As the first emperor in history, Qin Shi Huang made the Chinese nation move towards the trend of great unification, although the great Qin Dynasty only left two emperors, but Qin Shi Huang still left a valuable spiritual wealth for the land of Shenzhou by his own strength.
He accomplished his goal and ended the chaos of the Warring States period, but there was one place he did not attack, but the unique dialect of China that it now represents was also taken into space by the American Voyager.
Unconquered territory of the Qin King
The King of Qin swept Liuhe, and the tiger looked at He Xiongya.
Although it was only a short sentence, the powerful courage of Qin Shi Huang's unification of the six hemispheres had been thoroughly demonstrated.
However, there is another place in history that was not unified by the Qin King, and that is the area of present-day Fujian.
The Central Plains did not know much about the tribes of Fujian and other places for a long time, and there are two records in the pre-Qin classic "Zhou Li", which believes that "Min" is another species of "barbarian", and "brute" is also considered to be the general name of many tribes in the south.
At the same time, the "Classic of Mountains and Seas, The Southern Classic of Hai Nei" also says: Min is in the sea.
This also points out that the Min tribe lives in the south near the sea, and the "Seven Min" previously considered by the Zhou Dynasty was also one of the southern Baiyue people in the Qin and Han Dynasties.
In 334 BC, the State of Yue was conquered by the Chu State, and a large number of nobles and common people of the State of Yue fled their homelands, and many people also crossed the border of Zhejiang and Fujian at this stage and entered the territory of Fujian.
Later, Sima Qian's "Records of History" also clearly stated: during the Qin and Han Dynasties, the "Minyue" people in Fujian and the nobles of the Yue kingdom had obvious blood relations.
In the "Chronicle of the Chronicles of Eastern Yue", there is such a sentence: Qin has merged with the world, and all are abolished as kings and chiefs, and their land is Minzhong County.
As for when and how Minzhong County was established, Sima Qian did not explicitly indicate it in this regard, which led to various speculations among later scholars.
However, it is basically certain that when the "Chronicle of History" recounted that when Qin Shi Huang set up the three counties of Lingnan, it did not even mention Minzhong County, and it is obvious that Minzhong County and Lingnan Three Counties were not established at the same time, and the establishment of Minzhong County was indeed related to Qin Shi Huang's army to conquer Baiyue.
In 221 BC, after unifying the Six Kingdoms, the Qin Dynasty sent troops to march to the Fujian region to complete its feat of completely unifying the world.
That is, in the following year, the King of Qin set up Minzhong County in the place where the Minyue people were active.
Minzhong Commandery (闽中郡) appears to be one of the forty counties of the Qin Dynasty, but it is very different in structure, and Qin did not send a lieutenant to Minzhong, but only abolished the throne of the King of Minyue and used the name of "Junchang" to let him continue to rule the area.
However, the various rulers of Minzhong County also knew that they could not shake the Qin Dynasty, so it was good that they were safe and sound, and they were nominally submissive.
The reason why Qin Shi Huang did not completely send troops to conquer this place is not difficult to understand, when the Qin Dynasty was just established, many nobles and subjects of the Warring States did not agree, and many people missed the past days, which can be seen from the later uprising of Chen Sheng and Wu Guang.
Besides, when Qin Shi Huang was still alive, the main enemy was the Xiongnu, and their threat to the Central Plains was the greatest, and the Baiyue region had to be lined up in the back row.
Moreover, Qin Shi Huang still has a lot of things to do, such as "the same text as the book, the same track as the car" and the like, he also has to do a lot of infrastructure construction, and has done a lot of things that hurt his life and money in the contemporary era, so it is also a very reasonable explanation that there is no time to continue to use troops.
In addition, Qin Shi Huang himself also believed that the vast area of central Fujian was far away from the Central Plains and remote, and it was really difficult to rule.
In general, Qin Shi Huang exercised control over Minzhong County rather than rule, and the Minyue region had large and small Baiyue regimes and tribes, which were still active in the original area of activity.
The Qin King's offensive moves also increased his influence, and the former Minzhong County, and the Fujian Province on the map now, are actually not bad.
At first, the county chief of Minzhong County was not very satisfied with Qin Shi Huang's approach, and felt that Qin Shi Huang had some taste of bullying, but they still had no choice, and later, when the peasant revolt broke out at the end of Qin, the commander of Minzhong County also responded and joined the anti-Qin struggle army, and later supported Liu Bang to unify the world.
After Liu Bang declared himself emperor, he restored the title of king of the Minyue people and ruled his land autonomously.
However, politically, they accepted the title of Han Gaozu, but in terms of contact with the Central Dynasty, they maintained a high independent status, and the country did not implement the county system, and still ruled according to the tribal alliance that used to be linked by blood relations.
Coupled with Qin Shi Huang's "book and text" and other measures, it strengthened the integration and unification of different civilizations into the Central Plains during the Warring States period, and then the successive dynasties, although the vast area of central Fujian also suffered some damage, but on the whole, it was well preserved at the cultural level.
In this way, the Hokkien language has been well preserved.
In ancient times, the people of Henan in the north also came to this place to avoid war, and the local ancient Yue language had a great influence on foreigners, so it gradually took shape, but the migration of the Han people in the Central Plains to the southern Fujian region was already a matter from the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty to the Southern and Northern Dynasties.
Scholars usually divide the history of the development of the Chinese language into three periods, of which the pre-Han Dynasty is called the "Ancient Period", while the Song Dynasty is called the "Middle Ages", and the Yuan Dynasty has been called "Modern".
In the thousands of years of dynastic change and ethnic integration, ancient Chinese has gradually disappeared, but it has not completely disappeared, and there are still a few areas that retain traces of ancient times in pronunciation, and Minnan is one of them.
The Southern Fujian dialect retains many of the characteristics of Ancient Chinese, so it is called "living fossil" by many language experts.
In modern times, the more representative is the Quanzhou dialect.
As far as the vowels are concerned, the Quanzhou dialect also retains the archetype of ancient Chinese in its entirety, and there are 15 vowels in the dialect, which has been analyzed in the writings of Huang Qian, a Quanzhou native in the 18th century.
Because the Minnan dialect represented by the Quanzhou dialect also inherits the vowel pattern of ancient Chinese, it also retains many traces of ancient Chinese in terms of rhyme.
In the language system, the vocabulary is also the most likely to cause changes, but after the formation of the Quanzhou dialect, it has been absorbing the northern dialect words of different periods for one or two thousand years and has been passed down to this day.
At the same time, this can also confirm that the formation of the dialect here was not too much interfered with by the unification policy of Qin Shi Huang during the Qin Dynasty, and maintained unique habits in language.
Moreover, these places still retain the customs that existed in the Warring States period until now, which is very rare.
For example, the "Golden Pot" is an ancient burial custom that has been popular in Fujian for thousands of years, and is now called "secondary burial", and these secondary burial customs in the ancient Jingchu region are recorded in the Warring States period works such as Liezi and The Book of Sui.
In addition to the Spring Festival, Lantern Festival, Qingming Festival, Mid-Autumn Festival and other festivals spent together, there are still some special festivals in the south.
On the fourteenth day of the tenth month of the lunar calendar, Shennong Festival, also known as the "Five Grain Mothers" Festival, such festivals have also been passed down to today.
On this day, every household will prepare a kon kon to offer to the gods and farmers, and these kons will be dyed red and made into the shape of chickens, ducks and geese to pray for a good harvest in the next year.
In addition, there is the "God Hunting Faith".
Because in ancient times, hunters enjoyed a very high status in a family, and they were also the pillars of the family, and they had a great responsibility.
Therefore, before hunting, incense will be burned and prayed before the god of hunting, and if you want to hunt tigers and pigs, you must also pray by killing pigs before hunting gods.
In later investigations, some Minke communities in Nanjing County and Yongding County, Fujian Province, still believed in the god of hunting, which has become a habit, although in the current society, many animals have become protected animals, and hunting has gradually become a thing of the past.
As a living fossil, the Hokkien language was taken into space
The King of Qin had his own misgivings, so the vast fujian region was now not truly ruled.
Although there are also records in history that a general sent heavy troops to attack Minzhong, but later there was no following, including the "History".
Everything also shows that Minzhong County at that time had a very high degree of autonomy.
In modern times, human beings' understanding of the world is not only limited to the earth, but also full of curiosity about the unknown world.
In 1977, the United States launched Voyager One into outer space, which, in a predetermined orbit, was set to fly into the far reaches of the universe.
Moreover, it has an extremely important mission: to find aliens.
Many modern scientists have proposed that if aliens have advanced civilizations, then they are a great threat to The Earth.
In the spirit of friendship, Voyager One carries a "secret weapon", which is the gold plate.
Inside the gold plate is a phonograph needle made of diamond, which can be used for playback.
In the gold disk, the saved audio is recorded in 55 human languages, as well as various music and 115 images.
The purpose of this is also obvious, that is, to express greetings to possible alien civilizations in this way.
As of October 23, 2019, travelers are now at a position of 21.1 billion kilometers from the Sun.
Scientists also predict that after 2025, Voyager One will completely lose contact with Earth and become a "wandering probe" floating in the universe.
Both the then Secretary-General of the United Nations and the President of the United States recorded their own content.
The album features a 90-minute vocal highlight that includes various sounds of earth's nature and 27 world-famous songs, including the ancient Chinese song "Flowing Water".
As an ancient civilization that continues on the earth, China's position in the field of culture can be imagined.
Among the 55 languages of the earthlings, there are 4 languages belonging to China, of which Mandarin is the official language of China; Cantonese, Hokkien and Wu are all Dialects of Chinese.
As a well-preserved "living fossil", it is not surprising that the Hokkien language can be selected by Voyager 1.
reference
The origin of "living fossils" Quanzhou Municipal People's Government
LI Yongchao. Re-understanding of Qin Shi Huang's Practice of "Great Unification"[J]. Journal of Cultural Studies