Jia She
贾赦
“The Man Who Wanted the Fans”
His Story
He is the elder son and he inherited the rank, and neither fact bought him the house. His younger brother occupies the main apartments of the Rongguo mansion; Jia She lives in a separate compound to the east with his second wife, Xing Furen, and a collection of young concubines. Grandmother Jia does not like him. He knows it.
Chapter 46 is the episode the household never lives down. Past sixty, he decides to take Yuanyang — his mother’s own personal maid, the woman who holds her keys — as a concubine, and sends his wife to negotiate. When Yuanyang will not have it he assumes the reason is his age, remarks that the moon goddess has always preferred young men, and promises she will not slip out from under his hand whoever she marries. Yuanyang goes to Grandmother Jia, cuts off her hair in front of the room, and swears never to marry at all.
Chapter 48 is worse and quieter. He wants twenty old fans belonging to a recluse called Stone Fool 石呆子, who will not sell at any price. Jia Yucun frames the man for arrears, seizes the fans and presents them. Jia She then asks his son why he could not manage it. Jia Lian answers that wrecking a household over such a trifle is nothing to be proud of, and is beaten bloody for it.
In Chapter 79 he marries his daughter Yingchun to Sun Shaozu. In Chapter 80 she comes home to report what her husband tells her: 你老子使了我五千银子，把你准折买给我的 — your father spent five thousand taels of mine and made you over in settlement. She is dead inside a year. The edict of Chapter 107 is merciful in its own terms: 从宽将贾赦发往台站效力赎罪 — leniently, to a frontier post station, to work off the debt.
In Xiang Li's Hands
Tall black hat, a mauve-grey robe scattered with soft gold roundels, a jade plaque on a red tassel at the hip, teal patterning at the hem. He leans forward and upward and lifts his right hand to his own chin, thumb at the lip, in the gesture of a man pricing something. Thin moustache, small beard, one eyebrow up, eyes cut sideways, and he is smiling. The rest of the sheet is bare paper except for a scatter of pink petals falling down the left edge, which he is not looking at.
The Calligraphy
贾赦 sits high on the left, clan then given name, brushed dry and rather blunt. No title accompanies it, though he is the one Rongguo man who actually holds the hereditary rank at the start of the book — the inscription declines to record it, and in Chapter 107 the edict removes it anyway. The name he is left with means pardon.
Connections
- Jia Mu 贾母 — his mother, whose maid he tried to take and who never forgave the attempt.
- Jia Yingchun 贾迎春 — his daughter, married off in Chapter 79 against five thousand taels of his debt.
- Jia Lian 贾琏 — his son, beaten in Chapter 48 for saying the fans were not worth a man’s ruin.
- Yuanyang 鸳鸯 — refused him in Chapter 46 and cut her hair rather than be taken.
- Jia Zheng 贾政 — his younger brother, who lives in the main house and inherits his forfeited title in Chapter 107.
Others of the same kind · Jia clan – Rongguo House Jia Baoyu 贾宝玉 · Jia Yuanchun 贾元春 · Jia Tanchun 贾探春 · Jia Yingchun 贾迎春 · Jia Mu 贾母 · Jia Zheng 贾政 · Jia Lian 贾琏 · Jia Huan 贾环 · Jia Lan 贾兰 · Jia Zhu 贾珠 · Jia Daishan 贾代善 · Jia Min 贾敏
Named on these pages Jia Yingchun 贾迎春 · Yuanyang 鸳鸯 · Jia Zheng 贾政 · Jia Lian 贾琏 · Xing Furen 邢夫人 · Qiutong 秋桐 · Yanhong 嫣红 · Cuiyun 翠云 · Jin Wenxiang xifu 金文翔媳妇 · Jin Wenxiang 金文翔 · Shi Daizi 石呆子 · Xiping Junwang 西平郡王 and 4 more
Dream of the Red Chamber
Xiang Li painted all 413 characters of the novel between 1975 and 1985, the first person to complete the entire cast. See the whole collection · Chinese Empresses
