Datang is not an agricultural culture, and his flesh and bones are nomadic style.
It should be regarded as an exodus of Chinese culture, far from the orthodox and simple agricultural ethics.
The so-called agricultural ethics is to consider oneself on the basis of the collective, and to be a part of society. The nomadic ethic, on the other hand, places oneself in the universe and excludes the interference of social relations.
Agricultural society is to put the seed into the soil, waiting for him to sprout, as long as it is an agricultural personality, it must be a stable personality, stable at the same time may be conservative, it may also be closed, will make people have so many things can not be cut. ——Jiang Xun
01. The Hu-Han coalition regime that does not change the soup and does not change the medicine
The cornerstones of the Tang Dynasty came from the Guanlong regime, from the Western Wei, from Xianbei, from the Xiongnu.
In the third year of the Northern Wei Dynasty (Xianbei regime) Yongxi, Emperor Xiaowu Yuanxiu broke away from Gao Huan, fled from Luoyang to Chang'an, and defected to the Northern Wei general Yuwen Tai, a Xiongnu who was humbled. The following year, Yuwen Tai killed Emperor Xiaowu and made Yuan Baoju emperor, known in history as Western Wei, and the power was actually controlled by Yuwen Tai.
The core members of the Yuwentai Guanlong clique were born and died with Yuwen Tai in the Eight Pillar Kingdom, the Twelve Generals, and li Yuan's grandfather Li Hu in the Eight Pillar Kingdom.
Later, the Tang Dynasty was established by the Sui Dynasty, and it was only an internal change of power. Emperor Wen of Sui was the uncle of Li Yuan, the Emperor of Sui, Yang Guang, was the cousin of Emperor Taizong of Tang, and the daughter of Emperor Sui was Li Shimin's concubine. The Sui Emperor was the maternal grandfather of Li Shimin's son.
The Sui and Tang dynasties were integrated, and the emperors took turns to do it.
But it was still the Guanlong regime that was established, a political bloc united by Hu and Han.
This has had a decisive impact on the integration, openness and inclusiveness of the entire Datang.
After the disintegration of the unified Han Dynasty, the Han nation experienced the turmoil of the Three Kingdoms, the Wei and Jin Dynasties, and the Southern and Northern Dynasties. Coupled with the invasion of Wuhu Chaohua, the Han people were miserable.
The invasion mentioned here is not only a military invasion, but also a cultural invasion.
The nomads brought their culture to the Central Plains, and these were finally wrapped in the culture of the Tang Dynasty and became a beautiful sign.
However, these were a great harm to the Han people in the Central Plains, who had long been influenced by Confucianism and strictly adhered to the Confucian etiquette system in their lives, and the establishment of the Tang Dynasty was a great betrayal of the Ethics of the Han People.
02, the background of life is free and open
Throughout the history of the Chinese nation, you have never seen an era that indulged women as much as the Tang Dynasty.
For the first time, they were pulled to a level of equality close to men.
In terms of dress, it is best reflected that women in the Tang Dynasty were very open, and the Tang Dynasty noblewomen who first prevailed in the middle of the Dynasty and then spread to the people often used military clothes and men's clothing as beauty. The phenomenon of women wearing men's clothing is a typical example. Women's dress as men was extremely rare in China's long-term feudal society, and the "Li Ji Nei Ze" stipulated that "men and women do not wear clothes", and women wearing men's clothing is regarded as not observing women's morality. I am afraid that it was the appearance of the "Mulan Poem" of the Northern Dynasty that made the woman appear in the long river of history for the first time with a frank and brave image.
The second dress feature is that the aristocratic women of the Tang Dynasty still like to wear revealing shapes, and the degree of their tops and chests has reached a surprising degree, so later in the TV series "Wu Zetian" will be full of screens and large waves of women, which is very in line with historical facts.
In the Tang Dynasty, there were two extremes in women's dress, one went to men's clothing with handsomeness, and the other went to the form of dew with freedom. Even today, we would call it a fancy dress and avoid it. However, in the Tang Dynasty, our ancestors gladly accepted all this with an open attitude. Therefore, we say that now is the most open era, in fact, there is still something wrong, we are still a little stubborn.
The second point is the enhancement of women's rights, the Tang Law stipulates: "If the husband and wife do not reconcile with each other and are separated, do not sit." "Legally affirms the legality of divorce due to marital discord. This open social trend can be seen only from the popular remarriage of princesses in the Tang Dynasty. Princess Tang remarried 23 people. In the Han culture that abided by Confucian ethics and morality, divorce was unimaginable, while in the Tang Dynasty, everything was understated and conformed to the normal needs of human nature.
The third is to receive and maintain marriage, which is the most obvious part of the Hu customs in the life of the Tang Dynasty. The so-called "receiving maintenance marriage" means that after the death of the elderly in the family (father, brother, uncle, uncle), the children and nephews can take their stepmothers, sisters-in-law and uncles as wives and concubines. This was rare in Han customs, but it was very common in the Tang Dynasty, where Emperor Gaozong made his father Emperor Taizong's talent, Wu Zetian, a noble concubine, and Emperor Xuanzong made his wife Yang Yuhuan a noble concubine. We still talk about this in a tone of ridicule to this day, but the ethics of the Tang Dynasty are very different from most dynasties.
Therefore, when the Song Dynasty people talked about the Tang Dynasty, they often used the words "filthy Spring Palace" and "fornication", which were all results obtained from the agricultural ethics. In the final analysis, it is the two dynasties that have different ethical concepts.
Today, we will also look down on some of the ethical habits of other peoples, and the ideas of a new generation of children, but we may think about whether our stubborn ethical concepts have bound a freer, more open world.
03, the characteristics of the times are loneliness and conceit
It is difficult for us to understand the ethics of the Tang Dynasty now, there are few mentions in the history books, and the murals show the bits and pieces, but in the Tang poems that are the most life-like and have been handed down to this day, we see a whole nomadic ethics coming out of the poems, it is a pastoral pastoral, it is a sea of stars.
The openness of the Tang Dynasty and the lively freedom of life just violate the Han agricultural ethics that we are familiar with. The Han Dynasty is "hard to add meals", "line and heavy line", is "long kneeling to read vegetarian books" "drinking horse Great Wall Cave Line", very characteristics of agricultural society, but the Tang Dynasty has a kind of nomadic magnificence, nomadic songs and dances are very strong, they pursue the pleasure of the senses.
If Li Bai lived in agricultural ethics, he would undoubtedly die. Wu Zetian will undoubtedly die.
If I were to use a poem to describe the spiritual world of the Tang Dynasty, I would definitely use Chen Ziang's "I don't see the ancients before, and I don't see the comers after me." ”
How much conceit and pride there is, and how deep the loneliness and loss are.
The Tang Dynasty, the most praiseworthy dynasty in the history of the Chinese nation, was indeed conceited and proud. It has gone very far in all aspects of culture, economy, and military.
But "the ancients are not seen before, and the comers are not seen after." It should not be an agricultural ethic of "returning with the moon and the lotus", it should be the reins of the horse, on the boundless grassland, between heaven and earth there is only me. The only pride in the world, the only loneliness in the world, rolled out of the heart, which was the romantic bloodline given to the Tang Dynasty by nomadism.
The spirit of the Tang Dynasty tends to be more towards the self, and you see that the poetry of the Sheng Tang Dynasty is singing praises to itself and praising life.
Thanks to Sheng Tang, without its freedom and no restraints, there would not be so many catchy Tang poems, and there would be no Li Bai's birth.
"Raise a glass to invite Mingyue, and make three people to the shadow." Li Bai is the poet with the most cosmic consciousness, he followed the tradition of Zhang Ruoxuan's "Spring River Flower Moon Night", and talked with the moon, the sun, and the mountains, transcending the shackles of the world and becoming a free poetry immortal.
Many people think that Li Bai's poetry is beautiful, but it is too ungrounded. This is actually a matter of living situation, if you are left alone in the desert of no one, you will no longer care about the tasks assigned by the boss, the children's school district room, the wife's handbag, and at that time you are closer to yourself in the natural sense.
And Li Bai was only Li Bai from beginning to end, not Li Bai who belonged to anyone.
Therefore, the poetry of Sheng Tang is so free and full of vitality, whimsical and unrestrained, which is the spirit of the Tang Dynasty that other dynasties cannot learn.
In addition to the freedom in Tang poetry, we can also see this logic in The Tang legend. In the Tang legend "Three Heroes of Wind and Dust", Qiu Qiuke gave the assets to Li Jing and the Red Breeze Girl, asked them to help the True Destiny Tianzi build a meritorious career, and then left in a dashing manner.
This dashing "chivalrous spirit" comes from the Mo family of the Spring and Autumn Warring States, and is the most taboo in the era of very stable central power. The behavior of the hero is beyond the constraints of the legal system, and finds a morality that obeys the natural reason, which is a purely personal act.
Therefore, the central government is very afraid of heroes, because heroes probably have the possibility of shaking the world. And the three heroes of wind and dust actually grew out of the Sheng Tang, and I have to say that the tolerance of the Tang Dynasty has really reached a certain level.
There is a morality in agricultural ethics, that freedom is a kind of commotion, a kind of restlessness, so it is very afraid of freedom, but the Tang Dynasty is a dynasty that feels that freedom is a dynasty that can be loudly praised.
04, the cruelty behind sheng tang
As we celebrate the freedom and openness of the Tang Dynasty, we also need to note that freedom actually represents natural selection, which is a very cruel law of the jungle.
Tang Taizong, the most remarkable emperor of the Tang Dynasty, competed with his brother Crown Prince Jian for the throne, launched the Xuanwumen Rebellion, killed his brother and brother, and then went to his father Li Yuan to "plead guilty", Li Yuan was not an idle person, and immediately abdicated as Emperor Taishang.
The rule of Zhenguan did not follow agricultural ethics at all, and agricultural ethics would not accept Tang Taizong's way of taking power. But this is Datang, and there is the cruelty of natural selection in freedom.
And Wu Zetian is even more representative of this. Even if we use our culture to understand her today, we can't understand it. We simply can't accept a woman acting like this, but in the Tang Dynasty, where natural selection is natural, winning or losing is not gender.'
The way Tang Xuanzong came to power was also illegitimate, and no one cared.
The authority wielded by the three greatest emperors of the Sheng Tang Dynasty came from the brutal slaughter of the law of the jungle, which was contrary to the Confucian ethics of believing in etiquette. It's a bit like a scene that can only appear in the chaotic world of dynastic change, but it grows naturally in the prosperous world.
It's cruel, but it's wonderful.
However, the nomadic ethics of the Sheng Tang Dynasty were ended by the "Anshi Rebellion", which is actually an inevitability. When freedom is free of restraint, ambition and desire naturally expand without restriction.
In this world, who does not want to give it a go.
Therefore, the nomadic ethics of the Sheng Tang Dynasty was a short period of time in the entire tradition of the Chinese nation, and it seemed to have suddenly left and opened up a different era.
Like a flower season, it is the most beautiful appearance in everyone's life, the freedom and absurdity of youth. But even so, who can forget the flower season of youth? After all, that is the moment when we are closest to ourselves.
Datang is like a rebellious period of the entire Chinese civilization, absorbing the influence of foreign nomadic ethics and singing its unique self.
Everything now is actually a kind of historical retrospection, in fact, our time today is just a silhouette of several eras in the past. The agricultural ethics of the Han Dynasty, the nomadic ethics of the Tang Dynasty, and the business ethics of the Song Dynasty together frame our current era of personality differences. The stability of agriculture, the freedom of nomadism, the shrewdness of commerce.
Thanks to this era for embracing so many rich personalities, even though we attack each other, attack conservatism, attack heresy, attack greed.
But we live in such a larger era of tolerance, which brings a lot of possibilities to this era. Only by supervising each other and forging ahead with each other can we move forward.
We are never just us, behind us is the character of the nation.
I like to use poetry as an analogy, like Li Bai is the character of nomadic ethics, like Du Fu is the character of agricultural ethics, like Bai Juyi is the character of business ethics.
And what kind of ethics do you tend to, do you like stability, do you like freedom, or do you like gold coins?