Chapter 21 Dream Traveler·Qing Kui

If you want to tell the history of Qing Kui from the beginning, you have to mention the Ice Empire.The era before Emperor Xingzun unified Yunhuang and established the Kongsang Empire is called the past life, and the history of that stage mostly exists in the form of folklore.Luo Ji, a later Kongsang historian, studied the remaining ancient documents, collected scattered official and unofficial histories, and transcribed the libretto of bards, and sorted out an official ancient history of Yunhuang "Purana".Due to congenital deficiencies, the content of this ancient history is not comprehensive, and there are also contradictions.However, Luo Ji, the editor of the book, does not respect the rigor of history, but has the romantic temperament of a writer. He often fills in the omissions and omissions of history one by one through personal deduction and imagination.Therefore, the so-called "Purana" is just a literary re-creation in a sense.

But one thing is recognized by everyone - the records about Qing Kui in the "Purana" are relatively reliable.As the most powerful vassal state in ancient times, Qing Kui left a lot of historical materials for future generations, allowing historians such as Luo Ji to see the general context of that era.The Yunhuang Continent in the era of Emperor Xing Zun was in disintegration for most of the period, and only the alien race - the Ice Race, once established a unified empire twice.If the founding of Emperor Xingzun is the first year of Kongsang, then the first ice empire—that is, Ice Shemia—was established earlier than three thousand years ago and collapsed about two thousand years ago.The Second Ice Empire was relatively short-lived. It was established in 151 years ago and died under the sword of Emperor Xing Zun the year before.All the Ice Race people were caught up in a long and endless journey of exile.It was not until seven thousand years after the death of Emperor Xingzun that the Ice Clan had the opportunity to return to the mainland and establish the third ice empire, the Cangliu Empire.

The Ice Tribe is a mysterious nation. Their ancestors came from the other side of Tianque Mountain, and they claimed to be the family of Fengniao.In the era when the Yunhuang natives were still slash-and-burn farming, they received special protection from the gods in the sky and had a high degree of civilization.Therefore, the Ice Race quickly became the rulers of the Yunhuang Continent, condescendingly enslaving the other ethnic groups in the Yunhuang. However, all powerful empires cannot resist the fate of slowly declining.A thousand years later, the "Southern Barbarians" living in the Qingshui River Basin quietly grew stronger under the eyes of the Ice Emperor in Tianque Mountain, and the largest branch of them was called "Qing Kui". Most of the content of "Purana" is to tell the story of the era of the first ice empire's collapse, and that era was also the era of the rise of various ethnic groups in Yunhuang.

Later Kongsang historians unearthed some white tiles used for temples on the south bank of Qingshui in Goutong Town, Xifeng County, engraved with the totem of a one-legged dragon.They deduced that this was the legendary Qingkui capital—Yingdu.Qingshui raised Yunhuang's children. Xifeng County is fertile and the people are rich. It is the birthplace and center of Yunhuang's aboriginal farming culture.They rose up first, broke away from the protection of the Ice Empire, and established their own independent kingdom.They take the mother river as their clan name, they are called "Qing clan", and they worship "Kui" with the shape of the river as their totem.Their country is therefore called "Qing Kui".

At the beginning of the establishment of the Qingkui Kingdom, they were attacked by the Ice Empire countless times, and even faced the danger of annihilation, but they all survived it one by one.However, the division of the empire is already the general trend of history.After Qing Kui, a large number of small tribes declared independence one after another.The power of the Ice Empire was gradually weakening, until later it was completely unable to control the Qingshui Basin.The gods finally abandoned them, and they could only hide in Tianque Mountain, slowly finishing their dreams of prosperity and luxury.

After recruiting the king's son-in-law and Mrs. Xiang's husband—Eastern Emperor Wu Xiang to become the supreme ruler of Qing Kui through a coup, the Qing Kui Kingdom finally entered its heyday.King Wuxiang, the god of war who had never met in the ages, led the brave Qing cavalry all over the Qingshui River Basin, expanding Qingkui's territory five times in one fell swoop.In the 389th year of the Qingkui calendar, the history of the First Ice Empire was finally ended by Emperor Wu Xiang.At that time, Qingkui's land stretched from the Tianque Mountain Pass in the east to the Honglian Coast in the south, the Jinghu Lake in the west, and the foothills of Jiuyi Mountain in the north, covering half of the Yunhuang Continent.

However, such a powerful Qing Kui failed to replace the Ice Empire as the master of Yunhuang.Less than forty years after the death of King Wu Xiang, Qing Kui was divided into two for some mysterious reason, and the Qing people no longer had the ability to launch a unified war.Since then, the Yunhuang Continent has fallen into a period of nearly two thousand years of separatist regimes, known as the "Seven Kingdoms Era" in history.The seven countries are just general references. In fact, there are all kinds of countries, big and small, and the real number of them cannot be verified at all.

From a historical point of view, it is not a good thing that the separatist regime has not yet begun.Lacking the control of an iron-fisted empire, although wars continue to rage on the mainland, the vitality of freedom is always floating around.The circulation of products, the dissemination of technology, and the breeding of ideas developed rapidly in that era, like spring flowers blooming all over the earth overnight.The mutual influence and integration of various ethnic groups laid a good foundation for the unification of the Yunhuang native ethnic groups and the establishment of "Kongsang" in later generations.

Different from the iceberg-style arrogance of the Ice people, the Yunhuang local civilization represented by Qing Kui is as broad and gentle as water, full of worldly happiness and abundance, and appears full of vitality.This is also the reason why the later Kongsang Empire can last for seven thousand years.However, the Ice Race people were the earliest pioneers of the Yunhuang civilization after all.In any case, the cultures of Yunhuang and various ethnic groups in later generations will be deeply imprinted with the Ice Empire.Qing Kui's royal system, official system, and military system all follow the old system of the First Ice Empire. Astronomy and calendar, weights and measures, and even some folk customs are also learned from the Ice Tribe.The most obvious point is the belief in witchcraft and the worship of witches and witches.Not only Qing Kui, but other ethnic groups also followed the example of the Ice people, selecting descendants of noble blood and intelligent minds, making them live in isolation all their lives, learning witchcraft, serving the gods and acting as the representatives of the gods in the world.Wizards, witches, temples, priests, divination, celestial phenomena, spells... These things not only permeated the lives and thoughts of the people, but also established a very close relationship with the royal power.For thousands of years, "Witch" has been an inseparable cultural symbol of the entire Yunhuang.Because in the ignorant period of human beings, what can never be shaken off is the unreasonable fear of gods.It wasn't until the long road of thorns that one began to wonder what the word "witch" meant, and one tried to seek the true meaning of the world.

The source and flow of civilization is like running water, sometimes torrenting, sometimes muddy, sometimes converging, sometimes reversed, it may not be possible to find out where it comes from, and it is also impossible to determine where it will go.The abandoned Ice people, the fighting Qing people, the Bai people by the sea, the blue people who are merchants, the sharks on the sea, the winged people in the air... Who is the master of this land, and who is the origin of all the stories?Luo Ji, the great historian who smeared history, did not explain this. He only said: "Which race and legend is it, what does it matter? All flowing water will eventually flow into the boundless sea. "