Everyone knows that Xia Chaoyao, Shun, and Yu all practiced the Zen concession system during their reigns, and when Yu passed on the throne, it became a hereditary system. This is also the transformation from the public world to the family world, and this change is of great significance.
Due to the early Xia Dynasty, there were still some traces of primitive society at that time, so in this context, how was the consciousness of royal power formed among the people? How did the people achieve their "loyalty" to the king?
The establishment of the Xia Dynasty and the emergence of the hereditary system
To study the history of the Xia Dynasty, we must first clarify the beginning and end times of the Xia Dynasty. The traditional view in academic circles is that the Xia Dynasty lasted from the 21st century BC to the 16th century BC. Due to the long history and the limited documents and archaeological evidence, the beginning and end time of the Xia Dynasty is only an estimate, and even the lineage of the Xia Dynasty is very controversial.
Since this article is not a special study of the history of the Xia Dynasty, these issues will not be discussed. However, it is still very necessary to explore the question of the founder of the Xia Dynasty, that is, who was the first monarch of the Xia Dynasty, which is crucial to the germination of the concept of loyalty.
It is generally believed that the first monarch of the Xia Dynasty was Yu. The basis is that the successor after Yu is his son Qi, the so-called Yu passed on the son Qi, opened the "world for the family" monarchy hereditary system, after that, "the adult world and as a courtesy", this kind of father and son succession, brother and brother and the hereditary system has been established since then. Therefore, as the Xia Dynasty as the first class state in the history of the mainland, its first king was Yu, and then Qi, and people are also used to calling Yu Xia Yu. Another view is that Yu did not actually pass on the throne to his son Qi, but Chan gave it to Yi, the so-called "Yigan Qi, Qi killing" ("Jin Shu Hui Biography").
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This view has existed since ancient times, such as Qu Yuan once said: "After the enlightenment of the generations." (Qu Yuan's "Tianwen") "Han Feizi and the Foreign Prince Said the Lower Right" also said: "The death of the ancients will spread the benefits of the world, and the enlightened people will be enlightened because of the appearance and the benefits." Regarding this statement, Sima Qian's "Historical Records of Xia Benji" can corroborate. Due to the lack of historical materials, as well as the contradictions and contradictions in the records of the handed down documents, if there are no new unearthed documents and archaeological excavations to prove it, it is difficult to prove whether Yu passed the throne to Ziqi or Chan to give benefits only by relying on the existing heirloom documents with different statements. But there is no doubt that Yu is an important figure in the transition from the Zen concession system of the primitive society to the hereditary system of the class society.
On the one hand, in terms of form, Yu should have followed the traditional Zen custom to designate the heir benefit, but he did not perform the real Zen concession procedure like Yao to Shun and Shun to Yu - to confer the middle of the Zhizhong, that is to say, Yu only made it clear that the benefit was the heir during his lifetime, but he did not advance the Zen position like Yao and Shun, and granted the benefit through formal ceremonies to the scepter "Zhong", which represents the "Mandate of Heaven" and the supreme leader, and did not carry out Zen concession admonitions, such as "the number of the calendar of the sky is in Erbow, and the number of the heavenly calendar is in the middle of the execution". On the other hand, Yu supported or acquiesced in his son Qi to strengthen the power of his own tribal clan, causing him to become the Son of Heaven after his death.
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Whether it was Qi who directly inherited Yu's position, or Qi who defeated Yi by violent means and became the supreme leader, in short, Qi has always been hereditary in the family after establishing the Xia regime. This hereditary method is sometimes the succession of the father to the son, and sometimes the brother to the brother, but it has not separated from the imperial bloodline of the Xia Hou clan (although there was a brief episode in the middle of Taikang losing the country, Hou Yi and Han Xun usurping the throne one after another). The traditional view is that the Xia dynasty established the first slave state in Chinese history and was the beginning of a hereditary monarchy in China. Although the Xia Dynasty had established a hereditary monarchy, because it had just emerged from the primitive society, its monarchy was still different from the monarchy of later generations, and it retained many simple and wild characteristics.
The Pu Zhong characteristics of Xia Daizhong's concept
Treating ghosts and gods, the Xia people are respectful and sacrificial, but they are respectful and far away; For people, it emphasizes "being close to others and being loyal". In other words, the Xia Dynasty did not abandon the primitive culture of sacrificing ghosts and gods, and was full of reverence for ghosts and gods, but the focus of the Xia Dynasty rulers was "people", and "close to people and loyal".
The interpretation of this sentence in the "Book of Rites and Justice" is "The temple is outside, and it is far away ghosts and gods; The imperial court is also a neighbor; To support the people with loyalty and forgiveness is to be loyal." The political culture of the Xia Dynasty was "first Lu and then prestige, first reward and then punishment" ("The Book of Rites and Records"), and the so-called "use your life, reward the society; Don't die, kill the ancestors" is the embodiment of the Xia people's first Lu and then prestige, first reward and then punishment. The Song and Yuan Dynasty physicist Chen Lan explained this political culture as a loyal trait in the "Collection of Rites", saying:
"First Lu and then Wei, first reward and then punishment, all of which are loyal and touching. Although the people know their relatives, they are not loyal to the king, so they are said to be close but not respectful. ”
These are all Confucian philolytics' concept of loyalty and virtue in the future generations to think about the loyalty of the Xia Dynasty. Chen Lan's "Collection of Rites" mentioned loyalty is not the meaning of loyalty, which is correct, but he is only half right, that is, he still insists that loyalty is "the meaning of loyalty and touching people", which is the same as Kong Yingda's so-called "loyalty and forgiveness to the people" in "The Book of Rites and Justice", which regards loyalty as loyalty and forgiveness.
However, the first half of Confucius's sentence is for the ruling class, and it talks about the strategy of governance, namely:
The second half of the sentence:
It is talking about the ruled class, and talking about folk customs. The so-called "close to the people and loyal" means that the ruling class attaches importance to the people, and the reason why the ruling class attaches importance to the people is because the mandate of heaven is here, that is, "the people are born to be popular", and both the way of heaven and the mandate of heaven regard the people as the focus and center, and the so-called "heaven sees itself as the people, and the sky listens to itself and the people listen", "the sky is smart and the people are smart, and the sky is afraid of the people and the people".
Therefore, the Xia Dynasty's culture of respecting life must practice the concept of heaven and loving the people, and the "loyalty" of "being close to people and being loyal" here actually expresses the "loyalty" of "thinking about benefiting the people". In "Zuo Chuan: The Sixth Year of Huan Gong", Sui Guo Ji Liang said: "The so-called Tao is loyal to the people and believes in God. Thinking about the people, loyalty. I wish history is right, and I believe in it. Because "the people, the Lord of God, are the people first made by the holy king, and then devoted to God," "loyalty to the people" is superior to "faith in God" in the order of government, and loyalty to man and faith in God are one and the same.
As mentioned above, Zhong and Zhongtong, Meng Wentong also explained the Tao, Zhong and Life, therefore, it can be seen that the "Xia Dao" of "respecting the life" of respecting ghosts and gods and staying away from people and being close to people is actually the "Dao" that Ji Liang said, which is "loyal to the people and believing in God", and the loyalty of Xia Dao in "The Book of Rites and Tables" is not Kong Yingda's "loyalty", nor Chen Lan's "loyalty", but undoubtedly the loyalty of "Shangsi benefiting the people".
Regarding the folk customs of the Xia Dynasty, the "Book of Rites and Records" is summarized as "the people of the people, stupid and stupid, Qiao and wild, simple but not literate", and it also said: "The quality of Yu Xia, the text of Yin Zhou, is the best." It means that the people of the Xia Dynasty are simple, not literary, and practical, and its people are stupid and stupid, and Qiao is wild. The so-called "stupid and stupid" refers to ignorance, and "Qiao and wild" refers to barbarism, indicating that the Xia Dynasty has just entered the threshold of civilized society from ignorance and barbarism, so it still retains the primitive folk customs of ignorance and barbarism to varying degrees.
Its characteristics of "proximity but not respect" are actually the characteristics of the blood clan organization, so the ancients believed that "stupidity, pride, contempt, and simplicity are all loyal to the last stream". This understanding is the consensus of the so-called "Xia Shangzhong" in the Han Dynasty, such as "Xia Shangzhong, Yin Shangjing, Zhou Shangwen" ("Hanshu Dong Zhongshu Biography"). "White Tiger Pass" further analyzes the characteristics of three generations of culture, saying:
The "stupid and stupid" and "Qiao and Ye" in "The Book of Rites and Tables" are the so-called "Ye Zhong" of "White Tiger Pass". Therefore, the characteristics of the folk moral culture of the Xia Dynasty can be summed up as a kind of simplicity, straightforwardness, sincerity, and loyalty that coexists with barbarism and ignorance.
Straightness, quality and simplicity constitute the basic elements of the folk concept of loyalty in the Xia Dynasty. In later generations, Zhongde derived the meaning of Pu Zhong and Zhongzhi, in fact, its source lies in the folk customs and moral customs of the Xia Dynasty. In fact, this style of loyalty and straightness was formed as early as the period of Kun. Qu Yuan said in "Lisao": "Kun Wan died in the end, and finally died in the field of feathers." In "Nine Chapters: Cherish Recitation", Qu Yuan Yiyun: "The line is straightforward but not hesitant, and the function is not enough." ”
Both of these Chu Ci mention the ancestor of the Xia people, and both summarize the character of Kun as "straight". It is worth noting that in Qu Yuan's "Nine Chapters: Cherishing Recitation" in which he sang the praises of Kunzhi's "straightforwardness" and self-condition, he mentioned loyalty many times, such as "The loyalty of what is done refers to the heavens as righteousness", "Thinking of the monarch and my loyalty, and forgetting the poverty of the body", "Dedication to loyalty to the king, but detachment and wart", "I heard that I was loyal to create grievances, and I suddenly said that it was too much", "What is loyal to be punished is not the will of the rest of the heart" and so on.
Some scholars pointed out that Qu Yuan regarded Kun as a pioneer of "fulfilling loyalty and straightness, and never turning back", and his main purpose in praising Kun's "straightness" was to "compare himself with himself"; In other words, Qu Yuan believes that he is the same as Kun, and he adheres to the "loyal" path. Qu Yuan's praise of Kun's "straightforwardness" is actually a praise of the moral realm of "loyalty".
Although this analysis is not unreasonable, Qu Yuan was a Warring States person after all, and his extensive use of the word Zhongzhi and his praise of Kunzhi's "Zhizhi" only represent the concept of people during the Warring States Period, and cannot be used as direct evidence of the existence of loyalty in the Xia Dynasty and even earlier in the Five Emperors era. However, the style of loyalty and simplicity is very obvious in Kun, and this characteristics of loyalty and simplicity may be the root cause of the tragedy of Kun's life. Because of this character, when he was ordered to control the flood, he adopted the method of barbaric and brutal blocking and destroying the five elements of nature, that is, "the flood of the cang, the five elements of the flood".
This method of destroying nature will inevitably be retaliated by nature, that is, the so-called "Emperor Nai's Fury", and even "not the 'Hongfan' Nine Domains, Yi Lunyou" ("Shangshu Hongfan"). As mentioned earlier, an important part of Hong Fan is to establish the imperial level, that is, to build in the middle. The Emperor of Heaven did not give Kun the title of Hong Fan Jiuchou, in fact, he blocked the path for Kun to become the head of the tribal alliance that established the people.
But in any case, Qu Yuan's praise of Kun's "straightforward" personality is probably not speculation, but should be based on the recollection and inheritance of the Xia Dynasty's folk customs and loyalty. On the whole, the loyalty of "Xia Shangzhong" has multiple cultural meanings. The first meaning is that from the characteristics of the Xia Dynasty's "respect for life" culture, life is the mandate of heaven. When the Xia Dynasty was founded, it had just been born out of the primitive society, so it was still wary of and worshiping mysterious powers, so the political beliefs of the Xia Dynasty were mainly to respect the destiny of the primitive society "Shangzhong".
The second meaning is the loyalty of "being loyal to the people" derived from the concept of "being loyal to the people" under the concept of "blessing the people", which is the so-called "close to the people and loyal" in the "Book of Rites and Tables". The third meaning concentrates on the "stupid and stupid" and "Qiao and wild" Pu Zhong and loyalty. Objectively speaking, as the first class social country established in the history of the mainland, the Xia Dynasty's code system was in its infancy, and its social and moral system was not as complete and sound as that of the Zhou Dynasty.
In the above-mentioned triple meaning, the concept of "Xia Dao respects the destiny" of the Shangzhong Heavenly Mandate, the ruling concept of "loyalty to the people", and the folk customs of simplicity and frankness, although I dare not say that they have all appeared, they should be at least partially embodied. This is also in line with the characteristics of the evolution and transition from primitive social customs and moral consciousness to moral concepts in the Xia Dynasty, and is in line with the basic judgments made by scholars in the pre-Qin and Han dynasties on the culture of the Xia Dynasty, such as "the Xia King teaches people to be loyal", "Xia Zheng is still loyal", "Xia Shangzhong" and "Xia Shangzhong".
In addition, the emergence of morality also needs to be based on social material and production relations. As long as one enters a class society, it must be a hierarchical society, and a hierarchical society will inevitably require allegiance to superiors. Although it is not clear from the handed down documents whether there was a similar concept of loyalty to the monarch in the Xia Dynasty, some characteristics of the hierarchy system have become more and more prominent in the Xia Dynasty, and the sense of hierarchy and royal power has emerged. "Historical Records, Feng Zen Book" contains: "Yu collects the gold of Jiumu and casts Jiuding. Jiuding has always been a symbol of royal power and hierarchy, if the record of the "Historical Records" is true, it shows that Yu's period of royal power consciousness has been quite prominent.
Underground archaeological excavations have also repeatedly proved that the Xia Dynasty hierarchy began to sprout. More than 300 pieces of jade have been unearthed in the Erlitou site, which represents the cultural relics of the Xia Dynasty, and a considerable part of them are ritual vessels, such as jade cong, jade gui, jade zhang, jade bi, etc., as well as jade Yue symbolizing royal power, and even jade huang, jade pendant and other ornaments, and even unearthed a large number of turquoise pieces as inlaid ornaments. In the tombs of higher specifications of this period, a combination of different materials such as jue and zhu was also found, which shows that in the use of ritual vessels, a hierarchical system of distinction between the noble and the inferior has been formed.
Although the Xia Li, which was based on primitive religious beliefs, was still in its infancy, it participated in the creation of the ideology of royal power at that time, providing an effective form for the king to grasp collective power. In short, "the Xia dynasty had metal, jade, and other artistic ritual objects, as well as practical social organization and effective religious-cultural significance, and the sum of them constituted a cultural force according to which the Xia dynasty's royal power controlled all aspects of the state."
Through the analysis of the hand-me-down documents, some scholars have also confirmed the characteristics of the sense of kingship and the autocracy contained in the Xia culture in archaeological discoveries, that is, "(the Xia Dynasty) made the 'order of respecting heaven' in the primitive era be transformed into the 'order of honoring the king' after the emergence of the state, so that the autocratic royal power can also have irresistible dominating power such as natural laws." Since the ideology of royal power has emerged, and the hierarchy has also emerged, then the concept of loyalty to the supreme chief under the hierarchy has the soil for growth.