Preface
There are 18 famous generals enshrined in the Vietnamese martial arts temple, but what is puzzling is that among the 18 generals, only six are Vietnamese generals, and the remaining 12 are all from China. What are the names of these generals?
The enigmatic Vietnamese emperor of the Tang Dynasty
The Wu Temple was built in the Tang Xuanzong period, and was originally called the Wucheng Temple, which was mainly established to worship the famous generals of the past dynasties, so as to encourage the military generals to serve the country more wholeheartedly.
In order to show the magnanimity of the Tang Dynasty, he invited the generals who had made immortal military exploits in the previous dynasty into the martial arts temple, such as Jiang Ziya and Zhang Liang.
Of course, not all generals are eligible to enter the martial temple, and only those who meet the standards of "loyalty, filial piety, martial arts, benevolence, and wisdom" can be selected. However, with the change of dynasties, the standards for entering the martial arts temple are different, so the people are different.
Influenced by Chinese culture, many neighboring countries have also developed their own martial temple culture, such as Vietnam. Of the 18 famous generals enshrined in Vietnam, only 6 are from their own country, and the remaining 12 are from China.
The Vietnamese Vu Temple was established in 1835, when the dynasty of Vietnam was the Nguyen Dynasty and the emperor was Emperor Minh Minh. This emperor admired the excellent culture of the Tang Dynasty very much, so under the influence of the martial temple culture of the Tang Dynasty, Emperor Ming Ming also established a martial temple in Vietnam.
After the establishment of the Wu Temple, who is the military general enshrined in the temple has become the biggest problem, the Ming Emperor thought about it, in order to emulate the Tang Dynasty and curry favor with the Qing Dynasty emperor, he put the tablets of 12 Chinese famous generals into the Wu Temple, namely: Guan Zhong, Tian Sui Tho, Han Xin, Li Jing, Guo Ziyi, Zhuge Kongming, Li Sheng, Yue Fei, Han Xin, Xu Da, Sun Wu and Jiang Ziya.
These generals all knew each other at a glance, but Tian Sui Tho and Li Sheng were a little strange.
Tian Sui Tho is also Sima Sui Tho, a person in the Spring and Autumn Period, the evaluation of this person is that his military talent is comparable to Jiang Ziya, which shows that this person's ability is strong.
Li Sheng is a famous general of the Tang Dynasty, known as "ten thousand enemies", he has repeatedly made miraculous achievements in the conquest of Tibet, and has made great contributions to the recovery of Chang'an and the pacification of wars.
However, their martial arts temple in the Ruan Dynasty is only dedicated to Chinese military generals, which is a bit inappropriate, so they should always worship some of their own people. Therefore, Emperor Ming Ming selected six Vietnamese generals to be enshrined. It can be seen from the setting of this main god that Emperor Ming Ming did worship the culture of the Tang Dynasty, because the Vietnamese martial arts temple also has Jiang Taigong as the main god, almost completely copying the Tang Dynasty martial arts temple model.
Regarding the layout of the Wu Temple and the practice of worshipping Chinese military generals, Emperor Ming Ming's explanation is that they are descendants of the Chinese nation, so they respect Chinese culture and their ancestors.
Even in order to let the Vietnamese subjects understand the achievements of these Chinese generals, Emperor Ming Ming continued to collect their stories and vigorously publicize them, and over time, the Vietnamese people worshipped these famous generals from the bottom of their hearts.
The origin of Sino-Vietnamese relations
Speaking of Vietnam, the relationship between Vietnam and China is also very long, dating back to ancient times.
At that time, the name of Vietnam was "Jiaozhi", and there is a story in ancient Chinese books about Shennong tasting a hundred herbs and reaching Jiaozhi in the south.
After the establishment of the Qin Dynasty, Jiaozhi became a county under the Qin Dynasty, and at this time Jiaozhi was already included in the Central Plains regime. Before becoming a county of the Qin Dynasty, Jiaozhi belonged to a matrilineal clan society, and it was not until it was incorporated into the Central Plains regime that the local tribes were civilized.
After being subsumed into the territory of Qin, Qin Shi Huang naturally had to manage this place, so he specially ordered Zhao Tuo to take people to Jiaozhi to guard it.
It's just that the situation on the mainland is constantly changing, and the dynasties are updating and iterating quickly, so Cochin is also affected by the situation on the mainland, and it is constantly changing.
In the last years of the Qin Dynasty, rebels broke out in various places, and Zhao Tuo was one of them, and he successfully broke away from the Qin Dynasty and established the Nanyue State, occupying the mainland and the territory of present-day Vietnam.
By the time of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, the political situation of the country tended to be stable, and Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty sent troops to exterminate the Nanyue Kingdom and take back the Liangguang region and Vietnam.
It can be said that from the beginning of the Qin Dynasty to the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, South Vietnam has always been the territory of our country, although they have also rebelled many times in the middle, but they have never been separated.
However, from the end of the Tang Dynasty, the land of China fell into a long period of turmoil, and the Nanyue Kingdom seemed to have found an opportunity to "stand on its own".
The chaos of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms was chaotic, and it was from this time that South Vietnam successfully established the Wu Dynasty after launching a rebellion. Later, the power of South Vietnam was gradually annexed by the rebel army led by Ding Bu, and the Dinh Dynasty was established, and South Vietnam was completely separated.
During the Song Dynasty, Song Taizu wanted to take advantage of the civil strife in South Vietnam to recover them, but by the time he led his troops to fight them, South Vietnam had already completed the reform and established the former Li Dynasty, so the Song Dynasty ended in failure.
From then on, the Song Dynasty was no longer able to recover South Vietnam, and could only recognize the independence of South Vietnam.
However, South Vietnam, which had just broken away, was very weak in all aspects and its territory was not large, so in order to prevent it from being destroyed, it could only continue to rely on our country. Therefore, from the Song Dynasty to the Qing Dynasty, South Vietnam has always existed as our vassal state.
But in the middle, there was also a small episode, during the Ming Chengzu period, there was a civil strife in South Vietnam, and Ming Chengzu took advantage of South Vietnam's self-care, sent troops to suppress it, encircled and suppressed, and successfully recovered South Vietnam. This is called "taking advantage of his illness to kill him".
However, this reign was short-lived, and in 1428, Vietnam once again broke free from the rule of the Ming Dynasty and achieved independence.
Although Vietnam has become independent, but the relationship with China has not completely broken down, in the Ming Dynasty, Vietnam turmoil, had asked Zhu Yuanzhang for help, Zhu Yuanzhang also generously sent Yunnan Wang Muying, led a large army to help the Vietnamese king rehabilitate.
During the Qing Dynasty, Vietnam also came to pay tribute to the Qing Dynasty several times, so the two countries have maintained good diplomatic relations. Even the name "Vietnam" was given by Emperor Jiaqing of the Qing Dynasty.
At that time, the new emperor of the Nguyen Dynasty in Vietnam came to the throne and proposed to change the name of the country to South Vietnam, as a vassal state of China, they had no right to change the name of the country themselves, so this matter was rejected by Emperor Jiaqing.
Seeing that Emperor Jiaqing disagreed, the new emperor thought that he might be a little dissatisfied, so he asked Emperor Jiaqing to take a name that he was satisfied with as their new country name.
Emperor Jiaqing thought about it, but he didn't bother to think too complicated, so he directly turned the word "South Vietnam" upside down and called it "Vietnam". The Emperor of the Nguyen Dynasty gladly accepted it, so the name Vietnam has been used to this day.
Although Vietnam has always wanted to form its own culture, it has been influenced by Chinese culture for thousands of years, and it is not something that can be changed overnight, so even if you go to Vietnam now, you will find that their architectural style is very similar to our country.
Even culturally, there are shadows of Han culture, for example, Vietnam borrowed from the imperial examination system of the Ming and Qing dynasties.
In 1807, the Ruan Dynasty also began to select talents in the country in the form of scientific examinations, and the content of the examination also appeared based on the Song Dynasty Cheng Zhu Lixue related test questions. Even the imperial examination genre and literary examination of the Nguyen Dynasty were consistent with those of the Qing Dynasty. It can be said that Vietnam has always imitated China's statecraft and culture.
epilogue
If you go up a few generations, you will find that the ancestors of the Vietnamese people have Chinese blood flowing in their bodies, so it is not surprising that two-thirds of the Chinese generals are enshrined in the Vietnamese martial arts temple.
However, the two countries with such a relationship, and even those who claim to be descendants of the Chinese nation, what they did afterwards can be called forgetting their ancestors.