A mural in the Mogao Caves reveals how the Xiongnu king treated Wang Zhaojun, which is heartbreaking
Wang Zhaojun is a famous historical figure in ancient mainland China, and is known as one of the four great beauties of ancient mainland China. The main reason for her fame is the legendary story of the Zhaojun out of the Plug that she married from the Han Dynasty to the Xiongnu thousands of miles away.
In ancient mainland times, friction between the Central Plains Dynasty and the nomadic peoples of the North was always an enduring theme.
And years of war often bring disasters to countless innocent civilians. Therefore, many Central Plains dynasties will choose to use marriage to turn gango into jade when the victory and defeat are relatively clear.
For example, during the Tang Dynasty, Tang Taizong Li Shimin sent Princess Wencheng to marry Tubo, and during the Qing Dynasty, the Manchu, Han, and Mongolian tribes often married each other.
And it was the Zhaojun of the Western Han Dynasty who pioneered the means of marriage. But we may be curious, after Zhaojun was out of the blockade, what happened to the Xiongnu?
Buried jade
The story of Wang Zhaojun has been passed down through the ages with her integrity and fierceness, the great righteousness of the marriage and the loneliness of staying alone in the desert north.
Throughout the ages, there have been endless theatrical works about Wang Zhaojun, such as "Miscellaneous Records of Xijing" and "Autumn of han palace", etc. Through these dramatic works and the records of historical materials such as "Hanshu Xiongnu Biography", we can basically outline the life of Wang Zhaojun.
Wang Zhaojun was originally a palace maid in the harem of the Han Yuan Emperor. Emperor Yuan of Han chose so many palace women to enter the palace in order to select concubines, and the means of selection was to let a painter named Mao Yanshou paint portraits of these palace women for himself, so that he could easily screen them. After all, there were no cameras at that time, and it was necessary to use this method.
In order to gain favor, the palace ladies of the harem also paid bribes to Mao Yanshou and asked Mao Yanshou to paint himself beautifully.
With only a paintbrush in his hand, he could influence the fate of the harem women, and Mao Yanshou earned a lot of money just by accepting bribes.
However, Wang Zhaojun was very dissatisfied with this kind of black box operation, and in the vast harem, she was the only one who refused to pay bribes to Mao Yanshou, and Mao Yanshou had a grudge in his heart and deliberately painted her very generally, and wang Zhaojun missed the favor of Emperor Yuan of Han. Since then, there has been another lonely woman in the deep palace.
However, Wang Zhaojun herself was born beautiful, and she could not get the emperor's appreciation for a long time, and her mentality inevitably became resentful.
At this time, the Han Dynasty won a great victory in the battle against the Xiongnu, and the Xiongnu's Hu Han Evil Shan Yu came to ask the Han Dynasty to reward him with a princess as a concubine, and the Han-Hungarian marriage and generational alliance were good.
Emperor Yuan of Han was not concerned about the request of this defeated general, and he planned to pick a palace maid at random and marry far away into the desert.
But it is not a good thing to marry the desert and eat sand after all, all the way to the wind and food, the journey is tired, the Xiongnu place is also poor, the customs and customs are not understood, the life is not familiar, who dares to go?
At this moment, Wang Zhaojun stood up and said that I was willing to go.
Finally, someone understood the great righteousness and was willing to relieve the emperor, and Emperor Yuan of Han was very happy, and he immediately summoned Wang Zhaojun and prepared to comfort her.
And just after Emperor Yuan of Han really saw Wang Zhaojun's appearance, his intestines were almost repentant. After all, Heng Vertical did not expect that there was such a beautiful woman in the harem, which was really cheaper than adults.
However, the heavenly son of a big country cannot repent of his marriage even if he says that he is difficult to chase. Therefore, Emperor Yuan of Han had to agree to Wang Zhaojun marrying the Xiongnu. In order to vent his depression, he then gave Mao Yanshou to death.
A woman married to the desert
In many stories, Wang Zhaojun's story ends here. These stories either praise Wang Zhaojun's profound righteousness, or satirize Mao Yanshou's eyes for money, or condemn the cold heart of the Han Yuan Emperor. Few people cared about what happened to Wang Zhaojun after he married into the desert.
But don't worry, Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes once unearthed a variation of the text, the title has been dead, the words have been scattered, but according to the rest of the content can still be concluded, this is about Wang Zhaojun's poetic works, posterity named this article "Wang Zhaojun Variations".
"Wang Zhaojun Variations" mainly tells the story of Wang Zhaojun in the later period. The article mentions that after she married the Xiongnu, the Xiongnu treated Wang Zhaojun very fondly and regarded her as a wife.
Wang Zhaojun treated the Xiongnu shan yu and baiyi baishun, and tried his best to do his best to assume the responsibility of the mother of a country and to fulfill the responsibility of peace on behalf of the Han Dynasty.
But Wang Zhaojun's homesickness could not be dispelled, and finally one day, Wang Zhaojun died of depression.
After her death, the Han Emperor sent people to mourn, and the Xiongnu Shan Yu wept silently, and day and night reluctantly guarded her funeral, and also took off her Chinese clothes and wore the clothes of the people to bid her farewell.
The so-called "Shan Zhi Ri came to cry in person, and Mo She had to watch the funeral, unsheath his sword and take off the clothes of the Heavenly Son, and wear a cloak and a robe." ”
It is reasonable to say that the development of things is still quite normal, but the sentence behind the "Wang Zhaojun Variations" is a bit sensational: "The official sits on the sword away from the (剺) face, and the nine surnames mourn and cut off the ears." ”
The so-called "sitting knife away from (剺) face" refers to cutting one's own face with a knife. In ancient mainland accounts, this was a way for the Huns to express their grief.
But I have to say that this way is really a bit exaggerated, cutting your face with a knife, don't worry that you will be disfigured because of it, this has to be a sad thing.
The Han Dynasty expressed grief, some of them wailing and crying, some of them grabbed the ground with their heads, and even they were martyred, but they had never heard of expressing their grief in this way of self-harm. So at first a lot of people didn't believe in this funeral.
Desert murals for evidence
But a mural in the Mogao Grottoes in Dunhuang confirms the authenticity of this poem. It is "The Prince of All Countries Raises a Picture of Mourning", which tells the scene of the princes of all countries in the world after Shakyamuni Nirvana came to mourn.
Among them, the prince dressed in Hanfu covered his face and wept, and the princes of other countries also made various expressions of grief.
Among them, the princes dressed in Xiongnu costumes were the most fierce, they were really using knives to cut and scratch their chests and faces, and the audience could be described as scalp numb, and they could not bear to look directly.
Therefore, although the mourning method of self-harm by cutting the face with a knife is not very acceptable to many people, because of the description of the mural, we have to face up to and admit that this strange and somewhat cruel act is indeed a kind of funeral that really existed in the ancient Xiongnu desert, and it is indeed possible that they held a ceremony after the death of Wang Zhaojun.
