The Northern Song Dynasty Zhang Zeduan's "Qingming Upper River Map" volume (hereinafter referred to as the "Qing" volume) is a long volume of deep custom paintings, showing the prosperity of the Northern Song Dynasty Kaifeng City, which is only a superficial phenomenon of the map, behind it, there are hidden mysteries that are not known.
First, an unusual perspective of observation
With an unusual observational perspective, the painter depicts a series of traffic dangers and social ills, which is beyond the creative convention with appreciation function, obviously, the painter has some intentions, according to the historical and cultural background of the Song Dynasty and documentary materials, to deeply explore the historical connotation hidden in the "Qing" volume, in turn to unlock the layers of code hidden in the image, and objectively understand the true facts recorded in the image.
1 crazy horse
The horse broke into the suburbs and set an anxious note for the whole volume. At the beginning of the scroll, a white official horse (the front half of the body was missing due to damage) who stepped back to the city during the Qingming Festival was frightened and ran wildly, in front of the white horse was a frightened black donkey, two grooms were chasing, the people around them suddenly panicked, an old man hurriedly beckoned the children playing on the side of the road to go home, another old man with a staff fled sideways, and the diners sitting in the shop smelled and looked at the sound, adding a tense atmosphere to the picture scroll at the beginning of the festival, which was just a foreshadowing of the dangerous situation in Beijing. It indicates that there will be more dangers in the future.
2 Imaginary Fire Tower
During the Northern Song Dynasty, most of Tokyo's 120 mills were brick and wood structures, extending all the way to the outer city, and each square was equipped with a watchtower. The Northern Song Dynasty experienced more than 40 exceptionally large fires, and the casualties were uncountable, and firefighting was the most serious social problem in the government and the opposition. There is a brick platform painted on the outskirts of the city in the picture, which is recorded in the "Tokyo Dream Record" of the Southern Song Dynasty, and Tokyo "looks at the fire building with bricks on the high ground, and there are people on the upper floor who are hopeful." This was a fire tower built in an outer city, and according to the regulations at that time: "There were several official houses under it, more than 500 soldiers stationed in Tun Tun, and there were firefighting family affairs... The leaders of Kaifeng Province drew water to extinguish it, and did not work for the people. This professional fire fighting team is called "submarine firefighters". They were stationed under the watchtower and militarized. Unfortunately, the Wanghuo Tower in the painting has been placed on a table and stool for leisure use, no one is guarding the upper floor, the two rows of barracks-style bungalows under the Wanghuo Building have been converted into restaurants, and the fire protection system at the end of the Northern Song Dynasty has been degraded to this point.
3 Thrilling bridges
During the Qingming Festival in the Northern Song Dynasty, people liked to go to the river to watch the spring water and swimming fish, and there were a large number of spectators on both sides of the arch bridge of the "Qing" volume, but the current scene really surprised them: the mast of the oncoming large passenger ship was about to crash into the arch bridge! The person responsible for this serious danger was a few haulers who should have stopped pulling the fibers at a certain distance from the arch bridge and beckoned the boatman to lower the mast, but they kept pulling the fiber under the arch bridge. Pedestrians up and down the arch bridge found the danger, shouted for help, the haulers who had entered the bridge hole heard the sound of loosening the rope, the boatmen immediately lowered the mast with the loosened rope, and a boatman on the roof of the ship struggled to hold the beam of the arch bridge with a long pole, so that the ship could not get close to the arch bridge, and the safety of the ship and the bridge was all related to this. The people on the bridge and on the shore were pinching a handful of sweat, and there were people on the bridge to prevent the boatman from falling into the water and throwing ropes...
Another farce was staged on the bridge, in which the civilian officers in the sedans and the military attachés on horseback did not give in to each other, and the sedans and horses quarreled endlessly. The rituals on the arch bridge have been chaotic, adding more dangers to the already tense arch bridge, and a three-dimensional intersectional contradiction has emerged, forming a contradictory climax of the "Qing" volume.
4 Severe problems of shangjia tun grain
The painting depicts 11 boats specializing in transporting grain, which becomes one of the hot spots for appreciation of the whole volume. The viewer will be infected by its rigorous painting skills and the atmosphere of real life, ignoring the serious social crisis hidden behind them. In the early years of the Northern Song Dynasty, Taizu limited the sale of grain, and according to the thirteenth volume of the Long Edition, "ShangJia heard of it, and because he did not profit, he did not dare to carry it to the Beijing Division." After Emperor Taizong took control of the south, he tried to control the price of grain through transportation and storage. In order to resist the forces of the famine years and force the retreat of the ShangJia, the Northern Song Dynasty paid attention to the construction of official warehouses along the Bian River, and by the second year of Emperor Shenzong Xining (1069), the national grain could reach nine years of reserves. There are two scenes of stevedores unloading ships, where shipowners direct a team of hired workers to unload grain, and the grain is transferred by the stevedores to a private warehouse in a deep alley, which is the first batch of grain that arrived in Beijing after the beginning of spring to meet the needs of Qinghuang. It should be noted that none of the grain ships in the painting are official ships, nor is there a grain inspector who comes to supervise the transportation, which means that the government and government have lost the opportunity to store and transport national grain, truly reproducing the situation at that time and telling the potential official grain crisis.
5 lazy layman officers and soldiers
The painter painted a high-grade caravanserai outside the city gate, a wooden bridge connected to the courtyard gate, 9 soldiers sitting in front of the door, and two briefcases, which were obviously a team of tolerances, as if they had been waiting here for a long time. A well-fed white horse lying in the courtyard, waiting for the owner of the horse, truly shows the situation of Huizong's procrastination and ineffectiveness of the bureaucracy.
6 Harsh party fighting incidents
In 1102, Emperor Huizong changed His name to Yuan Chongning and deposed the old party, and the following year, Cai Jing ordered the burning of the inkblots of Su Shi, Huang Tingjian, and other old party members, strictly prohibiting students from reading and collecting treasures, and the han ink of Su Shi, Huang Tingjian, and other old party members was burned. In two places in the painting, the coachmen are stripped of large screens written by the deposed Old Party, and other books wrapped around the Old Party are loaded into strings and pushed to the outskirts of the countryside for destruction at the behest of their masters. Zhang Zeduan vividly captured this detail, reflecting the cruelty of the old and new party struggles and the destruction of culture and art at that time.
7 Disarming gates
The open gates of the cave quietly await the day of the fall of the country. The city gate of the Qing Scroll did not build an urn city, it could not form a defensive system, and the rammed earth wall collapsed everywhere, and there were no city fortifications on it, not even the battlements for archery. Before and after the city gate, up and down the city tower, there was no soldier guarding, and the access control system of the Northern Song Dynasty had been completely broken. Interestingly, there were several camels outside the domain that ran through the doorway, revealing a Hu-like driver at the entrance. All this truly reflects the declining military strength and increasingly indifferent sense of defense in the early days of the Huizong Dynasty.
8 heavy commercial taxes
The first one inside the city gate is the tax office, and at the gate four coachmen bring a batch of sacks containing textiles. A coachman entered the house to file a tax report to the tax collector, who wanted to issue a text, and the tax collector outside the door pointed to the sack and said a number that the official wanted. The excessive tax must have caused the displeasure of the coachmen, and one of the coachmen submitted him a bill of goods to explain, and the other driver shouted in a hurry. It can be seen that the redundant tax system of the Northern Song Dynasty has stimulated antagonism between officials and people.
9 Flood of alcoholics
The "main store" in the painting is a hotel authorized by the government to brew fine wine. The house on the street to the right of this "zhengdian" is where military liquor is served, and there are three royal forest soldiers in the shop, who are ordered to come to the "zhengdian" to escort the military liquor by force, and it is also common for Northern Song Dynasty soldiers to intervene in trafficking and trading. They were routinely inspecting their weapons before their departure, and in the middle of them was a man with a wristband who was drawing a bow and testing the strings, and he had probably just finished drinking wine and burst out of strength; one on the left was tying his waist, and the other on the right was wrapping his wrists. If there are still a few soldiers in the painting who are willing to sell their strength, I am afraid that there are only a few drunken archers.
These pawns, who were supposed to appear at the post at the city gate, appeared in the liquor store in good spirits, in stark contrast to the lazy pawns at the gate of the station, the officials who slept in the house, and the "revoked" Wanghuo Tower, and the exquisite satire reflected the painter's critical spirit of the Song army's ills.
10 seriously infested shops
In the painting, on both sides of the street, there are a large number of rain erections built in front of the eaves and auxiliary buildings such as awnings and rain shelters stretching out from bungalows, or opening up businesses, or setting up stalls, after several times of "inching forward", constituting a phenomenon of "encroachment on the street" that could not be solved by several dynasties in the Northern Song Dynasty, resulting in traffic congestion and fire passage blockage, and it became more and more intense. Shops even gathered on the bridge deck, blocking the passage of the bridge deck, creating a dangerous situation. The city gates are also congested and unmanaged, which is caused by the loss of control of urban management.
11 Stark differences between rich and poor
While Zhang Zeduan showed the bustling business activities, he also revealed the great difference between rich and poor in the capital. During his "study tour to Beijing", he must have lived at the bottom of society, familiar with and sympathetic to the various labor life of the people. The painter was most concerned with the scene of the hard work of the coolies, and placed a certain sympathy on it. The painter paid great attention to the contrast between the rich and the poor, comparing the poor traveling in poverty with the cheerful aristocrats, and the porters were in stark contrast with the gentlemen who dined in the restaurant, the rich in the car, and the eunuchs on horseback. Rich rich people can kill rare yellow sheep in the street, just to pray to the road god to bless their traveling friends, and the rich man who drinks and drinks sick also forms a strong contrast with the hungry poor.
Second, the political environment is different from that of the previous dynasties
In the first year of the Jianzhong Jingguo (1101), when Emperor Huizong of Song ascended the throne, he was supposed to pay attention to the old party, but Deng Xunwu, the living man who belonged to the new party, divided the relationship between Huizong and the old party, so that Emperor Huizong decided to change to Yuan Chongning the following year, expressing his willingness to depose the old party and advocate the new law of Xining. Emperor Huizong basically laid down his ruling strategy during the Chongning period (1102-1106), such as appointing Cai Jing as a chancellor, spending money on the national treasury, and enjoying the world. At that time, the political background related to the creation of the Qing volume included two aspects, one was the relatively open environment of the Northern Song Dynasty, and the social problems expressed in the painting basically corresponded with the advice of the Officials of the Northern Song Dynasty and the content of the emperor's edicts; the second was that the late Northern Song Dynasty's advice was popular with satire and black humor, which had a certain impact on the artistic conception of the Qing volume.
1 The establishment of the Northern Song Dynasty's Taiwan Advisory System
The Northern Song Dynasty adopted a more tolerant attitude toward the counselors from the beginning of the founding of the country, which came from the national policy of "wende to rule". In 960, later Zhou returned to the German army to make Zhao Kuangyin gain the throne with the Chen Qiao Mutiny and the Yellow Robe, which was for The Song Taizu; in 962, he established a centralized system with "a cup of wine to release the military power". Song Taizu's two bloodless political successes further strengthened his governing philosophy of "Confucian indoctrination," "emphasizing literature and suppressing martial arts," "using literature to control weapons," and "wende to rule." Later emperors mostly adopted the strategy of gentle redemption for the attacks and harassment of the surrounding ethnic minorities, which objectively created a temporary stable state of "rest with the people", and the social economy, especially commercial trade, was sustained. Song Taizu decreed that no scholar or scholar should be killed, and he inherited the Tang Dynasty's system of three courts, such as the Taiwan, the Temple, and the Examination, and established and improved the system of Taiwan Consultation and the Imperial Examination System, and the Imperial History and the Counselors acted independently, and the Imperial History impeached hundred officials, and the Counselors advised the Emperor, which played a certain role in advising the Emperor, supervising the implementation, and participating in the government of the Dynasty, and encouraged the literati of later dynasties to continue to write and advise. Especially in the Huizong Dynasty, the literati doctors paid special attention to the future of Sheji. As soon as Emperor Huizong ascended the throne, he made it clear to the world: "... The Path of Truth and the Elimination of the Wind of Obscurity are not heard, but they are afraid of not hearing it, but they are afraid that they will not be able to do it. His words can be used, but his words are rewarded; if he loses what he says, he will not be guilty..." (Emperor Song Tongjian's Chronicle, vol. 123) At the beginning of his reign, Emperor Huizong was still able to accept words, but he initially showed the risk of partiality to one side, and in the future it was even worse.
2 Northern Song Dynasty sayings
Since the Song Dynasty, the politics of the Northern Song Dynasty began to deviate from the normal track, and religion gradually degenerated from the Buddhist tao to the revere of the demon, as a technique for saving the country, social management was out of control, the people were boiling, and the military was scattered. The advice of the Officials of the Northern Song Dynasty in the middle and late period mainly came from two aspects: the middle period was mainly around the transformation and anti-transformation laws of the time; the late period was mainly focused on the expenses and failures of Emperor Huizong, such as the collection and transportation of flowers and stones, the reconstruction of Yanfu Palace, and the construction of new Gengyue, which have exceeded the social capacity. Interestingly, many of the social problems appealed by the courtiers can be found in the Qing volume, such as urban defense problems, merchants invading the streets, ship bridge safety, etc., which were not only not solved by the former dynasty, but also worsened in the Huizong Dynasty. As a court painter, Zhang Zeduan will know some of the unresolved problems of courtiers in the past years, and judging from the consistency of a series of social problems presented in the figure and the courtiers' texts, the painter's attention to the government and society is quite accurate and profound.
3 Means of advice
The Northern Song Dynasty's advice became more and more intense, not only in the court, but also in the courtiers, but also in the miscellaneous dramatists, painters and other artists to participate in the advice, which appeared from the form of written advice to the form of literary and artistic advice, that is, from "wen zhi" to "painting advice", "art advice" and "poetry advice" and other art forms, the biggest artistic feature is to increase the artistic means of irony.
Emperor Shenzong was the first to prescribe the method of combining "wenzhi" and "painting advice". For example, Zheng Xia, a supervisor of the old party and a member of the Gwangju judiciary, sent the painter Li Rong to compose a "Map of displaced people" and reported it to Song Shenzong, in order to prove the shortcomings of Wang Anshi's change of law and demand that the new law be abolished.
At the end of the Northern Song Dynasty, some people satirized the "moral government" of Emperor Huizong and his favored courtiers in the form of a miscellaneous drama, such as the satire in the miscellaneous drama showing the three religions: "The dead are inevitable, but the poor people have nothing to return to, then choose a gap for the garden of leakage, and if there is no way to die, they will coffin it and bury it, enjoy the spring and autumn ceremonies, grace and spring soil, and the same is true for their death... It's just that the people generally suffer immeasurably. "Profoundly and poignantly satirize the tragic situation in nursing homes such as Anjifang in Beijing, which Huizong advertised." The Huizong Dynasty began to experience inflation, and Cai Jingzhu "dang ten dollars". Artists staged a miscellaneous drama "Dang Ten Dollars" for Huizong, a customer drank a bowl of soy milk from a vendor and paid a "Dang Ten Dollars", the peddler could not find change, which caused a full hall of laughter, forcing Huizong to strike "Dang Ten Dollars".
Among the literati around Emperor Huizong, they also repeatedly wrote ironic poems, that is, "poetry advice". For example, the student Deng Su presented a poem "Eleven Chapters and Prefaces to the Poems of Huashi Gang", which satirized Huizong's collection of Huashi Gang Jiangongyue.
As a result, the satirical factors in the "Qing" volume are by no means isolated, and Zhang Zeduan satirizes the ugly state of greedy, lazy officers and soldiers and civilian officials and military generals in a modeling language, which is deeply influenced by the creative atmosphere prevailing in drama and literature at that time. It can be said that "Qu Zhi" is more profound and has more internal strength than "Zhi Zhi", and "Art Advice" is more vivid and more infectious than "Wen Zhi".
Unfortunately, Emperor Huizong paid attention to the political function of painting "whitewashing, civilizing the world, and so the audience's eyes, concordance" (Xuanhe Pictorial Notation, vol. 15), while the tone of the brush and ink of the Qing volume lacked a sense of brightness, and there was no auspicious object or auspicious meaning in the painting, he did not like this scroll, and then rewarded it to foreign relatives.
Zhang Zeduan deeply cherished the sense of sorrow and compassion for people, and revealed the various signs of the imminent demise of the Northern Song Dynasty with a realistic creative attitude. The politics, military, and diplomacy of the "Huizong Dynasty" entered the Jedi, and at the same time, the social contradictions of the Northern Song Dynasty entered the most acute historical period, and the contradictions between the officials and the people and between officials and officials reached a situation of repeated outbreaks; on the contrary, it was precisely during this period that the handicraft economy, commercial economy, and culture and art of the Northern Song Dynasty reached the peak of development, and the enlightened civil rule and dark harsh government of the Northern Song Dynasty coexisted, resulting in an extreme imbalance in social and political development. Against such a historical backdrop, it is easy for external forces to destroy its political rule. Zhang Zeduan, the author of the "Qing" volume, told Emperor Huizong about his infinite hidden worries.
Source/ China Art News
Editor-in-Charge/Xuan Xuan