Author: Tang Youbo
The history of the Qing Dynasty, provinces, prefectures, and counties all record that Chen Yao, a famous Qing official during the Kangxi Dynasty, was a native of Donghu Village, Haikang County, Leizhou Prefecture, Guangdong Province. However, since ancient times, there have been different theories about Chen Yao's life, one saying that Chen Yao was born in Dianbai County, Gaozhou, and the other saying that he was born in Wuchuan County, Gaozhou. Especially the latter statement, some people still firmly believe in it, and set up a monument to it. This constitutes the mystery of Chen's life. This mystery is not clarified, and I am afraid that it will continue to be passed down in the future. Boy, let's talk about the mystery now. In fact, this mystery has long been cracked by the ancients, and the boy just introduces it, explains and plays it.
Chen
1. Was Chen Zhen born in Dianbai?
Chen Ying was born in Dianbai, and it was said that he had it at the end of the Jiaqing period. At the end of Jiaqing and the beginning of Daoguang, Ding Zongluo, a talented son of Leizhou, spent seven or eight years compiling Chen Yao's "Poetry Collection" and "Annals". Wu ChuanjinShi Lin Xinshan (Lian Gui) said to Ding Zongluo: "There is a Chen village in the southeast of Dianbai County, which is the former residence of Chen Qingduangong. Due to the change of dynasty at that time, foreign bandits were rampant, and after Qing Duangong was born, his father was exiled, and his mother took him to exile and migrate, and finally settled in Leizhou. At present, the elderly in Dianbai and Wuchuan counties can still speak in more detail."
Ding Zongluo conducted research and research, and believed that Lin Xinshan's statement was not accurate. At the beginning of the "Chen Qingduan Gong Annals", he put forward two pieces of evidence to prove that Leizhou was Chen Yao's hometown and birthplace. These two pieces of evidence are self-evidenced by Chen Ying himself, which is very powerful. The proof of Ding Zongluo is reproduced as follows:
1. Chen Ying once wrote an article called "Induction Chapter", which has the phrase "to the boy, Lei Chan also". It means: "I myself was born in Leizhou".
2. Chen Yao went to the tomb in the twenty-fourth year of the Kangxi Dynasty (at the age of thirty) and returned to write a poem called "Shangzu Tomb": "Fu shan yuan tiandao, Kun Yu is also endowed." Distant mountains and rivers, near the earth Venus. Ten thousand acres return to the embrace, a thousand villages line painting screen. Dare to ask for blessings privately, and hope to honor my spirit. "It can be seen from this poem that Chen Yao's ancestral grave is in Leizhou." Wanqing returned to the embrace" means that the ancestral tomb is near the "Wanqing Yunlian", one of the eight scenic spots in Leizhou.
Ding Zongluo concluded: "If the ancestral grave is in Lei, it has been moved to Lei for a long time; Gong Fei was born in Electric White and grew up in Haikangyi." "Since the ancestral tomb is in Leizhou, it means that it has been a long time since it was moved to Leizhou." It is not correct to say that Chen Yaogong was born in Dianbai and grew up in Leizhou.
Nearly a hundred years after Ding Zongluo made this assertion, in 1921, Mr. Huang Jingxing of Leizhou discussed this topic again in the reprinted "Chen Qingduan Gong Annals". In addition to affirming Ding Zongluo's arguments and conclusions, he proposed two new and more powerful arguments:
1. In the thirty-third year of the Kangxi Dynasty, Chen Ye wrote a "Record of Redeeming the Old House", which read: "Yu Shi lived in Donghu Lake, and since he was a child, he has been a foreign fu, because of the mao city. "Shiju Donghu" is very clear: before birth, Chen Yao's home was in Donghu Village.
2. In the 27th year of the Republic of China (1938), the Chikan Chinese Printing Bureau printed the "Genealogy of the Chen Clan of the Bell Tower in The South Of Donghu" (hereinafter referred to as the "Chen Clan Genealogy"). This genealogy begins with the ancestors of the Chen Family who moved into the Village of Tiancun in the East Hunan. Originally copied by Chen Yao himself according to the old genealogy, it has been continued in successive generations and has been continued. On the first page of the "Genealogy", there is the "Yingchuan County Genealogy Record" written by Chen Yao at that time, which records the process of obtaining the family tree himself:
The Chen surname is all over the world, and the clan is divided into which branch, and there is no way to measure. Since entering the Eastern Ocean, the Ming Gong was his ancestor, passed down to the seventh Emperor of The Fang Dynasty; Ding Kou VI was twenty years old, and the brothers of the Ying Dynasty were more than ten people, day and night, fearing for decline, and each pair of elders sighed that they could not see the family tree at first sight. A clan near and far searched for the defeated foothills, and obtained a piece of paper that decayed, and its banknotes were recorded in the Toyo since the genealogy. I copied a copy word for the notation. (Note: The above quotation is an excerpt by Mr. Huang Jingxing, and the original text has been deleted)
This "Little Note" completely negates Lin Liangui's rumor that Chen Yao was born in Dianbai and grew up in Leizhou.
After Lin Liangui, the rumors about Chen Ying's life in Dian Bai changed. Volume 26 of the Guangxu Reconstruction of Dianbai County Chronicle has a rumor recorded at that time:
The National Dynasty Ronglu Doctor Chen Cemetery is in Chencunpu, sixty miles west of the county. It is the grandfather of Chen Yao, the governor of Fujian in the State Dynasty. Father Yan was cold, and he first moved to Leizhou, and both counties knew it. Because of the prosperity of the lord, the people are good omens, and many people are buried. After his death, his grandson Yongzhou Governor Gongshi begged the clan to get it.
This rumor is that the west Chen Village of Dianbaicheng is paved with the tomb of Chen Yao's grandfather, because of the good feng shui, many people have come to encroach on it, so that Chen Yao has come to look for his grandfather's tomb several times, but has not found it. Later, it was Chen Zigong who inquired about what the clan had found. At this time, the rumor was not that his father was exiled outside, and his mother took Chen Yao to Leizhou, but that his father "moved to Leizhou", and his grandfather was still buried in Dianbai. However, the "Chen Clan Genealogy" records that Chen Yao's grandfather Chen Gongjun Province, like his father Chen Guanning, was "buried in the half-ocean five dragon slopes". So these legends are also inaccurate. But this record also has a place close to the truth: the ancestral home of the Chen Family is indeed in Dianbai.
It should be pointed out that Chen Yao found the family tree when he was thirty-six years old, when he still did not know where his family came from ("There is no way to measure which branch the family is divided into. However, the genealogy of the Republic of China reads:
Ancestor of the First Dynasty: Gong Ming, from Anma Village, Dianbai County, Gaozhou, moved with his mother to Donghu Nantian Village, Haikang County, Leizhou. Adults configure family business and fields here. Then Gong Nai entered the East Hunan Tamura to live in the first ancestral house.
So, when did the genealogy confirm that the ancestors of the first generation came from the village of Denbai Anma?
After completing the family tree, Liang Liang (the eldest son of Duke Jucheng), the grandson of Chen Yao, who continued to revise the eighth genealogy, wrote a "Afterword to the Genealogy of Yingchuan County"; it said: "My ancestors who moved from Anma Village to the Eastern Hunan Tian Ming Gong were the ancestors, and passed down to Liang IX Yu Zi. It can be seen that at the end of the Ziliang generation, it has been confirmed that its originator comes from electric white. In the "Dianbai County Chronicle", Zi Liang's disciple Gong "first begged the clan to get it", and it is possible that Zi Gong went to seek ancestral home and recognize the ancestors and return to the sect, rather than to find the "Ronglu Doctor Chen Cemetery". As for the "Anma Village" of Dianbai County contained in the genealogy, whether it is the same place as the legendary Chen Village or Chen Cunpu, the boy does not know and does not dare to argue.
At this point, we can clarify Chen Yao's lineage according to the "Family Tree" and the "Annals": his first ancestor Ming Gong moved from Anma Village in Dianbai County to settle in Donghu Nantian Village, Haikang County, and passed it on to Chen Yao as the seventh. His paternal grandfather was Chen Jun province, his father Chen Guanning was the third son of the Duke of Jun Province, and the second son of Guan Ning, who was born in Nantian Village on the 23rd day of the 13th leap month of Shunzhi (July 14, 1656). Chen Was born in Si and grew up in Si. Any legend that Chen or his parents came from elsewhere is not true.
2. Is Chen Yao the seventeenth grandson of Chen Bozhen, the ancestor of the Chen clan in Qiantang, Wuchuan?
The legend of Chen Yao from Wuchuan appeared after Chen Yao was born in the legend of Electric White. Because Lin Liangui was a native of Wuchuan, even he said that the old people in Dianbai and Leizhou knew that Chen Yao came from Dianbai, which shows that there was no Chen Yao from Wuchuan at that time.
At present, there are still people in the area of Wuchuan, Potou, and Nansandao who believe that Chen Yao is a Wuchuan native, and there are some vivid stories circulating, even with mysterious colors. It has two versions. The first version says that Chen's family was poor, his father was lost as a baby, and his mother was taken by Wu Chuan to Haikang to remarry. There is nothing unusual about this version, it is a remake of the electric white version: the plot of the two versions is the same, nothing more than "electric white" changed to "Wu Chuan". The second version says that although Chen Was born in The Village of Nantian in Haikang, his roots were in the Village of Tiantou in the Southern Three Islands; after his mother became pregnant in The Village of Tiantou, his father fell ill and died. Forced to make a living, the mother returned to hikari Nantian Village with her pregnancy and remarried someone else. In this way, Chen Yu became the widow of the Tiantou villagers. Both versions believe that Chen's ancestor was Chen Bozhen, the ancestor of the Qiantang Chen clan, and was his seventeenth descendant. This is the key word in Wu Chuan's version.
It is learned from the above that the two sages, Ding Zongluo and Huang Jingxing, have confirmed that Chen Ying himself was really born in Haikang Nantian Village based on Chen Yao's own poetry and family tree. This conclusive evidence not only negates the claim that Chen Was born in Dianbai, but also negates the claim that he was born anywhere outside of Nantian Village. Therefore, there is no need to argue with words about Chen Yao's widow as the widow of the Villagers of Santiantou in southern Wuchuan. However, some scholars and wise people still believe that although the legend is not to be trusted, although Chen Yao was indeed born in Haikang, the conclusion that Chen Yao is the seventeenth generation grandson of Chen Bozhen, the ancestor of the Chen clan in Qiantang, is based on evidence. The boy is insensitive, and here is a bit of a discernment of the three bases or clues that support this view.
The first is based on the fact that the thirteenth ancestor of the Chen clan of Nansantiantou Village is the ancestor of "Ming (Ming) Zhen", and his wife is Haikang. There is no record of his whereabouts and whereabouts in the family tree, and his descendants are missing. The ancestor of Chen Yao who moved to Haikang County is the "Ming" ancestor, which may be the ancestor of the thirteenth ancestor of Nanfang in Tiantou Village, who moved to Haikang County.
Analysis: There are many people with the same name and surname in the world, for example, there was a Chen Yao in the Ming Dynasty, who also served as an official in Hunan and Fujian, martyred the country with his body, and was commemorated for generations. In the Qing Dynasty, there were two or three people named Chen Yao in the local chronicles alone. In this example, the ancestor of "Mingzhen" and the ancestor of "Ming" are not only different in sound, but also one word apart. The odds of two being the same person are too slim, right?
The second basis: Chen Shangchuan, a historical celebrity who once made meritorious contributions in Vietnam, claimed the title of king in the south, and spread Chinese civilization, was a native of Tiantou Village, South Sandu, Wuchuan County, at the end of the Ming Dynasty. The Nanfang family tree of Chatiantou Village, with the character "Chuan" as the first brother of the same ethnic group, belongs to the seventeenth grandson of Chen Bozhen, the ancestor of Qiantang. And Chen Ying, the character Wenhuan, the number Meichuan, so also called Chen Meichuan. Chen Meichuan and Chen Shangchuan were not far from each other, and their names also had the word "Chuan", so Chen Yao and Chen Shangchuan belonged to the same "Chuan" generation and were the seventeenth grandson of Chen Bozhen.
Analysis: This reasoning seems to be powerful, and it is the main evidence of the firm belief that Chen Yao is a Wuchuan person. But it has a fatal flaw: it ignores the fundamental difference between "name", "character" and "number" in traditional Chinese name culture.
According to tradition, a person's name and character are given by their parents or elders, and the words used generally indicate generations according to the rules of the clan. There is a meaningful correlation between "name" and "word". Such as Zhuge Liang character Kong Ming, Yue Fei character Pengju. Chen's "瑸" is a pearl jade, and Wen Huan's "Huan" character means radiant and bright. In the genealogy of Zha Chen, among his more than ten brothers of the same generation, "name" has one word and two words, which is irregular, and "character" is two words, and the first word is "wen". It can be seen that Chen Yao's generation is the "Wen" generation.
A person's "number" is very different from his "name" and "word". The "trumpet" was not given by the superior, but was chosen by oneself and made by oneself. "Number" does not mean generational division, nor does it necessarily have a meaningful connection with the name, but expresses a certain interest, feeling or mood of the self. It is disrespectful to call a person by his first name, and when calling him by his name, it means respect and respect. Since "Meichuan" is the word for Chen Yao, this "Chuan" has nothing to do with Chen Shangchuan's "Chuan" and has nothing to do with any peer relationship, so it has nothing to do with the ancestor of the Thirteenth Ancestor of Nanfang in Nanfangtou Village, "Mingzhen", and even less with the ancestor of the Chen clan in Qiantang.
According to the third: The names of the two villages of Nansandao Tiantou Village and Haikang Nantian Village have "striking similarities". Is there a secret hidden here: that is, after Chen Yao's ancestor Mingzu moved to Haikang Donghu Village, he referred to the place of residence as Nantian village in honor of his coming from Nansantiantou Village?
Analysis: This possibility is not impossible, but there are many coincidences in the world, even many villages with the same name. The point is that this unlikely possibility is based on the equally unlikely assumption that the "Ming" ancestor is the "Ming" ancestor. When two small probability events are multiplied, the probability is even smaller. It's a clever guess, but it doesn't prove it.
To sum up, the claim that Chen Yao was the seventeenth grandson of Chen Bozhen, the ancestor of the Chen clan in Qiantang, Wuchuan, is untenable. Moreover, the Chen Family had confirmed as late as the Qianlong period that his ancestors were originally from Anma Village in Dianbai County. Two or three hundred years later, his ancestral home is said to be The Tiantou Village of the Southern Three Islands of Wuchuan, is it not strange!
3. Redundant language
As the saying goes, there is no wind and no waves. For Chen Yao's life, different legends have arisen in the Leizhou Peninsula, I am afraid that it is not empty, there must be some reason; it also has a certain relationship with social psychology and local folklore, which is worth exploring. The boy's short article was written while thinking; thinking of this, he suddenly had a clever move, and looked back at the "Chen Clan Genealogy", and his ancestor Nantiancun I impressively wrote:
Gong Mingming moved with his mother from Anma Village in Dianbai County, Gaozhou to Donghu Nantian Village, Haikang County, Leizhou.
Haha, the mystery has been unveiled! The person who moved with his mother to The village of Donghu Nan in Haikang County was not Chen Yao, but the ancestor of the Chen Family. Misunderstood, passed on the sample, and put the matter of Chen Yao's ancestors on Chen Yao's head! As for how Chen Yao's original hometown later changed from electric white to Wu Chuan, the misunderstanding of the word "Chuan" represents generational division is one of the reasons, right?