QiFeng/Wen
If you see a copper coin with the words "Qiande Yuanbao" written on it, what period do you think it was minted?
Photo: Qiande Yuanbao (Qi Feng Zang)
Everyone does not know that it is very normal, Qiande's era name is indeed not well-known, unlike the "Kaiyuan Shengshi" and "Qingli New Deal", which has been used to name important historical events. A few friends who know the history of Song will probably say that Qiande is the era name of Song Taizu, which is definitely Song Qian.
This answer is not correct, but it is not outrageous, because Zhao Kuangyin himself made the same mistake in the past.
After Zhao Kuangyin added his yellow robe and established the Song Dynasty, the first era name used was called "Jianlong", which means to establish a grand cause. After a few years, the Zhao and Song regimes gradually stabilized, and the Southern Tang, Wuyue, Jingnan, and others submitted one after another, so Zhao Kuangyin ordered the ministers to discuss the new year number, and selected "Qiande" (963-968) - "Qian" represents heaven in bagua, "de" is a favor, and the so-called "Qiande" is the grace of heaven or the emperor.
Ye Mengde said in "Shi Lin Yan Language" that after changing the Yuan, Zhao Kuangyin was very happy, saying that he was alone in ancient and modern times and no one had used it. Zhao Pu echoed on the side, praising the emperor for having the vision to choose such a tall and elderly name. At this time, Lu Doxun, who had always been at odds with Zhao Pu, made up a knife in a humorous way: "This pseudo-Shu shi number is also." He told Zhao Kuangyin that Wang Yan of Former Shu had used the Qiande era name (919-924). As soon as Zhao Kuangyin heard it, he was furious, grabbed a brush and smeared it on Zhao Pu's face, saying while drawing: "How can you compare to people who are knowledgeable!" ”
Picture: Song Yuan Tongbao, the only coin ever issued during the reign of Zhao Kuangyin (Qi Feng Zang)
Zhao Pu did not dare to wash his face one night, and the next day he went to the ground with a black ink face. Zhao Kuangyin was relieved before ordering him to wash his face.
There is another story about the Qiande nian number. In the third year of the use of the Qiande era name, after the fall of the Northern Song Dynasty, Emperor Meng Chang was captured. One day after pacifying Sichuan, Zhao Kuangyin was wandering around the palace and saw a bronze mirror of the palace maid with the words "Qiande Four Years Cast" written on it, and he was shocked, thinking that it was only three years of Qiande, how could there be four years of things -- he estimated that he thought he had crossed.
At this point in the story, there are two more versions. The version left by Ouyang Xiu in the Guitian Record is that Zhao Kuangyin asked the scholar Tao Gu what was going on, and Tao Gu replied: "This pseudo-Shu era name is also." Zhao Kuangyin immediately found the owner of the bronze mirror, and asked if he was from Sichuan, "Taizu Yu is a Confucian scholar, and the sighing prime minister is also unheard." Obviously, Ouyang Xiu wrote down this incident to satirize Zhao Pu's lack of culture.
The version in Liu Shu's "Zhongshan Poetry" is that after Zhao Kuangyin saw the mirror, he asked the scholars Tao Gu and Dou Yi at the same time, and the two replied: "The young lord of Shu tasted this number, and jian bi Shu was cast in Shu." After hearing this, Zhao Kuangyin sighed: "To be the prime minister, you must use a reader", and the meaning of the words is still to bury Zhao Pu.
Photo: Zhao Kuangyin
Among the above three people who recorded the story of Qiande, Ouyang Xiu and Liu Yu were basically contemporaries, and the content of the records was similar and seemed to be more credible, while Ye Mengde was born more than half a century later than the previous two, and it was a fantasy to tell the story. There are many flaws in the three versions, such as Ye Mengde saying that Lu Doxun was a Hanlin scholar at that time, in fact, he held this position during the Zhao Guangyi period; there are also many differences, such as who let Zhao Kuangyin know the earliest user of the Qiande era name; the consistent theme is that Emperor Taizu was disappointed in Zhao Pu, so he reused the reader!
Ouyang Xiu, Liu Shu, and Ye Mengde hoped that future generations would see that Zhao Pu, the founding father of the country, was reprimanded by Emperor Taizu for "learning less and learning less", and that their reading talents were the real pillars of the imperial court. As a result, more than a thousand years later, all I saw was how good Zhao Kuangyin junchen was at "throwing the pot".
The selection of the era name is a major matter, and the emperor must personally make the decision. Zhao Kuangyin wanted an era name that had never been seen before, and as a result, he chose Qiande, so shouldn't he also review that he didn't even have basic current political common sense? Even before sending troops to Hou Shu, they did not understand why Former Shu perished.
Lu Duoxun, Tao Gu, Dou Yi these people are more interesting, the emperor said earlier that he did not want to use the era name used by others, but before the use of Qiande, no one spoke out to remind, making people wonder if they deliberately wanted to see jokes. When the emperor asked, he only said that Qiande had been used by Former Shu, not to mention that it was actually very common to reuse the era name in history. For example, at least seven emperors have used "Jianwu", and Tang Gaozong and Tang Suzong have used "Shangyuan" within one dynasty, that is, during the Five Dynasties period, it can also be found that the former Shu Wang Jian and the Southern Han Liu Yue successively used "Guangtian". Can Ludoson and other literati not understand these things? They don't say anything more than to step on their colleagues while showing their talents.
Picture: Former Shu's Guangtian Yuanbao (Qi Feng Zang)
If we don't know these things, if we follow the thinking of Ouyang Xiu and others, we can only see that the sages are sages, the good ministers are knowledgeable, and Zhao Pu does not learn any techniques. Throwing the pot to the end, it was completely Zhao Pu who carried the pot, who let him say anything about "half of the Analects governing the world".
Finally, in the Yang Wen Gong Tan Yuan, it is said that during the Southern Tang Dynasty (943-957), a stone was found with the words "Four Years of Great Song Qiande" on it, so Qiande is likely to be the year number of the 624 emperor Whofu Gongzhi when he was called Emperor Jiansong. It is only that the auxiliary duke said that the emperor was defeated in less than one year, and it is not known how there will be "four years".