Chapter 3 3. "Shan Hai Jing" is a historical taboo

In many cases, historical records are mythologized, not deliberately done by critics, nor distorted by word of mouth among the people. One big reason why the historical record is mythologized is that much history is often taboo to those in power. For example, every Chinese knows that Jiang Ziya helped the Zhou Dynasty destroy the Shang Dynasty. Even an illiterate person knows that King Zhou is an authentic villain. Cannonballs... In short, it is a bad thing to do. It is really not in the interests of the general public to kill such a lone husband and thief. It is precisely because King Zhou was so bad that it brought out King Wen of Zhou and King Zhou Wu's love for the people with fists and fists. The ancient so-called slandering the people and punishing crimes and bloodshed were affirmed and admired by later generations.

But this history, Confucian scholars have different views. Duanmuci, the most proud disciple of Confucius, once said: In fact, King Zhou was not as bad as the Zhou Dynasty advertised. "...Zhou is not good, it is not as good as it is." ("The Analects of Confucius Zizhang Nineteen") Duanmuci, as one of the few seekers at that time, followed Confucius's door and was able to access some "internal" materials , so he knew that King Zhou's cruelty and evil were more of the Zhou Dynasty's "smearing" propaganda than the true face of history, so he said this.

So, if King Zhou was not so cruel and evil, why did he leave such a notorious reputation in history? The reason is simple, because the Zhou family dynasty needs to find a high-sounding reason for their war.If King Zhou was a benevolent gentleman, wouldn't the Zhou family dynasty become a traitor?However, it was the Zhou family dynasty that won the war and had the right to speak. Of course, it was necessary to discredit King Zhou with confidence, until he said that King Zhou had sores on his head and pus on his feet. He was so bad that he had to be completely defeated. The perfect publicity effect.

In this way, 3,000 years ago, smearing King Zhou became the mainstream public opinion. Then, affirming King Zhou’s point of view and historical materials that can prove that King Zhou was not born bad became a taboo in history, and there will be no more May become known to the public.But what if someone knows about these falsified histories and wants to tell the truth of the history to the public? There are two possibilities: One is that this person who is dedicated to clarifying the true face of history is more serious, and his head is not enough. If he tells the truth, he will be reported soon, and his head will be taken off by the officials unceremoniously. All history related to this is destroyed.

Another possibility is that this person learned a little bit smarter, and he mythologized the real history, adding a lot of strange and chaotic ingredients, so we get such a kind of suspenseful collection of ancient myths. It is an all-encompassing mish-mash of classics, geography, products, witchcraft, religion, ancient history, medicine, folklore, ethnicity and so on.If a person deliberately uses this method to package the taboo history, not only will later generations see it in a cloud of fog and do not know where to end, even people of the same era will find it difficult to see through it.

The Formation of Myths and Strange Tales Therefore, we say that mythology is encrypted history, an outlet for culture, a historical reality that is forced to be distorted, a denial of public opinion and propaganda by those in power, an outlet for the truth, and a departure from historical facts. There is not a single reason for the emergence of this historical taboo.From a political point of view, it is only one aspect of the problem for politicians to deliberately discredit and suppress their political opponents.And more reasons are due to the psychological taboos of a nation. For those behaviors and events that violate moral taboos, they have never been publicized. If they must be said based on historical reasons, they must be carefully packaged. Distorting and deforming real events through language skills is not only taboo for the emperor, but taboo for the elders. Sometimes this taboo is purely instinctive, and this narrative style also forms the necessity of this style of writing.

Since we can agree with this point, we have also mastered the basic skills of interpretation.