| Legend 7 - Tang Bo-hu, a famous scholar Once there were four very famous scholars in Su Zhou in China. One of them was called Tang Bo-hu. One day while he was travelling in another province, he saw a very pretty young woman dressed in purple walking with several girls behind a sedan chair. From the look of it, the sedan chair, which was carried by four men, belonged to a very rich family. He immediately realised that it was love at first sight and he followed the party to find out where they were to. The party reached a temple where the sedan chair was lowered to the ground. An elegantly dressed woman stepped out from the sedan chair and walked into the temple with the girls. Tang Bo-hu walked up to the four men and asked them whom the girl dressed in purple was. One of them said, "Oh, she is Qiu Xiang, our Ladyship's maid. Our Lady is the wife of the Prime Minister and despite Qiu Xiang's arrogance; she is the apple of our Ladyship's eye. As she is the most beautiful of all the maids, she is known as the Queen of the maids!” In order to be able to get close to Qiu Ziang, Tang Bu-hu went to the Prime Minister's residence the following day, to seek employment. He hid his identity by putting on dresses of a lowly person. He was first employed as a servant to accompany the Prime Minister's two sons to study. While Tang Bo-hu was working in the Prime Minister's residence, he found various excuses to be near to Qiu Xiang. Without realising Tang Bo-hu was one of the great scholars in Su Zhou, Qiu Xiang found him unpleasant because he always gazed at her and was too much of a sweet talker to her. After Tang Bo-hu had worked with the Prime Minister for several months, he was found to have excellent knowledge of classical Chinese. His ability to write good poems was appreciated by the Prime Minister who appointed him the tutor of his own sons. Notwithstanding his promotion to a respectable job, Tang Bo-hu has still failed to win the heart of Qiu Xiang, although he was very popular with the other maids. He then sought advice from his close friend, Zhu Zhi-shan, who was also one of the four famous scholars in Su Zhou. Zhu Zhi- shan taught him a very clever way of getting Qiu Xiang to marry him. A few days later, Tang Bo-hu indicated to the Prime Minister that he would like to resign from the position of personal tutor of his two sons. The Prime Minister naturally was reluctant to see leave and asked him why he had decided to resign. Tang Bo-hu told the Prime Minister that he had been offered a job by Zhu Zhi-shan who had also promised to get him a wife. The Prime Minister was furious with Zhu Zhi-shan and regarded his offer to Tang Bo-hu as an unfriendly act to him. As he valued Tang Bo-hu's profound knowledge and was determined to retain him in his employ, he offered to increase his salary and let him choose one of his female available maids as his wife. Having heard the Prime Minister's offer, Tang Bo-hu smiled from his heart and accepted the offer. The next day, the Prime Minister summoned all his maids and had them line up in the main hall in his residence and announced that whoever was to be chosen by Tang Bo-hu would be his wife. When Qiu Xiang has to know of the arrangement, she requested the Prime Minister's wife to exempt her from the selection. As she was not keen to be married to Tang Bo- hu, she thought of a reason and told the Prime Minister's wife that she would like to serve her Ladyship indefinitely. Her Ladyship appreciated her loyalty and granted her request. When Tang Bo-hu had finished inspecting all the girls, he could not find Qiu Xiang and was deeply disappointed. He complained to the Prime Minister that he had not kept his promise as he had not been allowed to choose his wife from ALL available maids. The Prime Minister was very angry and ordered that the remaining maid should participate in the selection. The Prime Minister's wife could not resist her husband's order and instructed Qiu Xiang to go to the main hall at once. Seeing that Qiu Xiang was approaching, Tang Bo-hu asked for the permission of the Prime Minister to marry her. The Prime Minister agreed. On the wedding night, Tang Bo-hu told Qiu Xiang the truth that in fact he was Tang Bo-hu, the famous scholar; he had lowered himself to work in the Prime Minister's residence in order to win her love. Qiu Xiang was extremely pleased that she had married a famous scholar, and she did not mind to be his eighth wife. |
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