Abstract:China has been re-important to culture since ancient times. Culture is the foundation of national security. The ancients believed that culture is the education of etiquette and music, that is, "Wende". Confucius used culture to discuss the rise and fall of the country, and created the concept of cultural history, and then all subsequent dynasties practiced his law. From the perspective of cultural history, cultural output is particularly important. Both the "Twenty-five History" and the Gongtu system record China's tributary system, which shows the long history of transportation and immigration between China and Korea and Japan. In the early years, Japanese scholars put forward the "East Asian World Theory", arguing that the ancient East Asian world was based on Chinese civilization, maintained by the "canonization system", and formed a "Chinese character cultural circle". In recent years, Japanese scholars have put forward the "Eurasian Eastern World Theory", expanding the influence of Chinese culture to the eastern Eurasian world, and challenging the "East Asian world" where China is the only center. Cultural export is accompanied by a process of cultural identity and acceptance, which often involves the element of "transfiguration", that is, selective absorption and change. The most typical cultural export in Chinese history is the period of Emperor Wu of Liang in the Southern Dynasty, which attracted the four Yi with "Wende", which was unprecedented. China's cultural export and Eurasian cultural identity are undoubtedly two-way and mutually beneficial.
China has valued culture since ancient times. Confucius created the "concept of cultural history", using culture to discuss the rise and fall of success and failure, and dividing orthodoxy and unorthodoxy into culture. At the same time, China attaches great importance to cultural export. The so-called "Yi Xia Zhi Discrimination" and "Xia to Yi Yi" in ancient books, their "discrimination" and "change" are all about culture. In the early years, Japanese scholars put forward the "East Asian world theory", arguing that the ancient East Asian world was centered on China and formed with Chinese characters, Confucianism, the legal system, Han Buddhism, and the canonization system as elements. In recent years, Japanese scholars have put forward the "Eurasian Eastern World Theory", which has expanded the influence of Chinese culture to the eastern Eurasian world. The export of Chinese culture has had a significant impact on the East Asian world and even the eastern Eurasian world. This point has been well documented in the academic community. This shows that the Chinese culture at that time was advanced, and not only the East Asian world, but even the eastern Eurasian world, recognized and accepted this advanced nature.
The author of this article is the author of "Zheng Shi's Annotations and Research on the Analects of the Tang Dynasty"
1. Culture and cultural history
What is culture? The ancients believed that it was the education of etiquette and music, that is, the virtue of literature. In ancient times, the governance of the country paid attention to both civil and military use. The opposite of Wende is martial arts. These two words often appear together. "The Book of the Later Han Dynasty: Emperor Guangwu I" commented on Emperor Guangwu, saying: "Words and martial arts dare not resist, and there is nothing to say about virtue." "It means that Emperor Guangwu was able to establish the Eastern Han Dynasty, and everyone only knows that his martial arts are invincible, but in fact, his literary virtue is also difficult to pick. It can be seen that the ancients believed that to govern the country and secure the country, it is not enough to rely on martial arts alone, but also on Wende, that is, culture. Thus there is a "cultural history view".
However, there are various interpretations of the "cultural history view" due to different countries and nationalities, different majors and interests, and different understandings of culture. For example, the Chinese scholar Qian Mu's view of cultural history has a strong inland color, arguing that Chinese culture is not a completely authoritarian culture, and that for a long time there was a legal system and a division of power between the monarchs. The Japanese scholar Tsuda Soyokichi's view of cultural history has a strong maritime color, believing that Japanese culture has its own particularities, and its formation is not entirely influenced by China. It can be seen that the understanding of the concept of cultural history is different from one another. I don't think it's okay to seek common ground while reserving differences, and there is no need to formulate a unified answer. The view of cultural history discussed in this lecture is mainly my personal understanding of cultural history.
Qian Mu
Fig.1 "Wen" in ancient characters
Let's start with the word "Wen". In Figure 1, A and B are the characters for "Wen" in the oracle bone inscription, C is the character for "Wen" in the Western Zhou Jinwen, and D is the character for "heart" in the seal script. The word "Wen" in the oracle bone inscription belongs to the first period (the period of King Wuding of Shang), like a person standing, with a tattoo on his chest, that is, a tattoo. The character "Wen" of the B oracle bone inscription belongs to the fifth period (the period of Emperor Yi and Emperor Xin of the Shang Dynasty), and the ornament on the chest began to have a "heart" shape. The word "Wen" in the Western Zhou Dynasty Jinwen comes from Li Ding in the middle of the Western Zhou Dynasty, and the decoration on the chest has completely become the word "heart", which is very similar to the word "heart" in the D seal book. According to anthropologists' research, at the beginning of mankind, all ethnic groups and races in the world had the custom of tattooing, and tattooing was actually a totem at the earliest, that is, the culture of the nation. The ornament on the chest, the evolution from "text" to "heart", is a metaphor, indicating that this national culture has penetrated deep into the heart. And China's national culture is the ritual music system. The ritual music system is deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, soaked into the blood, and implanted in genes, so China was known as the state of ritual music in ancient times.
The ritual system is recorded to have been created by the Duke of Zhou. The Duke of Zhou's surname is Ji Mingdan, the fourth son of King Wen of Zhou, and the younger brother of King Wu of Zhou. King Wen died, King Wu succeeded to the throne, and the Duke of Zhou assisted King Wu, destroyed Shang, and established the (Western) Zhou Dynasty. King Wu died in the third year after the destruction of Shang, and his son Cheng Wang succeeded to the throne, and at a young age, his uncle Zhou Gong was the regent, and he was regent for a total of seven years. Everyone knows that Dolgon was the regent of the Qing Dynasty. The Duke of Zhou was the first regent in Chinese history. "Historical Records of Zhou Benji" said that Zhou Gong "Xingzheng Ritual Music". "Hanshu Five Elements Chronicles" says that "in the past, the Zhou Dynasty metric system of ritual music, into the Zhou Dao". Later, when he grew up, the Duke of Zhou returned to power. The highest aspiration of Confucianism (including Confucius) is to be the "teacher of the emperor". Zhou Gong was the first successful "imperial division" in Chinese history. Zhou Gong assisted the government, created the ritual music system, and also laid the foundation for the first prosperous era in Chinese history.
Statue of Zhou Gong
There were a total of thirteen kings in the Western Zhou Dynasty (in fact, there were only twelve kings, and there was also a republic of fourteen years, collectively known as the thirteen kings of the Western Zhou Dynasty). Chen Mengjia's "Examination of the Western Zhou Dynasty" is divided into three periods: the front, middle and post, and the four kings of Wu, Cheng, Kang and Zhao are the early period. King Wu started a business, established the Western Zhou Dynasty, and died three years later. At the beginning of King Zhao's reign, he was "slightly lacking in the royal road", and later led his army to attack Chu, the whole army was annihilated, and he himself died on the shore of the Han River. Only Cheng and Kang were able to follow the Zhou Gong's strategy of "Mingde and prudent punishment". "Mingde" means practicing moral government, and "prudent punishment" is not easy to use punishment. "Historical Records" said: "When you become and healthy, the world is peaceful, and you don't need to be punished for more than 40 years." The Book of Han says: "Cheng and Kang Zhilong have been imprisoned and empty for more than 40 years. "For more than 40 years after the reign of King Cheng and Kang, the people lived and worked in peace and contentment, the state did not use punishment, and there were no prisoners in prison, which became an important criterion for measuring the prosperity of the world.
Chen Mengjia's "Examination of the Western Zhou Dynasty"
In my opinion, there are three prosperous eras in Chinese history: the first is the rule of the Western Zhou Dynasty and Kang Zhizhi, the second is the rule of the Western Han Dynasty and the rule of Jing, and the third is the rule of Zhenguan and Kaiyuan in the Tang Dynasty. Although each prosperous era has its own different characteristics, the development of ritual music and cultural prosperity are common. Each dynasty in Chinese history has its own iconic culture. The Tang poems of the Tang Dynasty, the Song Ci of the Song Dynasty, the Yuan songs of the Yuan Dynasty, the novels of the Ming Dynasty, and the scholarship of the Qing Dynasty are all the iconic cultures of these dynasties. Guo Moruo wrote a book called "The Bronze Age". He believes that the Shang and Zhou dynasties are the "Bronze Age" and that the iconic culture is the Bronze Culture. There are many varieties of Shang and Zhou bronzes, mainly divided into three categories: food vessels, wine vessels, and musical instruments. The common food utensils are 鼎, 簋, 甗, 鬲, 簠, and beans, and the common wine utensils are jue, gob, pot, plate, 罍, zun, 盉, 匜 (yí), 斝 (jiǎ), 卣 (yǒu), 觯 (zhì), 缶, and musical instruments are common bells, cymbals (náo), and gongs. In addition, there are many ceremonial musical instruments such as 俎, 甑, 鍑, 觥, dun, 瓿 (bù), potassium and so on. Guo Moruo divided the Shang and Zhou bronzes into four periods: the first promiscuous period (now called the development period), which was quite the early Yin Shang period, the second Bogu period (now called the heyday), which was quite from the late Yin Shang period to the Western Zhou Dynasty, the Kang, Zhao, and Mu dynasties, the third open period (now called the transition period), which was quite from the later period of Gong and Yi to the middle of the Spring and Autumn period, and the fourth new period (now called the renewal period), which was equivalent to the middle of the Spring and Autumn period to the end of the Warring States period. The heyday of the manufacture of Lile bronzes was actually in the Cheng and Kang periods.
Guo Moruo's "Bronze Age"
The peak of bronze culture in the Cheng and Kang periods can be briefly illustrated by three bronzes. The first is the Ligui during the reign of King Wu of the Western Zhou Dynasty. King Wu is the first king of the four kings of Wu, Cheng, Kang and Zhao in the early Western Zhou Dynasty. The inscription of Ligui is 32 characters, and the first word "珷" is a combination of the words "King Wu", which is the only bronze vessel that records King Wu's war merchants. Such a major historical event can be expressed in only 32 words. Wu Wang Ligui is now in the collection of the National Museum of China, and is one of the first batch of cultural relics that are prohibited from being exhibited abroad. The second is He Zun during the reign of King Cheng of the Western Zhou Dynasty. He Zun's inscription is 122 words, which is 90 words more than that of King Wu Ligui. Now everyone knows a word called "Zhaizi China", and this word comes from Chengwang He Zun. Chengwang He Zun is now hiding the treasure chicken bronze museum, which is also a cultural relic that is forbidden to be exhibited abroad. The third is the Da Yu Ding during the reign of King Kang of the Western Zhou Dynasty. The inscription of Da Yu Ding is 291 words, which is 169 words more than that of King Cheng He Zun. The Kangwang Dayu Ding is also in the collection of the National Museum of China, and it is also a cultural relic that is forbidden to be exhibited abroad. It can be seen that the manufacture of Lile bronzes advanced by leaps and bounds after King Wu, and reached its peak in the Cheng and Kang periods.
Confucius was a native of Lu Guo, the fiefdom of the Duke of Zhou, and he was exposed to it, and he took the Duke of Zhou as his idol all his life. The "Analects" records that Confucius said: "I am even declining! I will no longer dream of seeing the Duke of Zhou for a long time!" There have been several major controversies in the history of Confucian classics, such as the controversy between the modern and ancient texts of the Han Dynasty, the controversy between Song studies and Sinology in the Qing Dynasty, and the internal controversy of Neo-Confucianism in modern times. Liu An of the Western Han Dynasty said in "Huainanzi Zhushu Xun": "Confucius ...... Specializing in teaching, in order to become a king. "Hanshu Dong Zhongshu Biography" said: "Confucius wrote "Spring and Autumn". The first king is the king and everything is concerned, see the literature of the king. Wang Chong of the Eastern Han Dynasty said: "Confucius is not a king, and the business of Su Wang is in the Spring and Autumn Period." Later Song scholars and some members of Neo-Confucianism also advocated the positioning of Confucius as the "Su King". But another part of the ancient classics and later Sinology and Neo-Confucianism believed that Confucius should be positioned as a "teacher." As mentioned earlier, Zhou Gong was the first successful "imperial division" in Chinese history. Confucius traveled around the world throughout his life to promote himself, in fact, he wanted to learn from Zhou Gong to be an "imperial teacher". Although he did not become a teacher in the end, Confucius was still an educator and a "teacher of all ages". Therefore, Confucius should be positioned as a "teacher".
Confucius not only took Zhou Gong as his idol, but Zhou Gong created a system of ritual music, and Confucius naturally advocated the culture of ritual and music. What's more, he is in the era of "bad manners and happy collapse". Because the word "bad etiquette and happiness" comes from the "Analects": "If a gentleman does not give etiquette for three years, the etiquette will be bad, and if he does not be happy for three years, the happiness will collapse." In times like these, Confucius especially wanted to restore the Zhou Gong Rites. Confucius claimed to "narrate but not do", that is, he only narrated and inherited the works of his predecessors, and did not create them himself. The works of his predecessors narrated and passed on are mainly the "Six Classics" ("Yi", "Shu", "Poems", "Rites", "Music", and "Spring and Autumn"), among which there are two classics of "Rites" and "Music". Unfortunately, although musical instruments are easy to inherit, musical scores are difficult to inherit. The Book of Music was lost after Qin Shi Huang burned the book. Han set up "Doctor of the Five Classics", among which there is no "Music" Sutra. In later generations, there were often articles hyping up the reappearance of "Music" in the world, but it was not credible. It can be seen that Confucius is the true inheritor of Zhou Gong's thought. "Mencius" said: "The way of the Duke of Zhou and Zhongni." "The Duke of Zhou and Confucius are called together. We often think of Confucius as the first master of Confucianism in China. In fact, China's first Confucian master should be Zhou Gong. Confucius inherited the ideas and careers of the Duke of Zhou. The ancients regarded Confucius and Zhou Gong as a "community".
Statue of Confucius
Confucius evaluated the achievements of the Western Zhou Dynasty, and there was only one criterion, that is, culture. At the end of the Yin Shang period, that is, the period of King Yin, the people had a heavy burden, a difficult life, and a dire situation. King Wen of Zhou was Xibo at the time, and he owned two-thirds of the land in the world, but he did not rebel. The Analects of Confucius commented on King Wen of Zhou: "There are two out of three parts of the world, in order to serve Yin, the virtue of Zhou, which can be said to be the most virtuous." Cao Cao's "Short Song Xing" said: "Zhou Xi Bochang, with this holy virtue, three parts of the world, and there are two." "That is, to sing the story. Among them, "virtue" refers to the aforementioned "Wende". After the establishment of the Western Zhou Dynasty, the Duke of Zhou "punished with virtue and prudence", rested with the people, and finally achieved the "rule of Cheng and Kang". In the early period of the Western Zhou Dynasty, mainly in the Cheng and Kang periods, political tolerance, economic prosperity, military strength, and cultural prosperity were prosperous. However, the Analects of Confucius wrote: "Zhou was imprisoned in the second generation, and he was depressed! "The meaning is: The Western Zhou Dynasty took the Xia and Shang dynasties as a reference, and the culture was so prosperous, I yearn for the Western Zhou Dynasty. This is Confucius's heartfelt praise for the culture of the early Western Zhou Dynasty. Confucius did not praise the military, politics, and economy of the early Western Zhou Dynasty, but only the culture of the early Western Zhou Dynasty. Because Confucius believed that culture is the key to measuring the rise and fall of a country. The traditional Chinese concept of "cultural history" was founded by and started by Confucius.
The "concept of cultural history" founded by Confucius has ruled the thought of Chinese scholars for 2,400 years, and no one has ever doubted it. After the May Fourth Movement, it began to be criticized. After 1949, Hu Shi was criticized externally and Chen Yinke was criticized internally, and their "cultural and historical view" would be criticized. This is actually a misconception. This is because UNESCO has a clear definition of culture: culture is divided into tangible culture and intangible culture: tangible culture is material culture and is listed as "World Tangible Cultural Heritage", and intangible culture is intangible culture and is listed as "World Intangible Cultural Heritage". The latter is now referred to as "intangible cultural heritage" and has received special attention from all quarters. As for the "intangible cultural heritage" seal carving skills, ancient book protection skills, inscription topography skills, bronze reproduction skills, ancient calligraphy and painting copying and mounting skills, and so on, which can be said to have nothing to do with material at all? The fact that culture and material are so closely linked shows that the essence of the "cultural historical outlook" is the "materialist historical outlook." In the past 100 years, Wang Guowei and Chen Yinke's "view of cultural history" has been particularly iconic.
We know that Wang Guowei Guantang died in 1927 when he sank in Kunming Lake in the Summer Palace in Beiping. Why did he commit suicide? There are different theories. Chen Yinke explained the reason for Wang Guowei's suicide in "Mr. Wang Guantang's Elegy": "When a cultural value declines, those who are transformed by this culture will feel pain, and the greater the degree of expression of this culture, the more pain they will suffer. After the May Fourth Movement, Wang Guowei's generation, who were deeply educated in tradition, felt that the New Culture Movement's criticism of the old culture was too harsh and would inevitably lead to the decline of the old culture. They feel pain in their hearts, and the pain has reached a certain level, and the only way to find peace is through suicide. In short, Wang Guowei's suicide was entirely for the sake of culture. As for Chen Yinke, from his explanation of the reasons for Wang Guowei's suicide, we can already get a glimpse of his "cultural history view". In addition, Chen Yinke's application of the "concept of cultural history" to the study of medieval history is also impressive. The Middle Ages was an era of great integration of the Chinese nation. Chen Yinke's most famous assertion is that race is distinguished by culture. He believes: "The distinction between Hu and Han in the Northern Dynasties is not in race, but in culture. At least: "Culture is more important, and race is less important." He repeatedly emphasized: "The difference between the Han and the Hu people was particularly important in the Northern Dynasties when culture was more important than bloodline." All people who are sinicized are Han people, and Hu people are Hu people, regardless of their bloodline. He wrote the "Yuan Bai Poetry Manuscript" to study the Yuan (稹) Bai (Juyi) poems. The surname Yuan is from the Xianbei Tuoba clan, and the surname Bai is from the Qiuzi royal family in the Western Regions. However, Yuan Zhen's "Lianchang Palace Ci", Bai Juyi's "Long Hate Song" and "Pipa Xing" all reflect complete Han culture. Therefore, in Chen Yinke's eyes, Yuan Zhen and Bai Juyi are undoubtedly Han. This "cultural historical view" of distinguishing races by culture is quite helpful to cultural exports.
Chen Yinke's "Yuan Bai Poetry Manuscript"
2. Cultural Export and East Asian Cosmopolitanism
When it comes to cultural output, we must first talk about "Wende", and we have to start from the words "Wen" and "De" for "heart".
The word "Wende" was mentioned earlier. From the late Yin Shang period to the middle of the Western Zhou Dynasty, the word "Wen" has the word "heart" in it. At the same time, there is no word "heart" under the word "de". Luo Zhenyu's "Yin Qi Interpretation" was the first to discover that there was no "heart" under the word "de" in the oracle bone inscription. Guo Moruo's "Jinwen Cong Kao" pointed out that this is a "provincial character", he said: "Yin Yi has no German characters, and there are no divination words. "Provincial characters" means that the glyphs are incomplete and have been omitted. "Yin Yi" refers to the Jin Wen of the Yin Dynasty. "Bu Ci" refers to the Shang Dynasty oracle bone inscription. "No virtue character" does not mean that there is no "virtue" character, but that there is no "virtue" character with "heart". Guo Moruo said: The "virtue" of "heart" began to see "Zhou Wen", and the specific beginning was seen in Ban Wei in the middle of the Western Zhou Dynasty. Li Xueqin praised it for his insight. That is, after the middle of the Western Zhou Dynasty, the word "heart" was changed from the word "Wen" to the word "De". "Literature" and "morality" are exchanged for "heart", reflecting the need to sublimate culture and output with heart.
The word "Wende" has always been associated with cultural export. "Zhou Yi" said: "The wind is in the sky, the little animal, the gentleman is Yiwende." The meaning is: The wind walks in the sky, unobstructed, and a gentleman should cultivate virtue and virtue, wait for the time to go, and walk by the wind. The Analects says: "If a person from afar is not satisfied, he will cultivate virtue and morality, and if he comes, he will be safe." It means: If a foreigner or a foreigner does not want to submit, he will cultivate his virtue and attract them to him, and when they come, he will pacify, cultivate, and educate them. Tang Xuanzong's poem "Pinghu": "Martial arts have been established today, and Wende is ashamed of the former king." Tang Li Xian used the poem "Zhaojun": "The ancient emperor cultivated Wende, and the barbarians did not dare to invade." "Yuan Fu Ruojin's poem "Shu Nan Ningyi": "I also know that Wende can be soft and far." The words "Pinghu", "Zhaojun" and "Rouyuan" all use the word "Wende", indicating that "Wende" is a special diplomatic vocabulary for cultural export. Lu Xun's "Book of Pseudo-Freedom" said: "What else can be done? Naturally, the only way to do this is to cultivate virtue and subdue the 'distant people' of Japan." The word "Wende" is also used as a metaphor for cultural export.
Lu Xun's "Pseudo-Freedom Book"
The Western Zhou Dynasty began to implement the "feudal system". Zhou Tianzi was the "co-master" of the world, and formulated a set of political orders to maintain the relationship between "China" (Jingshi) and "Sifang" (princes and kings), and "China" (Huaxia residence) and "Siyi" (surrounding minority regimes). The princes and the surrounding minority regimes had to pay tribute to China (Jingshi or Huaxia residence) on a regular or irregular basis. The so-called tribute here is actually the combined name of the Hajj and the tribute. Fairbank of the United States called it the "Huayi system" or "China's traditional world order". Hong Kong's Wong Chi Lian called it the "Celestial Empire Ritual Governance System" or "Asia's Chinese Order".
"Zhou Li, Qiu Guan, Da Xingren" records:
Banggi is thousands of miles away. Its outer five hundred miles is called the Hou Fu, the year is seen, and its tribute is worshipped. It is also five hundred miles away, and it is called Dianfu, and when it is two years old, it is a tribute to the concubines. It is also called men's clothing five hundred miles away, and it is seen at the age of three, and its tribute utensils. It is also called a collection service for 500 miles away, and it is seen at the age of four, and its tribute is a thing. It is also called a guard suit for five hundred miles away, and it is a tribute material when it is five years old. And its foreign side of 500 miles is called to serve, six years old to see, its tribute goods. Outside Kyushu, it is called the country of Tibet, and when the world sees it, each with its precious treasures.
"To serve" means to be brutal. The "Fan Kingdom" "outside Kyushu" includes Yifu, Zhenfu, and Fanfu. Unlike the Hou, Dian, Male, Cai, and Wei five suits, which are performed once every one year to five years, the barbarian clothes are performed once every six years, and the Yifu, Zhenfu, and Fan costumes are "seen once in the world". The so-called "world once seen" is explained in the "General Dictionary Binli I": "The father dies and the son is established, and the heir king ascends the throne, which is the first to come." "That is, the death of the Father and the succession of the Son, and the Hajj for one lifetime. Although these rituals are highly idealistic, they are clearly documented and definitively stipulated.
《Customs》
Regarding China's foreign relations and world order, there are two official systematic records: text and image:
The writing system is the national history system, that is, the "Twenty-five History" ("Twenty-four History" and "Qing History Manuscript") system. Wu Yuxuan's "Opinions on the Compilation of World History" holds that the history books compiled by various countries in ancient times are actually world history. Taking Sima Qian's "Historical Records" as an example, in addition to China, the east includes Korea, the west includes Dawan and Daxia, as well as rest and tiaozhi, which are collectively called "Tianxia", that is, the world at that time as Sima Qian knew. Among them, there is a main body or center, and there are vassals or peripherals, the main body or center is China ruled by the Emperor of the Han Dynasty, and the subordination or periphery is the surrounding small states and barbarians who should accept China's education. China was very advanced and had entered a feudal society, while the surrounding small countries and barbarians, including Japan and Korea, were still in a slave society. China hopes to educate the surrounding small countries and barbarians through cultural exports, and lead them to develop together. Most of the "Twenty-five History" has legends of the Western Regions, the Four Regions, and foreign countries, all of which are world history. The "Twenty-five History" records in detail the situation when small neighboring states and barbarians went to China to pay tribute, and sought classics from China such as Confucianism, Vinaya, and Han Buddhism to bring back to their own countries and their own states.
The image system is the Gongtu system. The Japanese scholar Enoki Kazuo is an expert in the study of Gongtu, and he wrote "The Origin of Gonggongtu", arguing that the pictures depicting the tributaries of foreign envoys began with Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty. The earliest extant tribute map is the "Gong Tu" painted by Emperor Yuan of Liang, and the latest is the "Gong Tu of the Emperor Qing Dynasty" edited by Fu Heng in the Qing Dynasty, during which each dynasty has a large number of Gong Tu. The standard version of the tribute map is a picture with an inscription, the picture depicts the image of the tributary envoy, and the inscription writes about the history and customs of the country and place where the tributary envoy is located. Emperor Liang Yuan's "Gong Gong Tu" has three kinds of facsimiles: the first is a facsimile of the Tang Yan Liben, which contains colored portraits of envoys from 24 countries and has no inscription (see Fig. 2). The second is a facsimile of Gu Deqian of the Southern Tang Dynasty, which contains white portraits of envoys from the 33 Kingdoms without inscriptions (see Figure 3). Both facsimiles are in the collection of the National Palace Museum in Taipei. The untitled note is the painter's copying of the heavy picture and light text, and the inscription is deleted. The third is a facsimile of the 10th year of Xining in the Northern Song Dynasty (1077), which contains the colored portraits of the envoys of the 12 countries and the inscriptions of the 13 Kingdoms (the remnant inscriptions of the Changguo State after the Wa Kingdom), which was originally collected by the Qing Dynasty and later flowed out, first in the Nanjing Museum, and now in the National Museum of China (see Figure 4).
Fig.2 A facsimile of Emperor Liang Yuan's "Gong Gong Tu" by Tang Yanli: envoys from the Wa Kingdom, Silla, Baekje, and Goryeo (now in the "National Palace Museum" in Taipei)
Fig.3 A facsimile of Gu Deqian of the Southern Tang Dynasty of the Five Dynasties of Emperor Liang Yuan's "Gong Gong Tu": envoys of the Wa Kingdom, Silla, and Goguryeo (now in the "Palace Museum" in Taipei)
Fig.4 Liang Yuandi's "Tribute Map" in the 10th year of the Northern Song Dynasty: envoys of the Wa Kingdom and Baekje (now in the National Museum of China)
As mentioned earlier, the "East Asian world theory," which is the focus of this lecture, was put forward by Japanese scholars. The East Asian world, which Japanese scholars are concerned about, is mainly Korea and Japan. The focus here is on China's communication with North Korea and Japan.
China and North Korea have a long history of communication. According to the "Great Biography of Shangshu", King Wu destroyed Shang, and King Wu's uncle Jizi "went to North Korea, King Wu...... because it was sealed by North Korea". "Historical Records" also says: "King Wu is to seal the Jizi in Korea." The Book of Han says that Jizi "taught his people to weave silkworms with etiquette and righteousness" and the "Eight Articles" of the Criminal Law. This is Kei Joseon. The "Chronicles of the Three Kingdoms" records that "in the early Han Dynasty, Yan died and Wei Manwang Joseon". That is, in the early years of the Western Han Dynasty, Wei Man, the old man of Yan State, led his troops to flee to North Korea, destroyed the Ji clan, and founded the country by himself. This is Webster Joseon. Later, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty destroyed the Wei clan and placed the four counties of Lelang, Lintun, Xuansu, and Zhenfan, and incorporated the whole of Korea into the Chinese territory. This is the period of the four counties of the Han Dynasty. It can be seen that the Korean Peninsula was ruled by the descendants of the Shang Dynasty, the old people of the Yan Kingdom, and the Western Han Dynasty for a long time. After the end of the Western Han Dynasty, the Korean Peninsula gradually formed the three kingdoms of Goryeo, Baekje, and Silla. Therefore, the export of Chinese culture has the most far-reaching impact on the Korean Peninsula.
China and Japan have also been communicating for a long time. According to the "Book of the Later Han Dynasty: The Biography of Dongyi": "In the second year of the Jianwu Dynasty (57), the Japanese slave country paid tribute to congratulate the people, making people call themselves doctors, and the extreme southern boundary of the Japanese kingdom was also. Guangwu gave a seal. On April 12, 1784, a gold seal of the "King of Hanweinu" was unearthed in Fukuoka, Japan, which is now in the Fukuoka City Museum and belongs to the National Treasure of Japan. There has been a great deal of controversy in Japanese and Chinese academic circles about the nature of this golden seal. However, according to the "double evidence method", the heirloom documents and the excavated documents can be used as evidence for each other, and this gold seal can undoubtedly be used as evidence that Japan was the first to accept the canonization of China.
Book of the Later Han Dynasty
The golden seal of the "King of Hanweinu".
In Chinese history, there have been frequent changes of dynasties. During the change of dynasty, the Central Plains was inevitably in turmoil. Tang Guzhiqi's poem "The Ballad of the Qin People": "China is both stubborn, and the flesh and blood can be safe?" The people could only flee. There are three main routes: east to the Korean Peninsula and then across the sea to Japan, south to Jiangnan, then to Vietnam and South Asia, west to Hexi, and then to the Western Regions. Fleeing will be accompanied by migrants.
Chinese immigration to the Korean Peninsula, in addition to the aforementioned Ji clan, Wei clan, and Han four county periods, can be traced back to the war at the end of the Qin Dynasty, when tens of thousands of Qi, Yan, and Zhao people took refuge on the Korean Peninsula. Since then, the Korean Peninsula has always been an ideal refuge for the people of the Central Plains because of its profound Chinese cultural heritage. In the twentieth year of Wanli (1592) and the twenty-fifth year of the Ming Dynasty, Toyotomi Hideyoshi of Japan sent troops to invade Korea twice, and the Ming Dynasty sent troops to aid Korea many times to repel the Japanese army. After the war, many of the Ming Dynasty's eastern-aided soldiers settled in Korea; after the Qing soldiers entered the customs, the descendants of the soldiers who aided the DPRK also went east to Korea one after another. Including more than 20 Central Plains surnames of different origins, such as Zhang, Liu, Li, Chen, Jia, Qiu, Shi, Xu, Du, Hu, Dong, Hua, Ma, Chai, Peng, Wan, Qian, Pian, Kang, Shi, etc.
There are many legends about Chinese immigration to the Japanese archipelago. For example, Xu Fu searched for the elixir of life for Qin Shi Huang and led 3,000 boys and girls to Japan; Yang Guifei did not die in Ma Weipo, but fled to Japan through various twists and turns; and so on. Of course, these legends may not be credible. But the legend of the Tamba family is well-founded. Tanba's original surname was Liu, and his distant ancestor was a descendant of Emperor Ling of the Eastern Han Dynasty, who fled to Japan to avoid chaos. In the second year of Japan's Eikan (984), Tanba Yasunori wrote 30 volumes of "Medical Heart Prescription", which included the symptoms, treatment, health preservation, room and food supplements of various diseases, which was the culmination of health medicine. "Yixin Fang" cites more than 200 kinds of traditional Chinese medicine classics before the Northern Song Dynasty, most of which have long been lost in China, and are regarded as national treasures by Japan, with a wide influence. As for the well-documented official exchanges between Japan and China, there are even more. During the Sui and Tang dynasties alone, Japan sent 5 envoys to the Sui Dynasty and 19 envoys to the Tang Dynasty, bringing a large number of ancient Chinese books back to Japan. The country with the richest collection of Chinese ancient books in the world, except for China, is none other than Japan. It is not surprising that the "East Asian world theory" was put forward by Japanese scholars.
Tanba Kanglai's "Medical Heart Prescription"
The "East Asian World Theory" was put forward by the famous Japanese scholar Saijima Tadao. There are two schools of thought in Japanese academia: the Tokyo School and the Kyoto School. Nishijima was the third generation leader of the Tokyo School. He proposed the "Theory of the East Asian World" after World War II, which was originally aimed at the "Theory of Oriental History" proposed by Kuwabara Kazuzo, the first leading figure of the Kyoto School before World War II, in his famous book "Essentials of Oriental History". Kuwabara divides the history of the world into three main parts: the West, the East, and Japan. The Western Ocean is listed separately, the Eastern Ocean includes East Asia, South Asia, and Central Asia, and Japan is outside the Eastern Ocean. This division of world history shows that the Japanese nation is superior to that of Asian countries. This view of Oriental history was later exploited by Japanese militarism, and it was also related to the establishment of the "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere" led by Japan during World War II. On the other hand, the "East Asian World Theory" proposed by Nishijima Tadai included Japan in East Asia, so it was a step forward compared to the "Oriental Historical Theory". Special attention is paid to cultural exchanges between China, Japan and South Korea.
Kuwabara
Nishijima believes that the "East Asian world" is a world formed based on the emergence and development of Chinese civilization. The composition of this world contains four elements: Chinese characters, Confucianism, the law system, and Chinese Buddhism. Among them, the Chinese character and the legal order system were later derived into the "Chinese character cultural circle theory" and the "canonization system theory" that complemented each other. The East Asian world includes Korea, Japan, and Vietnam around China, as well as the eastern regions of the Hexi Corridor in the middle of the Mongolian Plateau and the Tibetan Plateau.
The establishment and influence of Nishijima Tadai's "East Asian World Theory" has a lot to do with the research, promotion, and publicity of the famous Japanese scholar Toshiichi Hori. Toshiichi Hori is also a third-generation leader of the Tokyo School. From the perspective of the "Chinese character cultural circle," he wrote four books successively, starting from the fact that East Asia is the world of China and the various ethnic groups surrounding China, holding that East Asia pursues the Chinese legal system, that Japan is only a member of East Asia, and that East Asia is a world formed with China as the center and neighboring countries as the periphery.
In particular, although the international order and geopolitics of ancient East Asia were mainly maintained through the "canonization system", the "Chinese character culture" also contributed to the convenience of communication and exchange. Because Chinese characters are pictographic and ideographic square characters, in the countries and regions to which the "Chinese character cultural circle" belongs, the pronunciation of Chinese characters may be different, and the pictographic and ideographic characters remain unchanged. As long as you have a rough understanding of the principle of Chinese characters, read pictures and read words, and distinguish the meaning from shape, you can communicate and communicate. This is a good proof of the fact that there has always been a tradition of "pen talks" between China and East Asian countries from ancient times to the present.
Nishijima Dingsheng's "Ancient Chinese Country"
In 1606, the Japanese Zen monk Fumiyuki wrote the "Iron Cannon Chronicle", which records that in 1543, a Portuguese merchant ship from Siam (present-day Thailand) to China encountered a wind at sea and drifted to Tanegashima Island, Japan. The islanders are on high alert for visitors from the West who hold strangely shaped bird guns. On the same ship, "Ming Confucianism" Wufeng (Wang Zhi) came forward to mediate. The owner of the island wrote Chinese characters on the sand with a rod and asked: "The guests in the boat, I don't know who the people are, what a strange shape!" Wufeng wrote on the sand and replied: "This is the Jiahuye of the southwest barbarians." "So the problem was solved. As a result, muskets (iron cannons) loaded on merchant ships were introduced to Japan, and they became the most powerful weapons in Japan at that time.
The countries and regions to which the "Chinese Character Cultural Circle" belongs, there is a large number of Chinese character "pen talk" literature. There are not only Chinese-Japanese, Chinese-Korean, Chinese-Vietnamese, and Chinese-Ryukyu Chinese character "bitan" literature, but also Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, and Ryukyu Chinese character "bitan" literature. Huang Zunxian, a poet and diplomat of the late Qing Dynasty, and Seiichiro Miyajima, a Japanese sinologist, "wrote a conversation" with Shiyun: "The tongue is difficult to convey and the pen can be understood, and the pen and tongue are not endless." Don't make a crab line, and sing with joy in one class. "Lu script is a popular script in Xinjiang in ancient China, written horizontally like a crab, so it is called crab line character. Although it was difficult for Han and Japan to communicate verbally, they could still have "pen talks", not only writing "pen talks" vertically, but also writing poems together (Japanese Chinese poems were also very well written). "Tongfeng" means to share the wind of Chinese characters and the wind of Chinese culture. This is the unique cultural exchange landscape of the "Chinese Character Cultural Circle".
Seiichiro Miyajima
3. The Gongtu of All Occupations and the Eastern Eurasian World
There has always been a debate in Japanese academic circles about Nishijima's "East Asian cosmopolitanism," but there is no better opportunity to discuss it, and there is no better theory to replace it. In the new century, the situation is different.
In 2005, Masaaki Sugiyama criticized the "East Asian cosmopolitanism" for exaggerating the influence of the Tang Dynasty and for being a "one-sided conception" of Japanese scholars on the cultural circle of Chinese characters, which did not conform to historical facts, because the Liao, Western Xia, Jin, and Yuan did not belong to the framework of Chinese history. These dynasties had no influence on Japan and did not belong to the "East Asian world" that Japan had constructed. These dynasties should fall within the framework of the "Central Eurasian History."
Masaaki Sugiyama's "Conquerors of the Galloping Grasslands: Liao, Xixia, Jin, and Yuan"
In 2006, Nobu Ueda's "History of the East Ecological Environment" used the concept of "Eastern Europe and Asia" for the first time, but because it was about the history of the ecological environment, it did not attract much attention. In 2010, Keno Hirose's "Wakuni Japanese History" officially put forward the concept of "Eastern Eurasia" from the perspective of ancient Wa Kingdom and Japanese political history, which attracted the attention of all parties. Especially after the discovery of the fourth facsimile of Emperor Liang Yuan's "Career Tribute Map", the Qing Dynasty Zhang Geng's facsimile "Zhufan Career Tribute Map", the situation was even more different.
Three facsimiles of Emperor Liang Yuan's "Gonggong Tu" have been introduced earlier—the facsimile of Yan Liben of the Tang Dynasty, the facsimile of Gu Deqian of the Southern Tang Dynasty of the Five Dynasties, and the facsimile of the tenth year of Xining of the Northern Song Dynasty. In 2010, the same year that the article was published, I received a letter from the Literary History asking me to review an article entitled "The New Discovery of the Inscription of Emperor Liang Yuan of the Southern Dynasty". This article introduces the fourth facsimile of Emperor Liang Yuan's "Tribute Map" - the "Zhufan Gongtu" of Zhang Geng (1685-1760) of the fourth year of Qianlong (1739) recorded in the Continuation of the Calligraphy and Painting of Airi Yinlu by Ge Sixun (1867-1935) in the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China. The map successively records the inscriptions of the Eighteen Kingdoms and Barbarians of the Thirst Pagoda, Wuxingbo, Gaochang, Tianmenman, Slip, Persia, Baekje, Qiuzi, Wa, Gaoguryi, Khotan, Siluo (Silla), Zhou Coca, Hebatan, Humitan, Tangchang, Deng Zhi, and Bai Ti Eighteen Kingdoms and Barbarians. This is undoubtedly a new discovery. The four East Asian countries of Wa, Goguryi, Baekje, and Slo (Silla), which Japan and South Korea traditionally focused on, have complete copies of Zhang Geng. It is worth noting that the four East Asian countries plus the Tianmen Barbarians only belong to East Asia and eastern China, and the other thirteen countries belong to Western China, the Western Regions and even West Asia, that is, they belong to the "Eastern Eurasian World" that was later proposed. Of course, that's all for later. After reviewing the letter, I replied to the editorial department of "Literature and History", and gave it a high evaluation, and I hope that it can be arranged for publication as soon as possible.
As mentioned earlier, there were three main routes for the Central Plains to flee and the people to flee, and Hexi and the Western Regions were also an important escape route. Hexi is quite today's Gansu and is well known, so there is no need to say more. Here are a few examples of immigrants from the Central Plains to the Western Regions.
Statue of Emperor Liang Yuan
Emperor Liang Yuan's "Gongtu" Qiuci envoy inscription said: "In the Han Dynasty, the princess's wife Wusun (now Aksu, Xinjiang, blue-eyed and red-bearded, European race), (Gong) sent the daughter to the Han Dynasty to learn the drum and qin, and Qiuci (now Kucha, Xinjiang) invited her as his wife." King Qiuzi descended to the guest and thought that he was the grandson of the Han Dynasty...... The number comes to the dynasty, and the Lehan system. Since it has returned to its country, it is to govern the palace room, go in and out of the page, hit the bell and beat the drum, such as the Han family, quite powerful. The "Historical Records: The Biography of Dawan" says: "From the west of Dawan (present-day Uzbekistan in Central Asia) to Anxi (present-day Iran...... I don't know about cast iron. and the Han Dynasty made the dead surrender, and taught him to cast his weapons. Han yellow platinum, often as a vessel, not for the currency. These records show that the Central Plains has a long history of immigration to the Western Regions.
According to legend, Li Bai was born in Central Asia. Li Bai's uncle, Li Yangbing, wrote a "preface" for Li Bai's "Caotang Collection" and said: "In the middle of the century, it was not a sin in the Tiaozhi branch (present-day Afghanistan in Central Asia). Fan Chuanzheng's "Tang Zuo's New Tombstone of Li Gong (Bai), a Bachelor of Hanlin", said: "At the end of the Sui Dynasty, it was difficult, and a room was swept away in broken leaves (now Kyrgyzstan, Central Asia). "The New Tang Dynasty Book Li Bai Biography" said: "At the end of the Sui Dynasty, he migrated to the Western Regions with a crime, and at the beginning of the Shenlong Dynasty, he escaped and returned to Brazil. Chen Yinke's "Questions about the Li Taibai Clan" said: "Taibai was born in the Western Regions, not in China. The first sentence of the first article of Guo Moruo's "Li Bai and Du Fu" "Li Bai was born in Broken Leaves in Central Asia" clearly says: "The poet Li Bai of the Tang Dynasty, in the first year of Chang'an (701) of Wu Zetian, was born in the city of Broken Leaves in Central Asia. "Regardless of whether Li Bai's ancestors were guilty or innocent, in short, there was a group of immigrants to the Western Regions.
Statue of Li Bai
Taiyuan ordered the fox clan to avoid Wang Mang's hardship and fled to Dunhuang, Turpan, and the Western Regions. Dunhuang is in the Yangguan and Yumen Passes, and has always been counted as the mainland. Turpan is outside the Yangguan and Yumen Passes, and has always belonged to the Western Regions. In the past, the county of the Linghu clan generally belonged to Dunhuang, called "Dunhuang Linghu clan". Mao Hanguang listed the "Dunhuang Linghu Clan" as one of the 60 most important families in medieval political society. But we know that Gaochang (present-day Turpan) also had the Linghu clan, which migrated from Dunhuang. "New Tang Dynasty Book: Prime Minister's Lineage Table" Linghu said: "The world lives in Taiyuan. Qin has Taiyuan guarding the five horse pavilions Hou Fan. The 14th Sun Han Jianwei General Mai, and Zhai Yi raised troops against Wang Mang, but the soldiers were defeated and died. Three sons: Boyou, Wengong, and Cheng, all went to Dunhuang. Boyou entered Qiuzi (now Kucha, Xinjiang), and Wengong entered Shule (now southwest of Xinjiang), called the old officials hidden, and then lived in Xiaohu (the name of Dunhuang County). ”
Mao Hanguang, "On the History of Medieval Chinese Society"
According to Emperor Liang Yuan's "Gonggong Tu" and several examples of immigrants from the Central Plains to the Western Regions mentioned above, it can be seen that the countries of the Western Regions were also canonized by China at that time, and there were also immigrants. However, the Western Regions clearly does not belong to the "East Asian world". This shows that this division does have certain limitations.
In March 2011, the first volume of "Literature and History" published an article about Emperor Liang Yuan's "Gonggong Tu", written by Zhao Canpeng. This immediately attracted the attention of Japanese and Korean scholars. The famous Japanese scholar Yasumi Suzuki immediately established the "Liang Yuan Emperor's "Gong Gong Tu Research Association" and organized well-known professors such as Shuichi Kaneko, Li Chengichi, Iwami Kiyohiro, Katayama Akio, Shinkawa Noboru and Hirose Keno to conduct discussions. The Silla Historical Society of Korea has also started research activities. On September 8 of the same year, Suzuki Yasumin took advantage of his visit to China to hold a lecture on "From Liang's "Gongtu to the Eastern Eurasian World" at the Department of History of Peking University, and put forward the concept of "Eastern Eurasian World" for the first time.
Zhao Canpeng's "Southern Dynasty Liang Yuan Emperor's Title Inscription Interpretation Proof"
On January 21, 2012, Tokyo Kokugakuin University held an international symposium on "The World of the 5th and 6th Centuries". This is the first international academic conference on the study of Emperor Liang Yuandi's Gongtu. The meeting was chaired by Nagato Sato and Yasumin Suzuki. Although there were only eight official delegates, including me, Lee Seung-ichi, Kaneko Shuichi, Noboru Shinkawa, Keno Hirose, Mayuko Kawagami, Masayu Akabane, and Yoon Ryu, as many as 40 or 50 experts from China, Japan, and the ROK attended the meeting, including famous scholars such as Keifumi Kusama, Hoki Kigazawa, Kiyohiro Iwami, Akio Katayama, Lee Yong-hyun, and Ge Jiyong. This is a general meeting in Japan, which is known for holding small meetings. My report, entitled "Liang Zhi Gongtu and the Western Regions", was a "propositional essay" by the conference organizers (because the focus of Japanese and Korean scholars is mainly on East Asia, and the Western Regions is their weaker field). Soon after, an expanded version of the conference proceedings titled "Liang Zhi Gongtu と East ユーラシア世界" was officially published by Tokyo Miancheng Publishing Co., Ltd. in May 2014.
Yasumin Suzuki and Shuichi Kaneko, ed.
The purpose of this collection of essays can be imagined from the formal embedding of "The Eastern World of Eurasia" into the title of the book "Liang Zhi Gongtu と Eastern ユーラシア World". The proceedings are divided into three topics and a total of 18 papers. The first and most important essay on the first topic was Yasumin Suzuki's "History of the East of the World: The History of the East of the World: The Center for International Relations, International Order, and International Consciousness." Emperor Liang Yuan's "Gongtu" repeatedly mentioned the slippery country, that is, the "White Xiongnu" (white Xiongnu), known to Eastern Roman historians as the "White Xiongnu" (white Xiongnu), was a huge nomadic empire across the Eurasian continent in the Middle Ages. Later, due to the westward migration of the Turks, it was defeated by the Turkic alliance of Sassanid Persia, and the empire perished. Today's Turkey straddles the Eurasian continent and roughly follows the territory of the Eurasian Continent. Zhang Geng's inscription repeatedly mentions the concepts of "big country", "small country" and "side country", and the slippery country is naturally a "big country", and the "small country by slippery", such as Ho Batan, Zhou Coca, Hu Mi Tan, etc., are all "small countries by the slippery side", and none of them have independent diplomatic rights, but "pay tribute with the slippery envoys". Based on this, Suzuki Yasumin proposed that at that time, the "eastern Eurasian world" had two centers, Liang and Slip. In this way, China is the only center in the "East Asian world" and poses a challenge. In short, Suzuki's dissertation hopes to compare the "Eastern Eurasian World History" with the original "East Asian World History" with the help of the international relations, international order, and international consciousness at that time as shown in Emperor Liang Yuandi's "Gonggong Tu", and finally replace the "East Asian world" with "the eastern Eurasian world".
In February 2019, Huang Donglan, a professor at Aichi Prefectural University in Japan, published a paper entitled "Space as a Metaphor: The Concepts of "Oriental", "East Asia" and "Eastern Eurasia" in Japanese Historical Research" in the Shanghai Academic Monthly. As mentioned earlier, the concept of "Oriental" scholarship was exploited by militarism during World War II. The return of the academic concept of "East Asia" proposed after World War II to China-centricity also has the political purpose of correcting deviations. The new academic concept of "East Eurasia" is not China-centric, but also has political connotations running through it. He asked about the background of the Japanese Cabinet's October 2015 public opinion survey (80.7% of the public did not have a favorable opinion of China, and only 18.1% had a favorable opinion). On the other hand, 83.1% have a favorable opinion of the United States, while only 15.8% have a disfavorable opinion.) He said, "In recent years, as the study of 'East Asia' has been heating up in Japanese historiography, some people have predicted that the concept of 'East Asia' will become ineffective in the field of history. "This may not be an overstatement!
Yasumin Suzuki, "Ancient Japanese と東アジア―人とモノのCommunication History"
Fourth, from the perspective of "transfiguration" to look at Eurasian cultural identity
China News Service (CNS) Beijing, on December 13, 2022, conducted an exclusive interview with me on the theme of "Can Chinese Characters Move from the 'Chinese Character Cultural Circle' to the 'Global Village'?" In my opinion, the first thing to do is to redefine the "Chinese character cultural circle". Secondly, it depends on the degree of recognition and acceptance of the "global village". Because, needless to say, we have to face the reality that in the current "Chinese character cultural circle", including Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao, except for the mainland and Singapore, traditional Chinese characters are used. As long as we truly cherish Chinese characters and maintain their pictographic and ideographic properties, it should not be far off for Chinese characters to move from the "Chinese character cultural circle" to the "global village".
Recognition and acceptance are particularly emphasized here, because the export of Chinese culture has inherent problems of identity and acceptance in neighboring countries. There have been two important changes in Japanese history – the Taika Reform in 645 and the Meiji Restoration in 1868. In the past, it has always been believed that Dahua reform is fully sinicized, and the Meiji Restoration is fully westernized. But this is not the case. Because any country has the problem of "localization" of foreign cultures. The so-called "nationalization" issue is essentially a question of "cultural identity". In 2002, in the article "Ancient Korean Written Culture and Japan", Lee Sung-shi put forward the theory of "transfiguration" in view of the process of spreading and receiving the written culture of ancient China, South Korea and Japan, which is expressed by a formula:
Chinese mainland (A) → Korean Peninsula (A′→B) → Japanese Islands (B′→C)
Li Chengshi explained: Written culture is the original state in Chinese mainland (A). When the Korean Peninsula becomes (A′→B), (A′) means the original state of Chinese culture, and (→B) means that the Korean Peninsula as a tolerant country is by no means a complete copy, but selectively absorbs and changes it. By analogy, the Japanese archipelago naturally became (B′→C) when it received Chinese writing culture from the Korean Peninsula.
Li Cheng City
It should be pointed out that Li Chengshi's "transfiguration" theory was originally aimed at the dissemination of simple culture in China, South Korea, and Japan. Since the Shang and Zhou dynasties, the mainstream Chinese writing carrier has been simple silk. China began to unearth bamboo and wood slips in 1900, and more than 300,000 pieces have been unearthed so far, and the time ended in the Western Jin Dynasty, that is, before 317 AD, and a long time after that was the transitional era of simple paper. More than 700 wooden tablets have been excavated in Korea since 1975, dating from the early 6th century to the 8th century. The Korean Peninsula is too cold to produce bamboo, so there are no bamboo slips. In 1928, about 335,000 wooden tablets were excavated in Japan, dating from the middle of the 7th century onwards. Japan is rich in bamboo, but there are no bamboo slips. In this way, in the period when there were few wooden tablets unearthed in Korea and had not yet attracted attention, there was a gap of three centuries between the beginning of Japanese wooden tablets and the end of Chinese wooden tablets, which not only made it difficult to connect the time, but also had differences in the shape of the bamboo slips, which became a problem. Therefore, there have been theories of local development of Japanese wooden tablets and the theory that Japanese wooden tablets were directly imported from China. After the excavation of Korean wooden tablets and attracted attention, scholars found that the beginning of Korean wooden tablets is between the end of Chinese wooden tablets and the beginning of Japanese wooden tablets. In addition, the seals, account books, registers, cargo labels, food labels, and wooden tablets of the Analects in Korean wooden tablets are different from those in China and similar to those in Japan. In addition, there are no bamboo slips in Japan, which is related to the fact that South Korea does not produce bamboo and does not have bamboo slips. In this way, China's Jianzhu culture, according to Li Chengshi's "transfiguration" theory, first spread to Korea and then to Japan, and then became a foregone conclusion.
Of course, Li Chengshi's theory of "transfiguration" has its limitations, and it cannot solve the entire problem of cultural dissemination. During the Middle Ages, China exported three large-scale cultures to Japan and Korea: the first was during the Sun and Wu periods of the Three Kingdoms. A large number of bronze mirrors and imitation bronze mirrors of the Sun Wu era have been unearthed in Japan.
The inscription of the first year of Huangwu is an anti-divine beast mirror
Chiwu seven-year opposing beast mirror
Sun Wu bronze mirror is introduced, imitation copper mirror is self-made. In addition, Japan also introduced the character "Wufu" and the name of the land mu "Machi". This time, China's metallurgy, clothing, land and other cultures were transmitted to Japan, and there is no sign that it passed through the Korean Peninsula, and it should have been transmitted directly to Japan by sea. The second time was during the reign of Emperor Wu of Liang in the Southern Dynasty. The Korean Peninsula introduced historical classics and a funeral system. The "town" of the Liang Dynasty was changed from the name of the field to the name of the street, and was introduced directly by sea for Japan. At the same time, the word "machi" spread to the Korean Peninsula, and "transfigured" became "dong". The third time began in the nineteenth year of Zhenguan of Taizong of the Tang Dynasty and the first year of Dahua in Japan (645). In addition to the large-scale introduction of the official system, the Ritsuryo system, and the city system, Japan also introduced the "Great Sumo" and changed the "Wu costume" to the "Tang costume". "Grand sumo" is now Japan's national sport. Many paintings of the Tang and Song dynasties (including Dunhuang murals) retain images of "sumo wrestling", and even the judge's hat worn by the referee is exactly the same as the hat worn by the "sumo" referee in Japan today. The "Grand Sumo" introduced by Japan has obviously not undergone any "disguise". Let's focus on the following examples.
Let's talk about "Wu Fu" first. There may be different opinions on whether the "Wu" in the "Wu Fu" refers to the Sun-Wu regime or the Sanwu region, but there is no doubt that it can be traced back to the Sun-Wu period of the Three Kingdoms. During the Nara period (710-784) in Japan, which corresponded to the Tang Dynasty in China, Japan introduced "Tang Fu", which was very popular, and the Emperor ordered the implementation of "Tang Fu" throughout the country, which became the clothing of the nobles, while the common people still used "Wu Fu". During the Edo period (1603-1868), the Tokugawa shogunate ordered that "kafu" be changed to "kimono". However, there are still many "Wufu stores" in many cities in Japan. This reflects the importance that Japan places on traditional culture. In addition, judging from the development trajectory of Wufu→ Tangfu → kimono, the three types of clothing are not the same, and there should be a factor of "disfigurement".
There are still a large number of "Wufu shops" in Japan
Let's talk about the word "town" again. I have worked for 25 years from 1998 when I participated in the sorting of "Changsha Zoumalou Three Kingdoms Wu Jian" to 2023. I have always been very interested in the frequent occurrence of the word "machi" in the first volume of the "Wu Jian of the Three Kingdoms of Changsha Zoumalou", "Jiahe Officials Mintian Jiazhu" (大木訂), and I have been thinking about how the meaning and usage of this "machi" have evolved and its impact on Japan and the Korean Peninsula. This is because the word "town" is mainly used in southern Chinese culture (see Figure 5). But it was rarely used before Sun Wu, and rarely after Sun Wu, so that many Chinese today do not know the word at all. However, in Japan, the word "machi" has been used as a street name for about 1,500 years, and it is simply "no one in the world knows you"!
"Wu Jian of the Three Kingdoms of Changsha Walking Horse Building"
Fig.5 Screenshot of the word "town" in "Jiahe Officials Mintian Jiazhu" (Damu Jian).
Here are four examples of "Jiahe Officials Mintian Jiazhu" (Da Mu Jian):
Lixiaqiu men's spine, Tsukuda three towns, where eighteen acres......
He Sheng, a man from the east hill, a town of Tsukuda, where nine acres......
Shixiaqiu man Zhu He, [佃] Tianjiu Town, where three acres ......
Lower Wuqiu man Hu bald, [tenant] Tian Twenty Town, where fifty-four acres ......
As you can see, dividing "×× mu" by "Tsukuda ×× town" shows that the area of each "town" is not the same size. Obviously, the meaning of "machi" is the same as the current "block", and Ichicho field means a "block" field. The "Cangjie Chapter" says that "town" is a "field area", that is, the division of acres of fields, and the meaning should be the same. "Machi" is used everywhere as a street name in Japan. The streets where books are bought and sold in Tokyo are called "Kandacho" and "Jimbocho". The word "town" in Japan should have been passed down from Sun Wu. There should be a process for the evolution of the town name from the name of the field to the town name of the street.
"Cangjie Chapter"
I believe that the town as a street name should have been transmitted to Japan from the Liang Dynasty. The Book of Han records that the southwest Yi has the country name Hook Town (also known as Sentence Town) and Mountain Name 盢 (xù) Town. However, the "town" here can only be regarded as a transliteration of the barbarian language, and cannot be counted as a real place name. The Book of Jin records that Feng Ba buried the old master Gao Yun in the sixth year of Yixi in the Eastern Jin Dynasty (410): "Liyun Temple is in Yun Town. Here, "Niracho" can be counted as a real place name. "Book of Song" records that in the same year, Liu Daogui broke Lu Xun's general Xun Lin: "chased him to Zhucho and beheaded him." "Takemachi" here is also a real place name. It can be seen that in the last years of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, the "town" of the name of the field has evolved into the "town" of the local place name. "Southern History, Thief Minister, Hou Jing Biography" said that Hou Jing was killed, and sent his head to Jiangling, Emperor Liang Yuan hated him deeply, and ordered people to use the well water next to the "Kuzhu Town" in the east of Li Jichang's house to consult the army, boil it, and store it in the arsenal. The "Kutake-cho" should be the name of the street in Gangneung Castle. The Japanese street name "Machi" was undoubtedly introduced from the Liang Dynasty.
The town is the name of the street in Japan, and in the Korean Peninsula, it is called "dong". On the south side of Pyongyang, North Korea, there is a Jeongbaek-dong on the side of Unification Street, where the simplified versions of the Analects and the Hukou Book of Lelang County of the Western Han Dynasty have been unearthed, and this area has been an urban area since the Han Dynasty. Phoenix Cave in Gimhae, South Korea, and Gyesan Cave in Incheon are famous as commercial districts. Myeongdong in Seoul is even more famous as one of Korea's most iconic shopping streets. The Chinese character "町" mainly has two sounds: dīnɡ and tīnɡ, while "dong" has two sounds, dònɡ and tónɡ, with the same initials and both of them belong to the initials, which is actually the transformation of one sound. I thought that the Korean Peninsula's change of "town" to "hole" was what Lee Sung-shi called "transfiguration," that is, selectively absorbing and changing it.
The "holes" of the Korean Peninsula are the "towns" of Japan
Finally, the focus is on the large-scale cultural export during the period of Emperor Wu of Liang in the Southern Dynasty. Because this large-scale cultural export is the most typical in Chinese history. Not only because the "East Asian World Theory" proposed by Nishijima Dingsheng and the "Eurasian Eastern World Theory" proposed by Suzuki Yasumin are both based on Emperor Liang Yuan's "Gonggong Tu", and Liang Yuan Emperor Xiao Yi is the seventh son of Liang Wu Emperor Xiao Yan, but also because Liang Wu Emperor is different from all the founding emperors of the Northern and Southern Dynasties, they are all born in the army, only Liang Wu Emperor "is born from all beings", that is, Confucianism. The Book of Sui and the Chronicles of the Sui Dynasty recorded that Emperor Wu of Liang wrote nearly 30 kinds and hundreds of volumes of various works such as the "Five Classics". He is also proficient in Buddhism and Taoism. The emperor who combines the three religions not only did not exist at that time, but also rarely matched in ancient and modern times. At that time, the north and the south were facing each other, and the nomads in the north were strong and strong, and it was difficult for the south to compete with the north in terms of force. The north and the south compete for orthodoxy, the south calls the north Suolu, and the north calls the south the island, in fact, they are like child's play, and they are not worth a damn. The only thing that the South can compete with the North is cultural orthodoxy. At the same time, only Emperor Wu of Liang can take the lead and claim to be culturally orthodox. Recruiting the four yi, exporting culture, declaring righteousness, and expanding influence are the signs of cultural orthodoxy.
Sui Book Chronicles
During the reign of Emperor Wu of Liang, there was close official communication with the Korean Peninsula. Although there was no official communication with Japan during the same period, that is, the Wa State did not send tribute to Emperor Wu of Liang, since Emperor Liang Yuan's "Gonggong Tu" has images and inscriptions of the envoys of the Wa Kingdom, it cannot be denied that there was extensive civil communication between the Liang and the Wa. At that time, there were two private routes between Liang and Wa: one by sea from Jiankang to Japan, and the other by sea from Jiankang to Japan via Baekje and Silla. On the Korean Peninsula, Goguryeo sent the most frequent envoys to Liang, as many as seven or eight times. Zhang Geng's facsimile of the "Zhufan Gongtu" Gaoju Liguo inscription specifically mentions: "When he came to China, he sought more scripture and history." "The two kings of Baekje, Yu Long and Yu Ming, had the closest relationship with Liang. "The Biography of Liangshu, Zhuyi, and Baekje" records that in the second year of the ordinary year (521), Yu Long sent an envoy to pay tribute, and Emperor Wu of Liang named him "the envoy of the festival, the capital governor of the Baekje military, the general of Ningdong, and the king of Baekje"; Yu Ming "sent envoys to donate things, and invited Jingyi such as "Nirvana", Dr. "Mao's Poems", craftsmen, painters, etc., to give them together." At that time, Baekje was built as the capital of Woongjin (present-day Gongju-gun, South Korea). Since 1971, South Korea has excavated the tombs of King Muryeong (i.e., King Yu Long of Baekje in the Book of Liang) and King Segmyung (King Yu Ming of Baekje in the Book of Liang), and found that the architectural forms are all in the so-called "Jiankang model", and the unearthed cultural relics and murals are also in the Liang system.
There are many Chinese character cultural relics unearthed from the tomb of King Wuning in Baekje, including the epitaph of King Wuning himself, the epitaph of the princess, and the land purchase voucher of King Wuning himself. The full text of the epitaph of King Wuning is 6 lines and 52 characters, all of which are Chinese characters, and the regular script is as follows:
Ningdong General Bajes|Ma Wang, sixty-two years old, 癸|卯年 (523) May Bingxu Shuo 7|日壬辰collapse , to the second year of August of the second year of Jiashen, Ancuo|Dengguan tomb, determined to be as left.
Wuning King (Yu Long) Mausoleum unearthed Chinese character cultural relics
It can be seen that the epitaph of Baekje at that time was no different from the epitaph of the Liang Dynasty.
Statue of Emperor Wu of Liang
The tomb of King Shengming of Baekje has unearthed many Chinese character tomb bricks. Among them, there are two Chinese character tomb bricks: the front is the cursive script "Liang Guanwa is the teacher" six characters, and the back is the regular script "This is the construction of the industry people" seven characters. The tomb is painted with murals such as the "Four Gods" (Green Dragon, White Tiger, Vermilion Bird, and Xuanwu). Since there are no murals in the tomb of King Wuning (Yu Long), it can be seen that Yu Ming (King Shengming) sent an envoy to Liang to invite "craftsmen, painters, etc.", and Emperor Wu of Liang "gave it", which belongs to the actual record. This is the "craftsman and painter" that Yu Ming specially sent to Emperor Wu of Liang to ask for in order to repair the tomb for himself. It can be seen that the funeral culture of Baekje at that time basically came from the Liang Dynasty.
Emperor Wu of Liang recruited Siyi and exported culture, which was unprecedented and had a great impact. "The Book of Liang: The Biography of Zhuyi" contains Shi Chen's commentary: "Gaozu (that is, Emperor Wu of Liang) cherished it with virtue, so the tribute is old and beautiful. "De" means "Wende", as mentioned above. "The Book of Northern Qi Du Bi" records that Gao Huan, the founder of the Northern Qi Dynasty, said: "There is an old man Xiao Yan in Jiangdong, who specializes in clothing and etiquette, and the doctors of the Central Plains think that Zhengshuo is located. "Dress and etiquette" is institutional culture, and "Zhengshuo" is "orthodoxy". Doctors of the Northern Qi Dynasty believed that the institutional culture of the Liang Dynasty was the orthodoxy of China. In fact, the countries surrounding the Liang Dynasty all think so.
Book of Liang
epilogue
Cultural export and cultural identity go both ways. Chinese culture flourished in the Western Zhou Dynasty and the Han and Tang dynasties, and it was undoubtedly the most advanced culture in the world at that time. Because whether it was the "East Asian world" or the "eastern Eurasian world", except for China, it was still in a wild state at that time. China is willing to export culture, and Eurasia is willing to identify with and accept this culture, and the result is naturally a win-win situation. Even so, the receiving party has the power to identify with it according to their own culture. What needs to be emphasized here is "cultural identity", not "power identity". Buddhism was introduced to China, without a king or father, and without children and grandchildren, which was too different from Chinese culture to be tolerated. And the three martial arts and one sect (Emperor Taiwu of the Northern Wei Dynasty, Emperor Wu of the Northern Zhou Dynasty, Emperor Wuzong of the Tang Dynasty, and Shizong of the Later Zhou Dynasty) rose up to destroy the Buddha, but it was in vain. Later, Zen Buddhism and "human Buddhism" appeared, which was the result of the run-in between Chinese culture and Buddhism, and it can also be said to be the result of the "sinicization" of Buddhism. Japanese Buddhism was introduced from China, but Japanese monks could eat meat to get married. This is the result of the run-in between Japanese culture and Buddhism, and it can also be said to be the result of the "Japaneseization" of Buddhism. This is an issue that should be paid attention to in the study of cultural output and cultural identity.
Editor's note: This article is a transcript of the series of academic lectures on "Mutual Learning among Civilizations: China and the World" delivered by the author at the Institute of International Communication of Chinese Culture at Beijing University of Foreign Chinese on October 12, 2023, and has been reviewed by the author.
[Originally published in International Confucianism, Issue 1, 2024, by Wang Su, The Palace Museum, "Ancient Characters and Chinese Civilization Inheritance and Development Project" Collaborative Research and Innovation Platform; Organizer: Zhang Lezhi, Institute of Foreign Literature, Beijing University of Foreign Chinese]