Text: Xiao Peng's brilliant notes
Editor|Xiao Peng's brilliant notes
[Preface]
China is formed by cultural identity and cultural consensus, so culture is the soul of cultural China and the common spiritual home of the Chinese nation.
The culture of the Chinese nation is composed of the cultures of its sub-ethnic groups, and the various ethnic groups within China have never been divided by blood and race, but by cultural differences and characteristics.
Since the origin of civilization, Chinese civilization has formed a starry sky of origin due to different regions and different ethnic groups, and these places of origin have different regional and national characteristics due to cultural differences and heights.
As early as thousands of years ago, these regional and ethnic cultures identified with Yanhuang and Huaxia, and identified with the core of Central Plains culture.
Acknowledging the cohesion and centripetal force formed between China and the Central Plains is the fundamental spiritual driving force for the formation and development of the Chinese unified civilization community.
Regardless of internal political and military divisions and mergers, reunification or disputes, even in the era of the separation of the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, the consensus of various regions on cultural China has never changed its direction, but has only become more and more close and cohesive, and more and more centripetal.
Just like the Northern and Southern Dynasties, both the Southern and Northern Dynasties took pride in competing for the orthodoxy of Chinese culture, which was the spiritual pillar for the Sui and Tang dynasties to end the era of division and secession and become a powerful unified empire.
This also shows that the formation and development of the consensus of "cultural China" is the trend of historical development, the mystery of the continuous development of Chinese civilization for 5,000 years, and the unique phenomenon of the world's four ancient civilizations, and the special spiritual charm of Chinese culture.
At the same time, in such an environment, important historical figures in various eras have made their own different historical contributions to the interpretation and adherence to cultural China.
So as the only female emperor in Chinese history, what kind of contribution and role did Wu Zetian have to the development of Chinese culture?
【Empress Wu Zetian】
Wu Zetian, the only female emperor of China, was a great historical figure who painted a bright color for the historical development of cultural China in the second stage of development of the great unified empire since the Han Dynasty, and was a special cultural symbol of cultural China in the early Tang Dynasty.
She has made great contributions to the historical development of cultural China, but because of her outstanding merits and demerits, and the prejudice against her in historical works, her contribution to cultural China has been ignored by today's researchers.
The evaluation of Wu Zetian's merits and deeds in the "Old Tang Book" is fairer than the comprehensive negative evaluation of the "New Tang Book", let's start from here, the "Old Tang Book" records:
Shi Chen said: The strategy of the martial queen to seize the heir, the throat of the swaddling child, the bones of the broken pepper, and the way it is not good. ”
The side of the conspiracy of the tyrant and the unjust imprisonment of the cool officials of the Empress Wu is indeed "unethical and very bad", but this side is mainly aimed at the nobles of the Tang clan and their ruling group, and of course it has also expanded.
But she also has the other side of "knowing people and reassuring the people", which is worthy of affirmation, and it is also recorded in the "Old Tang Book":
"Pan Yan Yan, Shi Li is a righteous person, although he is a chicken in the morning, he can finally recover his son, Feiyu argues the sin of Yuan Zhong, comforts the heart of benevolence with good words, respects the constitution of the time and suppresses the fortunate ministers, listens to the loyal words and punishes the cool officials. ”
The "Old Tang Book" affirms the aspect of the Empress Wu's respect for the constitution, listening to loyalty, being polite and upright, and winning the hearts of the people, which also involves the Empress Wu's positive contribution to "Cultural China".
Looking at it now, if it is interpreted from the perspective of "cultural China", it should be to realize her ideal of cultural China called for "Zhou Li", which is also worthy of affirmation.
[The Development of China's "Great Unification" Identity Trend
The Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties were a period of political and military division, but Chinese culture was not divided, and the roots of culture were not separated, on the contrary, this period was one of the periods in which the consensus and identity of "cultural China" achieved the greatest commonality.
It is this cultural identity that further promoted the ethnic integration and historical development of the Chinese cultural community, and laid a solid foundation for the formation of the prosperous cultural empire of the Sui and Tang dynasties.
This kind of cultural identity was first achieved and promoted through the competition for the cultural policy of Chinese cultural orthodoxy among various countries, whether it was the Southern or Northern Dynasties.
In addition to implementing material policies that are beneficial to themselves, such as reorganizing the army and farming, and striving for prosperity and strength, those insightful monarchs also attach great importance to the implementation of cultural policies that take "Shenzhou cultural orthodoxy" as the core and maintain the hearts of the Hu and Han ethnic groups in their respective territories.
These policies are the cultural factors that promote the historical development process from division and division to great unification, and they are the cultural source for the reconstruction, development and evolution of the cultural relics system of the Sui and Tang dynasties.
The origin of the cultural system of the Sui and Tang dynasties can be divided into three major cultural regions: "Jiangzuo", "Shandong" and "Guanlong".
Mr. Chen Yinke's "A Brief Treatise on the Origins of the Sui and Tang Dynasties" made a precise and thorough analysis of these three major sources: one is the Northern Wei Dynasty and the Northern Qi Dynasty, that is, the "Shandong" of the old history, the second is Liang and Chen, that is, the "Jiangzuo" called in the old history, and the third is the Western Wei and Northern Zhou Dynasty, that is, "Guanlong" includes Hexi.
Although the three regions have their own cultural characteristics, they are all based on the "Han and Wei systems" called in the old history, in other words, they are all based on the inheritance of the orthodox culture of the "Han and Wei dynasties", which is what we call the concept of "cultural China" today.
The first is the "Jiangzuo" region, that is, the Song, Qi, Liang, and Chen dynasties of the Southern Dynasties, which naturally assumes the orthodox status of inheriting the ritual and music political and criminal code culture of the Han, Wei, and Western Jin dynasties.
However, the Sui and Tang empires mainly inherited the Liang and Chen, which are known as the "Liang system" in history, while the culture of the Song and Qi dynasties in the early period was mainly inherited by the Northern Dynasties.
The second is the "Shandong" region, that is, the Northern Wei Dynasty and the Northern Qi Dynasty, this region is not far behind, taking the reform of Emperor Xiaowen of the Northern Wei Dynasty as an opportunity to "reform the wind and imitate the sinicization".
Not only inherited the system of Han, Wei and Western Jin Dynasty, but also the culture from the Eastern Jin Dynasty to the Southern Qi Dynasty was also imitated by Emperor Xiaowen and his descendants.
Among them, it is worth mentioning that Wang Su entered the north from the south, transferred the cultural relics system of the Song and Qi dynasties in the early period of the Southern Dynasties into the Northern Dynasties, and then compiled it as a collection by Wang Jian, so it became the prosperity of the "Taihe Wenzhi" of Emperor Xiaowen of the Northern Wei Dynasty, and "Confucianism flourished from this".
In essence, the "Taihe Wenzhi" not only created the situation of the Northern Dynasties with the "great prosperity of Confucianism", but also added a new qualitative factor of "Hu and Han integration" to the orthodox culture of the Central Plains.
The Northern Dynasties, especially the Northern Wei Dynasty, made the greatest contribution to the integration of the Han culture as the main factor and the culture of various ethnic minorities as the multiple factors, and to the people of all ethnic groups to the Central Plains and to enhance the cohesion and centripetal force centered on the Central Plains culture.
The new culture of the Taihe era of the Northern Dynasty is actually "the distant ancestor of the later Sui and Tang dynasties", and the third is the Guanlong Hexi region, that is, the Western Wei Dynasty and the Northern Zhou Dynasty, which has a great relationship with the ideological influence of the Li Tang Group and the Wu Zhou Group on the cultural system of the Tang Dynasty.
The formation of the emerging culture in this region is because it not only preserves the old Han culture in Guanlong District, that is, the "Zhou official" culture since the Zhou Dynasty, but also integrates the "wild customs" culture of ethnic minorities such as Xianbei Six Towns, and also inherits the legacy of the Wei and Jin dynasties in the Central Plains.
These three cultural Xi mixed to form a dynamic and new Guanlong culture that was different from "Jiangzuo" and "Shandong", which integrated Hu and Han, so it was also one of the direct and important sources of institutional culture of the Sui Dynasty, especially the Tang Dynasty.
There are three major characteristics of Guanlong Hexi culture that directly influenced the Sui and Tang dynasties, especially the Wu and Zhou dynasties: the first feature is the inheritance of the great unified culture of the Zhou Dynasty that originated in the region, especially the inheritance and innovation of the "Zhou officials" system.
Wu Zetian's name "Zhou" should be the embodiment of inheriting the previous Zhou Dynasty and reviving because of the "old land of Ji Zhou", so she especially respected the classics of "Zhou officials" and imitated the Zhou ritual construction system.
Before her, there was a Western Wei Yuwentai imitating Zhou officials and Zhou Li to create a system and achieve results. It's worth emphasizing that retro is innovation.
The cultural theme of both Yuwen and Wuzhou is to use the name of the Zhou official retro to carry out the innovation of the centralized system, so as to achieve the purpose of integrating and interconnecting the Hu and Han cultures of Guanlong and obtaining the highest recognition of the unified culture of the Central Plains.
The second characteristic is that the Guanlong and Hexi regimes took advantage of the war and cultural degeneration in the Central Plains since the end of the Han Dynasty to support the academic families transferred from the Central Plains, or cultivate local Confucian families, raise family learning, protect and inherit the scholarship of the Central Plains in the Han Dynasty, and thus form the Central Plains Confucian academic center to the northwest.
Mr. Chen Yinke said: "For example, Zhou Shenglie, Jia Hong, Xue Xia, Kui Xi and others, all of whom are in the Longxi region, the Confucianism of the Central Plains has gradually shifted to the northwest since then. ”
Until the early Tang Dynasty and the Wu and Zhou dynasties, Guanlong scholarship still occupied an important position in the imperial court.
The third feature is that due to the convenience of the land Silk Road and the transportation between China and foreign countries, the civilization of the Western Regions was brought about, and the unified mixed culture of the Sui and Tang dynasties was formed.
Therefore, Mr. Chen Yinke believes that "the Helong region, the northwest corner of China, has a "special nature" in the history of culture and scholarship, and "it is a source of independence, and it is a great cause of China's cultural history".
From the analysis of the connotation and nature of these three cultures, it can be seen that the cultural roots of these three regions all agree with the culture of the Central Plains of Yanhuang and China.
The core of the three major cultures all point to the ritual culture of the Central Plains, especially the Confucian scholarship since the Western Han Dynasty's "exclusive respect for Confucianism".
The backbone of the three major cultures is to attach importance to the education of the orthodox concept of "great unification", so "Confucianism" became a proper noun, which also arose in this period, and as for the three religions, it also began in the era of Yuwen Zhou.
During this period, the concept of "cultural China" community did not decline due to division and separation, but became stronger, and became the guiding ideology for the three local governments to compete for the power of national unification.
The Tang Dynasty was the culmination of this "great unification" cultural identity trend, and the "Four Seas Dynasty China" formed another peak in the Tang Dynasty.
At the same time, it is also another extremely prosperous era for the further development of the "cultural China" community in the Middle Ages in the mainland, which is the result of the long-term development of the cultural Chinese identity trend of the Northern and Southern Dynasties and the cultural Chinese identity of the Zhou, Qin and Han dynasties in China, and is another key development stage of cultural Chinese identity.
In the early Tang Dynasty and the prosperous Tang Dynasty, there were various figures who contributed to the recognition and adherence of cultural China, among them, Tang Taizong, Wu Zetian and Tang Xuanzong were three leading figures who made significant contributions to the trend of China's unification.
To study Wu Zetian's interpretation, identification and adherence to cultural China, we must look at the important historical stage of the development of cultural China from the Northern and Southern Dynasties to the early Tang Dynasty, so as to find out her real contribution to cultural China and determine its true historical status.
[Wu Zetian's contribution to the "great unification of culture"]
The consensus on the unification of "cultural China" was the foundation of the Sui and Tang dynasties to unify the whole country, and the soul of the Sui and Tang empires' spiritual civilization construction.
In the early Tang Dynasty, from Gaozu to Xuanzong, they all paid attention to the education of the consensus on the unification of "cultural China", and Wu Zetian was one of the monarchs who had thoughts, dared to act, and had achievements, and was a historical figure worthy of recognition.
She has either sat back and promoted the relevant measures for the emergence of the cultural prosperity, or innovated and promoted the relevant policies for the development of the cultural prosperity.
Between the rule of Zhenguan and the prosperity of the Kaiyuan Dynasty, Wu Zhou played a key role in the transition period, and was a key figure in the reconstruction and development of the Chinese community of culture in the early Tang Dynasty.
Her contributions to the unification of China in the early Tang Dynasty were mainly in the following aspects: First, to adapt to the needs of the times of the great unification of cultural China and promote the development of the centralized system of the Sui and Tang dynasties.
The concept of China's great unification originated very early, but the establishment, reform, development, and improvement of the centralized power system have gone through a long historical process.
For example, the construction of the Han Dynasty political system was moving towards centralization, but it implemented the system of state and county bureaucrats, and local state and county officials appointed themselves as bureaucrats and subordinates, which was a variant of the hierarchical dependency system of feudal lords and ministers in the Western Zhou Dynasty, which was not conducive to the centralization of power.
Until the early period of the Northern and Southern Dynasties, this problem still existed, and the reform of Xiaowen in the Northern Wei Dynasty was mainly to solve the problem of the mixing of official titles and Huayi, and it did not touch the fundamental problem of the employment system of states and counties and their own bureaucrats.
It was not until the end of the Northern Wei Dynasty and the Northern Qi Dynasty that the system of self-establishment of bureaucrats was gradually abolished and transitioned to the system of selecting officials by the central government, that is, the central government selected officials, which was one of the major changes in the centralization of power in Chinese political history.
However, in order to implement this centralized reform, it is a big question what kind of theory to use as a guide and what kind of cultural symbols to use as the banner of propaganda and appeal.
Therefore, the choice of "Zhou Guan" and the magnificent "Zhou Ceremony" became a cultural manifesto that the intellectual elite of the Northern Dynasties generally loved to use at that time.
However, the connotation of Zhou rites is two-sided: on the one hand, it is to respect the king of Zhou, which can be used as a banner of centralized power, and on the other hand, its six-official system, which implies the crisis of independent administration of departments and local powers.
The attitude of the Northern Dynasties towards the Zhou Rites was contrary to the above-mentioned two things, and the Later Wei and Northern Qi regimes actually changed the system of self-establishment of prefectures and counties to a centralized system of selection and delegation by the central officials.
Therefore, they mainly pay attention to the side of the royal family of Zhou Li, and downplay the other side of the six official system, Zhou Li is actually just used as a slogan.
On the contrary, the Northern Zhou regime adopted a contradictory attitude towards the propaganda and use of the Zhou Rites, which was a problem of ideological and institutional contradictions that several regimes in the Northern Dynasties failed to solve.
The Sui Dynasty unified the whole country, and it solved this contradiction between the central and local governments, centralization and decentralization:
Yang Jian directly inherited the system of the Northern Qi Dynasty of the Later Wei Dynasty, implemented the system of selecting local officials by the central officials and provincial departments, strengthened the centralization of power, and seized the right of local governments to establish their own orders, but did not inherit its direct predecessor, the Northern Zhou Dynasty.
Therefore, Sui's attitude towards Zhou Li also inherited from the Northern Qi, on the one hand, it was clear that "the six officials of the Zhou Dynasty" were changed to meet the needs of the new centralized politics.
On the other hand, it "reproduces the Zhou officials" and emphasizes the idea of centralization contained in the "Zhou officials" in order to better serve the new regime, which is an important change in the centralized system.
The above situation also shows that this reform has brought about long-term turbulence in the ruling ideology, especially the idea of centralized governance, and has become a serious problem in how to choose the governance model that was later placed in front of Wu Zetian.
In short, after a long period of turmoil and change, this national governance system, under the guidance of the idea of cultural China as the soul, spread from the Northern Qi to the Sui and then to the Tang Dynasty, becoming a typical governance model of centralized politics in later dynasties, and gradually improved.
By the time of the European Renaissance, China's centralized system was praised by the Enlightenment thinker Voltaire.
However, at this point, it is necessary to talk about the role that Wu Zetian played in this centralized state governance system.
In the early Tang Dynasty, the centralized political system inherited the Sui system was established, but it was still very unstable, and the guiding ideology of governance was still in a state of turmoil.
Wu Zetian's reign lasted for more than 50 years from the time of Gaozong Xianqing to her withdrawal from the throne, during which she took two measures:
The first is to follow the banner of the Zhou official and Zhou rites as a call, in fact, to unify the thoughts of the time with the inner soul of the great unification of Zhou Li's "cultural China".
At the same time, she also blurred the six senses of Zhou Litian, earth, spring, summer, autumn, and winter, and added the names of the six senses to the head of the six central Shangshu, so that the six senses are just a virtual cultural symbol, and the essence of the independent authority of the six officials is removed.
She strengthened the centralization of power in practical measures, which was her cleverness, and it was also where she was higher than her predecessor Wang Mangzun Zhou Li's retro regressive measures, among which Zhou Li's cultural Chinese thought, undoubtedly had a profound influence on her.
Second, the selection of talents was dictated by the central government, and the imperial examination system was established in the early Tang Dynasty, which was also a major change in the governance of a unified country.
By the time of Wu Zetian, there were as many as 10,000 people who should take the imperial examination, but Wu Zetian personally appeared, drove the Xiongyang Gate, personally took the test, and personally selected Zhang Shuo's countermeasures as the first in the world.
This behavior is by no means a show off of her talents, but a demonstration to others that she is a representative of the central government's attitude of respecting talent selection and selecting talents.
This is the beginning of the trial system of the imperial examination hall, Wu Zetian caused its end, the wind of the palace examination was blown by Wu Zetian, and then it became the custom of the imperial examination of the past dynasties, which is also conducive to the centralized official examination mode, is the product of cultural unification and centralization of power in the central concept.
[Synonymous name "二圣"]
When it comes to the issue of Wu Zetian and Gaozong being called the "Emperor" and "Queen of Heaven" as the two saints, this is not simply a matter of fighting for women's fame, but the product of the idea of the great unification of Zhou official culture and China.
As early as the Northern Zhou Ming Emperor of the Northern Dynasty, the emperor was called the "Heavenly King", that is, "the time is called the Heavenly King according to the "Zhou Li", and the "Heavenly King" is the product of the great unification thought of the Zhou Dynasty.
But it was matched by the feudal system of the lords of the Zhou Dynasty, which was founded by feudal states, and by the Sui and Tang dynasties, this system was obviously backward and incompatible with the centralized county system.
On the one hand, she stipulated that Gaozong should use the title of "Emperor" and herself the title of "Queen of Heaven".
So the two of them were called "two saints", which is an unprecedented thing, but she is good at understanding the "king of heaven" of Zhou Li called the two two holy heavens, and the words "king" and "heaven" are shared by the emperor and the queen, which not only shows her inheritance of the sacredness of the unification of Zhou Li, but also mentions the "queen" to the sacred status of heaven.
On the other hand, she also took practical measures to centralize the central government, advocating that "the courtiers and the Quartet are all called the 'two saints'", and that the king and the queen should control "life and death, reward and punishment are only ordered", so as to show the authority of the centralized power.
It is not difficult to see the cultural psychology of Wu Zetian's advocacy of the title of "two saints": she is not only the cultural concept of inheriting the unification of Zhou Li, but also the concept of promoting the sacredness of centralized power, and she is advancing with the times.