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Introduction:
During the Qing Dynasty, ethnic minority regimes entered the Central Plains. In order to achieve ideological control over the people in the Central Plains, the rulers of the Qing Dynasty used coercive means to change the social customs and living habits of the Central Plains and force the people to submit, so as to strengthen the authoritarian centralization.
For example, shaving hair and braids is one of the typical means. Qing nobles forced Han people to shave their hair and leave an ugly braid.
What kind of hairstyle the Qing Dynasty is, today we can only glimpse one or two from the film and television dramas of the Qing Dynasty. In this type of film and television works, the hairstyles worn by male characters are usually "yin and yang heads", and the overall look is relatively harmonious and not overly ugly.
But in fact, the scenes constructed in costume dramas are fake. The hairstyles of real Qing dynasty men are far uglier than "yin and yang heads".
In real history, what exactly was the hairstyle of the Qing dynasty people? How has their hairstyle evolved?
- Forced shaving, the means are vicious
Before the official establishment of the Qing Dynasty, the only outlier in the Central Plains Dynasty was the Yuan Dynasty. The rulers of the Yuan Dynasty were the northern Mongols, an ethnic minority opposed to the Han.
However, in the process of entering the Central Plains, most of the nobles of the Mongols gradually realized sinicization, so the Han culture of the Central Plains was still well preserved.
Until the Ming Dynasty, orthodox culture was never severed. At the end of the Ming Dynasty, the Jurchens in the north invaded, and the situation became critical again.
In the Central Plains, the person who really ended the rule of the Ming Dynasty was Li Zicheng. But this short-lived emperor could not live his own sins, and buried his road to the top of the world alive.
He committed evil deeds in the capital, offended a vote of officials and people, and went to war with Wu Sangui at Shanhaiguan, and the Han killed each other.
Wu Sangui realized that in order to defeat Li Zicheng, he had to seek foreign aid. Therefore, he found Dolgon's door, took the initiative to clear the obstacles for the Qing army, and opened a road to enter the customs.
For Dolgon, being able to enter Shanhaiguan meant that he had achieved unprecedented feats. You know, from Nur Hachi to Huang Taiji, although the two fought in the south and the north, they never broke through the defense line of Shanhaiguan.
And he achieved unearthly feats.
After entering Shanhaiguan, the Qing army did not intercept it again, and drove straight in. Wu Sangui, who led the wolf into the house, could only bow down to Dolgon, and obediently sent the ruling power of the capital with both hands.
It was precisely because of the trip to Shanhaiguan that the Qing army was able to trample the land of the Central Plains so conveniently. And the Manchus also officially replaced the Han and became the masters of the world.
However, after all, the Manchus and Han were two completely different peoples, and there were many differences in living habits and social customs between the two sides. Many Han people retained their personal habits and were reluctant to follow the Manchu rulers and change.
However, for the ruling class of the Qing Dynasty, if it cannot completely change everyone's inherent thinking and change everyone's sense of identity with social customs, then the rule of the Qing Dynasty will face a huge threat.
For the stability of the political power and the stability of the social order, they must change the social customs of the Han people by coercive and even iron-blooded means.
The Qing ruling class planned to start from scratch, and hairstyles became their biggest concern.
The ruling class ordered that all the people shave their hair and braid it, imitate the Manchu hairstyle, and change their external image.
This command is simply difficult for Han Chinese to accept because it completely challenges our traditional concepts and systems of thinking.
For Chinese, the body is skinned, and the parents are our most inherent philosophy. We have no right to do harm to our bodies, because life and body are gifts from our parents.
Only they, only our creators, can make changes to our bodies.
This can be seen from the image of Nezha, a traditional mythological figure on the mainland.
After Nezha committed the heavenly rule, he chose to cut the flesh to return to his mother and remove the bones to return to his father. The author is using Nezha's story to express his thoughts, telling everyone that the ownership of every part of the body actually comes from parents.
In the eyes of us modern people, this concept is pure nonsense. Because we always believe that everyone is an independent individual, and the child is also a complete and complete personality that exists independently of his parents.
However, the ancients could not accept this new trendy idea. Therefore, they could not accept the order to shave their hair and braid it.
Some openly resisted, and for this they were strongly retaliated by the Qing government.
A man in the last years of the Ming Dynasty was quite talented and prestigious in society. The Qing government always wanted to recruit him, but he always stuck to his camp, taking the anti-Qing restoration as his own responsibility, and refused to compromise with the enemy.
He also made strong resistance to the order to shave and braid his hair. Even if someone forced him to change, he always insisted on his personal ideas and never succumbed to the butcher's knife of the Qing army.
When the ruler of the Qing government learned of this, he directly attacked this person and not only publicly executed him, but also killed him all over the house. The prison officer also ordered the common people to come and watch the opening scene, kill a hundred people, and set an example.
People have to believe that the Qing government will really use strong and iron-blooded tactics to rectify social order.
There is only one life for everyone, and ordinary people cannot take their lives to confront the Qing government. So over time, more and more people shave their hair and braid.
However, the matter of killing a hundred people is a double-edged sword in itself. Some ordinary people obeyed the will of the Qing government because of fear and forcibly changed their appearance.
However, some people were aroused by this strong resistance and joined the anti-Qing restoration team, using various extreme means to confront the rule of the Qing government.
At the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, the emperor faced a lot of resistance from the people. All kinds of non-governmental organizations have exerted their strength, even if they are wise and martial as the Kangxi Emperor, they also feel great pressure.
But over time, rulers became aware that their means of forcibly changing social mores were effective. At least with the further penetration of Manchu culture, most Han people had to choose to change customs and adapt to the needs of the ruling class.
- Early haircuts, really ugly
Judging from the portraits of the rulers of the Qing Dynasty handed down, the emperor's hairstyle seems to be different from the hairstyle we see in costume dramas.
In costume dramas, the hairstyles of male characters of the Qing Dynasty are often referred to as "yin and yang heads". They will shave half of their hair, that is, the first half of their hair. The hair from the top of the head to the back of the head is preserved and braided.
In general, this hairstyle is not too ugly. Especially for people with more three-dimensional facial features, their appearance conditions will not be greatly reduced by ugly hairstyles.
As we see in costume dramas, handsome guys with tall postures and good facial features often show a more dignified demeanor when playing Qing dynasty people. Real handsome guys can also stand the test of hairstyles.
But in fact, the Qing Dynasty hairstyle in costume dramas is not the real historical Qing Dynasty hairstyle. The real historical situation is far uglier than we think.
At the beginning of the establishment of the Qing Dynasty, only the upper aristocracy was able to preserve more hair. From the portraits of the emperors, we can also see that their sideburns have hair. So from the front, it doesn't seem too obscene.
But they will not be so kind to the people at the bottom, the Qing army is like a weapon in the hands of the ruling class of the Qing Dynasty, they will forcibly take the people at the bottom to a special place to shave their heads, and the master in charge of shaving their heads will not show mercy.
So in just two minutes, a normal Han male with hair will become a bald head with only a handful of hair on the back of his head.
The Qing dynasty people called this hairstyle the money rat's tail, and from the appearance, the shape of the braid is quite similar to the tail of the money rat. As you can imagine, this is a very ugly hairstyle.
Therefore, the resistance of the people at the bottom to shaving and braids is not only resisting the forced invasion of Manchu culture in the Central Plains, but also resisting deformed and distorted aesthetic concepts.
Everyone has a ruler to measure beauty in their hearts, and no one wants their hair, which they regard as a treasure, to be treated so badly. No one wants to treat their precious hair in such a casual way.
The Qing Dynasty ruled the Central Plains for more than two hundred years, and in the early and middle stages, most of the Qing people had money rat-tailed hairstyles.
In the middle of the Qing Dynasty, missionaries from Western countries came to China, and many painters came to visit China. They were amazed to see the unique hairstyles on the heads of Qing dynasty people, and recorded these shocking images on their drawing paper.
So today, we can still see from the paintings of foreign missionaries that the real hairstyles of Qing dynasty people are so ugly.
Manchu court dramas are actually an artistic processing and beautification of history. The scenes presented in court dramas are often changed to please the audience's eyes.
Real character hairstyles will actually be many times uglier than hairstyles in film and television dramas.
It was not until the reign of the Jiaqing Emperor that the Qing government's control over the rule of shaving and braids for Han people gradually relaxed.
Because the foundation of the Qing Dynasty's rule was gradually consolidated, the rulers did not worry about such trivial matters as the release of the people.
Therefore, the hair on the top of the heads of Qing dynasty men gradually increased, and the braids they threw behind them gradually thickened. The overall social aesthetic atmosphere has only improved at this point.
- At the end of the Qing Dynasty, restrictions were relaxed
Strictly speaking, the "yin and yang head" only lasted for a few decades from the date of its appearance to the date of its disappearance. At the end of the reign of the Qing Dynasty, "yin and yang heads" officially appeared in people's lives.
At that time, the national integration of the Manchu and Han ethnic groups had gradually scaled, and people of different nationalities were influenced by foreign cultures to a certain extent.
Moreover, in the stable order of the great unified dynasty, the national gap is gradually reduced.
What reassured the Qing rulers the most was that the civil resistance against the Qing Dynasty had gradually decreased. The people who were active in society at the beginning were people who were truly influenced by the traditional culture of the Ming Dynasty.
But their descendants have lived in the ruling atmosphere of the Qing Dynasty since they were born, and naturally they will not have the determination to resist the Qing Dynasty.
The sharp reduction of various unstable factors greatly enhanced the sense of security of the Qing ruling class. It is precisely for this reason that the emperor has particularly relaxed his control over civil society customs.
The longer they lived in the Central Plains, the easier it was for the Manchus to form a certain aesthetic system.
Of course, they also understand that the money sage tail in the past really challenged people's aesthetic bottom line. Therefore, with the stability of the social environment, they are also willing to try to make more aesthetic changes.
Therefore, at the end of the Qing Dynasty, whether it was Han or Manchu, the hairstyle on everyone's head became "yin and yang head".
Epilogue:
The change of hairstyle actually reflects the social reality background and the change of social culture. At the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, the regime was still unstable, and the rulers had to take extreme measures to control the minds of the people.
At the end of the Qing Dynasty, social development gradually became balanced, and this strict control would naturally be relaxed.
As for the plots and pictures in costume dramas, everyone can watch them as a pastime. If you want to judge real history, do not quote scriptures about it.
Resources:
History of the Qing Dynasty
"The Great Qing Dynasty"