China is the homeland of tea, so far, from tea planting, tea picking, tea making, tea sales and even tea drinking, there is a complete set of cultural systems in all aspects, and everything can be said to be one-two-three-four. It can be said that tea, this magical oriental leaf, may be the simplest thing but has the most profound and delicate culture of excellence.
The Chinese tea ceremony has been practiced for thousands of years. (This article was originally written by headline author Bo Dong)
Such a simple tea can have such a complex culture, and the efforts of a dynasty are inseparable, that is, the Song Dynasty. The Southern and Northern Song Dynasties jointly owned the world for 319 years, and the territory was not large compared to other dynasties, but when it comes to culture and economy, there are not many dynasties that can compete with the Song Dynasty. It was also under the impetus of the Song Dynasty that the Chinese tea ceremony culture developed to its peak and profoundly affected later generations.
So why did the Song Dynasty attach so much importance to the construction of tea and tea ceremony culture? This is actually related to a hidden pain of the Song Dynasty.
First, Shi Jingyao's loss of Yanyun Sixteen Prefectures became a permanent pain for the Song Dynasty
In the Song Dynasty, you grabbed a Song Dynasty man with a little bit of national consciousness, and you asked him one of the things he wanted to do the most, and ninety-nine percent of his answer was this: recover Yanyun Sixteen Prefectures.
Yanyun Sixteen Prefectures is a hidden pain for the people of the Song Dynasty. (This article was originally written by headline author Bo Dong)
Yanyun Sixteen Prefectures were a hidden pain for the Song Dynasty, especially the Northern Song Dynasty, but in fact, it was not lost by the Song Dynasty. The man who lost it left a heavy mark on history, his name was Shi Jingyao. This Shatuo was initially only a general of the Later Tang, but he had relatively strong strength, but this strength was not enough for him to unify the Central Plains Dynasty. What to do? A little clever, he quickly thought of a way to borrow troops from the Khitan state in the northern desert and let them help him gain the right to rule the dynasty.
However, there is still a slight difference between borrowing a soldier from another country and borrowing a cabbage from a neighbor's house. A neighbor who borrows cabbage may lend it to you, but if you borrow a soldier from another country, you still have to take something out as collateral. Shi Jingyao was an understanding man, so he took out the Sixteen Prefectures of Yanyun (roughly the scope of which was the sixteen prefectures centered on today's Beijing and Datong, Shanxi, that is, the areas north of present-day Beijing and Tianjin, northern Hebei, and northern Shanxi). The Liao State saw comrade Shi Jingyao's full sincerity, so it agreed to his request, and finally helped him ascend to the emperor's throne, establishing the Later Jin regime in five generations, and Shi Jingyao himself was also honored as the "Child Emperor", that is, the son of the Khitan Great Khan, and has been left behind for thousands of years.
Without Yanyun Sixteen Prefectures, there would be no Great Wall. (This article was originally written by headline author Bo Dong)
However, the stinky Shi Jingyao could not care, his desire had been satisfied. However, he harmed the future Central Plains Dynasty for hundreds of years. Because there were no Yanyun Sixteen Prefectures, the Great Wall, the great barrier against the invasion of the northern nomads in the cold weapon era, did not exist. Therefore, from the later Jin Dynasty to the fall of the Southern Song Dynasty, as long as the northern nomads are willing, they can raise troops to invade the south at any time, and the war horses roar and the iron hooves are under the thunder, and they can rush south like a bamboo.
Another very important point is that after the loss of Yanyun Sixteen Prefectures, all the horse ranchs that the Central Plains Dynasty had struggled to hold on to were lost, and the horse farms in places such as the Hexi Corridor, north of Datong, and along the Great Wall have since been lost. You must know that war horses are the most important military strategic materials in the era of cold weapons, cavalry is the most important military branch in the era of feudal dynasties, if there is no war horse, you can only use the body of a soldier to fight against the enemy's thousands of horses, under the roar of iron hooves, the results of the war are obvious.
The Northern Song Dynasty encountered such a situation, the capital of Bieliang, they faced the north almost no danger to defend, any northern cavalry can drive straight into the attack on the Great Song. If you don't take back Yanyun Sixteen Prefectures, the northern border defense of the Great Song Dynasty is actually a sieve, even if you can hold it for a while, it is difficult to guarantee that it will always be able to hold it. It turns out that the demise of the Northern Song Dynasty may have been one of the most tragic dynastic demises in the entire history of the feudal dynasty.
Not only was there no Great Wall, but the Song Dynasty did not yet have war horses. (This article was originally written by headline author Bo Dong)
Second, the Song Dynasty also thought of some ways, such as the "Tea Horse Law"
After the founding of the Northern Song Dynasty, from Zhao Kuangyin, the grandfather of the Song Dynasty, to Zhao Heng, the True Emperor of the Song Dynasty, they all tried to launch several wars to reclaim Yanyun Sixteen Prefectures, but their strength was not good, and they all ended in failure. After Emperor Zhenzong of Song, he could basically only take a defensive position, although it was said that the alliance between the Liaoyuan was a century-old peace pact between song and Liao, but in fact, the Song Dynasty prayed for peace with a posture of admitting defeat, and the Liao people were still very friendly.
The northern barrier, including the Great Wall, is gone, and the horse ranch and the extremely important military strategic materials and horses are gone. Fortunately, there were many cultural people in the Song Dynasty, and there was nothing difficult in the world, but I was afraid of people with hearts! In the end, under the collective efforts of everyone, an ordinary Song commodity entered the eyes of the rulers of the dynasty.
Here's the thing.
Although the alliance of the Liaoyuan Dynasty was the alliance under the city of the Northern Song Dynasty, it also maintained the century-old peace of the Song and Liao, and the Liao State was still very friendly. (This article was originally written by headline author Bo Dong)
Although the Song Dynasty did not produce horses, even if there were one or two horses, it could not fight, but the Song Dynasty had a commodity that was in short supply but urgently needed by the northern nomads- tea. As we all know, the brothers of the nomadic people in the north are most not lacking in cattle, sheep and horses and other livestock, their diet is also based on beef and mutton and other meat, drink a wine is horse milk wine, meat and fishy stains a lot, but vegetables and fruits can supplement vitamins and a variety of minerals things are very few, and the more to the north the more rare.
If they want to replenish water, vitamins, minerals, or whatever, they must buy them from the Central Plains Dynasty in the south (and sometimes grab them). However, fresh things such as fruits and vegetables are difficult to preserve, and they are likely to spoil during transportation. Not to mention that at that time, there was no high-speed rail plane, and everything relied on people and horses, so fresh fruits and vegetables could not be counted on. However, constipation, fire and so on still have to be solved, so tea, which is very easy to preserve and very easy to transport, has entered the historical stage.
There are many effects of tea, and this is only part of it. (This article was originally written by headline author Bo Dong)
Tea is the invention of the Han people, he picked the fresh tea leaves after the idea of drying the water, very light and easy to transport, more amazing is that it can also retain many functions of fresh tea, such as the above mentioned supplementary vitamins, a variety of minerals, but also to solve the northern ethnic minority brothers eat meat how easy to get on fire, gastrointestinal discomfort and many other problems.
To tell the truth, tea did not start in the Song Dynasty, the era of myths and legends, the Yan Emperor discovered tea, during the Wei and Jin Dynasties, those literati also drank tea and talked, and the Tang Dynasty also appeared Lu Yu, who was known as the "Tea Saint". However, a dynasty like the Song Dynasty, which attached importance to tea, can be said to be unprecedented.
During the Song Dynasty, tea was enshrined as an extremely important national strategic reserve for the entire dynasty. For example, in the seventh year of The Song Dynasty (1074), the imperial court decided to ban the tea produced in Sichuan, prohibit private trade, implement state monopoly sales, and the government also set up tea and horse divisions in Sichuan and other places to exchange specially controlled tea for horses to help the military. The Southern Song Dynasty practiced this method, and during the years of Qiandao and Chunxi (1165-1189), tens of thousands of horses were exchanged for tea. This is the famous "tea horse law" passed down from generation to generation in the Song Dynasty, and the tea horse means "changing horses with tea".
Ancient tea horse mutual market map. (This article was originally written by headline author Bo Dong)
Third, most of the so-called culture is rooted in politics and history
Under the background of the implementation of the "Tea Horse Law" in the Song Dynasty, down to the Qianshou Baiding, up to the relatives of the emperor and the state, they all attach great importance to and love the tea ceremony culture, you are like mr. Zhao Yao, the master of the Song Dynasty culture and the emperor, he also likes the tea culture very much, and he also personally led the compilation of a classic work on tea science - "The Great View of Tea", becoming the only emperor in Chinese history to personally study the tea ceremony and issue a monograph.
And the literati also actively responded to the call of the imperial court, whether it was Su Shi or Lu You, or Li Qingzhao or Xin Zhiyi, they all struggled to use the giant rafters in their hands to praise and praise tea and tea ceremony culture, thus covering the magical oriental leaf of tea with a layer of shadow shining with cultural light, so that when we taste tea in later generations, we can't help but think of the supreme style of the two Song Dynasties during the 319 years.
The Song Dynasty people were drinking tea. (This article was originally written by headline author Bo Dong)
And all of this actually has a lot to do with the fact that Shi Jingyao of the Later Jin Dynasty sacrificed Yanyun Sixteen Prefectures to the Liao State after the Five Dynasties Period. Imagine if the Song Dynasty had Yanyun Sixteen Prefectures, and also had the northern barrier and horse herding places, then it might be difficult for tea to become an extremely important national strategic reserve of the Great Song Dynasty from an ordinary commodity, and the "Tea Horse Law" might not appear so distinctly in history textbooks. When this political basis and historical encounter were gone, the dynastic ruling class of the Northern Song Dynasty was unlikely to attach so much importance to the construction of tea and tea ceremony culture, and the star-studded Song Dynasty intellectuals were unlikely to promote tea as a magical leaf of the East so vigorously.
So, I say that "culture is mostly rooted in politics and history" or something that makes sense, and the same is true of tea ceremony culture. Although the Ming and Qing dynasties also developed tea ceremony culture in later generations, they were basically influenced by the culture of the Song Dynasty and followed the footsteps of the Song Dynasty, and they were far from reaching the height of the Song Dynasty.
Culture is rooted in politics and history, and so is tea culture. (This article was originally written by headline author Bo Dong)