The famous "Mulan Ci" has been passed down from generation to generation, and the earliest came from the Northern Wei "Lefu", when the imperial court set up a Lefu official office, responsible for collecting and sorting out folk songs, training musicians, etc., and was officially included in the "Lefu Poetry Collection" in the Song Dynasty. There are generally two sources of Lefu lyrics: royal literati creation and folk collection, while the Mulan Ci obviously belongs to the latter.
Lefu classics are basically realistic, as if the "East Gate Line", "Mo Shang Sang", "Peacock Southeast Flying" and so on handed down during the Han and Wei dynasties are all. Due to the official revision of history in ancient times, the emperors will change their appearances and change dynasties, many of them are strange and chaotic, and the history books of small folk matters and small people are not obvious. In ancient times, the common people dictated the things they saw and thought were meaningful through folk songs, and then polished by the literati, and were collected by the official office and slightly compiled into the "Lefu", which can also become a supplement to historical materials, quite biographical or unofficial memorabilia.
So, women dressed as men, surrogate fathers to join the army, in history, such a thing really will happen? Can we deduce the true story of Mulan from "Mulan"?
Starting from "Khan's big point of soldiers" and "the general died in a hundred battles, and the hero returned in ten years", it is inferred that Mulan lived in the age. According to official Documents of the Northern Wei Dynasty, before Emperor Xiaowen's reforms, the emperor was called "Khan", and if he wanted to find a war that lasted for ten years, he could find a 25-year war between Tuoba Tao and Rouran, the Taiwu Emperor of Northern Wei. After the Sinicization movement of Emperor Xiaowen, there were no more "khans", and it can be inferred that Mulan should live in the era of Tuoba Tao.
As for the origin of Mulan, there are many theories, such as Tan County, Song Prefecture, Shangqiu, etc., but historically these places refer to the area around Yucheng County in Shangqiu City, Henan. Shangqiu, originally part of the Southern Dynasty Liu Song Dynasty, Tuoba Tao expelled the Liu Song forces in 433 and completed the unification of northern China by 439. Tuoba Tao launched a war against Rouran, which lasted 25 years from 424 to 449. Time and space and the biography of Mulan is basically the same, Mulan was born in 412, then after Shangqiu belonged to the Northern Wei in 433, Mulan should be 21 years old, with the possibility of surrogate father joining the army to attack Rouran.
Northern Wei before the reform of Emperor Xiaowen, it was the transition stage from slavery to feudal system, so "Khan Da dian bing" and "twelve volumes of military books, the volume has the name of the grandfather" and so on are also in line with historical facts, when the slave master or tribal leader launched a war, each family needs to send a male Ding as a soldier, because "Grandpa has no eldest son, Mulan has no eldest brother", from the perspective of filial piety, "from now on for the grandfather" is possible.
If the above situation is true, Hua Mulan's "resignation from the Yellow River and the end of the Black Mountain" should be to resist Rouran, and it occurred after Tuoba Tao defeated Goguryeo and other Rouran subordinate tribes, during the period of setting up six towns in the northeast, about 435 to 447 AD. According to historical records, in 439 AD, the two sides improved relations with relatives, and the subsequent wars mainly revolved around the battle for the western regions, and in 444 there was a large-scale war, "sitting on the Soft Period, Jin Yu in the south", and the Northern Wei Dynasty won a complete victory.
When Mulan triumphed, he was about 35 years old, and the imperial court named Mulan Shangshulang. In the early period of the Northern Wei Dynasty, slaves could obtain the status of "freedmen" by virtue of their military merits, and when their military merits accumulated to the "Twelve Turns of Cexun", they could also become officials. And although Shang Shulang's official position was close to the center, his rank was not large, and he only ranked under Shang Shutai.
The Tang Dynasty poets Bai Juyi and Du Mu, the Southern Song Dynasty scholar Cheng Dachang, the Ming Dynasty scholar Xu Wenchang, and the Qing Dynasty historians Yao Shifu and Song Yuting all believe that Mulan really has her own person. She rose to the rank of nobleman by virtue of her military achievements, so why is it not recorded in the history books?
The Qing Dynasty Records of Shangqiu County can be used as a reference: "... And return home, release his uniform, and wear his old clothes. The companions were horrified, so they heard about the matter. Summoned to the Que, to take in the palaces. Mulan Yue: 'A subject has no courtesy to match the king', and he refuses to swear by death, and when he is forced to obey, he commits suicide. The emperor was shocked and posthumously awarded the general the title of 'filial piety'. "It is possible that Hua Mulan immigrated to Shangqiu as a humble slave and rose to the rank of nobleman by virtue of her military merits, and the Book of Wei and the Northern History should have had her biography, but because of "hearing about the dynasty with facts", her daughter's identity was exposed, and she committed deception, although pardoned, but was robbed of the opportunity to leave her name in qingshi.