The Chinese nation is the descendant of the dragon, and it calls itself the descendants of Yan Huang, where did this come from? Legend has it that the ancients had a powerful tribal alliance in the Yellow River Valley, whose leaders were the Yellow Emperor and the Yan Emperor. The Yellow Emperor's surname was Gongsun (公孙), and his name was Xuanyuan (轩辕). Xuan You was also a tribal leader, with four eyes, three hands, and a copper-headed iron forehead, eating sand and stone for a living, but he did not submit to the Yellow Emperor and the Yan Emperor like other tribal leaders, and he rebelled, so the Yan-Huang alliance army and Xuan You constantly fought wars. In the last battle, according to the "Classic of Mountains and Seas", Xuanyu invited the gods and immortals in charge of wind and rain, "Wind Bo" and "Rain Division", to come to help the battle, setting off a wild storm to pounce on the Yanhuang Coalition Army, and at the same time making a big fog to make the Yanhuang Coalition Army unable to distinguish the direction. At this time, the Yellow Emperor also invited the goddess of heaven, asked the goddess to stop the wind and rain, made a guide car to distinguish between the four sides, and finally killed Xuan You.
This legend is so amazing, so magical that it is unbelievable, so some people say that the Yellow Emperor, the Yan Emperor, and Xuan You are legendary characters, unreliable, and even if there is, it may just be the name of a tribe. Some people say that "the Yellow Emperor originally had no one to say", and one sentence negated the records of ancient history books. There are also people who are keen to describe the Yellow Emperor and so on as a very strange image from the perspective of ancient mythology.
So is it true that Emperor Yan, Emperor Huang, Xuan You, etc. are human beings or gods, and is it true that Yan Huang Zhan You is a matter? The historical records are too complex to be clear. It is most convincing if there are archaeological excavation sites to prove it.
In 1928, a site was first discovered in Chengziya, Longshan Town, Zhangqiu County, Shandong Province, according to the investigation date of the 20th century BC. Later, many similar remains were found in Shandong, Henan and Shaanxi, and archaeologists named it Longshan culture. The Longshan culture refers to the cultural remains in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River Basin corresponding to the late Neolithic period, also known as the Golden Stone Combined Era. The origin of its name is derived from the place where it was first discovered. Longshan culture is rich in connotation, mainly distributed in Shandong, dating from about 2500 BC to 2000 BC; Henan Longshan culture, dating from 2600 BC to 2000 BC; Shaanxi Longshan culture, dating from 2300 BC to 2000 BC. Its commonality is that the agricultural economy is the mainstay, and handicrafts such as stone tools, bone tools, and pottery have developed to a certain extent, and bronze tools have been found at some sites. Unveiled the prelude to bronze culture.
Some people say that the Longshan culture can prove that the Yan Emperor and the Yellow Emperor are particularly important. Our understanding of the social conditions before the Shang Dynasty, because there is no written record, is very limited, basically based on the words and sayings passed down by the people after the population, and there is no confirmation. Therefore, first of all, according to the law of development of human society, it is necessary to explain whether such an event may occur in the historical period in which the legendary Yandi and the Yellow Emperor are located. According to the conclusions of anthropological and historical research, people could not have wars in the early days of primitive society. The development process of human society, first from apes to humans, after a long period of learning to make and use tools, and this ability gradually improved, so that people's lives were improved, without having to live a life of drinking blood and not having enough to eat, so the population increased rapidly, social organization developed, the earliest form of production was animal-like community, and then became a blood-related tribe. The premise of war is that there is a large surplus of products, so that the clan leader may use his privilege to possess the surplus products, creating a division between the rich and the poor. Different clans and different tribes can also plunder the surplus products of other tribes through war, and the prisoners of war were killed in the early stages, and later realized that they could force the labor of prisoners of war, which is the origin of the earliest slaves.
Yellow Emperor Battle Worm Yutu
Xuan You was the leader of the tribal alliance in the area of present-day Shandong, highly skilled and domineering, and the Yellow Emperor fought with him in Zhuolu and killed him, and the Battle of Zhuolu became a symbol of the origin of ancient warfare in China. The war gradually formed China into a Chinese nation centered on the Yellow Emperor and Yandi tribes.
Whether the Longshan culture can prove which period our ancestors may have a large-scale war, according to scholars, the Longshan culture was still the Yangshao culture of the matriarchal clan society before. Was the Longshan cultural period in which the YanDi and the Yellow Emperor lived be a matrilineal clan dominated by women, or a patriarchal clan dominated by men?
This question is related to the possibility of the Yan Emperor and the Yellow Emperor Zhan Xuan you. Before the invention of agriculture, people depended on hunting and gathering to survive, when men paid for hunting animals and catching fish, and women were responsible for collecting the fruits and roots of wild plants. Later, in the practice of long-term gathering activities, women gradually mastered the techniques of growing wild plants. In this way, initial agricultural production was developed, which was still run by women. During that period, women were dominant in production and social life. Therefore, the clan communes of that period were called matrilineal clan communes. Through generations of labor, agriculture and the raising of livestock gradually developed, replacing hunting and gathering activities. At this stage of the development of the productive forces of society, the heavy agricultural work and the labor of raising livestock were gradually borne by men. Men increasingly play a greater role in social production than women, and eventually completely replace women as the main force in social production. In social life, men also gradually occupy a dominant position. In this way, profound changes took place within the clan communes – the transition from matrilineal clan communes to patrilineal clan communes.
Longshan Cultural Cemetery in Shanxi Province
The development of agriculture and the raising of livestock advanced primitive societies from matrilineal clan communes to patrilineal clan communes. The Yongsan culture was a culture of the patrilineal clan commune period, and it was judged according to this situation. Only when the patrilineal clan stage is reached, production develops, the gap between the rich and the poor appears, and the equality of primitive society is broken, can large-scale wars occur. Archaeological excavations have proved that the Longshan culture period in which the Yellow Emperor lived was indeed the beginning of the disintegration of primitive society, and the patrilineal clan period when the slave society gradually formed, and it was entirely possible that there would be inter-tribal wars.
According to this interpretation, the Yellow Emperor and the Yan Emperor were ancient tribal leaders who, in order to plunder wealth and expand their sphere of influence, clashed with another tribe headed by Xuan You, so they destroyed Xuan You. The history books also record that the Yellow Emperor at that time carried out conquests against tribes that disobeyed him. Later, because of the competition for interests, the Yellow Emperor and his brother Yandi also had a big war, which ended in the defeat of Yandi.
This statement is more reasonable, at least indicating that this legend has a certain credibility. However, the specific situation of the Yan Emperor and the Yellow Emperor zhan xuan, and what kind of person the yellow emperor and xuan you are still not clearly answered, is still a confusing legend.