Trickery is amazing, extravagance is the spirit of the elderly.
--Song Meng, "Tokyo Dream Hualu Prologue"
The skills of Chinese workers can be said to be "stunts". Far from mentioning, the skills of "shed smiths" in modern Beijing alone are worthy of our careful study. Shen Yiling and Jin Yi's "Records of The Conversations of the Palace Ladies" record: Every year at the beginning of May, Empress Dowager Cixi went to the Summer Palace to escape the summer, and the inner court asked the shed smith to build a "canopy" for her living and working hall, and the cover would be up. The requirement is: it must be tightly sewn together, and there is no room for the flying mosquitoes to drill midges. Its beams are concave and convex, all with the shape of the twists, straight like a line, no less jagged. The result is a ridged ceiling, cornices and tails, magnificent, whether it is a whirlwind or a rainstorm, the "ceiling" does not move. According to historical records, one afternoon in March of the third year of the Republic of China, a fierce wind blew up in the city of Beijing, and a shed for entertaining relatives and friends was set up in front of the door of Santiao outside the Chongwen Gate. It can be seen here that the sheds built by the shedsmiths, the pillars are all floating, they do not dig pits and bury them, and the shelves are tied with ropes instead of a nail and iron sheets and wires, all by the support and pull of the four sides. Therefore, in the face of strong winds, the shed can be blown to the sky by the wind, moved out of the distance, and fall into the distance as a whole, but the structure does not move. This is what historians and ordinary people often comment that "the shed craftsmen in Beijing are surprisingly clever, clever to the point of theosophy."
In old Beijing, shed smiths specialized in making a living with their exquisite craftsmanship, but they also had to be strong and clever, and they called themselves both "walking animals" (carrying large cedar pens and other hard work on the ground) and "birds" (referring to working at height). Judging from the work procedures of the shed smiths, they are more "birds". The article in the "Beijing Past Talk" introduced that the shed smiths working in the royal family were instructed not to avoid the relatives of Ouchi, and Cixi loved to watch the shedsmen build the mats. One day, the shed craftsmen were working hard at the height of the shelf, and Cixi could see the god at the bottom, and suddenly lost her voice: "Where is the shed smith, isn't this the monkey who drills the sky?" The shed craftsmen listened very sincerely from the heights, first with a chill, and then involuntarily shouted in unison: "Thank the Lord for the seal." It turned out that the shed craftsmen cleverly substituted "Hou" for "monkeys" and received the reward of the Western Empress. Since then, Beijing shed smiths have the nickname of "Drill Tianhou". This may be legendary, but the ability of the shed to work at height is not fictional. Examining the history, during the reign of Cixi, the skills of the craftsmen of the shed "Dianshizhai Pictorial And Running Pole Jia Disaster" did reach the peak of their state. Take Zhen Jun's "Heavenly Occasional News" as an example:
Guangxu rebuilt the drum tower in the 20th year, and its frame from the ground to the ridge of the building, thirty zhang high and more than ten zhang wide. Layer by layer, layer by layer, layer by layer, layer by layer. High can enter the clouds, a few feet of material, as small as a stock. Looking down, I was so dazzled that I didn't know what the structure was.
This kind of high-altitude skill can be said to be very unusual, almost at the level of "god".
Flip through the head chart
Therefore, when the game of "walking meeting" was often held in old Beijing, the lion dressers were often served by the shedsmiths, because only they could cope with them freely at the heights, just like the "Hundred Books of Bills" singing "Playing with lions": "I met the canopy climbing high, and the loft was more than one foot high." Because of this special skill of shed smiths who are good at working at height, many people regard them as tricksters. When new shops were opened in modern Beijing, merchants hired shed smiths to build a colorful shed and let them travel back and forth between the erected pillars to attract customers. Of course, it is very easy for the shed craftsman to perform such a performance, only to see him like a rope trick walking on the rope, walking on the pole like a flat foot, going back and forth like a shuttle, so it is also known as "running pole"...
Such a "stunt" created by the laborer is not a kind of shed craftsman, but like countless large beads and small beads, it shines with dazzling light and emits a pleasant sound. Like the Ming Dynasty Song Maocheng's "Nine Baskets Collection" recorded in the "Seven Tables of Lei", that is, a person turns, then a table is built in the hall, without losing size, where six turns, the table is like a floating tu, the seventh table, set five guns and five cores and a number of salt on the top, and then turn to the seventh table has been at the top, whiskers, suddenly down, the core of the set as before. The other is a wooden plank (a kind of wooden boat in ancient times), which is more than two feet long, two feet wide, five or six inches thick, and one person supports it with his teeth, so that the child stands on it, singing and dancing...
"Dianshizhai Pictorial ・ Game Samadhi"
Such "stunts" of cleverness are indeed rare. The "stunts" of the Qing Dynasty seem to be developing in a more "skillful" direction, such as smoking and spitting out cigarette performers, which are recorded in Ji Xiaolan's "Notes on Reading Wei Caotang" and the "Dianshizhai Pictorial" of the late Qing Dynasty, as reflected in Li Dou's "Yangzhou Painting Record": There is a Kuangzi who sells shisha, often drives a boat to swim on the lake, he smokes a dozen mouthfuls of water and does not spit out, slowly like a line gradually leads out, circling the sky, and then furry like a bun, turning green, slightly like a distant mountain, the wind changes, vaguely like a god, like a chicken, like a dog, beard eyebrow clothes, leather feathers, all of which appear, After a while, the color turned dark, as if the mountain rain was coming...
The "Essence of Ancient and Modern Notes" also records that a smoker like this who can spit out landscapes and pavilions, characters, flowers, trees, animals and animals, is recommended by one bureaucrat to another bureaucrat's house, specializing in the work of spitting out cigarette performances. The performance process can be seen in detail from the "Night Sailing Ship" of the Broken Forehead Mountain Man:
Smokers, in the green cloth bag, take out the cigarette tube, head-shaped iron, size as it is, and take out the stem, the shape of the category to carry, the length as it is, to the head of the stem, the high yellow smoke four or five pounds, the solid head, the fire roars, the urgent invitation to the curtain household, the guests are from the control, the curtain view, see the clouds, strange out of the sky, Loutai City Guo, character bridge, hidden Penglai Hai City also. Qihua Yao grass, exotic birds and rare birds, like Ruizhu Langyuan also. Fish dragon crocodile, spray waves, suddenly heavy ocean extinct island also. Russia and the cannon flames are angry, thousands of troops and horses, breaking the line and stopping, the jade mountains and silver seas, upside down and confused...
This kind of "stunt" of using tobacco as a play cannot be separated from the times, and the universal performance of "smoke play stunt" is directly related to the common tobacco smoking of the people in the Qing Dynasty, and it spread very rapidly. Compared with the alternative and more common "stunts", after a long time and still have a lingering afterglow, this is the "bug ant".
"Dianshizhai Pictorial Pigeon Play"
Ancient birds and beasts, insect scales, collectively known as "insect ants". The so-called "get" is the meaning of allegorical teaching and entertainment, and "making insects and ants" is the art of taming animals.
There are thousands of insects and ants in ancient China, from small ants to large tigers and leopards, many animals that seem to be impossible to adjust, but they can be completely adjusted and learned as they are. As Tian Yiyu said in "Liu Qing Rizha":
Birds have wax-billed thrush plays, beasts have hu fox dogs and horses, insects have ants, shrimp toads, turtles play, Tang Dynasty also has rhythmic hedgehog fights, from the barrel crawled out of the two teams, change the formation of the play of the tiger...
In summary, the "bug ant" in ancient China can be divided into four types. One is the "worm ant" that entertains the princes and nobles.
As early as the Zhou Dynasty, there were positions such as "Serving the Bu Clan" in the Zhou Li Xia Guan, specializing in "raising birds and teaching disturbances in Fufan" and "raising beasts and teaching them to disturb". Zheng Xuan explained "teaching disturbance" as follows: disturbing, taming, teaching and habiting to make it tame. This very clearly states that the "worm ant" has developed first among the princes and nobles since the Zhou Dynasty.
Soon, the Spring and Autumn Warring States Wei Yigong domesticated cranes, can even retreat in a disciplined manner, listening to music and dancing. The Qin and Han court popular "Huang Gong Story", "Huang Gong" is an entertainer known for staging thrilling shows to tame tigers. The Xijing Miscellaneous Records recount that King Lu Gong was "good at fighting cocks, ducks and geese, raising peacocks, and paying 2,000 stones a year for the valley". This proves from the side that since the Qin and Han Dynasties, the "insect ant" has a considerable scale. The "bug ant" who served the maharajahs and nobles often starred in celebrations. In the Han Dynasty Li You's "Ping Optimistic Endowment", there are spectacular scenes such as "galloping a hundred horses, there are immortals driving birds, foxes avoiding fright, poultry deer six, white elephant Zhu Shou" and so on. Therefore, the historical government attaches great importance to it. At the court of the Qing Dynasty, at banquets held to welcome Westerners, trained rats were performed: two rats tied together with thin chains were twisted and untied according to the master's orders. This "stunt rat" was indeed unexpected, and made the Russian who watched it, Itesbrad, sincerely admire: "The performance of these humble animals is the most amazing performance I have ever seen." ”
Rats can perform much more than that. In the folk, the training of rats in the art of a hundred plays is even more amazing: for example, in the Qing Dynasty in Suzhou Xuanmiao Temple, there was a Shandong people performing a "rat play": a wooden frame about two meters high, shaped like an umbrella cover, placed on the ground, and there was a place like a theater inside the frame, and more than ten rats were coiled, and there were also circles and various guns and knives. As soon as the gong sounded, these rats staged various dramas, such as "Li Sanniang Carrying Water" and "Sun Wukong Making a Big Fuss in the Heavenly Palace", and they could also grasp the bamboo knife and wooden gun with their claws, spinning and dancing.
The rats are trained to stage a drama, which is to arouse people's interest in appreciation, but it is not easy. Just as Tao Zongyi of the Yuan Dynasty recorded in the "Nancun Shu Cultivation Record" that a big frog taught eight small frogs to learn to study, Yuan Ming of the Qing Dynasty also recorded such a "toad play" taught by a beggar in "Zi Bu Shu": a small wooden chair was set up on the field, and the big toad jumped out of the cloth bag worn by the beggar and sat on a small wooden chair, and then eight small toads jumped out of their pockets and landed on the ground, ringing against the big toad, silent. The beggar shouted, "Teach!" The big toad calls "Ge Ge", the eight small toads all follow the big toad "Ge Ge", the big toad calls a few times, and the little toad calls a few times, just like Mr. Teach the students. The beggar suddenly said"Stop!" This "shrimp toad teaching" immediately stopped...
Another note novel of the Qing Dynasty, "Smelling and Seeing Even Records", also has such a "Frog Teaching Book", it seems that in the middle and late Qing Dynasty, such "insects and ants" are many, and in the year of The Qing Dynasty, in the year of The Qing Dynasty, you can also see an old man in his sixties on the tianqiao in Beijing, using a big eight small, nine frogs to make this kind of "teacher to teach students" performance. What is even more bizarre is that Pu Songling once recorded in "Liaozhai Zhiyi":
Someone in Beijing carried a wooden box with twelve holes, and each hole ambushed the frog, and the trickster knocked the frog's head with a thin stick, and the frog made a song. Or with money, then randomly hit the top of the frog, such as the cloud gong, the palace merchant tune, out of the recognizable.
In the Qing Dynasty, Xu Yue's "Records of Seeing and Hearing And Strange Skills" also recorded:
I also saw a man with shrimp and toads, twenty-four small ones, and one large one, according to the ancient song, and the syllables were not pleasant. In the pocket of its shrimp and toad animals, use a large square table, out of it, the big frog is in the middle and south, the north is on the top, the small frog is twelve on the left and right, and the second is in place, and its people are drumming, and the sound of shrimp and toads should not be chaotic...
In the Qing Dynasty,"Dianshizhai Pictorial", there was another "Frog Frolic" that made people understand:
Between Xiangshan and Ninghai in Zhejiang, there is a frog maker, he dances yellow and green flags, directs more than ten yellow and green frogs, and can sing one or two slang songs at will, sandalwood fishing drums are also delicate, beat drums "bang bang", and "ge ge" frogs, if you answer accordingly.
Complex music, what kind of methods can be used to make the frog sense and apply freely? Its inner mystery is really mysterious. However, the insect ant maker presents it to the audience, which is obviously out of satisfaction with people's curiosity. It is driven by this purpose that the insect-and-ant makers of the Qing Dynasty dared to be innovative and created many miracles.
"Dianshizhai Pictorial Frog Play"
According to Xu Ke's "Qing Barnyard Banknotes":
In Taizhou during the Guangxu period, there was a person who taught a dog to learn human language, and after more than ten years, this dog could read. When performing, take a copy of the Book of Rites, the dog reads the "Tan Bow" chapter, unhappy with a word; and then takes "Zhou Yi", reads the "Dictionary of the Lineage", and is also very familiar. The dog's reading voice is very loud, but the pronunciation is slightly stronger, and it is not as convenient as human language. However, "Tan Bow" and "Lineage Dictionary" are all crooked and not easy to catch, but this dog has been trained to be recited!
What is even more difficult is the Qing Dynasty Zhu Meishu's "Collection of Buried Worries":
One person used two bamboo pipes, and the animals raised two kinds of red and white ants. Before the performance, take two small paper flags, red and white, and insert them into east and west. This person takes the bamboo pipe to remove the plug, puts it on both sides, and then in each direction of the pipe mouth bullet index, the ants follow out, form their own rows, tend to stop under the flag, and arrange them in a line. This person returned with a small yellow paper flag as a command, and the colonies of ants immediately marched in unison, two formations were connected, sumo wrestling, two or two wrestling, circling in advance and retreat, and all were in harmony. Over time, one group of people returned, disturbing those who were running and another group of people rushing forward, and their actions were like flying, and they actually defeated the appearance of chasing north. The man waved the small yellow flag again, and the victorious ants retreated and climbed into the bamboo pipe in order, and another group of defeated ants also rushed to the tube, scrambling to get into the tube, and it was no longer a trip...
"Dianshizhai Pictorial ・ Taming the Scorpion"
There are many such "insect-making ants" that are extremely difficult, such as the taming of snakes, camels, tigers, and monkeys of the Han Dynasty; Han Zhi and the red-roped tigers of the Tang Dynasty, who pressed Liangzhou at the sound of the song dynasty and could make "speeches"; the Song Dynasty's fish jumping knife doors, making bee butterflies, bear somersaults, donkey dancing garnets, and so on, they are the most important components of the "insect-making ants" and are most worth inheriting and studying.
There is also a type of "insect ant" formed in daily life.
In the Song Dynasty, such "bug ants" were prominent. To give a random example, such as the Fang Spoon "Po House Compilation" records that the monks of Shengzhong Temple in Gaowang Town, Wujiang County, Northern Song Dynasty and Prefecture, domesticated a cat, and when a guest came, the cat went to greet and report to the main monk, and when he saw that it was not like a serious person, he followed closely...
Of particular interest is the Qing Dynasty's "Miscellaneous Records of Taiwan":
Because of the complicated matter, one person trained his ducks into 50 teams, each team of hundreds, selected strong ducks as the leader, sunrise, responsible for leading the team, and then returned in the evening, and returned to the team in Zezhong, like a queue. The ducks at the head of the group suddenly roared, and the whole team was flawless, otherwise there would be losses.
In addition, in Fujian in the Song Dynasty, small fish were produced in Sanshan Creek, and the children in the mountains were raised and let them fight with each other. This technique of tuning fish fighting developed into the Qing Dynasty, and the change became as recorded in Xu Ke's "Qing Barnyard Banknotes":
Someone will store the red and white goldfish in a tank, use the red and white flags to command them, shake the red flag, and the red goldfish will swim back and forth with the red flag, closely follow, slowly follow, if the flag is closed, the fish will be lurking. The same is true of platinumfish. Then the two flags are erected side by side, and the red and white goldfish rotate intricately, mixed between the front and back, just like the army walking in line. Divide the red and white flags into two places, the red goldfish will be classified as the red team with the red flag, and the white goldfish will be classified as the white team with the white flag...
What's more, some people have trained the fish to be able to "go down to the double land". Xu Kunguo's "Hidden Even Pen" has a record:
A great official surnamed Bai built a pool of water, and the pool was made of aragonite to form a "double land disk". When entertaining guests, the pool is filled with several inches of deep water, and two boys each carry a small red and white flag to the pool. A boy waved a red flag, and the red fish came out of the upper stream and stopped in place. Another boy waved a white flag, and the white fish came out and stopped in place. The fish are more than five inches long. Guests throw money a few points to say "so-and-so moved to a certain place", the red flag boy according to the flag refers to a certain fish to lead to a certain person, a certain fish follows, not a difference. The chief official also went down like this, knocking down a certain son, and the fish was introduced into the hole with the flag, and then the flag led the fish out. At the end of the game, the fish all swam into the hole, and after a while, the water dried up and the pool was as it had been.
Fish obey the will of man and "go down to the double land", which is most related to people's understanding of the fish's living habits and getting acquainted with each other over time. This also confirms that the "bug ants" who are only for their own entertainment can also produce fine products. As Shen Rilin of the Qing Dynasty recounts in the Records of the Western Guangdong Chronicle:
Yangshuo produces monkeys, and there are many animals. Mr. Yu Wenwang has a monkey, extremely tame, guest, monkey for the delivery of cigarettes, one hand to take the tube, the other hand to hold the fire, the blowing, kneeling, hind feet arched in front, two hands as a prostration and go away, because the call is "salute monkey".
This is the Guangxi people to use the convenience of the living environment to entertain themselves "bug ants", this kind of "bug ants" in ancient China is still very much, "salute monkey" is just one of the typical.
The fourth type is insect-ant gambling.
"Cockfighting Diagram" in Ming's "Three Talents Picture Society"
Insect and ant gambling is mainly represented by cockfighting, quail fighting, and fighting crickets. Since chickens, quails, and crickets can all fight, they are all gambling. Tang's "Biography of the Old Father in Dongcheng" says that many noble lords of the family are bankrupt and bankrupt, and the city chickens repay their value. In the Song Dynasty, Sichuan Zhang Yong wrote the verse "Cockfighting Breaks a Million", and the cockfighting recorded in Ming Zhang Dai's "Tao An Dream Memories" is based on antiques, calligraphy and paintings, literary brocade, Sichuan fans and other things as a bet.
Qing Pu Songling's "Liaozhai Zhiyi" depicts the poor Wang Cheng, who saw people fighting quails, gambled thousands, domesticated a quail, took to the streets to gamble on wine and food, won every time, and accumulated twenty gold in half a year. Wang Cheng defeated the "jade quail" in the palace of the grand prince, the grand prince wanted to buy his quail, Wang Cheng bid a thousand gold, the grand prince thought it was not worth it, but Wang Cheng said: The villain will be in the city, the daily number of gold, easy to rise to the millet, a family of more than ten index fingers, no frost worries, what is the treasure? In the end, Wang Cheng made a deal with the Grand Prince for six hundred gold, and he relied on the gold of selling quail, ruling a hundred acres of land, and making a house as a tool.
The old man of the West Lake "Fanshenglu" records that the citizens of Lin'an, in the cricket peak season, have to gamble, win three or two, and hope to sell one or two dollars. The Ming Dynasty Lu Yue's "Compilation of Gengwei" also records: "Wu customs like to fight crickets, and mostly gamble on property." "Zhou Hui's "Jinling Trivia" record: Nanjing's fighting crickets, fighting with the field, shengzhi have instruments, palms have people, must match the size, and even two parties gamble, guessers cluster. The Qing Dynasty Sun Pei's "Chronicle of suzhou weaving bureau" is even more famous and colorful:
Wu customs are to fight crickets every year. Single sticks are strung together in the same bureau, choose a remote place, set up a factory and a platform, and fight together, known as "Autumn Xing". Rogues and ignorant children, each with money to gamble, set up a cabinet to draw. Neighboring provinces and other subordinates, recklessly spoke, no less than thousands of people a day, the noise vibrated Lu Lu.
It is precisely because cockfighting, fighting quail, and fighting crickets have a lot of profits to be obtained, so people are carefully raised and trained chickens, quails, crickets, which has produced a special study of cockfighting, quails, and crickets. It has greatly improved the scientific and technological level of Chinese biology.
So far, we have found that the "Chicken Genealogy" of the author is not stated during the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty, and it has carried out a systematic and theoretical summary of the selection and breeding of good breeds of fighting chickens, the incubation of breeding eggs and the breeding and management of chicks, various diseases and their prevention and control measures, which are very incisive, and many theories have had a positive impact on the development of domestic chicken breeds and the development of chicken raising technology.
In this book, Cheng Shilin divided into categories and was well-organized, expounding the "phase method", "raising method", "washing method", "feeding method", "holding method", "fighting method", "cage method", "miscellaneous method", "raising bucket should be avoided", and so on, and scientifically analyzed and summarized the experience of raising quail in ancient China, which will also play a beneficial role in people's consumption of quail.
Qing Wu Youru painting "Customs ZhiTu Said Cricket Society"
In the Song Dynasty, there were Jia Xiangdao's "Promoting Weaving Classics", the Ming Dynasty had Jia Xiangdao's "Autumn Worm Spectrum", Yuan Hongdao's "Promoting Weaving Zhi", Liu Tong's "Promoting Weaving Zhi", the Qing Dynasty's Chen Shuzi's "Cricket Chapter", Meng Gui's "Cricket Spectrum", Jin Wenjin's "Promoting Weaving Classic", Zhu Congyan's "Sun Jian", Lin Guang's "Cricket Secret Essentials", Qin Zihui's "Record of Gong Worms", "Wang Sun Jing Supplement", "Worms and Fish Collection" by The Old Man of Humble Garden, and so on.
These writings, or discernment, or contemplation; or taboo, or catching; or with food, or mating; or head color, or healing; or lower basin, or long wings... Between the lines, full of the spirit of scientific dialectics, it is a great contribution to the biology of ancient China.
Qing Wu Youru painting "Hundred Yantu on the Sea, Grass Worms"
Looking at the special works of cockfighting, quail fighting, and fighting crickets, their objective grasp of climate, terrain, appropriate application of diet, and other scientific knowledge of various disciplines have played a role in promoting and perfecting, which is probably unexpected by those who are keen on insects and ants.
(This article is excerpted from Yi Yongwen's "Travel to Ancient China")
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