It is said that in the Central Plains before the Qin Dynasty, there were two kinds of ancient magic techniques, one was a technique dedicated to the pursuit of the path of immortality, and the other was a magic number that claimed to know the Mandate of Heaven.
Those who mastered these magic skills lived in coastal areas for generations and were called alchemists by later generations, and these magics were the magic that emperors had dreamed of.
How did these techniques come about?
Is it a scam or is it a reality?
In the spring of 1936, Wu Jinding, the discoverer of the black pottery culture in Longshan, Shandong, was leading an archaeological team to carry out a fixed-point excavation of the ruins of Longshan.
In this archaeological study, they found a large number of burned tortoise shells and animal bones, which were carved neatly carved with oracle bones.
What is the role of these tortoiseshells and animal bones?
Is it just for the record of text?
So why burn it?
With these questions, the archaeologists hurried to inquire about the information, and found a definite answer in the pre-Qin history books, which is the tortoise shell divination in the ancient period.
At this time, the archaeologists gradually discovered, it turned out to be a long time ago.
There really was an age of witchcraft, and the story of this era begins in ancient times.
Legend has it that before the Three Emperors and Five Emperors in ancient times, people believed that these natural laws existing in heaven and earth were controlled by the gods, which is also the "rule deification" we mentioned earlier, they cannot resist these rules, they can only compromise with nature.
Gradually, a number of people known as witches were born, who claimed to be able to communicate with the gods and have the ability to divinate and cure diseases.
For example, the Ten Witches of Lingshan and the Six Enlightened Witches in the Classic of Mountains and Seas still hold the legendary elixir of immortality in their hands, and play the role of messengers of the gods all day long, frequently active near the Pillar of Heaven.
Before the advent of kingship, these wizards were the leaders of the tribe and the first rulers.
Over time, the wizards gathered the original scattered crowds and established the original tribes, each of which was headed by wizards, and these wizards who established the tribes had three emperors and five emperors, such as the Furen clan who drilled wood for fire, the Fuxi clan who drew gossip, and the Shennong clan who invented medicine, which is easy to understand.
It is precisely because of their status as wizards that they can sit in the position of tribal leader.
However, it was precisely because of the rule of the wizard that people began to learn to drill wood for fire, grow grain, collect medicine, and even portray gossip, evolving from the original primitive society to a civilized tribe with a clear division of labor.
In this way, these wizards are indeed different from the ancient people at that time, and seem to really have some inexplicable abilities, even in appearance, they are different from ordinary people, such as the Shennong clan on the head of the bull.
This social formation, ruled by wizards, continued until the emergence of the Regulus clan.
The Yellow Emperor was also a wizard in the beginning, but he was an ambitious wizard.
After he sat on the tribal leader, he led the tribe to attack the Central Plains from the original northwest direction, defeated the original Yandi tribe in the Central Plains, and then joined forces with the YanDi to overthrow the Jiuli clan of Xuan you, achieving unification, ending the tribal form ruled by wizards, and becoming the true lord of the world.
It was also at this time that the emperor gave up his status as a wizard and established the witch as a position, with a special official in charge.
According to the records of myths and legends, it can be understood that before the emperor, the gods issued orders to the wizards, and then the wizards guided the tribe to carry them out.
After the unification of the emperor, he also established the same structure as the celestial realm, although it would still communicate with the celestial realm, but this intercommunication became carried out by special officials, which was equivalent to reducing the control of the celestial realm.
Of course, these are all digressions, how do myths and legends communicate with the celestial realm?
Whenever divination is to be performed, a special wizard will carve the question on the turtle shell, and then put the turtle shell in the fire and burn it.
Cracks and cracks and some cracking sounds appear when the tortoise shell burns, and they believe that these cracks and cracks are what the gods say, and then the wizards convey the will of the gods by translating the cracks and cracks.
The later Xia Dynasty also continued this tradition, since it was an official position, how could wizards disappear?
In the Shang Dynasty, this witch culture developed to the extreme, and the turtle shells and animal bones excavated now are basically from the Yin Shang ruins.
Previous dynasties would divinate whenever they encountered major events, but the Shang Dynasty had to divinate no matter what, and greeted them every New Year's Festival.
The turning point happened to Emperor Xin of the Shang Dynasty, who was also the King of Sui.
In fact, the king of Lu was not so unbearable in the main history, because the emperors of the Shang Dynasty were too superstitious about the gods, so that the people also inherited this tradition, which led to the status of wizards in the minds of the people, and even showed signs of replacing the kingship.
In order to avoid the sorcerer's seizure of power, Di Xin began to deliberately reduce sacrifice and divination after succeeding to the throne, and even abolished the position of wizard for a time.
Such a move directly triggered a confrontation between the ministers and the royal power, the emperor Xin, who represented the royal power, began to oppose the divine power, the shamans representing the nobles began to oppose the royal power, and the whole Shang Dynasty was in chaos, and at this time, the Zhou Dynasty next to it waited for the opportunity to overthrow the Shang Dynasty with internal and external troubles, and with the collapse of the Shang Dynasty, the wizards were no longer valued and gradually fell into the folk.
After the decline of the Zhou Dynasty, a hundred schools of thought broke out in the Central Plains, and thinkers of various schools sought a way to save the world, and many still existed at that time.
No, most of them lived in the State of Qi, but because they had experienced a downfall and lost some of their core content, the wizards of this period would only maintain their health and sacrifice every day, but why they did so was not clear, so they simply did not have the ability to argue with the Hundred Sons.
Until the end of the Warring States period, a thinker named Zou Yan appeared in the State of Qi, who combined the behavior of wizards with yin and yang and the five elements, founded the yin and yang family thought, and co-founded the concept of cultivating immortals with the Fang Xian Dao that arose at that time. At this time, the original sorcery was successfully transformed into a magic art, and a wave of immortal hunting was set off in the qi and yan countries.
Zou Yan manifested himself as the Lord of Yin and Yang, and the Fangshi of the Yanqi Sea could not be mastered, but the strange and pedantic disciples had since flourished, and there were countless of them.
Both countries belong to the coastal countries, and these alchemists from the Yin and Yang families basically live in the coastal areas.
They claimed that there were three sacred mountains in the Bohai Sea, called Penglai, Abbot and Yingzhou, and the palaces on these three sacred mountains were all made of gold and silver, and the owners here were immortal gods, and the mountains were full of immortal trees and immortal medicines.
To this end, The Kings of Qi Wei, Qi Xuan and Yan Zhao also went into the sea many times to search for immortals, hoping to live forever.
The first time they sent the alchemists of the Yin and Yang family, they came back and said that the ship could not get close to the sacred mountain, the king of Qi Wei did not believe, and then arranged for his cronies and the alchemists of the Yin and Yang family to go out several times in a row, and the result was that every time the people who came back said that they saw the sacred mountain, but it was very far away, and as soon as the ship approached the sacred mountain, it disappeared, and it would appear farther away, a bit like a mirage.
After the unification of Qin Shi Huang, there was no idea of seeking immortals, but in 211 BC, that is, the 36th year of Qin Shi Huang, two strange things happened in succession.
In this year, a meteorite fell to this place in Dong County, and the strange thing is that there is a line engraved on the meteorite called "The First Emperor Died and Divided", is this a hint?
Not long after, an official of the Qin Dynasty suddenly encountered a masked man on his way out, and the masked man gave the official a piece of jade bi, asked him to hand it over to Ying Zheng, and asked him to bring a sentence called "This year Zu Long died."
Qin Shi Huang learned.
At this time, someone was sent to thoroughly investigate the ins and outs of the jade bi, and after the investigation, it was found that this piece of jade bi was thrown into the river by his own hands.
In desperation, Yingzheng began to pin his hopes on the war, and it was only at this time that the idea of seeking immortals came up.
First, he sent an alchemist named Han Zhong into the sea, but he did not come back after he went.
Later, Xu Fu was sent forward, but he did not return.
At this time, another person named Lu Sheng appeared, saying that he could go into the sea to find medicine for the king, but this time he came back, and he did not get the medicine to bring back a sentence called Hu Ye, the dead Qin.
Hence the incident of Montien-Varhu.
At that time, the Qin Dynasty followed the ideas of the Legalists and the legislation was strict, and Lu Sheng also knew that if he could not find medicine, he would not be able to survive, so he absconded overnight.
Yin Zheng was greatly angered when he found out, he did not expect that he had been deceived three times in a row, in order to vent his anger, he directly executed more than 460 alchemists in Xianyang City and burned all the alchemist books, which was the later book burning pit Confucian incident, in fact, it was the alchemist who was killed.
This time, the Yin-Yang Family Alchemist was almost extinct.
However, there was no Qin Shi Huang, and there was another Emperor Wu of Han.
Liu Che is also a fairy hunter.
During the reign of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, an alchemist named Li Shaojun appeared, who said that he had seen a god in the sea, called An Qisheng.
An Zhisheng is eating a big date, how old is it?
Just like a melon, this melon is a watermelon.
Emperor Wudi of Han hurriedly asked: In which sea?
Li Shaojun said: "In the Bohai Sea." This fairyland is the Penglai that Qin Shi Huang was painstakingly pursuing.
The two hit it off and began the road to immortality.
After that, Emperor Wu of Han began to recruit alchemists to look for strange people, and went with Li Shaojun to search for immortals.
As a result, only in Qidi, more than 10,000 people were registered for the position of the State of Qi, in fact, those wizards of the Yin-Yang Family, such as Shao Weng, Luan Da, Gongsun Qing, and others were all descendants of the Yin-Yang Family.
The result, of course, was nothing. These alchemists sacrificed more than 30,000 a year, and they did not make Emperor Wu of Han immortal.
However, one thing is quite strange, even if nothing is found, the emperors after Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty have also reused these alchemists, which is more puzzling, and they have not found it for nearly a hundred years, why do they not have the slightest doubt?
After Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, these alchemists changed their thinking and used some more difficult words and some hidden words to predict the future, which was similar to pushing back maps and the like.
The more representative one is the "Taiping Qing Lingshu" that appeared during the Han Shun Emperor and is said to have been created by Yu Ji.
Later, Wang Mang and Liu Xiu, the Emperor of Han Guangwu, also used the academic title of emperor in this book, just like the yellow robe, saying that he was not a usurper of Han, but a mandate of heaven, implying that he was about to become an emperor.
The Han Dynasty developed fangshu to the extreme, and in the Later Han Dynasty, there are also special columns of fangshi, hua tuo, Zuo Ci, Yu Ji and others are listed in it.
From this time on, the Fang Xian Dao of the Yin-Yang Family continued to be passed down and was absorbed by the Taoism of later generations, forming a unique concept of cultivation.