Wei Zhou | wen
The word "Tianfu", in the current media, is often the patent of Sichuan people: when it comes to the "country of Tianfu", most people's first reaction is Sichuan, the capital of Sichuan Province, Chengdu City Center has "Tianfu Square", the new city is called "Tianfu New District", and the new airport under construction is also named "Tianfu Airport". A monograph on Sichuan cuisine by the British scholar Fuchsia Dunlop is called "Land of Plenty", and the original English name literally translates to "land of plenty". The title is so deeply rooted in the hearts of the people that a decade ago, China National Geographic magazine selected "New Tianfu", which caused the dissatisfaction of many Sichuan people. Historically, however, the term "kingdom of Tianfu" was neither proprietary to Sichuan nor originally referred to Sichuan, nor did it mean more than just the fertility of the region — otherwise it would be difficult to explain why places like Jiangnan, Jianghan Plain, and the Pearl River Delta, which were historically fertile and rich in Sichuan, were almost never called Tianfu. Behind this simple title, there are often overlooked traditional Chinese cultural concepts.
Interpretation of "Tianfu"
In modern Chinese, the meaning of "Tianfu" is often limited to "the country of Tianfu", and the authoritative reference book "Modern Chinese Dictionary" compiled by the Institute of Linguistics of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences only includes the term "kingdom of Tianfu", which is explained as: "Where the land is fertile and the products are rich, Sichuan is generally called 'the country of Tianfu' in China." The Ancient Chinese Dictionary includes the word "Tianfu", but it is also interpreted as "a place with superior natural conditions, dangerous situations, and rich products." The "Ciyuan" lists four meanings of "Tianfu": 1) Zhou Guan's name, which belongs to the Spring Official, and is the guardian and custodian of the Ancestral Temple. All the registers of the number of people, the covenant books of the states, and the books of prison proceedings are sent to the Tianfu for preservation. House, the place where things are hidden; heaven, honorific title. Later, it refers to the warehouse of the imperial court. 2) Fertile, dangerous, and fertile areas. 3) Star name. There are four stars in Kang su and fang su, and they are called tianfu. 4) The name of the human body part and the acupuncture point. In fact, the meaning of "Tianfu" is extremely complex, and there is far more than that, the historical geographer Wang Shuanghuai in the article "The Evolution of the Kingdom of Heavenly Palace" cites a total of nine kinds, in addition to the "Etymology", it also refers to: people's "spiritual house", indicating profound thinking and wisdom; national libraries or archives; imperial court or heavenly court; treasury or Tianzi mansion treasury; rich land suitable for human life.
These meanings may seem varied at first glance, but they are actually closely related to each other. To understand this, we must first understand that China has traditionally been a gasification cosmological mode of thinking and believes in the "unity of heaven and man", that is, the human body is essentially a small universe. This is completely different from the Western thinking that "the mind and the body are a different and interactive machine", although it also emphasizes the "heart" and "head" as the control center to control other parts, but it is not a mechanistic metaphor, but that the control and guidance of "qi" is the most important, because "qi" is not only the life force that flows regularly in the universe, but also the life of human beings, the basis of human health, and the Chinese saying that human death is "stopping qi". Therefore, Chinese medicine, health care and internal power all emphasize the absorption, guidance, and storage of "qi" (included in the "Dantian"), these "qi" flows along the meridians in the body, and there are "acupuncture points" in different parts of the human body that can dredge or block the air flow like a checkpoint, and when the human body appears in pain, it is diagnosed as caused by poor air flow, and it is necessary to use acupuncture to penetrate the acupuncture points to channel, but the most important thing is still the storage, accumulation, control and application of energy.
Because this mode of thinking subtly dominates Chinese's imagination of different fields, we can often see it appear in different categories as a metaphor: the "holes" used in Chinese medicine and qigong to refer to specific parts of the human body, and the same term is used in feng shui kanyu. Unlike the ancient Greek anatomical medicine, which focused on muscles and nerves, Chinese medicine focused on the "five internal organs" and "meridians" when observing. The principles of medicine in the pre-Qin period were often used as persuasive metaphors in political texts, so the naming of human organs was based on the same principle as national politics, the so-called "five internal organs and six intestines", the "White Tiger Tong" clearly pointed out: "People have five Tibets and six houses, what law? The law of five elements and six combinations also. "That is to say, internal organs are the embodiment of the structure of the universe in the human body." The sounds of "dirty" and "gut" are "hidden" and "fu" respectively. "Su Qing : The Five Visceral Organs": "The so-called five viscera, hiding the essence and not writing it, is full but cannot be real." "Lingshu Ben Viscera": "The five visceral ones, so the one who hides the spirit, flesh, and soul are also." The "Zhou Li Tianguan Disease Doctor" said: "The six provinces, the stomach, small intestine, large intestine, bladder, gallbladder, and sanjiao, are prosperous because of their popularity, so they are called houses." The five internal organs are the center of human life activities and store energy; while the six internal organs are similar to "transmutations", which must be "diarrhea but not hidden", "real but not full", in other words, energy needs to flow and transmit through here to supply the control and domination of the center. In this view, human function is conceived as a reservoir of energy, where a person gains power and acts through control over the inflow and consumption of energy.
Based on this, we can understand the metaphor that runs through different affairs: "Fu" from the creation of words to refer to the place where the goods are stored, and later abstracted into a metaphor for all storage. "Zhou Li Chunguan" "Tianfu" Article Jia Gongyan Shu: "Fu, Juye." All things gathered are known as the government, and the officials gather in the official palace, and the gathering of food and drink in the human body is called the six provinces. "Zhuangzi Qiwu Theory" believes that the most fundamental way to get rid of the endless disputes between people is to abandon wisdom, hide its knowledge in the "Tianfu", and converge the wisdom light ("Baoguang"), where the "Tianfu" is like the "Dantian" as an inner accumulation place. In Chinese, it is often said that a person who has a heart and mind is called "the city government is deep"; in feng shui, the mansion also pays attention to "Tibetan wind and gathering qi", and it is necessary to surround the mountains and rivers in order to transfer wealth, so the mansion is also called "fu"; the Eastern Han Xu Shen's "Explanation of The Interpretation of The Text" explains that "the house, the document is also hidden", which means that for the imperial court, the document itself is a constituent element of administrative power. Originally, the "house" of the metaphor of the inner court institutions and human organs officially became the name of the administrative division in the first year of the Tang Dynasty (713), and Tang Xuanzong promoted the capital Yongzhou to Jingzhao Prefecture and the Promotion of Duluo Prefecture to Henan Province, which in itself may mean the centralization of state power and the externalization of inner court power.
It is worth noting that here, the meaning of "fu" always implies the meaning of "the center of storing, controlling, and transferring key materials", so tianfu xinggu is called "Lingxing", which is called "Nandou Star Lord" in xiangshu, and the main wealth, land, house, clothing and food. The principle of the Tianfu Acupoint, which the human body calls the Tianfu Acupoint, is to straighten the hand and point the arm with the tip of the nose, and its principle is that Chinese believe that "nose through the weather" is the key to life, and the lungs of the "house of the human body", with the help of the nose, "pass the weather".
Applied to political ideas, this is a kind of "tribute economics": if a monarch wants to achieve imperial hegemony, he must use the power of the bureaucracy to effectively allocate production activities and manpower and material resources everywhere with the purpose of winning the war. This is close to what the German philosopher Heidegger called "machenschaft," that is, forcing the territories and peoples we rule to obey the needs of management and obediently hand over what we want from them. In this type of relationship, energy is not sown, cared for, and eventually harvested, but unlocked and transformed, stored in some different form, waiting to be distributed. The military imagery implicit in Heidegger's discourse fits well with traditional Chinese idealism: "Everything is ordered to be on standby, to be immediately available, in fact, to stand there so that it can wait for further orders at any time." ”
According to traditional Chinese discourse, this is a kind of "potential": the force between heaven and earth is "qi", and this force is "potential" when it is used for tendentious operation and transformation, and if a person can mobilize this force, it is also considered to have "momentum". The creation of "potential" is extremely important and ubiquitous: feng shui can have dragon momentum, military battles have a posture, calligraphy and painting have a pen gesture, and the structure of articles has a literary posture, while military and political events also pay attention to the "situation", and often must occupy a favorable "place of victory", so that they can build a foundation from a high vantage point in advance. Such a base that can meet political needs is the "kingdom of heavenly palaces"
"Kingdom of Heaven": a military geography term
It is not difficult to imagine that when the ancients discussed political and military issues, they also borrowed the same metaphor to illustrate the problem. As historian Chen Suzhen said: "From the perspective of modern discipline classification, the pre-Qin Zhuzi are often different in terms of theoretical level, research methods, and observation angles, but most of what they expound is the knowledge of how to 'govern' the country and 'govern' the world." These studies usually include different levels of content such as human nature, governing strategy, historical view, and cosmology. That is to say, the scholars of the pre-Qin era were most concerned with how to govern the country and the security of the country from the political level, but they would explain the problem from different levels such as cosmology.
It was in this context that the term "Tianfu" was used as a metaphor for a certain geographical area. The first to use this usage was su Qin, a famous strategist in the Warring States period. The Chronicle of Su Qin records that he lobbied King Hui of Qin, saying: "The kingdom of the Four Cypresses of Qin is surrounded by mountains, the river in the east, Hanzhong in the west, Bashu in the south, Anddaima in the north, and this Tianfu is also." With the multitude of Qin soldiers and the teachings of the art of war, they can swallow the world and rule as emperors. But the King of Qin reacted coldly, so he went north to say Yan Wenhou, and his wording was very similar to that of when lobbying the King of Qin: "In eastern Yan, there are Joseon and Liaodong, in the north there are Lin Hu and Lou Fu, in the west there are Yunzhong and Jiuyuan, in the south there are Hutuo and Yishui, and the place is more than 2,000 miles, with hundreds of thousands of armor, 600 cars, 6,000 horses, and suzhi for several years." In the south, there are stones and wild goose gates, and in the north there are jujube chestnut benefits, although the people do not work but are enough to be jujube chestnuts. This so-called Tianfu also. ”
Su Qin added a new connotation to the "Tianfu" from the level of military geography: the situation was dangerous (mountains and rivers as a barrier), there was military potential (horses and manpower), and there were materials to establish the imperial industry. Ideas like his were actually everywhere among the strategists of various countries at that time, and Fan Ju's tone when lobbying the King of Qin was almost the same as his: "The kingdom of the great kings, the four sai are solid, there are Ganquan Valley Mouth in the north, Jingwei in the south, Longshu on the right, Andose on the left, fighting millions, chariots, attacking, unfavorable, and defending, and this land of kings is also." The people are afraid of private struggles and dare to fight publicly, and the people of this king are also", he stressed that after having such a land people, "the cause of the overlord can also be caused". After Fan Ju was enthroned as the Marquis of Ying, when he received the visiting Xunzi, he asked him "How to enter Qin", and Xunzi's answer was also similar to the pattern: "Its solidity is dangerous, the situation is convenient, the mountains, forests, rivers and valleys are beautiful, and the benefits of heavenly materials are many, and it is a victory over the form." That is to say, in such a statecraft perspective, a place can be called "the country of heaven", not only because it can provide rich strategic materials, but also be easy to defend and difficult to attack, and can be based on it to lay the foundation of a strong country. The reason why this discussion arose in the Warring States period is probably precisely because the competition among major powers at that time was fully mobilized, and the consumption of materials and manpower was huge, which was directly transformed into a question that determined the life and death of all countries in the war for hegemony.
Previous generations of scholars have also summarized these phenomena in Chinese history. In 1935, Ji Chaoding proposed the concept of "key economic areas" in the book "Basic Economic Zones and the Development of Water Conservancy Undertakings in China's History", pointing out: "In every period in China's history, some regions have always received more attention than other regions. This area, which receives special attention, develops at the expense of the interests of other regions, which is the so-called 'basic economic zone' that the rulers want to establish and maintain. At that time, the localities were self-sufficient, the level of economic development was roughly the same as before, and they were not dependent on each other, so that "in this case, the question of China's unification and centralization of power can only be regarded as the control of such an economic zone: its agricultural production conditions and transportation facilities are so superior to the supply of Gunna grain that no matter which group controls this region, it is possible to conquer and unify all of China." ”
Lucic believes that this view of Ji Chaoding was deeply influenced by the geopolitical theory of the time, and if we follow Mackinder's view of "geographical hub", we can also condense Ji Zhaoding's view as follows: "Whoever controls Guanzhong can control the Central Plains; whoever controls the Central Plains can control the Chinese Empire." From this, he argues that there are "special areas in Chinese history that are particularly valued by dynasties, according to which they are sufficient to control the whole country," i.e., "core areas," but he expands this original concept of economic geography to include the following elements: 1) it should be the area where the armor comes from, 2) it should be the capital where wealth gathers, 3) it should be the place where talents gather, and 4) it should be the hope of orthodoxy. However, Lucić also missed one point, namely the ruggedness of the terrain of this core area. After quoting his views, Ge Zhaoguang believes that such a core area is actually the original meaning of the ancient "China" - the word "China", which originally referred to a core area that could lay the foundation of politics. The concepts of "core area" and "under the heavens" can actually be expressed in English heartland.
The discussion of the "Kingdom of Heaven" can only be fully understood in this context: its meaning is at first glance in the economic sense, but in fact it is a military geography academic term. Because "Tianfu" itself means a non-market economy of "tribute economic system", through the conscription of conscription to absorb materials, focusing on household registration, cadastral, field endowment, service, transportation, warehousing, etc., and ultimately used to establish a strong foundation. This was clearly not a real trade in goods, and the goods of tribute were all tributes obtained through taxes or the threat of force, so this commercial system was for the service of a political empire, and the circulation of goods was embedded within the framework of political operation. Before the full development of the commodity and monetary economy, this form of in-kind taxation and tribute was almost the main form of material circulation, and "the government maintained the war mainly through direct conscription, military service, and various kinds of physical goods." In general, this is close to what economics call "primitive accumulation," which is simply the plundering of other people's assets and forcing others to labor, rather than operating through production techniques and markets, except that the ancient empires did so to mobilize resources to feed powerful armies to further gain political power—in short, they were politicians, not economically rational market calculators. It is precisely because of the inconvenience of transportation in ancient times that the establishment of political forces must have a nearby base, otherwise the distant materials are not easy to deploy.
In the sense of military geography, the "Kingdom of Heaven" emphasizes not only "the richness of products", but more importantly, the dangerous terrain, easy to defend and difficult to attack, if not compete for the world, at least one side can be divided. The Southern and Northern Dynasty poet Yu Xin 's "Garlic Mountain Was Ordered to Write Poems by King Sixing" has a sentence "Shape Victory Letter Tianfu, Zhenbaoli Imperial Prefecture", and also pointed out that "Shape Victory" is a component of "Tianfu", but the "Tianfu" he refers to Jingkou (present-day Zhenjiang), where Garlic Mountain is located, which was the most important pass of the Southern Dynasty at that time. It is precisely because of the emphasis on the indestructibleness of this place that in ancient texts, "Tianfu" is often used together with "Jincheng", and the Collection of Chen Shiyi, Volume V: "The kingdom of Tianfu, the capital of Fushu, the iron smelting of Jincheng, and the common use of wealth and wealth." Another example is the QingQianlong "Chronicle of Chongming County" contains the name of the Qing dynasty Wu Jincheng, "Character Tianfu".
Wei Xi, a beginner in the Qing Dynasty, once summarized the key points of Gu Zuyu's "Minutes of Reading Historical Opinion", the first of which was: "The situation under the heavens depends on the capital. Therefore, there is no definite place between the side and the abdomen, and there is here for the key and the other is scattered, and this is the scattered and the other is the key. One thinks that there is a fundamental place, and there is a place for trouble. He who establishes the foundation will judge the power of the world, and the one who causes the trouble will not choose the place. alack! Ancient and modern Haojie, violent and ignorant, often forced to respond to the meeting of heaven and man, did not try to move the land at the beginning and sought victory. Those who use their land, because of the power of their land, drive the world, and the world is not difficult. That is to say, the "place of victory" of the capital must be a "fundamental place" that can control the world without worrying about the world's countermeasures.
From the perspective of statecraft, this discourse is almost a fixed pattern, although it does not necessarily use the metaphor of "Tianfu". For example, after the death of Liu Biao of Jingzhou at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, Lu Su said to Sun Quan: "Fu Jingchu is adjacent to the country, the water flows down to the north, the Outside Jianghan is taken, the mountains are blocked inside, there is the solidity of the Golden City, the fertile wilderness, the people are rich, if there is a basis, this emperor's capital is also." After the fall of the State of Wu, Lu Ji wrote "The Theory of Discerning the Death", which talked about the State of Wu as follows: "The place is tens of thousands of miles, with millions of armor generals, its wild fertility, its people's training, its wealth, its instruments, the east bears the sea, the west blocks the dangerous plugs, the Yangtze River controls its area, the steep mountains bring its fiefdom, and the interests of the country have not been seen. By means of the middle talents to keep the way, the good people have the skills, the Constitution will be left behind, the people will be diligent, the policies will be followed, and the dangers will be observed, so that they can live forever and never be in danger. It was just that the State of Wu was still subjugated under such conditions, and Lu Ji came to a conclusion that was deeply in line with the Confucian concept: the rise and fall of a country was "not in danger in Germany."
Compared with the term "Tianfu", a warring states strategist, this concept even originated earlier. Yi Kan: "The prince sets up danger to defend his country." Lu Ji's "Theory of Defending Death": "Yi" said: The prince sets up dangers to defend his country. Words are also the dangers of the country. And "Chinese Zheng Yu": "Uncle Yu is arrogant, and Zhen Zhong is dangerous." That is to say, Chinese politicians had realized the importance of terrain danger to their own safety at an early age; however, by the Warring States period, with the intensification of military conquests, more and more figures began to realize that this was not the most important condition for political superiority. The "Chronicle of Wu Qilie" records that Wei Wuhou lamented the "solidity of mountains and rivers" in the State of Wei on the West River, but Wu Qi, who was familiar with soldiers, lawyers, and Confucian doctrines, said: "There is no danger in Virtue." Xi Sanmiao's left Dongting, right Peng Li, Deyi Buxiu, Yu Extinguished. Xia Jie's residence, Zuo Heji, Right Taihua, Yi Que in its south, Sheep's intestines in its north, Xiu Zheng is not benevolent, and Tang Fangzhi. The kingdom of Yin, left Mengmen, right Taihang, Changshan in its north, the great river through its south, the cultivation of government is not virtuous, the king of Wu killed it. From this point of view, there is no danger in Germany. If the king does not cultivate virtue, all the people in the boat will be enemies of the country. Here, he cites historical facts to emphasize: even if the terrain is dangerous, if the ruler "does not cultivate morality", he will still perish.
The fall of the Qin Dynasty proved that guanzhong was inherently dangerous, and the Han Dynasty Confucians emphasized the importance of "virtue" and "benevolence". Mr. Chu of the "History of The History of Chen Shijia" said: "The terrain is dangerous and obstructive, so it is solid; the military revolution is criminal law, so it is also for governance." It's not enough. Wouldn't it be better for the fuxian king to take benevolence and righteousness as the foundation and the Gusai grammar as the branch and leaf! Jia Yi then opposed the Western Han Emperors' stubborn adherence to Guanzhong to guard against and control the princes of Kwantung, believing that "simultaneous love and selflessness" would be enough to eliminate the hostility of the world and make the defense meaningless. Such views have a profound impact on future generations, and there are always people who bring them up. Book of Wei, vol. 54 Gao Lu's biography: "The way of the subject is the way of the country, and it must have five: one is Wende, the second is martial arts, the third is Fadu, the fourth is defense, and the fifth is punishment." ..."Yi" said that the sky is dangerous, the mountains and hills are dangerous, the princes set up dangers to defend their country, and the Great Wall is called 欤? Here, although he agreed to build the Great Wall for the northern nomads, he also listed "setting up dangers" as a less important point. The Book of Northern Qi, vol. 40, The Biography of Tang Yong records that someone said to Gao Yang, the founding emperor of Northern Qi, that the city of Hezhou was "the golden city of Tangchi, the kingdom of heavenly palaces", but Gao Yang said: "I mean Tang Yong is a golden city, and this is not a golden city." "In this way, I show that I value talents rather than cities and pools." Volume 10 of the Later Wang Fuzhi's "Reading through the Classics" developed this view: "He who is the king of the figure will have his land." To gain his land, he must also get his wealth and wealth, and he must also get his people; he must get his people, he must also get his soldiers, and he must also get his virtuous. This also just proves that in the traditional concept, Wang Ye wants to "get his risk and get rich."
Based on these histories, Confucian scholars began to question the ideals in the classics, such as "the house is big" and "the land is in the land", and instead emphasized the importance of talent and virtue. At the end of the Tang Dynasty, Li Yu's "Two Capitals Endowment" concluded: "Then the ruts of the four surnames are known, and the Hu Lie of the heavy leaves." The use is also words, and the reason is also things, that is, the capital, in the east and in the west. He believes that the rise and fall of the dynasty is still because of personnel, the terrain is not enough to rely on, and it must be anywhere. In 976, at the beginning of the Northern Song Dynasty, considering that Kaifeng Province was not in danger on the plains, Song Taizu intended to move the capital to Luoyang, and toured Luoyang in the spring of that year, but his brother Zhao Kuangyi (later Emperor Taizong of Song) opposed the move of the capital, on the grounds that "there is no danger in Germany". The Ming Dynasty also often praised Yanjing as suitable for the establishment of a capital, but after the capture of Emperor Yingzong of the Tumu Fort, Liu Pu said in the poem "Feelings of Nostalgia" that "the capital city is solid, and the dragon sand is a tearful", and the solidity of the four mountains and rivers obviously did not save the country from this shame.
The "Kingdom of Heaven" in History
Only by understanding this set of governing concepts of military geography can we understand in what sense Zhuge Liang, who first called the Sichuan Basin the "Kingdom of Heavenly Palaces," put forward this statement. According to the "Longzhong Pair": "Yizhou is dangerous, fertile and wild, the land of heaven, and Gao Zu became an emperor because of it." Here he first pointed out that "dangerous plugs" rather than "fertility", and then pointed out that Liu Bang had used this as a base (the Han Dynasty Yizhou included the Hanzhong Basin where Liu Bang called the King of Han) to achieve imperial achievements; as for the "Fertile Thousand Miles", it was only because under the conditions of agricultural civilization, this was the basic requirement for the abundance of material supplies, but it was secondary compared to the "shape victory" trend of the dangerous terrain. Prior to this, the same was true when Gongsun Shu divided Yizhou during the two Han Dynasties, focusing on the so-called "land danger and attachment". What is often overlooked is that before Zhuge Liang described Yizhou in the Longzhong Pair, he actually came from the same logic when talking about Jiangdong ("Sun Quan owns Jiangdong, has gone through three generations, the country is dangerous and the people are attached") and Jingzhou ("the north is based on Han, the South China Sea is exhausted, the east is connected to Wuhui, the west is Tunbashu, and this country of martial arts"). There is still a popular misconception that the Title of "Kingdom of Tianfu" was obtained in the Chengdu Plain after Li Bing's father and son repaired the capital Jiangyan to irrigate the fertile fields, but from a political and strategic point of view, before Zhuge Liang proposed to use Bashu as a base to compete for the world, it could not be called "Tianfu", because this title was only applicable when the emperor established the capital.
In fact, although many people now think that Sichuan as the "country of heavenly capital" describes its "fertile land", when it comes to history, it emphasizes its dangerous side. "Zhou Shu Qi's Biography of Wang Xian": "In the beginning, after Pingshu, Taizu used his form to win the place, and did not want to make su will live in it. That is to say, the terrain here is dangerous, so the Northern Zhou Taizu Yuwen Yong did not want to let the Generals guard the town, so as not to take advantage of the opportunity to divide the territory. From the perspective of jianye, "land danger" is obviously more important than "fertility", so Du Fu emphasized in his discussion of the political situation in the "Five Songs of the Generals" that "the terrain of Western Shu is dangerous, and safety must be fought out of the crowd.". The first sentence of the poem "Sending Professor Wang Puzhong into Shu" of the Southern Song Dynasty Lou Key is: "The four mountains of Wanshan surround the flat land, and the great Guanzhong is the second to Shu." Another Southern Song Dynasty poet, Wu Qian, sent people into Shu, and in "He Groom Sending Wu Jiyong Shilang", he also described Sichuan as "four plugs and three passes of heavenly danger". When talking about Sichuan as a "heavenly palace", Yang Fangcan of the Qing Dynasty emphasized that it was also dangerous rather than fertile: "The Great Yiyun: The lord sets up dangers to defend his country, and the situation of the land is favorable, the Shu kingdom is like the Tianfu Olympic District, the Zhikun Wei and the Xinjiang Jingluo, the emperor is Huichang, the god is built with blessings, and the danger of the situation is in the world." ”
Gu Zuyu's "Minutes of Reading Historical Opinion" starts from the perspective of military geography and emphasizes: "Sichuan is not a place to sit. To fight for the world with Sichuan, the upper is enough to be king, the second is enough to dominate, and if you sit in danger, you will perish. Based on this judgment, he believes that "the danger of Chengdu is not in the suburbs, but also outside the four realms", according to the Shu people will be east of Jiangling, the north of Hanzhong, the danger of Sichuan is called stable, so "the root of Bashu is actually Hanzhong." There is no Hanzhong not to keep and Bashu can have no patients also. Therefore, people used to say that the weight of the southeast was in Bashu, and the weight of Bashu was in Hanzhong." From this, we can understand why Zhuge Liang, who first called the Sichuan Basin the "Kingdom of Heavenly Palace", emphasized that Jingzhou in the east and Hanzhong in the north, and sent troops for years and six out of Qishan, because otherwise it would not only be impossible to compete for the world, but it might even be difficult to protect itself.
Since the "Kingdom of Tianfu" is a base area that can become the cause of the emperor, it is not surprising why places like Jiangnan and the Pearl River Delta, although fertile but not enough to dominate, are rarely called "the country of Tianfu". After the Western Jin Dynasty Cao Wei, Yang Hu expressed the Wu strategy, which emphasized that "with a corner of Wu, the crowd under the sun, the situation is scattered, and all the preparations are urgent." However, the place where the emperor built the capital was all "a corner of the world", so the best situation here was dangerous, and there was no need to be attacked on all sides. In fact, the earliest and most frequently named in history is not the Sichuan Basin, but the Guanzhong Plain. The reason is simple, judging from China's topographical situation and traditional political pattern, although Guanzhong is not the most fertile place, it has been repeatedly proved to be an excellent base for establishing hegemony.
After Qin unified the world with Guanzhong as the foundation, this was almost the consensus of all generations of scholars. After Liu Bang established the Han Dynasty, when discussing the Dingdu, "the left and right ministers were all Shandong people" and advised him to set the capital Luoyang, but Liu Jing and Zhang Liang both strongly advocated the dingdu Guanzhong, believing that this was the "Tianfu", but the reasons given actually focused on the "dangerous" side of Guanzhong, that is, Guanzhong was more suitable than Luoyang to become a "country of force" that controlled the world.
After the Qin and Han Dynasties, whenever some people talked about the general trend of the world, some people advocated that Guanzhong was the most suitable "Tianfu" to control the world, and it appeared very frequently in poetry. The Tang Dynasty Yuan Langshi's "He Wash And Wash Dengcheng Nanbanwang Jingyi" highlights that the area around Chang'an has always been the land of emperors: "The Austrian area is called rich and noble, and the heavy danger is strong. Dragons fly on the water, and phoenixes gather Qishan Yang. The gods are doree, and there are kings of The Rising. I took the spiritual life and asked for the soil of the house. Chenju Law is too small, and the founding of the Country is the Tianfu. Even after the destruction of Chang'an at the end of the Tang Dynasty, there were still many people who firmly believed that the capital should be built in Guanzhong to determine the world. After the fall of the Northern Song Dynasty, jinling, Nanyang, or Chang'an were once considered as the places where Emperor Gaozong was stationed, and Zheng Jun believed that "Nanyang and Jinling are folk remedies, not the land of xingwang." Chang'an Sisai, the country of Tianfu, can be stationed"; the So-called Guanzhong "According to the dangers of the mountains and rivers, since ancient times, it has been called the country of Tianfu." Bao Guanzhong so Wei Jingshi"; Shaoxing Ten Years (1140) Jin Ren agreed to peace, considering the return of the land of Guanzhong, Song Chen Zhang Yanli argued that Guanzhong was related to the revival: "Guanzhong must be contested, the ancient name of Tianfu, willing to stick to bashu, Map Zhongyuan." ”
At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang originally planned to be the capital of Guanzhong, but finally because the local area had been in ruins for hundreds of years, he finally chose to build the capital in Nanjing, and after the Battle of Jingnan, the Yongle Emperor moved the capital to Beijing. When discussing the relocation of the capital, the courtiers already understood their intentions, and they all described Beijing as a place suitable for controlling the world: "The governor of the five armies of the Gonghou Bo and the commander in Kyoto and other officials said: 'The ministers and other officials are not only the rivers and mountains of Beijing, the water is thick, the folk customs are simple, the products are abundant, the country of the Heavenly Palace, and the capital of the emperors. Such descriptions appeared abound in the Ming and Qing dynasties. It is worth noting that in fact, it has appeared as early as the Yuan Dynasty, such as Yang Weizhen's "Reconstruction of the Haidao Capital Caoyun Wanhufu Poem": "Shuofang Sage Qi Zhongtian, the kingdom of Tianfu Youyan." Moreover, even in the Ming and Qing dynasties, there are still many people who regard Guanzhong as a heavenly palace when expressing nostalgic thoughts, such as the ming dynasty Xue Hui's "Chang'an Dao" poem that begins with the first sentence: "Shenzhou should be East Well, tianfu is good at Western Qin." At the end of the Ming Dynasty and the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, Qian Qianyi's "Southern Expedition Yin Xiaoyin" said: "The present-day Chang'an Guanhe Sisai, the state of the ancient emperors." Even Koreans know this, and the 14th-century Korean poet Lee Ki-hyun has "Magnolia Slow Chang'an Huaigu": "Looking at the golden city of a thousand miles, a district of Tianfu, the momentum of Qingxiong." ”
Although the capital of the Ming and Qing dynasties was built in Beijing and Guanzhong was in ruins, there were always quite a few scholars who believed that Guanzhong was the best place to build a capital in terms of controlling the situation in the world. At the end of the Ming Dynasty, Lin Shi believed that although the capital of Beijing was better than Luoyang and Kaifeng, it was not as good as guanzhong, the capital of the Western Zhou dynasty and the Western Han Dynasty: "The Yan capital of this dynasty is also different from the ancients, slightly more difficult than the Zhou and Han dynasties and much better than the Eastern Han Zhao and Song Dynasties. Fu Zhou and Han built the capital in the northwest, the danger of land capital construction, the strength of people through the wind, the competition of the world, the Eastern Han Dynasty has lost its full momentum. This is not only his personal thoughts, the late Ming Dynasty Confucian Huang Zongxi advocated in the "Ming Yi To Be Visited" that the Ming Dynasty was in danger, all because of "the miscalculation of the capital construction", he believed that Jinling was the best place to set the capital, the reason is that the situation has changed, at that time, guanzhong talents, economy are not as good as Jinling, but in his mind, in addition to Jinling, there are several most suitable for the capital. However, Gu Zuyu, a historical geographer in the early Qing Dynasty, clearly advocated that Guanzhong was the best place to build a capital: "People also have saying: 'The land of capital construction, Guanzhong is the first, Luoyang is second, and Yandu is second...'But then go to Yanjing and the capital Jinlinghu?'" 'Jin Ling can be a place for entrepreneurship, not a place for success'...'But what about those who build the capital?' He said, "Fa Cheng Zhou and Shao Han Tang, I know that it will be in Guanzhong." ("Reading the Minutes of Public Opinion in History: Preface to the Minutes of Public Opinion in The North Straight Side")
This belief was advocated by people until the late Qing Dynasty. In 1851, after the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom raised an army to capture Yong'an, Hu Xiaoxian, a man from Daozhou, asked to see Hong Xiuquan first, and his suggestion was: "The country of Guanzhong Tianfu, the reason why Zhou Qin is prosperous, if he wants to fight for the world, he must first take Xianyang, and then go out of the mountain to the right, Dingyan Ji, and the world can pass on Dingye." (Luo Xiaoxiao's "Taiping Heavenly Kingdom War") At that time, when the great powers were pressing, especially after Beijing was attacked by the British and French forces in 1860, many scholars realized the fragility of Beijing, so many people once again proposed that Guanzhong was the most suitable place to build the capital. For example, in 1890, the first sentence of Tang Zhen's "Dangerous Words" was discussed with "I want to be a strategist", and the first volume of the opening chapter, "Qianding", began with the words: "There are no three sides, one side to subdue the enemy, but enough to control the world, for the descendants of the emperor and the world", he believes that although Beijing "inner and outer Mongolia depends on my elbows, capitalizes my eggs, and occupies the Three Passes and the Bohai Sea, this is not the so-called Tianfu Temple", but now it is not suitable for the establishment of the capital, Chang'an is more suitable:" Chang'an, the mountains and rivers are four sai, Kunhan Chongguan, Jin Yu wing its left, Jianglong covers its right, overlooks Wanluo, front controls Xiangdeng, and side qianshu. ”
Four years later, Zheng Guanying's book "Dangerous Words of the Prosperous World" came out, which also emphasized that the situation has changed: "The world has changed, and the situation is different in the past and present." Yanjing from the Liaojin Yuanming to the present dynasty, the old capital of the old land, the southwest and south of the three vertical mountains, the east of the sea, the anointing of the upper soil, the situation is natural, but also the ancients called the Guanzhong Tianfu Four Sai kingdom also. And his suggestion is also to move the capital to Guanzhong: "Seeking today's geographical situation, you can be in the middle of the outside and dominate the world, but the only thing that is in Guanzhong is in guanzhong?" The situation in Guanzhong, the fertile wilderness, the ditches are all around, and the cultivation of fishing and animal husbandry can be widely cultivated. There is also a Hedong Huama salt pond that can be used for the benefit of the people. Tianfu Land and Sea, why should it be different from the ancient yunye. In addition, the mountains and rivers are blocked, and the boats of overseas countries are not accessible, that is, the railway trains by land have not been able to reach. Heavy keys, qi Yu true king, north and south east and west are not convinced. Since the lord of ancient Zhongxing has the northwest, he can follow China and have the southeast, although it will be natural from time to time, and the situation will also be beneficial. A few years later, during the Boxer Rebellion in 1900, the capital Beijing was once again attacked by the Eight-Power Alliance, and the two palaces hunted west, proving that Beijing was quite vulnerable and had no danger in the face of enemy troops from the sea, and the idea of moving the capital to Xi'an resurfaced. Zhou Jingxun then wrote to Zhang Zhidong: "The capital city will not be moved, and the road will be built in the place where the enemy will be attracted, although it will not be built for an inch." Accompany the capital to Chang'an, set up a road in a beneficial and harmless direction, although it is thousands of miles and do not hesitate. ”
This is almost also the last glory of Xi'an and Guanzhong as the "Kingdom of Tianfu" that is suitable for the establishment of the capital, after that, with the rapid changes in the modern situation, few people have to understand the "situation under heaven" from historical texts, and after the New Culture Movement, the estrangement of the Chinese people from traditional ideas has deepened, and even the meaning of "Tianfu" itself has changed considerably, with the result that few people remember that Guanzhong was once the "Kingdom of Tianfu", and this title seems to have become a patent of Sichuan.
This issue is edited by Xing Tan