Three levels of chong to match,
Nine Sai reveres the first level.
This is a brick carved couplet inlaid with the north gate of yanmen pass. The three passes of Shanglian refer to Yanmen Pass, Ningwu Pass and Partial Head Pass, which are the three passes outside the Great Wall. The lower link refers to "the nine plugs in the world, headed by the wild goose gate". Yanmen Xiongguan, north of the Yanbei Plateau, South Ping Xinding Basin, the peaks are straight, according to the mountains and dangerous, is the ancient Central Plains farming peoples to resist the northern nomadic invasion of the southern graben, the throat of the town guarding the border pass in the past, the place of conquest of thousands of ancient soldiers, and the place of the gods and aspirations of countless literati and inkers in the past.
A Yanmen Pass, half of the history of China, which shows the long history and cultural thickness of the Yanmen Pass. The "Yanmen Guanzhi" says: "Hooked mountain, ancient called Jingling. Lingxi is Xixing Pass, Lingdong is Dongxing Pass, the two passes are linked by stone border walls, and the successive generations of pearls have been combined to rely on each other. Yanmen Pass before the Ming Dynasty site Xixing Pass, East Xinguan leaning defense; After the Ming Dynasty, the site of Dongxing Pass and Xixing Pass were defended." It can be seen that the Guancheng of Yanmen Pass changed in the Ming Dynasty. The northern entrance of Guyanmen Pass is Baicaokou, and the southern entrance is Taihelingkou. Since the Ming Dynasty, the north mouth of Yanmen Pass has been moved to Guangwukou. The east and west wings of Yanmen Pass extend to Fanzhi and Yuanping respectively. The overall deployment of Yanmen Pass is summarized as "two passes, four mouths and eighteen passes", and eighteen passes were set up here in ancient times. As an important part of the Great Wall, Yanmen Pass is one of the ancient passes with the most frequent wars, the highest popularity and the widest influence, and is known as the first pass in China.
To the north of the Yanmen Gate, it enters the desert of Saibei. The history of Yanmen Pass dates back to the Warring States period when King Wuling of Zhao fought against the Xiongnu here. The famous Han Dynasty generals Li Guang, Wei Qing, and Huo Fuyi all led troops to fight the Xiongnu here. Li Guang had served as the Taishou of Yanmen. The Battle of Song and Liao, the story of the Yang family is well known, Yanmen Pass is the main battlefield of the confrontation between Song and Liao, and now there is a statue of Yang Liulang in the scenic spot. It is said that the original name of Baicaokou at the north mouth of Yanmen Pass was defeated by Yang Yebing and died of hunger strike here. In the Battle of Song and Xia, Sima Guang, who was then the governor of The Prefecture, inspected the western border defense of The Quye River in Linzhou. During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the Eighth Route Army under the leadership of our Party dealt a fierce blow to the Japanese aggressors here and won the famous Yanmen Pass. The Yanmen County, named After Yanmen, it also went through the Qin, Han, Sui, and Tang Dynasties, and was changed and abolished many times before and after, until the third year of The Tang Suzong Qianyuan, a total of more than a thousand years. Because of its unique military geography and strange mountain and river style, Yanmen Pass has always been recited by literati rioters. Shi Xian Li Baiyun "FormerLy, the Yan Gate was closed, and now in front of the Dragon Court." The sand is chaotic, and the snow is fanatic of Hu Tian", which vividly depicts the magnificent scene of Yanmen Passing pingchuan walking sand and Hu Tianfei snow.
In the Middle Tang Dynasty, Wei Bo Jiedushi made Tian Chengsi from the Yanmen Tian clan, and was the son of a general, warlord, and fanzhen in the middle of the Tang Dynasty, and the deputy capital of Andong, Tian Shouyi. Shi Zaitian Chengsi was brave and good at war, followed Pinglu Jiedu to Make An Lushan, repeatedly made military merits, moved the general Zuo Wuwei, and led an army to capture Luoyang. After the Anshi Rebellion was settled, he surrendered to the imperial court and paid homage to Wei Bojiedushi. Later, Tian Chengsi divided one side and did not obey the orders of the dynasty, and Wei Bozhen was like an independent kingdom. Emperor Tang dynasty emperor practiced a government of appeasement, and with his heart, he married Princess Yongle and awarded the inspection of zuo shu, Tongping Zhangshi, and Fengyanmen Junwang. The famous Hanshu stele "Xianyu Huangbei" mainly describes the ancestral lineage of Xianyu Huang and its life history. After Xian Yu initially raised the county xiaolian, he served as the right sima of Duliao, Ganyu Ling, Taiwei Xicao, Andbian Jie envoy, etc., and finally served as the official Yanmen Taishou. He was lackluster for the officials, but after his death, he left a set of famous monuments for modern calligraphy lovers, which is also a beautiful talk.
Today, we are fortunate to have the "Seal of Yanmen County" bought back from Japan by Tibetan friends. This is a great blessing in the history of calligraphy and gold stones. So, what age is this official seal? What is the little-known story behind this ancient seal?
The "Seal of Yanmen County" is made of copper, nose button, square, 5.5 cm long and 5.5 cm wide, 4.3 cm high, and weighs 261.6 grams. The back of the seal is engraved with the five characters of "Seal of Yanmen County", which is a book in italics. Judging from the style of printing on the printing surface and the form of the nose button, it was the official seal of Yanmen County in the middle of the Tang Dynasty.
The establishment of Yanmen County dates back to 300 BC. The "History of the Xiongnu Biography" records: "In the twenty-sixth year of King Wuling of Zhao (300 BC), he also changed his vulgar hu costume, learned to ride and shoot, and broke through Lin Hu and Lou Fu in the north. Build the Great Wall, from the Generation and the Yin Mountains, to the highest que for the plug, and placed in the clouds, Yanmen, Dai County. "The Tang Dynasty established Yanmen County in the early years of Tianbao. Volume 39 of the Old Book of Tang records that "the governor's mansion in metabolism, sui as Yanmen County, Wu De's first year as the governor of Dai Prefecture, the three prefectures of Dai, Xin, and Wei." Daizhou manages the four counties of Yanmen, Fan domain, Cheng, wutai... Tianbao changed to Yanmen County in the first year, still as the governor's mansion, and restored to Dai Prefecture.... "At the beginning of the founding of the Tang Dynasty, in the first year of Wude (618 AD), Yanmen County was changed to Dai Prefecture. In the early years of Tianbao (742 AD), Yanmen Commandery was restored, and in the first year of the Qianyuan Dynasty (758 AD), it was changed to Dai Prefecture. It is inferred from this that the establishment of Yanmen County in the Tang Dynasty lasted between 742 and 758 AD, for a total of 16 years. Therefore, the seal should be the official seal of Yanmen County between Tang Zhong Tianbao and Qianyuan, and its "age" should be more than 1360 years old!
For the study of seals, from the early rise of the Yuan and Ming dynasties to the Ming and Qing dynasties, there were many schools of printing, and in modern times, there are many scenes of prosperity and famous schools. The Qin and Han seals are undoubtedly the hot spots of people's attention, and they hold high the banner of "Qin and Han dynasties", which for a while makes the seals other than Qin and Han be snubbed. Although Ding Jing, the originator of the Zhejiang school, put forward the slogan of "knowing the tang, Song, yuan, and yuan dynasties, he zeng adhered to the Han family text", but there were few followers. It was not until the late Qing Dynasty Qu Zhongrong's "Examination of the Ancient Official Seals" that it initiated the study of the Sui and Tang Dynasty official seals, and then the Republic of China epigrapher Luo Zhenyu vigorously searched for and compiled his printed text into a book called "Sui and Tang Dynasty Official Seal Collection". The book received a total of 225 official seals, of which 25 were official seals of the Sui and Tang dynasties, which became an indispensable bibliography for the study of the official seals of the Sui and Tang dynasties. In the 1970s, Luo Fuyi's "Introduction to Ancient Seals" made a comprehensive study from the aspects of ancient seal style, name, button system, material, and category to the origin of ancient seals, the era of ancient seals, the ruins of printing, and the arrangement of seals. Among them, the Sui and Tang official seals are detailed and illustrated from the aspects of printing and form, and the key points of identification are summarized accurately. The book "Research on sui and Tang official seals" written by Mr. Sun Weizu can be said to be the most comprehensive, systematic and authoritative monograph on sui and Tang official seals so far. The book summarizes the research results of the sui and Tang official seals of the predecessors, extensively lists the newly discovered literature, and through the multi-faceted study of the Sui and Tang official seals from the official to the private, from the inside to the outside, from the front to the back, from the physical object to the literature, the Sui Guan Tang seal is examined in stages, and the formation of its system and the material production process are systematically studied. These research results provide a very valuable reference and systematic guidance for the identification of Sui and Tang official seals, and also enrich the academic content of epigraphy, calligraphy and seal engraving, and archaeology. According to Sun Weizu's "Sui and Tang Official Seal Research", there are only more than thirty Sui and Tang official seals found so far, most of which only see the seal. It can be seen that the official seals of the Sui and Tang Dynasties are very rare, and academic research also lags behind the Qin and Han seals. However, through several generations of scholars, the weak area of Chinese Indian history has gradually shown a clearer outline. All these research results have provided great academic help for us to examine the "Seal of Yanmen County" today.
"Seal of Yanmen County" in print interpretation
The five characters of the "Seal of Yanmen County" are arranged in two lines, the first line is "Yanmen" and the second line is "Seal of the County". The seal text is a small seal Yang script, and the border thickness is the same as the seal text. The seal is rigorous, the lines are flexed and coiled, the strokes are rounded, the seal method is graceful and beautiful, and the lines are smooth and natural. In terms of chapters, according to the strokes of the characters, the simple and traditional strokes are artistically stretched and shifted, and the ingenuity is unique. The "goose" character has many strokes and occupies a large amount of space, and the "seal" strokes take up less space. In order to pursue the overall symmetry of the layout of the printed text, the "zigzag" character with the fewest strokes is balanced by the form of coiled strokes. This buckling treatment is not abrupt, but also very harmonious with other words, and the picture is more beautiful. Comparing the seal of the word "Zhiyin", the style is mostly closer in the Tang official seal. Looking at the overlapping connection between the indian text and the thin border, it is also very delicately arranged. The three-way seal and the border are all connected by strokes, the right side of the wild goose gate is completely empty without any strokes, it can be seen that the seal sealer arranges no stylized craftsmanship, and the other three-way borders are connected with the border with three strokes, so that the trend is followed, and the "printing" is natural, and the beads are combined. The large blank space of the "door" character and the horizontal horizontal illustration in the middle of the upper part of the "door" character can be described as the finishing touch, which adds an infinite vivid and lively beauty to the strict and dignified printing surface, as if two excalibur swords are transformed into door bolts, tightly locking the Wild Goose Gate.
"Geese" and "eagles" were often used in ancient times. Han Xushen's "Explanation of Words and Characters" explains that the geese, the birds also, from the falcons from the people, the factory sounds, read ruoquan. Goose is a bird, falcon, person (亻) ideography, factory (an) table pronunciation. The glyph of the oracle bone falcon is also very close to the glyph of the bird. It can be seen that "bird" and "falcon" are often interchanged when creating characters, such as the traditional character "鷄" of chickens can also be written as "雞". Because the geese travel in an aerodynamic basis according to the aerodynamic principle, they are arranged in an orderly manner according to herrings or one-word, so in the ancient Chinese poems, "goose order" also means the rank of brothers. And every year the geese fly south is regular, starting from the white dew to the end of the cold dew, as if the beauty keeps the covenant. Therefore, the ancients often used the wild goose as a metaphor for love, such as "when the goose word returns, the moon is full of the West Building".
According to research, the production method of copper official seals in the Tang Dynasty can be roughly divided into welding method and integral casting method. The overall casting method can see subtlety in the thick sky, and see the slow and simple mao in the flow, and have the interest of ink dripping. Welding judge seal, also known as "pan strip seal", is first cast the printed body, the printing surface is concave into a cavity, and then according to the text shape of the crab welded in the printing chamber, its characteristic lines are easy to control, elegant and strong. The most obvious difference between the two printing surface effects is the articulation form at the intersection of strokes. Most of the intersections of strokes in the welding and casting method will appear in a state of separation, and some even have a position shift, such as "Jinshan County Seal, Wuyi County Seal" and so on. Due to the casting process, the joint point at the junction of the stroke is obviously thicker than the stroke, and the inner angle edge has a clear internal arc, which gives the visual effect to the person very firm, and the overall printing surface is melted into one, such as the "Ten Thousand Years County Seal". The junction of the strokes of the "Seal of Yanmen County" is full of joint points, which is thicker and stronger than the strokes, so the production process should be a very typical overall casting.
Due to the high prosperity of the Tang Dynasty economy and society, its various arts also reached a peak and prosperity era, and poetry, painting and calligraphy all achieved outstanding achievements. This ancient style of calligraphy appeared in the Tang Dynasty as a new flourishing scene, and it was the peak of the development of seal calligraphy that appeared after the Han and Wei dynasties, and the history of calligraphy called it "Seal Book Revival". Representative calligraphers include: Li Yangbing, Wei Bao, Tang Yuandu and so on. Another important reason for the Tang Dynasty's "seal book revival" is due to the Tang Chengsui system, the examination of scholars, the State Zijian specially set up calligraphy as one of the character studies, and established a doctorate as a teacher. At that time, it was necessary to learn different fonts from ancient to modern times, and it was also necessary to understand the source of fonts. It was this kind of rigorous training that put an end to the chaotic situation of writing since the Northern Dynasty, began the atmosphere of the Tang people and shangfa, and also greatly improved people's understanding of seal books. After that, the imperial court also set up an important position of school secretary, and the undertakers were all well-educated people. According to the "Six Classics of the Tang Dynasty", "When there were officials who were in charge of the school journals, the text periodicals were in charge of the work of the texts, and the books sorted out by the school periodicals had a total of five fonts, the first was the ancient text, which had been abandoned; the second was the great seal, which was only used in the publication of the stone scriptures; the third was the small seal, which was used for printing seals and flags; the fourth was eight points, which were used for stone jie and stele; and the fifth was the lishu (referring to the collection of letters in common at that time), which was used for classics, tables, and public and private texts. Thus, the so-called seal book revival was formed in the period from the early Tang Dynasty to the middle of the Tang Dynasty. The achievements of the famous seal masters are all small seals, and the "Six Classics of Tang" clearly adopt small seals in Printing, so that the style of writing of famous masters naturally affected the style of official seals and private seals at that time.
Some researchers believe that one of the differences between the official seals of the Sui and Tang dynasties lies in the difference between "seals" and "seals". The tang dynasty official seal and the Sui dynasty official seal on the difference between the word "zhi" or not, Mr. Luo Fuyi believes that the Tang Dynasty official seal mostly has the "zigzag" character, and most of those who do not use the "zigzag" character are Sui seals. However, in the excavation of the Daming Palace site in Chang'an, in the mud of the late Tang Dynasty, it was found that there were "zigzags" with the word "zigzag", and there were also those without the "zigzag". Luo Fuyi's point of view should be viewed dialectically. From the few surviving sui official seals, there is indeed no "zhi" character, and the view that the word "zhi" can be identified as the official seal of the Tang Dynasty should be carefully studied and seriously discussed. Mr. Sun Weizu put forward a conservative view in the "Sui and Tang Dynasty Official Seal Research": "The three characters of the 'County Seal' on the left are the same style, whether the Official Seal of the Tang Dynasty is uniformly produced or based on it, which needs to be further confirmed by historical materials, and such phenomena are more common in the Middle and Tang Dynasties." The author believes that the requirement of clearly adopting a small seal from the "Six Classics of Tang" should be unified from the logical reasoning for the text of the relics that can best represent the ruling authority. Since the shape of the shape, the size of the size, the printed words have a unified customization, the indian language should be more unified. That is to say, those who affirm the Tang Dynasty with "zhi" may not necessarily be Tang Dynasty without "zhi".
The shape and back of the "Seal of Yanmen County" are exquisite
In order to distinguish the Sui and Tang official seals from other official seals in terms of form, Mr. Luo Fuyi summarized the basic characteristics of the Sui and Tang official seals through the study of the Sui and Tang official seals in the old Collection of the Forbidden City: one is the enlarged nose button, and the other is that some of them have backs and seals cast in prints and seals. The difference between the Sui and Tang official seals is that the Sui seal button "obviously retains the form of the Hanjin nose button, the top of the button is semi-circular, the nose is thick and wide, the hole is small, and it is also semi-circular, and the whole shape is completely enlarged by the Hanjin nose button." And "the tang dynasty official seal button system and this has a big difference, the button becomes taller, thinner, narrower, the hole perforation becomes longer, and the backward development through five generations to the Song Dynasty, gradually forming a button, then completely lose the shape of the nose button." As a result, the changes in the Han, Jin, Sui, and Tang dynasties have become very clear: the nose button of the Sui Dynasty has increased, and the seal button of the early Tang Dynasty has become high and thinner, and in the fifth dynasty of the Song Dynasty, the nose button has become a button. In the change of the official seal system, most of the academic circles are concerned about the size of the printing surface. The size of the Sui and Tang official seals increased, generally between 5-6 cm. According to Mr. Sun Weizu's research, the average size of the Tang official seal is about 5.5 centimeters, and the size of the "Seal of Yanmen County" is 5.4 centimeters, which is in line with the Tang official system. Now comparing the back of the "Seal of Zhongshu Province" and the "Seal of Yanmen County" collected by the Palace Museum, the Seal of Zhongshu Province can be described as a recognized standard of the official seal of the Tang Dynasty. Its printing surface size is 5.7 *5.6 cm, and the size of the "Seal of Yanmen County" is 5.5 *5.5 cm. The size of the two prints is almost the same, and the shape system is basically the same.
The nose button of the Sui and Tang dynasty official seals has a change from coarse to tall, and the nose button is also marked with specific dimensions. According to the calculation of the tonggao data marked in the Sui official seal and the Tang official seal in Mr. Sun Weizu's "Sui and Tang Official Seal Research", the average height of the Sui seal is 3.25 cm, and the average height of the Tang official seal is about 4.21 cm. Compared with the nose button of the "Seal of Yanmen County", the height of the "Seal of Yanmen County" is 4.3 centimeters, which is slightly higher than the average of the Tang Official Seal. It can be seen that the height, thickness, width and narrowness of the "Seal of Yanmen County" button, and the length of the hole are completely symbolic of the shape of the official seal of the middle Tang Dynasty.
Welding and casting method "Jinshan County Seal"