Ancient China

The capital, Luoyang, is a vast city with a clearly defined layout: wide avenues, walls with gates, markets, artisan quarters, and residential areas for officials. At the center is the imperial palace complex: outer ceremonial halls, inner chambers, gardens, and archive and treasure repositories.

The provinces are divided by natural boundaries: rivers, mountain ranges, and steppes. Each province has a capital, a garrison, grain warehouses, and tax offices. Fortified outposts and watchtowers line the borders.

Transport and communication: courier stations every 30–50 li, carrier pigeons, signal lights on towers. The roads are patrolled by soldiers, and outposts are stationed at crossings. This provides many scenes: messengers with reports, delays due to weather, intercepted letters.

The emperor is the supreme ruler and supreme judge. His will is law, but he relies on a council of dignitaries and a system of checks (censors, inspectors).

The crown prince is the future ruler. He is assigned tutors, his schedule is planned down to the hour, and his every word is analyzed.

Junior princes are important figures, but their influence is limited. They are given appanages (cities/districts) to govern, participate in inspections, command garrisons, and conduct diplomatic missions. Their movements and communications are supervised.

Titled nobility and clans are influential families with their own lands, troops, and networks of servants. Marriages between clans are a political tool.

The bureaucratic system: exams, positions, ranks. There are secretaries, inspectors, censors, treasurers, and quartermasters. This is an excellent source of quests: missing reports, underpaid taxes, grain thefts.

Military: garrisons, border troops, courier service, quartermaster's office. Officers are promoted based on merit and patronage; competition between clans and schools is intense.

Family and status: relationships between relatives are strictly regulated.

Marriages are political unions, and their moral justification is based on “duty to the clan.”

Women at court: Princesses and noblewomen wield influence through marriage alliances, patronage, and servant networks. Princes' wives and concubines are part of the political game.

Servant ranks range from personal secretaries to junior maids. Each category has its own status, responsibilities, and access to information.

Wealthy families' security: noble houses have personal guards, patrols, and secret agents. This creates scenes of protection, surveillance, and conflicts of interest.

General principle: nan nu shou shu bu qin
"A man and a woman do not touch hands when handing over something" (男女授受不亲). The ritual even prescribed that an item be handed over not from hand to hand, but placed on the table—the recipient would take it himself. A woman could not be alone with a strange man: it was believed that a single casual glance in a secluded room was enough to cause gossip and shame—shame for the entire family.

How strangers interacted:

Through intermediaries and screens. If a noblewoman needed to communicate something to a stranger, her maid, mother, or matchmaker would speak for her. In the reception halls of wealthy homes, screens and curtains hung: a man would speak to the lady of the house through a partition, not seeing her face.

Veil and fan. A woman from a noble house would cover her face with a veil or hide it behind a fan in public. This, incidentally, is the source of the expression "to open one's fan"—essentially "to show one's face," an event in itself.

Ordinary city life. The density of reality relaxed the rules of the street: market women, innkeepers, and performers interacted freely with men; it was their profession. But the lower classes always lived by less strict rules—ritual primarily constrained the nobility. A man could speak to a market woman without scandal; he could not enter a strange woman's home.

Literary exceptions. Lovers' encounters across a garden wall, meetings on a bridge, and the exchange of lines of poetry were a persistent theme in Tang and Song poetry precisely because such contact was difficult to achieve in reality and therefore romanticized. The writer depicted lovers making their way to a meeting as violators of the norm—the reader immediately understood the drama.

Spatial division. In the house, there was an "inner" (inner chambers, women) and an "outer" (reception room, study, men). A stranger did not cross the boundary of the inner chambers. Even carriages on the street tried not to stop near each other.

A chance encounter. If a man and woman were strangers, they both avoided eye contact. Looking into the eyes of a stranger was considered impudent. A man was only allowed to speak first in a professional capacity: a tax collector, a doctor, or a government official—and always in front of witnesses.

These queries must be in the bot's dictionary so that it can automatically select the right word.

To the Emperor: "Your Imperial Majesty", "Son of Heaven", "Sovereign of the Celestial Empire".

To older relatives: “Honorable uncle/father”, “Elder brother” (if acceptable according to etiquette).

To dignitaries and clan heads: “Honorable Mr. Advisor”, “Honorable Clan Head”, “Mr. Minister”.

To equals: “Brother in duty and service”, “Dear friend”, “Comrade”.

To subordinates: "Mr. Officer", "Honorable Secretary", "Respected Servant".

To trusted people: “Old friend”, “Faithful companion”, “Someone I trust”.

Bowing and greeting. A senior in age and position was greeted with folded hands (the "gongshou" gesture). When facing the emperor, one genuflected and bowed to the ground (koutou). Servants were not allowed to look the sovereign directly in the eye.

Filial piety (xiao) was a son's primary virtue. Disrespect for one's parents was a legally punishable offense.

Taboo on personal names: a son had no right to pronounce his father's name out loud - if there were hieroglyphs, the reading had to be replaced or distorted.

Education and service. A true man strove for education and service: to pass the state examinations (keju), obtain a position, and prosper. Those who did not study were destined for a lowly fate.

Name and nickname. A man could have several names: a childhood name (miao-ming), an adult name, and a nickname/pseudonym for his circle of friends. Only elders had the right to address a person by his given name—a stranger who used someone else's name risked insult.

Guest and host. The guest entered last, took his place, and gave up the place of honor. Tea, a gift, three polite refusals before accepting the gift—a whole grammar of politeness.

Emotional restraint. Anger, tears, and public outbursts were considered inappropriate, especially among nobles. Silence and a calm face were a sign of nobility.

"Three Obediences" (san cun). A girl obeyed her father, a married woman obeyed her husband, and a widow obeyed her son. The formula was learned by heart from childhood.

The "Four Virtues" (si de): morality (inner purity), speech (careful words), appearance (neatness, modesty), and labor (handicrafts, housekeeping). This was considered a female education, on par with reading edifying books for women.

Seclusion. A woman of noble birth lived in the women's quarters of the house (the inner chambers), appeared in public accompanied by maids and a veil, and did not sit at the same table with male guests. Even between relatives of different sexes, strict boundaries existed regarding social interaction.

Modesty and silence. It was believed that a woman's words should be rare: "a woman's greatest virtue is lack of talent" (pu cai shi de) is a Ming dynasty proverb that dictated that clever words and erudition were unbecoming of a woman.

A woman's name was not mentioned. A woman's given name was not spoken aloud in society—only her family name, and even then, in combination with her house nickname ("Mistress of House U"). After marriage, a woman was often called by her husband's family name.

Models. Girls were raised on the example of "worthy wives and mothers"—books like Banzhao (a manual for women)—models of modesty, tact, and obedience.

Grain silos and taxes: grain is a currency and an indicator of stability. Delivery delays, rot, rats, and theft are real problems that can lead to penalties.

Market: spices, silk, paper, ceramics, medicine, weapons. Street performers, fortune tellers, beggars, spies, and merchants are ready-made NPCs.

Household items: bamboo curtains, paper lanterns, braziers, incense burners, wooden sandals, fans.

Smells: incense, roasted nuts, smoke, dampness after rain.

Use these images as a basis for paraphrasing any lines:

Bamboo - resilience, flexibility, the ability to survive without losing dignity.
Pine - longevity, fidelity, firmness.
Willow - flexibility, the ability to give in to preserve oneself.
The river is the inevitability of change, moving forward, overcoming obstacles.
Wind - change, spread of words, invisible force.
Stone is an obstacle, a test, immutability.
Path/road – life’s journey, duty, service, development.

Templates for adaptation:

Instead of "I disagree" → "The path you propose is thorny. Let me suggest a different path, one with fewer stones."

Instead of "You're mistaken" → "It's easy to slip up in this matter, like on a slippery road. Please double-check."

Instead of "Do it" → "Let this task be carried out with the same precision with which a master carves a hieroglyph."

In ancient China, a wedding was not a personal matter for the couple, but a union of two families, and was carried out with all the strictness of ritual.

Three letters.
The marriage was confirmed by documents, and each letter had its own purpose:

A proposal letter is a formal proposal of marriage from the groom's family;
Gift letter - a list of gifts for the bride's family;
A wedding letter was given on the day of the ceremony and confirmed that the bride was accepted into the new family.

Six rites.

Matchmaking. The groom's family hired a matchmaker—she wasn't an "aunt with a delicate mission," but rather an almost official intermediary, smoothing over tensions between unfamiliar families and conducting negotiations.
Request for name and date of birth. They asked for the girl's full name and time of birth—this was necessary for fortune-telling.
Fortune-telling for compatibility. The couple's birth dates were compared with Chinese astrology; if the heavens "approved," the result was solemnly communicated to the bride's family. An unsuccessful fortune-telling could stop the wedding midway.

Betrothal gifts. The groom's family sent gifts—clothing, jewelry, money, food—and acceptance of these gifts was considered the seal of the contract.

Choosing a date. The date was chosen according to the calendar to ensure it was auspicious for both parties, and then submitted to the bride's family for approval.

The wedding day itself

The bride was carried in a red palanquin, followed by chests containing the dowry; the groom met the bride at the threshold of his home.

The central point is the ritual of three bows (拜堂): the newlyweds bowed to Heaven and Earth, to their parents and ancestors, and then to each other. Only then were they considered husband and wife.

Next came the banquet, which was called 喜酒—"happy wine"; it could be as significant as the ceremony itself: guests were offered tea and wine, and the newlyweds showed respect to their relatives.

The next day, the bride performed the “return to the door” ritual—her first visit to her parents’ home as a married woman.

Details that speak volumes.

Color. Everything about the wedding is red: the gown, the sedan chair, the invitations, the "double happiness" sign (囍) on the doors and windows. In China, red is the color of joy and good fortune; a wedding was thus called a "red affair," in contrast to the "white affair"—the funeral.

Bed and fertility symbols. A few days before the wedding, the newlyweds' bed was arranged according to feng shui principles and made with dates, nuts, and coins—"zaozi" (Chinese date) sounded like "soon," a wish for a speedy birth.

Restraint instead of emotion. Even when angry, people don't shout, but speak more quietly, more slowly, with pauses. Emotions are expressed through hints and word choice, not through intonation.

Saving face (面子, miànzi). You must not publicly humiliate your interlocutor.

Hierarchy is in every word. Formal addresses, the order of phrases, who bows first, who speaks first—all of this demonstrates status.

Images of nature instead of direct metaphors. Bamboo bends but doesn't break; a river flows around rocks; a willow bends in the wind. These aren't "beautiful words," but the familiar language of thought.

Ritual formulas. Phrases of politeness, gratitude, and apologies are not decoration, but essential elements of communication.

Hints instead of commands. A direct order sounds rude. Better: "Let the wind carry my words to you" or "I will remember who was there that day."

To make your bot sound "Chinese" (in keeping with the spirit of the era), use these techniques:

Polite forms of address: "Mr. Advisor", "Honorable Master", "Clan Sister".

Hints instead of direct threats: “Let the wind carry my words to you” or “I will remember who was there that day.”

Ritual phrases: “Please accept my sincere wishes for well-being”, “Please forgive my insolence”.

Images of nature: “As a river goes around stones, so we will find a way”, “Even bamboo bends in the wind, but does not break.”

Add 1-2 of these elements to each scene—they make the world tangible:

Smells: incense in the hall, roasted nuts in the market, smoke from braziers, dampness after rain.

Sounds: rustling paper, footsteps on stone slabs or wooden floors, shouts of merchants, ringing of bells at gates.

Tactile details: the cool surface of a jade pendant, the roughness of a bamboo screen, the heaviness of a scroll in your hands.

Weather and time of day: morning fog over the river, midday heat, evening breeze in the garden.

Grading and responsibilities:

Personal secretaries and mentors are almost like family members and are treated with respect.

Senior servants and managers: responsible for the household and can advise.

Junior maids and messengers: run errands and learn the rules of the house.

Rituals and etiquette:

Bows according to status, the order of presenting items, silence in the corridors.

A breach of etiquette is not just a mistake, but a moral transgression.

The Imperial Court and the High Nobility
Daily routine:

Morning: bows to elders, reports, reading of dispatches.
Day: audiences, advice, inspections, receptions.
Evening: family gatherings, reading, writing letters and poetry.
Household parts:

Tea ceremony: the order of serving, the temperature of the water, the quality of the leaves – everything matters.

Paper lanterns, bamboo curtains, incense burners.

Wooden sandals, fans, belts with pendants.

Clothing by rank: color, fabric, embroidery. Purple is a sign of high status.

Officials and scientists
Official's Day:

Early rise, morning report, working with scrolls, receiving visitors, compiling reports.
Exams and promotion depend on knowledge of the canons and the ability to write reports.
Everyday life:

House with a courtyard, bookshelves, desk, brushes, ink, paper.
Dinner is simple: rice, vegetables, soy. Status isn't about luxury, but about books and reputation.

Garrisons and military
Schedule:

Morning inspection, exercises, patrols, reports from commanders.
Changing of the guards is a ritual: handing over seals, checking posts.
Life of a soldier:

Barracks, common meals, simple food: rice, pickled vegetables, soup.
Clothing and armor according to regulations; personal belongings are minimal.

Peasants and artisans
Peasant's Day:

Dawn: work in the field, watering, weeding.
Noon: short rest, simple meal.
Sunset: Returning home, repairing tools, preparing for the next day.

Craftsman:

Work in the workshop, quality control, training students.
The master's reputation is more important than profit: a bad product is a disgrace.

The army is not only about defense but also about infrastructure. Soldiers build and repair roads, bridges, dams, and watchtowers.

Garrison Economy:

Salary - grain and silk.

The quartermaster's office monitors the supplies: if the soldiers are starving, it is a sign of poor management.

Courier stations are located every 30–50 li: they keep horses, feed, and rooms for messengers.

The workshops work on commissions from the court and the nobility. Quality is strictly controlled: poor workmanship is not simply a defect, but a "breach of duty."

Examples:

Papermaking workshop: thickness, color, strength are important.

Lacquerware: multi-layer work, long process.

Blacksmiths: swords and armor for garrisons, tools for peasants.

The market isn't just about goods, it's also about information. Merchants know what harvests are where, who's holding up deliveries, and where bandits are lurking.

Typical products:

Silk and fabrics (status and export).
Paper and brushes (for officials and scientists).
Ceramics, bronze vessels, lacquered items.
Spices, salt, tea.
Medicines, herbs, pills and elixirs.
Weapons and armor (for garrisons).

Money and payments. Coins, bundles of copper coins, and "in-kind" payments such as silk and grain are used. Large transactions are formalized with promissory notes.

Taxes and fees: not just money, but a debt to the state

Taxes are paid in grain, silk, and handicrafts. The system is designed to avoid ruining the peasants, otherwise the state would lose its support.

Confucian logic: taxes are not robbery, but a contribution to the common good. Therefore:

In difficult years, taxes are reduced or cancelled.

Collectors are strictly controlled: extortion is considered a moral crime.

The records are kept in scrolls, which are checked by censors.

Grain is the main economic resource. It is collected as taxes, stored in state granaries, distributed during famines, and used to pay officials and soldiers.

What does this mean for role-playing games:

Warehouse intrigues. Shortages, rot, rats, theft—these are real problems that lead to punishment.

Market prices depend on the harvest. In a lean year, even a slight delay in deliveries causes panic and price increases.

Reputation is more important than profit. An official who profits from hunger loses face and can be publicly condemned by censors.

In Confucian society, economics is justified by morality: taxes are collected not for the sake of money, but for the common good; grain is stored not for profit, but for stability.

Standards:

Justice (and 義) are more important than profit. An official who profits from taxes is considered morally corrupt.

Compassion (ren 仁) in governance. In times of famine, rulers are obliged to reduce taxes, open warehouses, and help the poor.

A clan's reputation is an important asset. A wealthy clan is obliged to maintain its reputation as "caring patrons."

Accommodating guests is a Confucian ritual that publicly denotes status.

Rules:

The higher the status of the guest, the closer to the center of the courtyard and the better the quarters.

The emperor's relatives are housed separately, with increased security and special ceremony.

Receptions are accompanied by rituals: bows, the order of serving tea, who sits down first.

A breach of etiquette when receiving guests can be used as an accusation of "disrespect."

Even in private life, Confucian norms apply. The ranks of servants are determined not only by function but also by degree of trust and "moral intimacy."

Typical structure:

Personal secretaries and mentors are almost like family members, they are treated with respect, their opinions are valued.

Senior servants and managers are responsible for the household and have the right to give advice.

Junior maids and messengers carry out orders and are taught the rules of the house.

Confucian rules:

The master is obliged to care for his servants: to feed them, to treat them, to arrange marriages. This is considered the "duty of the elder."

A servant is obligated to be loyal and respectful. Rudeness or disobedience are not merely disciplinary violations, but moral transgressions.

"Saving face" also applies to servants: the master will not publicly humiliate a faithful servant, so as not to undermine the morale of the entire house.

In such a world, the military is not simply a force, but "duty bearers." Confucianism imbues discipline with a moral meaning: a warrior serves not for glory, but for order and the protection of the weak.

Key standards:

A commander is like a senior mentor. He is obligated to care for his subordinates, not just command. Unnecessary cruelty is considered a sign of moral decline.

Loyalty (zhong) is more important than personal courage. Betrayal is the most terrible crime; even a brave warrior who betrays his duty is covered in shame.

Ritual in the service. Morning reports, the transmission of orders, the changing of the guard—everything is strictly regulated. Violating the ritual is perceived as a threat to order.

The system of examinations for official positions is a direct embodiment of Confucianism: power is given not only by birth, but also by knowledge and moral qualities.

Levels and logic:

The exams test knowledge of the classics (Confucius, Mencius, historical chronicles), and the ability to write reports and poetry. Good writing and knowledge of the canons are considered indicators of moral maturity.
Official ranks are tied to merit and examinations. Even the Emperor and the imperial family must defer to the opinions of the "learned dignitaries": they appeal not to force, but to texts and precedents.

Censors are a special caste: they monitor the morality and discipline of officials. Their power lies in the right to report "disrespectful" or "unjust" actions to the emperor.

Hierarchy and the "five constants" (wu chang 五常) in social structure

In the world, these five relationships define how people are expected to treat each other. Each type of relationship has clear roles and expectations.

Emperor - subjects (power - obedience). Subjects are obliged to be loyal (zhong 忠), the emperor is obliged to be just and merciful.

Father - son (elder - younger). The son is obliged to honor, the father is obliged to guide and protect.

Husband and wife. The husband is responsible for external affairs, the wife for the home and raising children; respect is mutual, but roles are strictly divided.

Elder brother – younger brother. The elder protects and guides, the younger respects and obeys.

Friend to friend. There is no power here, only mutual trust and honesty.

Marriages are political unions, and their moral justification is based on “duty to the clan.”

Confucianism structures society according to the family model: the emperor as the father, officials and the people as children. Therefore, family hierarchy is directly transferred to the state hierarchy.

What does this mean in the practice of peace:

Seniority is sacred. Even if the younger brother is richer and smarter, he is obliged to obey the elder.

A child's duty to his parents (xiao 孝) is the highest virtue. If a prince publicly shows disrespect to his father, the emperor, it is not just a scandal, it is a moral crime that undermines the legitimacy of all power.

Ancestor worship. Every home has an ancestor altar; important decisions are discussed "in the presence of the ancestors" (that is, according to their presumed will). This is an excellent tool for intrigue: "the ancestors would not approve" is a powerful argument against any plan.

Purple: In Chinese tradition, it is associated with nobility, immortality, and Taoist practices. Purple elements in clothing or interior design can be a sign of high status or affiliation with a particular school.

Natural images: bamboo (resilience), pine (longevity), willow (flexibility), river (inevitability of change). They are used in speeches, poems, and allusions.

Holidays and rituals: New Year, Mid-Autumn Festival, ancestor ceremonies, troop reviews, and sacrifices. Important events occur during these days: announcements, weddings, and intrigues.