Folk songs, also known as folk songs, are popular songs with national overtones. Due to the long time of the folk songs, many songs have no authors. At the time of the Two Han Dynasties, the spread of folk songs in society was unprecedented, and at that time there were institutions that specialized in collecting folk songs or poems from literati to score music, such as Han Le Fu. Lefu was originally set up in Qin, the early Han Dynasty did not remain, until the Han Dynasty was rebuilt, and the well-known "Jiangnan Kecai Lotus" and "Long Song Line" are from Hanle Province.
Long song line
Moreover, what is surprising is that the folk songs of the Two Han Dynasties were not only recorded in special administrative institutions such as Han Le Fu, but also in historical classics with inheritance roles such as the "History of History", "Book of Han" and "Book of Later Han". Folk songs developed into the Eastern Han Dynasty, and there was even a system of "raising rumors" in the court. So why did folk songs in the Two Han Dynasties have such an important position? What are the deep reasons why it can be widely disseminated in society?
Folk songs, as a form of oral poetry, are the products of the times in a certain cultural context. Although the folk song is small, it can glimpse the world and people's hearts from it, reflecting the social trend and public opinion trend at that time. That is to say, this small folk song can reflect the central idea of the social culture at that time to a certain extent, and it also represents a kind of folk public opinion. The folk songs of the two Han Dynasties can be highly valued by the superiors, which naturally has a lot to do with the social development trend at that time.
Gangnam can pick lotus
First, the Han Dynasty's emphasis on Confucianism was the basis for the origin of folk songs
At the beginning of the Han Dynasty, due to years of conquest, the people suffered unspeakably, so Liu Bang, Lü Yan and others all adopted a policy of recuperation to varying degrees. However, at that time, the Huang Lao Thought prevailed in the court, and its centerpiece was the rule of inaction. Of course, this rule of inaction is not inaction, but refers to a development process from inaction to achievement, which is embodied in the behavior of governing the country, which is based on the people, lightly dispensing with small endowments, and giving the people a time and space for development. However, the establishment of this kind of thinking also made the development of the Han Dynasty enter a lag period. Many political measures cannot be implemented in a timely manner because they are influenced by the idea of inaction. At the same time, due to the tolerance of the princes, it also brought many inconveniences to the independent development of the court.
Lao Tzu Images
Because Huang Lao's thought obviously could not keep up with the development of the times, in the Wen and Jing periods, there was a trend of transmutation from inaction to action, from Taoism to Confucianism. By the time of Emperor Wu of Han, Emperor Wu of Han abolished the use of other doctrines by the court and began to pay attention to Confucianism, which is also famous."
Depose hundreds of families and respect Confucianism alone
”。 In the fifth year of Jianyuan, Emperor Wudi of the Han Dynasty set up the Doctor of Five Classics, and Confucian classics began to develop. With the death of Empress Dou, Huang Lao's thought, which competed with Confucianism for capital, also began to withdraw from the political arena, and Confucianism became the orthodoxy of the Han Dynasty. Confucianism, on the other hand, holds that the people play a decisive role in the rise and fall of a country, and that the people are the foundation of the country. As mentioned in the "Song of the Five Sons of Shang Shu":
The emperor has a discipline, the people can be close, not down, the people are only the state, the ben gu bangning.
Portrait of Emperor Wu of Han
That is to say, in the concept of governance of the Western Han monarchs, songs first had a very important political function. As the Preface to Mao's Poems reads:
Emotions are in the middle and deeds are in words, words are insufficient, so sighs, sighs are insufficient, so chants.
It can be seen from this that the people's identification with or disapproval of the country will be reflected in the folk songs to a certain extent. Second, folk songs have the characteristics of irony or anger, and this characteristic can reflect the popular opinion. Thus, folk songs have a preliminary structure in which public opinion can be formed, and "
Water can carry boats or overturn boats
Only when the country attaches great importance to the will of the people and the people and governs the country from the interests of the people can it truly achieve long-term peace and stability. Therefore, the rulers of the Han Dynasty, who were influenced by Confucianism, generally believed that attaching importance to the development of folk songs and folk songs was an act of attaching importance to the hearts and minds of the people.
Confucianism during the Western Han Dynasty
It can be seen from this that it is precisely because the rulers of the Han Dynasty attached great importance to Confucianism that they gave the space for the development of folk songs.
Second, the people's evaluation or discussion of state affairs and family affairs has laid a cultural atmosphere for the development of folk songs
The Shang Shu Tai Oath records:
Heaven sees its own people, and heaven listens to its own people. The people have had it, and they have given it to one, and now they will pass.
The gist of it is: what Heaven sees comes from what we ordinary people see, and what Heaven hears comes from what we ordinary people hear, and the people blame and complain about me, and I must now live in the former cutting merchants. It can be seen from this that the superior attaches great importance to the public opinion of the people.
During the Western Han Dynasty, the collection of public opinion by the imperial court was roughly divided into these two types: the first type was the collection of public opinion by some local officials or assassins. In the second category, the imperial court would send custom envoys to the local areas from time to time, and one of its missions was to "observe customs", and one of the most important contents was to collect folk opinion such as songs and ballads. This way of collecting gives the people the opportunity to talk about the upper class. For example, Xiao He, Cao Shan, and others in the early Western Han Dynasty were able to put the people first and attach importance to the life and development of the people during their tenure, so they were recognized and praised by the people, according to the Book of Han:
What is Xiao's law, Jing Ruo painted one; Cao San's substitution, keep it and do not lose. Carry it clean, and the people will be one.
What picture is
Moreover, the role of folk songs is not only reflected in the praise or criticism of the superiors in society, more often, folk songs will also express the views and discussions of ordinary people on social elites or some literati. As recorded in the Continuation of the Hen chronicle:
You Ping sells his own comments, does not avoid Xianhao and the big surname; the world's model Li Yuanli, not afraid of the strong Emperor Chen Zhongju, the world's Junxiu Wang Shumao.
From these praises or evaluations, it can be seen that folk songs are not only a supervision of the development of the correct history of society, they are also an important component of social culture to a large extent. It is precisely because of the multi-angle and multi-level nature of folk songs that there is an overall atmosphere in society that helps the development of folk songs.
Third, the distribution characteristics of folk houses provide an environment for the dissemination of folk songs
If the encouragement of the state is the basis for the development of folk songs, then the spontaneous dissemination of folk songs provides an excellent environmental basis for the development of folk songs. According to the construction mode of the "craftsman camp state" system, in addition to the imperial city, the residential division is also divided into two parts: "national residence" and "Luli". The state house refers to the place where the princes and nobles and some important courtiers lived; Luli refers to the walled residential area in the ancient town, that is, the place where ordinary civilians lived.
Western Han Dynasty residential map
The General Code of Food and Goods explains that "the land of the kingdom of Yi Li" notes:
The one who is in the middle of the house, if the present Yunyi is in the house. Oh, the area of dwellings also. Li, Juye
。 It is precisely because of the closed and joint nature of the house that people communicate very closely and frequently in their daily lives. If modern knowledge were to be used to explain it, it would be like a website, on which netizens would often post all kinds of information.
Moreover, although this Luli is a residential area for ordinary people, it also has a connection point with the residential area of the upper class, and the cultural dissemination in the middle has not been cut off, which makes the ordinary people and the dignitaries directly form an interaction, and the upper class can timely learn some views of the people on current affairs and hot topics in society, and the ordinary people can also know the general development trend of the upper class. It can be seen from this that the distribution characteristics of this residential area have created an excellent environmental atmosphere for the generation and dissemination of folk songs.
Fourth, the recognition and support of the national system
If the people are the carrier of the development of folk songs, then the national policy is the driving force for the development of folk songs. Since folk songs are seen as one of the best ways to understand public opinion, it is a matter of course to include them as a policy of oversight over time.
Ordinary people
During the Western Han Dynasty, it was still limited to the collection of folk songs by the court, and then summarized some things from them, but because there were many ways to transfer in the middle, many real public opinions could not be truthfully reflected to the rulers, then the collection of these folk songs lost its most important role, but became a way of reaction to cultural development. For example, in the late Western Han Dynasty, the "Five Waiting Songs" that reacted to the dictatorship of foreign relatives: The Five Princes rose up at the beginning, and Qu Yang was the most angry. Bad dueling high capital, even outside the du. Tushan gradually platform, like the Western White Tiger. The gist of the song refers to the extravagant desire of the five princes of the wang clan, which is obviously highly sung in the folk, but why is it not highly valued by the rulers? Excluding the royal family's laissez-faire of foreign relatives, it is more likely that someone has blocked the way for public opinion to be uploaded.
In the Eastern Han Dynasty, emperor Guangwu summed up his experience of making a fortune because of his own experience: relying only on the collection and summary of the following official governments is far from solving the problem. Therefore, the Guangwu Emperor established a "rumor- and rumor-raising" system. According to the Book of the Later Han Dynasty:
In the beginning, Guangwu grew up in the folk, quite a bit of hypocrisy, saw that the crops were difficult, the people were sick, and the world had been decided, so it was necessary to be quiet, to solve the complexity of Wang Mang, and to return the light law of the Han Dynasty.
That is to say, compared with the Western Han Dynasty's emphasis on folk songs, the eastern Han Dynasty's emphasis is more intense, and the superiors directly incorporate the supervision of folk songs into the country's legal system, which is compared with the previous situation of only spreading among the people, and its social status has also undergone great changes.
Portrait of Emperor Wu of Han Guangwu
It has to be said that such a system still played a certain role in supervising the selection of officials by the imperial court. For example, during the reign of Emperor Ling of Han, Yizhou Assassin Shi Xi Jian was dismissed from office because he was "troubled in the dynasty and rumors were far away". From this point of view, the emergence of the "rumor- raising" system makes the role of folk songs not only reflected in cultural dissemination, but also in the political role of national development, which makes the existence and development of folk songs recognized and encouraged by the entire social system.
epilogue
From the above analysis, we can draw the following conclusion: the reason why folk songs in the Two Han Dynasties spread on a large scale is because folk songs are no longer just a cultural carrier, and they can reflect the people's views on the development of state affairs and some social hotspots at a deeper level. It is precisely because of this special role of folk songs that the court began to change its view of folk songs, from the initial laissez-faire development to the later incorporation into the country's legal system, as well as the people's enthusiasm for it, which made the folk songs of the Two Han Dynasties play a pivotal role in promoting the development of society. Therefore, during the Two Han Dynasties, the spread of folk songs in society will flourish unprecedentedly!
References: "Book of Han", "Book of later Han", "History", "Book of Shang", "Tongdian Food Codex", etc