The official history books compiled by the state organization once set up a special item "Fu RuiZhi" to record the auspicious Rui that appeared in previous or successive dynasties. Among Xiangrui, it is considered that the most important are the "River Map" and "Luo Shu", which are recorded in the first of the "Fu Ruizhi". There are many kinds of ancient Xiangrui, which are roughly divided into five types, that is, five grades. The ancient name was "Lin Feng Wu Ling, the King's Jia Ruiye." "It's the highest grade of Rui Zhao. The following are Darui, Shangrui, Zhongrui and Xiarui.
So, why did the rulers of ancient China particularly superstitiously believe in Xiangrui?
The root cause is probably dating back to ancient times. At that time, human thought was not yet civilized, and most natural phenomena could not be understood, so they would superstitiously believe that these natural phenomena were proof of the existence of gods. From the records of the Three Emperors and Five Emperors, we can find that many of the records have a strong superstitious color.
As for how Xiangrui became the object of the feudal rulers' firm belief, the author believes that this is related to Dong Zhongshu in the Western Han Dynasty. As we all know, Dong Zhongshu made outstanding contributions to the development of Confucianism in the Han Dynasty. The reason why the rulers of the Han Dynasty deposed the Hundred Families and respected Confucianism alone was entirely due to the influence of Dong Zhongshu.
The Confucian thought advocated by Dong Zhongshu was dominated by the "unity of heaven and man", and after this idea was accepted by the rulers, almost all natural phenomena were related to politics. For example, there are comets passing by, or flood disasters in a certain place, as well as common thunder and rain in life, these natural phenomena have been interpreted by Dong Zhongshu as a vision of heaven.
So, once the Celestial Vision occurred, what did the Emperor need to do?
For example, when a comet appears, the emperor will often pardon the world and make a review of the people, through a kind of review called "sin against oneself". Of course, this vision was not liked by the rulers, and the emperors' favorite was the "auspicious rui" that symbolized good luck. Once there is an auspicious rui in a certain place, it shows that the ruler rules the country well, and even the gods in the heavens smile and smile, which lowers the auspicious celestial signs and specially indicates auspicious omens to encourage them.
In almost every emperor's career, local officials would report countless "auspicious rui" such as "Phoenix Laiyi", "Qilin Chengxiang", "Yellow River Qing", "Ganlu Descending" and so on every year. In the eyes of modern people, these are natural phenomena and have no necessary connection with the so-called "xiangrui". However, the emperors of successive dynasties liked this way, and they hoped that during their reign, the country would appear more and more auspicious, so as to sing the praises of themselves.
The world called Wu Meiniang a wise man, but Wu Meiniang also behaved as confused as other emperors when faced with the Xiangrui problem.
During the Wu Dynasty, there was a speech official named Zhu Qianning, and one night, Zhu Qianning had a strange dream after falling asleep, dreaming that the white hair of the current saint had turned black in the morning and night, and the teeth that had fallen out had grown. The next morning, Zhu Qianning reported the incident to Wu Meiniang, who was overjoyed when she heard about this dream, believing that Zhu Qianning was very loyal. Immediately afterward, Wu Meiniang issued several holy decrees in succession, and promoted Zhu Qianning's official position several levels in a row.
We don't know whether Zhu Qianning had ever had this strange dream, but he got tangible benefits because of this strange dream. Zhu Qianning was immediately promoted from an eight-pin sesame official to the sixth rank because of a proper horse ass, and became a high-powered Zhengerpin waiter. Zhu Qianning quickly caused a sensation in the Wuzhou officialdom, and triggered a chain of demonstration effects, and some of the depressed petty officials under Wu Meiniang seemed to see the dawn of their careers, so they racked their brains to create Xiangrui in order to win the favor of the saints.
There was a sesame official in Luoyang who was the same as Zhu Qianning, named Tang Tongtai, who planned to do the same after hearing that his colleagues had exchanged a dream for a high-ranking official Houlu. Tang Tongtai wrote a letter declaring that he had excavated a white stone in Luoshui, and on this stone there were eight natural purple characters for "The Virgin of Linshui, the Yongchang Emperor". After Wu Meiniang finished reading the recital, she smiled happily, and not only appointed Tang Tongtai, who was good at patting horses, as a member of the Five Pins, but also handed over Yongchang County to Tang Tongtai to take care of.
Clear-eyed people know at a glance that the so-called "white stone purple characters" are just forged by Tang Tongtai, who asked the stonemasons to carve the handwriting on the white stone in advance, and then used some drugs to impregnate the handwriting into purple. Not long after, officials followed Tang Tongtai's example, claiming that they had obtained a strange stone in Wenshui County, Hezhou, with the words "Wuxing" carved on it. Compared with "Our Lady of The Water, Yongchang Emperor", these two words are more direct and can scratch the itch of Wu Meiniang's heart.
As a result, this official who emulated Tang Tongtai received the same treatment as Tang Tongtai, not only received a large number of rewards, but also was arranged to govern Wenshui County.
Seeing that Tang Tongtai and other "first crabs" relied on Xiangrui to taste the sweetness, more and more officials participated in the team of forging Xiangrui. At first, Wu Meiniang was still keen to enjoy these horses, but it didn't take long for her to discover that things had reached an uncontrollable point. The civil and military officials of the imperial court were becoming more and more overheated, and in the early morning of the day, there would even be many reports of the discovery of stones. Over time, Wu Meiniang was a little tired, and she no longer paid attention to such reports.
The method of carving stones did not work, and immediately some people began to learn from each other and find another way.
Hu Yanqing, a idle guy in Xiangyang, got a big turtle, and the turtle has been worshipped as a thing of auspiciousness since ancient times. Hu Yanqing believed that this turtle could be relied upon to cheat a reward from the imperial court. In order to make this turtle look more magical, Hu Yanqing wrote five words on the turtle's belly with a red pen, which is for "Ten Thousand Years of Heavenly Son". After making some preparations, Hu Yanqing begged someone to send the big turtle to the palace, hoping that Shengshang could arrange an official and a half-post for himself under the great joy.
However, after all, Hu Yanqing is only a small citizen in the city, his vision and insight are too narrow, and the way of cheating is not too clever. After this big turtle was presented to the court, Li Zhaode, the attendant of the Fengge Pavilion, saw through Hu Yanqing's little trick at a glance, scraped away Hu Yanqing's forged handwriting little by little with a knife, and then presented the scratched turtle to Wu Meiniang. It is reasonable to say that Hu Yanqing's behavior can be called the crime of deceiving the king, and in ancient times, those who committed such a major crime were often sentenced to capital punishment.
However, Wu Meiniang's attitude towards Hu Yanqing was very intriguing, she did not severely punish the counterfeiters, and said: Hu Yanqing's behavior was out of goodwill, and in this way, she forgave this guy who pretended to be Xiangrui. Wu Meiniang's attitude toward Hu Yanqing undoubtedly encouraged the unhealthy trend of forging Xiangrui, and for a time the cultural relics officers in the official field were full of ugly attitudes in order to enter Xiangrui, and even the people were affected by this unhealthy trend.
There was a big filial piety in the East China Sea, Guo Chun, when his mother died, Guo Chun washed his face with tears in the courtyard every day, and whenever he cried to the depths of his love, birds in the sky would fly into the courtyard of Guo Chun's family. When the local officials heard about this miracle, they were very surprised and sent people to Guo Chun's home many times to investigate, and found that Guo Chun's cries could indeed summon birds. Not long after, the magistrate reported Guo Chun's deeds to the imperial court, hoping that the imperial court would commend Guo Chun.
After Wu Meiniang received the recital, she immediately issued a decree to express her son, and the world recited it for it. Unfortunately, it turned out that this matter was a complete farce, and the people in Guo Chun's hometown found through investigation that every time Guo Chun spilled some cake crumbs on the ground before crying in the yard, attracting birds to eat. Over time, the birds were accustomed to the food in Guo Chun's yard, and as long as Guo Chun stepped out of the house, some birds flew to his yard to wait for food.
Coincidentally, after a while, a situation similar to that of Xiaozi Guo Chun happened again.
There was a big filial piety in Hedong named Wang Fu, who ran to the yamen to report a strange situation, saying that his cat and dog were feeding each other's cubs. After hearing this, the local county magistrate was amazed, this is really an unprecedented "auspicious rui", which is enough to prove that Her Majesty the Empress has educated all the people, and even animals such as cats and dogs are deeply moved. In order to increase her own political achievements, the prefectural county order immediately reported the matter to the imperial court, and Wu Meiniang gave Wang Fu and the local county officials a heavy reward as usual.
Later, the people of Hedong found that the phenomenon of "cats and dogs milking each other" was completely caused by man. Whenever a cat or dog gives birth to a cub, Wang Fu will put the cat cub in the kennel, and the dog cub will be placed in the cat nest. As we all know, breastfeeding is the nature of animals, and the so-called "cat and dog milk" is just the nature of animals. Sadly, such situations have emerged endlessly during the Wu Dynasty, and these absurd farces add up to a basket of jokes.
Moreover, these mentioned above are not the most hilarious.
As we all know, "year number" is a name used by the Chinese feudal dynasty and contemporary Japan to chronicle the year (which can also be used as a year). In general, it is initiated by the monarch of the current dynasty. From the pre-Qin to the beginning of the Han Dynasty, there was no era name, and after Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty took the throne, he first created the era name, and the founding year number was Jianyuan, and the system was formed thereafter. When successive emperors encounter major events and important events such as "heavenly blessings" or internal and external troubles, they generally have to change their era names. Therefore, in this number case, an emperor uses as few as one year number and as many as a dozen.
It is said that when Wu Meiniang ascended the throne, there were nearly four hundred prisoners in the prison of the Punishment Department. Because these prisoners did not see the light of day all year round, they got together and plotted a farce. During the prisoners' release, the prisoners dug a pair of huge footprints in the corner of the large cell. At night and night, the prisoners shouted en masse, and the jailers rushed to check on them, and the prisoner leader said with concern: "Just now we saw the stars shining outside the window, and suddenly a god of several feet tall appeared in the cell, and he said to us kindly: 'You are all wronged, but you don't need to worry, the saints will find out the truth and set you free today.' ’”
The jailer hurriedly found a candle and found that there was indeed a pair of huge footprints in the corner of the cell, and he was convinced of this. The jailer did not dare to neglect this matter, and immediately reported it to the imperial court one by one, reporting the footprints in the big prison to the imperial court. As for whether these prisoners were wronged or not, Wu Meiniang did not care at all, she was only keen on the auspicious arrival of the gods. Many ministers in the imperial court questioned the matter, but Wu Meiniang insisted on acquitting all prisoners. In order to commemorate this incident, Wu Meiniang also specially changed the era name of that year to "Dazu" and sang praises for herself. A group of convicts of the most heinous crimes were able to regain their freedom in such an absurd way.
This incident is enough to be called the funniest auspicious event in history.
However, it is worth mentioning that the era name of "Dazu" lasted only one year, and it was changed back to "Chang'an" in 702 AD. The author believes that even Wu Meiniang is aware of the absurdity of this matter, and if she continues to use this era name, the earth-shattering scandal about "Dazu" is undoubtedly giving posterity a handle and laughing generously.
Resources:
["Fu Ruizhi", "Three Changes in Academic Thought in the Han Dynasty", "Wu Zetian Nian", "New Book of Tang"]