Speaking of ancient times, I believe that what we are most familiar with is the chaotic world, just like the opening sentence of the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms": "The great events under the world will be united for a long time, and they will be divided for a long time." "The chaotic world produces heroes, this sentence is not bad at all, whether it is the chaotic world of the Three Kingdoms or the Sui and Tang Dynasties, we are familiar with it." We all know Guan Yu, Zhang Fei, Cao Cao, Liu Bei, Qin Qiong, these heroes of the chaotic world, we know that they are all because of their combat strength, Guan Yu is the most powerful of these people, the flooded Seventh Army shocked Huaxia; Qin Qiong's nickname Xiao Meng tasted and trusted the world with benevolence, righteousness, and wisdom.
When many people watch the TV series "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", I believe that everyone has noticed this detail, Liu Bei zi Xuande, Cao Cao zi Meng de, Guan Yu zi Yun Chang and other subtitles. During the Three Kingdoms period, they did not call each other by name, but by character, and Cao Cao and Liu Bei also called each other by words when they talked about heroes, so we know the words between them in addition to their names. At that time, friends were all referring to each other, and only when the opponent was angry would they shout their names.
So what was the "word" of the ancients used for? What does "word" mean? Is there any necessary connection between a name and a word?
The "Ceremonial Non-Commissioned Officers' Ceremony" records: "The crown and the word, respect its name." Self-effacing is called by name, and others are called by words. ”
This means that it takes words to show respect for the other person, and it takes a name to show humility to yourself. In addition, peers must be called words, and elders can call names or words, which indicate the elders' respect for each other. For example, in the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", even if Liu Bei and Cao Cao are each pregnant with a ghost fetus, they are also very annoying to each other in their hearts, but after meeting each other, they still call each other Xuande and Mengde.
Liu Bei and Lü Bu had the fierceness to seize the city, and after Lü Bu and Liu Bei met, they still called each other by XuanDe and Feng Xian. In the Three Kingdoms period, Sima Hui, the water mirror, could directly call several people by name, all because of his high moral standing. When Mr. ShuiJing saw Liu Bei, he called him Liu Bei Liu Xuande, and the generals Pang Tong and Xu Shu's generation all called him by name, Yingchuan Xu Shu and so on.
Although everyone has a word, but the word is definitely not random, and the word is also a time, age regulations, men in the twenties after the crown ceremony, and women are at the age of fifteen to give themselves a word, but not all women can give themselves a word, such as the Three Kingdoms period of the beautiful sable cicada, because the status is only a song Ji reason even though she has reached adulthood but people still call her sable cicada.
The word first appeared in the Shang Dynasty, especially in the Zhou Dynasty, the famous Confucian scholar Confucius's word is Zhongni, Confucius's word is not random, because he ranked second in the family, so it is called "Zhongni". In ancient times, there was a difference between Bo Zhongshu Ji, the founding emperor of the Western Han Dynasty, Liu Bang, before he was called emperor, he was still called Liu Ji, in layman's terms, we now say Zhang San and Li Si, but Liu Ji is called Liu San.
Words are obtained according to their own name and their own status, and the meaning of the name is about the same, complementing each other. Because the word indicates respect for each other, and the name complements each other, so until the early days of the founding of the country, many people will still have words, but after the Three Kingdoms, after the return of the world to the Jin Dynasty, only a very few people will call the characters such as the Sui and Tang Dynasty generals Qin Shubao and Wei Chi Jingde are all characters, Qin Shubao's name Is Qin Qiong Zi Shu Bao, Wei Chi Jing De's name Gong Zi Jing De.
In the Republic of China period, because the warlords in various places were constantly divided, many warlords were big bosses who had not read books, in order to make themselves more cultured, many people would give themselves a symbolic word to indicate that they were also cultural people, the famous northeast king Zhang Zuolin was called Yu Ting, and Zhang Zuolin was called a rain marshal among the top brass of the northeast army, and his brother Zhang Zuoxiang was called an auxiliary marshal. However, at that time, many warlords did not weigh words, and Zhang Zuolin was directly called Zhang Xiaozi in the air of Wu Peifu and others.
After the founding of the People's Republic of China, the development of new culture, so the previous word was cancelled, resulting in people now do not know the meaning of the word, in fact, the word does not matter what it means, just a respected title between the same generation, now directly called the name is actually very good.