Chapter 3 Manzi (and Luo Jiaman)

It is more common for a man in his prime to be nicknamed "Hanzi".Maqiao people are more accustomed to calling men "barbarians", "barbarians", and "three families of barbarians".Among them, the origin of the "three families" cannot be tested.In ancient times, there was a saying that "although three households in Chu died and Qin must be Chu", the "three households" did not seem to refer to men in particular. It is obviously a person, but bears the mark of the "Three Families" and undertakes the mission of the "Three Families". It is not known whether this is the tradition of the ancestors of Chu.I once had an imagination: if a person's blood comes from two parents, and the parents' blood comes from four grandparents' generation, and the grandparents' blood comes from eight people's great-grandparents generation... According to this geometric progression, go up It is estimated that in only a few dozen generations, the huge number of all human beings can be included in the scope of the ancestors, which are the common ancestors of everyone. The good wish of "All brothers within the four seas" is not empty words in this simple calculation, and it has a reliable basis in physiology.Theoretically speaking, everyone is a descendant of all mankind, and each person has collected and summarized the genetic factors of all mankind that have passed through dozens of generations.So is a person still a person?Is it just one person?I said in an article: the concept of "individual" is incomplete, and everyone is also a "group of people".I hope that the "three" in Maqiao's "Three Barbarians" is just a synonym for "many" in the tradition.In this way, "Three Barbarians" is almost an alias for "group people", emphasizing a person's group background, which coincides with my fantasy.

The word "man" is popular in the south, and it has been a collective term for southerners for a long time.According to relevant records, in the Spring and Autumn Period (700 B.C.), there was a state of Luo, that is, Luo Jiaman. "Zuo Zhuan" said, "In the twelfth year of Duke Huan of Lu, the Chu division was involved in Peng, and the Luo people wanted to attack it." It is the earliest trace.The Luo people once settled in the southwest of today's Yicheng County, Hubei, and were adjacent to the Ba State in the southwest. They were later called Luochuan City, which can be seen in Volume 28 of "Shui Jing Zhu".Luo Jiaman, also known as Luo Ziguo, once used Pengshui as a natural barrier to resist the strong enemy in the north. When they saw Chu soldiers crossing south, they had to resist, and they even won a victory.But Chu Luo is very different in size, and the latter is not an opponent in the end.We see in "Zuo Zhuan" that the Luo people fled twice later. The first time they fled to Zhijiang County, which is the birthplace of the "Ba people" in history; He fled again to northern Hunan, which is now Yueyang, Pingjiang, and Xiangyin counties.

Jiang is named after a person, and this is how Luo Jiang got his name. It is hard to imagine the long-distance relocation of supporting the old and the young.According to historical data, the Luo people rebuilt the "Luo City" after arriving here, but today there is no trace.I suspect that Changle Town on the bank of the Luo River was the Luo City of those days.Le and Luo are roughly homophonic, which can be regarded as a clue.This is a small town surrounded by mountains and rivers, and it is also the place I must pass when I go to the mountains to pick bamboo and wood.It has stone streets that run through the whole town, with the smell of sweet wine flowing on the stones and the sound of clogs, leading to the bustling and wet pier, and some closed doors and windows that never seem to show people's faces.The local people said that there are iron pillars under the pier, which can only be seen when the water recedes, and there are many vague ancient writings on them.I was not interested in archeology at the time, and I never went to see it.Every time he was so tired that his eyes turned black, and after drinking a bowl of rum, he fell asleep on the side of the street with his clothes on, ready to continue on his way.Several times I was woken up by the cold wind in the deep winter, and when I opened my eyes, there were only sparse stars above my head that were about to fall.

If Changle is not Luocheng, then there are Luopu, Luoshan, Baoluo, and Tongluodong that can be investigated. They also have a homonym for "Luo", and I have had acquaintances with them once.In my impression of these villages or towns, there are still ancient wall foundations and stepping stones, and the fleeting avoidance and guard in the eyes of men and women. The Luo people have a close relationship with the Ba people. "Lower Riba people" is a very common idiom here, which means their ancient songs.The terminal of Luojiang is "Baling", which is now Yueyang. "Song History" Volume 493, it is said that in the third year of Zhe Song Kuyuan (AD 1088), the "Luo Jiaman" was once a "coupe", and later the ancestors of the Tujia leaders came out to restrain them, and then they calmed down. It can be seen that The Tujia and the Luo people cooperated quite well—and the Shi family was identified as the descendants of the Ba people, which has become the public opinion of historians.Another noteworthy evidence is that in Tujia legends, stories about "Luo brothers and sisters" often appear, showing that "Luo" has an indissoluble bond with the Tujia ancestors.

The strange thing is that I have never found any villages and towns with the word "Luo" on both sides of the Luo River, and I have rarely heard of people with the surname Luo—except for an old village chief named Luo in my village, who was born as a long-term worker and was a An out-and-out outsider.I can't help but imagine that a wave of cruel persecution, a bloody storm that we can no longer know or imagine today, made the word "Luo" a taboo here, and the Luo people had to change their surnames, hide their origins, or go far Adapting to other places, as described by some historians, grouped together, ate the wind and slept in the dew, and went to the mountains of Xiangxi, Guizhou, Guangxi, Yunnan and Southeast Asia, and never returned.Since then, Luo Jiang has a name but no reality, leaving only a name without content, and has become a mouth that no longer makes a sound, but only spews out boundless silence.Even if the mouth were recovered from the grave, we don't know what it said.

In fact, their country is lost forever, beyond redemption.Only some bronze vessels remained, which were pulverized and crumbled when pinched.When I was digging there, I dug up a large number of arrow clusters and spearheads many times, but they were all very small, much smaller than what I saw in the books, showing that metals were rare and expensive back then, and they had to be used very sparingly.These unearthed objects are not surprising to the locals, they don't take them seriously, they are all abandoned by the side of the road, and the kids put them in baskets, and use them to fight and play.When I later saw some exhibits of bronzes under strict protection in the museum, I was always a little bit disapproving.What are these things?When I was in Maqiao, if I stepped on it casually, it would have been before the Han Dynasty. I don’t know how many cultural relics I would have trampled under my feet.