point where no one would lend him money; or rather, almost no one. There was one man who c
ontinued to extend credit to the Duke of Yu, buying up all his obligations at a discount, after all the other lenders had written him off as a bad debt.

  This was a certain Master Zhao Hua (whose name, appropriately enough, means “most prosperous one”). He had become very wealthy from trade with barbarian nations, in particular with the dwarf bandits who lived on the island Kingdom of Wo (known in the West as Japan). Zhao Hua held an Imperial patent as a knight, the lowest level of nobility. It was rumored that his knighthood had been bought by bribing an official at the Emperor’s court, and that Zhao had been born a commoner, without a drop of noble blood in his veins.

  Whatever the truth of these rumors might have been, the Duke of Yu was in no position to be particular about the source of his borrowed funds. Zhao Hua had money, he was willing to lend it to Shen-Li, and that was good enough. The trouble was, even after he secured the money to stave off immediate disaster, the Duke’s financial difficulties did not disappear, and in fact became even worse. Shen-Li soon found himself unable to meet the scheduled payments on Master Zhao’s loans. When the Duke missed two consecutive payments, Zhao himself appeared at the Ducal palace to confront the insolvent Shen-Li.

  The Duke arranged for the meeting to take place over tea in a pavilion that was located on a little island in his lake. Zhao Hua was rowed out to the island by Shen-Li’s favorite wife, the charming Jun Lei, and the tea was served by her and two more of his delightful spouses beneath the gentle swaying of pine trees, while majestic swans cruised by on the lake, in the hopes that this hospitality might soften Zhao’s heart and render him more amenable to granting the Duke an extension of time for repayment.

  Zhao Hua was at this time perhaps forty years old. He had a broad, muscular body and features that were not unattractive, but his grim, austere expression and manner gave him a most forbidding, off-putting aspect. Moreover, he was wanting in the most basic of social graces. For example, he seemed to positively despise small talk. Zhao declined to allow himself to be charmed by Shen-Li or his wives as they drank tea together, responding to his hosts’ attempts at conversation with monosyllabic grunts or complete silence.

  At length, an uncomfortable hush fell over the table. It was finally broken by the visitor. “Most noble Duke,” Zhao said in his gravelly voice, “Two payments of the debt owed to your humble servant are past due. I would personally be most happy to allow you more time, but like your honorable self I am pressed by my own creditors. I would consider it a great misfortune if I was compelled to move against the pledged properties and sell them to meet these obligations, but I do not see what else can be done.” As these properties included, in addition to the ancient estates on which the tombs of the Duke’s ancestors stood, lands which had belonged to the family for time out of mind, and the main Ducal palace, the ten palaces Shen-Li had built for his wives, the three women looked at their husband in alarm.

  “I too would consider it a misfortune, perhaps even more than your most worthy self,” agreed Shen-Li nervously, “and my wives, a greater misfortune still,” he added, glancing at the latter. “And yet, I have not the money for you at this time. The harvest in Yu this year was poor, as my people were troubled first by drought, then flood, then unseasonable cold. I could not increase their taxes. Indeed, Master Zhao, you can certainly understand when I tell you that I was forced to grant tax remissions to many of my subjects, lest they starve or be forced to abandon their land. Under the circumstances…” He spread his hands, palms upward, as if to ask, “What else could I do?”

  The Duke’s plea for understanding made no impression on Zhao. He remained silent, his face set in stone.

  “Is there nothing I can offer you in return for additional time to pay?” Shen-Li asked, after another awkward silence threatened to stretch on indefinitely.

  The moneylender appeared to consider this. “Perhaps something can be arranged,” he said at length. “I have spent many years laboring to accumulate wealth, and given over little thought to my personal needs. I find loneliness a constant shadow over me of late. It is said that a man is less than whole without a mate, and so I have been considering taking a wife, one who could perhaps fill the void in my life. You, my noble host, are known far and wide for the beauty, intelligence and warmth of your numerous daughters. It may be that one of them might become the wife who might become the one who could ease the emptiness of my days, at least in part. In such a case, I might well find a way to forgo immediate payment.” Zhao Hua made all these personal revelations in the impassive tone that seemed to be his usual way of speaking, as if he was discussing the weather or negotiating the price of a herd of cattle.

  This was nothing like the Duke had expected. His daughters, although he cared dearly for them, were to his mind financial liabilities rather than assets. Yet it appeared that Zhao Hua saw things otherwise. The offer was almost too good to be true, and Shen-Li needed to assure himself that the other man knew what he would be getting, or, to be more exact, what he would not be getting if he married one of the Duke’s daughters.

  “Master Zhao, I would be honored to give one of my beloved daughters in marriage to so distinguished a knight as yourself,” he said, “and I would most gratefully accept your kind offer of an extension of time in return. But I fear to strain your generosity by both delaying repayment and also burdening you with a wife who can bring no dowry. For it would be a very long time, if ever, before I could provide an appropriate bride-gift. It is certain that I am not in a position to do so now, as you more than anyone else must know.”

  Zhao Hua’s eyes kindled, and his voice was no longer impassive, as he replied, “Do you suppose me to be a fool because I cannot claim descent from the Yellow Emperor, O Duke of Yu?” he said, with some heat. “Naturally I understand the implications of an arrangement which I have myself proposed. If I have not made my meaning clear enough for you, then I will say it more plainly: I will not ask for nor will I expect a dowry if I choose one of your daughters to be my wife. Do you require any further explanation, or is this satisfactory?”

  So overjoyed was the Shen-Li at these words that he failed to take offense at Zhao’s serious breach of propriety in so rudely addressing the Duke, a man far above his social station. On the contrary, he hastened to placate the knight and make his gratitude clear.

  “My dear Master Zhao, it is more than satisfactory. It is generosity beyond anything I would have dared to ask of you,” Shen-Li assured him. “You are living proof that true nobility can be found not in ancestry but in the soul. If you find it convenient, I will put aside a residence for you, and tomorrow you shall meet and examine my daughters, and select the one who will be your future wife.”

  His momentary annoyance subsided, and Zhao Hua’s customary cool demeanor returned. He did not speak in reply to Shen-Li, but looked at him a long moment, his face an unexpressive mask, and then he nodded his heavy head in agreement.

  Chapter Two: The Lotus Flower of Yu

  Shen-Li’s fifth wife, Jingjing, happened to be away at the time of Zhao Hua’s visit, attending her sick father in her faraway birthplace, Liang Province. Since her palace was available, the guest was lodged there with his retainers. Over breakfast the next morning in his temporary accommodation, Zhao Hua told the Duke of Yu how he wished to conduct his interviews with the latter’s marriageable daughters.

  “You will send them in one at a time and I will speak to them privately in my room,” he said. “I will tell you that I require unquestioning obedience first in a wife, before any other virtue, and your daughters should know this before they come to see me. If they have any hope of being selected, they must be prepared to fully answer all my questions and to do exactly as I bid, in every detail.”

  “I shall go to speak to them the moment I leave you, and I shall instruct them using your exact words,” Shen-Li promised. “All my daughters have been raised to be both respectful and obedient, and all the importance of pleasing you shall be emphasized. I suspect that the only difficulty you will e
ncounter will be choosing one of my lovely girls over the others. Which reminds me: if you cannot settle on merely one, you should feel free to marry two or even three of my daughters. Indeed, I would encourage you to do so.”

  “We shall see,” grunted Zhao, and would say no more.

  At this time, the Duke of Yu had twenty-one daughters still unmarried and living in his household. They ranged in age from eighteen to twenty-one, and nearly all desired only one thing above all else in the world: a good marriage to a noble husband. Since the Duke of Yu could no longer provide the sort of dowries normally required from the fathers of daughters marrying into noble families, they had, on the advice of the wise Jun Lei, learned strategies that might still win them good husbands.

  All young men, whatever the circumstances of their birth (Jun Lei told the Duke’s assembled daughters), are alike in certain ways. In particular, most can be led about and controlled by their natural appetites, for nature has put a great, almost irresistible desire to lie with women into them, she explained. Therefore, if the daughters of Shen-Li were able to inflame and then satisfy that desire in the young noblemen they sought to wed, their victim’s male instincts might overwhelm their rational thought processes, and they might agree to a marriage without an appropriate dowry. Of course, the girls had to make certain that no matter what else they did, they retained their hymens intact, but this was far from an insurmountable obstacle. It was only necessary for the Duke’s daughters to learn the arts of pleasing men in some of the many ways that would leave the seals of their virginity unbroken.