The amber charms of princess Cao Rui of the Wei Ming Emperor cao rui plain in the Luoyang Museum's collection rushed to the hot search with the topic of "a gift from a father to his daughter a thousand years ago".
The two cultural relics in the picture are from the tomb of Cao Wei M1 in Xizhu Village, Luoyang, in fact, the current academic community has no conclusive conclusion on the identity of the tomb owner. The scale of this tomb is very large, it can be determined that it is a high-grade tomb of Cao Wei, although it has been stolen many times, it still leaves a lot of cultural relics, especially a large number of such stone tablets have been excavated. Their scientific name should be called "楬", which is actually a label tied to the object to mark the name of the funerary object.
Thus, although most of the burial items are no longer available, we have obtained a list of artifacts in the tomb, on the basis of which scholars' speculations about the owner of the tomb are derived. Some scholars believe that the owner of the tomb is the Cao Wei Emperor, but this statement is not widely accepted. Some scholars also believe that it is the tomb of Cao Cao's son, Cao Zhang, the king of Rencheng, because there is Dan medicine in the list, so the owner of the tomb should be an adult, and children may not need health. However, there are also children's toys such as "dove carts" in the list information, and because there are a large number of female jewelry in the list, several pieces are dedicated to the princess, so the owner of the tomb is likely to be a young princess, so it seems that the tomb owner's explanation of the princess Cao Shu is indeed more convincing. This time the official media reported that I don't know if there is any meaning of "official announcement".
However, it is not as warm as the hot search, behind the beautiful jewelry is a lonely and heartbroken father, and the funeral of Princess Pingyuan has also become an important political event for Cao Wei at that time for various reasons.
I. The Confrontation of Emperor Wei Ming
In the year of his succession, Emperor Wei Ming lost his second son Cao Ran (曹冏), Taihe (太和三), the third year of his reign as emperor, the crown princes Cao Li (曹礼) and Cao Mu (曹穆) died successively, followed by the death of his younger daughter Cao Shu (曹淑) in the sixth year of Taihe.
In this year, the Wei Ming Emperor Cao Rui was 28 years old, he had an innate depth and strategy, and in the nearly seven years of his ascension to the throne, he gradually matured and became more decisive. Externally, wu shu was repelled, and cao wei's bureaucratic system, criminal law system, etiquette system, and election system were improved internally—this marked the establishment of Cao Wei's "orthodox" status. This system was largely inherited by later generations, making Cao Wei, though short-lived, a far-reaching dynasty in Chinese history. Therefore, later generations always evaluate Cao Rui as a promising monarch, but they also say that he is a wayward monarch.
For example, after Emperor Ming succeeded to the throne, he posthumously gave a large amount of mourning to his birth mother, Empress Zhen, and also generously rewarded the Zhen family. Empress Zhen was killed by Emperor Cao Pi of Wei, and Cao Rui's move was very similar to punching his father in the face. After Cao Pi killed Zhen, who was born in the warrior clan, despite the objections of his ministers to make the lowly Empress Guo empress, Cao Rui almost failed to become a prince at first because he refused to change his wife. There is no doubt that his father's scumbag behavior has caused him a great psychological shadow, but ironically, Cao Rui has finally become his own nasty appearance, and the drama of abolishing the right and standing bias was re-staged in the Ming Emperor Dynasty, and after the Ming Emperor did not establish his own crown princess Yu Shi after ascending the throne, he changed to mao shi, and Yu Shi complained: "Cao Clan is self-righteous and unworthy", and suddenly poked at the essential law of the Cao family after three generations of establishment - ancestral Yan control, noble and lowly do not matter. Of course, the exposed Cao Rui was very unhappy, and Yu Shi was imprisoned in the Yecheng Palace.
Of course, the move of "standing lowly" was also opposed by the Qunchen, but Cao Rui did not care. He had been intelligent since childhood, full of books, especially fond of spells, and he had become more and more comfortable with these increasingly aristocratic ministers. Since the end of the Han Dynasty, there has been a gradually clear trend in Chinese history, that is, the strength of the Scholar Group has increased, and it can fight against the imperial power in a group, and this trend spread to the Eastern Jin Dynasty, which became a situation of "king and horse, common world", that is, the Langya Wang clan and the Sima clan shared the world, not only "wang and horse", but also "Xie and ma", Wang Xie was the representative of the entire aristocratic group.
In such a trend, the promising emperor was always trying to resist aristocratic politics, Cao Rui did it very successfully, he was quietly strong, quietly established his authority, but his courtiers had to always compromise, so they could only criticize him with "willfulness". Cao Rui's willfulness is not childish, but an old-fashioned one.
However, this increasingly old monarch is also becoming more and more lonely.
Cao Shu was already the fourth child he had lost before he was founded. She was less than a year old when she died, and the history books do not record all the stories of the princess's life, but they do record her funeral. His father, Cao Rui, once again decided to act willfully, to give his daughter the grandest funeral, which was destined to set off a fierce confrontation with the chancellor.
Emperor Wei mingdi decided to posthumously honor his daughter as "Princess Yi of Pingyuan" and give her a nice nickname, "Yi" represents noble virtue, which is obviously inappropriate for a young child. However, Emperor Ming not only wanted to bury Princess Yi thickly, but also set up a temple for the princess in Luoyang, and the emperor personally led the group of courtiers and harems to send funerals. This move shook the government and the public, not only had no princess had such treatment before, let alone a young child under the age of one year.
In the Confucian concept, there is a clear boundary between adults and children, and "orderly growth and childhood" is the basis of everything. What's more, the funeral that Emperor Wei Mingdi organized for his daughter was too luxurious even for adults. Therefore, the great Confucian Chen Qun justifiably opposed this move: "After the age of eight, the ceremony was not prepared", "Since ancient times, there has been no such comparison". Another minister, Yang Fu, poked Emperor Ming and said, "You didn't send a funeral when your father and your grandmother died!"
However, Emperor Wei Ming rejected all objections, so there is the tomb of Xizhu Village M1 that we have excavated today. Emperor Ming not only arranged various toys and jewelry for his daughter, although her hair may not have grown completely, but still gave her the princess's clothing, and even arranged an object for her, which is commonly known as the marriage of the bride. This unlucky and lucky little boy was Empress Zhen's widowed grandson Zhen Huang. This can also be confirmed by the excavation of Tomb M1, a joint burial tomb in which the male burial items on the stone plaque can also be explained. That is to say, while Emperor Wei Ming mourned his daughter, he also added more grace to his uncle's family.
During those years, Cao Rui always emphasized his absolute authority, so there were also political intentions behind the princess's funeral. Prior to this, he built a large number of civil engineering and palaces, which were admonished by his courtiers as luxury, but in fact, the emperor completed the etiquette system and established orthodoxy. And giving grace to the Uncle Zhen family is also a gesture of opposing the tone with his subordinates.
Second, the heartbroken father
It is reasonable to explain Cao Rui's behavior in terms of the struggle between imperial power and nobility, but we are willing to believe that he was a loving father. As a child, Cao Rui did not receive much father's love and was deprived of maternal love. It is said that after Zhen Hou's death, Cao Pi was very dissatisfied with Cao Rui, but during a hunting trip, Cao Rui prevented his father from shooting a fawn, and he cried that since he had killed his mother, why didn't he spare his son? It is said that Cao Pi was very impressed, so he decided to make this son the crown prince. Perhaps in order to make up for the lack of his own affection, Emperor Wei Mingdi was particularly fond of his young daughter.
Next to the M1 tomb is the M2 tomb, although the excavated materials are insufficient, but from the perspective of the shape, many scholars speculate that it is Cao Rui's mausoleum. He still wanted his beloved daughter to be buried by his side, and the funeral that Cao Rui wouldfully organize for his daughter was not just a gamble with Chen Qun and these old courtiers.
In the history of literature, the representatives of Jian'an literature are called "Three Caos", that is, Cao Rui's father Cao Pi, uncle Cao Zhi and grandfather Cao Cao. But another traditional version is "Three Ancestors Of Chen Wang", that is, it includes the three emperors of Cao Wei, and The King of Chen Si, Cao Zhi. That is to say, Cao Rui also has some literary talents on his body. He wrote a mournful lament for his daughter, and not only that, but also called on all the outstanding writers of Cao Wei to write together, including his uncle Cao Zhi.
"Lamentations" is an ancient style dedicated to mourning the death of children. Although there were such articles in the pre-Qin Dynasty, the first was immature, and the object of mourning was not fixed, until the third century, that is, the era of Cao Rui, "lamentations" became prosperous and fixed in the form of four-word poems. Since ancient times, Chinese funeral literature has been very developed, one of the requirements for scholars in the Spring and Autumn And Warring States Period is to be able to write mourning the deceased in the funeral, and in the Han Dynasty, there are various inscriptions, and after the Wei and Jin Dynasties, the form of epitaphs was developed. Nostalgia for an adult, especially the object of "recitation": an accomplished or respected adult man is easy, and can leave a lot of famous stories. But how should we remember and write for children who died young?
As mentioned above, Confucianism strictly distinguishes between the elder and the young, and the funeral of children is generally not solemn, which is not the prejudice of the Confucian tradition. In ancient times in world history, minor children were usually not taken seriously, they were not counted as population, not counted labor, did not need to pay taxes, because medical care was not developed enough, child mortality rate was very high, after death, some cultures would choose to bury children on the side of the road on the outskirts of the city, and some were put in urn coffins. Without family planning, there is too much grief, and usually people get their next child very quickly.
This is in line with the analysis of political economy. Therefore, wang Rong, a famous scholar in the Western Jin Dynasty, was sad to lose his young son, and his friend asked him curiously: "Why is this the child's report?" "Minors are not yet a complete person, but still belong to the category of "things". However, human beings are human beings after all. A child without virtue or merit can still receive the purest love from his loved ones for no reason. Therefore, Wang Rong said such a famous answer: "The saint forgets his feelings, and he is the least affectionate." The place of love is in my generation."
The writing of this human nature, perhaps even "discovery," began in China around the third century. Whether in the East or the West, the importance people attach to children reflects the progress of history. That not only represents the relative improvement of the medical level and the progress of material culture, but also a major leap in the history of human thought. This is also the gradual beginning of the historical significance of children in Renaissance works. In the Middle Ages of China, although most parents could not celebrate the funeral of their young children like Cao Rui, writing could be another way for them to express their grief.
Unfortunately, the mourning for Cao Shu's children has been dispersed. But when he opened his uncle's collection of essays, he found that this great poet was probably one of the saddest people in the Cao family. Although persecuted by his brother Cao Pi, Cao Zhi still tried to live to the age of forty, even if it was not a long life, but it was even longer than his nephew Emperor Wei Ming, so in the second half of his life, Cao Zhi repeatedly witnessed the departure of his relatives. He wrote a curse for his young brother Cao Chong, then a tribute to his father Cao Cao, and then mourned his younger brother Cao Zhang, who was suspected of being poisoned by his elder brother, and then the elder brother Cao Pi also died, and he probably wrote the "Emperor Wen" with mixed feelings. By the time of Emperor Ming, he had finally lost Empress Bian as a loving mother, and later he frequently mourned young and young nieces, nephews, and nephews such as Cao Shu. In the same three years, Cao Zhi lost his second son frequently, and he left the famous "Lamentations of Jin Yong" and "Lamentations of the Walking Women". Kim, the first daughter of Cao Zhi, was only nineteen months old when she died, and Cao Zhi repeatedly said in the poem that although she could not speak, she could already laugh. The last few sentences of the poem are often used by later poets:
How long is the day, when is life? Successively unconscious, from Er to period.
Cao Rui buried her daughter next to the tomb of his choice with great fanfare, probably for the sake of "having a period from Er". These two poems by Cao Zijian remind me of the Japanese poet Kazucha Kobayashi's waka, which was quoted on the Internet as an Internet celebrity sentence that reads "The years are quiet", but it is said that it is also a "lament" written by Kobayashi after losing his son:
I know the world,
Ben is as short as dew,
however
however......
Resources:
Liu Lianxiang: Discussion on the Tomb Master of Cao Wei in Xizhu Village, Luoyang
Ou Jia et al.: "Luoyang Xizhu Village Cao Wei Tomb M1 Unearthed" Three? Cover bun "Stone Nan Remembered Dress Jewelry"
Zhao Chao: "The Name of the Stone Plate Excavated from the Tomb of Cao Wei in Luoyang Xizhu Village and the Correction of the Identity of the Tomb Owner"
Luoyang Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology: Tomb of Cao Wei in Xizhu Village, Luoyang City, Henan Province
END
The image comes from the Internet
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