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The history of the vault is very long, and according to literature, it dates back to the pre-Qin period. In the ancient Chinese texts, it is also written as Poor Lu, Qiong Lu, and Qiong Tent. The words synonymous with felt tents in ancient texts are felt tents, lu tents, felt curtains, tents, tents, tents, tents, and hundreds of zi tents. The earliest document of Qionglu is the "Book of History and Tianguan": "The qi of the Northern Yi is like the qionglu of the herd of animals, and the qi of the southern Yi is like the flag of the boat." "It implies a powerful aura that symbolizes special powers. In the history of more than 3,000 years, it has always accompanied the production and life, trade and war of the northern peoples. The ethnic groups that use the qionglu felt tent as their daily living quarters are collectively called the "felt tent people", including the Xiongnu, Xianbei, Wusun, Tuguhun, Turkic, Shule, Tubo, Khitan, Xi, Mongolian and other steppe nomadic ethnic groups. From the Songnen Plain in the east to the Pamir Plateau and the Altai Mountains in the west, from the Mongolian Desert in the north to the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau in the south, the people of the felt tent are widely distributed, covering the entire northern steppe and the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.
After the repeated chanting of poems and songs throughout the ages and the continuous writing of classic documents, the vault has evolved from an image of life and an image of poetry to an image of nature, a image of society and an image of culture, "profoundly implying the nomadic concept of the universe, that is, the concept of the vault, which is also the condensation of the nomadic wandering, natural and open economy and culture." "Its material carrier is the felt tent, which forms the grassland culture of northern China, which is very different from the farming culture of the Central Plains and complements each other." Thus integrated into the long history of Chinese culture.
A glazed pottery felt tent model of the tomb of Sima Jinlong of the Northern Wei Dynasty unearthed in Datong, Shanxi
"My family married me to the heavenly side, far away from the foreign king of Wusun." The vault is the wall of the chamber felt, and the meat is used as the pulp. Ju Chang Tu Si Xi was wounded in his heart, and he was willing to return to his hometown for Huang Huxi. "The Song of Sorrow" composed by The First Princess Liu Xijun (Emperor Zong of the Western Han Dynasty, the daughter of Liu Jian, the nephew of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, the Sinchen Of Jiangdu King), vividly depicts the artistic conception of Qionglu from the moment it appears. In order to fight against the Xiongnu and ally with Wusun, Emperor Wu of Han ordered Liu Xijun to be a princess and marry King Wusun. Even the musical instrument "Ruan" (also known as "Qin Pipa"), which is specially made to relieve the love of the distant journey, is difficult to understand the princess's homesickness and sadness. Qionglu (felt tent) became a symbol of nomadic peoples, and in the Chinese context, Qionglu became synonymous with the northern steppe peoples.
The reason why nomadic people generally choose the "vault" way of living is mainly to adapt to the natural environment of the grassland and the way of life that migrates with the water and grass. Felt tents are a detachable and removable form of architecture that can be removed and relocated at any time by a combination of wooden frames and felt, and its shape is more influenced by the "vault concept" that herders have formed for a long time. The "concept of the vault" is the understanding of the whole of heaven and earth, "the sky is like a vault, and the four fields are covered", and the connotation is very rich. It includes the devotion to the willful "heaven" and "earth", as well as the worship of the sun, moon, stars, landscapes, plants and trees, and various animals. It is also an attitude towards life, which is to see oneself as part of nature. Adaptation to nature is an important feature of nomadic peoples. The so-called "grassland wilderness, there is no fixed place", "the vault is home everywhere". Swimming and migration is a long-standing attitude and way of life of the northern nomads, and has been deposited as a unique steppe culture. As the saying goes: "Between heaven and earth, the atmosphere is different, and in the meantime of life, each has its own convenience." ...... South of the Great Wall, it is rainy and hot, and its people cultivate crops to eat, mulberry linen to clothe, palaces to live, and cities to rule. Between the deserts, it is cold and windy, animal husbandry and fishing are used for food, fur is clothed, and it is turned around at any time, and cars and horses are home. This day and place are so limited to north and south also. (History of Liao, vol. 32, Ying Wei Zhizhong)
The northern ethnic group creates and interprets a unique grassland culture inside and outside the felt house. For production, it can adapt to the needs of frequent migration of nomadic production activities; for war, it can ensure the variability of war tactics, and can be attacked and defended. The Book of Han and the Xiongnu Pass down: "The Father and Son of the Xiongnu lie in the same vault. Yan Shigu's ancient note: "Qionglu, Xuan Tent also." Its shape is domed, so it is called the dome. "The shape of the visible vault is dome-shaped. The Western Han Dynasty Huan Kuan's "Treatise on Salt and Iron" describes, "The Xiongnu have no city to defend,...... The weaving willow is the room, and the curtain is the cover. "It was clarified that the method of making the vault was to weave it into a frame with wicker and cover it with felt. The Western Han Dynasty "HuainanZi" says: "For example, boats, cars, rafters, wantons, and poor houses, so it is appropriate to have something." (Huainanzi, vol. 11, "Qi Customs") indicates that the "poor lu" should be a moving "qionglu" car account.
Ancient vaults had a variety of styles and production methods, and these different forms can be called vaults when they exist alone. Among the northern nomads, their residential buildings, without exception, are "vault" felt tents. In addition, there are feasible and stationable means of transportation "Vault Car Tent", which is more convenient for migration and nomadism than the fixed "Vault", and accompanies the trip, which constitutes the most unique dynamic picture of the grassland ethnic group.
Felt tent in the Sand Ridge Mural Tomb Feast
The vault and the tabernacle, the architectural forms referred to by the two are different, but there are also overlaps. Vault refers to the general term for the bag-style architecture of the northern nomadic peoples, including yurts. The Tabernacle refers to a movable building with felt cloth and wooden elements as the main architectural elements. Large carriages did not appear until the Mongol Yuan period, and could only be used by generals. The Southern Song Dynasty Peng Daya's "Black Tartar Chronicle" says: The Mongols had "large vehicles carrying the big tent", and the entire tent "cannot be rolled, the car is loaded", "the car room, can sit and lie down." He witnessed the Mongolian large tent vehicle with 20 oxen pulled, with a diameter of nearly 30 feet. The traditional Mongol tabernacle consists of three types: yurts, tents and shacks. In the Yuan Dynasty, the term "yurt" did not appear in both Mongolian and Han Chinese, when mongolian used "geri" (geri) to refer to the architectural form known as "yurt" in later generations. The yurt has a round spire with a diamond-shaped mesh wall formed by the cross-tie of wooden poles at the bottom, and a tapered roof surrounded by many wooden poles in the shape of an umbel. The four structures are: Hana (i.e. Mongolian enclosure bracket), skylight (Mongolian "pottery brain"), rafters (Mongolian "uni"),and doors. The gates are always opened to the east or southeast, following the ancient tradition of auspicious sunrise and avoiding the strong cold air of Siberia. Judging from the literature, the "Hundred Zi Tents" used by Tuoba Xianbei, Tuguhun, Rouran and Gaoche in the Northern Wei Dynasty have the characteristics of yurts, which are the closest and most similar to our yurts today. The development of the vault to the stage of the hundred sub-tents is a leap forward in the development of construction technology. There are two forms of hundreds of sub-tents: one is a fixed permanent building built in the city, and the phenomenon of staggering houses and hundreds of sub-tents appears in the city, "there are houses, mixed with hundreds of sub-tents" (Nanshi, vol. 79, "Yi Tapirs Passed Down"), reflecting the trend of Xianbei people settling; the other is the "row house" built on the grassland, migrating with the herd. The Hundred Zi Tent is the Vault And felt Tent, "the ancient number of the Hundred Zi Account, the North Vault Lu Ye, now commonly known as the Felt Tent" (Song Cai Qi: "Discussion on the Tiewei Mountain", vol. 2); "Hundred Zi Account, that is, The Vault Lu Ye". (Book of Liang, vol. 54, Zhuyi Biography; Nanshi, vol. 79, Yi Tapir Xia)
A felt tent model of a Northern Wei tomb excavated from the YuchangJiayuan Community in Datong, Shanxi
Some scholars believe that the Hundred Zi Tent is a special kind of high-level vault. The Northern Wei regime often rewarded rouran and gaoche in the north with a hundred zi tents. In the second year of The Northern Wei Emperor Zhengguang (521), the Northern Wei Emperor Gave Rouran the Lord's offerings, including the "Eighteen Hundred Sons and Eighteen Bodies". The Western Xia Kingdom (1038-1227) also regarded the Hundred Zi Tent as a treasure. In 1177, Li Renxiao, the king of Western Xia, presented the Hundred Heads Account (i.e., the Hundred Sons Account) as a gift to the Jin Dynasty as a sign of reconciliation. (History of Jin, vol. 134, "The Tale of Western Xia")
In the tenth year of southern Qi Yongming (492), southern Qi envoys sent envoys to Northern Wei, and northern Wei sacrificed heavenly ceremonies for feasts and rests: "Intersect with ropes, new wooden branches, covered with green ribbons, shaped flat circles, and seated with a hundred people underneath, called 'silk', a cloud 'hundred zi tent'." Feast here.". (Book of Southern Qi, vol. 57, "The Tale of Wei Yu") 繖 is also an umbrella. Rope intersection, new wooden branches, flat circles, stretchable and closed, etc., are the most typical features of felt tents.
In his later years, the Tang Dynasty poet Bai Juyi set up a green felt tent in the courtyard of Luoyang, which was dyed by Hu Feng. In the seventh year of Taihe (833), he composed "Twenty Rhymes of the Green Felt Tent": "Gather a thousand sheep and gather a thousand sheep, and shi Zhang Baizi. The bone disc is willowy, and the color is stained blue. The northern system was created by rong, and the south moved to move one by one. The wind could not blow, and the rain was wet. There is a roof center towering, no corner four-way circle. Bypass the door open, the inner temperature is clear. "What is described is the hundred-son account.
In recent years, the Northern Wei tombs unearthed with burial tools and murals, there are many models and portraits of domed felt tents (i.e., domes). In 2000, Tomb No. 2 of the Northern Wei Tomb Group of the East Yanbei Division of Datong City unearthed three felt tent models, all of which were made of clay gray pottery pieces. In the mural painting of the Northern Wei Tomb Group discovered in 2006, there are 5 felt tents of different sizes. In 2006, the Inner Mongolia Museum collected three painted wooden coffins from the Siziwang Banner, and the style of the felt tents painted was similar to that of the datong excavations. In particular, the glazed pottery felt tent model of the tomb of Sima Jinlong, the king of Langya of the Northern Wei Dynasty, unearthed in Datong, has become a strong evidence of the integration of the Ethnic Groups of the Northern Wei Dynasty. Excavated in the Yungang Grottoes of the Northern Wei Dynasty during the Reign of Emperor Wencheng, the most representative work is the "Five Caves of Tanyao", and its oval planar dome shape has no precedent in South Asia and Central Asia to China's Xinjiang and Gansu regions. "When I came to the Northern Wei Dynasty, the Xianbei Tuoba people chose the shape of their own traditional living room dome to create the Buddha's living room, which should be a natural thing."
Shanxi Datong Yanbei Normal Institute excavated a horizontal field model of the Northern Wei No. 2 base felt tent
Vault career, very different farming. During the reign of Emperor Wen of Han, the Han Chinese who descended to the Xiongnu in the north said in a debate with the Han envoys: "Those who cannot enter China are said to be the moraine of the Xiongnu, who are known as Qiongluxian in the city, and who are felt and beautiful in Zhang, who are accustomed to it, are not only peeping into the Chinese heart, but are not happy with the Han." (New Book of Tang, vol. 112, "Biography of Xue Deng")
The Chronicle of the Xiongnu records: "In the first month of the year, the chiefs will be in court. In May, the Dragon City is held, and the ghosts and gods of heaven and earth are sacrificed to the ancestors, and the ghosts and gods of heaven and earth are worshiped in the morning, and the moon is worshiped at the beginning of the worship of the sun. The "Dragon Court" is the location of the great tent of the nomadic khanate khanate, that is, the "capital" of the khanate, which is constantly migrating and changing. "Dragon Court" and "Dragon City" should be a concept, and Tang Dynasty poets often used "Dragon City" to refer to the location of nomadic leaders. Therefore, "Dragon City" is not a special term for one family and one place, but should be synonymous with the political center of the nomadic peoples. The Khan's "vault" tent is both the residence of the supreme ruler of the nomads and the largest place of worship of the whole clan.
The inhabitants of the vault, Pingchuan, lead longbows to shoot large eagles, and different ethnic groups constantly change, constantly repeating "combinations", "decomposition", "discrete" and "reorganization", usually after the emergence of figures with strong leadership ability, they will unify the originally scattered ethnic groups with a sweeping trend and establish a common ethnic consciousness. The Xiongnu of the Qin and Han Dynasties, the Xianbei of the Northern Dynasty, and the Turks of the Sui and Tang Dynasties were all nomadic empires that unified the steppes in this way. These vast empires, over a period of time, will disperse again, no longer have a common race, until another powerful leader emerges, once again unifying the steppes – and so on and so on. After the three people of Apaoji, Akuta, and Temujin, there were three unifications on the grassland. The three generations of Liao, Jin and Yuan entered and left China, rising and falling, and the north and south turmoil of four or five hundred years were rather the confrontation between the dome and the city, the interweaving of felt tents and houses. "You can drive the dome to the north of the curtain and restore the land of the Han and Tang dynasties." (Sima Guang: "Yan Beibian Dianzhazi") The binary management political system created by the Liao people (the Northern Yuan administers the northern tribes that have been reorganized, and the Southern Yuan governs the Han prefectures and counties with Han law), and both Jin and Yuan followed and did not change much.
yurt
The Khitan Emperor's Chu Lu Duo and the Four Hours Bowl were all felt tents. The palace guard system, also known as the palace account system. The "History of Liao" explains: "There are palace guards, which are called Huluduo. "This system was never practiced by the Han Dynasty and other ethnic minority dynasties, and it is indeed an unprecedented initiative." The so-called Chorudo is the palace of the emperor or a member of the imperial family with the same prestige as the emperor or a heavy courtier of the emperor's special grace. ”
Although Liao had five capitals (Shangjing, present-day BalinZuo banner in Chifeng City, Inner Mongolia; Tokyo, present-day Liaoyang City, Liaoning Province; Nanjing, present-day Beijing; Zhongjing, present-day Ningcheng County, Chifeng City, Inner Mongolia; and Xijing, present-day Datong City, Shanxi), none of these were political centers. The real political center of the Liao dynasty was the emperor's four-hour "捺钵" (chinese translation "Xingying", "Xingying", "Yingpan"), and the "Huoluduo" who accompanied the emperor. The imperial capital and wujing are the places where bureaucrats below the prime minister handle government affairs, especially Han civil affairs. Khitan old customs, with the water and grass, cold and summer, back and forth nomadic fishing and hunting. After the founding of the Liao Dynasty, the emperor set up a tent for hunting and setting up a "bowl". Around the time of the Holy Father, there was a fixed place and system for the four o'clock bowls. In the first half of the first month, the Khitan Emperor "began every four o'clock in the year", patrolling the bowl. The spring bowl is to catch geese and fish and accept the pilgrimage of the Jurchen chiefs "within a thousand miles"; the summer bowl is to escape the summer, discuss the state affairs with the northern and southern ministers, and travel to the hunt; the autumn bowl is to hunt, into the mountains to shoot deer and tigers; the winter bowl is to avoid the cold, discuss political affairs with the northern and southern ministers, sometimes go out to school to hunt and teach martial arts, and accept the "tribute" of the Northern Song Dynasty and the various countries. The four-hour bowl is to introduce the nomadic people's "cold in autumn and winter, spring and summer to escape the heat", and the living customs of water and grass animal husbandry into political management. Among them, the fishing and hunting activities are to educate their people not to forget the iron horse riding nature of the founding of the country, and to maintain a strong cavalry that can run across the country to compete with the Central Plains Dynasty. Therefore, the Jin and Yuan dynasties, which were later established by "riding and shooting", also had a system of holding bowls, and the Qing Dynasty had the custom of mulan autumn hunting.
Part of "The Camp Under the Magnolia Scroll"
A palace-style yurt is a large yurt built by an ancient Mongol emperor (i.e., a khan) or upper-class princes and nobles to live, administer, feast, meet guests, escape from the summer, etc., or for some religious ceremony. According to the "Secret History of Mongolia", this kind of palace-style yurt is called The Ear of the Ear, the Ear of Alaten, etc. The Italian Baron Guest wrote in his travelogue of the palace-style yurts of the Emperor Guiyu's time: "When we got there, a large purple canvas (felt) tent had been set up. According to our opinion, this tent can accommodate more than two thousand people, surrounded by wooden plank fences, and the wooden boards are painted with various patterns. Shifeni's History of the Conquerors of the World records that the "roof of the pierced ear was made of woven gold, and the whole of it was covered with white felt." The same record is found in the Collected Histories that this large tent "can accommodate a thousand people" and "is never disassembled and put away, its hooks are made of gold, and the tents are covered with fabrics." "Very exquisitely built. According to the Yuan Dynasty official Revision Book "Classics of the Classics", on February 26, the second year of Yuan Taiding (1325), the "Laying of the Mao Hall of the Imperial Household", "made two carpets, accumulating 2,343 feet." "It is not difficult to imagine from the carpet area that the temple can accommodate more than a thousand people. Moreover, there are more than 100 tables lined with gold, silver and jade veils, and the inside is as magnificent as a temple, and the gold and splendor are brilliant. The famous poet of the Yuan Dynasty, Sadu Thorn "Five Songs of Shangdu Miscellaneous Songs", described: "The brown hair of the sand garden is a hundred feet building, and the heavenly wind is swaying the brocade hook." "Revealing the superb technique of this tent construction technique. Liu Guan's "Imperial Feast of The Lost Ears" describes this huge tent as follows: "The curtain bears the empty pillar embroidered frieze, and the colored rope is on the ground. Under the sudden movement of the Chen Banner, the A tent Xu Opened the hall and shadowed qi. And note: "The car is stationed at the station, that is, the imperial feast is given to the near minister, the milk of the horse, and the felt hall is pierced, and the deep and wide can accommodate thousands of people." The scale and the quality of the construction are breathtaking.
The application of yurts in the so-called "Kangqian Prosperous Era" reached the peak of Qing palace etiquette. As a unique architectural type, the Qing Palace yurt is self-contained, showing a diversified development trend in terms of shape and type, and has become another model of yurt architecture after the Yuan Dynasty court tabernacle. The construction sites are mainly the Jingshi Palace (such as Zhonghai, Yuanmingyuan and Chengde Mountain Resort). Written records and pictorial historical materials depict the feast scene of the large yurt groups in the Ziguang Pavilion and wanshu garden; the Yuanmingyuan "Mountain High water length" as the Qing Emperor's banquet and the ceremony site of the Mongolian princes of the outer domain, built a large yurt of 7 meters and 2 feet; the South Square of the Qianlong Residence Hanjingtang was built with 5 plum-style yurts, the largest diameter of 8 meters, and the minimum north-south total length after the combination was 20.16 meters, for the emperor to practice and offer Buddha. There are 28 yurts of different sizes in the Wanshu Garden in the Rehe Palace, the largest of which is a yurt with a diameter of 7 meters and 2 feet, which is a temporary palace for Qianlong to summon princes, nobles, religious leaders and foreign envoys. The Qing Palace yurt became an important carrier of religious, political and cultural exchanges between the Qing court and the Mongolian tribes, Tibet and foreign countries. The Manchu Qing Empire was a dualistic structure: the ethnic groups in the north and northwest belonged directly to the emperor, who passed through the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the LifanYuan to manage the royal family's contacts with these tribes. The emperor often hunted with The Mongol princes in some hunting grounds on the steppe. Between the Manchu Qing dynasty and Mongolia and Tibet, they maintained a close relationship with each other in the form of tribute and marriage. The people of Han Were ruled by the government of the Empire, the capital of which was in Beijing, while the Manchu Emperor's common belief with Mongolian and Tibetans was Lamaism, and numerous lama temples were built in Chengde, symbolizing the close relationship between the Manchus and these Mongol-Tibetan tribes. Chengde can be said to be the capital of the imperial steppe part. "Ten Thousand Tents Vault is drunk, the stars and shadows are crumbling, and the dreams are separated by the wolf river...", just like the small words of Naran's "Like a Dream Order", the imagery of the Vault is finally embodied by Chinese culture.
Part of "Yuan Xi Kai Yan Tu"
The Garden of Ten Thousand Trees gives a feast map
"Communication is a process of cultural convergence, and the result of cultural convergence is the successful construction of the main ideology." The vault not only affected the lives and beliefs of the people at that time, but also transcended that era, that region, and also transcended history.
Resources:
1. Yang Furui, "The Vault Concept and Felt Tent Culture of the Northern Nomads"
2. Yu Xuebin, "Analysis of the Relationship between Yurts and Ancient Vaults", Research on the History of China's Frontiers, March 2012, Vol. 22, No. 1
3. Yang Hong, "Exploring the Traces of Buddhism: An Introduction to the Archaeology of Chinese Buddhist Art", Beijing: Life. study. Xinzhi Triptych Bookstore, 2022
4. Liu Xuexuan, "Nomadic Civilization and Chinese History: The Liao Dynasty", Xi'an: Shaanxi Xinhua Publishing and Media Group, Shaanxi People's Publishing House, 2019
5. Wang Renxiang, "The Great Faience Pottery", read the course in "Sanlian Life Weekly"
6. Erdemutu, Zhang Pengju, Bai Liyan, Zalagen Bayar, "The Vault in the Palace Garden of the Qing Dynasty: A Study of the Yurts of the Yuanmingyuan with Scriptures", Architectural Heritage, No. 2, 2018
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