Chapter 12 The Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties and Romanticism

Romanticism in Europe was a product of the French Revolution.Strictly speaking, it is the trend of literature and art in the times, and we might as well sum up its spirit with the words "go to nature".At the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries, the European continent was deeply influenced by the religion and culture left over from the Middle Ages. It was out of date and suffocating.Romantic writers break away from the shackles of classicism, each find their own way out, and use their own emotions as the guiding line for their writing, chanting and depicting. Because of this, they all have a tendency to legendize and artisticize the world.

In 220 A.D., Cao Pi forced Emperor Xian of the Han Dynasty to take the Zen throne. In 589, Emperor Wen of Sui Dynasty destroyed Chen and reunified China. In history, they were collectively called the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties.Within these three and a half centuries, what can be called a unified time is only about 30 years.This is not an era when literati can find their own liberation, but the current situation is turbulent. Many people feel that the rules and circles learned through painstaking efforts in the past will be useless by then, so it is better to let go and seek the truth by yourself.Not only the characters at the time were like this, but also the authors of later generations pursued the legacy of the past, and also described the things at that time with a romantic color.This is evidenced by the poem "Nostalgia of Xisai Mountain" written by Liu Yuxi in the Tang Dynasty.Liu Shiyun:

This turned out to be the story of the temporary unification of China by the Jin Dynasty in 280 A.D. The background is that there were three pillars of Wei, Shu and Wu.Two years before Wei's death, Wei general Deng Ai marched in the mountains north of Chengdu, and attacked Shu by surprise, and Shu fell.Later, Cao Wei of the Jin Dynasty of the Sima family used Wang Jun as the prefect of Bajun, and later as the governor of Yizhou.What this person does all his life is inseparable from his "big and bold" mind and ambition.It took him seven years to build a ship in Sichuan, and when he was ready, Wang Jun was 70 years old.So the boats and rafts to attack Wu went down the river, which is really "flags and armor, belonging to Tianmanjiang".Lord Wu surrendered as long as he had nothing to do.

According to the records of "Book of Jin", Wang Jun's big ship "was a hundred and twenty paces wide, and received more than 2,000 people".We can also imagine that a ship plank with a width of 40 feet and a length of 75 feet can meet the above-mentioned area.But even if there are four layers of cabins, each cabin needs to carry more than 500 troops, which is too much.What's more, "with wood as the city, building towers and oars, opening four doors, all of them have to ride horses to and fro", is a bit unbelievable.It is also said in the book that the people of Wu used iron locks to cut across the critical point of the dangerous moraine in the river. Wang Junnai made a torch, which was more than ten feet long and dozens of circles in diameter. He poured sesame oil and burned it. So the boat is safe." These words are almost miraculous.We can neither refute nor prove it. We can only say that the author may have exaggerated in his writing, and its influence is far-reaching. From Liu Yuxi's poems, we can see that the color of romanticism exceeds the precision of chronicle.We cannot take this simple statement as a basis for the history of technology unless we have other sources to confirm it.

But the emergence of romanticism did not start at this time.Peking opera facial makeup Cao Cao, because the role in the play is a big villain, so the whole face is as white as paint on the wall, the eyes are as thin as silk, and the muscles between the cheeks are wrinkled, showing a dangerous atmosphere. The feeling that the world bears me".As for Guan Yu, because of his "righteousness as heavy as a mountain", the facial makeup is based on red, and other eyebrows and nose stems are drawn with black lines, radiating from the center to the four directions, showing a state of enthusiasm and irresistibility.The mole below may be a real photo.His long beard is also crimson red, matching the jujube bottom on his face, which symbolizes his vigorous blood.Lu Meng's facial make-up, the face is black and white, the structure on the pattern shows the hills and valleys in the chest, and it is also slightly mysterious, and the characters in the play are also called witty.

Putting these three characters together, there is also a passage: It turns out that Cao Cao is the Duke of Wei, opposing Shu Liu Bei and Wu Sun Quan.In the past, when Liu Bei was newly defeated, Sun Quan took him in and let him stay in Jingzhou temporarily to reject Duke Cao together. Only then did Chibi win.But once upon a time, Liu Bei not only occupied Jingxiang, but also expanded land in Western Shu, and Jingzhou only borrowed and did not repay, so Sun Quan always felt that he was above the Yangtze River, which was not good for him in the end. He took advantage of Liu Bei's planning in northern Sichuan, and only Guan Yu was in the southern county. Staying in the town, and when Guan's troops confronted Cao's soldiers, they sent an ultimatum to Cao Gong to ask Guan Yu to do his own thing.This military plan was executed by his subordinate Lu Meng.Sure enough, Lu Meng attacked Guan Yu at the end of 219 AD, making him fight on two fronts. After intercepting him, he beheaded him and reported it to Duke Cao.However, not long after Lu Meng performed his meritorious service, he fell ill and died before he was awarded the award.And Cao Gong also died not long ago, less than a month before and after Guan Yu was awarded the head.The next year, Cao Pi accepted Han Zen, and Liu Bei and Sun Quan got an excuse to follow suit and proclaim themselves emperors, so the situation of the Three Kingdoms was fully launched.

What does this have to do with Romanticism? The entire Three Kingdoms era was a period of ups and downs for heroes and romantic figures.Due to continuous wars and the loss of the emperor's prestige and prestige, many characters on the stage are no longer bound by morality, so they seek profit.They describe themselves as open-minded, generous and sincere, without any smell of corruption.Doing things is also fun.There are many strange things in it.For example, Zhuge Liang of Shu (equivalent to the modern chief of staff), his elder brother Zhuge Jinshi Wu, also achieved the position of commander-in-chief of the theater, and visited Shu Han as a special envoy.Another example is that Sun Quan married his younger sister to Liu Bei at the beginning, and later became enemies with Liu Bei.The record of these 60 years is "Three Kingdoms".Chen Shouzhi's original manuscripts are divided into "Wei Shu", "Shu Shu" and "Wu Shu".Because of the lack of a unified political center, the author does not have to accommodate the logic of a fixed bureaucracy.And this book was annotated by Pei Songzhi during the Southern and Northern Dynasties, which adopted many public and private works at that time, made up chapter by chapter and chapter by chapter, and put forward many corrections and doubts.Because there are various materials in it, there are often rumors that we are not easy to see in official history.Since the selection of materials is not entirely dominated by Confucianism, historians can have the opportunity to make them legendary and artistic.As far as we are concerned, on the contrary, we can get a special perspective to get a glimpse of the mystery of the operation of Chinese history.

Cao Cao in "Three Kingdoms" is not necessarily more treacherous than his contemporaries such as Liu Bei and Sun Quan.Moreover, he dares to speak and act, bold and forthright, and unruly romantic.For example, if he doesn't care about his family's childbirth, it's because his ambition is in the world, and he doesn't need to worry about food, clothing and savings.And his unrestrained unrestrainedness can be seen in the description of "everytime he talks with people, teases and chants, hides nothing and laughs joyously, so that his head is gone, and the food and meals are stained with towels".This can also be corroborated with his poem "Singing to wine, how much life is, like the dew in the morning, the past is full of bitterness".

"The Decree of Jihai in December of the Fifteenth Year of Jian'an" is actually an autobiography circulated by Cao Cao at home and abroad. It is said that he himself is a very special person, who has the ambition to "build a reputation" and does not want to be "an ordinary fool".But after participating in the campaign against Dong Zhuo, the facts forced him to conquer the east and the west, and his military power became bigger and bigger because of this.In Cao Cao's hope, he still wanted to preserve a complete central government, so although he went out to attack, he was repeatedly trapped in the position of fighting on the inside, and because he coerced the emperor to command the princes, he became the target of public criticism. The crisis of a false name but a real disaster".From these places we need not suspect that he is not outspoken.

The most attacked by orthodox people is the "Three Edicts of Wei and Wu".This order was issued by Cao Cao in 210, 214, and 217 A.D. as a prime minister, and it was mentioned that a person with character does not necessarily have talent, and a person with talent does not necessarily have character.Therefore, what he is looking for is not "practice" and "trustworthy". Even if he is "unkind and unfilial", as long as he has the "skills of governing the country and using soldiers", he will promote and hire them.Although this edict does not mean that everyone will do bad things, the problems affecting the end of the Han Dynasty are so great that traditional morality cannot solve them.

Cao Cao can stand out because of his informality and vision.However, although he clearly sees that traditional morality cannot save the mistakes of the day, he does not know that abandoning traditional morality may not necessarily save the mistakes of the day.As for whether he really said "If the destiny is my destiny, I will be King Wen of Zhou", we don't know, even if we believe that he once said so, his son Cao Pi is not really King Wu of Zhou, that is, the Wei Dynasty and the Han Dynasty can't really solve the problem , Just like the Jin Dynasty and Wei Dynasty, they still couldn't solve the problems of the day.That is to say, Wang Jun's drastic construction of buildings and ships galloping on it has not yet solved the problems of the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties.Just after Sima Yan unified China, ten years later there was the rebellion of Empress Jia and the rebellion of the Eight Kings, which caused the "five random chaos in China".Luoyang fell in 311 A.D., and Chang'an fell again in 317. The Eastern Jin Dynasty shifted to Anjiang Zuo, and it was replaced by Song, Qi, Liang and Chen in the Southern and Northern Dynasties.Northern "chieftains" such as Liu Yao, Shi Le, and Fu Jian could not solve the problem, and southern military leaders such as Huan Wen, Liu Yu and Xiao Daocheng still could not solve the problem.It now appears that a major problem was brewing in the 369 years after the fall of the Eastern Han Dynasty, involving the reorganization of the entire country from beginning to end. Not only was Cao Cao impossible to predict, but even historians such as Chen Shou and Pei Songzhi had not yet seen the full extent of the evolution. Let's go back to "Three Kingdoms": it is mentioned in the book that Lu Meng was originally a warrior, and Sun Quan only persuaded him to read, but he didn't read it. The old Confucianism is invincible", because his speech and knowledge are suddenly different from before.The proverb "After three days of farewell, you will be more impressed" comes from here.Only the narration of Guan Yu in this book is mixed with imagination and reality.This man's martial arts must be unique. For example, when he confronted Yan Liang, "Yu saw Liang Magai, rode his horse and stabbed him among the crowd, and beheaded him." The article did not mention the actions of the soldiers of the two sides and the confrontation. The terrain and distance are similar to luck, and if there is a divine gift.The fact that he didn't accept Cao Gong's good fortune and insisted on defecting to the former lord should be true, and also in line with his habits.However, the description of his hero's end in the book is not flattering.Guan Yunchang's understanding of his subordinates' inability to openly extend grace, his judgment of the enemy's situation, and his flank guards were all sloppy, swearing at others, lacking in diplomacy, and he did not know that he was in danger of being attacked on both sides. In the end, his troops had no fighting spirit and could not Since the battle was broken, he himself could only lead dozens of cavalry to flee, and he did not show the heroism of Zhan Yan Liangshi again.With such a record, it is published as a standard document, but the Chinese people still regard him as the god of war, and secret association groups are also enshrined as the leader, which is really puzzling. Western sociologists have established a concept of opposition between "big tradition" and "small tradition".They believe that the great tradition of a society has formal organization, structure and formalization, but it can only be adapted to high-level figures.Small traditions are more popular and suitable for the masses.It takes the essence of the great tradition, simplifies it and sometimes distorts it a little, as long as it doesn't go against the grain.Moreover, the communication between the two is also relative, and the small tradition can be absorbed by the big tradition after a certain number of beliefs and viewpoints have been condensed in daily life for a long time. The concept of loyalty and filial piety in China should be a great tradition as it was expounded in the Four Books and Five Classics. "Three Kingdoms" is one of the twenty-four histories, and it can be regarded as a part of this tradition.However, due to the divergence of materials and the collection of bizarre things, it is easy for novelists to cut and patch them into semi-creative popular books.In fact, it was also the basis of the Song and Yuan scripts, and later compiled by Luo Guanzhong during the Yuan and Ming Dynasties, it became "Popular Romance of the Three Kingdoms".Since it is called "popular romance", according to sociologists, it already belongs to the category of small traditions.So Zhou Yu screamed when he saw the apricot-yellow flag, Kong Ming sacrificed to the east wind, Sun Quan and Liu Bei cut stones into words, etc. More bizarre encounters are mixed with real people and facts to increase readers' interest.The method is to romanticize the letter history more.It is not for nothing that the English translation is titled Romance of the Three Kingdoms.In Peking Opera, the white face represents Cao Cao's insidiousness, the jujube red face represents Guan Yu's indelible loyalty, and the butterfly face represents Lu Meng's scheming, which also makes history legendary and artistic. The purpose of our discussion of these concepts today is not to pierce the futility of small traditions.The opposite "folklore" can also become history.China's monarchy system directly governs trillions of soldiers and civilians with the emperor and the mandate of heaven. The middle class is weak, the legal system is simple, the government is weak, and it is half supported by social forces.It can be seen that the effect of spiritual mobilization is undeniable.Whether it is a big tradition or a small tradition, the folk concept of loyalty and filial piety has actually been a powerful pillar supporting the great empires since the Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing Dynasties. This is not something that we who study history dare to ignore.However, Cao Cao and Guan Yu and their influence on the script and stage are only a side view of the history after the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties.Now I am dealing with the historical subject, dealing with the main causes of the long division after 220 AD.The predecessors got too close to the facts, and only saw a fragment of the evolution. Therefore, we still have to wait for us to experience a similar big change and see the horizon wide and deep before we can rearrange the data and conduct a thorough review.