The dragon circled the flag full of beasts, and the camp seemed to move in the snow. A team of three thousand horsemen of the Chinese army, all of them are rangers in the state,
This is the Tang Dynasty poet Rong Yu's poem "Out of the Army", and most of his extant poems are mainly written on the side of the horse, and the artistic conception is tragic. But as a native of Jingzhou, he belonged to the southern region at that time, and the poem mentioned that the "Hezhou Rangers" were the main force in the army.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" >what is a "state ranger"? </h1>
Xia, a combination of Fengtian Xingdao, good virtue and benevolence, shou de gong yi, li zhi faithfulness and other multiple elements. The symbol of the hero appeared in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, and initially mostly focused on swordplay research and training exchanges, which was a kind of personality cultivation, such as Yuci's Gai Nie; until it was combined with politics and became an extraordinary means, the hero could be said to have truly entered the world, and then like Yi Shui's Jing Ke.
The sentence "Han Feizi" says, "Confucianism violates the law with literature, and chivalry violates the prohibition with force", which at least shows that after entering the world, the chivalrous combined with his own cultivation and became an independent existence in the world, not bound by social rules and regulations, which caused the rulers a lot of headaches. In the Han and Wei Dynasties, the image of the hero was sublimated, and Sima Qian defined the hero in the "History of the Rangers" that the hero is those who speak and must act, the action will inevitably have results, the promises they have made will be fulfilled, in order to fulfill the promise, they will never value their own bodies, generously go to the misfortune of the soldiers, and people who are reciting such righteousness thousands of miles away. Sima Qian was a biography of the Rangers, which shows the influence of the Rangers on the society at that time.
Xun Yue mentioned in his book "Han Ji" that the essence of the ranger is that one has strong perseverance and the other has a noble spirit. Perseverance in everything, promises made and words must be fulfilled, never retreat in the face of difficulties, uphold justice, save the lives of the people as their own responsibility, these have all done is the real ranger, can not do is the thief. And once classified as a thief, what people call "light hero", light, only for their own selfishness, has not had any positive effect on society and others.
The "Rangers of The State" are not traditionally simple Rangers, they have gradually become benevolent people who defend their families and defend the country in the process of realizing their self-ideals, and they are not a new thing as the main force in the army. As early as the period of strife between the princes at the end of the Han Dynasty, the "Hezhou Rangers" were coveted, co-opted and used by the princes of all sides because of their strong combat effectiveness. Lü Bu once held a "strong army in the state" to obtain considerable political capital, and even became a key figure in the balance of the situation.
In the last year of the Sui Dynasty, Li Yuan held a powerful army composed of "Hezhou Rangers" and swept across the world with troops from Jinyang, establishing the prestigious Tang Empire. Even in the "Anshi Rebellion", in the chaos of the pattern and the turmoil of people's hearts, the Tang Dynasty still unswervingly used the "Hezhou Rangers" in the whole system, precisely because they kept their promises, despised death, were loyal, and trustworthy. Rong Yu lived in the south for a long time, and he could see the "Hezhou Rangers" in the Tang Dynasty army, which showed the wide influence of the whole Tang Dynasty.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > why are there so many "Rangers" in Shanxi? </h1>
The history of northern China has always been a history of war. During the period of political fragmentation, it became a battlefield for the various imperial courts to clash with each other and annex each other. When the regime was unified, it became the focus of the tit-for-tat confrontation between the state and the northern nomads. And the state is the Xiongnu, Xianbei, Xiqiang, Turks and other southward plundering and rushing, frequent wars, the people's temporary life and freedom must be bought by blood, so the people of Shanxi are good at fighting, including women have learned to wield swords on horses.
Under the influence of many great ethnic integrations in the north, Shanxi has been influenced by the culture of the Central Plains, but also accepted the cultivation of grassland culture and even exotic culture. In the long-term struggle against the nomads, the Shanxi people have learned many lessons, learned the advanced experience of the nomads in the war, such as quick action, large war space, and flexible battlefield changes, and have cultivated a good skill that can match the intruders.
It is not difficult to find from Cao Zhi's "White Horse Chapter" that the rangers of the state have extraordinary skills. The first is the extremely high equestrianism, the horses that can be decorated with harnesses made of noble metal are not ordinary, and the state rangers can ride freely on it, and they can fly around the northwest. The second is the clever archery skill, opening the bow left and right, and the arrow is right in the bullseye. Then he showed unusually quick reflexes, raising his hand to catch the leaping ape, leaning down to clap the running horse's hooves. Most important was their calmness, their general demeanor, and when the enemy's arrows came from a distance, they did not panic and urged their horses to climb the high embankment to observe the situation. The most crucial point is that these Rangers can be killed or alive.
The song of the people is known: When the mountain is drunk, the path is built to build a high yang pond. Ri Mo returned home, and Ming Hao did not know. Funeng rode on a horse upside down on a white hedge. Raise your hand and ask Ge Qi how to merge with the state? ...... Xinjiang is its beloved general, and the state people are also.
Liu Yiqing, a Song dynasty of the Southern Dynasty, wrote such a record in the "World Speaking New Language: Ren Birthday" to completely summarize the style of the ranger.
Taiyuan seems to have been born of a strong enemy. As the northern edge of the Chinese farming cultural circle, it guards the key to the Central Plains, and is constantly invaded by nomadic civilizations, and the confrontation between two different cultures makes the rangers of Hezhou more confident and free, and enshrine chivalry as the highest in life. Such a spirit made every participant in the grand war unique and important, so that in the days when the situation was stable after the Sui and Tang dynasties unified the world, the hero still became the admiration of the world. Big, big enough to make a living and prosperous; small, small enough to be able to make a statement and achieve things, the ranger's personal charm that emerged from the war affected almost everyone's life.
From poetry to legend, the Tang people's lyricism for the rangers has never stopped political stability, economic development, cultural prosperity, freedom of thought, coupled with the constant outbreak of conflicts on the border, the Tang world has given the chivalrous culture a great space for development. As the northern capital of the four major capitals of the Tang Dynasty, it is both a military town and a political core, and Ren Xia's fashion has been widely spread to the Central Plains from here, and then combined with everyone's inner ideals, creating a group of warriors with different personality charms.
More importantly, due to Shanxi's extensive resources, this is an innate advantage for metallurgy. From the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, Jinyang was the metallurgical center of the Jin Dynasty, and during the Han Dynasty, Hezhou was used as a national military horse knife base to supply the Han army with conquests against the Xiongnu. During the Tang and Song dynasties, Shanxi's metallurgical industry was developed, with the reputation of "and knife like water", and the saber made was extremely famous. This has also become an important condition for the continuous generation of "state rangers".
< h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > the decline of the "and state ranger"</h1>
After the Tang Dynasty, the social contradictions between the ranger group and the mainstream of Confucianism gradually sharpened, and began to be despised by the literati, and their "forbidden by force" method also conflicted with the state system and were strictly prohibited by successive emperors. Like the "Hezhou Rangers" in the chaotic era of the late Han Dynasty, the "Hezhou Soldiers" slowly disappeared.
With the stability of the regime, the peaceful life of the people, the increasingly developed economy of Shanxi, especially Jinyang, the inevitability of the existence of the ranger has also lost its social foundation, the core of the hero has been transformed into other aspects, and the urban civilization has embarked on the road of Confucianism. In the past, the sharp and sharp knives of the passers-by were no longer there, and all the records seen became the female red goods in life. The Song people delicately described: "And the knife is like water, Wu Yan wins the snow, and the hand breaks the new orange."
In fact, as early as the tang dynasty, poets who had experienced border plugs and flames saw the exaggerated side of the world.
Wang Changling's "Plugged Song" has such a sentence: "Never a quiet guest, all are dusty and old." Mo Xue Ranger, praise Zi Lu good. From this poem we already see the twilight of "And State Ranger". Slowly, as the centralized power of the feudal dynasty strengthened, the "Hezhou Ranger" eventually became a legend.
< h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > concluding remarks</h1>
When future generations trace history, they will always find that fascinating and heart-warming era, a batch of bloody "hezhou rangers" are full of spirit, in order to guard human dignity and national security, "young people bear the courage, work hard and sometimes", prancing horses and whips, tie their waists and knives, kill the enemy and repay the country, not also fast! However, heroes are easy to grow old, beauty is ashes, and the spirit of chivalry is indelible. In the core values of the city of "tolerance, virtue, respect for law, integrity and excellence" practiced in Taiyuan today, there is still a chivalrous shadow that has been passed down for thousands of years, and the "Hezhou Ranger" is especially true today, but in a different way!