Recently, the fantasy drama "Zhong Kui Catching Demons" starring Yang Xuwen, Yang Rong, Medina, Li Zifeng, etc. is being broadcast on iQiyi, and the demon-catching squad led by Zhong Kui has launched a fiery and bloody growth journey this summer.
If you talk about Zhong Kui, there are too many stories about him, but no one knows what he looks like, and the paintings with leopard head ring eyes and iron-faced sideburns that laid the foundation for Zhong Kui's original appearance are a brain opening from Tang Xuanzong and the painter Wu Daozi.
▲ Wu Daozi's painting
The story was recorded by a man called Duan Chengshi.
The magic of Wu Daozi's painting skills reached Tang Xuanzong's ears. Emperor Xuanzong of Tang summoned Wu Daozi to the palace, hired him as a court painter, conferred the title of "Doctor of Internal Education", and changed his name to Wu Daozi, called "Wu Daoxuan", and in this way, the emperor "monopolized" Wu Daozi and became his agent. Tang Xuanzong went out to play in the mountains and rivers, and also took Wu Daozi with him and painted the mountains and rivers along the way. At that time, most of the temple murals in Chang'an were painted by him. Duan Chengshi recorded in the "Jingluo Temple Pagoda Record" that Wu Daozi's painting of the Bodhisattva of Qianfu Temple was "now Wu Sheng"—meaning that the bodhisattvas painted by Wu Daozi were all similar to himself.
▲ The image of Zhong Kui is "brain supplement" by Tang Xuanzong
Once, when Tang Xuanzong returned to the palace from Lishan Mountain, he was suffering from malaria, and the imperial treatment lasted for more than a month, but he did not see any improvement. One night, Xuanzong had a dream, dreaming that two ghosts, one small and one big, had entered the palace one after another, and the little ghost made trouble, but the big ghost caught the little ghost and swallowed it. The great ghost told Xuanzong that he was a student zhong kui who failed the examination many times, because he did not look good and was not admitted to the shame and death, thanking the emperor for burying him with a blue robe at that time, and now vowed to eliminate the evils of the world for the Tang Dynasty.
After Xuanzong woke up, he suddenly felt refreshed and his illness was better. He quickly found Wu Daozi and asked him to paint Zhong Kui, and Wu Daozi painted a "Portrait of Zhong Kui", in which although the face of the person was ugly, but the righteousness was awe-inspiring, Xuanzong Longyan was very happy, and ordered the painter to use the "Portrait of Zhong Kui" as a template, carved a large number of copies, and spread it to the world. After that, at the end of the year, everyone posted this painting on the door to drive away ghosts and avoid evil spirits.
▲ The "Six Statues of the Venerables" painted by Lu Lengjia in the Tang Dynasty
Duan Chengshi also recorded a strange incident of Wu Daozi. Wu Daozi had a student named Lu Lengjia, who was also a famous painter at that time, he once painted a statue of a god on the three doors of the temple, and half of the painting was greatly appreciated by Wu Daozi, but he regrettably said that although Lu Lengjia painted well, he was too hard, and it was inevitable that he would fall into the fire, which was probably not a good thing. Sure enough, as soon as Lu Leng finished painting the idol, he died.
▲ Wu Daozi's "Sending Son Heavenly King Diagram" partial map
Duan Chengshi's "Youyang Miscellaneous Tricks" also revealed that Wu Daozi "bought murders" - a new hall was built in the Bodhisattva Temple of Pingkangfang in Chang'an, the east and south walls were empty, and King Ning (Tang Xuanzong's brother) asked Wu Daozi to paint the east wall, and let the rookie Emperor Fu of the painting world at that time paint the south wall, as if it were a ring. Wu Daozi felt that Huang Fuyun's painting potential was extraordinary, and his painting skills would definitely surpass his own, so he decided to be strong first and spend money to hire someone to kill Huang Fuyi.
Duan Chengshi's "Youyang Miscellaneous Tricks" is a huge encyclopedia, recording many strange things without heads and tails, such as: peacocks will become pregnant when they hear thunder; dragon's blood will become amber when it falls into the ground; Pear (glass) is a thousand years of ice, agate is the blood of ghosts; there is a bird called a chick, and scholars speak more like parrots. Take its eyeballs, grind them with human milk, drip them into your eyes, and you can see the smoke outside the nine clouds...
▲ The flying head in "Unitary Yang Miscellaneous Tricks" is also popular in Japanese legends
It looks like this Tang Dynasty version of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, but the content is getting more and more bizarre:
The tiger with night vision shines at one eye and sees things at the other. The hunter waits for an opportunity to shoot an arrow, and when he digs two feet into the ground on the dark night of the moon, he can get a stone (amber), which is condensed by the tiger's gaze falling to the ground, which can cure children's night terrors.
Golden Bird, from Kunming Country. Shaped like a finch, yellow in color, it often soars over the sea. During the reign of Emperor Ming of Wei, his country came to offer this bird. Fed its pearls and turtle brains, it will spit out corn-like gold chips.
In the grottoes of the ancient bank of Jingshan Xixi in Wulao County, there is a square mirror with a diameter of more than one zhang, which can reflect the internal organs of people, and the Qin Emperor's world name is the bone treasure mirror... Is this an X-ray lens that travels back in time to antiquity?
Continue to read, there is a story that makes people sweat coldly: during the Tang Dynasty and the Tang Dynasty, a pair of good friends traveled to Song Mountain, because the vegetation was luxuriant and it was late, the brothers did not feel lost. At this time there was a snoring sound in the grass, and the two men looked away from the branches and saw that one person was sleeping in the bush wearing a very white cloth and a bag. The brothers went up and asked for directions, and after asking a few times, the man sat up and said, "Come here." So the two brothers approached and asked where the man had come from.
The man in white laughed and said, "Do you know that the moon is made of shippo?" The moon is actually a ball! Bright places are revealed by the sun shining on the bumps of the moon. There are 82,000 craftsmen in charge of repairing and maintaining it, and I am one of them. ”
That's a lot of thought. The surface of the moon is uneven, the moon itself does not emit light, and the moonlight is a reflection of daylight, we all know this knowledge. However, this was observed by Galileo Galileo, an Italian in the 17th century, with astronomical telescopes. However, this strange book is a work of the late Tang Dynasty, written more than 1100 years ago.
Who is the author?
▲ Duan Chengshi ancestor Duan Zhixuan statue
Duan Chengshi (段成式), courtesy name Kegu, was a Tang Dynasty naturalist, literary scholar, and half-hanging official.
Duan Chengshi was born into an aristocratic family, his ancestors were Duan Zhixuan, the founding minister of the Tang Dynasty, and his maternal grandfather Wu Yuanheng and his father Duan Wenchang were all officials to the prime minister, and they were proper officials. This Duan Gongzi relied on his father's backstage hardness, and without going through the imperial examination, he entered the secretary province as a civilian official, successively serving as a school secretary lang, a shang shu lang, a jizhou thorn history, a taichang shaoqing, and a jiangzhou thorn history...
▲ Late Tang Dynasty poet Zhou Xuan
Zhou Xuan, a contemporary of Duan Chengshi, once wrote a poem called "Mocking Duan Chengshi". Write about the prince of the prime minister's family, how not to do the right thing, play with his eyes open, like keju, wine, food, eagle hunting... When talking to people, Duan Chengshi always tilts his head sideways to avoid the breath of others, he also likes to dress neatly and beautifully, with his own modesty and cleanliness, born a maverick punk, a strange thing among ancient literati.
Since he was a child, he has been knowledgeable and memorable, never forgets, likes to collect books, especially loves all kinds of gossip anecdotes and strange things, when he was a child, he entered Shu with his father and the experience of being an official everywhere after he became an adult gave him the opportunity to hear and hear; he was a secretary and a provincial school scribe when he was an official in Chang'an, and he could enter and exit the royal library at will to consult orphan books. These experiences were destined to make him extraordinary: he did not become a great politician and literati, but a lifelong devotee to royal secrets and folk curiosities.
▲ The handwriting of the paragraph program
Duan Chengshi spent his life and wrote a Tang Dynasty version of "Ghost Blowing Lights", which is a collection of notebook novels that are full of ghosts and ghosts, which are full of some strange and inexplicable stories.
Li Yunhu, a famous literary editor and great bookseller of the Ming Dynasty, loved this strange book very much, and he enthusiastically recommended it on the waist seal: "To make the reader suddenly understand, suddenly rush, suddenly look at the strings, stunned and can not be forbidden..." Wu Cheng'en of the Ming Dynasty was also greatly influenced, and when writing "Journey to the West", those demons, ghosts, and ghosts were all borrowed from the routines of Duan Chengshi's pen; as for Pu Songling's "Liaozhai Zhiyi" of the Qing Dynasty, it was completely the inheritance and development of this style. In modern times, Lu Xun has highly praised the book in his "Outline of the History of Chinese Novels", and Zhou Zuoren has made no secret of his love: "In the past, when I read the Ministry of Speaking, I loved Duan Kegu the most. ”
It can be seen that the literati of all dynasties have sealed and certified that since the birth of the late Tang Dynasty, this book is actually the king of ancient Chinese Zhiwei horror notes novels.
If Duan Chengshi lived today, as a fantasy horror novelist, he would definitely be a popular Internet celebrity writer in the literary world.
▲ The pen and ink that Duan Chengshi wrote down in his hands during eating, drinking and having fun became the first-hand information for future generations of research
This "Tang Dynasty Wonderful Story", officially called "Youyang Miscellaneous Tricks".
"Unitary Yang" refers to the sun of the Unitary Mountain, since the Qin Dynasty has been a place to avoid disasters and hide books, according to legend, there are stone caves under the mountain, with thousands of books in it, which is said to make "every independent and rich soul have a place to live", but no one knows the exact location.
"Youyang Miscellaneous Tricks" as the title of the book, with miscellaneous births, well-known, various, all-encompassing, foreign sprinkling, almost everything, everything, according to the author's self-prologue, this book belongs to the Zhiwei novel, but in terms of content, far beyond the theme of Zhiwei, is an encyclopedic literary work, but more than "Liaozhai" a bit of ghostly, than "Reading Wei" also added a touch of charm, there are many celebrity gossip, such as "Colliers for Li Bai to take off his boots", "Wang Bo wrote articles in the belly of the draft" This kind of literary gossip that everyone likes to hear is the first thing he disclosed.
"Youyang Miscellaneous Tricks" "Volume VIII", a special section "黥", dedicated to the popular tattoos of people in society at that time.
There is a man named Ge Qing on the streets of Jingzhou, who is Bai Juyi's number one brain residue fan, how much does he love Bai Juyi? "From the neck down to the thorns white Ju Yi Sheren poems." Where there are more than thirty engravings, the first body has no skin. "There's even a picture.
Ge Qing was very familiar with the verses on his body, Duan Chengshi had witnessed and tested it with his own eyes, asking where the sentence "Not this flower prefers chrysanthemums" is, Ge Qing took off his shirt, and the backhand finger was somewhere on the back; and then asked where "Yellow Clip Valerian Forest Cold Has Leaves" where, Ge Qing pointed again, and sure enough, it was correct. He usually runs around the street bare-chested when he is idle, and uses his flesh to call Aidou. At that time, people called him "Bai She's Walking Poems"—a collection of bai juyi poems that walked.
▲ The street jailer Ge Qing stabbed Bai Juyi's poem all over his body
There are many animals and plants that only exist in magic movies in "Youyang Miscellaneous Tricks": in the "Different Things", in the kunwu land salt week for more than ten miles, in the waterless depression, a kind of salt will be produced, and the full moon will be like snow, sweet; the moon loss is like thin frost, bitter taste; the end of the moon is complete. In the "Grass Chapter", there is also a kind of Wangshu grass from the Fuzhi Country: the grass is red, the leaves are like lotus leaves, the moonrise is shu, and the moon is not rolled.
The taste of salt changes with the profit and loss of the moon, and the mood of the grass depends on the moonlight.
In addition, Duan Chengshi also mentioned melons with evil aromas, immortal dates that are "five inches long and as thin as needles", dancing grasses that people can dance with when they sing, mustard in the palm that can grow by blowing breath on seeds, and ginseng fruits that grow on trees and resemble human faces. ”
Duan Chengshi pointed out more seriously that the rabbit has 9 holes in the butt, which is the so-called "Jiri nine tricks". Each of the nine holes has its own uses: one for mating, one for production, one for lice removal, one for digging caves, one for defending against accidental attackers, one for souls to enter and exit, and one for secreting sour mucus. There are also two for excretion, one for daytime and one for night.
Such a statement is simply amazing, but Duan Chengshi will undoubtedly add a sentence at the end of the sentence "Chengshi sees it with his own eyes"...
If you're interested in strange forces and chaos, "Youyang Miscellaneous Tricks" is a cool collection of summer days that can't be missed.
There is a terrible consequence of forcibly pampering his sister: Jiang Chugong often goes to the Meditation Temple to play, holds a large banquet, and at one dinner table there is a geji who looks very beautiful, does not listen to the advice, but he can't see her hand, and some guests joke: "Is it six fingers?" "I forcibly pulled her, and as soon as the girl pulled it, she fell down and became a dead bone."
There is a reminder that we should never stretch our limbs out of the bed when sleeping: during the Tang Dynasty Zong Yongtai period, Yangzhou Xiaogan had a Xiucai surnamed Wang Xiucai, who was very highly educated, that is, there was a shortcoming, good drinking and greedy cups. On this day, Wang Xiucai was drunk and returned late, and went to bed to sleep, but on the ground next to the bed, suddenly. Stretching out a miserable white hand and insisting on pulling him to the ground, Xiucai's wife was shocked to see this, and she grabbed Wang Sheng's arm while calling for help from the family's servants. The strength of two people, greater than the strength of the hand outstretched in the field, Wang Sheng was saved, the next day, Wang Sheng woke up drunk, heard about last night's events, scared out of a cold sweat, he cut open the ground inside the house, in the ground, found a body hundreds of years old dry bone, dry bone in the other hand, holding a wine glass. Wang Xiucai was frightened by this "ghost" asking for wine, and from then on he quit drinking, and later zhongju, and also made several county orders.
The vast details of life in the Tang Dynasty are all overlapped and integrated in "Youyang Miscellaneous Tricks".
Duan Chengshi likes flowers, birds, fish and insects, in order to verify the introduction time of peonies, he went through the seventy volumes of the Sui Dynasty's "Planting Law" and concluded: "Zhi Sui Dynasty anthers are not (peony)", and the cultivation of peony began in the Tang Dynasty.
He also recorded that the country of Pullali bought and sold women, "whose women were white and upright, and the people of the country plundered and sold themselves to foreign merchants, and their prices were several times higher." The country of The Baali is today's Berbera, Somalia, where the Arabs were doing business.
▲ The Ezo people living in the Kuril Islands
In the book "Nogao", an article writes about a "long-bearded country", telling that there were Tang people who returned to China with Silla envoys, encountered strong winds and accidentally went to an island in the East China Sea (the name is Fusangzhou), all of them were long-bearded people, asking the Tang envoys for help, and they turned out to be "shrimp".
What looks like an absurd and bizarre story is actually an artistic imagination of the ancient Ezo people. Historically, the Ezo people were the Ainu people of present-day Hokkaido, and Ezo got its name from the fact that they had long hair, like shrimp whiskers. Obviously, this story is not just a casual fabrication.
▲ "Cinderella" leaf limited to try shoes
In the big data of the Tang Dynasty compiled by Duan Chengshi, we also found that the story of Cinderella actually existed in the fifth sui and Tang dynasties, more than 800 years before the French literary scholar Charles Perot's 1697 rewriting of Cinderella based on folklore.
The Cinderella in the story is named Ye Zhi, who grew up in a remote tribe in Lingnan, this wonderful note novel is only 624 words, and like "Grimm's Fairy Tales", there are orphan girls, there are stepmothers, there are kings... There were even beautiful shoes that were left behind, which later became the only evidence to confirm the identity of the heroine.
In the dark night of a thousand years ago, how did the ancients pass the time? Some people travel by candlelight, some people sing and feast at night, and some people tell secret stories to themselves, such as Duan Chengshi, which allows us to see another Tang Dynasty in addition to the gorgeous, magnificent and clear.
Image source "Weekend" newspaper 2018 Issue 7/19