Chapter 12 Section 2 Development and Evolution

Since the Xia and Shang Dynasties, not only the royal family had genealogies, but also princes and some nobles had their own genealogies to record the family lineage.The government set up a special agency for management. The great patriotic poet Qu Yuan lived in the official residence of the Sanlu (lu donkey) doctor. His main duties were to take charge of the affairs of the three surnames of the Zhao, Jing, and Qu clans of Chu State, and compile the family trees of the three surnames.During the Spring and Autumn Period, some people sorted out these genealogies and compiled 15 chapters of "Shiben", which concentratedly recorded the family lines of the Yellow Emperor and the emperors, princes, princes, and officials of the Spring and Autumn Period.According to legend, Xunzi also compiled the "Spring and Autumn Gongzi Bloodline", which is now lost, but the word "bloodline" vividly reveals the essence of genealogy.When Sima Qian of the Han Dynasty wrote "Historical Records", he attached great importance to and referred to various genealogical materials before the Spring and Autumn Period. In the language of "Tai Shi Gong Zi Preface", it is: "The three generations of Wei are still alive, and the age is not reliable. The old news of the genealogy was taken." "Historical Records" records the regime change since ancient times and the family history of princes and nobles. It is the most authoritative work for us to understand ancient history today.

During the Spring and Autumn Period, the emperor's family affairs were managed by the government specially appointed Zongzheng, which of course also included the records of the emperor's family history and the compilation of genealogy. The folk genealogy was basically in the self-flowing stage.The genealogy of the Qin Dynasty is no longer recorded.The genealogy of the Han Dynasty can be found in the 20 volumes of "The Genealogy of Emperors and Princes", "Yangxiong's Family Letter", "Deng's Official Genealogy", and "Wan Xing Genealogy" written by Yingchuan Taishou Liaoshi.In addition, there are some inscriptions, such as the "Sun Shuao Stele" erected in May of the third year of Yanxi Emperor Huan of the Eastern Han Dynasty (AD 160) and the "Three Old Zhao Kuan Stele" erected in the third year of Lingdi Guanghe (AD 180). The Yin part of the "Sun Shuao Stele" records the family lineages of more than ten descendants of Sun Shuao, Prime Minister of Chu in the Spring and Autumn Period, and Sun Wubo, who was the prefect of Bohai in the early Eastern Han Dynasty.Zhao Kuan was a famous general in the Western Han Dynasty after Zhao Chongguo, and he was a dignitary for generations. This stele started from the Han Dynasty and completely recorded the family history of Zhao Kuan's family for hundreds of years.The two steles are very complete and detailed, so they can be regarded as the stone-carved genealogy of the people of the Han Dynasty.The family trees of the Han Dynasty are now lost. Through these two inscriptions, we can roughly understand the basic situation of the family trees of the Han Dynasty. The genealogy of the Han Dynasty is roughly the same as that of the previous dynasties. It is relatively simple, it is only the family lineage, indicating the birth and death, official title, name, burial place, etc. At this time, the genealogy is generally not compiled by oneself, but by others. This is also a major feature of the family tree of the Han Dynasty.

During the Eastern Han Dynasty, one of the ways for the government to select talents was "censorship", that is, to judge a person's character and ability according to social discussions, and then decide to appoint them.Comments must be made by prominent people in society, and they naturally don't pay attention to the children of ordinary people, and can only look at the circle of the same class. In this way, family status and family background gradually become more important.During the Three Kingdoms period, under the suggestion of Shangshu Chen Qun, Wei Wang Cao Pi implemented the nine-rank Zhongzheng system, which selected officials from scholars in nine grades. It used the native place and family status of scholars as the main criteria. This method of selecting scholars, It was called gate selection at the time.The final result of selecting officials based on family status is to strengthen and guarantee the dignity of the family status, and to prevent those with lower status from squeezing into higher status through methods such as acknowledgment, joint clan, and marriage, and sharing privileges and vested interests.Therefore, for the convenience of selecting officials and proof of identity, both the government and wealthy families attach great importance to the compilation of genealogy.The rapid increase of family tree's role in politics and marriage has injected new impetus into the development of family tree.As a result, the genealogy has been greatly developed. The government has set up a "Genealogy Bureau" to compile and edit genealogy.During the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, genealogy became a kind of specialized knowledge, and everyone in the upper class had to understand and study it. Otherwise, it would not only affect official career and marriage, but even ordinary social interactions would be difficult.Scholars in the Southern Dynasties paid special attention to family taboos. If you occasionally mentioned the name of his father or ancestor in front of someone, he would cry on the spot and make you unable to step down.According to historical records, a man named Wang Hong during the Liu Song Dynasty, "every day, he never made a taboo against thousands of guests" ("New Tang Book Confucianism Zhong Liu Chong Biography"), was passed down as a good story for a while, and this is also the case in the Northern and Southern Dynasties. It is a realm pursued by people in the upper class at that time.

In order to make the distinction between family ranks clear, in addition to the genealogy of the family in the Southern and Northern Dynasties, there were also genealogy of county and state surnames such as "Hundred Family Trees", which listed the big and small families of the state and county, three, six, nine, etc. According to Ruan Xiaoxu's "Seven Records" during the Xiaoliang period, there were more than 1,000 volumes of genealogical works at that time.At that time, if the humble and plain people wanted to change their social status, other than marrying the gentry, they had no choice but to pretend to be a high-ranking family and pretend to be a prefect.They usually bribed genealogy experts to edit the genealogy, but the punishment for this matter was very severe at that time. Jia Yuan, a famous genealogist in the Southern Qi Dynasty, helped a man named Wang Taibao to alter the genealogy and pretended to be the then nobleman Langya (langya) Spike] Wang's family was denounced, and almost lost his head.

During the Southern and Northern Dynasties, genealogy was so important that all documents and materials that could prove family identity and clan rank must have the content of lineage, and some epitaphs and history books that have been handed down to this day are no exception.In particular, the "Book of Wei", one of the 24 official histories in the feudal era, written by Wei Shou in the Northern Dynasty, is a family tree-style official history. Up to more than a hundred people. "Songshu", "Southern History", and "Northern History" also have this situation to varying degrees, which is ridiculed by later generations.The genealogies of the Northern and Southern Dynasties are basically lost now, and these historical books have preserved a fairly complete set of genealogical materials for us.In addition, some annotations in the Southern and Northern Dynasties also quoted a large number of genealogical materials at that time, such as Pei Songzhi’s Annotations of the Three Kingdoms cited 19 kinds, and Liu Xiaobiao’s Annotations of Shishuoxinyu cited 36 kinds, which also shows the prosperity of genealogy books at that time.

The rulers of the Sui and Tang dynasties were all born in rich and noble families. Therefore, the role of genealogy in maintaining the ruling interests and consolidating the political power is very clear.During the Sui and Tang Dynasties, the clan system was also very popular, but it was different from that in the Southern and Northern Dynasties. First, most of the scholars in the Sui and Tang Dynasties were selected through the imperial examination system, not only family status, but had little to do with family status; At that time, some noble families declined and disappeared, and another group of military nobles rose up, producing a group of new wealthy families, which constituted the ruling foundation and main body of the Li and Tang Dynasties.In order to safeguard the vested interests of the entire ruling group and consolidate the ruling foundation, the Tang Dynasty basically monopolized the power of compiling genealogical records by the government. .The genealogies compiled by the government of the Tang Dynasty are all surnames and clothing with obvious political functions. "Yongtai Genealogy", "Tang Emperor's Jade Document", etc., are all huge works of the emperor.The official revision of genealogy has become a very effective political tool. It fixed the vested interests of various political forces in the form of genealogy and adjusted the interest relationship within the ruling group. This is even more so in the Record of Surnames. All bureaucrats with a rank of five or more are included in the record, and then the surnames are determined according to the level of their positions.The promulgation of this genealogy expanded the ruling foundation, improved Wu Zetian's prestige and status, and laid the foundation for Wu Zetian's smooth acquisition of power.Of course, a large number of original gentry families below the fifth rank could not be included in the genealogy, so they naturally complained, attacking this new genealogy as "honor", that is, "official list", which is not valuable enough.

The genealogy still played a considerable role in political life and marriage in the Tang Dynasty, especially in marriage. Therefore, not only the official genealogy was compiled to judge the superiority of surnames, but private self-cultivation of genealogy was also very popular.According to the incomplete records of "New Book of Tang Yiwenzhi", there are still more than 1,000 volumes of various genealogies left after the wars in the late Tang Dynasty and the Five Dynasties.At the same time, a group of genealogists also emerged, playing a role in social and political activities, but it is a pity that all kinds of genealogy in the Tang Dynasty have long since disappeared except for a few fragments in the Dunhuang Grottoes.

At the end of Tang Dynasty, the Huangchao uprising completely destroyed the clan system.During the Five Dynasties period, there were endless wars, and most of the rich and powerful were promoted by virtue of their military exploits. Basically, there was no prominent family background to boast about. In addition, the high and low were fickle and changed quickly. , ranking first.The genealogy of government since the Wei and Jin Dynasties also died out naturally. After the founding of the Song Dynasty, the imperial examination system of the Tang Dynasty was inherited by the selection of scholars. Marriage rarely paid attention to family status. The political role played by the genealogy before the Tang Dynasty has basically disappeared. This political tool is not needed to consolidate the rule, and there is no need for the government to edit or collect it. Various genealogies.The compilation of genealogy declined for a while, and this situation lasted until Song Renzong Huangyou and Zhihe years before it was changed.Ouyang Xiu and Su Xun, among the Eight Great Masters of the Tang and Song Dynasties, compiled their genealogies in unison, and put forward editing principles and specific methods and styles, making the genealogy gradually prosperous in another way.

Ouyang Xiu paid great attention to the genealogy when he presided over the compilation of "New Tang Book", and specially set up "Clan Lineage" and "Prime Minister Lineage" in "New Tang Book" to record the lineage of the royal family surnamed Li and the 369 names of the Tang Dynasty. The lineage of the chancellor.After revising the "New Book of Tang", he found that his family lineage was not very clear to his family members. In order to enable his family members and descendants to understand the virtues of their ancestors, he adopted the style of history books and the way of charts to describe the fifth generation ancestor Ouyang Anfu. Over the past ten thousand years, the family's migration, marriage, official title, posthumous name, death, tomb and behavior have been compiled into a new type of family tree.Almost at the same time, Su Xun also compiled "Su's Genealogy".Both of them use the "Xiaozong method", and both take the fifth ancestor as the ancestor of the family.This is because the political and economic status of members of the entire society has not been fixed since the fifth generation, and ordinary families are rarely rich and noble for generations. dull.Therefore, the general family has to adopt the "small clan method", while the royal family can trace back tens of hundreds of generations, and adopt the "big clan method" to compile the family tree.Ou and Su wrote their opinions in the narrative, example, record and postrecord of the genealogy.The theory and practice of their genealogy editing have far-reaching influence, and later generations regarded it as the law.During the Song Dynasty, many scholar-bureaucrats compiled genealogies for their own families. At the same time, there were some theoretical writings. In addition to Ou and Su, the most famous one was Zheng Qiao’s "General Chronicle Clan Briefing". These theories and practices, It guides the vigorous development of private musical notation in the Song and Song Dynasties.

The genealogies of the Liao, Jin, and Yuan dynasties have all been lost, and there are very few recorded in catalogs.The compilation of genealogy in the Ming and Qing dynasties reached the peak of Chinese feudal society. Most of the ancient genealogies we can see today were compiled in the Ming and Qing dynasties. In order to record the family lineage, harmonize the family, educate the clansmen, and improve the prestige and status of the family in society.Therefore, the genealogy content of the Ming and Qing dynasties increased a lot compared to the Song Dynasty. In order to elevate and flaunt the nobility of the family, many genealogies adopted the "big family method", which traced back dozens of generations, hundreds of generations, and must be based on ancient emperors or celebrities. ancestors.In addition to clearly arranging the family lineage, it also added biographies, writings, ancestral halls, family rules, and family precepts, and the description of characters also added information about children, marriage, and Yuejia.In order to hide the evil and promote the good and keep the bloodline pure, it also stipulates that various characters are not allowed to enter the spectrum.The writing attaches great importance to literary talent.In order to keep the continuation of the family lineage forever recorded, the time limit for the renewal of the family tree was also stipulated. All of these made the compilation of the family tree in the Ming and Qing Dynasties more systematic and more valuable.

In the Ming and Qing dynasties, especially in the Qing Dynasty, a group of genealogy experts emerged, the most outstanding of which was Zhang Xuecheng from the Qing Dynasty. In his related works, he not only explained the origin and function of genealogy, but also analyzed the previous genealogy theories and the deficiencies of genealogical practice, put forward their own views.Zhang Xuecheng's theory of genealogy compilation had a great influence on the compilation of genealogy in the Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China. In the genealogy of the Qing Dynasty, the Manchu genealogy is also very distinctive. Banner people have to check the genealogy when they succeed to the noble and become an official. Therefore, the enthusiasm of the Manchus to compile the genealogy is still very high.The family tree of the royal family in the Qing Dynasty——Jade Document is arguably the most systematic and most frequently renewed family tree in the history of genealogy development. It has been repaired 28 times in more than 200 years, and it is renewed once in less than ten years on average. It can be regarded as the crown of family tree renewals. .