The Year of the Dragon Says Dragon: Dedicated or Exclusive? Auspicious or Punishment?
Interface News Reporter | Pan Wenjie
Interface News Editor | Yellow Moon
The Year of the Dragon is just around the corner. The dragon is the only legendary animal in the Chinese zodiac, born in the period of ancient mythology. Although every descendant of Yan and Huang is now known as the "descendant of the dragon", many people believe that this is just a tradition that has been invented. The dragon, as a symbol of the nation-state, the dragon that refers to all Chinese, was unthinkable in ancient China. Because since ancient times, dragons have never been in the same class as the people, but have always been tied to the royal family.
Emperors competed for the power to harness and serve dragons
Hearing auspicious sayings such as "If there is a dragon, there is a spirit" on New Year's Day, people will think that the dragon is a creature of high status, but it is not. In the book "The Invention of the Chinese Dragon", the author Shi Aidong argues that the dragon is the emperor's close attendant and pet, and can even be called the "all-powerful servant" of the royal family.
In ancient times, there were dragon collectors called the dragon clan, and the dragon training professional household was called the dragon clan, and the dragon could even be slaughtered. We can see from the "Spring and Autumn Left Biography" that since the Spring and Autumn Period, dragons can be ridden, can be used as gifts, dragon meat can be made into delicious meat sauce, and dragon blood is also used as a great tonic.
Shi Aidong saw that the royal family has a set of "imperial zoos", many animals symbolize the lofty status of the emperor, and there is no essential difference between the status of dragons and tigers, luanfinches and other animals, and the work undertaken by dragons is even more tiring. Dragons have to do the hard work, "using their bodies as sewers, and their mouths as sewers, coiled on filthy utensils such as spit basins and urinals, and it is even more common to embroider on carpets, carved into floor tiles, and trampled on by thousands of royal servants and servants." ”
The Invention of the Chinese Dragon
Written by Shi Aidong
Life, Reading, New Knowledge, Joint Bookstore, 2014
In fact, the emperor was fighting for the right to use the dragon pattern, and he was fighting for "the power to control and serve the dragon". "True Dragon Son of Heaven" means that the emperor is born with the life of serving the dragon, and it is the symbolic duty of the emperor to control and serve the dragon. Fourteen years before the establishment of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang fought in the Yangtze River valley west of Nanjing. The locals told him that a dragon appeared in the nearby swamp, and Zhu Yuanzhang prayed to the dragon and the rain came. At Xie Long's ceremony, Zhu Yuanzhang praised the dragon: "Do not hurt but do not overflow, merit heaven and earth, Ze and the people, and serve me." When Zhu Yuanzhang said that the dragon also served him, the emperor's mind was already revealed.
Shi Aidong also talked about the battle between the monarch and the minister about the application of the dragon robe. His point of view is that the history of the feudal emperor's monopoly and control of the dragon pattern is the history of the emperor's continuous strengthening and consolidation of his own position. Originally, there were dragon medals on the costumes of the princes, and in order to distinguish the grade of the emperor's clothing, the Ministry of Rites continued to add decorations to the emperor's clothing, and the result was that the emperor's uniform became heavy. During the reign of Song Zhenghe, the Council Thought of a good way, from the first product can use the dragon, but can not use the ascending dragon, can only use the descending dragon. Because Thang Long means to heaven, it has the color of political metaphor, and the courtiers are not allowed to communicate with the heavens.
From the beginning of the Yuan Dynasty, the ruler ordered to prohibit the use of dragon and phoenix patterns by hundreds of officials and the people, which intensified the people's pursuit of dragon patterns. People have come up with a number of ideas, such as reducing angles and claws, and using mutated dragon patterns to circumvent official censorship. Later, the rulers of the Yuan Dynasty limited the five-clawed dragon to the royal use, and turned a blind eye to the other dragons. The ban on dragon patterns in the Ming Dynasty was stricter, but the dragon patterns became more and more confusing. As Lacan said, man's desires are always the desires of others, and since the emperor was able to monopolize the dragon pattern, the officials and the people became more and more yearning for and admired this symbol of power.
In short, the basic fact drawn from the book "The Invention of the Chinese Dragon" is that the dragon is nothing more than a "dedicated" slavery in the eyes of the royal family, not a totem of royal "exclusivity". However, this does not mean that the dragon has a high status among the people, because the pursuit of the dragon pattern reflects the love of power.
On June 18, 2023, in Guilin, Guangxi, the golden "dragon" cruised on the Yulong River in Yulong Village, Baisha Town, Yangshuo County.
Ordinary people restrain the monarch with "dragon view".
Dragons are non-existent creatures, so how can people see dragons? There are political, cultural, and moral metaphors behind the phenomenon of "dragon seeing". "Harvard History of China 05: The Struggling Empire: Yuan and Ming" records that in the Yuan Dynasty, people first saw the dragon in the 22nd year of the establishment of the Yuan Dynasty, and the dragon appeared many times later. In the twenty-seventh year of the Yuan Dynasty (1367), that is, the last year of the Yuan Dynasty, there were two dragon meetings.
In the Ming Dynasty, Longjian also received attention from many aspects, and the relevant records are very rich. The Retreat of the Elephant: An Environmental History of China analyzes the Ming literati Xie Zhaoqian's 1608 book Five Miscellaneous Groups, in which he confirms that he not only saw dragons, but also with others. In the year following Emperor Yongle's accession to the throne, people began to see dragons – as Emperor Yongle snatched the throne of his nephew, Emperor Jianwen Zhu Yunwen, who died mysteriously in a palace fire – it was widely believed that the dragon's appearance was a curse.
Struggling Empire: Yuan and Ming
[加] 卜正民 Timothy Brook 潘玮琳 译
Sanhui Books, CITIC Publishing House, 2016
During the reign of Emperor Zhengde of the Ming Dynasty, Ryumi became more frequent. Zhengde was the most absurd emperor of the Ming Dynasty, and most of his evaluations in history were "absurd and unreasonable", "not asking about political affairs" and so on. Bu Zhengmin, a historian and editor of "Harvard History of China", saw that in the "Zhengde Longyi" chapter of "Wanli Ye Shu Ed.", Shen Defu, a literary award of the Ming Dynasty, constantly linked every dragon view with the emperor's deeds. Even the emperor's death was related to the dragon - Zhengde fell ill while drunk in the Yangtze River basin and died three weeks later, Shen Defu hinted that water was the iconic element of the dragon and that Zhengde's death was the work of the dragon.
Longjian was accompanied by the political crisis and natural disasters of the Ming Dynasty emperor, and the Jiajing Emperor, Wanli Emperor, and Chongzhen Emperor were all deeply troubled by Longjian. But can people really see dragons? Why do so many people say they see dragons? For example, some Welsh farmers claim to have seen black panthers near farmland, but the area is not suitable for black panthers at all. The reason he gives is that the Panthers "provide an opportunity for those who claim to have seen them to reveal what cannot be seen or unspeakable". In Wales, foxes are allowed to breed and prey on poultry and livestock, but the average poor farmer is not legally allowed to hunt foxes, which leads to resentment, and the powerless peasants see the panther as a force of nature to resist state power. Bu Zhengmin believes that the situation of ordinary people seeing dragons is similar, which can make ordinary people think of their "vulnerability in the face of an unpredictable heaven and a sometimes ruthless country".
The crux of an absolute monarchy lies in the lack of restraint on the monarchy. Being able to restrain the dragon means being able to control the Mandate of Heaven and inherit the great unification. Whether the dragon is tamed or not is important to the monarch, and the dragon thus becomes one of the few external authorities that can restrain the human master. Therefore, in the eyes of the common people, for those faint kings who harass the people with tyranny and harshness, the dragon lurks there, waiting to punish them.