The large entourage traveled rather slowly, and it took Ye Zhen's group another full half month to reach Luoyi.
Upon arriving in Luoyi, they first presented their credentials for verification at the Grand Minister's Office and the Ministry of Rites, after which they were officially registered. This first step of the marriage was considered to have notified Great Zhou's ancestral emperors and received their approval.
The next step, according to the rites of the Ministry of Rites and the Grand Minister's Office, would be an examination of Ye Zhen's family background, character, reputation, and so on.
Although this was merely a formality, the formality still had to be observed. Moreover, all of it would be carried out in Ye Zhen's fief, North Sea Commandery.
Of course, the most important matter was selecting sites and building the princess's residential halls.
When a Great Zhou princess married, she truly married out. Great Zhou revered martial prowess and would not indulge in that sort of arrangement where marrying a princess made the woman exalted and the man lowly.
However, a princess's residence had to meet a princess's standards. Five halls and three gardens were merely the bare minimum, and everything had to be built according to the rules of the Great Zhou Imperial Family.
Two locations had to be constructed. One would be within Ye Zhen's North Sea Prefecture Duke's Mansion in Luoyi, where residential halls for the princess would be built as her future place of residence in Luoyi.
The second would be within the North Sea Prefecture Duke's Mansion in North Sea Commandery, Ye Zhen's fief. The princess's residential halls had to be constructed to the highest standards, and even Ye Zhen's North Sea Prefecture Duke's Mansion would need to be redecorated to meet imperial standards.
Only after all this hard