''Rise! I have pierced the 'Loyalty to the Nation' into your skin, and you remember it day and night. Nian Jun struggled to get Chief Hu to retreat, and Nian Qin sent the Jie Shu as soon as possible. ''
This is a passage from the "Legend of Rulaiguan" during the Kangxi Dynasty, which tells the legendary life of Yue Fei, the great hero of the anti-Jin Dynasty. And this paragraph is the most classic mother-in-law tattoo.
The story of Yue Fei's loyalty to the country has been circulating in the land of China for a long time, and many people have read this story when they were enlightened, fantasizing that they can also become a great hero like Yue Fei. When I first read this story as a child, my thinking was a bit out of my mind. When he lamented Yue Fei's heroism, he was also frightened by the flesh tattoo. It wasn't until I grew up that I slowly learned about the tattoo, and after seeing those big flower arms and large dragons on the Internet, I gradually let go.
The story of "Jing Zhong's loyalty to the country" in the book has some mythological flavor, and all kinds of deeds here are more or less mixed with some falsehoods, mixed with some artistic components. Historically, Yue Fei was born in the countryside, and as a native of the second generation of the village, Yue Fei's mother naturally did not have a high cultural level. An ancient rural woman, whether she can read or not is not easy to say, even if she is literate, she is not a professional level craftsman, the four traditional characters of "loyalty to the country" are stabbed on the back, a little careless, it is a blur of flesh and blood, a mess.
Such a technical, difficulty level of the task, a little scrutiny can also be judged that it is not something that the mother-in-law can do. So who carved these four big words?
In the "History of Song", it is said: "Qin Ju advocated peace talks, and the general Yue Fei had military achievements, which was deeply feared by the Jin people. Juniper hated his dissidents and wanted to get rid of them, so He fei changed Wang Gui, arrested Fei in Dali Prison, and first ordered him to cast Fengzhi. Cast lead to fly to the court, cross-examine its reverse, fly and show its back, carry the old nirvana "loyal to the country" four big words, deep into the skin. ''
When Yue Fei was framed by Qin Sporley, in order to show his sincerity, he exposed his back, and there were four words on it: "Loyalty to the country". (In ancient times, it was the duty of a courtier to be loyal and filial, and a courtier could only demand and encourage himself with loyalty and filial piety, but he could not boast of himself with loyalty.) In later generations, because of the popularity of novels and operas such as "Jingzhongji" and "The Complete Biography of Jingzhong", posterity confused the two of "Jingzhong" and "Quanzhong", and the thorn characters behind Yue Fei also changed from ""Faithful to the Country" to "Jingzhong to the Country")
However, many official records about Yue Fei, including the History of Song, have descriptions of Yue Fei with a tattoo on his back, but who did it, the records are vague and his words are flickering. This gave the creators of art enormous space, and several versions appeared under the processing of generation after generation.
For example, some said that they asked the craftsman to stab it, and some said that his subordinate Zhang Xian helped to stab it. When the Qing Dynasty came out, as soon as the version of "mother-in-law's thorn character" came out, it was quickly welcomed and recognized by everyone. The autumn wind quickly replaces other versions with the tendency of the autumn wind to sweep away the fallen leaves. Although the circulating version is unreliable, it is at least certain from the history and these later processes that the matter of the thorn characters is definitely voluntary for Yue Fei, and these words are most likely selected by him early on.
Remember the tattoos mentioned earlier? Tattoos as a culture are also widely popular among the public, and even from the pictures circulating on the Internet, you can see that many celebrities also have tattoos. And the big words behind Yue Fei's "loyal to the country" are also inseparable from the tattoo culture.
Tattoos were first popular only in the surrounding ethnic minority areas in China, and totem worship, differences in rank, clan relations, etc. made tattoos have a lot of living space among these ethnic groups. In the Han society, which occupies the main body of China, there is no use except for the appeasement used to inflict on criminals.
Until the Tang Dynasty, suddenly a "tattoo fever" blew up in Han society. If we dig deep into the social conditions of the Tang Dynasty, we can also understand the emergence of this change.
The emergence of the Tang Dynasty's examination system broke the door valve politics of the previous shishu and heavenly separation, and was replaced by a large number of shu people, coupled with the prosperity and development of the city, these political anti-traditional emergences, derived from the traditional Confucian "parents of the body" such as tattoos and other non-mainstream cultural phenomena against traditional Confucianism. In addition, as an open dynasty, the great integration of nationalities also ushered in a climax during this period. In Chang'an City, Hu Ji, Hu Xuan Dance, a royal family with foreign blood, and tattoos are an important manifestation.
This thing from a foreign race was tattooed on its own body, and what a rate of return was it to walk on the streets of Chang'an City. The more special and compelling it is, the more it will be able to satisfy one's strong desire for self-expression. Therefore, in the streets of Chang'an at that time, those "street teenagers" who "did not do family business" and "street teenagers" were eager to see this tattoo, that is, under the severe crackdown of the government, one by one they also competed to imitate.
There is also one of the important reasons for the prevalence of Buddhism in the Tang Dynasty, and this foreign Buddha took deep roots in the soil of the Tang Dynasty and made a home. As one of the mainstream sects at that time, it was naturally indispensable to have the support of many believers under its hands. And among them are the fanatics who are obsessed with the Buddha, who are crazy for him and who are obsessed with it. In order to show his admiration and love, burning his arms and stabbing blood to write the scriptures are all records of what happened. For these believers, only these actions can vividly show their deep love for the Buddha. Various social backgrounds contributed to the concentrated outbreak of tattoo culture during this period.
At the end of the Tang Dynasty, the imperial court declined. His own little brothers were no longer at peace, the division of the clan town was becoming more and more intense, and the forty years of Taiping Tianzi had long been in the past tense, and the large-scale turmoil of the current style was becoming clearer. The power of the army is particularly important for every divided force, and recruiting troops and horses and preparing grain and grass are the top priorities of the leaders of the thrifty envoys. The expansion of large-scale soldiers, and even the forced conscription, and the division and chaos between feudal warlords have made the war-weariness of soldiers in the army more and more prominent, a large number of soldiers have fled, and the combat effectiveness of the army has plummeted due to this impact.
In order to cheer up the army, prevent the escape of a large number of soldiers. Zhu Wen, a great warlord at the end of the Tang Dynasty, came up with a solution. It has been formulated that all generals and colonels who have lost battles will be beheaded, which is called ""pulling out the team and beheading". As a result, the soldier's escape hole was not only not filled, but the leakage became wider and wider. Soldiers and soldiers', 'Many deaths, do not dare to return'''
Zhu Wen watched as more and more soldiers fled, and ordered that as long as the soldiers in the army were everyone, they should engrave words on their faces and write down the title of their own army. Strict interrogations were carried out at all gates to arrest those who had escaped.
Once escaped, the mark on his face was a time bomb that could be detonated at any time to kill him. Even if some soldiers were able to cut through the thorns and run away after 9981, when they arrived elsewhere, the villagers and neighbors in the township did not dare to take it in when they saw this mark. Only this one trick can be described as a salary drawn from the bottom of the pot and cured of its disaster.
Even though this practice was criticized by many people in later generations, it could not resist this method, and many rulers after Zhu Wen followed this practice, tattooing the faces and even bodies of soldiers with unique marks. The so-called 'flower arm'' soldier is a living example of this.
In the Song Dynasty army, tattoos were more complicated.
For the forbidden army, not only must there be military status but also tattoos on the face, "the face of the army" is the basic job of all the enrolled soldiers. Di Qing, a famous general of the Northern Song Dynasty, was originally a soldier, so his face was also tattooed. Because Xiao Yong was quickly promoted to an officer, and gradually rose to become a privy councillor in charge of the military and politics of the whole country. At that time, many people in the dynasty advised Di Qing to remove the tattoo on his face, so that not only did his face look good, but no one could know where his soldiers came from.
Just because of this incident, it also alarmed the emperor Song Renzong. Song Renzong specially summoned Di Qing and told him that it was also okay to remove the tattoo on his face, and who expected that the emperor would not listen to Di Qing when he spoke. Righteously rejected the emperor, he wanted to leave the tattoo on his face for his subordinates to see and encourage them to make great achievements. For a while, it was a beautiful story.
In contrast to the government-controlled forbidden army, the local township heroes generally choose to tattoo the back of their hands, that is, "the back of the nirvana hand". There is also a category of ethnic minorities on the border, when they are organized as village heroes, in addition to the thorn on the back of the hand, they also have to tattoo the word "'蕃兵'" in front of the left ear to show the distinction.
In addition to the soldiers' tattoos must be standard, there are also our beloved heroes such as Yue Fei, and many patriotic generals during the Two Song Dynasties, in order to show their love for the country, resolutely resist foreign enemies, and defend the rivers and mountains, carefully selected words, chose a zodiac auspicious day, and left the words of sacred loyalty on themselves.
The "loyalty to the country" behind Yue Fei is Yue Fei's own silent resistance to the Jin people and his deep affection for the country. In addition to Yue Fei, there were many generals who also stabbed the characters, the most worth mentioning is the famous general Hu Yanzan in the early Song Dynasty. Not only himself, but also mobilized the whole family to tattoo Mingzhi together with himself, and the whole family tattooed the character to show their desire to resist the enemy. He stabbed himself with the words ''Red Heart Killer'', his wife and children and even the maid were stabbed together, and all the children in the family were tattooed with the words ''Going out and forgetting the family for the country, forgetting to die in the face of death'" were tattooed.
Tattoos in the army appeared new innovations and perfections in the Song Dynasty, and tattoos outside the army also underwent many new changes in the Song Dynasty.
The Song Dynasty government no longer used administrative power to control the tattoos of the people, and the government's great abandonment made the folk tattoo culture more and more intense, and more and more people joined the ranks of tattoos. Tattooists are frequently featured in history, and can be a stage for them to show their performances on every important festival, and they can also win a place in the usual bully farce. Some people even put on tattoos, appeared on the stage, and boarded the stage to open the big play. From here, it can also be seen that in the Song Dynasty, tattoos have been more commonly recognized by society, and tattoos are no longer as repulsive as in previous dynasties.
It has always been thought to be popular abroad, and in the past few years in China it was still a sashimi of non-mainstream synonyms. However, when we went deep into history, we found that behind what seemed to be "foreign things" was a red and plump Chinese heart. The tattoos of these great heroes such as Yue Fei have added a more brilliant color to the tattoos.
When you see sashimi again, you may think of such a group of people a thousand years ago, full of spirit and vitality. Facing the rivers and mountains of the motherland, they made a vow to die. With those imprints that pierce into the texture, gallop on the battlefield and fight to the death until the last moment.
These traces have nothing to do with love, nothing to do with the wind and snow. Not to commemorate the ex who can't be forgotten, to commemorate the years that have passed and can never go back. The sashimi on their bodies carries thousands of people and is the absolute mission of guarding the homeland of the rivers.