Left: Song Renzong (Wang Kai) in Qing Ping Le; Right: Part of Song Renzong's portrait
Hit TV series "Qing Ping Le",
It is about the life of Song Renzong Zhao Zhen,
2020 coincides with the 1010th anniversary of the birth of Song Renzong.
Emperor Renzong of Song was the longest reigning emperor in the history of the Song Dynasty.
In his courtroom, the "Recitation of Silent Writing Heavenly Regiment" was born:
Fan Zhongyan, Yan Shu, Ouyang Xiu, Wang Anshi, Su Dongpo...
Three of the "Four Great Inventions",
Six of the "Eight Greats of the Tang and Song Dynasties",
It all came from this short period of forty years.
The temple number "Renzong",
It is the highest evaluation that Confucianism can give to emperors to govern the country,
Zhao Zhen was also the first monarch in history to receive the honor of "benevolence".
However, Song Renzong himself was mediocre,
There is no great talent,
In the 42 years of his reign, he himself has not taken half a step out of the capital.
Why was the Song Renzong dynasty able to shine in history?
Wu Hook's new book "Song Renzong: The Era of Co-Governance"
An interview with Wu Hook, a researcher of Song history and a well-known historical writer,
His new book, Song Renzong: The Age of Co-Governance
Just published in April this year,
He also continues to update his experience in chasing dramas online.
He tells us that the Song Dynasty was one of the most "modern" dynasties:
The income of the common people of the Song Dynasty was the highest in all dynasties,
No curfew, nightlife,
If you are in a good mood, you can take a trip that you can go on...
"If you look for ancient China according to the values of modern people,
We will find that the whole style of the Song Dynasty,
It may be the most in line with the needs of modern people. ”
Self-description Wu Hook Edited by Ye Li
For an emperor with a very low sense of existence,
Write a biography
More than 10 years ago, I read more books than the historical materials, notes, and novels of the Ming and Qing dynasties, many of which were about the intrigues and struggles in the official arena, and the tone of the writing was relatively gray, and the whole person was very depressed: How can history be so dark? At that time, I wondered if I could go back further and see where this tradition came from, and I began to pay attention to the history before the Ming and Qing dynasties.
When I saw the Song Dynasty, I found that this dynasty has too many highlights, and the values it embodies are good, the aesthetics are good, and they are all in line with my personal cognition, so I pay more attention to the history of the Song Dynasty, and the more I look at it, the more I feel that this dynasty is particularly worth studying.
At that time, I was still a media person in the newspaper industry, and I successively published several books about the history of the Song Dynasty.
Wu Hook gave an interview
Almost five years ago, I began to pay attention to Emperor Renzong, pay attention to the collection of various historical fragments about him, and last year I simply quit my job and spent a whole year writing "Song Renzong: The Era of Co-governance", a personal biography of Emperor Renzong.
In the public's impression, Song Renzong is a person with a very low sense of existence. We can find many biographies of emperors of other dynasties, such as Qin Shi Huang, Emperor Wu of Han, Kangxi, and Qianlong, but it is difficult to find a copy of Emperor Renzong. He reigned at the age of 13 and reigned for 42 years, the longest reigning emperor of the Song Dynasty, and the title of "Jiayou Zhizhi" actually proves that he governs the country well.
It is no coincidence that the TV series "Qing Ping Le" also revolves around the inside and outside of the Song Renzong Court. In the 4th month of the lunar calendar in 2020, Song Renzong just happened to celebrate the 1010th anniversary of his birth, which is a good commemoration.
An unfree emperor
Song Renzong's "Ren" is the temple number. The meaning of "benevolence" is not only as simple as benevolence and benevolence, but also to return to the "benevolence" in the Confucian classics to understand: "self-denial and retribution, called benevolence." "Self-denial" means to restrain one's own desires and emotional preferences, and consciously obey the constraints of the system.
Song Renzong did this, and I think it was not easy for an emperor, because he had the highest power after all. Then we will find that he is a very unfree emperor and sometimes has to grievance himself.
Zhang Guifei (played by Wang Churan)
Personally, for the woman he loved most in his life, Zhang Guifei, Emperor Renzong wanted to crown her as empress. When he had the slightest idea of deposing Empress Cao and establishing a new empress, the court's court officials went up one after another, "How can you be like this", so he could only name his beloved Zhang Guifei as a noble concubine, and did not dare to move again.
He wanted to promote Zhang Guifei's uncle (said to be his uncle), but the officials opposed this binding of interests, and Bao Zheng even spit in Renzong's face. At that time, the Song people's view was that official positions were public instruments of the state, not given to whomever private individuals wanted, and that they should not use the public for personal gain, and they must comply with the provisions of the whole system.
Emperor Renzong was hungry at night and wanted to eat roast lamb, but according to the system at that time, there was no such custom as supplying roast lamb to the emperor at night, and he could only endure.
These are the reasons why he was praised by later scholars: he was the king of a country, but at the same time a man, with his personal emotional preferences, and when the two roles conflicted, he chose to restrain his emotions.
Political warmth with courtesy
Emperor Renzong had great respect for scholars, and would definitely not be like the Ming and Qing dynasties, where one side of the monarch was very strong and the other side was only promised.
If the scholar had some minor transgressions and was to be removed from his official post, Emperor Renzong's usual practice would imply that he would offer his resignation. You take the blame and resign, everyone is decent, don't let me write an edict to spare you, so that everyone is ugly. This kind of practice of taking great care of the dignity of scholars and doctors was very common in the Song Dynasty, and it can be said that the relationship between kings and subjects was relatively harmonious, and there was a kind of political warmth that treated each other with courtesy.
Emperor Renzong was also very tolerant of the criticism of him by the scholars, and once he presided over the palace examination, when Su Shi's younger brother Su Rui wrote a long article to answer the emperor's questions, the theme of Xiao Su's article was to scold people, and Emperor Renzong scolded a dog bloody head, and after scolding the emperor, he also scolded the emperor as the prime minister.
After Su Rui handed in the examination papers, he would not worry at all that he would be arrested, at most he would worry about whether he would not be admitted because he had scolded too much. Because of the atmosphere of the entire Song Dynasty at that time, everyone had a stable expectation, even if I spoke fiercely and offended people, even the emperor, I would never be punished by killing my head. After Emperor Renzong saw Su Rui's article, he felt that he was very young and courageous, and gave him a good score, rated as the 4th class.
The Song people "memorized and silently wrote the Heavenly Regiment",
Take the world as your responsibility
Many people I am very familiar with in my heart used to be a very abstract name, but I don't know how he looks, his words and deeds, but when I watch "Qing Ping Le", I find that they come up one by one, very kind. Netizens also named them "Memorizing and Writing Silent Heavenly Group", which is very interesting.
Fan Zhongyan (Liu Jun), who wrote "the worries of the world first", appeared as a farmer
Yan Shu (Yu Entai) sings "Huan Xi Sha" in the courtyard
During the Reign of Emperor Renzong, Sima Guang (Chu Junchen) was still very young and vigorous
Like Fan Zhongyan, Su Dongpo, Yan Shu, Wang Anshi, And Sima Guang, in fact, their identities are not only masters of writing articles, but also a politician, very successful in politics, Fan Zhongyan is a leader of the New Deal of the Qing calendar, Wang Anshi led the change of law and so on.
This dual identity of a writer and politician was common in the Song Dynasty, but rare in other dynasties. Poets of the Tang Dynasty, such as Li Bai and Du Fu, were at most very small officials, or they were very unhappy in the official arena all their lives. The same is true in the Ming and Qing dynasties, we can find many students who have fallen off the list, literary scholars who have not passed the examination, Pu Songling who wrote "Liaozhai Zhiyi", and Wu Chengen who wrote "Journey to the West" and so on.
Su Dongpo painted by the Ming Dynasty
In the second half of the TV series "Qingping Le", Su Dongpo will appear. Although he did not serve as a very large ruling official in the central government, he served as a local official for many years, and his performance was very good.
I now live in Guangzhou, Su Dongpo was in Huizhou at that time, not far away. During the Northern Song Dynasty, Guangzhou lacked fresh water and drinking water, because the water dug out of the offshore ground was very salty and bitter. Su Dongpo wrote a letter to a friend in Zhizhou in Guangzhou, suggesting that he use the mountain spring water on Baiyun Mountain outside Guangzhou, connect it with a thick bamboo tube, form a water pipe, and lead the mountain spring water to the inside of Guangzhou City. This is very similar to our current water supply system.
One of the biggest characteristics of the Song Dynasty scholars and doctors is that there is a widespread responsibility of "taking the world as their own responsibility". Not just a few people, but such a group of people think so. The scholar regards the world as his duty, and believes that I should participate in the governance of the world affairs of this country, and I have the moral responsibility of governing it well, which can rarely be seen in other eras.
Movable type printing is demonstrated in "Qing Ping Le"
The development of science and technology in the Song Dynasty is also particularly worth mentioning. Three of the "Four Great Inventions" appeared in this period, including gunpowder, the compass, and movable type printing.
There is a scientist of the Renzong Dynasty who I particularly like, Shen Kuo, the author of "Mengxi Pen Talk", is an all-round scientist who has studied astronomical geography, physical chemistry, mathematics, and music. He has an explanation that the moon itself is a spherical shape, and the reason why there are changes in the lack of clouds and clouds is because of the different angles at which it reflects the sun's light. This is very close to what we now know about the moon.
What is valuable is that Shen Kuo did not rely on imagination to come up with this explanation, but by doing experiments, taking a few small balls in the small room, playing light experiments, and finally came to a conclusion. This kind of experimental spirit is particularly not simple in ancient China.
Part of the Song Dynasty forensic science work "The Record of Washed Injustices"
The Song Dynasty even had human anatomy for medical purposes. Although there have been opportunities to do it before, in the mainstream view of human dissection is a great offense to the deceased. However, in the Song Dynasty, there were two officially organized human dissections in order to find out what was inside the human body. At that time, after the death row inmate was executed, the doctor was asked to come over and dissect and record what he saw in detail. This is a very rare medical experiment in ancient times.
So a seemingly mediocre emperor, in the period of so many years of his reign, so many very bullish figures can emerge in various fields, which can reflect from one side that Emperor Renzong is actually not so simple.
Many people have asked me, do you really want to cross to the Song Dynasty? My real thoughts are: I don't really want to cross, because I am used to the current life. Just like when you come to Guangzhou from Shanghai, it only takes two or three hours by plane, but in the Song Dynasty, this kind of long-distance travel you have to take in Malaysia and walk for more than 10 days, or even a month.
But if you force me to cross, then I will think of the Song Dynasty - not to treat myself as a literati, to feel that the relaxed environment of the Song Dynasty would be treated with some courtesy, but to treat myself as an ordinary person, and I would want to stay in the Song Dynasty.
It is easier for an ordinary citizen to cross to the Song Dynasty than to travel to other dynasties.
Ordinary people have high incomes,
A free, relaxed society
First of all, the income of the people in the Song Dynasty was the highest in history, and the high income directly meant that the living standards of ordinary people in the Song Dynasty were good.
An ordinary commoner in the Song Dynasty, whether he went to a stall to do a small business, or ran to someone's home to work as a domestic worker, or worked in an official handicraft workshop, his daily income was about 100 yuan, and if it was less than 80 yuan, which was the highest in history.
In the Ming Dynasty, the income of the same class was about 20 yuan a day, only one-fifth of the Song Dynasty. However, considering that the price of the Ming Dynasty was lower, after deducting the impact of price factors, the daily income of the citizens of the Song Dynasty was about 2 to 3 times that of the Ming Dynasty.
Wu Dalang, who sells cooking cakes in "Water Margin", is now a street vendor selling steamed buns, like him, a small citizen of the lower class of society, with an income of about 100 yuan per day, can meet the food and clothing of a family of five, of course, he can afford to raise a wife who loves beauty and loves to buy cosmetics. He was also able to apply for a low-rent house at the time, and the two of them could live in a small two-story building.
In addition to the high economic level, ordinary people in the Song Dynasty were also particularly free to travel, and in so many dynasties, only in the Song Dynasty could they come to a trip that said they were walking.
Whether it's traveling or doing business in other places, as long as you've had enough, you can just walk. For example, in March and April, both citizens and farmers around Luoyang will rush to Luoyang to see peonies, just like we all want to go to Wuhan to see cherry blossoms, and the customs of travel and sightseeing are very close.
In the Han and Tang dynasties and the Ming Dynasty, this was unimaginable. According to the system at that time, if you want to go far, you must declare to the local officials, and you can only go on the road after applying for a "pass". If you want to go, you will be arrested.
In the Northern Song Dynasty Zhang Zeduan's "Qingming River Map", the bridge and the bridge are small businesses
In the cities of the Song Dynasty, the streets were full of shops. Opening shops on the street, regardless of time and place, this practice was popularized in the Song Dynasty.
Merchants in Chang'an in the Tang Dynasty could only open shops in the two cities of Dongxi, which were formulated by the government. Shops are not allowed in residential areas. And now we look at the Northern Song Dynasty's "Qingming River Map", Kaifeng City, are densely packed shops, many places are connected by family.
Song painting "Wenhui Tu" in the tea tasting, tea ordering
At that time, the commercial development was refined to what extent, for example, we all know that the Song Dynasty people loved to drink tea, but the process of ordering tea was actually very complicated and time-consuming. For ordinary people, he may not be so particular, and his need is to drink tea quickly and efficiently.
At that time, in the store, there was just a sale of ground tea powder, you bought this tea powder back, put it in a tea bowl, quickly stirred, you can immediately order a bowl of tea, those complex processes, you don't have to start from scratch. This also just shows that we now say that some tea is very elegant, which is a "taste" of the ancients, in fact, it is also a daily routine in the homes of ordinary people.
At night, ordinary citizens can go to the restaurant tea house, can also walk along the street to eat and eat, the street is also brightly lit, the nightlife is very prosperous. In the Tang Dynasty, the system of annual curfew, only three days of the Lantern Festival, was broken in the Song Dynasty.
Even a woman in a deep boudoir can swim at night. Even Emperor Renzong envied the lively nightlife of the people, and felt that the night of the imperial palace was lined with cold and cold.
Entertainment activities in the Song Dynasty were also very rich, and each city had a public facility similar to a civic entertainment center, called "Washe Goulan". "Washe" is a complex of buildings that sell food and drink, can shop, watch performances, and even have bank business halls, which is very similar to our current commercial square complex.
"Hook Bar" is also a theater, the program performed in it, in addition to singing and dancing, there are also burlesque plays, just like our current "cross-talk sketches", although the Song Dynasty did not have this name, but there was already this form of performance for the purpose of amusing people. You'll even see soccer and sumo wrestling.
In terms of dressing style, the free fashion atmosphere of the Song Dynasty also exceeded the imagination of many people.
Modern people have a deep-rooted misunderstanding that the Song Dynasty people were influenced by Cheng Zhu Lixue and would dress very conservatively, wrapping themselves in densely packed, and even women could not even show their necks. In fact, this is definitely not the case.
The most common clothing for women in the Song Dynasty was to wear a bandeau and a gown on the outside, even without buttons, or open, just like the "underwear outside" that we are now popular.
Why we love the Song Dynasty
We project our present values into history, so we have different emotions and perceptions of each dynasty.
For example, in the modern era, the late Qing Dynasty or the late Ming Dynasty, when everyone talks about the Song Dynasty, their eyes will focus on the "weak and poor" side of the Song Dynasty. The Song fought with the Western Xia, with the Liao, and with the Mongols, all of which lost more and won less, and their performance on the military battlefield was really ugly, and it could even be said that they were more nested.
The reason why people always paid attention to this aspect of the Song Dynasty at that time was because their era was also facing the risk of national subjugation. The great anxiety in reality is projected onto the perception of the dynasties.
In this era, what we hope is that the lives of ordinary people can be better, free, the atmosphere in society is more tolerant, and the law can give us a basic guarantee, if we look for ancient China according to this value, we will find that the style displayed by the Song Dynasty as a whole may be the most in line with the spiritual needs of modern people.
Including the aesthetics of the Song Dynasty, it is most consistent with what we respect in modern times, such as the Ru porcelain of the Song Dynasty, which is exactly the same as the minimalism we now promote.
When you are not worried about the material aspect, you spiritually hope that your life will be more stylish and tasteful - looking back in this state, the Song Dynasty is the most worthy of our re-excavation and rediscovery.
Some of the images are from Noonday Sun Pictures