The Wedding Of The River-god
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Ximen Bao was appointed governor of Ye in the State of Wei in modern Henan. Upon arrival at his post, he called a meeting with the town fathers and inquired about their livelihood. They told him about the wedding of the River God which had caused untold misery to their life.
Ye County had been plagued with floods caused by the Zhang River. According to local witches, it was the doing of the River God. To avert the disaster, a girl had to be presented to him every year. So every year the witches would go visiting the homes of local residents and select a candidate to be the bride for the River-God. Local officials would collect thousands of ounces of silver from the people for the wedding. However, it was open secret that most of the money fell into their own pockets.
Before the wedding, the bride would be bathed, dressed in a silk gown, made to stay in a special bridal chamber by the river and fast for a few days. On the day of the wedding, the bridal chamber would be lowered into the river along with the dowry. The girl would supposedly join the god down below when she sank into the water.
Terrorized, many families that had a girl fled the town, and the town was more dead than alive.
The next wedding took place in due course. Ximen Bao attended it along with local officials. Thousands of people in and around the area came to see the ritual, which was presided over by the chief witch of Ye, a seventy-year-old woman, in the company of a dozen junior witches.
Ximen Bao asked the bride to be brought to him. He looked at her and said to the chief witch. “I don’t think she is pretty enough. Could you go and inform the River-God that a better-looking one will be chosen and the wedding is postponed to the day after tomorrow?”
He motioned the guards to throw the old witch into the river. The crowd was shocked.
After waiting for a while, Ximen Bao said, “The old lady has gone for some time. We cannot wait for her all day. Better send someone else to hurry her a bit.”
He ordered the guards to throw a junior witch into the river. She struggled and shrieked, but the governor turned a deaf ear to her plea. Then he ordered a third witch to be thrown into the river.
“Well, she is too slow, too,” the governor grew impatient. “We must send another one to find out why they are late.”
After the fourth witch was dispatched to the River-God, Ximen Bao said, “Maybe the women are not doing a good job down there. We must send some man.”
A local official who had collaborated with the witches was dumped into the river. The governor stood on the river bank for a long time, looking rather solemn.
“None of them has come back. What should we do?” he asked other officials.
All of them were now on their knees, begging for mercy. Some of them kowtowed repeatedly until their foreheads were covered with blood.
“All right,” Ximen Bao said. “Let’s call it a day. We’ll wait until we have news from the River-God.”
That was the end of the wedding of the River-God.
Ximen Bao instructed to the locals to dig twelve irrigation canals to redirect the Zhang River. As a result, flood ceased to harass them.
At first some people complained of the hard work of canal digging. Ximen Bao told his subordinates, “People prefer an easy life and don’t want to do the hard work. If I tried to get consensus from them, nothing would get done. I just had to order them. They are complaining now, but will be grateful to me in the future.”
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Wise Proverbs
- Give someone a taste of his own medicine.
- 以其人之道，还治其人之身。
- He who inflicts much injustices is doomed to destruction.
- 多行不义必自毙。
- Evil will be recompensed with evil.
- 恶有恶报。
Editor Says:
A fine example of giving somebody a taste of his own medicine.