Traditional Chinese society favors sons over women, whether at the social level or at the family level, men's status is always higher than that of women, and women have become subordinate to men. China has been an agrarian society since ancient times, and if there is no male in the family, not only will it not be able to guarantee agricultural production, but it will also be laughed at and even bullied. In ancient China, there was a saying in the Bu Ci that "giving birth to a man is Jia, and giving birth to a daughter is not Jia", so in the inherent concept of Chinese, no matter how many daughters there are, it is not as good as a son. More than 2,000 years ago in the Western Han Dynasty, a doctor named Chun Yuyi once said something similar, but her youngest daughter refuted this sentence with practical actions, and her name was tí yíng.
Ti Qian, surnamed Chun Yu, was a native of Linzi in the Western Han Dynasty and the daughter of the famous doctor Chun Yuyi. Chun Yuyi became an official in his early years, and later abandoned the official to practice medicine, and became intoxicated with medical treatment, saving lives and helping the injured, and was deeply loved by the people. A local Haoqiang invited him to be a family doctor, Chun Yuyi did not want to do so, and was retaliated by Haoqiang, and Chun Yuyi was escorted to Chang'an to be physically tortured. The young daughter Ti Hao could not bear her father's wrongs and suffering, so she went with her, took good care of her along the way, and wrote to Emperor Wen of Han to complain about her father's grievances and voluntarily accepted the punishment on behalf of her father. Emperor Wen of Han was deeply moved, spared Chun Yuyi, and abolished corporal punishment. The story of Ti Qian's rescue of his father is found in the "History of Bian Que Cang Gong Lie Biography" and "LieNu Biography" and other classics.
Ti Qian's father, Chun Yuyi, was originally a minor official in Zi (zī) Bo, who served as the chief of Taicang and was responsible for managing the granary. However, Chun Yuyi loves medicine and has wanted to become a doctor since he was a child, so he studied medicine while working. Gongcheng Yangqing is a famous local doctor, who has passed the age of ancient rarity, and once wrote the "Yellow Emperor Bian Que Pulse Book", which is the ancestor of the Chinese medicine pulse case. However, suffering from the fact that no one could inherit his medical skills, Chun Yuyi resigned from his official position and worshiped him as a teacher, and Yang Qing taught all his life's learning, and in only three years, Chun Yuyi became a famous doctor. Many people came to him for treatment, there were poor people, there were rich people, and even princes and nobles, the king of Zhao, the king of Jiaoxi, the king of Jinan, and the king of Wu had all called him to be a court doctor, but they were all rejected by Chun Yuyi, because he wanted to cure the diseases of the people all over the world. In one place, Haoqiang invited Chun Yuyi to be the family doctor in the house several times, but Chun Yuyi refused, and Haoqiang felt very faceless, so he held a grudge against Chun Yuyi and vowed to teach Chun Yuyi a lesson. When Chun Yuyi was the chief of Taicang, there was a famine one year, because there were more children in the family, there was not enough food to eat, the children were hungry and screamed, he stole the grain in the warehouse in a hurry, because the pounds were not much, and they were not exposed. Later, Hao Qiang bought the county official, turned over the old accounts, and according to the law of the Han Dynasty, Chun Yuyi was sentenced to corporal punishment and was to be escorted to the capital Chang'an for punishment.
Corporal punishment includes five kinds of punishments: 黥 (qíng prickly face and ink), 劓 (yì nose cutting), 刖 (yuè beheading), gong (cutting the situation), and Dapu (i.e., the death penalty). It was used from the beginning of the Xia Dynasty until the early Western Han Dynasty. In the early Han Dynasty, there were three types of corporal punishment: tuo, slurring, and beheading (left and right toe), and no matter which of them was used, the injury would accompany the victim's life. On the day of escorting Shangjing, Chun Yuyi was shackled in heavy shackles and locked in a small prison cart, looking haggard and showing endless sadness on his face. His five daughters bid him farewell, and when they saw their father like this, they burst into tears. Chun Yuyi looked at them, both distressed and helpless, and he sighed: "Giving birth to a woman does not give birth to a man, none of them work at the critical moment." After the daughters listened, they looked at each other and then cried even more sadly. Only the youngest daughter, Ti Qian, stopped crying and fell into contemplation. Father said such a thing, but also can not complain about the father, since ancient times, no matter the family affairs, state affairs, the world affairs, which thing is not controlled by men? If the father has a son, the enemy family is afraid of the son seeking revenge, perhaps he will not rush to harm the father; if there is a brother in the real family, the father will not only be presented in front of the cries of a few sisters, and the older brother and brother may be comforting the father and discussing how to help the father escape the difficulties. So Ti Hao decided to go to the capital with his father, accompany his father all the way, and make a complaint for his father.
So she accompanied her father on a difficult prisoner's journey. Ti Hao ate and slept in the wind along the way, endured the white eyes of the servant, the father took pity on his little daughter and persuaded her to go back, but Ti Hao instead comforted his father, saying that things would definitely turn around. In this way, they suffered together, comforted each other, and established more intimate feelings. After arriving in the capital, his father was taken to prison, and Ti Hao went around complaining about his father. As the day of the corporal punishment approached day by day, he still found nothing. Ti Qian came from his heart, and while shedding tears, he wrote: "When my father was an official, the local people praised him for his honesty and justice, and now he should be punished for breaking the law. I grieve for the prisoners who have been tortured, who cannot grow new limbs, and even if they want to change their minds, there is no way to do anything about it. So I am willing to spend my life as a, to offset my father's sins, and to give him a chance to be a man again. ”
Desperate, Ti Qian decided to file a complaint with the emperor, and she wanted to submit the complaint to liu heng, the emperor of the han dynasty. But where is the emperor so good to see? After many intercessions, a well-meaning official finally told her that the emperor would go out hunting recently. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, but it is simply an incredible thing for a weak woman to make a mistake and go to the book to save her father. If she doesn't succeed, the only consequence is to kill the head and raid the house, but Ti Hao is not afraid, she has already left her life behind, and waits for the moment when the dragon (niǎn) appears.
This morning, when the petite and weak, thinly dressed, and sad-faced Ti Qian appeared in front of the emperor with aloft the letter, the emperor was also stunned by the sight in front of him, and his heart felt pity, and he immediately ordered the left and right to take her letter. After reading the petition, Emperor Wen of Han, who was benevolent and benevolent, was touched by the spirit of Ti Hao risking death to save his father, and the next day issued an edict: "I heard that Yao Shun did not have corporal punishment, and used special clothing to symbolize the five punishments to show shame, and the common people did not break the law, which is really the great rule of the world!" Whose fault is it that the law now provides for a variety of corporal punishments and still cannot stop the crime? Isn't this because my virtues are shallow and unclear? I am ashamed that I have been able to educate the people and have put the fools in prison. The Book of Verses says that gentlemen are the parents of all the people, and now that the people have broken the law, I have not educated them but first executed them, even if they want to change, it is impossible, I am very pitiful. The punishment is so cruel and painful that it is necessary to cut off limbs and engrave words on the skin, and the tortured person suffers and humiliates for life, such punishment is too cruel and painful, and it hurts benevolence! Where is the original intention of the parents of the people! Corporal punishment should be abolished and replaced with other punishments. ”
Corporal punishment has since been abolished. Soon, Chun Yuyi was released from prison, and Emperor Wen of Han sent someone to send the father and daughter back to their hometown. The filial piety of Ti Qian's letter to save his father spread throughout the township and the whole country, becoming the spokesman for the "filial piety" of the Han Dynasty.
The Han Dynasty "ruled the world with filial piety", and Emperor Wen of Han was a famous filial piety in history. Emperor Wendi of Han's mother, Empress Bo, was bedridden for three years, and Emperor Wendi of Han did not dare to delay the shang dynasty, so after the shang dynasty, he came to take care of his mother, personally boiled medicine to feed his mother, and chatted with his mother. At night, after his mother had gone to sleep, he dared to close his eyes and continue to go up the court the next day. Among the twenty-four filial pieties, Emperor Wen of Han ranked second in the list of filial pieties. Emperor Wen of Han was also a benevolent emperor at the same time, and Emperor Wen of Han, who was a young marquis, had witnessed the brutal rule of Empress Lü, seen the suffering of the people, and had been taught by his mother, Empress Bo, so that where he was on the throne, Emperor Wen of Han practiced a series of benevolent governments, which were known for "benevolence" in history, so that later emperors occasionally had "acts of benevolence" and would be compared with Emperor Wen of Han.
Ti Qian's act of saving his father just fits with Emperor Wendi's "benevolent filial piety" thought, which will make Emperor Han Wendi have a deeper feeling, be touched by Ti Qian's filial piety, and feel heartache for the "corporal punishment" suffered by the people of the world. Otherwise, the abolition of corporal punishment may have to go through a long historical period. It is precisely because of the abolition of corporal punishment that the image of Emperor Wen of Han in the hearts of successive emperors, historians and ordinary people has become more glorious and worshipped by future generations.
Ti Qian's act of saving his father is also a kind of irony of the traditional Chinese idea of male superiority over female inferiority and preference for sons over daughters. For thousands of years, there have been so many corporal fathers in the world, and so many spoiled sons, but none of them dare to write advice and risk death to save their fathers like Ti Qian. Compared with female protagonists such as Lü Hou, Empress Wu, and Empress Dowager Cixi, Ti Hao did not have strong power; compared with female generals such as Hua Mulan and Liang Hongyu, Ti Hao did not have a strong force; compared with businesswomen such as Ba Widow Qing and Yu Da Niang, Ti Hao did not have strong financial resources. However, Ti Qian has a sincere heart to save his father, a determination to die for his father, and a touching filial piety.
Two hundred years later, the influence of Ti Qian's rescue of his father was still strong, and the Eastern Han Dynasty historian Ban Gu specially created a five-character poem "History of Yong":
The three kings were thin, but later they were tortured by corporal punishment. Taicang Ling was guilty and handed over to Chang'an City. Self-hatred is childless, and he is anxious to be alone (qióng qióng). The little girl said bitterly to her father that the dead should not be born. Under the book Què, sigu song "Chicken Song". Worry shatters, and the morning wind roars. Emperor Xiaowen of the Holy Han Dynasty was deeply touched. Hundred men he huan (kuì) is not as good as a ti ling!