"Jade can be broken but not white, and bamboo can be burned without destroying its knots." - Guan Yu
When it comes to Martial Saints, many people will think of Guan Yu, guan Yu, as a famous general of the Shu Han Dynasty in the late Han Dynasty, had excellent military talent. However, there are also some people who think that Yue Fei is a real martial saint.
So which of these two people is more qualified to be a martial saint? Let's take a brief chat about Guan Yu and Yue Fei to see what exactly is the context of Wu Sheng.
Guanyue Temple
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="3" > Guan Yu</h1>
Guan Yu (Chinese: 关羽), courtesy name Yunchang, fled his hometown in his early years for committing crimes, and was mainly active in the area around Zhuo County, Youzhou. By 184 AD, the Yellow Turban Rebellion had broken out, and Liu Bei had organized a volunteer army in Zhuo County.
At Liu Bei's invitation, both Guan Yu and Zhang Fei joined the volunteer army. Whenever Liu Had an event to attend, Guan Yu and Zhang Fei would follow him.
Kaba Images
In 200 AD, Cao Cao marched east, Guan Yu was captured, after which he followed Cao Cao to meet Yuan Shaojun at Guandu, because of his outstanding military achievements, he was given the title of Marquis of Hanshouting, and not long after that, Guan Yu bid farewell to Cao Cao and returned to Liu Bei's camp.
In 208, because Jingzhou was occupied by Cao Cao, Liu Bei led Guan Yu and others to flee south to Xiakou, and later Cao Cao was defeated at Chibi, Liu Bei took the opportunity to retake the counties of Jiangnan, and he ordered Guan Yu to go to Jingzhou to defend the town.
Guan Yu stills
In 215, Guan Yu led his troops to confront Sun Quan, and later because of Cao Cao's intervention, Sun Quan and Liu Bei quickly reconciled, and then carried out the famous Xiangshui demarcation.
Thereafter, Guan Yu kept to the agreement on the demarcation of the Xiangshui River until 219 AD, when Guan Yu defeated Maicheng and was captured and killed by the Wu army with his son Guan Ping, and pursued The Marquis of Zhuangmiao, ending his life as a horseman.
After Guan Yu's death, the people honored him as "Guan Gong", but his first entry into the Wu Temple was during the Tang Dezong period, and the number of famous generals who were put into the Wu Temple at this stage was quite large, so Guan Yu's status was not so high.
Later, in the early years of the Song Dynasty, the famous generals enshrined in the Wu Temple changed, and 23 famous generals, including Guan Yu, were taken out. During the reign of Emperor Huizong of Song, Guan Yu, who had been removed, and some other famous generals were added to the Wu Temple.
Statue of Guan Yu in the Guan Yu Temple
Of course, the status of Guan Yu in this period is not too high, only in the third gear of the famous general. Later, the Northern Song Dynasty fell, and during the Southern Song Dynasty and the Yuan Dynasty, Guan Yu was sealed several times.
By the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, because the WuMiao Temple was abolished, Guan Yu and other famous generals were no longer uniformly enshrined. However, this situation did not last long, because during the Ming Dynasty, the Ming Court rebuilt the Wu Temple.
Statue of Guan Yu
And in this re-cultivation, Guan Yu was directly crowned as the "Three Realms Voldemort Emperor Shenwei Yuanzhen Tianzun Guan Sheng Emperor", and also became the main priest of the Wu Temple. That is to say, from the Beginning of the Ming Dynasty's Wanli Dynasty, Guan Yu became known as the Martial Saint of the People.
Later, with the establishment of the Qing Dynasty, people's admiration for Guan Yu was further improved, and the Yongzheng Emperor also officially posthumously named Guan Yu a martial saint in 1730, and since then, Guan Yu has become the official stamped "martial saint".
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="16" > Yue Fei</h1>
Yue Fei (岳飞), courtesy name Pengju, was a famous anti-Jin general during the Southern Song Dynasty and the head of the "Four Generals of Zhongxing" in the Southern Song Dynasty. Yue Fei has been carefully educated by his mother since he was a child, and he has served in the army four times since the year of the weak crown.
In 1126, Yue Fei's mother, in order to encourage her son, stabbed him on the back to "repay the country with all loyalty" (written in later speeches as "Jing loyal to the country"). Since then, Yue Fei has been active on the anti-Jin front for a long time.
Mother-in-law tattoo drawing
From 1128 AD until the end of 1141 AD, Yue Fei participated in and commanded hundreds of large and small battles, causing a very serious psychological shadow on the Jin army.
During this period, Yue Fei recovered Jiankang, the Six Counties of Xiangyang, Shangzhou, Yuzhou, Zhengzhou, and Luoyang, but when he reached Zhuxian Town, he was forced to take over because of qin juniper and the twelve "golden tablets" of Emperor Gaozong of Song.
Yue Fei stills
In January 1142, Qin Ju and others killed Yue Fei, Yue Yun, and Zhang Xian together on trumped-up charges. After the death of the three men, their family property was confiscated, and their families were sent to Guangnan, Fujian Luzhou, and military custody.
For Yue Fei's death, the people of the Southern Song Dynasty were very sad. Later, it was not until 1155 AD that Emperor Xiaozong of Song, with the support of Zhang Xiaoxiang and others, rehabilitated Yue Fei.
After Yue Fei's unjust case was rehabilitated, he was posthumously honored as the King of E, with the posthumous title of "Wu Mu and Zhongwu". Although after the Southern Song Dynasty, some people also worshiped Yue Fei as a "martial saint", in fact, Yue Fei did not enter the Wu Temple like Guan Yu.
According to the available data, Yue Fei was once named the temple god of the "Zhongxian Temple" during the Southern Song Dynasty and the Song Dynasty, the temple god " Zhongwen Wang", while during the Yuan Dynasty, Yue Fei was only added the title of "Baoyi" during the Yuan Shun Emperor period.
The statue of Yue Fei in the Yue Fei Temple
Later, it was not until the Ming Dynasty's Wanli dynasty that Yue Fei was named the "Three Realms Jing Demon Emperor", although the title seemed to be not much different from Guan Yu, but Yue Fei still did not enter the Martial Temple.
After the fall of the Ming Dynasty, most of the temples he was enshrined were also called "Song Yue Zhongwu King Temple" or "Zhongwu Temple", so it seems that Yue Fei is not a martial saint.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="27" > who is more qualified to be a martial saint</h1>
However, because Guan Yu and Yue Fei were both very outstanding military figures in their period, and because some people in later generations also built guan yue temples side by side, many people began to think about who of these two people was more qualified to be martial saints.
And before we analyze this problem, we still have to find out the origin of the martial saint. Although Guan Yu is recognized as a martial saint, in fact he is not the first martial saint in Chinese history.
The first martial saint in China's history was actually Jiang Ziya, who, as the "originator of the warrior family" in China, served as the main priest of the martial temple during the Tang Xuanzong period, that is, what people often call "martial saint".
And when we compare Jiang Ziya, Guan Yu and Yue Fei from the characters themselves, we will find that there are many commonalities between them:
Both were loyal to the emperor
Both have excellent military talents
They all followed and assisted the king in his career
However, in addition to these commonalities, there is a very obvious difference between Yue Fei and Jiang Ziya and Guan Yu:
Neither Guan Yu nor Jiang Ziya was ever suspected by the emperor, and Yue Fei was not only jealous of the emperor, but was eventually wrongfully killed.
It is also worth mentioning that China has been deeply influenced by Confucianism for a long time, which makes them attach great importance to the Confucian values embodied in the candidates when choosing martial saints that can correspond to Wensheng.
Although Yue Fei was also an excellent general who was loyal to the country and the people, he had several disadvantages, resulting in him never being included in the Martial Temple.
Statue of Yue Fei
Yue Fei was once convicted and wrongfully killed by the imperial court, and although he was successfully rehabilitated 20 years later, he also caused the rulers of the Southern Song Dynasty to not think of enshrineing Yue Fei in the Martial Temple because of this experience.
Later, the WuMiao Temple was streamlined, cancelled, and rebuilt, and Yue Fei did not have too much connection with the Wumiao Temple in this development process, which is one of the reasons why he never entered the Wumiao Temple.
Yue Fei appeared too late compared to Jiang Ziya and Guan Yu, who at that time in the Southern Song Dynasty, Jiang Ziya and Guan Yu still had a high degree of folk influence, and when they came to the Ming Dynasty, these two were directly deified.
In contrast, although Yue Fei is also very good, history has not given him enough time to ferment his reputation. From these aspects, Guan Yu was actually more qualified to become a "martial saint".
Portrait of Yue Fei
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="43" > supplement</h1>
Finally, we may wish to add some content about "Martial Saint". Although Tang Xuanzong presided over the construction of the Wu Temple at that time, in fact, the Wu Temple at this time was called the "Taigong Shang Father Temple".
Later, it was not until the time of Emperor Suzong of Tang that Li Heng sealed Jiang Ziya as the King of Wucheng and changed the "Taigong Shangfu Temple" to "Wucheng Wang Temple", after which the name of the Wumiao Temple gradually spread.
Statue of Jiang Ziya
It was also after Li Heng ascended the throne that Jiang Ziya's status was raised to the same high status as Confucius, the chief priest of the Temple of Literature. After all, under the influence of Confucianism, the rulers still attached slightly more importance to literature than to martial arts.
The reason why Li Heng would vigorously enhance the status of Jiang Ziya, the chief priest of the Martial Temple, after Li Heng took the throne, was probably because after the "Anshi Rebellion", the imperial court needed more military generals.
Portrait of Jiang Ziya
However, although Jiang Ziya during the Tang Dynasty had become the King of Wucheng, when people mentioned Jiang Ziya, they would still call it King Wucheng. Until Tang Dezong Li Shi ascended the throne, he added 64 ancient and modern famous generals who could be sacrificed to the Wu Temple.
Since then, the Wu Temple has formed a sacrificial structure of "one main sacrifice, one pair of sacrifices, ten zhe, and seventy-two generals", which is exactly the opposite of the "one holy king, one ya saint, ten zhe, and seventy-two sons" of the Temple of Literature.
At this time, Jiang Ziya can be said to be the "Holy King" of the main priest in the Wu Temple, so the term "Martial Saint" appeared. Jiang Ziya was later replaced by Guan Yu, also because he was more in line with the example that the imperial court needed to set.
Not to mention that Guan Yu is also revered as the "God of Martial Wealth" and has a certain foundation of popularity in all walks of life, so the ruler will make Guan Yu stand out among many famous generals and become the new martial saint.
Since guan yu's people's voice basis is mentioned here, we may as well briefly talk about how people now view Guan Yu. It is reported that in Taiwan Province, many guan yu believers call him "benefactor", that is, "savior".
In Southeast Asia, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines and other countries, there are also many people who believe in Guan Yu very much, and as for the overseas Chinese in the United States and Britain, they mainly worship Guan Yu as the "god of wealth".
Statue of Guan Yu in the Guan Yu Temple
In addition, under the cultural influence of sui and Tang dynasties, Guan Yu also had a high status in Buddhism, Taoism and Buddhism. For example, if Guan Yu is enshrined in Buddhist temples, most of them are worshipped as Garan;
The Taoist worship of Guan Yu mainly began in the Song Dynasty, and The Taoists generally regarded Guan Yu as the "Guan Sheng Emperor", that is, "Guan Di"; the Belief in Guan Yu in The Interpretation was limited to offerings, and no offering rituals were given.