On the fifteenth day of the seventh month in the first year of Longhe, the Ghost Festival, Grand Marshal Huan Wen presided over a ceremony at the Three Officials Temple on Baizhu Mountain during the Hour of the Dragon, honoring the heroic souls of the officers and soldiers who had fallen while following him in the conquest of Shu and his two Northern Expeditions. That day, the military headquarters would also grant money and silk to the bereaved families. Huan Wen did not govern his troops harshly, yet he could command their devoted service, in part because he knew how to soothe their hearts. He understood the importance of military power well; several times the court had summoned him to assist in governing, but each time he had declined to go.
Baizhu Mountain stood five li northeast of Gushu, its ten thousand green pines flourishing luxuriantly, while ramie grew all around its foot. Ramie was a perennial herb: after harvesting, its roots remained underground and sprouted again the following spring, requiring no annual replanting. Gushu ramie was renowned throughout Jiangzuo. The finest summer cloth woven from it, once starched and beaten, was delicate and softly white as a maiden's skin. The fabric Lu Weiwei had used to sew Chen Caozhi's four sets of summer robes was Gushu ramie. After autumn began, the sound of a thousand households beating cloth rose along both banks of Gushu Creek; on quiet nights, it carried ten li-
In their spare moments between gathering ramie and beating cloth, farmwives and village girls devised songs and dances in the fields to entertain themselves. This was called the Baizhu Dance. As early as the Western Han, court musicians had adopted and adapted it into a song and dance for female performers, and it had been passed down