Chapter 1: The Minor Lord of the Spring and Autumn Period

During the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods, clans used clan names (氏) rather than surnames (姓); the surname was merely the name and title of the tribe.

The surname traced the origin of one’s ancestors.

The clan name distinguished the branch of descendants.

The clan name could also change due to changes in fiefdom or occupation.

Therefore, Ethan Clark’s surname was not Lü; he was only called Lü because his fief was in “Lü.” His actual surname was Lin.

In other words, Ethan came from the Lin tribe.

Now, people referred to the clan name and not the surname, or used official titles as prefixes.

So, even though he was now called Ethan Clark, if his fief changed in the future, or if he gained a more prestigious position, a new name prefix could appear at any time.

Half a month ago, he transmigrated into the body of a young boy. When he woke up, he was surrounded by men and women kneeling and wailing, and an old grandmother who was nearly blinded by tears.

He only had time to see that he was in a courtyard surrounded by thatched roofs before his vision went black and he lost consciousness again.

A group of people, discovering the dead had come back to life, were first shocked, then overjoyed.

The shock was, of course, at the resurrection of the dead.

The joy was that those who were supposed to be buried with him no longer had to die; those who were to be sold could stay with the family; those who were to be scattered did not have to face an uncertain future.

The old grandmother hugged her resurrected grandson, crying out that the family line would not be cut off.

When he woke up again, Ethan Clark spent a day getting a basic understanding of his situation.

Transmigration—it was definitely transmigration, and he had ended up in a place called Lü, hence the name Ethan Clark.

This Lü territory was dominated by the Wei clan.

The Wei clan was one of the ministers of Jin, and also the largest lord in this mountainous region with two passes.

Moreover, the land was called Lü because the Wei clan named it. (So the Wei clan was also the ancestor of Lü.)

Ethan Clark’s family was one of the many minor nobles attached to the Wei clan.

Suddenly becoming a fourteen-year-old boy, and with no mirror, he could only see his blurry reflection in the water.

When did he transmigrate to? Upon hearing “Jin State,” and that last year the nobles had responded to the ruler’s call to destroy the main branch of the Zhao clan (Zhao family), he guessed the approximate historical period.

He seemed to recall reading in a book that Jin was originally called Tang, and wondered why he hadn’t transmigrated to the flourishing Tang dynasty, but instead had leapt over 2,600 years straight to the Spring and Autumn period.

The feudal states enfeoffed by the Zhou king changed from marquis to earl, then to duke. The Jin ruling family bore the surname Ji; the first ruler, Tang Shuyu, was the son of King Wu of Zhou, Ji Fa, and the younger brother of King Cheng of Zhou, Ji Song. The state was originally called Tang, and after Tang Shuyu’s son Xie ascended the throne, it was renamed Jin.

So, Ethan Clark was not mistaken.

Moreover, the “Book of Songs: Minor Odes” uses the original state name as confirmation; there is no “Jin Air,” only “Tang Air,” which is further proof.

“Master?”

“What is it... ahem, what’s the matter?”

The visitor was a man whose age could not be determined by his appearance.

The reason his age was indiscernible was that, after adulthood, the kind of labor one did and the amount of mental stress one endured directly affected one’s looks.

“Master, the pottery is finished.”

“Oh.”

Over the past half month, what Ethan Clark found most unbearable was the poor quality of life.

He had to count himself lucky that he transmigrated into a noble; even as a minor noble, it was far better than being a commoner or a slave.

Because in this era, life was barely human for those who were not nobles.

Houses of this era were either made of rammed earth walls or simply fenced with branches and stuffed with straw, with thatched roofs.

Even the great nobles, the ruling clans, or the monarchs, before bricks were invented, lived in houses made of rammed earth or wooden planks, with only the roofs possibly tiled.

Building with stone was too extravagant, reserved only for small buildings with special purposes.

Ethan Clark immediately stood up from the wooden floor and ran excitedly toward the back courtyard.

He lived in a large residence surrounded by low rammed earth walls, divided into three residential areas.

The front courtyard was the servants’ living area, consisting of row houses. (In this era, these were called “li fang,” and the houses “li she.” “Li” meant slave.)

The central courtyard was a separate inner yard with several scattered houses.

The back courtyard was the kitchen, stables, livestock pens, woodshed, and so on.

So, the back courtyard was not for the womenfolk, but was used as a logistics area.

Whether it was due to lack of status or simply not being particular, there was no garden or pond to be seen, though there was a pavilion in the central courtyard.

There were trees in the courtyard, but they had grown naturally, not transplanted from elsewhere, nor carefully pruned.