Since the Accounting: A Chronicle of the Roman Khanate

Chapter 613: Fan-made works of Romance of the Three Kingdoms appear
In the days that followed, Guo Kang was still very busy, but he didn't have to think too much. The princess's wedding was complicated and lengthy, but most of the time was spent on various social activities, and the ceremony itself didn't have much to offer.

Father Peter, who was in charge of the ritual arrangements, even made fun of himself when he was teaching Guo Kang the various procedures. He said that in the past, only three people were needed for a Catholic wedding. The bride and groom swore to each other, and the priest stood by to witness on behalf of God. In some special occasions, even the priest can be omitted. As long as the two people accept each other and report it afterwards, the marriage is considered to be formed.

This way of marriage soon spread throughout the Roman Empire. Because the traditional Roman wedding was too complicated and expensive, ordinary people simply could not afford to get married. However, in the social environment, if they did not pay this money, both families would feel very embarrassed. As a result, not only the lower class could not afford to get married, but even the middle class was forced to bear the burden, which simply increased the cost of marriage.

Therefore, after the God Worshipping Society proposed this new idea, many people joined in. Because they accepted the new teachings of Brother Tian and joined the new organization of the church, they had a reason to get rid of the shackles of various old customs and practices.

Father Peter said that everyone knows that the rapid spread of doctrine from the bottom up is definitely related to these characteristics of the early church. However, the current situation has changed.

Although the church still adheres to its doctrine in theory, wedding ceremonies are becoming more and more complicated. The upper class who join the church do not care about the teachings in the scriptures at all, and often compete with each other in the extravagance of life. The scale of the ceremony is getting bigger and bigger, and the cost is getting more and more shocking.

Today, the wedding situation is no different from that in ancient Rome. Although it is nominally a Catholic marriage, the problems that occurred in ancient times have reappeared one by one. The fathers of both families still decide on marriages, and people still value money rather than the compatibility of souls. The monks themselves cannot explain why such things happen again and again, and can only blame it on the corruption of worldly desires. But their appeals are always ineffective.

Father Peter was very emotional about this. The early church developed from the grassroots, and the vitality of the church also came from the roots of society. But now, the church has taken the old path of ancient Rome. I don’t know if there will be a new organization from the grassroots in the future, repeating the situation of the past, and eventually replacing the church like the church replaced the ancient Roman priests. Of course, they can only suppress it for a period of time, and in the end they can’t solve these problems.

Guo Kang also felt deeply about this. He advocated frugality and took the lead in opposing extravagance every day, but apart from himself, he could not control many people. These conditions in society may not be changed by his personal strength.

Moreover, these problems were not unique to ancient Rome. The Han Dynasty at that time was also facing similar situations.

During the Han Dynasty, as the country became stronger and the economy developed, everyone from the upper class to the common people began to worship luxury. When a nobleman got married, the betrothal gifts were as much as 10,000 yuan, and others followed suit. People at that time described that the rich competed with each other for this, and the poor were ashamed to be inferior to others. As a result, "the rich lost money and the poor borrowed money", which had affected the normal development of many families.

Judging from the results, those who could borrow money to get married were probably not really poor. At that time, officials in counties and prefectures were often unable to get married due to poverty. According to historical records, there was even a clerk in the county council who had no money to get married when he was fifty years old. In the end, it was the governor and his colleagues who raised money for him to give him enough betrothal gifts.

In the Han Dynasty, the officials of each Cao in the county were appointed by the governor himself, and there were generally only a few dozen of them in the whole county. Among them, the Yi Cao was responsible for giving advice to the governor, presiding over the officials' meetings, and compiling everyone's opinions and reporting them to the governor. Therefore, generally only trusted personnel were assigned such positions. Usually, they could enter and exit directly under the gate of the superior, and were called "menxia li", and their status was higher than that of ordinary Cao li. Such people could not afford to get married, which shows how serious the situation in society was.

According to the Geographical Records, many places were famous for their high marriage costs. In the capital Chang'an, "the people in the neighborhood valued money and goods when getting married", in Wei, "were too expensive to marry and send off the dead", and in Shu, even "they spent all their property" for marriage. Because society was generally peaceful, women could also take the initiative. According to the Records of the Grand Historian, from Zheng to Zhao, women dressed up carefully, even carrying musical instruments as decorations, and traveled thousands of miles, regardless of the age of the other party, just hoping that the rich and powerful would accept them.

Moreover, not only the Central Plains, but also the border areas quickly became infected with these habits. In the Han Dynasty, Jiuzhen County was located south of Jiaozhi. The local natives were very primitive and backward. They didn't even know how to farm. They had to rely on hunting to exchange food with the Jiaozhi people for survival. There was no stable relationship between husband and wife, let alone forming a family. However, even so, the locals quickly learned to ask for betrothal gifts. I don't know why they were so quickly sinicized in this regard.

During the reign of Emperor Guangwu, the governor Ren Yan promoted education in Jiuzhen County, teaching the people to cultivate the land and use farm tools. He also encouraged them to marry and form families. As a result, many natives could not afford the betrothal gifts because they had no money. The governor led officials at all levels to use their salaries to help them pay for the marriages. As a result, more than 2,000 people got married at the same time.

The natives had land and families, and later had children, and settled down there. They were very grateful to Ren Yan, and built a shrine for him. Many people even named their children after him. When the county encountered trouble, the natives came to help, and took the initiative to help guard the border, so that even the soldiers guarding the border were saved.

Unfortunately, this situation is an isolated case after all. In most areas, the government is still powerless to deal with it. Officials in the court also noticed this situation. During the reign of Emperor Xuan of Han, Wang Ji, a counselor, wrote a letter to advise against it, saying that "if there is no moderation in marrying wives and sending daughters, the poor will not be able to afford it, so they will not raise children." It can be seen that this trend has affected the country's population and must be intervened.

Emperor Xuan of Han himself also issued an order stipulating that the marriage expenses of low-level officials and ordinary people should not exceed the upper limit. However, the emperor's intervention could not change the social atmosphere and ultimately failed to produce sufficient results.

Throughout the Han Dynasty, just like Rome, no solution was found to this problem. And in later generations, these situations would always recur. This was not something that could be solved by a few orders from the court or by the painstaking education of great Confucian scholars.

This was not the first time that the priests had said this to Guo Kang. They were familiar with Guo Kang and felt that he had a unique perspective on problems and often had good ideas. Therefore, they always looked forward to the guidance of a saint and hoped that he could directly give a good solution. However, Guo Kang was not a saint after all. For projects like Steam Tianxiong, it was nothing more than that people in the future had already had successful experience, so he could directly determine the correct direction and lead everyone to work hard to achieve the goal. However, for problems like these, future experience would not be useful - because even after hundreds of years, the situation had not changed in any fundamental way.

Guo Kang had no confidence to claim that people in his time had successfully solved the problem. He even dared not assert whether the path that society was trying at the time was the right direction or whether there were signs of success. How could he convince and lead others when he couldn't even convince himself?

Of course, in the long run, the entire civilization actually has periodic self-regulation.

Population decline and political chaos during the Han and Jin dynasties occurred simultaneously, both of which led to the influx of foreigners. The influx of foreigners further caused social chaos, and once society became turbulent, these extravagant marriages, along with the women who pursued profit, disappeared - after all, at that time, you couldn't ask Shi Hu for a gift. When order was restored, society returned to the state before the cycle, when everyone had not yet become extravagant and debauched.

Although it sounds like this is not a solution to the problem at all. But compared with other civilizations, leaving it to the periodic law is not a solution. We can only hope that Rome can be revived as soon as possible, at least so that the Mediterranean world can have a soil for the periodic law to emerge. Otherwise, even if we study and discuss it, it will probably be a waste of effort.

In the current situation, Guo Kang can only do the small part that he can do. He actually doesn't want to make the wedding too big, but this ceremony has actually become a public festival. The last time the triumphant return, due to an unexpected incident, many citizens who didn't have enough fun were looking forward to this event.

As early as half a month before the official wedding, the city began to "warm up" activities. Although the popular dramas that the Greeks loved the most had become less popular and the racing field had become deserted, new popular entertainment was also emerging rapidly.

At present, it seems that as long as there is enough market demand, there is no shortage of relevant practitioners and works in places like Dadu. Not long after the chaos ended, playwrights continued to launch new works. Many theater troupes were forced to close or were banned, but this made the once monopolized market more active. Many theater troupes from other regions rushed to participate in this "whale fall" carnival.

Joanna wrote to Guo Kang, saying that she had seized this opportunity to hire a group of artists from her hometown to develop the market here, and had invited Guo Kang to visit and appreciate it many times. However, Theodora had been very strict recently, so Guo Kang had no time to go out, so he had to decline all the invitations.

Italian artists are only part of these foreign influences. The most popular one at present is actually the "Three Kingdoms Opera" which came from the north and was improved.

Luo Guanzhong told Guo Kang that he himself was a fan of the Three Kingdoms. After arriving in Rome, he also went to collect folk songs many times, wanting to read the stories circulating here. Because long before him, the characters and stories of the Three Kingdoms had been widely circulated among the people, and even spread here with the generation of the early Shi Hou.

This time, because of the abnormal situation in Dadu, the Khan Ting issued an urgent order to transfer the original garrison and transfer reliable troops to deploy defenses inside and outside the city. The new soldiers who entered the city were all veterans who had just finished fighting and were celebrating their victory. After the situation stabilized, these people continued to organize several activities to celebrate the two merits together.

Most of these veterans were from Henan, and their entertainment also had its own local characteristics. They all liked to sing opera songs, but they were quite different from the Greek dramas that were popular in Dadu before.

The same is true for the plot. In Dadu, the story of the Three Kingdoms became popular unexpectedly because of Luo Guanzhong’s storytelling. In Guo’s hometown, stories like “Guan Gong slew Satan” were already derived. Obviously, they were exposed to the Three Kingdoms story much earlier than here.

The hobbies of the veterans attracted the attention of many playwrights, and after the collision of different styles, a series of new works naturally emerged. However, many authors had average cultural levels and did not know much about Seris history, but they had extremely rich imaginations, so they could always come up with plots that made people feel dizzy.

Luo Guanzhong said that his Three Kingdoms storybook was a secondary creation of the Three Kingdoms history, and he should not have criticized others and tried to stop them from re-adapting it. But now, due to the sudden popularity, stories such as "St. Peter and St. Paul swore brotherhood in front of the statue of Guan Gong" and "Guan Gong escorted Tianxiong on a journey, smashing five Jewish altars and beheading six priests along the way" have begun to appear.

Luo Guanzhong pointed out that adaptation is not random writing, and parody is not nonsense. But now, some people have begun to hold performances of Three Kingdoms characters on the street. Now, after all, it is Guo Kang's own wedding, and he doesn't want the celebration to be too abstract. Therefore, it is better to control it to some extent.

Guo Kang could only say that he was just a puppet actor now, and he had no control over the activities. He would tell Theodora later and see how she would react.

(End of this chapter)