History is a witness to the development and operation of a country, each period of history can accurately reflect the rise and fall of a country in a certain period of time, Tang Taizong Li Shimin once said, with history as a mirror, you can know the rise and fall. The importance of history is obvious, and the most important period of history in the ancient times of the mainland is the feudal society that lasted for more than two thousand years.
We all say that Chinese history runs through five thousand years, and only this historical stage of feudal society has almost occupied half of it, so this period is the most important period that can explain the development and transformation of the Chinese nation, and the most obvious characteristic of this era is the feudal monarchy, so in addition to the highly targeted system, the monarch is the most important link in feudal society.
The so-called monarch is actually the emperor, he is the figure standing at the top of the pyramid in the feudal society, and it is also the position that everyone wants to do when the change of dynasty and the change of dynasties triggered wars, because the ancient emperor was in charge of the power of life and death, known as the Son of Heaven, basically a person who can arbitrarily change the rules, grasp the government, govern the program, and maintain national stability.
Therefore, the honest emperor does not value only the supreme position and privilege, but also the maintenance of the long-term peace and stability of the world, so the emperor is very important for any dynasty, therefore, there have been many changes in the name, why did Qin Shi Huang change the "widow" to "朕", what is the deep meaning? Take the words apart and read them.
The birth of the monarch
In fact, there was no so-called monarch and emperor in the earliest days of the mainland, but as early as the beginning of the primitive society, there was already a level of status, and the society at that time did not form a systematic system and order, so the tribe at that time was only a tribe formed by blood relations.
So in the early days, the resources obtained by the tribe were still evenly distributed, so the status of the tribe at that time was basically distinguished by experience and age, but this situation did not convince the new generation of forces in the tribe, so soon this model was replaced, and its symbol was the emergence of private property.
Whether there is leadership and discourse power in the tribe depends on whether more benefits have been obtained for the tribe, and the greater the contribution made to the tribe, the more leadership is given, and the more obedient the people in the tribe are, and the closer they are to the later monarchs in terms of status, such as the Second Emperor Yanhuang, who led the human tribe through the difficulties and won the victory.
Not to mention that the two were originally the leaders of the tribe, and their outstanding performance in the war directly determined the discourse power of the two, so they can be regarded as the earliest leaders, and then they led their respective tribes to develop production and become strong, so the status is very high, but the emergence of kings and rulers is actually in the later Yao, Shun, and Yu periods.
Because of the outstanding performance of the three in the tribe, they became the leaders of the tribe at that time, but Dayu was different from the other two, and the inheritance of the first two positions was based on another election and Zen concession, and Dayu directly passed the position to his son Qi, and made laws to build the castle, the first king, and thus came into being.
Thereafter, the succession of the ruler's position became directly passed on to the next generation, no longer elected, monopolized by one family, and all had the final say, as several subsequent stages of slave society, so that the subsequent stages of feudal society were all the same, and there was also a special title for the first ruler at that time.
The origin and meaning of the widow
The title "widow" was only used in the pre-Qin Dynasty, when the country was still in a slave society, and we know that the slave society experienced three dynasties, Xia, Shang, and Western Zhou. Of the three, only the Western Zhou Differed from the others, because the Zhou Tianzi at that time was relatively faint, which led to the later division of the Zhou royal rule. This is what we call the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, that is, the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period.
During this period, due to the decline of the Zhou Dynasty's rule and the prevalence of the feudal system, many powerful princely states appeared, such as the Spring and Autumn Five Hegemons and the Warring States Seven Heroes. At that time, the top princes not only had their own territory of influence, but even had their own armies, so in the Warring States period, they had become independent and divided countries, and there were monarchs at that time.
For the rulers at that time, when others called themselves the kings of a certain country, such as the king of Qin and the king of Chu, and these so-called monarchs generally called themselves "widows". The so-called widow, the so-called widow, the first meaning is unique, symbolizing the supremacy of the overlords and monarchs at that time, because they regarded themselves as no one who could sit on an equal footing with them, so they called themselves widows.
The second meaning is modesty, which is actually adhering to the consistent fine tradition of the Chinese nation, and the specific meaning is roughly "morally weak", of course, it does not mean that this king is really weak in merit and does nothing, but a very modest statement, which is basically equivalent to what we now call contemptible people.
Of course, in addition to the saying of widowhood, there is also loneliness, which was actually often used in the Spring and Autumn Warring States period, and was later used, but the meaning represented is different, before Qin Shi Huang completed the unification, the term "lonely" was the monarch's self-designation, but after Qin Shi Huang, the meaning changed.
In the subsequent dynasties, "lonely" was mainly used as a feudal ruler's permission to claim the title of king, for example, during the Three Kingdoms period, the han dynasty rule declined, Cao Cao forced the Han Emperor to be crowned king, calling himself a lonely, Sun Quan unified Jiangdong, claimed to be lonely, after Liu Bei entered the throne of Hanzhong, he also called himself a lonely, although he was not a king, but the title was still there, and the widow was abolished by Qin Shi Huang.
The ambitions of Qin Shi Huang
In fact, the Qin state in the late Warring States period, after the Shang martingale transformation method has become incomparably powerful, and then after the return of the Government of Yingzheng, just ascended to the position of the monarch of the Qin State, began to implement its grand goal of unifying the world, the so-called Qin King sweeps Liuhe, it took only nine years for Qin Shi Huang to complete the unification of all China.
Then, what Qin Shi Huang wanted to do was not to simply destroy the six countries that were originally divided, but to achieve complete unification in all aspects, and then Qin Shi Huang's series of practices have been used by us to this day, just as the so-called book is the same text, the car is on the same track, Qin Shi Huang has made standardized unification of all aspects after completing the great unification.
These include writing, currency, weights and measures, etc., of course, as well as their own titles, the early widows, Qin Shi Huang was already disdainful, because the land at that time was divided equally by seven countries, and still called themselves widows, if they now complete the unification and then use the previous titles, it is not inconsistent with their own identity.
Therefore, with the help of the ministers of the DPRK, Qin Shi Huang came up with another domineering title, because before Qin Shi Huang, there had never been a person who had achieved complete unification, even if it was the previous Three Emperors and Five Emperors, he had never completed such an initiative as he did, so he thought that his merits were far beyond the Three Emperors and Five Emperors, so he combined the two words emperor and emperor.
Therefore, others have changed their titles from King of Qin to Emperor of the Qin Dynasty, and this domineering title directly runs through the entire feudal dynasty, and Qin Shi Huang, as the founder of the feudal dynasty, is also fully worthy of this title, after all, it is the opening of a new social form, which is also a new era of history.
But although unification has been completed, Qin Shi Huang has still thought it through in terms of self-proclaimed self-proclaimed, because modesty has always been a fine tradition of the Chinese nation, even if your merits are great, you must be very modest, if you call yourself an emperor again, it is very inappropriate, even if you want to show your great deeds, you should be implicit, not as straightforward as the emperor.
The origin and meaning of decay
For Qin Shi Huang, this kind of great achievement can be said to be low-key, so after some careful consideration, the word "朕" was used as the exclusive title of the emperor, and here we need to make it clear that Qin Shi Huang's operational knowledge here is used, not created, that is, the word "朕" has actually existed for a long time.
But before Qin Shi Huang established the use, the word 朕 was still commonly used, and the meaning was relatively simple, that is, I, I meant, but after the Qin Dynasty, under the advice of Li Si, "朕" became the exclusive self-designation of Qin Shi Huang and even later emperors, and only one person in the whole country could use it.
If the commoners used it without authorization, they would be crowned with the heinous crime of blasphemy against the emperor or rebellion, so after the qin dynasty decree was issued, there was only one person who could claim to be the emperor, so its first meaning was actually "I" but after the Qin dynasty, it was determined as an exclusive title in the form of law.
The meaning of the glyph, in fact, this word, if interpreted through the glyph, will have another layer of meaning, but now we see that the font has undergone thousands of years of evolution, it is impossible to see what comes, if you want to interpret "朕" from the glyph aspect, you must restore the glyph of his thousands of years of money.
In the earliest times, the left half of the moon in addition to the shape of the difference, its own has not changed, while the right side of the pass is different, in ancient times, the shape of the font on the side of the side is roughly the bottom two forks of the meal, the upper one is a character, next to each has a skim, the meaning here is obvious.
The things that resemble the moon and the sun on the side represent everything in this world, while the two fork-shaped things on the right represent the power of the army under the world, and the people above refer to the emperor who is above the army and is in the same glory as the sun and the moon, and also holds the absolute power of the army.
It can be basically understood that it is a special person who is protected or protected by heaven and earth, so as long as the glyph is restored to ancient times, the self-designation of "朕" used as an emperor can be said to be low-key and luxurious, and it is no wonder that it has been used for thousands of years.
summary
In fact, in ancient times, the change and use of every word condensed the wisdom of many ancient working people, but because of the development and evolution of things, some meanings were blurred.