Listening to the tune and not listening to the xuan is a very common saying in the traditional yanyi novel, in addition to the relationship between the Erlang god and the heavenly court, the relationship between Luo Yi and the Sui Dynasty in the Sui and Tang dynasties is also like this, all of which are listening to the tune and not listening to the xuan.
What does it mean to listen to the tune and not listen to the proclamation? First, look at the relationship between the Sui and Tang Dynasties and the Sui Dynasty. According to the explanation in the book, Luo Yi was Qin Qiong's uncle and an old general of the former dynasty, and he had to surrender to the Sui Dynasty when the general trend of the former dynasty had already gone, on the condition that he did not listen to the announcement. In fact, in the process of overthrowing the old dynasty in each new dynasty, in order to quickly overthrow the old dynasty, a large number of former generals will be accepted, and they will be given treatment similar to Luo Yi, that is, listening to the tune and not listening to the announcement, allowing you to keep your own army, your own territory, as long as you do not participate in activities against the central government of the imperial court, other things can be independent on your own territory.
That is to say, listening to the tune and not listening to the announcement generally means that a certain degree of independence is maintained relative to the imperial court. For example, Luo Yi, the imperial court could mobilize Luo Yi to participate in military operations if necessary, but could not summon him to the Hajj to meet the emperor, because this may mean that he was exploited of his original power, which broke the original promise. If the imperial court forcibly ordered him to enter the dynasty, it would be equivalent to sending him a clear signal to cut the domain, which would lead them to take a desperate risk and directly rebel against the imperial court.
This was actually a problem that every dynasty faced at the beginning of the period, that is, in the war of the founding period, in order to overthrow the main opponent, the temporary allies who were constantly drawn over with various promised conditions were constantly drawn over. For example, at the founding of the Han Dynasty, Yingbu, Peng Yue, Han Wangxin, Zhang Er, and Zang Di, the King of Yan, were all of this type. Because for Han Gaozu at that time, the main task was to overthrow Xiang Yu, so these people joined Liu Bang's camp, not liu bang really wanted them to fight Xiang Yu together, but to give the minimum requirements, that is, as long as they did not participate in the Xiang Yu camp, send troops to help Xiang Yu fight Liu Bang.
There are also San Fan in the early Qing Dynasty, as well as Ming generals such as Jiang Jun in Datong, and the relationship with the Qing Dynasty is similar to this relationship. They all have their own territory, and they are completely autonomous in their own territory, equivalent to a country within a country. They were still useful when the Qing Dynasty had not yet completely pacified the whole country, so they would not be moved. When the birds are hidden and the rabbits and dogs are cooked, there will be no other important enemies, and they will become the opponents of the imperial court to strengthen the centralization of power. Therefore, when Kangxi explicitly asked San Francisco to enter the dynasty, for Wu Sangui and others in San Francisco, this was a very clear signal to cut the domain, or their status was reduced to the same as other local officials in the Qing Dynasty, which meant completely losing their previous semi-independence from the imperial court, and if they did not accept this demand, they could only rebel.
After the Anshi Rebellion, the Tang Dynasty and the Fanzhen in North China also had this relationship, each Fanzhen was semi-independent, nominally subordinate to the Tang Dynasty Central Committee, but in fact semi-independent, military, financial, personnel, and administrative were all decided by the Fanzhen itself, and the imperial court was powerless to intervene. If necessary, the imperial court could issue an edict requiring some clan towns to participate in the military conquests of the imperial court, such as mobilizing several clan towns to deal with a thorn head clan town, but it could not easily require the clan marshals of these clan towns to enter the central government, and if there was such a request, it would provoke a rebellion directly against the imperial court. Of course, there are also some clan commanders who are untenable in their own territory and will take the initiative to request to enter the central government and give up their independence.
The relationship between Erlang Shen and the Jade Emperor of the Heavenly Court was like this, he was nominally obedient to the Jade Emperor, but in fact he only had to do so without openly opposing the Jade Emperor. The reason why he had this treatment meant that he had opposed the Jade Emperor, had a head-on conflict, and finally reached a compromise situation between the two sides under the condition that the Jade Emperor's Heavenly Court could not completely suppress him, making Erlang Shen a political special zone in the Heavenly Court. It can be said that nominally the Erlang God and the Heavenly Court are monarchs and subjects, but in essence they are allies. When the court encountered troubles that could not be solved, he could recruit Erlang Shen to participate in the battle, but he could not let others command him.
Therefore, after the birth of Sun Wukong, the suppression of the Heavenly Court was gradually escalated. First sent a relatively low-level general to suppress, the suppression failed, and then sent the great general of the Heavenly Court, Li Jing, the King of Tota, to fight, Li Jing led 100,000 Heavenly Soldiers and Nezha to go to the conquest, or was defeated by Sun Wukong, the Jade Emperor was forced to be helpless, and could only let Taibai Venus go to ask Erlang Shen to participate in the battle and fight Sun Wukong. This is also the difference between erlang god and Nezha, who is a general of the heavenly court and must obey the orders of the Jade Emperor, and also listen to the command of Li Jing, who is the commander of the expedition, but the erlang god is not completely subordinate to the heavenly court, and Li Jing cannot command it. Erlang Shen completely went it alone, single-handedly going head-to-head with Sun Wukong.
And when the Erlang God couldn't figure out Sun Wukong, the Jade Emperor could only send someone to invite the Buddha of Rulai, who had no subordinate relationship with him at all, which was to ask for foreign aid. If, for example, it is equivalent to the time of the War of Resistance, first of all, the Nationalist army resisted the Japanese army, the Central Army could not resist, and then the local troops participated in the war, and the local troops were not yet able to do it, that is, the Eighth Route Army, it was not enough, then it could only ask the Soviet Union and the United States for support. The erlang god to the heavenly court is equivalent to the relationship between local warlords and the national government during the Republic of China. The National Government may mobilize local troops to resist Japan, but it cannot directly interfere in their local administrative affairs. The erlang god was the same, the Heavenly Court could mobilize him to fight Nezha and beat Sun Wukong, but he could not be required to come to the Heavenly Garden to attend the imperial council presided over by the Jade Emperor.
Therefore, this political order of the heavenly court is actually the same as the structure of the political order of the earthly world. As a multi-ethnic unified country with a wide range of people, China is bound to be complex in politics, containing a variety of political orders, and there are both overlaps and subtle differences between them, which are not only the needs of realpolitik, but also the political experience accumulated in the long-term historical process. And each type of political order is formed and stabilized after the struggle and compromise of various forces. The relationship between the Erlang God and the Heavenly Court is a compromise plan formed after experiencing the struggle, but when dealing with sun wukong's problem, the heavenly court has played a lot of small tricks, that is, taking advantage of Sun Wukong's lack of understanding of the political order of the heavenly court, in fact, taking advantage of information asymmetry.
Sun Wukong's request for the status of Qi Tian Dasheng should actually be the same as that of the Erlang God, who listened to the tune and did not listen to the announcement, but the Heavenly Court gave him a false name and sent him to be Bow Ma Wen and guard the Peach Orchard, which was a political deception of Sun Wukong. It is also because of this political deception that Sun Wukong's self-positioning is wrong, he did not find his own position, he thought that he was like other barefoot immortals, and the Heavenly Court was an equal relationship, but it turned out that he was only a middle- and lower-level official of the Heavenly Court, which led him to rebel again. If the Heavenly Court had not invited the Buddha to help suppress it, then after Sun Wukong's struggle with the Heavenly Court, it would have been possible to refer to the treatment of the Erlang God and form a similar pattern of listening to the tune and not listening to the announcement.