[King Goujian] ordered young men not to marry old women, and he commanded old men not to marry young women. If a girl reached the age of seventeen without being wed then her parents were committing a crime; if a man reached the age of twenty without taking a wife then his parents.
Virtually every text that mentions King Goujian refers to the way in which he transformed his kingdom. To a certain extent the facts speak for themselves: twenty years after his crushing defeat at Kuaiji, King Goujian invaded Wu and conquered it. According to the Zuozhuan, Wu Zixu realised that this was all part of King Goujian’s grand plan:
Wu [Zixu] said:
“… For ten years, Yue will produce and raise [children], and for ten years they will educate and train them, and then after twenty years, Wu will be destroyed!”