The discovery of ancient tombs will always subvert the history we originally believed in. A stone stele unearthed in Shaanxi is one such example. This seemingly unsurprising stone stele actually revealed the true face of Wei Chigong!
In this regard, some scholars said: This subverts the traditional cognition!
What kind of information is recorded in this stone tablet, and what kind of cognition is subverted, let us continue to look down!
First of all, let's talk about Wei Chigong as a person.
The legendary Wei Chi Jingde is like black charcoal, good at iron whips, riding a black horse, in the book "Journey to the West", Wei Chigong and Qin Qiong became two traditional Taoist door gods for protecting Tang Taizong Li Shimin from the ghost of the Dragon King. Nowadays, on some wooden doors that are old, you should still be able to see the portrait of Wei Chigong.
The historical Wei Chigong was a member of Li Shimin's side, and twenty-four people, including the eldest son Wuji, were painted as portraits and displayed in the Ling Yan Pavilion, and Wei Chi Jingde ranked seventh.
What is the understanding of Wei Chigong that has been subverted?
birth.
According to the Taiping Guangji, vol. 146, "Wei Chi Jingde", "There are wrought iron Wei Chi Jingde, Fang ZhiLu Peng's head, the second time the wrought iron ..."
Moreover, he also called himself "a certain iron man". Therefore, in many records of today's people, many believe that Wei Chi Jingde was born as a blacksmith. Therefore, the world believes that Wei Chi Jingde was a blacksmith when he was young, and later generations of blacksmiths often worship him as a guardian deity.
However, this has been questioned with the excavation of its tombstones!
The tomb of Wei Chi Jingde is located about 20 kilometers southeast of the Zhaoling Tomb in Liquan, Shaanxi Province, and about 18 kilometers northeast of the county seat in Yanxia New Village. It was one of the first excavations of the Zhaoling Funerary Tombs, and its excavation work was carried out on October 22, 1971.
Before its development, the tomb was completely destroyed by excavators, and its burial artifacts were mostly looted, but the stone doors and coffins and other stone carvings that remained were very exquisite. And, most importantly, two epitaphs have been unearthed. Among the two epitaphs unearthed, they are Wei Chi Jingde Zhi and Jing De's wife Su Shi Zhi.
Wei Chi Jingde's epitaph is crystal clear in color, its carving is meticulous, it is square, each side is 1.2 meters wide and 0.25 meters thick, which is the largest combination of epitaphs excavated from the excavation of Zhaoling Cemetery. Its Zhishi is surrounded by carved honeysuckle multi-branched lotus vine grass and portraits of twelve students, and the four sides of Zhi gai are carved with treasure phase patterns.
Zhi Gaiyin carved five lines of the Feibai Book, each line of five characters, the content is "the name of the tomb of the Former Situ of the Tang Dynasty and the Governor of the Prefecture of Shangzhu Guo Eguo Zhongwu Duke Chi Fujun". The inscription of his Zhishi is inscribed in yin, with a total of 50 lines of letters, each line has five crosses, a total of 2,218 characters. There is no name of the author or author. After its excavation, his epitaph was listed as a national first-class cultural relic and stored in the Zhaoling Museum in Shaanxi.
The contents of his epitaph reveal the origin of Wei Chigong.
On the epitaph of Wei Chi Jingde Nahe, the seal is engraved with the identity of his ancestors, namely the great-grandfather: Wei Chi Benzhen, who was the champion general of the Northern Wei Dynasty, who was enfeoffed with the Duke of Yuyang County, and later gave the military and youzhou assassins of the Six Prefectures, with the nickname "Mao". Grandfather: Wei Chi Mengdu, Li Shi Northern Qi and Northern Zhou, official to Jeju Assassin History. Father: Wei Chijia , who served as Yi Tong during the Sui Dynasty , and later gave him the title of Governor of Youzhou and Duke An of Changning.
From this point of view, before Wei Chi Jingde became an official, his family was already three generations of officials, and how could a person from such a family become a blacksmith?
Some people may think that Wei Chi Jingde may also have arrived at his generation, just happened to encounter the middle of the family road, Wei Chi Jingde was forced to go out to make a living by iron. Such a view is still refuted by the excavated epitaph.
In addition to Wei Chi Jingde's one-in-one, the excavated stone stele also has a one-in-one of his wife. In the "Epitaph of Su Bin, Lady of the Eguo", the three generations of Sumen recorded are also high-ranking officials. And when the two were married, Wei Chi Jingde was not yet well-known, so the two must be the right door, then whether Wei Chi Jingde was a blacksmith when he was a teenager, it is worth studying, it is likely that the history that we have always believed in is misinformed. It is no wonder that some scholars say that this subverts traditional cognition.
According to historical data, Wei Chigong's epitaph was written by Xu Jingzong, a famous calligrapher at that time. After Xu Jingzong wrote it, he would inevitably let Wei Chigong's family check it first, and if there was no problem, he would then hand it over to the imperial court for inspection. Therefore, its contents must not be wrong.
It is worth mentioning that on Wei Chi Jingde's epitaph, it is impressively written "Gong Zhen Rong, the word Jingde", that is to say, the tomb owner of the tomb is called Wei Chi Rong, the word Jingde, not Wei Chi Gong!
In this regard, some people may suspect that this may not be the tomb of the "Wei Chigong" that we are familiar with, but the tomb of "Wei Chirong".
But this was also refuted, and after Wei Chigong's death, he was buried near the Zhaoling Tomb, which is in line with historical facts. In addition, the content of the epitaph, there is a retrospective of the life of the tomb owner, which is obviously written "Wei Chigong", and its beginning reads, "The Tang Dynasty's former Kaifu Yi and the third division, the Eguo Gong Wei Chi Jun epitaph and order", the entire Tang Dynasty has only one Eguo Gong, that is, Wei Chigong!
Therefore, the name "Wei Chi Gong" is also considered to be misinformed, but the traditional understanding that Wei Chi Jingde was born into poverty is likely to be also misinformed.
What do you think about that?
References: Epitaph of Lady Su Bin of the State of Eguo, Journey to the West, Taiping Guangji