The Corpse Reader (65 page)

Qián
: The principal monetary unit in China was a thin coin that had a hole in the center so it could be hung from a cord or attached to one’s belt. A cord with a thousand
qián
would weigh around five kilos, or eleven pounds, and be equivalent to one
tael
(approximately forty grams of pure silver). During the Tsong dynasty, there was also paper money. Initially, paper bills were similar to credit notes that could be changed for quantities of money deposited with wealthy merchants; in later years there were credit certificates and a regularized paper money unit. Forgery was punishable by death
and informants were offered generous rewards; both notices were printed on the bills themselves alongside the image of a hanged or quartered forger so that illiterates would understand the warning. Also for the benefit of illiterates, bills had a picture of the number of pigs roughly equivalent to the value of the bill.

Ritual and Filial Piety: Rituals organized society and were structured according to a rigid hierarchy: a man was not defined by his personality but by how well he observed the rites—that is, by behaving in a regulated way with respect to his social rank. As with their biological fathers, inferiors owed respect to their “father emperor,” a virtuous, benevolent being who had the right and duty to rule others. In traditional Chinese culture, ceremonial specialization was a constant theme between court members and aristocratic families, above all in the Confucian period. The
Li Ji
and the
Bohutong
(
Book of Rites
) both stipulated that the mourning period after the death of a father was three years and that the most orthodox way of observing this was to withdraw from public life, wear burlap, and live in a hut near the burial site. Poor people unable to cease working observed the mourning period by refraining from participation in festive occasions, marriage, and sexual activity. Chinese people offered sacrifices to their dead during funeral rites—whether Taoist, Buddhist, Confucian, or a combination of the three.

Sampan: A plain sailing vessel without a keel between 3.5 and 4.5 meters long, or 11 feet to 14 feet, used either for fishing or as a residence.
Sampan
literally means “three planks,” in reference to the simplicity of making such a vessel, which requires one plank for the bottom and two for the sides. The sampan is possibly the oldest known sailing boat and has kept its original design since it came into existence in AD 600. It came to be known as the “junk rig.”

Time: Year 1 corresponds in the West with the birth of Christ, and in Muslim countries with Mohammed’s flight from Mecca in AD 622. But in Imperial China there is more than one initial date—every time a new emperor comes to power. Each emperor may also decree new eras within his reign, sometimes according to the zodiac. In Ningzong’s reign (1194–1224), four separate eras occurred. The first, lasting from 1195 to 1200, was named the Qingyuan; the second, from 1201 to 1204, Jiatai; the third, from 1205 to 1207, Kaixi; and the fourth, from 1208 until Ningzong’s death in 1224 at the age of fifty-six, Jiading.

A year was divided into twelve moon months, usually beginning in February (first moon month) and finishing in January (twelfth moon month). Every year was separated into twenty-four climatic periods.

Days were broken up into twelve hourly intervals known as
shichen
(one Chinese hour is equivalent to two western hours). Each
shichen
is divided into eight
ke
(fifteen minutes), each containing fifteen
fen
, so a
fen
is equal to a minute. An hour is known as a
tshuco
, and a
jike
is a quarter of an hour.

This difference is particularly relevant when considering the death periods. The law stated that no more than four
shichen
could elapse between the time a death was reported and the time a relevant judge examined the corpse. Because I wanted to make the novel easier to read, I used “hour” instead of
shichen
; the maximum time allowed before beginning an examination would really have been eight western hours. The nighttime hours were not included, so in practice the time allowed before beginning an examination extended to sixteen Western hours.

The denomination and classification of the hours were as follows:

The denomination and classification of the months were as follows:

Since the introduction of Buddhism to China, years have also been named after signs of the zodiac and repeat in twelve monthly cycles corresponding with the hourly denominations.

The months are organized into three groups:
Meng
(first),
Zhong
(middle), and
Ji
(last). The seasons are named
Chun
(spring),
Xia
(summer),
Qiu
(autumn), and
Dong
(winter). The names of the months are formed using both concepts; for example,
ki-tsin
is the last month of autumn. Months can also be denominated in the same way as the hours and the years and are made up of three ten-day weeks.

University: Like the leaders of preceding dynasties, the Tsong advocated that the most virtuous and capable citizens, regardless of their social or economic extraction, should hold public offices. This idea was supported by a system of exams for civil service: any citizen could take the extremely difficult exams, and if he passed, he became a government employee, a career that could even lead one to become prime minister.

The Tsong set up elementary schools in every prefectural city. Even rural villages had basic universities, and these, along with the reduction in the prices of books due to the spread of the printing press, virtually brought illiteracy to an end.

In the capital, Lin’an, the proximity of the university to the court meant many students became involved in political activities that were criticized by senior government officials, who in turn didn’t hesitate to boycott classes. The situation became sufficiently alarming that Emperor Li-tsung’s notorious chief of staff, Chia Su-tao, began infiltrating student networks with spies.

The private academies, known as
shu-yüan
, were the only way to gain access to specialized higher learning in subjects like medicine; they included the Hanlin, the Bailudong, the Yuelu, the Chingshan, the Shugue, and the Yintianfu. In contrast to state schools, the masters at these academies taught more than the
classics. Their teaching methods also included research, and masters would often present their own findings to students and then base further advances on the students’ work. Many academies—with grants from senior officials, wealthy merchants, and sometimes the state—could provide accommodations for both teachers and students. The most exclusive and influential academy, the Hanlin, was founded to train high-ranking court officials and archivists. The upper classes had easier access to such academies, and the large numbers of cultivated women in the higher echelons of society reflected the fact that females were also highly educated.

Violence: Physically violent punishments, often in the form of canings, were part of the fabric of medieval Chinese society. This was because physical pain was such a strong deterrent and because most of the population was not in a position to pay fines. Imprisonment always meant forced labor, either in the salt mines or in the army. Physical punishment was the usual recourse and was employed for any kind of ill conduct, including in the private or familial spheres.

Wu-tso
: Before judges’ responsibilities were extended to include forensics, or corpse reading, these duties were carried out by the
wu-tsos
, poorly educated assistants who had to perform the most unsavory tasks, such as cleaning corpses, opening them up, and extracting and examining organs, while the judge would take notes. Generally,
wu-tsos
had other jobs as well, often as healers, butchers, or slaughterhouse workers.

Xylography: A primitive printing method using woodblocks carved with words and pictures. The carving was carried out by hand, and then watercolor paints were used as ink. The ink was transferred to the page by means of strong rubbing. The first printed book was the
Diamond Sutra
, stamped by Chieh Wang on May 11, 868, in China.

The first mobile printing press, made from complicated pieces of porcelain, was made in China by Sheng Bi between 1041 and 1049.

Last, but by no means least:

After years of intense work, dozens of discarded drafts, exhausting days in which the word
rest
lost all meaning—when, finally, you come to the last page and look on the complete manuscript—you breathe for a moment before being gripped by a painful uncertainty. You feel satisfied because you’ve given your best, but inside you something says maybe it wasn’t enough. You’d like to have studied more, revised more, made your text more vibrant and surprising. For a moment you think perhaps all this effort won’t add up to an enthusiastic readership. And in that moment you remember everyone who helped you along the way. You remember your parents’ phone calls, urgent and caring, asking, “Son, how are you? And the novel…?” You remember your brothers, the best people in the world. You remember your daughter.

You remember friends old and new. Those who have always been with you and those you’ve recently met. Friends like Santiago Morata, Fernando Marías, Antonio Penadés, Alejandro Noguera, Lucía Bartolomé, Manuel Valente, Anika Lillo, and Carlos Aimeur. Friends whose help, closeness, and care you appreciate.
You remember the editors, within your country and internationally, who had confidence and bet on you. You remember Ramón Conesa, your agent at Carmen Balcells, always ready with sage advice.

They all share a space in my memory next to my readers—those who have written to me to applaud or criticize, those whose spirits I managed to lift for a few days, and even those who haven’t yet read my work, because they push me to keep going day after day. I fight for them; they make writing worth it.

A special mention for Lixiao Zhuang, cultural adviser at the Chinese Embassy in Spain, for her selfless work putting me in touch with the directors of the Chinese National Museum in Beijing, the Huqing Yutang Museum of Chinese Medicine in Hangzhou, and General Fei Yue’s Mausoleum. And I couldn’t forget Dr. Phil A. R. Hill, a bookseller in White City, London, who advised me on a wide range of books and bibliographies. I must also mention doctor of forensics Devaraj Mandal and the eminent sinologist Jacques Gernet, without whose wisdom I would have been unable to make this book as credible as it needed to be.

It is not enough to simply mention my wife, Maite. Thanks be to God, I enjoy her presence each and every day. My lighthouse when times are good and bad. She is my life’s greatest gift.

I want to dedicate my final words to someone missed by all who knew him. A quiet person, but someone from whom I learned a great deal. His behavior, humility, and honesty all taught me things that books can’t teach.

For him and in his memory.

Thank you, Eugenio.