If someone asks: What is the name of Han Gaozu? I believe that many people, even primary school students, can blurt out: Han Gaozu's name is Liu Bang. However, if you carefully read the "Records of History", you will have a surprising discovery: looking at the "Gao Zu Benji" that records the life and deeds of Han Gaozu, and even the entire text of the "History", there is no mention of Han Gaozu's ancestral name "Liu Bang". Sima Qian only wrote in the "History of Gao Zu Benji": "Gao Zu, a native of Zhongyangli in Peifengyi, surnamed Liu Shi (劉氏), zi ji (字季). The father is known as Taigong, and the mother is known as Liu Mi. In other words, he simply tells the reader that Han Gaozu's surname is "Liu" and the epithet is "Ji", and that's all.
Liu Bang [Japanese] by Yasuhiko Satake by Beijing United Publishing Company Bass
So, Han Gaozu's name is "Liu Bang", who first disclosed this information?
In fact, the name "Liu Bang" first appeared in the historical records, and it had reached the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, when Cao Cao threatened Tianzi to order the princes to build peace for five years. At that time, Xun Yue and Xun Yu's cousins defected to Cao Cao to explain the history of the scriptures to Emperor Xian of Han. In view of the excessive length of the Book of Han by Bangu of the Eastern Han Dynasty, Xun Yue revised the Two Han Dynasties (Han Ji and Later Han Ji) into Tianzi. In the "Han Dynasty and Gaozu Emperor Chronicle", for the first time, the saying "Han Gaozu Zhenbang" appears. However, Xun Yue's era was already far from the intersection of the Qin and Han Dynasties; in a broad sense, it already belonged to the early Three Kingdoms period, or the "Pre-Three Kingdoms Era". Therefore, the credibility of Xun's account is worth scrutinizing.
Looking at han Gaozu's table word "ji" in the "History", is it accurate? In the pre-Qin period, the ranking between brothers followed the principles of Bo (Meng), Zhong, Shu, and Ji, but specific to the Six Kingdoms, the customs were not the same. In the Han Dynasty, it was generally believed that "concubine is Bo, Shu chang is Meng", and the children in the family are ordered in order of Bo, Zhong, Shu, and Ji. According to the White Tiger Tongyi compiled by Bangu: "Season, 癸也. A and B times, decyl is in the next, and the season is also the same. It can be seen from Sima Qian's "Liu Ji" that it is more appropriate to say that it is not so much a table character as a ranking between brothers. In today's popular parlance, it is equivalent to "Liu Laosi". The name of Han Gaozu, Sima Qian, should be known. On the one hand, he personally visited Pei County and collected early historical relics about the Gaozu family and the early Han Dynasty Meritorious Group in a similar way to oral historiography, which naturally included the name or milk name of the founding emperor. On the other hand, Sima Qian was acquainted with Fan Daguang, who was the grandson of Fan Duo, the Founding Duke and Marquis of Wuyang, while Fan Duo married Lü Miao, the sister of Lü Yan after Han Gao, and therefore became a conjoined with Gao Zu. Therefore, even if Sima Qian had doubts about the name of Gao Zu who he visited in Pei County, he could directly confirm it with Fan Taguang. However, the paradox is that when the "Chronicle of History" was written, Sima Qian chose to hide the name of Han Gaozu and only gave the table character "Ji". Coincidentally, after the "Records of History", the "Book of Han" written by Bangu of the Eastern Han Dynasty was also the same. Historians usually believe that this practice is a kind of avoidance, that is, avoiding the name of the emperor.
In the book "Liu Bang" written by the Japanese scholar Yasuhiko Satake and translated by Wang Yonghua, the "avoidance theory" is questioned. Satake believes that "in the Book of the Later Han Dynasty, which pays more attention to etiquette than the Book of Han, the names of the emperors of the Eastern Han Dynasty are written into the beginning of each volume", without any hesitation. "Therefore, the only thing that can be explained is perhaps that the origin of the name Liu Bang hides some kind of ulterior secret, which makes the "History" and "Book of Han" adopt the principle of not recording the names of the emperors of the Western Han Dynasty to avoid this problem." In Satake Yasuhiko's view, it is precisely because of the existence of secrets in Gaozu's real name that it led to the deliberate concealment of Sima Qian and Ban Gu. Because even if the historiography of the two is high, it is impossible to surpass the founding prince, and only record the names of the emperors after the second generation, and simply do not write anything.
From the confusion of Han Gao's ancestral name, it is not difficult for us to find that the records of Liu Bang himself have been very limited in the historical materials that have been handed down to the present, which makes this magnificent history show a confusing appearance. For the Qin and Han dynasties more than two thousand years ago, what we know and master, or think we have mastered, is only a Yoshimitsu flake feather, a scale and a half claw. Yasuhiko Satake left us with such a question at the beginning of "Liu Bang", but never gave a clear answer, but this not only did not affect the reader's reading, but highlighted one of the characteristics of this book: in the process of writing, the author is good at sorting out all kinds of historical materials in detail, extensively referring to the cutting-edge views of Chinese and Japanese historians such as Fujita Katsuhisa, Hirosei Takaro and Xin Deyong, and putting forward hypotheses of guiding significance and even subversive, so as to inspire readers to think and make history and culture come alive.
For example, the familiar "decisive battle under the mountain" has aroused the question of Yasuhiko Satake. According to the "History of Xiang Yu Benji", Liu and Xiang were divided into the world in the middle of the covenant, "the one who is west of the chasm is Han, and the one who is east of the chasm is Chu." When the peace treaty was completed, Xiang Yu led his troops back to the east. Since the east of the chasm was already controlled by Peng Yue, in order to avoid another twist, the Chu army chose to march along the west side of the chasm; this move fell into the trap of Liu Bang's preconceived notions- the Han army used this as an excuse to condemn the Chu army for violating the alliance. Liu Bangjun, who had been trailing behind Xiang Yu, took the opportunity to attack and caught up with the Chu army in Yangxia, 35 kilometers north of Chen Cheng, thus opening the prelude to the war. The first battle was fought at Guling, between Yangxia, where Liu Bang was stationed, and Chen Cheng, where Xiang Yu was stationed. Because the armies of Han Xin and Peng Yue did not move, Liu Bang was unable to clap his hands alone, and he retreated to Yangxia to wait for help. In exchange for Han and Peng's troops, Liu Bang followed Zhang Liang's advice and formally divided the territory of the two men; the triumphant Han and Peng immediately sent troops to cooperate with the main force to attack the Chu dynasty.
However, what puzzled Yasuhiko Satake was that the place where all the armies gathered was an unknown place name------------------------------------------------- Why did the troops of the Division, which was supposed to meet in the central city of Chencheng in the western part of the Chu State, appear in a small village 260 kilometers southeast of their intended destination? Through consulting historical materials and related monographs, Yasuhiko Satake found that since the two thousand years since the "History" was written, only a very small number of outstanding scholars have noticed this "small problem". Fan Wenlan, who was the director of the Institute of Modern History of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, analyzed the situation at that time and believed that the battlefield of the decisive battle between Xiang Yu and Liu Bang should be near Guling (near present-day Luyi County, Henan Province), where Liu Bang was defeated by Xiang Yu's counterattack.
After that, Professor Xin Deyong of the Department of History of Peking University proceeded from Fan Wenlan's point of view, conducted a comprehensive analysis of the problem, and published an article entitled "On the So-Called "Battle of Xiaxia" Should Be Correctly Named "The Battle of Chen Xia"" after a comprehensive analysis. On the one hand, from the perspective of historical geography, Xin Deyong carefully and meticulously examined the problem that the decisive battle between Liu and Xiang was likely to be near Yangxia; on the other hand, he noticed that there were a large number of records in the "Records of History" that Liu Bang's generals participated in the decisive battle against Xiang Yu in "Chen" or "Chen Xia". At that time, the expression "so-and-so" was generally used to express the meaning of being in a certain city or under a certain city. Therefore, the "Gaozu Benji" in the "Records of History" and the "Xiangyu Benji" should refer to the Chen Chengxia City bordering the southern part of Yangxia, that is, "Chen Xia".
While agreeing with the above statement, Satake Yasuhiko also put forward his own unique views. Xin Deyong believed that the west of the chasm was completely within Liu Bang's sphere of influence, and "Chen Xia" meant the vicinity of ChenCheng city west of the chasm. The author of this book believes that Liu Bang's hegemonic position was not established in Korea west of the chasm, and that the area near the chasm was instead Xiang Yu in a relatively advantageous position, when Xiang Yu was stationed in Chencheng on the west bank of the chasm. Regarding the distinction between Xiaxia and Chenxia, Yasuhiko Satake confidently gave the following conclusion: "The old theory that Xiang Yu and Liu Bang were the final decisive battle place was completely overthrown." In fact, there are still different voices in the academic circles about the theories of Xiaxia and ChenXia, and what the author of this book says is also a family statement.
Another major feature of Yasuhiko Satake's "Liu Bang" is the interpretation of the details of historical materials: through the snow claws of historical texts, explore the intricate historical truth, and then fill in the gaps in history with reasonable and well-founded bold imagination and the results of archaeological excavations. In addition to the "History" and "Book of Han" and other documents, Satake Yasuhiko also tried to find more historical details that were ignored by traditional historians from the archaeological discoveries of Qin Jian, Juyan Han Jian and Yin Wan Han Tomb Jian Mu. For example, in the sixth chapter of liu bang' book, "Business Trip to Xianyang", Satake Yasuhiko uses a Jian Mu excavated from yin wan Han's tomb in the 1990s to spy on the price of goods in the last year of the Qin Dynasty to measure the harvest of Liu Bang's trip. In the sixth Han tomb in Yinwan Village, Wenquan Town, Donghai County, Lianyungang, Jiangsu Province, the owner's name is Shi Rao, which is the history of County Gong Cao. A piece of wood was unearthed from his tomb, recording Shi Rao's business trip to Chang'an, the capital of Beijing, and the gifts of money from relatives and friends. In the thirty-first year of the First Emperor, Liu Bang, who was also a minor official, also went to the capital Xianyang for official business, and the "Records of History" also recorded the donation fees given by everyone. Through comparison, Yasuhiko Satake found that the gift money at that time was divided into four grades in principle: thousand dollars, five hundred dollars, two hundred dollars and one hundred dollars. When Liu Bang was on a business trip, all the officials in Pei County gave away three hundred yuan, but Xiao He sent five hundred yuan. Shi Rao received a total of twenty-seven thousand six hundred yuan for a business trip to Chang'an, and considering that prices had doubled in two hundred years, Liu Bang's income was about fourteen thousand yuan—a considerable income for the twenty-two-year-old. In fact, almost all of this wealth was used by Liu Bang as a communication fee with officials and leaders during his travels, thus gaining a lot of valuable knowledge and information, and expanding his network of interpersonal relations. For Xiao He, the extra two hundred dollars given that day brought him additional gains when discussing merits and rewards in the future.
In the book, Yasuhiko Satake also discusses the family composition of Han Gaozu, the geopolitics of the crescent-shaped water town of Surabaya, the formation and development of the Peixian Meritorious Group, the renxia style of the society at the end of the Qin Dynasty, and the marriage between the two families of Liu Andu.
(Original title: Is Han Gao's ancestral name really called Liu Bang? )
Source: Beijing Daily Author: Lin Shuo (The author is deputy research librarian of the National Museum of China)
Process Editor: L019
Copyright Notice: The text copyright belongs to The Beijing News Group and may not be reproduced or adapted without permission.
![The legendary story of Han Gao zu Liu Bang[fig]](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAP///wAAACwAAAAAAQABAAACAkQBADs=)