Preface
When Emperor Wen of the Han Dynasty went to Zhou Yafu's camp to inspect the military situation, he was stopped by the soldiers, who said: "The army hears the general's order, but does not hear the edict of the Son of Heaven."
At the end of the Qing Dynasty, someone pretended to be Emperor Guangxu and went to Jiangxia County to deceive, and Chen Shuping, the magistrate of the county, entertained the fake emperor with the highest standard. Later, he reported the matter to Zhang Zhidong, the governor of Huguang, and Zhang Zhidong learned that Emperor Guangxu was still in Yingtai and took down the fake emperor.
It can be seen that in ancient times it was easy to be impersonated, if there was an enemy army pretending to be a general, the consequences would be unimaginable, in order to avoid this situation, the emperor thought of using the "tiger talisman" to mobilize thousands of troops.
Many people have questioned this: If the Tiger Talisman is stolen, will it be possible to mobilize an army of millions? Why have they never heard of forging the Tiger Talisman? All this has to start with what the Tiger Talisman is.
What is the Tiger Talisman?
Among the many treasures of the Shaanxi History Museum, there is such a cultural relic that has attracted people's attention, it is the tiger talisman used in the Warring States Period, which is the earliest existing troop transfer certificate in the world.
Measuring only 9.5 centimeters long, 4.4 centimeters high and 0.7 centimeters thick, this precious piece is made up of two parts, the left half usually owned by the local commanders, and the right half by the king.
So, in what dynasty did the tiger talisman first appear?
It is understood that the tiger talisman was first invented by Jiang Ziya, a famous strategist in the Western Zhou Dynasty. In the beginning, the tiger charm was made of bamboo, and as it developed, it evolved to make tiger charms from bronze or gold. This is because the tiger is the "king of beasts" and has a high status in the forest, and it rarely loses.
The reason why the tiger talisman was made was to serve as a transfer certificate issued by the central government to the magistrate or the head of the garrison. However, different dynasties have different shapes, numbers, inscriptions, and humility of tiger talismans. From the Han Dynasty to the Sui Dynasty, copper tiger charms have always been used, with the right as the honor.
The Sui Dynasty used the Lin Fu, and in the Tang Dynasty, because the grandfather of Tang Gaozu Li Yuan was called Li Hu, in order to show respect, he changed to a fish Fu or a rabbit Fu. After Wu Zetian became emperor, he replaced it with a short-lived turtle talisman, and was divided into golden tortoise, silver tortoise, and bronze tortoise according to the level of official position, and it was not until the Southern Song Dynasty that the use of tiger talisman was resumed.
Generally speaking, the back of the tiger talisman is engraved with an inscription, the right half is stored in the imperial court, and the left half is issued to the commander of the army or the local governor.
This means that there is no way to mobilize the army of two places, when mobilizing the army, you need to correspond to the mortise and tenon on the back of the left and right symbols, and when they are combined, it shows that it is the same symbol, and the army can be mobilized.
In ancient times, could the Tiger Talisman really take over the army? What should the general do if he rebelled?
I don't know if you have heard the story of Xinlingjun's "stealing talismans to save Zhao". In 257 BC, Qin sent troops to surround Handan, the capital of Zhao, and the king of Wei made the veteran general Jin Cong lead 100,000 troops to rescue Zhao, but the disparity between the military strength of Wei and Qin was too great, so Jin Cong did not send troops hastily, but chose to garrison and wait and see.
After learning of this, Xinling Jun Wuji, the prince of Wei, conspired with the wife of the King of Wei, Ruji, Ruji found the tiger talisman in the bedroom of the King of Wei, and Xinling Jun Wuji took the Tiger Talisman of the King of Wei to find the Jin Contempt who was garrisoning, and the Jin Contempt saw that it was the Tiger Talisman held by the King of Wei, so he sent troops to rescue the Zhao State.
In addition to Xinling Jun Wuji's skillful use of the tiger talisman to change the situation of the battle, Zhuge Liang also used the tiger talisman to outwit the three cities. At that time, Cao Cao retreated due to the defeat of the Battle of Chibi, and Zhuge Liang saw that this was not a good time to seize Nanjun, so he ordered Zhao Yun to take the city. When capturing the city, he happened to capture the guard Chen Jiao, and got the tiger talisman in Chen Jiao's hands.
Zhuge Liang had a plan after seeing the tiger talisman, and asked the Jingzhou defenders to send troops to support him under the pretense of the tiger talisman in Chen Jiao's hand, and just when the Jingzhou defenders sent troops to support, Zhang Fei attacked Jingzhou. Later, he used the same method to get the tiger talisman of Jingzhou and asked the defenders of Xiangyang for assistance, and when the defenders of Xiangyang came to help, Guan Yu took advantage of his unpreparedness to attack Xiangyang.
Zhuge Liang only used a small tiger talisman to capture three cities without spending a single soldier, which shows how important the tiger talisman is in the army! It can also be said that the tiger talisman is a symbol of military power in ancient times.
After all, the ancient territory was so big, it was impossible for the emperor to see every soldier, and some local generals had not seen the emperor's true face. Therefore, in order to enhance the cohesion of the soldiers of the army, the emperor finally decided to use the tiger talisman after consideration. Before every soldier comes to the barracks, he will be instilled with an idea by his superiors: the tiger talisman represents the imperial power, and only when he sees the tiger talisman can he be dispatched.
If a general captures the king's Tiger Talisman, then he can mobilize the entire country's army, provided that the king has only one Tiger Talisman, and if the king has three Tiger Talismans and the general captures only one, then he can only mobilize one army. It can be seen that in ancient wars, the tiger talisman occupied a very important position and played a very key role.
However, although the Tiger Talisman can mobilize the army, it is not easy to obtain the Tiger Talisman, so can it be imitated by the Tiger Talisman?
Can you imitate the Tiger Talisman?
The Tiger Talisman is a symbol of power for the Emperor, and if the Emperor does not have the Tiger Talisman, then he will lose the right to mobilize troops. Obtaining military power means holding most of the country in his hands, which is why the ancient emperors were so wary of military generals with military power.
Although the tiger talisman is very small, but no one dares to imitate it, why is this? As mentioned above, the original material of the tiger talisman was bamboo, and later it evolved into gold or bronze, and these materials must be difficult to buy on the market and are not in circulation.
The tiger talisman is generally made by the country's top craftsmen, and these craftsmen will destroy the tiger talisman as soon as possible after casting the tiger talisman, which is also to imitate the people who have a heart to cast the tiger talisman.
It is worth mentioning that the tiger talisman is divided into two halves, under normal circumstances, it will only be the tiger talisman in the hands of the generals who are stolen, and the tiger talisman held by the emperor cannot be mastered whether it is an inscription or a gap between the gears of the half-tiger talisman, so the possibility of wanting to imitate it is very small.
What's more, the tiger talisman also has a spine inscription. According to Wang Guowei's text, the tiger talisman of the Han Dynasty and the Jin Dynasty can only be seen when the two are combined, and it is impossible to achieve consistency with the other half.
Even if the imitation of the tiger talisman is successful, it is useless to have the emperor stamped with the emperor's seal, and the emperor will give the edict to the generals in order to ensure the authenticity of the tiger talisman when giving the tiger talisman, so the ancients would rather steal the tiger talisman than spend energy and money to imitate the tiger talisman, the cost is too high!
But after the Tang and Song dynasties, the tiger talisman was rarely mentioned, and why is that?
Why did the Tiger Talisman disappear?
During the Tang and Song dynasties, folk crafts have been significantly improved, which means that the anti-counterfeiting of tiger talismans is no longer as easy as before. At this time, the eunuch system was also improved, although there were many eunuch dictatorships in the late Eastern Han Dynasty, but both the scale and system construction could not be compared with later generations.
According to the "Old Tang Book: The Biography of Eunuchs", it is recorded: "There are more than 3,000 people in yellow clothes. "With the passage of time, the number of eunuchs in the Ming Dynasty has increased several times, and with the special agencies of the East Factory and the West Factory, the Tiger Fu is naturally not as important as before, and the emperor only needs the people of these secret agencies to convey their edicts.
Obviously, during this period, there were already eunuchs, holy decrees, envoys, etc., and the power anti-counterfeiting system was gradually improved, so the tiger talisman withdrew from the historical stage at this time and became a memory.
epilogue
The existence of the tiger charm system has ensured the orderly operation of the national military system and has had a far-reaching impact on all dynasties.
Today, many anti-counterfeiting methods have continued the thoughts of the ancients thousands of years ago, such as Apple's serial number, mobile phone's fingerprint lock, etc., Tiger Fu can be called the originator of today's cryptography!