Chapter 52 braid cutting storm

In the Qing Dynasty, the rebels cut their braids, which has always been the case.This matter depends on the Manchus. The Han people have been conquered by the northern peoples many times in history, and it is rare to hear that they are easy to wear and easy to send.When the Manchus entered the customs and conquered the Han people, they used their braids as a sign of submission, and those who rebelled also cut their braids as a token of honor, forcing them to follow.During the Revolution of 1911, the initial revolutionaries cut their braids with the same mentality. Once they were cut off, they forced you to rebel. If you rebel, you have to rebel.In fact, at that time, the Manchus who were in charge of the family were already different from their ancestors, and they didn't care much about the braid at the back of their heads.During the New Deal period, many foreign students did not have braids, and even some fashionable Manchus cut their braids, and they cut them off as soon as they were cut. I have never heard of what the imperial court did to anyone.Although it is said that in the propaganda of the Revolutionary Party, braids exist as a sign of slaves who surrendered to the Qing Dynasty, but the real discomfort of Chinese people with braids comes from the ridicule of foreigners. People say that thing is pigtail, pig tail, a A symbol of an inferior nation.In the concession, the red-headed assan grabbed the Chinese by their braids, and walked proudly on the street, stimulating the nerves of all the Chinese who had been to Shanghai.Moreover, in the eyes of Westerners, the braids on the back of Chinese people's heads are not only strange, but also unhygienic and uncivilized. Men with such long braids are inconvenient to wash and wash, and lice are inevitable. I'm not too embarrassed to stick to the braid doctrine.Therefore, the Qing government, which didn't care much about the braids, ordered the braids to be cut after the Wuchang Uprising in order to prevent the effect of "voting a certificate".On the heads of the common people, attack with the revolutionary party.

Even so, the nomination certificate could not be done. Out of habit, the Revolutionary Party still paid special attention to cutting braids.After the success of the revolution, the strictest order was to cut braids.The military government established after the revolution usually sends out braid-cutting teams, either to patrol the streets, or entrenched in the city gates, with large scissors in their hands.Judging from the old photos left at that time, the helplessness of the person who was cut and the excitement of the person who cut it are very clear.Obviously, the revolutionary party in this period cut their braids no longer to compete with the Qing government.They are mainly trying to remove the shame for the nation, or in other words, to compete with foreigners.

Of course, except for young people who automatically cut their braids before and after the revolution, most people are actually unwilling to have their braids cut.After the revolution, scholars are of course very happy to be elected to maintain the ground, and even help the new government do things.But he doesn't intend to remove the braids at the back of his head anytime soon.For one thing, the Qing government's braid-cutting order was issued passively. Previously, in people's impression, there was still a political risk without braids.It has been more than two hundred years, and everyone knows that the emperor cares about the braids on the back of the heads of his subjects. The stereotype formed by this is still difficult to get rid of for a while.Secondly, people are used to the braids at the back of their heads, it becomes natural and looks good.Once the back of my head is empty, no matter how unpleasant it looks, the mother-in-law doesn't like it.Although it is said that foreign devils have entered China for several decades, there are still not many scholars who have actually seen foreigners, and those who have personally experienced the ridicule of foreigners are even rarer.The heart-wrenching pain experienced by the revolutionaries who have been abroad is not experienced by the scholars in the interior.Scholars are like this, and so are ordinary people.In that era, the common people had to follow the scholars.They are also afraid that without braids, the court will think about it in the future, and they also feel that it will not look good without braids.Even my own daughter-in-law would cry when she found out that her husband didn't have braids, let alone others?Many men with nice long hair, a big black and shiny braid, which has always been his pride, and he can even count on it to win the favor of women, was suddenly cut off, not to mention mournful, but also quite uncomfortable.What's more, ordinary people still have a kind of witchcraft thinking about braids. In their opinion, if a person does not have braids, his body seems incomplete.An incomplete body means some kind of ominousness.Therefore, the peasants whose braids were forcibly cut off would cry and beg to return the cut braids to him, and he would take them home and put them away.Feng Yuxiang recalled that when many soldiers in his army cut their braids, they wept bitterly, and they all solemnly wrapped up the cut braids and stored them away.The situation was like that of a eunuch crying to keep his cut baby.

On the whole, the Revolution of 1911 did not cause much disturbance to the rural society, the only exception being the cutting of pigtails.In order to resist braid cutting, the country people came up with many ways.One is to pretend to be a Taoist priest. Taoist priests can wear tall hats, and they can also spread out their braids and tie them into a bun.Therefore, Taoist uniforms became popular for a while.The second is to wear a pointed hat, coil up the braids and cover them with a hat.Scholars turned out the old Confucian scarf, that is, the square scarf, coiled up the braids, and covered the scarf as a cover.However, these tricks will still be seen through when encountering difficult revolutionaries, and the braids still cannot be kept.Moreover, these methods are relatively expensive, and you need to spend money on cloth and hats.Farmers do not have such spare money, so the best way to resist is not to go to the city.Whether it is picking manure or selling vegetables, it will be over if you don't go to the city.Hiding from the city in this way is a loss for the peasants and they will not be able to earn money, but the urban residents will be in big trouble.At that time, there were no sewers in the city, and the treatment of manure depended entirely on farmers going to the city to pick up manure. The city was cleaned, and the farmers got fertilizer (most places had to spend money to buy it).If farmers don't pick manure for a day, the city will stink.If it is added that there is no food to eat, the city people can't bear it even more.Therefore, this kind of resistance was really effective at that time. For a while, the enthusiasm of the revolutionaries to cut their braids was much less.The large-scale encirclement and suppression of peasant braids lasted only a short time.After the Republic of China, it took several years, and the peasants' braids gradually decreased under the gradual drive of urban residents.This is also limited to developed areas. In the uncivilized interior, until the 1940s, many men still had braids on the back of their heads.The stories in Mr. Lu Xun's novels about Zhang Xun's restoration in 1917 are not far from the reality in the countryside.In other words, even in a more enlightened place like Zhejiang, in the sixth year of the Republic of China, people who cut their braids in the countryside still ran into the Revolutionary Party at the time of 1911. Most people actually still have braids behind their heads, and they also like braids .The peasants' aversion to the Revolution of 1911 was also related to braid cutting. At that time, there was a folk song saying: "Xiao Xuantong, abdicated, every family has monks sleeping."The monks here are talking about people with braids.China is not a Buddhist country, and there are monks sleeping in the house, which is not a nice word.

To put it bluntly, the matter of the hair on the head of the Chinese is really a bit troublesome.