Chapter 34 Chapter 5 The Epic of Dai Nationality Heroes
This epic shows the life of the Dai ancestors from the disintegration of the primitive society to the early slave society.At that time, the Dai people had leaders, generals and officials, but no Buddhist temples.The gods appearing in it all belong to the gods of the primitive religion of the Dai people.The main characters of the two opposing parties are Hai Han and Feng Gai.Haihan is the son of the god Yingba (the biggest god in the primitive religion), and Feng Gai is the nephew of Yingba.They used to live in heaven, but they quarreled with each other because Feng Gai teased Haihan's wife Nanbeng and another sky god Sangluo's wife Epin.Yingba was very angry, so he demoted Feng Gai, Haihan, and Sangluo to the world.
Feng Gai was born in the family of King Jinghan and inherited the throne at the age of three.His armor, sword and Pegasus were all brought down from the sky.When he grew up, he became a master of martial arts, conquered all over the world, and robbed wealth, elephants and beauties.He already had 300 wives and concubines, but he was still not satisfied. He heard that Nanbeng, the wife of Haihan, the king of Mengjingha, was beautiful.Afterwards, Feng Gai turned into a beautiful red deer, crossed the cockfighting field, and ran to the distance.Haihan chased the deer on horseback.After chasing to a distance, the red deer suddenly disappeared mysteriously, and Haihan had to return to the palace disappointed, only to find that Nan Beng had disappeared, and only then did he realize that he had been tricked by Feng Gai's plan to divert the tiger away from the mountain.From then on, Haihan was disheartened and wanted to go into the forest alone for the rest of his life.After much deliberation, he was unwilling to reconcile, so he called civil and military officials to discuss, and everyone was willing to contribute to the king.
How did Feng Gai know that Hai Han's wife was beautiful?It turned out that Haihan's experience after being demoted to the human world was very tortuous. His biological mother was a slave girl from a rich family. When she went down the river to wash clothes, she saw a fruit floating upstream and ate it.The baby can talk as soon as it is born, the mother is afraid and throws the baby out of the bamboo building.Unexpectedly, not only did the baby not fall to death, nor was it trampled to death, but was held in the mouth by a cow.When the cowherd baby went to the wilderness to graze, the cow would spit out the baby and let him play with others.Haihan has superhuman strength, no one can beat him, and people often lose to him rice balls to satisfy their hunger.Haihan is also good at climbing trees, and often climbs to the treetops to sleep.His strange behavior spread slowly, and the nearby Zhaohehan court kept sending people to investigate.Everyone was afraid that he would be uneasy staying in the tree, so they tried every means to coax him down to the ground, but to no avail. Only when the leader's daughter Nan Beng came to call out, did he get down from the tree, and honestly followed her back to the palace. "Haihan" means "Golden Bull".After Haihan grows up, he has feelings for Nanbeng, and the leader Zhao Hehan agrees to their marriage.
Before getting married, according to the usual practice, he found a fortune teller and ordered him to predict good and bad luck. Unexpectedly, the divination was not satisfactory. Haihan blamed the fortune teller, stabbed his eyes, and killed him.After the fortune teller died, he was reincarnated in Mengfeng (that is, the birthplace of Fenggai in the human world), and told Fenggai about the beauty of Nanbeng.Feng Gai rode a flying horse to look for Nan Beng, and used a trick to fight Haihan's cock, and snatched Nan Beng away on the chicken farm.In order to get his wife back, Haihan sneaked into the pension alone and flirted with the girls there as a revenge.Feng Gai dispatched 300 soldiers to besiege it. Although Haihan killed many enemies, the treasured sword failed and softened after being cast by Feng Gai, turning into a butterfly sucking human blood.Haihan turned into a gecko, hid in Nanbeng's bedroom, and was killed by Feng Gai.After Hai Han's death, Nan Beng disguised himself as a slave girl, and smuggled Hai Han's head out of Meng's salary with another slave girl, An Zuo.On the way, when they opened the red silk, Haihan's head suddenly opened his mouth and laughed, which caught them off guard, and his head fell to the ground, turning into a well.Nan Beng and An Zuo were very sad, and both committed suicide.Hai Han and Nan Beng were reincarnated again and became a couple.Haihan became the successor of King Mengjingha, and Nanbeng was once again plundered by Pension Gai.
The above, viewed from the perspective of modern people, is neither reasonable nor superstitious, such as reincarnation.But through the fog of mystery, it is possible to choose reasonable factors, which reflect the instability of marriage forms, frequent wars, and strong mythological colors in the transition period from the end of primitive society to slave society.
When Haihan succeeded to the throne, the gods sent an envoy to send him an immortal drum. If he was in danger, if he sounded the immortal drum, he would be able to get help.Haihan alarmed the court of heaven with the sound of drums, and the messenger of the gods descended to earth, only to find out that Feng Gai not only robbed Nanbeng, but also took almost all the beauties as his own.Haihan said to the angel: "In the past, when I didn't become a fairy, I started a business to make a living and bought 300 boars. When I passed by Mengjinghan, Feng Gai took all the boars and my horse belly. A wallet like that." Hai Han wanted to take revenge, but felt that he was not as powerful as Feng Gai.The god of heaven sympathized with him very much. He wanted to send heavenly soldiers to join the battle, but he was afraid that he would kill Nan Beng in a hurry, so he might as well exchange it with a lot of money.When the two heavenly messengers negotiated with Feng Gai, Feng Gai had an arrogant attitude and said that he would attack Mengjingha.The gods then decided that Haihan would send troops first, and then all the heavenly soldiers would support them.
Sang Luo was also the king after he came down to earth, and his wife Ebin was also plundered by the pension reform.Sang Luo once united 101 countries to attack the Pension Reform. After several years of fierce fighting, Sang Luo had no choice but to retreat.Later, he formed a coalition with Haihan.In this way, the two sides began a fierce battle that lasted for seven years.
Haihan mobilized 180,000 troops to attack Fenggai, conquered several dependent countries of Fenggai, and the remaining small countries that had not been conquered also planned to surrender.The pension reform adopted punishment methods for these small countries, ordering all small countries that wanted to make peace, to hand over 120 elephants, 120 bolts of silk, 120 taels of gold, and 120 beauties... These burdens made the small countries miserable, and had to sell their daughters. Aroused the resistance of the countries.Some prepared enough silver, elephants and wine, and gave them to Haihan, begging Haihan's army not to pass by them.
Haihan's powerful general is called Gang Xiao, whose status in Mengjingha is second only to Haihan, governing 10 regions and owning 100,000 elephants.Haihan's fortune teller is called Shuangxian, who was punished by Gang Xiao, so Shuangxian defected to the salary reform and was reused.Feng Gai had a brave sitting elephant. He gave the elephant to Shuangxian, and sent Shuangxian to Haihan's army for reconnaissance, but was caught by Gang Xiao.The two-line rhetoric deceived Haihan, but not Gang Xiao.Gang Xiao wanted to disobey Haihan's order to behead Shuangxian, so Haihan wanted to kill Gang Xiao, and after two generals tried to protect him, he allowed Gang Xiao to commit crimes and make meritorious deeds.
Gang Xiao was seriously injured in the battle, but Haihan still hasn't received forgiveness.Hai rare Gang Xiao lost his army and lost his general, so he wanted to behead him again.In the end, he was ordered to fight again, and if he could not win, he would be executed all over the house.
Gang Xiao’s younger brother, Gang Zhuang, is a herald, and he is very sorry for his brother: “My dear brother, you are like a chicken in a cage, just waiting for others to drink the wine. You are like a piece of meat on a chopping board, just waiting for the onion, ginger and garlic to be put into the pot Stir. Think back then, the war elephant you chose was strong and brave, with thick and shiny ivory, and was extremely ferocious. But now it was stabbed by someone else..." Hearing what his younger brother said, Gang Xiao thought to himself, Haihan has so many leaders, But no one is willing to be a pioneer; there are so many people who eat, but only he, Gang Xiao, is willing to take the lead.So, burning with anger, he went out to confront the two lines.He bravely stabbed Shuangxian in the cheek with a spear, and then chopped off the opponent's head, winning a complete victory.From then on, Feng Gai made deliberate plans to put Gang Xiao to death.
Because of every fierce battle, Gang Xiao must come to the battlefield to command and personally participate in the fight.After a battle, he was exhausted, fell asleep, had some nightmares, woke up with an ominous premonition, and very sadly begged Haihan to support his son Gangheng after his death.Instead, Feng killed Gang Xiao, arranged for 3,000 warriors to surround him, and paid a lot of money to buy his head.Gang Xiao was outnumbered and made a heroic sacrifice.Gang Heng inherited his father's will, and after a fierce fight, he took back Gang Xiao's body.After winning the battle against Feng Gai, Haihan prayed to the gods and got an elixir to save Gang Xiao from life.Haihan plundered the wealth and beauties of Feng Gai with a crazier possessive desire.The epic describes the scene of Haihan soldiers rushing into the city of Mengjinghan in this way:
The army reformed by the pension reform has fewer and fewer soldiers as the war progresses.
Haihan's soldiers were busy robbing the elephant.
Some were trampled by elephants,
The brave warrior rides on the elephant,
To ridicule the trampled soldiers,
Laughter and crying spread everywhere.
Some people captured two or three elephants,
Some led a string of prisoners.
Weak soldiers stare blankly,
Watch others snatch the loot.
Wipe away tears while watching,
Call yourself incompetent and not decent.
Even a beauty like Nan Beng took advantage of the opportunity of the reform of the salary to flee and seized a large amount of gold and silver.When Hai rarely saw her, she was sitting on a pile of gold and silver.Haihan absconds after changing his salary, Haihan gives an order to Gang Heng to pursue him, and encourages Gang Heng to say that the victor can become an official, the hardworking can be the king, the lucky one can sit on the elephant, and the notoriety of ruining the family spreads thousands of miles.If Gang Heng can capture Fenggai alive, Haihan will grant him the most extensive land, give him an elephant, and let him choose from the wives and concubines that are full of houses.Give the most beautiful woman among them to Gang Heng as his wife.Sure enough, Haihan distributed the women and the war elephants together, and rewarded all the wives and concubines with their salaries as trophies to his subordinates.
This not only reproduced the cruel killing and seizure of the enemy and us at that time, even the soldiers on the same side were inhumane to each other, the strong took more, and the strong regarded the weak as incompetent.This shows that the idea of privateness has become irresistible to people.Realize the redistribution of property through war and create conditions for the establishment of private ownership.Primitive polygamy is not really condemned. On the one hand, Haihan is sad that Nanbeng was robbed, and on the other hand, he uses the distribution of female prisoners to boost morale.Even Nanbeng, a woman who is passionate about Haihan, said to the generals: "I want to ask the king of Haihan to choose the most beautiful girl and give it to you as a wife." The king mentioned here is actually still Belonging to the leaders of the period of military democracy, they have the right to life and death over their subordinates, can issue orders, implement the distribution of spoils, and so on.But they can't do everything arbitrarily. For example, if Haihan goes to war, he needs the consent of the ministers in advance;Another example is that Feng Gai fled to his sister. The brother-in-law was the king of a country, but his sister could not save his life.Because there were a lot of discussions in the palace, some agreed to change their salary to take refuge, and some were afraid that Haihan would call and the people would suffer.His sister had to cry bitterly and watched her brother being led out of the city by soldiers.
The epic does not completely criticize and deny Feng Gai. "Ben Gai" contains the meaning of "powerful" or "prestige", which affirms that he is brave and good at fighting, invincible and a real hero.After he was tied up, his sister persuaded him to bow his head to Haihan, begging Haihan to save his life and be Haihan's slave to raise horses and feed elephants.Unexpectedly, he didn't intend to save his life by begging for mercy.He still used a challenging tone to Haihan: "I'm not afraid of killing or beheading. I just ask you to kill me so that my face won't be hurt. My face will be kept for Nan Beng to kiss me. I just beg you to behead me." Don't cut off the neck, the neck should be left to E Binhu. If you want to chop off, you can only cut off the back, where fleas will itch and it is out of reach. Haihan, do it quickly and don't panic!" He was hanged dead.What a tragic scene!The lofty style is quite different from other poems of the Dai nationality which are famous for their gorgeousness.
This is the most heroic epic of the Dai people. It is full of praise for the martial spirit. It shows the heroism of the Dai people at the beginning of their rise and truly reflects the predatory nature of war at the beginning of the rise of private ownership. Its nature is very similar to that of the Greek Homer epic. resemblance.Although it also shows a certain degree of justice and injustice, that is, Haihan and Sanluo are both victims at first.Afterwards, the victims in turn intensify their predation.Really each other.Since what people admired most at that time was bravery and strength, there were no absolute positive images and absolute negative images in the epics in later works.
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