In many of today's film and television works and online information, it is common to refer to the founding emperor of the Han Dynasty as Han Gaozu, and even in many officially recognized materials, Liu Bang is defined as Han Gaozu. But what I want to say today is that why should those who do not understand historical and cultural knowledge have to make a grandstanding and misleading people's cognition, so that everyone has the same wrong perception as you, such as the online novel "The Legend of Liu Bang of The Ancestor of Han Gao".
In particular, some materials that are officially explanatory should be revised in certain details. For example, in 2010, the Book of Liu Bang of Han Gaozu published by Jilin People's Publishing House. Even the official data of Baidu Encyclopedia even added Han Gaozu's annotations to Liu Bang's entry.
<h1>It is "Taizu" and not "Gaozu"</h1>
In the "Sayings of Confucius", it is said: "Ancestors have merit and sects have virtue", which is the difference between "ancestors" and "sects", that is, there are meritorious ancestors and there are virtues. The merit here refers to the merit of creation, and the virtue here refers to the virtue of keeping success. This also explains why the founding emperor called him zu more, while the Shoucheng emperor called him zong more.
However, there are also differences between "ancestors" and "ancestors", for example, in the history of the dynasties and dynasties, there have been "Taizu", "Gaozu", "Shizu", "Chengzu", "Shengzu" and so on. Nowadays, many people habitually call Liu Bang "Han Gaozu", but in fact, this is the wrong name.
Because Liu Bang is actually not the "ancestor of Han Gao", it is clearly recorded in the "Book of Han - Gao Emperor's Chronicle": May Bingyin, bury Changling. After the fall, the crown prince and the courtiers all went to the Taishang Imperial Temple. Qun Chen: "The emperor is subtle, the chaos of the world is reversed, the world is pacified, and the Han Taizu is the highest merit." "Emperor Gao of Shangzun is known as Emperor Gao.
The meaning of this passage is that when Liu Bang was buried in the Taimiao Temple after his death, the temple name given to him by the Qunchen according to his merits in his lifetime was "Han Taizu" and the nickname was "Emperor Gao." And if we call Liu Bang "Han Gaozu", it is equivalent to the title of the temple and the temple number is mixed together and ambiguous, which is unreasonable, because "Gao Zu" and "Taizu" are fundamentally different.
Therefore, Liu Bang should be Han Taizu, or Emperor Han Gao. Although all the founding emperor temples are Taizu or Gaozu or Shizu, a careful person will find the difference.
<h1>The essential difference between "Gaozu" and "Taizu"</h1>
According to the original most traditional temple system: one ancestor, two ancestors and four relatives temple, a dynasty will only have one person called "ancestor", but in fact, we all know that many dynasties do not have more than one "ancestor". Although these "ancestors" were the founding emperors of the world, they had already posthumously named one of his ancestors as "ancestors" when they were still in power, and they would all be "Taizu".
For example, during the reign of Cao Pi, the founding emperor of the State of Wei, he posthumously named his father Cao Cao "Wei Taizu" and himself "Wei Gaozu"; during the reign of Sima Yan, the founding emperor of the Jin Dynasty, he posthumously named his father Sima Zhao "Jin Taizu" and himself "Jin Shizu"; when Yang Jian, the founding monarch of the Sui Dynasty, was on the throne, he posthumously named his father Yang Zhong as "Sui Taizu" and himself as "Sui Gaozu"; when Li Yuan, the founding monarch of the Tang Dynasty, was during his reign, he posthumously named his grandfather Li Hu "Tang Taizu" and himself "Tang Gaozu" During the reign of Kublai Khan, the founding monarch of the Yuan Dynasty, he posthumously named his grandfather Temujin "Yuan Taizu" and himself "Yuan Shizu".
We can find that this group of founding emperors all have one thing in common, that is, they all have a certain inheritance in their families, and their ancestors already have a high status and prestige. And on their way to becoming emperor, they all relied on the original power of the family to succeed, to put it a little more common, that is, they are all rich second generations. And some of them want to posthumously honor their ancestors, but also to justify their own names.
And those who, when claiming the emperor's reign, did not posthumously name one of their ancestors as "Taizong", and after their death, the temple number was "Taizu". For example, Liu Bang, Zhao Kuangyin, Zhu Yuanzhang, and Nurhaci are all people who started from scratch and thus established their own political power.
As for Zhu Di during the Ming Dynasty, he was called "Ming Chengzu", Ai Xin Jue Luo Fu Lin was called "Qing Shi Zu", Ai Xin Jue Luo Xuan Ye was called "Qing Shengzu", and after the founding emperor established the country from scratch to become "Taizu", he could also be called "Zu", all of which belong to special circumstances.
Zhu Di's original temple name was not called "Ancestor", but "Ming Taizong", but because of the selfish intentions of the later Jiajing Emperor, he forcibly changed it to "Ming Chengzu".
Ai Xinjueluo Fulin is because although Nurhaci established the Later Jin regime, he did not claim the title of emperor in Guannei, and Fulin was the first emperor of the Qing Dynasty in Guannei, and he was also a different kind of founding emperor.
As for Ai Xin Jue Luo Xuan Ye, it was purely because of the great merit that he repelled the invasion of the Western countries that China faced for the first time, the Battle of Tsarist Russia. It was the defenders of a unified multi-ethnic state that laid the foundation for the prosperity of the Qing Dynasty, and even created a great situation of kangqian's prosperity, with scholars revering him as "one emperor of a thousand years" and, in particular, being revered as "Holy Ancestor." ”
And Liu Bang, from a mixture of to become emperors, his self-made name is the most worthy of the name, and it is even more deserved to get a temple title of Han Taizu.
<h1>Conjecture as to why such a misunderstanding occurs</h1>
1, Sima Qian's "Records of History" record of Liu Bang
Although the record of the time when Liu Bangmiao was determined in the "Records of History" is very similar to the record in the "Book of Han", there are still subtle differences: "Gao Zu is subtle, the chaos of the world is reversed, the world is pacified, and the Han Taizu is the highest merit." "The title of Shangzun is Emperor Gao.
That is, at the beginning, the "emperor" was replaced by "Gao zu", and the official Gao zu here determined that Liu Bang's title was "Gao Zu", which caused such a big misunderstanding in later generations.
Obviously, the circulation of the "Shi Ji" is definitely greater than that of the "Book of Han" today, which may be due to the influence caused by the background of the compilation of the two. In fact, more than this one, in fact, in the naming of Liu Bang's biography, there is a big problem.
Sima Qian named the biography of Liu Bang as "Gao Zu Benji" in the "Records of History", and it should be known that in the "Book of Han" it is named "Gao Di Ji". Obviously, the Book of Han's naming of Liu Bang's biography is based on the title of "Emperor Gao", but what about the "Records of History"? It looks very much like a temple number, after all, the temple number of the later founding emperor originally had the term "Gao Zu". Therefore, it was called "Han Gaozu" along the "Records of History".
2, Liu Bang was the first emperor to officially use the temple number
Although the temple number originated in the Shang Dynasty, during this period of time in the Zhou Dynasty and the Qin Dynasty, until the establishment of the Han Dynasty, the temple number system was officially re-tried, that is to say, Liu Bang was the first person we can really understand to have a temple number. (Qin Shi Huang did not have a temple number or a nickname, and the claim of the First Emperor is only a commonly circulated statement)
And just implemented, it is inevitable that the Zongmiao system in the early years of the Han Dynasty is very imperfect, so in fact, not many people really care about what "Taizu" is, so at that time, people directly used the nickname "Gao" to refer to Liu Bang's Zongmiao, called "Gaozu Temple". However, the two titles have been simplified and merged into one title, which is really convenient enough.