The long river of history is running endlessly, there are calm waves, there are also waves, let Xiaobian take you into history and understand history.
The "History of Gao Zu Benji" records the story of Liu Bang's snake-cutting uprising, so what did the snake-cutting uprising mean for Liu Bang and the establishment of the Han regime? Why did Liu Bang behead the White Snake and revolt? What exactly does the White Snake represent? What do the sons of the White Emperor and the Red Emperor mentioned in the story mean?
The story of Liu Bang's snake-slaying uprising is roughly like this, when Liu Bang, as the head of the Surabaya Pavilion, wanted to take prisoners to Lishan.
However, there were many prisoners, and there were many runners in the middle, and Liu Bang thought that going to Lishan would also be punished for this, so he dismissed the prisoners and went to drink alcohol himself.
At this time, some prisoners went and returned, saying that there was a white snake blocking the road and could not pass, so Liu Bang then raised his sword and slashed the white snake.
That night, someone found an old woman crying bitterly and asked why, and the old woman said that I was crying because my son was killed, and that my son was the son of the White Emperor and turned into a white snake, but now he was beheaded by the son of the Red Emperor.
As a result, people thought that Liu Bang was the son of the Red Emperor, and people were attached to him, and Liu Bang also opened the road against Qin and Han with these people.
In fact, the authenticity of this story does not need to be refuted, the so-called White Emperor and Red Emperor, these are the same as Chen Sheng Wu Guang's "Great Chu Xing, Chen Sheng Wang", that is, to create a momentum for the uprising, so that people can be regarded as a kind of proverb.
In the case of Chen Sheng and Wu Guang, they preached that the Great Chu Empire would prosper and Chen Sheng would become king. Liu Bang, on the other hand, preached that I was the son of the Red Emperor and bore the Mandate of Heaven.
In fact, compared with Liu Bang, Chen Sheng and Wu Guang were really small and angry, and they only wanted to break their heads and revive the Chu state and claim the throne. And Liu Bang's son of the Red Emperor beheaded the son of the White Emperor, and the meaning behind this is earth-shattering.
If this story really began to circulate at the time of Liu Bang's uprising, then Liu Bang at that time can be said to have the world in mind and ambition, so that it is only natural that the Han Dynasty was established later.
Why does the snake-slaying uprising expose Liu Bang's ambition and heart? Of course, this was closely related to the son of the White Emperor he had killed, so why did Liu Bang kill the son of the White Emperor? Because the son of the White Emperor represents a supreme person, that is, the Emperor of the Qin Dynasty!
According to the Zhou Li, in ancient times, people worshipped the five gods, namely the Eastern Qing Emperor (for Mude), the Southern Red Emperor (for Huode), the Western White Emperor (for Jinde), the Northern Xuan Emperor/Black Emperor (for Shuide), and the Central Yellow Emperor (for Tude).
This White Emperor is the Western White Emperor among the Five Gods. In the early Spring and Autumn Period of the Qin Dynasty, when it had just become a princely state, the Duke of Qin Xiang had sacrificed to the White Emperor.
After Duke Wen of Qin succeeded to the throne, he specially established a city to sacrifice the White Emperor, and it can be said that the successive monarchs of the Qin State all regarded themselves as the sons of the White Emperor.
The message behind Liu Bang's snake-slaying rebellion was actually that Liu Bang wanted to kill the Emperor of qin and overthrow the White Emperor Jinde with the Red Emperor Huode, thus changing the dynasty.
This is tantamount to saying that Liu Bang declared that he wanted to seize the world, become the son of heaven, and become emperor. Of course, this is not comparable to Chen Sheng Wu Guangxing Chu's title of king.
Later, Liu Bang was really the first to capture Xianyang, although he did not kill the Emperor of the Qin Dynasty, but it was he who personally ended the Qin Dynasty.
Later, Liu Bang defeated Xiang Yu and established the Great Han, which can be said to have really completed the goal set for himself in the snake-cutting uprising.
During the snake-slaying uprising, Liu Bang portrayed the Qin people as the son of the White Emperor and Jinde. He inherited the son of the Red Emperor, Huode.
But after Liu Bang won the world, there was a change.
The Book of History and Feng Zen records that after Qin Shi Huang unified the world, some people said, "Zhou Dehuo is virtuous, and there is a red bird symbol." This Qin changed the week, the time of water virtue. Xi Qin Wengong went out hunting and obtained the Black Dragon, which was the rui of its water virtue. ”
That is to say, the Zhou people are fire virtue, and the Qin people are now zhou, because invisibly water overcomes fire. Therefore, the Qin people should be water virtue. However, this statement is that after the establishment of the Qin Dynasty, in order to declare its legitimacy, indicate that the succession of dynasties is orderly, and it is inherited after the Zhou Dynasty, so they advocate that Qin is a water virtue.
However, the first half of Liu Bang's life was lived at the end of the Warring States period, and in the eyes of people at that time, the Qin people were Jinde, who belonged to the Western White Emperor. Therefore, Liu Bang first claimed to be the son of the Red Emperor, for huode, taking the meaning of fire kejin, in order to overthrow the Qin Dynasty.
Later, in order to proclaim the orthodoxy of the Han Dynasty and the orderly succession of dynasties, Liu Bang also advocated that the Han Dynasty was water virtue, and after the Zhou Dynasty, he directly skipped the Qin Dynasty, that is, did not recognize the Qin Dynasty as a water virtue.
The Qin and Han dynasties initially honored the White Emperor and the Red Emperor respectively, but later they both changed to the Black Emperor and considered themselves to be water virtue. Therefore, both the Qin and Han dynasties also had a tradition of respecting black.
It was also the Han Dynasty that believed that it was a water virtue, so at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, when the Yellow Turban Rebellion occurred, Zhang Jiao would shout out the slogan "The sky is dead, and the yellow sky should stand."
Because Tuke Shui, which means replacing Shui De with Tude, belongs to the blatant demand to change the dynasty.
Well, today's sharing ends here, and we'll see you next time