The Spring and Autumn "Five Powers" originated from the cosmic model of "Five"

Tang Xiaomin

History says that there were "five hegemons" in the Spring and Autumn Period, of which the four hegemons, namely the Duke of Qi Huan, the Duke of Jin Wen, the Duke of Qin Mu, and the King of Chu Zhuang, are not controversial, which is the fifth hegemon? There are many sayings. Why? To put it simply, there are only four hegemons in the Spring and Autumn Period, and there are no five hegemons. These four hegemons are not only individually capable, but also have a big country behind them. With this support, they can dominate. And during the Spring and Autumn Period, there were only these four great powers. The Song Kingdom and the Zheng State are not big countries, and they cannot provide a hegemon.

But why is there a "five hegemons" in history? The "Five Powers" actually originated from the ancient Chinese cosmology of the "Five". Ancient China believed that heaven and earth had four squares and a center. That is, in the east, west, south, and north, the five types of substances or five types of activities, that is, gold, wood, water, fire, and earth, and the five colors of blue, red, white, black, and yellow, and the music of the gongshang horns and feathers, and the five visceral hearts, liver, spleen, lungs, and kidneys, forming a "five" cosmology, and all kinds of things in the universe have become "five", and for those that are not actually "five", they also let it "obey". That's how the "Five Powers" came about.

In fact, the "five senses" come from this way. There are only "four senses" on people's heads, namely eyes, ears, nose, and mouth, and there is no fifth sense, but they also have to be put together, and some of them are originally more than five, then they must be "cut" into a "five". Such as "five dishes", "five tastes" and so on.