Chapter 2 Chapter One Where Do I Come From——The Creation Myth of the Li Family

After Emperor Sui Yang left, Chang'an Spring was locked on the wall.For a while, there was nothing to tell the story.Only "Song of Peach and Plum" is still lingering in the silent air.In Mount Zhongnan, where the blue peaks rise into the sky in the south of the city, a Taoist named Qihui told his disciples a shocking secret: "The way of heaven will change. I can still see it, but it's only a few years old." His disciples asked him: Who will replace Emperor Sui Yang? Qi Hui said with certainty that he was the descendant of the Supreme Lord. This is a myth that belongs to the new dynasty.When there was no Tang Dynasty, there were already myths exclusive to the Tang Dynasty.Who would believe Qihui's sudden prophecy?Only those ascetics who are inherently ethereal can see the essence of the Sui Dynasty's exhausted lamps and oils through the flashy world of cooking oil with fire and blooming flowers.Shanren Li Chunfeng also advertised that he met the Supreme Lord.The god of Zhongnan Mountain told him: "Duke Tang should be ordered by heaven" - the characters of Genesis appeared in front of us in this way.

Li Yuan (Tang Gaozu)'s father died very early.This made him become Tang Guogong when he was a child.Under the care of his aunt Dugu, the mother of Emperor Sui Yang, Li Yuan grew up slowly in loneliness.The young Tang Guogong has no great ambitions, and is content to enjoy the life of a rich and idle person.In the city of Chang'an, his generosity is well-known.He has friends everywhere, from princes and lords to market rangers.The hustle and bustle of playing cockfights with friends, pushing cups and changing glasses more or less made up for the sense of loss caused by the death of both parents.

If there was any radiant moment in Li Yuan's life, it was the day when the Dou family recruited their beloved daughter. Everyone said that the girl from the Dou family was the most beautiful girl in Chang'an.When she first landed, she had black hair that grew past her neck.At the age of three, Rubao's black hair had grown to reach her body.Emperor Wu of the Northern Zhou Dynasty (Yu Wenyong) loved this niece very much and raised her in the deep palace.The most regrettable thing in Emperor Wu's life was to marry a Turkic woman as queen.This is a typical political marriage.At that time, the Turks "controlled millions of strings, and the prosperity of Rong and Di was unprecedented in modern times", forming a dark cloud over Chang'an.Emperor Wu had to propose to Turks in exchange for a moment of peace.Turkic women who could marry into the Northern Zhou Dynasty were left out in the harem.The seven-year-old Dou secretly held Emperor Wu's hand, and childishly advised her uncle not to cause huge troubles because of her husband and wife, Boxi, who fell out of love with Turkic.A few years later, Emperor Wu died young.Emperor Wen of the Sui Dynasty (Yang Jian) ​​bullied the orphans and widows of the Northern Zhou imperial family and usurped the throne.Hearing this news, Dou burst into tears and said angrily: "I only hate that I am not a man, and I can't save my uncle's family from danger."

And who could have imagined that the country that the Sui Dynasty took by tyranny would eventually belong to this weeping girl. Time flies, and the Dou family has reached the age of plum blossoms.Two peacocks painted on the door screen of her house.Whoever can shoot the peacock in the eye will win the beauty.Among the many youths from Wuling who had returned home in defeat, a noble young man stood out.As it is often said in the story, the bow that shoots the sun opens like a full moon, and the arrow goes to the shooting star, tremblingly piercing the eyes of the peacock on the painting screen.

The boy who drew the bow was Li Yuan.He married the Dou family back, and "the bird screen is selected" became an idiom, and the legend kicked off. Brilliant moments are but fleeting.In the footsteps of several states and counties, time passed away bit by bit.Wrinkles, like cobwebs, covered Li Yuan's face prematurely.During the banquet for the ministers, Emperor Sui Yang (Yang Guang) laughed at his cousin, who was getting old and wrinkled, and had a "grandma" face.After the tortoiseshell feast was over, Li Yuan returned to his mansion in a sullen mood. Knowing the whole story, Mrs. Dou told him quietly: "Tang" is a homonym of "Tang"; grandma is also called "Tangzhu" - that is the famous words of Emperor Sui Yang, who concluded that Li Yuan would become "Tangzhu" one day. The master of the Tang Dynasty.The frowning Li Yuan smiled, washing away the unhappiness Emperor Sui Yang brought to him.It will not be until many years later that he suddenly realizes how miraculously forward-looking an unintentional sarcasm is interpreted by his wife.

In ordinary life, there are a pair of problems that have been waiting for the ordinary Li Yuan to solve: Where do I come from?Where am I going! Of the two questions, perhaps "Where am I going" is more realistic and worth answering.But logically speaking, without solving "where do I come from", any answer about where to go seems so suspicious.Li Yuan must seriously think about this question that sounds mysterious and mysterious.Only in this way can he no longer be unfounded when deciding where to go.He wants people all over the world to know him well, and trust and admiration arise from understanding.

No one can answer his questions.Many years ago, Li Yuan's stables added a few horses with extraordinary spirit.Emperor Sui Yang, who indulged in the sensuality of dogs and horses, was very jealous.Dou urged her husband to donate the horse as soon as possible.But Li Yuan, who was born in a dandy, also likes to ride horses and hawks, and has always been reluctant to part with his beloved horse.It wasn't until Emperor Sui Yang found an excuse to demote him to the distant Zhuo County that he realized what it means to be "a man who is not guilty, but who is pregnant with a jade".Annoyed, Li Yuan hurriedly collected eagles, dogs and horses and dedicated them to Chang'an.Within a few years, he was on the rise, from a Tang Guogong with only an empty title to a left-behind in Taiyuan in Xiongzhen.It's a pity that Dou couldn't see it.Her sick body did not survive the icy and snowy winter in Zhuojun County.

Now, Li Yuan, who is alone, has to find the answer to his life by himself. Except for the title of Tang Guogong, his father Li Zong, who died young, left nothing for Li Yuan.Li Yuan, who is half a hundred years old, can no longer recall the specific face of his father, let alone understand the myths and history of the family from him.His father is Li Zong, his father's father is Li Hu, and then Li Tianxi and Li Xi are the ones above—there is no doubt about this lineage.However, going back to the depths of time, Li Yuan fell into a maze surrounded by clouds and mist - the only clue was his surname.

The poet Li Bai once used "I, Li Wanye, Ketiao is all over Zhongzhou" to boast that the descendants of Li's family are all over the world.According to historical records, there are three origins of so many people with the surname Li: the surname Ji who lived in Badi in ancient times; the surname Ying of the descendants of Gaotao; Surnamed Li.So which branch did Li Yuan's blood originate from, and where did it come from? Flipping through the history books, my gaze first turned to where Chang'an was located. More than 3,000 years ago, the sky and fields of Longshouyuan were vast, and it was completely impossible to imagine the Zique Dan Pavilion and carved railings on Liupi a few years later.For unknown reasons, a group of people surnamed Ji left Guanlong where they had lived for generations, turned south and east, and arrived at the foot of the desolate Zhongli Mountain.This exodus took them away from a period of earth-shaking and magnificent history.Behind them, the clear phoenix call echoed from the top of Qishan Mountain.Another group of people surnamed Ji who stayed in Qishan chanted the whip and pointed to the east, and seized the world of Yin and Shang.Just as it is written: "King Kaubwei, his residence is Haojing", the king of Zhou abandoned the Chaoge City of the Yin and Shang Dynasties, and built the predecessor of Chang'an, Haojing, on the east bank of the Fenghe River.The king of Zhou did not forget the clansman who had gone far to the south of the sky, and sealed them in Badi.Later, people called this Ji surname "Ba people".

The surname Ji in Haojing worships the phoenix, but the Ba people worship the tiger.This small country that was almost forgotten was like a fierce tiger, lurking in the mountains and rivers of Bashan and Shushui. It lasted for seven hundred years, and it was not until the Warring States Period that it was destroyed by the more powerful Qin State. The subjugated Ba people scattered in all directions: they went south to Xiangxi, east to Jiangxia, or they stayed in the ruins of their homeland, becoming the barbarians in the eyes of the people of the Central Plains.There are also some Ba people who are unwilling to be reduced to barbarians, trekking through mountains and rivers, and wandering on other people's land.In order not to let future generations forget their tiger totem, Ba people take tiger as their surname.In the Ba language, Hu is pronounced "Li" - they have a surname that bears in mind the root of life.Perhaps because of their own arrangements, a group of Ba people followed the footsteps of their ancestors and returned to Guanlong, where their ancestors lived.Hundreds of years passed.On the eve of the demise of the Western Jin Dynasty, successive years of drought forced them to leave Guanlong and Chang'an for the second time, and turn around to embark on the long road away from home that they had traveled back and forth.Under the leadership of Li Te, they crossed the vast mountains, entered the Western Shu, and created a Chenghan Dynasty that belonged to them.

Scholars have speculated about various possibilities of the origin of Li Yuan's family.But they never connected Li Yuan with the Ba people.I have always been fascinated by this history.I like that it starts with Guanlong.Wherever you come from, you will go back—history has a kind of beauty of reincarnation. I would speculate wildly that after the demise of the Cheng Han Dynasty, they were displaced again, scattered in all directions like a canopy, and floated to the foot of Yinshan Mountain. This is a group of eternal walkers.Bichuan is far away from the mountains, and they can't stop their footsteps.For more than a thousand years, from the vast Guanshan Longtou to the wild Bashanshushui, they walked over and over again, and found a way where there was no road. The surname "Li" is like a banner with tigers painted on it, guiding those who walk forward.No matter where they are, the land at the foot of Qishan Mountain will always attract them. I also like the image of the tiger in the story, which always reminds me of Li Yuan's grandfather Li Hu for no reason.He has an unknown and mysterious origin with the flying tiger flag in the wind. The six towns set up to resist the Rouran people are lined up along the winding Yinshan Mountain.Wuchuan Township is one of them.Li Hu spent his youth here.He didn't care about high or low, and made friends with countless heroes in the world.The wind and snow in the border town also forged a hero who is skilled in bow and horse.Looking southward, the Northern Wei Dynasty in Luoyang City was dying in silence.Looking at the world, a moment of "clouds rise, dragons and tigers wake up" has come.The heroes of the Six Towns shouted with enthusiasm.Goshawks hover in the sky, and thousands of horses are galloping on the ground.In the rolling stream of iron, came Gao Huan, the founder of the Northern Qi Dynasty, Yu Wentai, the founder of the Northern Zhou Dynasty, Yang Zhong, the father of Emperor Wen of the Sui Dynasty, and Dugu Xin, the father-in-law, and the masters of the world for the next four hundred years.Li Hu and his childhood partner left Wuchuan Town together. "The long wind and gold beat, and the white mist and iron clothes are wet"-on the undulating horseback, the young heroes could not help but burst into tears.They want to follow the hero He Bayue to conquer the Quartet. Er Zhurong, a hero of a generation, once said, "Brother Deheba, the world is not peaceful."But He Bayue was only a transitional figure in the Northern Dynasties.He brought Li Hu to Guanlong, but he died in a despicable murder here.In grief and indignation, Li Hu rushed to Jingzhou to invite He Basheng, the elder brother of Ba Yue, to enter the pass.After He Basheng hesitated again and again, he only sent Dugu Xin, nicknamed "Dugu Lang", to the north.When he arrived, Yu Wentai had been promoted as the new leader of Guan Long.When the news came, Li Hu immediately set off to return to Chang'an to join Yu Wentai.On the way, he fell into the hands of Gao Huan, who dominates Shandong, and was escorted to Luoyang.Fortunately, the emperor of the Northern Wei Dynasty in Luoyang did not make things difficult for him. He was appointed General Wei and sent him back to Guanzhong. No matter in Jingzhou, Luoyang, or further afield, there seems to be a mysterious force in Chang'an that attracts Li Hu so strongly.Since then, he has repeatedly made military exploits under Yu Wentai's command, from being an official to the Sangong, and was listed as one of the Eight Pillar countries. Without Li Hu, the Li family would still be watching the sky from the well in Xiaoxiaowuchuan Town.The history books say: "Those who are called powerful people today, promoted the eight-pillar country in salty way. At that time, it was prosperous and prosperous, and nothing can be compared with it."It was Li Hu who promoted the family to the most prominent eight-pillar country in Guanlong.He also arranged vertical and horizontal social relations for the family.Li Hu's son, Li Bin, married the daughter of "Dugu Lang".This marriage linked the fate of the Li family with the situation in the world.Because Duguxin's eldest daughter is Queen Mingjing of the Northern Zhou Dynasty; his second daughter is Queen Wenwen of the Sui Dynasty, and Li Yan's wife will also be honored as Queen Yuanzhen of the Tang Dynasty in the future.Li Hu, who was born recklessly, also brought a strong sense of the world to the family.If Li Hu is a descendant of the Ba people, then his surname is Hu and his first name is also Hu.The surname and first name are two flying tiger flags waving in the wind, marking Li Hu's unique position in family history.In this way, Li Hu carried two flying tiger flags on his shoulders, walked into the history of my imagination with his head held high. More than 1,600 years ago, when Fengming Qishan, Li Hu's ancestors were not present.They missed the moment when a great dynasty was born. More than 1,600 years later, Li Hu heard the faint roar of tigers coming from Qishan Mountain. ... No one will believe my story.My imagination is groundless and arbitrary, without any background in authoritative theory.But I just like the two elements of Guanlong and Tiger, which appear repeatedly in the plot, giving the story a strong sense of fate.The monk Falin in the early Tang Dynasty was bolder than me.In front of the emperor of the Li family, he once said with certainty that they were descendants of the Tuoba clan of Xianbei; more precisely, they were members of the Daja tribe. Such a bold assertion leads us to pursue another path in our pursuit of Li Tang's family history. Falin's words guided us through two thousand years of wind and snow, to a place called Daxianbei Mountain, a place of bitter cold in the extreme north.According to the "Book of Wei", the ancestors of the Tuoba family worked hard to dig out the hard stone walls in the deepest part of the forest and snowfields, and built ancestral temples to enshrine the souls who bestowed their blood.Many years later, they also went back to the stone room where their ancestors lived to offer sacrifices to heaven and earth.No one can tell where the legendary Great Xianbei Mountain is.It was not until more than 20 years ago that archaeologists found the mysterious stone chamber of the Xianbei Old Ruins in the depths of the Greater Khingan Mountains, and found the Zhu Wen composed of 201 simple and vigorous characters. The dark and deep stone chamber is the legendary Tuoba ancestral temple.From here we begin to tell another piece of Li Yuan's family history. At a certain unverifiable moment, Tuoba Xianbei, who lived secluded in the Daxianbei Mountain, walked out of the stone room and migrated to the bank of the vast and misty Daze.After multiplying and living for many years, Tuoba Xianbei spread out, with a large population, divided into eight tribes.Among them is Li Yuan's ancestor Daja.But the desolate Daze cannot carry so many creatures.The wizard dressed in buckskin lit up the green smoke, danced, and announced with a wolf-like desolate voice: They must leave the great swamp and continue wandering in the boundless fields.The mythical beast, which looks like a horse and sounds like a cow, walks at the forefront, guiding the migrating Tuoba people year after year, and finally walks out of the difficult mountains and deep valleys, and arrives at Changchuan, the hometown of the Huns.The Xiongnu, who once dominated the desert, had already split into two parts, the north and the south, and they were declining due to internal friction.Their decline left room for new ethnic migrations. In this wilderness with abundant water and grass, the family myth has performed the most splendid plot. That day, Jiefen, the leader of the Tuoba people, saw a fragrant chariot descending from the sky.In the car is a glamorous beauty.After a lingering night, the two made an appointment to meet again at this place next year.After speaking, the goddess disappeared into the air like a gust of wind or a shower of rain.Until the second year, she brought back a baby for Jiefen.The goddess told Tuoba that the baby and his descendants would be the greatest emperors in the world.This baby is Tuoba Liwei, the first ancestor of the Northern Wei Dynasty, Emperor Shenyuan. The life of the son of the goddess is full of ups and downs, full of legends.At the age of eighty-five, he finally brought his family to Yunzhong County.During the Warring States Period, the famous King Wuling of Zhao built this city in Yinshan River Qu.During the divination and site selection, countless swans flew high among the white clouds.People called this city Yunzhong.Tuoba Liwei likes this place not only because of the swans in the clouds, but also because Yunzhong County is already on the edge of the bustling world. After a family myth has been passed down in the desert for thousands of years, it finally entered the field of vision of history writers. Xianbei, who entered the Central Plains, established the Northern Wei Dynasty, and there was also a wave of changing Han surnames. "Book of Wei" records the 118 Xianbei Han surnames granted at that time.The Tuoba family of the royal family changed their surname to Yuan, and the eight tribes of Tuoba Xianbei also had their own Han surnames.The Daja tribe was given the surname Li—and in this way, the age-old myth of Tuoba Xianbei and the history of the Li and Tang royal families are connected here. The eight-pillar country evolved from the eight tribes of Tuoba Xianbei, and a great man named Li Hu emerged from the Daja tribe.His elder brother's name is Qitou, his younger brother's name is Qidou, and Li Qitou's son is named Bodhidharma.These nonsense names show the continuous relationship between this family and the Xianbei people.They despised Confucian ethics. The elder brother accepted his younger brother's wife, the son married his father's concubine, and the father-in-law fell in love with his daughter-in-law.In Zhu Xi's eyes, the endless incest secrets of the Li Tang family retained only the scales and claws of the old Xianbei custom of "marriage of different generations".This reminds me of Mr. Chen Yinke's thesis: "The reason why the Li and Tang clans prospered was that they took the blood of barbarism outside the Great Wall and poured it into the decadent body of Central Plains culture. After the old stains were removed, new opportunities were restarted, and expansion and recovery were achieved. Create an unprecedented world situation.” I don't know if this sentence reveals the root of Li Tang's vigorous anger.However, placing the fantasy journey tracing back to the source in the scene of the sunset on the long river will indeed produce a distant and desolate beauty.However, it was Chen Yinke who told us another inference: the stone chamber deep in the Great Xianbei Mountain was not the starting point of Li Yuan's family history.In Jianchu Mausoleum and Qiyun Mausoleum in Julu County, Hebei Province, Li Hu's grandfather Li Xi and father Li Tianxi are also buried.The two ancestral tombs are telling future generations: This is the true source of the Li and Tang Dynasties. Today, we cannot find Jianchu Mausoleum and Qiyun Mausoleum.The setting sun and wild grass buried the stone beast and Weng Zhong.There should be nothing but a depression in the place where the mausoleum should be towering. "Look at someone's tomb on Moshang, and the world of mortals will send horseshoes." The ancestors of the emperor are no exception.The Guangye Temple next to the mausoleum has been repaired and repaired again and again, but it can't stop the magnificent Buddhist temples and buildings in the past from being turned into ruins, and finally turned into the empty cultivated land in front of us.Only one side of the octagonal-shaped tortoise-shaped stele remains the same after years of grinding and washing.More than 40 years ago, nearby villagers smashed the stele into several pieces and transported it back to the village to build houses.Later, those who cared about retrieved the scattered remnants of the stele one by one, and put together the stele of Guangye Temple. The rubbings of the surviving inscriptions read "The hometown of King Wei, Benji City", declaring that the place where the stele is located is the hometown of the Li Tang royal family.The typical Han burial form of father and son co-tombs also shows that Li Yuan's ancestors were authentic Han people, and had nothing to do with the son of a goddess or the Xianbei stone chamber.We can even further infer that the reason why Li Hu received the title of Tang Guogong is because his hometown, Julu County, is the legendary hometown of Tang Yao—all signs indicate that the myth of Li Yuan’s family is not in the vast desert, but in front of his eyes. This is a deserted village. Then, what kind of family history will Li Xi and Li Tianxi father and son in Julu County tell us? As we all know, there is only one prominent Li family in Hebei-the Li family of Zhaojun.They are the descendants of Li Mu, the famous general of Zhao State during the Warring States Period. For hundreds of years, they have continued to be the first in China along with the Lu family of Fanyang, the Cui family of Qinghe, the Cui family of Boling, the Zheng family of Xingyang, the Li family of Longxi, and the Wang family of Taiyuan. Wait for the noble family.However, the most prominent family branch of the Li family in Zhao County, the "Three Lane Li Family", is in Changshan County, not in Julu County.There are only a few declining branches, far away from the dazzling light of the Li family in Sanxiang, living in obscurity like weeds outside the sight of historians.Li Yuan's ancestors were either a declining branch of the Li family in Zhao County, who drifted silently to the neighboring Julu County; Shi. Li Mu, Emperor Wu'an of the State of Zhao, Li Boyou, Taiwei of the Later Han Dynasty, and Li Ying, known as the "model of the world" because of his noble conduct... These brilliant names belong to the Li family of Zhaojun, and they have nothing to do with the gray civilian life of the common surname Li. coherent. Not only did the humble ancestors leave little tangible wealth, but even spiritual power was never passed on to future generations.They plant in spring and harvest in autumn, greet and send off, eat and drink, lax and scatter, live, grow old, sick and die... In the magnificent and elegant Wei and Jin Dynasties, their lives were dusty and full of trivial matters.The common surname Li did not preserve the Confucian classics, nor deliberately preserved the relics of the ancestors, and lacked spiritual idols such as Li Kai and Li Fen among the Li families of Zhaojun.Against the background of the Five Husbands, families without any spiritual beliefs can only allow their family traditions to be polluted by Hus vulgarity.In Li Hu's generation, some of them were named Qitou and Bodhidharma, and some were named Beggars. From their names to their lifestyles, they were no different from Xianbei people. However, there are always some people who are unwilling to be like the grass on the Long, one withered and one prosperous is a lifetime.Conscripted by the court of the Northern Wei Dynasty, the common surname Li left his hometown in Julu County and rushed to the Six Towns of Yinshan.The baptism of blood and rain on the border has changed their simple image of facing the loess and back to the sky.I don't know when, the ancestors of the Li family, together with the most stalwart Xianbei warriors, were walking horses and shooting eagles in the desert.After death, they will be buried in their hometown according to the customs of the Han people.Li Hu started his lifelong trek from the Six Towns of Yinshan, to Chang'an, to the world... Whether it is a barbarian from Shishi, or the common surname Li, it will not be the answer Li Yuan wants in his heart.When he walked into Chang'an, he felt so lonely in his heart, as if he had squeezed into a place that didn't belong to him.Li Yuan must prove to the whole world that he and his dynasty are well-founded, not without reason. From this moment on, Li Yuan's exploration of family history embarked on a brilliant wrong path.He wants to weave all the clues into a reasonable history, so that he can be connected with the greatest person and the most powerful family in history in blood and spirit.The history of the Li family in Zhaojun and the Li family in Longxi is composed of real historical figures.They are beautiful and dazzling, holding hands, and have been connected from the Warring States Period to the present.Every paragraph, even every word is so clear, true, and can stand scrutiny.In contrast, the family history that Li Yuan envisions is full of blanks and falsehoods, and there are too many uncertainties to become abstract, so abstract that only one idea remains: we must be born noble. Therefore, Li Yuan rejected Xianbei's paternal lineage, and also rejected the unaesthetic past of the common Li family.He wanted to re-choose his family history, and set two criteria for his choice: first, his ancestors must be Han, a nation as radiant as the sun; second, his ancestors must also be kings, so , he appeared in the new era as a returning king. After screening and screening with these two criteria, Li Yuan chose Li Haolai from Xiliang as his ancestor, and Li Hao is said to be the sixteenth grandson of Li Guang, a famous general of the Western Han Dynasty. The "unrivaled talent in the world" parachutist became a milestone figure in the history of Li Yuan's family. There is so much to say about the ill-fated general.His bravery, his fame, and his tragic fate.Knowing that he was included in Li Yuan's ancestors, the first thing I thought of was a story in "Historical Records".It is said that on that day, when Li Guang returned late from hunting, he suddenly saw a tiger about to pounce hidden in the twilight.It was too late, and then it was too late, the parachutist lightly stretched his ape's arms, and the sharp arrow pierced through the air, and the tiger fell heavily into the long grass, motionless.After a moment's delay, Shino couldn't see his fingers.Li Guang had no choice but to leap back to the camp, planning to carry the prey back after dawn.The next day, he went back to the place where he bent his bow and shot the tiger based on his memory. He searched and searched, but he couldn't find the tiger's carcass.Only an arrow shot yesterday, stuck end-to-end on a hard white stone, missed the arrowhead.Whether it was the tiger in the forest that turned into a white stone, or the boulder that was shaped like a tiger, no one can say for sure.Later, the poet Lu Lun left a song "Song of the Next Song" to describe this legend: