The sinicization of ethnic minorities in middle school history textbooks is familiar to many people. In the various debates of online history enthusiasts, the ethnic issue is also a hot topic, and negative labels such as "imperial Han" and "manchu" are also attached. But in reality, relations between peoples have never been one-way. Since there is a Sinicization of ethnic minorities, there will inevitably be a "Huization" of the Han nationality.
For example, after the end of the Three Kingdoms era that we are all familiar with, the Jin Dynasty unified the world, but the good thing is that after only 51 years of the unification of the Western Jin Dynasty, the Jin Dynasty came to an end with the arrival of the "Five Hu Chaohua". At this point, northern China fell into a chaotic situation in which various nomadic peoples were fighting each other, and the Jin imperial family moved south to Jiankang (Nanjing) and rebuilt the Eastern Jin Dynasty here, while the north entered the era dominated by ethnic minorities, and in the process there was a large number of Han Chinese Huhua problems.
<h1 class="pgc-h-decimal" data-index="01" data-track="5" > Han Chinese Hu and Hu Chinese</h1>
Although the issue of nationality and ancestry is a topic of great interest among history buffs, it is impossible to obtain conclusive evidence through words alone because of the issue of ancestry, and in this regard, even with today's technology, it is difficult to prove whether a person's bloodline is a pure "Han Chinese". Since it is difficult to distinguish from the bloodline, does it mean that there is no other way? Of course not. Compared with blood, people pay more attention to the so-called "culture", that is, whether the person's blood is judged on the basis of whether or not to accept Han culture. In fact, this point has long been used as a basis for judging whether the Hu people are "Sinicized", and we say that issues such as the reform of Emperor Xiaowen of the Northern Wei Dynasty or the Sinicization of the Yuan Dynasty and qing dynasty are all discussions on whether the Xianbei or Mongolian and Manchus accept the culture and customs of the Han people, rather than discussing whether their ethnic groups have changed to become Han.
Since culture is the dominant factor in the problem of "Huhua" or "Sinicization", we can use this point of view to look at the "Huhua" problem of the Han people. As we all know, the demise of the Western Jin Dynasty, in addition to its own corruption, was largely due to the occurrence of the so-called "Five Hu Chaohua" incident. Simply put, a number of nomadic tribes in the north, mainly the five powerful Hu tribes of Xiongnu, Xianbei, Xianbei, Qiang, and Qi, took advantage of the chaotic situation of the "Rebellion of the Eight Kings" in the Western Jin Dynasty, went south, and in 316 attacked the Western Jin capital Chang'an. The north entered a chaotic period of the "Sixteen Kingdoms" until 439, when the Northern Wei Dynasty established by the Xianbei tribe unified the northern political power, which ended this chaotic situation that lasted for more than a hundred years.
Emperor Xiaowen of northern Wei
The unification of the Northern Wei did not mean the end of the Huization of the Han People, although Emperor Xiaowen of the Northern Wei Dynasty implemented the Sinicization reforms, but after the fall of the Northern Wei Dynasty, the Eastern Wei, Western Wei, Northern Qi, Northern Zhou and even the subsequent Sui and Tang Dynasties can clearly see the role of "Hu" culture in Chinese history. Some people say that it is precisely because of the infusion of Hu culture that Han culture can be injected with new vitality for development, and then in the Tang Dynasty, there has been a prosperous situation of all countries coming to the dynasty.
Northern Wei Buddha statue
<h1 class="pgc-h-decimal" data-index="02" data-track="9" > Han Chinese "Huhua" in marriage</h1>
Cultural change is very difficult. The reason why Chinese civilization is deeply proud of us is precisely because it has been standing in the east of the world with tenacity for thousands of years. Marriage is the most straightforward way to change or achieve integration between the two cultures. In fact, the Huhan issue, which seems very complicated today, did not become a problem for the ordinary people living in the north at that time, especially in the land where Hu and Han lived together. They do not have any "Yixia defense" like the readers, and many "Hu people" have difficulty distinguishing whether they are Han Chinese or other ethnic groups just by appearance, and they have long been accustomed to their existence after many years of dealing with these nomadic peoples. Except for the large-scale massacre of Han Chinese during the "Wuhu Chaohua" period, most of the time, the Han and Hu people lived in a relatively peaceful way, and under this mixed conditions, intermarriage between each other blurred the boundaries between Hu and Han.
Five nonsense
Throughout the Northern Dynasty, in many of the countries established by the Hu people before the Northern Wei Dynasty, the top level rarely intermarried with Han women, but since the reform of Emperor Xiaowen of Northern Wei, with the "Sinicization" reform promoted by the Northern Dynasty, more and more sons of the clan intermarried with the daughters of han courtiers in the middle of the dynasty. In the past, we often regarded this as the "Sinicization" tendency of the Hu people, but if we think about it in reverse, this is not a kind of "Huization" of the Han people, after all, the Hu people are the rulers of the dynasty, and the Han women are the chosen party. If there are still many concerns between Hu and Han at the top, then as far as the people at the bottom are concerned, the Hu Han problem is not a problem. Over the course of hundreds of years, a large number of Hu and Han chinese had long since intermarried. In the past cognition, this was the basis for the Sinicization of the Hu people, but is this not also the basis for the "Huization" of the Han people?
Some people have to ask, are there any characteristics after the "Huhua" of the Han people? This can actually be found in the survival of women after marriage. Although the Xianbei people in the Northern Wei Dynasty had already imitated the Han people for restructuring, at this time they still retained a large number of matriarchal clan heritage, and women played a very important role in society and their status was also higher. Empresses and empresses in the imperial court played an important role, and the reforms of Emperor Xiaowen of Northern Wei were thanks to Empress Feng, as did the people. Under such a cultural atmosphere, the women of the Han family are influenced by it, and their status has been continuously improved, and women can be seen in public and various social activities, they are very active in various activities, and their power is comparable to that of women of the Xianbei ethnic group. In the family, the status of Han women is no longer in a passive position as before, women's "jealousy" phenomenon is very prominent in the Northern Dynasty, women's control over their husbands has reached an unprecedented level, and even if the husband "cheats" and the wife does not take measures, but will be ridiculed, which did not change until the Sui and Tang dynasties. The high status of women in the Sui and Tang dynasties was also very rare in the dynasties.
Empress Feng in the film and television drama
<h1 class="pgc-h-decimal" data-index="03" data-track="11" > the Huhua problem of the Northern Dynasty royal family</h1>
In 534, northern Wei split into Eastern Wei and Western Wei. In 550, Gao Yang, a powerful official of Eastern Wei, established himself as emperor after deposing Emperor Xiaojing of Eastern Wei, and the Northern Qi Dynasty was established. Talking about the Gao family, the founder of Northern Qi, it is a good example of the "Huhua" of the Han people. The founder of the Gao family, Gao Huan, had to move to Huaishuo Town (present-day Inner Mongolia) because his grandfather broke the law, and since then he has been dealing with the Xianbei people for many years, and his living customs have been completely humbled. In any case, there is no doubt that the Gao family is a Han family, but there is no doubt that they have gradually become humbled in the process of mixing with the Hu tribe for many years.
The Huhua characteristics of the Gao family were already very prominent at the time of Gao Huan, Gao Huan, as a Han Chinese, his "character" was called He Liuhun, which was obviously a humble name, and his son Gao Yang, the later founding emperor of Northern Qi, also had a humble name "Hou Nigan". The name can generally reflect the characteristics of a nation, and the humbleness of the Gao family name proves that the degree of its humbleness has been very deep. In addition to the name, the intermarriage circle of the Gao family is also very "Huhua", they almost do not intermarry with the Han, but mostly marry the children of the Xianbei nobles.
Gao Yang in film and television dramas
As mentioned above, marriage is an important channel for the Hu and Hu people to sinicize, and through marriage with the Xianbei, the Gao family has become increasingly humble in behavior. Gao Huan's father, Gao Shu, was very bold in nature, not much different from the nomads who had been wandering in the grasslands for many years, and Gao Huan was able to speak fluent Xianbei dialect, and most of them used Xianbei language when the army issued orders, and only spoke Chinese when Han officials were present. Gao Yang did not even wear Hanfu much, he often wore Hufu to walk around the city, and the history books recorded that he "exposed his body and distributed Hufu", while gao Yang's descendants only left records in the history books such as "rude and violent, brave and fierce". It can be seen that the Gao family has not only been almost completely humble in behavior, but also has always regarded itself as a humble person in its heart. In Gao Yang's dialogue with others, he has clearly distinguished himself from the "Chinese," that is, the Han Chinese. In the Northern Qi era, the court was full of Hu Le and various Western style dances, and even their favorite pets were "Persian dogs" instead of Central Plains dogs. Of course, after the establishment of Northern Qi, the Gao family also followed the Northern Wei to implement the Han system, and the Han system still dominated the imperial court system, but this still could not hide the Gao family's humble tendency.
Murals from the Northern Qi era
<h1 class="pgc-h-decimal" data-index="04" data-track="13" > Wen Shijun said</h1>
Han Hu and Hu Chinese are a symbiotic process, there is no simple Han Hu or Hu Sinicization, and the exchange between any race will leave a mark on each other's lives and habits, which is a matter of common sense. For the parties involved in history, sinicization or Huhua may have special significance for some politicians. For ordinary people living in history, in addition to the extreme forms of war, many times in fact, Huhua or Sinicization can not be called a problem, ordinary people are only facing life. For those of us living in the 21st century, it is even more unnecessary to divide the superiority and inferiority of ethnic relations in history today, and even to fight for this. For the people of our country who are now living in this land, whether it is our so-called bloodline or culture, it is the result of the multi-directional integration between various ethnic groups for thousands of years. When understanding these problems, it is enough to accept them as an objective historical fact, and it is really stupid to have to divide them into highs and choose a side.
< h1 class="pgc-h-decimal" data-index="05" data-track="15" > reference</h1>
Xu Xuan, "On the Problem of Huhua Sinicization in Northern Qi: Centered on the Gao Family of Northern Qi", Journal of Tianshui Normal University, No. 5, 2018.
Zhang Junfei, "The Phenomenon of Huization in the Southern and Northern Dynasties of Wei and Jin as Seen in Marriage", Chinese Culture Forum, No. 12, 2013.
(Author: Haoran Wenshi Little Sun)
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