The only lesson that mankind has learned from history is that mankind has not learned any lesson from history
Wen 丨 Spicy Reading History (original article, copyright belongs to me, welcome to personal forwarding and sharing)
Mr. Guo Moruo, a modern literary scholar, once wrote a drama "Tiger Symbol" with the classic Chinese historical story of stealing the symbol to save Zhao, which was first performed in 1943, telling the story of Wei Xinlingjun, one of the "Four Gentlemen" of the Warring States, who secretly conspired with the Wei king's favorite concubine Ru Ji to steal the Wei King's Tiger Charm in order to rescue the Zhao Kingdom, in order to solve the crisis of the Zhao State being besieged by Qin.
Mr. Guo Moruo used the tiger symbol as the name of the drama, on the one hand, because the tiger rune is the core of the story, and on the other hand, because at this time Guo Moruo was holding a tiger rune of the Qin Dynasty in his hand. We know that in addition to Guo Moruo's identity as a writer, he also has the attributes of an oracle bone writer and archaeologist, and this tiger charm was discovered by Guo Moruo in an accidental situation, one is that his eyesight is superior, and the other is a character explosion.
Tiger charm on the stall
During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Guo Moruo was in Chongqing, and when he had nothing to do, he liked to hang out on the streets, see people's feelings, observe life, and find inspiration for himself. On this day, he found a simple copper tiger on the stall, and Guo Moruo was sensitive to the fact that this matter was not so simple, so he bought the copper tiger. Sure enough, things did not go as he expected, and the stall goods he bought were really a national treasure-level cultural relic, that is, the Yangling Tiger Charm during the Qin Dynasty. At today's market price, it is worth more than 100 million.
The Tiger Charm, which everyone should have heard, is a certificate used to mobilize the national army. The earliest time appeared in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, when mergers and divisions were frequent, and the strength of the military directly determined the life and death of a country, and the importance of the general in this period was self-evident. However, the king is the absolute authority of a country, and the military power must be in the hands of the king, but the king cannot directly lead the troops to fight, he must distribute the military power to the general, and it is easy to appear here, the military power is too large, and the general's self-esteem threatens the monarch's rule.
Therefore, the tiger charm appeared as a certificate for the use of soldiers, which was generally made of bronze, and in a small number of cases, it was also made of gold, jade or bamboo, which appeared in pairs and had inscriptions engraved on them. Half of it exists in the imperial court, half in the commander or local governor, one place and one symbol, and when the number of soldiers exceeds 50, a pair of tiger charms is needed to transfer troops. In order to prevent people with ulterior motives from forging, the back of the two halves of the tiger charm has a mortise and a mortise, one by one, and only if it is fully compliant can the troops be transferred. In this way, it is very good to hold military power in the hands of the monarch, and as a general, if there is no tiger charm in his hand, it is just a false position.
As the final winner in the Seven Kingdoms Championship, the strength of the Qin army has always been very strong, known as the army of tigers and wolves by the Six Kingdoms, which is not only due to the military merit system of the Qin State and the militarized weapon production of the assembly line, but also from the strict and systematic militarized management, so the tiger charm of the Qin Dynasty is very important.
Qinyang Ling Tiger Charm
The Qin Chaoyang Tomb Tiger Charm found by Guo Moruo is a tiger charm issued by Qin Shi Huang to the generals stationed in Yangling after he unified China, and it is said that it was unearthed in Lincheng, Zaozhuang City, Shandong Province. The Qinyang Tiger Charm is 8.9 cm long, 2.1 cm wide and 3.4 cm high, cast in bronze in the shape of a Crouching Tiger, with its head cocked, and the left and right sides of the tiger's neck and back each have the same wrong golden seal inscription 12 characters: "The rune of the armored soldier, the right is in the emperor, the left is in the Yangling." "These 12-word typo golden seal inscription is first engraved on the tiger's body, and then the gold wire is embedded in the yin text, and finally the skeleton is polished and polished, and the inscription is neat and beautiful, strong and powerful. The text is arranged in two columns along the longitudinal axis, the reading order is two columns from right and left, each column from top to bottom, and the left and right half characters are arranged and read in the same way.
Since the tiger charms are all collected separately, it is very rare for pairs like the Yangling Tiger Charm to appear. The excavation of the Qinyang Ling Tiger Charm also clearly shows the function of the Qin State Tiger Charm, from the body of the Tiger Charm, it can be seen that the military system of the Qin State, the unification of the army, the high concentration of military power, the strict command and management system of the army, and the military service system are relatively perfect, which shows that the military system of China's feudal society during the Qin Dynasty has basically taken shape. As for why the Qin State can become the final winner, we can also peek at it from the Tiger Rune.
The Han Dynasty soldiers inherited the Qin system and changed the position of the inscription slightly. The Wei and Jin Dynasties and the Southern and Northern Dynasties have been used forever, the Tang Dynasty changed the tiger symbol to a fish symbol to avoid the ancestral Li Hu name, and after the Song Dynasty evolved into tokens and other things, in fact, the function and nature are the same. The value of the tiger charm itself lies not in the superb craftsmanship of its production but in the great military significance behind it, which is of great significance to the study of the military development and military service system in ancient China.