On the official road in the north of Luoyang City, a group of cavalry with a naturally chilling aura was marching forward. Their bright red robes, shiny armor, mighty horses and dazzling unilateral halberds showed their identity: Yan Yunwei under the Governor's Mansion of Northern Territory of the Wei Dynasty.
Cavalry too!
The red jersey is naturally bright and eye-catching, but Yun Zheng, who is supported by the cavalry in the center and is riding a tall black-haired and white-hoofed horse at the moment, is quite dissatisfied with the jersey.
The great Wei Dynasty promoted the virtue of fire, also known as Yanwei, because the Wei army's uniforms and armor were all red.
Anyone who has listened to the story about the Chu-Han War knows that Liu Bang did a great thing when he started his career, which was to kill a white snake. On that day, Liu Bang was walking halfway, and one of his subordinates in front reported that we should take a detour because the front is so big.
It was a white snake. Liu Bang was not Xu Xian. He had no interest in holding an umbrella in the same boat and was flirting with each other. He yelled, "I'm not afraid, I'm not afraid." He took a watermelon knife - no, he held a three-foot sword and went over to chop the snake into two pieces. At night, someone
I met an old lady crying at the place where the snake died, so I went over and asked what was going on. The old lady said that my son was the White Emperor and had just been chopped into two pieces by the Red Emperor.
When Tai Shigong wrote this, he added a sentence: "The descendants reported to Emperor Gaozu that he was happy and arrogant, and all his followers were increasingly afraid of him." Whether this story is true or not, you can find a white snake to try it yourself. I won't add details.
Why did Liu Bang feel happy when he heard this white and red story, and the people around him were even more in awe of him? This involves a boring and important matter that Chinese dynasties have been concerned about: virtue.
The year before last, Yunzheng was on a bus in Beijing when he was traveling. He accidentally stepped on the girl next to him. He probably didn't apologize sincerely enough. At that time, she glared at him and said, "Look at your virtue." But that's what I said here.
That's not what "virtue" means, but it has a different meaning.
The West emphasizes "divine right of kings", while China emphasizes "mandation from heaven". Although the two have similar meanings, the difference is huge in their specific operations. China's "heaven" is an imaginary concept, just like "Tao", which is ethereal and vague.
And it is everywhere, like the big brother in "1984", peeping at the king's behavior at any time: if the king does something stupid, that day will - of course, in theory - wind, rain, thunder and floods
Plagues and other things; if the king does more good deeds, God will shine the sun on the world. The ancient people of Taiping believed that human beings and nature are connected with each other, especially the monarchs. Their connection directly affects various visions of the sky, so future generations will
When people read history books, they often see that as long as there is a disaster anywhere in the world, the emperor will quickly issue edicts to criticize himself, and cut back on food and clothing and stop building pavilions and pavilions. This is the reason why the emperor does not dare to play with God.
Isn’t it personality?
Since there is telepathy between heaven and the king, this kind of telepathy should have rules to follow. So the ancient sages or idle people began to figure it out. Their principle is: to understand this rule and apply it accordingly.
Theorizing; if there is no such a rule, then make one up...
At first, this trend of thought was very confusing. Everyone had his own theory, and no one could accurately predict it. In the late Warring States period, a great theorist named Zou Yan emerged who connected the past with the future. This dear friend was a native of the Qi State during the Warring States Period and an honors student at Jixia Academy.
, the Yin-Yang family of the hundreds of schools of thought was founded by him. The ideal of all the schools of thought is peace in the world, but each family has different methods. The Taoist Laozi said: "Everyone goes back to sleep"; the Confucian Confucius said: "Everyone should go back to sleep."
Be polite"; Han Feizi of the Legalist family said: "Everyone must unite closely in the center of the court with the boss as the core"; Mozi of the Mohist family said: "Everyone must work hard and not fight" But Zou Yan, who is a Yin-Yang family
He also claimed that he synthesized the previous research results on yin and yang and the five elements, and developed a set of "Five Virtues Theory" based on "Shang Shu Hong Fan". This set of theories, in short, means that the basic elements of the world are
Metal, wood, water, fire, earth (Comrade Aristotle was furious: Damn, there are more than mine!) The five elements, these five elements are mutually reinforcing and interfering with each other, and everything in the world is derived from their complicated relationship between life and death.
, all readers can find the rules between these five elements if they just go to a train station stall and buy a fortune-telling book:
Metal defeats wood, wood defeats earth, earth defeats water, water defeats fire, and fire defeats metal.
Metal generates water, water generates wood, wood generates fire, fire generates earth, and earth generates metal.
There are other five colors, five directions, five flavors, five tones, and five directions, all of which match the five elements: for example, wood is from the east and is cyan; fire is from the south and is red; earth is from the center and is yellow; gold is from the west and is white.
; Water is from the north and is black, etc.
Since the ancients believed that emperors had a connection with nature, the clever Zou Yan began to take action. He said that the rise and fall of this dynasty was actually a connection between heaven and man, and there were rules to follow. This rule is the mysterious Five Virtues and Five Elements.
Each dynasty has its own virtue, just like everyone has his or her zodiac sign, one virtue overcomes another virtue, so the mutual restraint between the five virtues when one dynasty replaces another dynasty is reflected in the rise and fall of dynasties.
This is called "the mutual victory of the five elements" (original text: Since the division of heaven and earth, the five virtues have been transferred, and each has its own appropriate governance...the virtue of earth is followed by the virtue of wood, followed by the virtue of metal, the virtue of fire, and the virtue of water).
How do you know the virtue of each dynasty? It depends on what kind of auspicious omens God will send down. "Lu's Spring and Autumn" gives an example: The earliest Yellow Emperor encountered a giant tree that was more than ten feet long and several meters thick.
Earthworms, and a mole cricket; earthworms and mole crickets belong to earth, so the Yellow Emperor has the virtue of earth; and Dayu once encountered a green dragon in the suburbs, green is the color of wood, and wood overcomes the earth, so the Xia Dynasty has the virtue of wood; instead of
The Xia Dynasty was the Shang Dynasty, and they caught up with the good news of silver emerging from the mountains, so Shang belonged to gold; metal defeated wood, so Shang was the virtue of gold; in the Zhou Dynasty, King Zhou once saw a huge bolide in the sky.
It circled around the palace and turned into countless fire crows. It is fire, and fire overcomes metal. Zhou is naturally the virtue of fire. The five virtues are like this, alternating in cycles, and implementing them throughout.
"Five Virtues Always Theory" is a great thing, because this theory is a bit like Linux, very open, and anyone can modify it according to their own needs. Only the forces with righteousness can overturn the creation of the previous dynasty.
The new regime; but everyone is using it in the opposite direction, first destroying the previous dynasty, and then assigning themselves a suitable "virtue" to prove that they are the legitimate regime appointed by heaven. This is like getting on the bus first and paying for the tickets later, giving birth to children.
Then get a marriage certificate, conquer Iraq first and then find weapons of mass destruction. It's all the same. Now that we have this advanced theory to arm and guide us, it becomes even more justified for everyone to brag about their "God-given destiny". First of all, I discovered this
The person who benefited from this was the famous Lu Buwei. He not only had this theory written into "Lu Shi Chun Qiu", but also actively prepared the theoretical basis for the future dynasty according to this "Five Virtues Theory": Zhou is the virtue of fire, and water is the virtue.
Fire is extinguished, water defeats fire, then the dynasty that will replace the Zhou Dynasty will naturally be a dynasty with the virtue of water. When Duke Wen of Qin went hunting, he caught a black dragon. Black is water, so the one who unified the world must be the King of Qin.
When calculating "Lu's Spring and Autumn Annals", it jumps directly back from the Zhou Dynasty. Why is it that the princes of the n states in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period are not included? Because they are only feudal separatist forces under the Zhou Dynasty and are nominally subordinates of the Emperor of Zhou.
——Including the Chu State that did not accept the king's rule - it has never unified the world, so naturally it is not qualified to have orthodox status and "virtue" attributes, so it is automatically ignored. This is the miserable end of the supporting characters.
Later, King Qin Yingzheng swept away the six countries, unified the world, and founded the Qin Dynasty. Yingzheng was a very superstitious person, especially believing in Yin Yang and the Five Elements, so he asked his cheap dad Lu Buwei to check the Spring and Autumn Period. He found out that the Zhou Dynasty was a fire virtue.
, our Da Qin Dynasty replaced the Zhou Dynasty, so it was naturally the virtue of water. So, the virtue of water in the Qin Dynasty was determined. The color that matched the virtue of water among the five colors was black, so everyone dyed their clothes black and wore them.
Like a security guard, Ying Zheng also deliberately changed the name of the Yellow River to "De Shui" to show off his legitimacy. In the past, the "virtue" of Xia, Shang and Zhou were all recognized by later generations. Starting from the Qin Dynasty, this was the first time that a Chinese dynasty
Truly "ruling the country with virtue"
The second generation of the Qin Dynasty died. After all, this water virtue did not protect China's first unified dynasty from spreading to all generations. Then came the conflict between Chu and Han, and this "theory of the Five Virtues" also began to turn a messy page.
As everyone knows, the overlord of Chu, Wu Jiang, committed suicide, and the old gangster Liu Bang established the Han Dynasty. I thought that Liu Bang and his subordinates were from the underworld, and their cultural level was not high. On this day, they suddenly became upper-class people, and they were obviously at a loss.
, it took Shu Suntong, an etiquette teacher, to teach her step by step to learn some royal rules. Liu Bang's wife Lu Fei was also confused about this. She didn't know what clothes to wear, so she could only make do with the black security uniforms of the Qin Dynasty.
At the beginning of the new dynasty, someone thought of the theory of the Five Virtues and asked Liu Bang what the virtues of the Han Dynasty were. Liu Bang looked at Lu Pheasant in security uniform and thought to himself, don’t change clothes. It would be too troublesome, so he stupidly
Hehehe said, I was not the Black Emperor back then (please ask Baidu for this, I will not go into details about the story, it is not the son of the Red Emperor)? The color of water virtue is black, then we Han are water virtue, I think it is good
It is estimated that if there were a hundred people around at that time, I was afraid that ninety-nine of them would fall. If the Qin Dynasty had the virtue of water, then as a victorious country in the Han Dynasty, you should find someone with the virtue of being able to overcome water. This strong man
Fortunately, the copy is not out of shape, so I directly pasted Qin's water virtue trl+v onto the Han Dynasty. From the "attribute", the meaning of water virtue is "resolute and ruthless, everything depends on the law, and there is no benevolence in cutting."
"Benevolence and righteousness", what bothered the common people the most in the early Han Dynasty was this. Liu Bang chose such a virtue, which was tantamount to announcing to the world: We and the violent Qin are in the same group, and we are all born from the same mold. This person would be in great disgrace.
However, although ninety-nine people around him fell down, there was really one person who survived. This man was named Zhang Cang. This man was the censor of the Qin Dynasty. He was white and fat, proficient in astronomy and calendar, and could be regarded as Liu Bang.
Logically speaking, a very high-ranking intellectual under his command should be familiar with the Five Virtues, but he was a good person and an official. When he saw the emperor speak, how could he say that the emperor was wrong? So Zhang Dashen
Stick made a pretentious deduction, and then said with certainty that Han Ying should be in charge of Shui De. Your Majesty, what you said to him was true, and others were embarrassed to object, so the matter of Han Ying Shui De was settled.
So in the early Han Dynasty, all the palaces were filled with darkness and security guards in black clothes wandering around. Those who didn't know thought that the Qin Dynasty had successfully suppressed the rebellion.
Later, Zhang Cangsheng was afraid that people in the world would laugh at him, so he explained confidently: "The violent Qin Dynasty cannot be regarded as a dynasty at all, but can only be regarded as a national leader. Our Han family is of orthodox origin, and directly inherited the Zhengshuo of the Zhou Dynasty, and the fire virtue of the Zhou Dynasty.
Isn’t it appropriate that we have the virtue of water?” Liu Bang nodded after hearing this, and even built a Tianshui Temple to commemorate this.
Although Zhang Cang's excuse is far-fetched, it has set a precedent for countless dynasties in later generations. Later, people often used this as a reason to ignore the unsatisfactory previous dynasty and replace it with a more glorious dynasty, which fully demonstrated the five virtues.
When it comes to plasticity, it’s just a piece of plasticine.
More than a thousand years later, Emperor Taizu of the Wei Dynasty finally unified the world after half a lifetime of fighting. He couldn't wait to find his own "virtue", that is, the virtue of fire.
Whether it is an army or a border army, they all wear uniform red uniforms.
Why is the Wei Dynasty a fire virtue? Of course there is a reason for this, but what reason is it?
The problem started in the Tang Dynasty. The "virtue" of the Tang Dynasty was a bit messy. Why was it so messy? The Tang Dynasty gained the world from the Sui Dynasty, but the Sui Dynasty only recognized the "wood virtue" in front of it, so it called itself fire virtue.
Chi said that the Tang Dynasty should uphold Tu De. As a result, the Tang Dynasty did uphold Tu De, but the Tang Dynasty said: The Sui Dynasty cannot be regarded as a "virtue", so it did not follow the old Yang family of the Sui Dynasty, even though it
It was because he respected the earth and said that he had the earth virtue, but the great talent Wang Bo had an explanation: The earth virtue of the Tang Dynasty was inherited from the fire virtue of the Han Dynasty (Eastern Han Dynasty, not the Western Han Dynasty), not the fire virtue of the Sui Dynasty; why?
?Because from the Cao Wei Dynasty to the Sui Dynasty, China has not been unified in all dynasties. They are not qualified to participate in the "Five Virtues Cycle". They are just the Five Elements "Qi" (something similar to car exhaust, which has always been the most destructive curse among literati.
Everyone understands)
This set a bad precedent, and the result was that before the Tang Dynasty was over, trouble began first: Wu Zetian of Wu Zhou believed that she inherited King Wen of Zhou and was a virtue of fire. After the restoration of the Tang Dynasty, Tang Xuanzong only recognized
The three dynasties of Zhou, Han, and Tang were orthodox and all other dynasties were reduced to the level of other countries.
At the crossroads of history, after the Anshi Rebellion, the world has been in chaos for more than ten or twenty years, and all kinds of "virtues" have sprung up like mushrooms after a rain. It is really that you sing and I come on stage, one drama after another, so this
"De" can't figure out how to arrange it.
Emperor Taizu of the Wei Dynasty felt that the Tang Dynasty was quite useless - yes, he really felt that - there were several civil strife in a row, and finally the great rivers and mountains were destroyed. It was not worth mentioning, so he also followed the practice of his predecessors.
Those who disliked and disliked were automatically filtered out, and they directly took over King Wen of Zhou's class, also known as Huode - poor Li Tang in the previous dynasty, ignored others, and was ignored by later generations.
But the red color of Huode seems to have never been the color that the Yun family likes. Yunfeng was originally from Guanzhong, which belongs to the west in Kyushu, so he likes Jinde, which is white. The Yun family also wears white clothes. However, Yunfeng later guarded Yanjing.
, the fiefdom (not the fiefdom of the fiefdom) is in the north, and the north belongs to the water virtue, so I also like black - in short, it doesn't match the fire virtue of the Lin family very well.
Of course, this special hobby cannot be stated explicitly: the Yun family is not a dynasty, so it can only be suppressed, and the clothing of the Yun family army can only be in accordance with the requirements of the imperial court.
Not only the dress of the army, but also other decorations: for example, when Yunzheng returned to Yanjing this time, as his bride, Princess Lin Yuyan of Huai'an naturally had to accompany her. The chariot provided by Emperor Wanchang for her was all red, and among the maids and maids who went with him,
They were all dressed in red, which made Yunzheng's eyes tired. Along the way, he felt that it was fortunate that it was ancient times, and the vegetation was not destroyed. The roadside was full of green trees, so it wouldn't hurt his eyes too much.
Yunzheng here suffered from the fire virtue of the Lin family dynasty, but Emperor Wanchang's face was as sinking as water in the palace, suffering from the possible "gold" virtue or "water" virtue of the Yun family.
Jin De is white, and the battle flag of the Yun family army is the white cloud and black eagle flag. The Yun family did not have this flag at the beginning. It was only seventy years ago when the Yun family became King Qin and its strength and prestige increased.
There is no explanation of the meaning of the white cloud and black eagle flag, only that the Yun family has an eagle, and the eagle is the totem of the family, so there is this flag. But in the eyes of the sensitive Emperor Wanchang, he had other ideas: the white background symbolizes the Yun family
Born in the west, it is Jin De; the black eagle symbolizes the Yun family's dominance of the northern border, it is Shui De.
Emperor Wanchang was extremely angry. Since when did you, a mere vassal town, dare to think you have "virtue"?
Later, as Emperor Wanchang grew older, he discovered that although Yun Lan held a large number of troops and dominated one side, he was still loyal to the court in general and did not seem to have any intention of establishing a "virtue" on his own, so his thoughts faded away.
