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Japanese scholars have always been keen to study Chinese history, and the classification of various dynasties is quite in-depth, among them, there is such a history of more than 370 years, Japanese scholars have been studying since the 1970s, and there are more than seventy papers on this historical research every year, and monographs are published from time to time.
However, this history, whenever the middle school is about to take the exam, when the teachers of each subject focus on reviewing and drawing the focus of the exam, it is divided into non-key content, and the exam almost does not account for the score, so many people remember that it is a story that exists in the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", "Peach Blossom Origin", and "Roselle Futu".
However, this passage was ignored because it was not the focus of the exam, but it inherited the era of the Qin and Han dynasties and the Sui and Tang dynasties, the Wei and Jin Dynasties, but was thoroughly studied by Japanese scholars from all angles.
The Southern and Northern Dynasties of wei and Jin are also known as the Three Kingdoms and the Two Jin Dynasties, of which Wei refers to the Three Kingdoms period, that is, Wei during the Wei, Shu, and Wu periods. The Two Jin Dynasties refer to the Eastern Jin Dynasty and the Western Jin Dynasty.
The Southern and Northern Dynasties refer to the beginning of Liu Yu's usurpation of the Eastern Jin Dynasty and the establishment of the Southern Dynasty of the Song Dynasty, until the Sui Dynasty destroyed the Southern Dynasty Chen in 589 AD, and the Upper Jin Dynasty, the Five Hu Sixteen Kingdoms, and the Sui Dynasty.
Because the north and south have been opposed for a long time, they are called the North and South Dynasties.
The Southern Dynasty, including the Four Dynasties of Song, Qi, Liang, and Chen.
The Northern Dynasty includes five dynasties, including Northern Wei, Eastern Wei, Western Wei, Northern Qi and Northern Zhou.
In history, although the turmoil of these hundreds of years is only a short five-word summary, it contains dozens of dynasties or countries.
Yoshio Kawakatsu (1922-1984) was a well-known Japanese scholar of Oriental history, a professor at Kyoto University, and one of the representatives of the third generation of scholars of Oriental historiography of the Kyoto School, specializing in the study of Chinese history and intellectual history during the Six Dynasties period.
His book "Wei and Jin Southern and Northern Dynasties" presents the essence of the study of medieval history in japanese sinology circles since the 20th century by using his academic viewpoint of "Six Dynasties Aristocratic Society" in words that can be understood by the public.
01. The South and the North split in the agitation
To borrow a sentence from the opening chapter of the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms": The general trend of the world will be united for a long time, and it will be divided for a long time.
When the social unrest of the Han Dynasty began to intensify dramatically, armed believers across North China wrapped up yellow turbans together in the banner of overthrowing the Han Empire, and finally defeated the han dynasty's rule.
However, these armed forces did not stop the war from the moment of victory, but no one obeyed anyone, and all walks of life fought with wits and courage, fighting in this once unified land, and finally Wei Shu and Wu divided the world.
Since then, starting from the Qin Dynasty, the unified and peaceful China has entered an era of separatist war and chaos.
In people's common perception, China has firmly defined the system of absolute monarchy rule since ancient times, and used powerful means of rule to combine the ideas of scholars of various schools to establish a stable state.
If there is no deviation from reality and cognition, even if there is a short-term scuffle, there will be no more than 370 years of war and turmoil in China's history, but what is the reason for this unexpected continuous division?
According to Kawakatsu Yoshio's research, at that time, the independence of various regions within China was very strong, there were contradictions between the Han nationality and ethnic minorities, and the various local forces that had just undergone war and division were independent, and various reasons were superimposed, which allowed the separatist turmoil to continue for hundreds of years.
Geographically, China can be roughly divided into south and north centered on Huaishui.
The northern region is dry and endless, and the dryland farming method that avoids the evaporation of water in the ground as much as possible ensures the output of crops, but the species that can be planted are not abundant; although there is natural rainfall in the south and there are more species suitable for planting, there are some places where moderate rainfall is not available, and the harvest of crops in different regions varies greatly.
In order to offset this imbalance and coordinate the difficulties of survival, it is a kind of survival wisdom to establish a unified imperial system in this area that is convenient for the movement of groups, and to unify these areas for management.
With the stability of society after reunification, the progress and popularization of agricultural technology, the population also grew, the gap between the rich and the poor began to appear, and the Hao class with certain knowledge appeared in various places, which gave birth to the humanistic local consciousness in different regions. Literati and heroes from all over the world began to appear on stage, expressing their own opinions, and even the advantages and disadvantages of the region and the advantages and disadvantages of the ethnic groups had to compete for the superiority and inferiority.
Although the country was a unified situation during the Qin and Han dynasties, as the forces of each region continued to develop and split with each other, the process of each exploring its own development path gradually emerged.
The South benefited from more superior natural conditions than the North, the productive forces naturally increased faster than the North, and the economic level, even in the cultural level, far surpassed the North.
The dispute over the survival interests between the foreign race and the Han nationality has also complicated the division.
Cut continuously, rationalization is still chaotic, how to find the way forward that everyone can coexist and prosper?
Is it nomadic farming? Is it a mix of Hu and Han cultures that identify with each other?
In this 370-year-old, like a teenager in adolescence, under the restlessness, sometimes noisy, sometimes inexplicably groping for the way to live with himself.
02. The expansion and integration of Chinese civilization
Historically, from the beginning of Emperor Wudi's expedition against the Xiongnu, the power of the Han Dynasty began to expand.
To the east, goguryeo, Samhan, and Uighur states all paid tribute to the Chinese dynasties, and then were awarded the title of king and the official title of Chinese style respectively. Even in the period of division, the example of this conferring the title of king has never stopped.
To the west, the Silk Road connects the east-west traffic, China to the west to transport silk, and the West to the east to transport gold and silver, glass, etc., the increase in trade volume to the Silk Road countries brought huge benefits, to ensure that this trade route is unimpeded, is the necessary condition for countries to maintain prosperity and development at that time, Chinese civilization with the commercial trade spread more and more far at the same time, but also a large number of exotic culture.
Many Westerners are surprised that the Chinese civilization has not only not been broken off in the turmoil of thousands of years, but has continued to develop, while also adding richer elements.
But in Kawakatsu's view, this is actually not an unexpected thing.
During the turbulent hundreds of years of the Wei and Jin Dynasties, it was an important period for the further development of classical Chinese civilization. At this stage, while adhering to the protection of tradition and classical civilization, Chinese people with cultural knowledge have also raised literature, art and poetry to another height, laying a unique tone for the development of future generations.
In the era of war and chaos, there were indeed many heroes who dominated one side by force, especially the nomadic people who frightened the Hearts of the Han People, who once attacked the city and plundered the land with powerful force and established their own political power, but they still failed to form a ruling class in China.
Whether it is Chinese history or world history, in order to enter the ruling class, it is necessary to be knowledgeable and educated literati and scholars, that is, the commonly referred to as the nobility and the intellectual class. If the ruling class of a country was originally a person of military origin, if it wants to govern a country, it will have to degenerate into a knowledgeable and educated literati class.
Even in turbulent times of war, no matter which dynasty, China's literati class and aristocracy still follow this principle.
Japanese scholars see the Wei and Jin Dynasties and the Northern and Southern Dynasties ¥44 purchase
03. The formation of the nobility is moving towards a new era of unification
In Chuansheng Yoshio's view, China's "aristocratic society" and "aristocratic class" were formed in the Wei and Jin dynasties. The nobility he spoke of in his research was actually what history textbooks called "scholars."
These people are different from ordinary people, who have written poetry and books, written influential works, whose identity is inherited by the family, who have their own stable social class power, whose official positions can be conferred by the emperor, but they can be dismissive of official positions, and they also have the strength to pick and choose official positions, and the emperor has no way to do anything about it.
When the shi clan was at its most powerful, it could sit on an equal footing with the emperor.
For example, during the Eastern Jin Dynasty, the royal Sima clan cooperated with the Wang Dao and Wang Dun brothers of the Langya Wang clan to preserve half of their own country, with the saying that "the king and the horse share the world".
By supporting different regimes, the warriors everywhere coexist with it, and their fates rise and fall. Some of these powerful warrior clans, whose family lineage and power continued until the Tang Dynasty, were talented in each generation, and there were no less than a hundred officials in the dynasty, so that later, the emperor explicitly forbade these noble families to marry each other.
Family inheritance and cultural maturity, on the one hand, prompted the society to be stabilized to a certain extent, and on the other hand, the family wealth with superior conditions itself is increasing, the beginning of the day-to-day poverty and extravagance, the rise of the consumption boom, to the Liang Dynasty, the children of the nobility and senior bureaucrats have been completely feminine, kaoru shaved face, Fu powder Shi Zhu, wearing high tooth clogs, traveling by car, home is a slave support... It is not difficult to imagine how vulnerable these weakened warriors would be in the midst of a scuffle.
With Yang Jian crushing the Chen Dynasty in one fell swoop, the division of these hundreds of years finally came to an end.
Although this is an easily overlooked and turbulent history of dynasties, and there are many unbearable things in it, this period of turmoil and turmoil has the characteristics of a period of turmoil in each time period, but it is not difficult to see that they have the same common ground.
As Kawakatsu Yoshio said in his book "Southern and Northern Dynasties of Wei and Jin":
In this turbulent history of more than 370 years, for ordinary people, it is seen that only force is a reliable survival force, but despite this, the warriors with family inheritance and some knowledge have finally rejected the leadership led by wu and still chose the warriors and knowledgeable people as their leaders.
This should be one of the reasons why the Chinese civilization has not been broken off in the turmoil of thousands of years, but has continued to develop and develop, while also adding richer elements.