The Qing Dynasty was the last feudal dynasty in Chinese history, and it was also the closest to us and the one we are most familiar with, which lasted for 276 years from the beginning of the change of the name of the emperor Taiji to the Qing Dynasty in 1636 to the abdication of the last emperor Puyi in 1912. During these 276 years, the Qing government issued many decrees that were criticized by later generations, such as "closed to the country" and "word prison", etc., but as the most disgusting thing for the Han people, it was probably "shaving hair and combing braids".
In 1644, after the Qing army entered the pass, an order was issued that the pass occupied by the Qing army, both officials and civilians must cut their hair and braid within ten days, and if they did not obey, they would be beheaded. At that time, the slogan conveyed by the Qing army was "leave the head without hair, keep the hair without the head". As for why the Qing army issued such an order, in fact, the reason is very simple.
First of all, the Manchu rulers hoped to shave their hair to attack the national spirit of the vast number of Han people, especially the upper echelons of them. At once, to maintain the dominance of the Manchus, and to keep the Manchus from being assimilated by the large number of Han people in Guanzhong. Although the rulers of the Qing Dynasty were eventually able to achieve this goal, the implementation of the early decrees was not easy.
There is a sentence in the "Filial Piety Sutra" that is exactly: "The skin of the body, the parents of the body, do not dare to destroy, the beginning of filial piety." Therefore, before the Qing army entered the customs, Han men were not allowed to shave their hair at will after they reached adulthood, and even regarded it as life. We know that during the Three Kingdoms period, when Cao Cao was conquest of Yuan Shao, he made a rule that it was not allowed to trample on the fields of the people, otherwise they would be beheaded and shown to the public. As a result, Cao Cao's own horse lost its hoof and trampled on the green shoots in the field. However, as the commander of the three armies, it was impossible to really behead himself, so Cao Cao cut his hair to atone for his sins, which shows that as early as the Three Kingdoms period, "hair" was very important for the ancients.
After the Qing Dynasty entered the customs, it required all officials and ordinary people to shave into "money rat tails" and leave only braids the size of small thumbs. It can be said that except for the small handful of hair, it looks almost like a bald head. Naturally, it was met with strong resistance, and Gu Yanwu wrote in the poem "Broken Hair": "The Chinese hair is ruined, and it is better to live than to die!" ”
However, over time, people have changed from strong resistance at the beginning to forced acceptance. And many people will start to have braids when they are young, basically they will not cut them for a lifetime, so some people's braids have grown to the length of their calves, which is extremely inconvenient.
First of all, it takes a lot of time to braid such a braid, and if it is scattered and washed once, it will often take a long time to dry. However, they must not be clothed and distributed, otherwise they will be easily punished if they are seen by the official uniform. Before it is dried, it is easy to tie a braid, and it is easy to smell bad. Therefore, many people simply do not wash, especially in autumn and winter, when the weather is cold, they will wash it almost every six months. A British female reporter once reported on the braids of the Qing Dynasty, saying that 10 meters away it was smelly and disgusting.
Fortunately, after the Wuchang Uprising, the revolutionary army ordered the people to "cut off the bearded tail and eradicate the slave roots", setting off a huge braid-cutting movement. At the end of the Qing Dynasty, the "money rattail" style braid has evolved into a "yin and yang head", that is, the first half is shaved off, and the second half is braided. To look better than before, The Qing Palace dramas also use the image of "yin and yang head", but in the end they are all cut off. After all, whether from an aesthetic or historical point of view, Han Chinese people are reluctant to accept such braids.