Millions of years of human history, 10,000 years of cultural history, and more than 5,000 years of civilization history...... The splendid rivers and mountains of China have nourished the only great civilization in the world that has continued and developed in the form of a country to this day.
Based on the major research results of the "Chinese Civilization Exploration Project" and "Archaeological China", under the guidance of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage and the Propaganda Department of the Shanghai Municipal Party Committee, supported by the Shanghai Municipal Administration of Cultural Heritage, and created by SMG (Shanghai Radio and Television Station, Shanghai Culture Radio, Film and Television Group Co., Ltd.), and with Yan Wenming, a Chinese archaeologist, as the academic general consultant, the 8-episode large-scale documentary "Why China" was broadcast simultaneously on Dragon TV and Blockbuster TV on December 9.
At the beginning of the project of "Why China", the State Administration of Cultural Heritage took the lead in organizing multiple rounds of topic selection and argumentation, academic research and judgment, gave strong policy support and resource guarantee throughout the filming process, and carefully guided the team to complete this masterpiece of Chinese archaeological documentaries in recent years at the stage of finalization and completion of the documentary.
The documentary is divided into 8 episodes, including "Qin and Han Dynasty", "Cradle", "Star Dou", "Ancient Kingdom", "Choosing China", "Yin Shang", "Family Country", and "Tianxia", starting from the Qin and Han dynasties that moved towards integration, and then tracing back to the turn of the old and Neolithic Ages, witnessing the ancestors of the Chinese land to develop agriculture, settle down society, form families, Running the society, establishing early beliefs and cultural aesthetics, starting exchanges between the five lakes and the four seas, forming regional ancient states and early civilizations, opening the dynasty era of the Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties, until the great process of establishing a unified multi-ethnic state in the Qin and Han dynasties, handed over a grand, profound and vivid cultural answer sheet of the times. The documentary was selected as the "Record China" communication project of the Propaganda Department of the Central Committee and the key topic of the "14th Five-Year Plan" documentary of the State Administration of Radio and Television.
Qin established the first unified multi-ethnic state in Chinese history, and Sinicized the cultivation of public opinion, making unification Chinese an unchanging identity that has lasted for 2,000 years. In that era when the four sides were in harmony, people worked hard to operate in the mountains, rivers, lakes and seas for a lifetime, and slowly built a civilization in the long river of history.
The first episode of the documentary, "Qin and Han Dynasties", relies on a century of Chinese archaeological discoveries, from the Qin Dynasty wooden squares unearthed from the ruins of the ancient city of Liye in Hunan, the ruins of the Qin Dynasty palace on the shore of Bohai Bay, the ruins of Qin Zhidao, the ruins of the Nanyue Palace of the Han Dynasty, the tomb of the Marquis of Haiyang and other historical relics, analyzes historical materials, sees people through things, decodes the historical process of the unification of the Qin and Han dynasties, and pursues the historical answers to the pluralistic integration and sustainable development of the Chinese nation and Chinese civilization.
A letter from home in the No. 4 tomb of "Sleeping Tiger Land" outside Anlu City gives a glimpse of the concern of ordinary soldiers of the Qin army more than 20 centuries ago, Heifu and Jing, and the yearning for reunification and peace during the war years. Just two years after they wrote their letters, in 221 BC, Qin swept Liuhe and completed the unification of the vast territory. In the Guanzhong area, where the hometown of the Six Kingdoms and Xianyang, the capital of Qin, is located, a large number of copper and iron rights inlaid with Qin edicts have been unearthed, engraved with the history of Qin's unified weights and measures.
Time goes on. The envoy Lu Jia set out from Chang'an, carrying the seal ribbon that the Han Dynasty had prepared to confer on the king of Nanyue, and went to Panyu to persuade Zhao Tuo, the king of Nanyue, to submit to the Han family. Today, the ruins of the Nanyue Palace in Guangzhou allow people to imagine the meandering stone canals and sparkling pools beside the Huayin Palace. In the west of the territory of the Han Dynasty, the eternal desert wind and sand record the footprints of Han Zhangqian's envoy to the Western Regions, and engrave the heroic ambition of Wei Qing and Huo Qubing to expedition to Mobei and seal the wolf Juxu. A small person in history, Si Fuhong of Hanging Springs in Xiaogu County, Dunhuang County, witnessed Prime Minister Shi Li Zun escorting the demobilized soldiers back to their hometowns in the 18th year, and also witnessed the return of the princess from Wusun to Han in her later years.
Taking time as a clue, the first episode of "Qin and Han Dynasties" relies on the historical appearance reflected in the unearthed cultural relics and archaeological sites, and starts from the different perspectives and character stories of envoys, generals, princesses and ordinary soldiers, and tells the realization of the unification of the Qin and Han dynasties in various fields such as politics, economy, transportation, and culture. The complete collection is lofty and full of affection, not only depicting the princes and generals, but also humanistic care for the little people in history, so as to outline the feelings of the Chinese since ancient times on the basis of telling the grand historical process of the Qin and Han dynasties.
In terms of narrative and aesthetic style, on the one hand, the documentary shows the true beauty and vitality of historical details through the shooting of shocking and exquisite cultural relics and ruins, and on the other hand, through the film and television presentation means of scene reproduction, it restores the historical scene and creates an ingenious audio-visual language, so that historical details and historical figures appear vividly and vividly in front of the audience. Every scene of the documentary is worth savoring. The film crew used three-dimensional maps to present the cultural territory and geographical and geomorphological characteristics of each stage of the Qin and Han dynasties, and simulated and restored the appearance of the ancient palace on the basis of archaeological discoveries. The images of historical figures such as Meng Tian, Liu Bang, Huo Quzhi, Wei Qing, Liu He, and Princess Xie Wu refer to the shapes in many archaeological discoveries such as the Qin Terracotta Warriors and Horses, and Han portrait bricks. Even the sika deer, turtles and turtles in the palace garden of Nanyue, and the number of jujube trees transplanted from the north by the palace people are also based on archaeological evidence.
A unified and growing China has been building a pluralistic and integrated civilization since the Qin and Han dynasties, and has continued to develop to this day. The documentary is based on the fruitful achievements of Chinese archaeology in the past century, and traces the foundation, origin, early formation and development of Chinese civilization with longitudinal time. As Mr. Yan Wenming, a Chinese archaeologist, said: the so-called "why China" is to use archaeological evidence to trace the story of the "pluralistic integration and sustainable development" of the Chinese nation and Chinese civilization.
How did the unique Chinese civilization come into being? Was there an earlier prototype of China before the Qin and Han dynasties? Is the ancient history system of the Three Emperors and Five Emperors reliable? Is the 5,000-year-old Chinese civilization credible? The large-scale documentary "Why China" innovatively uses flashbacks, starting from the Qin and Han dynasties, tracing back to the past, following in the footsteps of archaeologists, and answering the question of "why China?"