"Forty Degrees North Latitude", by Chen Fumin, Edition: Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House, August 2021
The story in "Forty Degrees North Latitude" is very long: it began in the Warring States period, the sixth monarch of the Zhao Kingdom, King Wuling, and in the fourth century BC, at the Battle of Ulanbutong in the twenty-ninth year of the Qing Kangxi Dynasty (1690), which lasted more than 2,000 years. There are many characters involved in the book, most of whom are related to "forty degrees north latitude", so forty degrees north latitude as a geographical concept is still a historical concept.
The ambiguity of "forty degrees north latitude"
The geographical concept of forty degrees north nearly overlaps with the Great Wall, and in its north and south live nomadic peoples galloping on horses and settlers digging earth and canals. At the same time, the intervention of the historical span has made this parallel line change from synchronicity to diachronic: whether it is King Wuling of Zhao, Liu Bang of Han Gaozu, Li Guang, Wei Qing and Huo Quyi of the Han Dynasty, Liu Yuan, Emperor Wen of Han Guangwen, Tuoba Hong, Emperor Xiaowen of Northern Wei, or Xiongnu, Xianbei, Turkic, Khitan, Jin, and Mongols, they seem to be "co-existing" in a "forty degrees north latitude" as a historical concept. People from different time and space have looked at each other for thousands of years.
"Forty degrees north latitude" is also a cultural concept, which contains the main concern of the author's dedication to this book: "Marked by the Great Wall, the 40 degree north latitude geographical belt gradually formed different ethnic groups and ways of life in the process of historical evolution, and finally completed the division, competition and integration of different civilization types." ...... Around 40 degrees north latitude, the different ethnic groups look at each other, imagine each other, and join each other. ...... Although they can't completely become each other, in the end, it is difficult to give up on each other. Qualitatively speaking, the cultural meaning of "forty degrees north latitude" refers to ethnic conflicts and ethnic integration, and ethnic conflicts and ethnic integration are two sides of the unity of "forty degrees north latitude", which cannot be ignored.
Chen Fumin, scholar and critic. He studied in the Department of Chinese of Hebei Normal University and the Department of Chinese of East China Normal University, with a doctorate degree in literature. He is the author of the literary criticism collection "The Power of Reading and Criticism" and the historical and cultural essay collection "Forty Degrees North Latitude".
Re-evaluate Li Guang, Wei Qing, and Huo Toyi
Throughout the book, the first person to appear is King Wuling of Zhao, whose "Hufu Riding Archery" in 307 BC shows for the first time the influence of the northern peoples on the settled peoples, which is the first "shiyi long skill" of the Han people - abandoning the wide robe and large sleeves, taking the narrow sleeves of the short robe; abandoning infantry combat, taking the horse bend bow - the capital of the Zhao state in Handan, the duty is to build the Great Wall north to today's DabatuYin Sumu. The author regards King Wuling of Zhao as "the rider who has not reached the end", and says that the Northern Wei Xiaowen Emperor written in "Then, Let's Go to Luoyang" is not like this. In contrast, King Wuling of Zhao chose "Hufu Riding and Shooting", just as Tuoba Hong moved the capital from Datong to Luoyang in the south; the former was the first time that the Han people took the initiative to learn from the nomads, and the latter was the "self-revolution" of the nomadic peoples.
"The Waterloo of the Emperor of the Han Dynasty", "Song of the Loser", "Youth Empire Youth Line", and "On the Other Side of the War" constitute the "Han Dynasty Part" of "Forty Degrees North Latitude". This part begins with the "Siege of Baideng" (which opens the Han Dynasty's more than four hundred years of intermittent "peace relatives" with the Xiongnu), and ends with the most famous peace relatives in history, "Zhaojun Out of the Plug".
The middle passage of the "Han Dynasty Part" is a re-evaluation of the three generals of the Han Dynasty by the author's anti-Taishi Gong.com. In his book, he reminds us to pay special attention to the following two points: First, Wei Qing and Huo Fuyi are joint biographies in the "Records of History" ("Biography of General Wei's Horse Riding Column"), and Li Guang, whose achievements are far below the two of them, are instead listed separately ("Biography of General Li"),second, Wei Qing and Huo Goyi were later "invited" by Tai Shigong to join the "Biography of Yu Xinglie", together with Deng Tong, Zhao Tong, Li Yannian and others. What the author points out here is the model that began in the Chronicle of History, which illustrates history with individual moral standards. Even so, Sima Qian recorded Emperor Wen of Han's comments on Li Guang's words ("Unfortunately, the son does not meet the time!" I am afraid that it is also the self-consolation of the historian: he saw another self in the "Flying General" who was also "not meeting the son", and projected great enthusiasm, and saw in Wei and Huo the ingenuity of their "encounter": "Guixing".
Identification of historical complexity
In her preface, the author confesses that she hopes to use this book to "win the glory and respect she deserves for literature in the field of history." In my opinion, this "respect" may be attributed to the author's identification of historical complexity.
Complexity can be discussed in two ways. Our past history is usually written from the result, which is concerned with what kind of result a certain period of history has produced, but this is not the case with Forty Degrees North Latitude, which is an illumination of the history of possibility and historical motives. History cannot be imagined, but through the laying out of historical materials, the writer can imagine another possibility of history, and even review the gains and losses of personnel motivation in the process of history. Secondly, the book's emphasis on historical complexity also involves the clarification of objective historical facts and subjective motives. What it does not say is that the whole history should consist of two parts: the history of motives (i.e., "historical possibilities") and the "history of results" (i.e., the factuality of history). The former may stop at the way of fulfillment, such as King Wuling of Zhao stopping at HuFu's southward attack on the Qin state, and Emperor Xiaowen of Northern Wei stopping at the front line of the Southern Expedition to unify China, but they should be regarded as self-sufficient, at least as part of the history that cannot be covered up by the latter. The same is true of reasoning, on the other hand: the "history of results" cannot be obscured by the "history of motives". The former requires that the writer of history cannot be indifferent to the characters in the pen, and the latter requires the writer of history not to have excessive feelings for the characters in the pen.
Comparing the "Biography of General Li" and the "Biography of General Wei", it can be seen that there are two aspects of the "History", one is a straight book, and the other is "Taishi Gongyue". In order to express his indignation, Sima Qian did his best to exaggerate Li Guang and belittle Wei and Huo, and there were indeed personal reasons for this, but according to Sima Qian's straight letter, their real battle achievements were: Li Guang or "the whole army was useless" or "redeemed as a common man" or "the army was almost empty." Guangjun is free to perform meritorious service, and there is no reward", Wei Qing or "get Hu Shou to capture 700 people" or "behead thousands of people" or "capture thousands of heads and captives, hundreds of thousands of livestock". Therefore, the author not only sighed for Sima Qian's inclusion of Wei and Huo in the Biography of Yu Xinglie, but was even more angry at the model of interpreting history according to the individual moral standards of the "Records of History". As we know, it is this model of interpretation that has since spread to historical fiction and folk music and has been carried forward by the latter. Different from the "History", the straight book has disappeared like a Cheshire cat in the folk history narrative, and all that remains is the "street talk" that is worse than a crab such as "Yangjiafu Yanyi", "Saying Hu QuanChuan", "Saying Tang Yanyi Afterword", etc.
At this point, we can also talk about the methodology of "Forty Degrees North Latitude". The author is faced with two difficulties in writing this book: the first difficulty is that the general knowledge of the Axial Age has branded the historical writing of later generations, in short, the dislocation of historical facts and fictions -- treating historical facts as fiction and taking fiction as historical facts (the result of this is as the author said: "We spent the first half of our lives accumulating historical knowledge through literary stories, and then used the power of the second half of our lives to identify and overthrow them one by one."). The second difficulty: With the birth of modern scholarship in the past hundred years, we seem to have reached the other extreme of "general knowledge", "special knowledge", that is, the distinction between literature and history is too clear, so there is no longer a misalignment, but a barrier. For readers, this is also the dilemma of our historical reading: either a highly specialized historical monograph, or a historical deduction confused with fiction. It is precisely in response to these two difficulties that Forty Degrees North presents its own methodology: first, to compensate for the shortcomings of historical writing from a literary point of view (to supplement the "history of results" with the "history of motives"); second, to supplement the lesson of positivism for the writing of literary historical themes from a historical point of view (to correct the "history of motives" with the "history of results").
However, no matter what kind of history, it is still the "history of the old paper pile" at this moment, and the author is obviously sober enough about this: "Because of the wide range of historical geography themes, these basic issues are not enough for literary professionals to rely on book knowledge alone in many cases, especially to guard against the drawbacks of 'paper geography'." The "paper geography" here, along with the "participatory nature" mentioned elsewhere by the author, hints at the book's third methodology: walking. "Forty Degrees North Latitude" begins with the author driving a Car on the Beijing-Tibet Expressway, so it is no accident. Taking all the places written in the book, Chen Fumin personally walked through them one by one. He tried to reconstruct the original context of historical materials by walking, both in the emotional sense and in the empirical sense. In this way, the meaning of walking is implemented in the writing of history, which is transformed into a very realistic historical methodology.
Written by | Xu Zhaozheng
Editor | Zhang Jin
Proofreading | Xue Jingning