Juexizhen, Mulan’s village, is on the Min River, south of Chengdu; in Yibin county, in the province of Sichuan.  It has perhaps three hundred occupants (mostly farming families, shopkeepers and similar).  Several of these families have some small prestige in Juexizhen, such as the Huas, since Hua Zhou is a war hero*, and so Mulan - theoretically - has a chance of making a good match in her village or a neighboring one.  But their village is not very prestigious, itself.  It is of the sort where if a rich merchant was passing through, or the magistrate of Yibin, everybody would turn out to watch.  In fact after the emperor’s Consul arrived with conscription notices, himself, people talked about his imperial flag and haughty pride for days.

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*“Let me see your conscription notice…‘Fa Zhou?’  The Fa Zhou?”

“I didn’t know Fa Zhou had a son!”