Chapter 2 Section 1 The Two Earliest Place Names in the Legend

Regarding the formation process of place names, the famous historical geographer Hou Renzhi once wrote: "During the primitive commune period, people had to have a certain understanding of the area they lived in before they could live. At first, they had to know where to go. Fishing, where to hunt, where to gather fruits and tubers for food, etc. This is what is called the fishing and hunting age in history. Later, in the late Neolithic Age, with the germination of animal husbandry and agriculture, and Relatively settling down from a stay in a region requires them to be more familiar with the surrounding environment they live in. They not only need to know the distribution of water, the ups and downs of the terrain, etc., but also the characteristics of the climate and the characteristics of the place. The possibility of planting, they must not only be able to identify the direction, but also calculate the distance.” Here, although he did not mention the place name, he objectively described the process of the germination and production of the place name.

Accompanying the production activities of early humans, descriptive place names that describe geographical things in detail first appeared.It is difficult to find examples of descriptive place names in China, but they can still be seen abroad.For example, the transliteration of "Sahara" originally means "a wilderness scorched by the sun, with few plants and no life", which is a typical example of describing a place name.With the expansion of human production activities and the enrichment of production activities, a large number of such descriptive place names have gradually accumulated.The germination of early writing provided the possibility of using written records for those descriptive place names that could be expressed in language and stayed in words.However, due to the complexity of describing the structure of place names, it has caused certain difficulties in written records.This inevitably raises the objective requirement of simplifying descriptive place names to reflect the main features of geographical things.After a long period of development, simplified place names that are convenient for text annotations naturally appeared before and after the formal appearance of text.Simplified place names are recorded in extremely concise words, and generally only reflect one or two main features of specific geographical entities, that is, the combination of proper names and common names, such as "Banquan" and "Sishui".According to the calculation of the earliest two legendary place names in my country, "Zhuolu" and "Banquan", the simplified place names appeared about 4000 years ago.

During the period of patrilineal clan communes, plundering wars often occurred among tribes and among tribal alliances.Legend has it that the two tribal alliances of Huangdi and Yandi once fought in the field of Banquan. The reason was that Yandi invaded the princes and caused Huangdi's dissatisfaction.Chi You was an intruder from afar. He attacked the Yellow Emperor by force. As a result, the battle of Zhuolu also ended in failure. Zhuolu and Banquan can be said to be the two oldest place names left in the history of our country.Zhuolu County was established in the Han Dynasty. It is located in the ancient city southeast of Zhuolu County in Hebei today, and Banquan is located in the south of the ancient city.There are still remnants of the city wall in the ancient city. There is also a Chiyou spring in the west of Fanshan Town on the east side, which is parallel to Banquan. .To the north of the ancient city is Qiaoshan, which runs from east to west. It is the burial place of the legendary Yellow Emperor, also known as the so-called Huangling Mausoleum.Of course, the ancients were superstitious, thinking that the Yellow Emperor had ascended to the heaven, and only his relics were buried here, which the ancients called "clothes tomb".However, in the "Book of Han" written by the people of the Eastern Han Dynasty, Qiaoshan was recorded under Yangzhou County in Shangjun, saying that "Qiaoshan is in the south, and there is the Yellow Emperor's Tomb".The tomb is the tomb. Yangzhou County is located at the foot of Baiyu Mountain in the northwest of Zichang County in northern Shaanxi Province.During the Northern Wei Dynasty, Yangzhou County was established at the foot of Ziwu Mountain on the border between Shaanxi and Gansu. It was renamed Luochuan County in the Sui Dynasty, Zhenning County in the Tang Dynasty, and Zhengning County in the Qing Dynasty. County, the two counties are located on the foothills on both sides of Meridian Ridge.The "Pictures of Yuanhe County and County" written by the people of the Tang Dynasty said: "Ziwu Mountain is also called Qiaoshan Mountain, eighty miles east of (Zhenning) County, and the Mausoleum of the Yellow Emperor is on the mountain, which is the place where the officials are buried." In the geographical annals of the Qing Dynasty, Qiaoshan was placed under the central county and described in the "History of the Ming Dynasty", which said that "there is Qiaoshan in the north of the central part, also known as Ziwuling". "Drafts of Qing History" says: "Central part: City Bridge Mountain", and sacrificial activities are also held here. In 1776 (the 41st year of Qianlong in the Qing Dynasty), Bi Yuan, governor of Shaanxi, also erected a stone tablet of "Ancient Xuanyuan Yellow Emperor Bridge Mausoleum" here. In 1944, Zhongbu County was renamed Huangling County, and the two names of Qiaoshan and Huangling were settled later.

Some of the above descriptions are not for the purpose of verifying the real location of Huangling. At that time, it was still in the period of tribal alliance, and the country had not yet appeared, let alone the question of the capital.Sima Qian made it very clear in "Historical Records": "The Yellow Emperor lived on the hill of Xuanyuan, and lived in Zhuolu, and migrated to and from impermanent places." This should be the actual situation at that time. In addition, the ancients also said a lot about the ancient capital. For example, "Fuxi's capital was Chen (now Huaiyang, Henan), and later moved to Qufu (now Qufu City, Shandong), Zhuanxu [zhuanxu Zhuanxu] was the capital of Emperor Qiu (now Puyang City, Henan), and Yao's capital was Pingyang (near Linfen City, Shanxi). ), Shundu Puban (now Yongji West, Shanxi)", and so on.At that time, the slavery country had not yet been formally established, and the so-called capital city was just a statement by later scholars based on modern examples and ancient times, which is not based on evidence.

Therefore, the narrative in this section, in addition to introducing the two oldest place names that have been orally passed down, also mentions that some place names have been transferred in history, and there may even be multiple transfers. This is also an example of the complexity of place names.Therefore, when we come into contact with place names, we should also combine the spatial position change with the temporal passage, so as to avoid corruption.