Someone once asked me: What is history?
The answer I gave him was only four words: superstructure.
As long as you have a cursory reading of relevant historical materials, you should understand that this series of books has only two values: one is to promote the values of the ruling class; the other is to let people learn the lessons of history.
Why is history a superstructure? Because of the same thing, the same person, or the same era, under the pen of different people, the content that is displayed in front of people's eyes is usually very different.
In the era of backward media and information, we can usually only see one statement, that is, the one that best conforms to the interests of the ruling class.
When I first read the historical materials, I could only come into contact with this level of content. Until one day, when I read the "Biography of Liang Shu Chen Qing", I almost threw away all the history books around me.
How does the Book of Liang record Chen Qingzhi's relevant content?
It is said that The Rebellion of Zhu Rong of Northern Wei caused the King of Beihai, Yuan Hao, to flee south to liang for help, and Emperor Xiao Yan of Liangwu ordered Chen Qingzhi to lead an army of 7,000 yuan hao to restore the country.
Chen Qingzhi, with these 7,000 men, first defeated 70,000 defenders at Suiyang, then 20,000 defenders at Kaocheng, and then attacked Xingyang, which had 70,000 troops, and as a result, he attacked Xingyang when more than 200,000 enemy troops were about to be encircled.
Then to Suiyang. The Wei general Qiu Daqian had a crowd of 70,000 and built nine cities to resist each other. Qingzhi attacked, from Dan to Shen, trapped in its third base, and the great thousand fell. When the Wei general Yuanhuiye of Jiyin led 20,000 yulin shuzi to rescue Liang and Song, he entered the city of Tunkao, which was surrounded by water and guarded tightly. Qingzhi ordered the floating water to build a fortress, capture its city, capture Huiye, and get 7,800 taels of car rental. Still tend to be girder, look at the flag to return the money.
After breaking through Xingyang, more than 200,000 enemy troops were surrounded, and Chen Qingzhi led 3,000 cavalry to defeat this enemy army, and then took these 3,000 cavalry (note that it was still 3,000) straight to the Tiger Prison Pass, frightening the Tiger Prison Guard to flee without a fight.
After this series of battles reached Luoyang, Emperor Xiaozhuang of Northern Wei fled directly, the Luoyang defenders opened the door and surrendered, Chen Qingzhi led seven thousand troops (note that it was still seven thousand) to capture Luoyang, and The King of Beihai, Yuanhao, ascended the throne as emperor.
A drum was sent to the city, and the strong warriors Dongyang Song Jingxiu and Yixing Yu Tianyu entered the city and conquered it. Russia and Wei united outside the front, Qingzhi led the ride of three thousand backs to the city to fight against the battle, the great destruction, Lu An yu begs to surrender, Yuan Tianmu and Erzhu Tu'er were exempted from riding alone. Harvesting the Sun and storing the truth, the cattle and horses are invincible. Entering the Tiger Prison, Erzhu Shilong abandoned the city and left. The Wei lord Yuanzi was afraid and ran to the state. His Linhuai King Yuanyu and Anfeng King Yuanyanming led hundreds of officials, sealed the treasury of the palace, prepared the law, and were welcomed into the Luoyang Palace, the Imperial Front Hall, and changed the Yuan amnesty.
But at this time, Erzhu Rong had already returned to his division and was about to meet Chen Qingzhi, what to do? Chen Qingzhi was such a cattle, of course, he could not defeat Erzhu Rong, so his seven thousand troops were directly swept away by the flood, and Chen Qingzhi was forced to flee back to the Liang Dynasty in disguise.
Qingzhi's horse walked thousands of steps, formed an eastern rebellion, and Rong personally came to chase after it, and the high mountains and rivers overflowed, and the soldiers died and scattered. Qingzhi Nai fell to the sand gate, and traveled to Yuzhou, where Yuzhou people Cheng Daoyong and others sneaked out of Ruyin.
After reading this historical material, I feel that my intelligence has been insulted: with this spare time, why don't I open the starting point Chinese the internet to read novels? Isn't it more brilliant than history?
If we look at the perspective of history and can only stay at this level, then all we can see are heroic legends and reports of model labor deeds.
In this kind of story, the positive characters are invincible, they can hold the sky with one hand, change the day; in this kind of story, the negative characters are mentally handicapped and mentally handicapped, and they are usually evil and perverted, and they lose their conscience; in this kind of story, there is always a battle between good and evil, and good people and bad people compete. Sometimes good people can win because evil does not prevail over good; sometimes bad people can win because good people are internally constrained and killed.
Later, in order to increase the so-called "knowledge", I forced myself to continue reading hard, but the more I read, the more disappointed I became, and the more I read, the more rebellious I became.
In addition to the heroic legends and labor model deeds reports, the relevant historical materials are more like a running account, and a lot of information is worthless to the average reader, because there is no pleasure in reading.
For example, when the Zizhi Tongjian records Li Yuan's rise to the army, it lists a large paragraph:
Pei Huan and other Shangyuan were given the titles of Grand General, 癸巳, and Jianda General's Mansion; with Shu as the Long History, Liu Wenjing as Sima and Tang Jian and the former Chang'an Lieutenant Wen Daya as the recorders, Daya still shared secrets with his brother Dayou, the warriors were Jiao Cao, Liu Zhenghui and Wucheng Cui Shanwei, Taiyuan Zhang Daoyuan as Hu Cao, Jinyang Changshang Jiang as SiGong to join the army, Taigu Changyin Kaishan as futuo, and the eldest grandson Shunde, Liu Hongji, Dou Chun, and Ying Yanglang to gaoping wang Changhuan, Tianshui Jiang Baoyi, and Yang Tun as the left and right unified the army; He also took Shizi Jian as the Duke of Longxi, the left leading dadu governor, the left three unified army subordinated to Yan; the shimin was the Duke of Dunhuang, the right leading dadu governor, the right three unified army subordinated to Yan; each set up official subordinates. Chai Shao was the right leading governor of the prefecture; the counselor Liu Zhan led the West River to guard. Daoyuan famous river, open mountain famous mountain, all in character lines. Open the mountain, do not harm the grandson also.
For this kind of content, I believe that the vast majority of readers do not have the patience to read it word by word, because it is really smelly and boring.
But I would like to draw your attention to one point: due to the inconvenience of writing, history books are usually extremely concise, and the language is even more concise than the language we use today.
The question is this: why do history books, which have always been concise, record these contents that are unattractive to the average reader in long paragraphs?
That's because this is the real history, and it's full of a lot of factual information. As for the so-called "historical materials" with extremely vivid details, they are only Rashomon.
What is this large section of historical information written about? To put it simply: the people who appear in this historical data are all older than Li Shimin's seniority, and at that time they were all more influential than Li Shimin.
But when later generations talked about Li Shimin, they always said that without Li Shimin, Li Yuan would not even be a founding emperor, and Li Shimin, who was only nineteen years old, rushed left and right, killing a piece of the Tang Dynasty.
In this regard, I just want to ask one question: If Li Shimin's father is not Li Yuan, and his mother is not Empress Dou, why does Li Shimin occupy a high position in the Li Yuan group? Don't say that Li Shimin is wise and divine, are there very few people who have been buried? If Li Shimin did not reincarnate well, who dared to say that he would not be buried?
But in some historical records comparable to novels, these people will gradually fade out of people's vision, so that many people now know a Li Shimin, and the above-mentioned cattle people basically do not know, because Li Shimin's light covers them almost.
Why could Li Shimin cover up their light almost? That's because the right to speak is always in the hands of Li Shimin. If Li Shimin had failed in the Xuanwumen Revolution, the history books of the Early Tang Dynasty that we have seen would certainly be a different story.
Historical materials have written such contents as "Hongmen Feast" and "Dune Conspiracy" with noses and eyes, as if the author was watching at that time, but as long as everyone has a little understanding of modern history, they should understand a problem: this kind of content that is written vividly and vividly is usually unreliable.
Many people think that history has no value, because in the traditional historical materials, there are too many similar nonsense contents, and the gods and monsters dance wildly, how can people be convinced?
If only the historical materials show this trend, it is not helpless, but what is angry is that some two-legged bookcases that think they are rich in five cars show off how many historical materials they have read all day long, and then according to their understanding of sitting in the bookstore, they will extract a certain fragment of the historical materials, and then carry out endless details and storytelling, and at the same time think that the thing they wrote is quite historical.
The problem is that in the relevant content they write, the first thing we see is the persona: someone is a good person, someone is a bad person who hinders him. As long as there is such a prerequisite, this kind of person is no longer able to write vividly, and I will certainly not read it.
A person's "historical level" and "historical literacy" do not depend on his ability to read chinese and chinese, but on his reading volume, life experience and self-cultivation.
In other words, you have to spend time reading and have the opportunity to increase your experience, rather than shutting up in your room every day as a nerd.
If a person is addicted to books all day and can never "look beyond history and see history", then he can never get out of the category of "reading and memorizing the whole text".
Having said all that, one might ask, "How should we study history?" ”
For this problem, I think it is necessary to pay attention to three main points:
First, develop the habit of reading the whole text word by word, if the reading ability of the text is not enough, you can read the vernacular version, if there is not enough time, you can pick one or several to read. Only this habit of reading will allow us to learn more about history.
Many so-called historians often extract a fragment from historical materials to study and expand indefinitely, and I dare not say that this method is worthless, but if you only read this kind of book, you will definitely lose a lot of historical information.
Especially in their historical research, when there are good people and bad people or good and evil tendencies, it is inevitable to hide and blur a lot of information, or provide a lot of content that can be seen at a glance to be false, or reinforce all kinds of content that is very ridiculous at first glance.
Second, develop the habit of looking at different versions of history, and listen to both bright and partial listening. This is not a problem when studying modern history, because in the Internet age, most of the accounts of various parties can be found.
Many so-called historians, usually with obvious tendencies, write what you can refer to. If you really believe in this so-called historian's point of view, it is estimated that you will fall into various fan group wars: when it comes to a period of history, you have to label the person as good, evil, hero, and bad person, as if this is not the case, you can't read history.
Third, do not be superstitious about any historical materials, nor are you superstitious about any authority, look at history with your own eyes, analyze history with your own brain, and more importantly, habitually understand history in connection with reality.
Many so-called historians often bluff people with a large number of texts or tomes. All in all, it's all provenance, it's all preaching.
For this kind of content, we have to remain calm, if the content in front of you makes you feel confused, but you can't find a more reasonable way to interpret it, it can only prove that you are not cultivated enough, your experience is still insufficient, but it cannot represent the correctness of these tomes.
Here are some of my experiences reading history. I dare not say that the same was true of the ancient elite's reading of history. But I believe that the people who can really learn from the history books are certainly not the kind of people who look at historical materials as fairy tales.
Seeing the failure of various historical figures, we look at it, but we just think that the parties are too brain-dead, too mentally retarded, too perverted, and no matter how much we see this kind of history, what lessons can we learn? Isn't it just to avoid becoming brain-dead, mentally retarded, and perverted?
When studying history, do not be superstitious about historical materials, nor do you believe in authority. Because we read history in that way, we read more historical materials, that is, the level of a two-legged bookcase, or a person who is familiar with a large number of historical stories.
At the end of the article, I will post a passage from Mr. He Zhaowu to you, which I think is very good:
A historian can never understand history beyond his own level of thought and feeling. In other words, a historian's understanding of history depends on his own level and ability. I remember when I was a student, Mr. Yao Congwu (head of the Department of History of Peking University) always asked us to read the Zizhi Tongjian, and I always felt that the books were either Lao Tzu killing his son or his son killing Lao Tzu, which was not interesting to speak of, far less than reading those lingering novels.
It was only later that I got older and experienced more in life that I felt more and more that reading any novel was not as real and touching as watching "Zizhi Tongjian", which was more fascinating than any novel. No one in the world can grasp the mysteries of all knowledge, historians are not omnipotent, they cannot grasp the full truth of history, and human knowledge is constantly improving and never ending. No historian's heart can be so broad and deep that it can comprehend the whole of human thought and feeling. After all, history is created by people, and if you cannot understand the thoughts and feelings of predecessors (such as Lao Tzu killing his son, his son killing Lao Tzu, etc.), then at most he can only say that he "knows" historical facts, but he cannot say "understand" or "understand" history.