Daughter of aristocratic family

Chapter 10 Learning
  What Mr. Mo taught was from "The Thousand-Character Essay": Women admire chastity, and men should imitate virtue. If you know your mistakes, you must correct them, and if you are able, never forget them. Don't talk about each other's shortcomings, but rely on your own strengths. The messenger can be overturned, but the desire of the weapon is difficult to measure.

First teach the girls how to read, and then explain the meaning of these sentences, "Women should admire those chaste women who are strict in their conduct, and men should imitate those who are talented."

In addition to explaining the meaning, Mr. Mo also told the story of two chaste and fierce women.

One is "Chen Jiefu, a native of Anlu. Her surname is Li. She was widowed early. She was alone. When she was dying, she said to her maid: 'Be careful not to pick on me as a man before I die!'"

One is: "Kang Lie's daughter was a merchant's daughter, and she was betrothed to Zhang Jing, a son of a poor family. But Zhang Jing died of illness before they got married. Kang Lie's daughter regarded herself as Zhang's daughter-in-law, and decided to hang herself to kill her husband."

These two stories made Zhao Wangshu's hair stand on end, but he also found them extremely funny.

In this era, it is right to guard against men and women, but Chen Jiefu's behavior is obviously pathological.

As for Kang Lienu, she died for a man who could be considered a stranger, causing her parents who had worked so hard to raise her to suffer tremendous pain.

This is a treasonous and disobedient act and is not worth promoting at all.

The most important thing is that the mansion's purpose in summoning them is to enchant women, which is contrary to the chastity and fidelity of women.

After reading "The Thousand-Character Essay" with Mr. Mo for half an hour, and describing the red lines for another half an hour, the class was finally finished.

Next, the girls have to learn how to throw pot.

This is a game that noble gentlemen love to play, and girls have to do what they like in order to seduce people.

The female gentleman invited by the Zhao family to teach the girls how to throw pot was named Guo. She was mainly responsible for teaching the girls the six arts.

Although pot throwing is not as good as real archery, pot throwing also requires wrist strength, eyesight, and body coordination.

The Zhao family is not a family with martial arts, so it would not be appropriate for a delicate girl to go to the martial arts training ground for archery. Archery among the six arts is replaced by pot throwing.

"Lean forward slightly." Mr. Guo explained the action of throwing pots. "Hold the top of the arrow and raise it to your ear."

It doesn't take long to learn how to throw pot, only two quarters of an hour.

Then Mr. Guo taught them musical instruments, "The qin and the zither are both called the 'double wonders'. The qin's sound is ethereal, melodious, clear and graceful, and it is the king of all kinds of music. The zither's sound is clear, graceful, melodious and sweet, and it is also known as the king of all kinds of music."

"Pipa is a plucked instrument. The big strings are noisy like the rain, and the small strings are like whispers. The strings are noisy and mixed, and the big and small beads are falling on the jade plate."

“The flute is usually a bamboo flute, but there are also jade flutes and bone flutes.
  "Xiao, also known as Dongxiao."

Mr. Guo introduced various musical instruments and said that she is best at the piano and pipa.

All girls must learn the piano, and you can choose one or two other instruments.

When Zhao Wangshu was choosing an instrument, a few words suddenly came to his mind: one year of playing the harp and three years of playing the flute, an erhu that can break your waist, a thousand years of pipa and ten thousand years of zither, and a life of playing the suona.

If she chooses suona, I wonder if Mr. Guo will kick her out on the spot.

You can think about it, but you can't do it. After all, in Daliang, Suona has a saying of boasting about life and death.

Moreover, ladies puff out their cheeks and play the suona. In the eyes of those elegant gentlemen, this is an indecent act and something that must not be done.

"Sir, I choose the flute." In Zhao Wangshu's memory, there was a picture of a woman dressed in white, playing a green flute. It was beautiful and fairy-like, and she liked it.

Mr. Guo first taught everyone the fingering method of playing the piano, "raise the fingers of your right hand and see clearly, this is the sign of the spring oriole coming out of the valley."

The Zhao family was quite willing to invest, and each of the girls was given a piano, either a famous piano or an ordinary banana-leaf lyre.

Mr. Guo taught them seven fingering techniques and then began to guide them one by one.

Seeing that Zhao Wangshu was good at it after practicing for a while, he asked, "Have you learned it before?"

"My mother taught me." Zhao Wangshu replied. Mr. Guo nodded slightly and without asking any further questions, he walked to the other girl’s piano case and watched her playing the piano.

The afternoon study started at noon. Mr. Mo taught them to read "The Biography of Female Filial Piety" for half an hour.

Then the third lady named Liu taught everyone about women's education. Women could not take the imperial examination and what they learned was different from what men learned.

Mr. Liu teaches female red. Unlike other teachers, she does not teach line drawing, but painting.

Girls have to learn music, chess, calligraphy and painting, so if you want to draw flowers, you should learn to paint, killing two birds with one stone.

To learn painting, you must first learn to outline lines. When Zhao Wangshu was seven years old, Zhao Cui already taught her calligraphy and painting. She couldn't help but outline lines.

In addition to her, Zhao Jiahua, Zhao Shuqing and Zhao Shuangzhi also learned painting at home. With them around, Zhao Wangshu could draw lines skillfully without attracting Mr. Liu's attention.

"Trip the pattern onto the cloth." Mr. Liu said after seeing what everyone had drawn.

After the girls finished rubbing the patterns on the cloth, Mr. Liu taught them how to start the needlework.

It takes a certain amount of time to embroider a clump of grass completely. Even if the girls have some basic knowledge, they cannot embroider it right away.

"We will hand in embroidery work in class tomorrow." Mr. Liu put down these words and left.

The next step for the girls was to learn etiquette and rules, and the one who taught them was Aunt Wei who was serving Queen Duankang.

The person who brought Aunt Wei here was Mrs. Zhao, which shows that the Zhao family attaches great importance to this Aunt Wei, "These girls have a lot of trouble."

Grandma Wei is over forty years old. She has a thin build and slender eyes. She wears a silver-grey plain jacket, has a simple bun on her head, has a long face, and purses her lips tightly. She looks like a very serious person at first glance.

She scanned the girls with a scrutinizing gaze, "My daughter's family has the most moral character, followed by manners and education. The girls are all smart and will never make stupid mistakes."

There was a hint of knocking in the words, and the girls were all obedient and silent. Mrs. Zhao saw that Aunt Wei's face turned gloomy, and she hurriedly coughed lightly.

Zhao Shuangzhi said first: "We will listen to grandma's teachings."

Zhao Yuzhen, who wanted to speak, frowned, with dissatisfaction hidden in his eyes. She was the oldest, so she was the one to answer by default.

The girls have a full study schedule every day. They have to go from Chen Shizheng to Youshichu, and they have to work as a female celebrity in the evening.

Although Zhao Shuqing was in good health, the frail Zhao Shuqing fainted while practicing walking one day.

"Ah!" The girls screamed. Zhao Wangshu walked over to see what was going on with her, but was stopped by Granny Wei. "You continue to practice."

Aunt Wei asked her servants to carry Zhao Shuqing back to her room, and then asked someone to report to Mrs. Zhao.

Mrs. Zhao was reading the letter sent by her cousin at this time.

Three years ago, her uncle died of illness, and her cousin's family returned to their ancestral home to observe mourning. Now that the period of mourning has expired, her cousin's family returned to Beijing, hoping to recover, and sought help from Zhao Kuang.

Since her brothers from her mother's family went abroad a year ago, she was worried about the lack of contact with relatives from her mother's family. It was great that her cousin returned to Beijing.

"Madam, I have something to report." The voice of the maid came from outside.

"Come in." Mrs. Zhao stuffed the letter back into the envelope.

"Madam, Miss Qing has just passed out. Grandma Wei asked her servant to report to Madam. Please quickly find a doctor and give Miss Qing a look."

"Fainted?" Mrs. Zhao sighed, "Oh, her body is really in terrible shape."

Mrs. Zhao deeply doubted that if such a Zhao Shuqing was trained, even if she could marry into a high family, would she be able to contribute to the Zhao family?
  　Note: The woman in white playing the flute that Zhao Wangshu thinks of is Mei Jiangxue in "Snowflake Sword". Christine Yang was really at the peak of her beauty at that time.

　　
  　
  (End of this chapter)