If there is anything that can make us remember our historical sources, the most commonly used and convenient is only the last name. We Chinese have a saying: "If you don't change your name, you can't change your surname." "Refers to not hiding one's real name under any circumstances, and describing one's conduct as a person who is bright and upright." In this bright and honest way of doing things, it also clearly records our memories of our ancestors, that is, where our lives came from. Therefore, the last name has become our label in the crowd, our code name, and the sign of our coming. Unless, at the time of being cursed, he was asked to change his surname, or he was anonymized in exile.
The Xiongnu, an ancient people worth remembering, belonged to the descendants of China just like us, according to the Chronicle of History. Because of its demise and integration, it is remembered and remembered, and now some people also think of themselves as the queen of the Xiongnu, which has become a topic that people talk about after tea and dinner. But who could be the real Huns after that? There used to be a class of people from northern Shaanxi. The topic began in the 1990s, when a local writer named Gao Jianqun wrote a novel called "The Last Hun".
Later, there were two sayings in the folk: First, among the people of northern Shaanxi, if there is a fetal mole on the buttocks and a small toe nail if it is divided into two halves, then he must be a descendant of the Xiongnu. Other folk scholars and experts have also written articles on white lamb tripe hand towels, Xintianyou, and cultural relics excavated in Sichuan from the Eastern Han Dynasty drumming and rap pottery figurines.
In this regard, I would like to say that the division of the fetal nevi on the buttocks and the small toenails in half should not be the patent of the Huns, and the history books have never recorded anything about it. The Drumming and Rap Pottery Figurines of the Eastern Han Dynasty, known as the "First Figurine of the Han Dynasty", were excavated in 1957 in the Hanya Tomb of Tianhui Shandong in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, and are now in the National Museum of China, which is a national first-class cultural relic. The image should be a rap artist with a head tied like an Aries belly hand towel. Therefore, some experts have combined the image of the pottery figurines with the image of the people of northern Shaanxi, which is roughly like this: After the fall of the Xiongnu regime, the Xiongnu people were raised by some rich families because they could sing and dance, and then they were raised by some rich families to engage in rap art and add fun to their masters; others went into exile in the interior and became folk artists and engaged in street performances. Because the pottery figurines have white sheep's belly hand towels, which are somewhat similar to the people of northern Shaanxi, experts say that the people of northern Shaanxi are Xiongnu, and the popular Xintianyou in northern Shaanxi is the inheritance of the Xiongnu who can sing and dance in northern Shaanxi.
This statement conjures up one word: paradoxical. According to historical records, the males of the Xiongnu were wearing hair, and they did not wear any white sheep's belly hand towels at all; as for being able to sing and dance, it was indeed a kind of existence, but people have not even understood the language of the Xiongnu until now, and just by virtue of the only "Hun Song" they left behind, they concluded that Xintianyou came from the Huns, which was obviously too far-fetched. What's more, the study of the historical sources of a group should not rely on things like birthmarks, toenails, hand scarves, folk songs, etc., which are a joke in themselves if there is no historical record.
So, who else could be the Huns? This brings us back to the surname mentioned earlier. "Don't change your name, don't change your surname" is a historical memory that people have never changed for thousands of years, and only it is reliable. There are experts in name science who have done such a study of the surnames of the Xiongnu, and there are about 8 surnames related to the Xiongnu in northern Shaanxi and Guanzhong: Helian (later changed to surname Liu); Qiao (belonging to the Xiongnu Tu departments); Wan Qian (later changed to the surname Wan and Yu); Jin (belonging to the Xiongnu Tu departments); Dong (belonging to the Xiongnu Tu departments); and Huyan and Xubu (later changed to surname Bu).
In addition to this, there are some descendants of the Huns in the northwest. Jin Ribao, the prince of the Xiongnu, was highly used by Emperor Wu of Han after surrendering to the Han Dynasty, and eventually became the minister of Emperor Wu of Han and one of the four assistant ministers of Emperor Liu Fuling of Han Zhao. He was given the title of Marquis of dù County, and his descendants were loyal and filial to each other, and the seventh generation did not fade, and it was a very cattle family. The county was in present-day Heze, Shandong, but because of its high status in the imperial court, there was a place called Theohou Fort in present-day Zhangye, Gansu (said to be the hometown of Jin Ribao), a castle built by the locals because of the Jin Ilju, and there was also the place name of Theohou Yi nearby.
This is a place I have been to before, near a village called Pujiazhuang. Because the character 秺 (dù) is more difficult to recognize, the local people call this castle "Camel Hou Fort", which was misrepresented as "Pioneer Fort" over time, but no matter how it was misrepresented, this place is related to Kim Il-seok, and some local and some people with the surname "Pu" also regard themselves as descendants of Kim Il-seok. But in the long river of years, they have been no different from our Han Chinese looks and customs, and in the ID card column clearly and clearly write the Han people, the so-called Xiongnu have become a kind of thought, a kind of memory. Interestingly, there are still people in the local villages surnamed Liu, who claim to be relatives of the emperors of the Han Dynasty, and appoint them to manage the Xiongnu here, but these self-proclaimed people may not know that the Xiongnu changed their surname to Liu in the Han Dynasty.
In addition, in a place called Jinya in Yuzhong, Gansu, the local Jin people also claimed to be descendants of the Xiongnu, and said that Jin Riju was one of the ancestors of the Jin surname, and their ancestors also came from Jin Ribao. I have also been to this place many times, and like the "Pu" people in Pujiazhuang, they are no different from us. I remember that at that time, I also knew a children's literature writer named Kim Ji-tae here, and when I saw him writing in Chinese, I joked: "The Xiongnu also use Chinese?" The old man just smiled. If true, the Xiongnu origin that belonged to him would only be his surname.
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