Recently, I looked at the traditional books of Chinese folklore and saw that there is an idiom that is quite interesting, this idiom is called "clothed animals and beasts". The modern dictionary explains that "the appearance is neatly dressed, like a person, but the behavior is like a beast, a metaphor for a despicable person." "One look at the word, in our minds, it's definitely a derogatory word. However, in the folklore, the interpretation of this word at first did not have a pejorative meaning at all, but the word was later played badly by Ming officials because of the Ming Dynasty, and the original meaning was wasted, thus becoming a derogatory word.
<h1>Literally</h1>
Let's take a look at the original meaning of this idiom. China's ancient clothes wear has a strict system, very large, pear garden has a jargon: "not afraid of wearing, afraid of wearing the wrong." "The term "cloaked beast" originally referred to the clothes worn by ancient officials." In addition to official uniforms, the "crown" also represents public power.
Because after Zhu Yuanzhang established the Ming Dynasty, he made strict regulations on the official uniforms of the Ming Dynasty, and different officials had different colors of clothes, but the clothes of ming officials were printed with birds and beasts, civilian officials embroidered birds, and military officers embroidered beasts. In the early years of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang stipulated that official clothes should be embroidered with birds and animals in the tonic area to distinguish between official ranks. This system was implemented in the twenty-fourth year of Ming Hongwu, that is, in 1391, and the complement refers to a piece of cloth sewn on the official's clothing, which represents the size of a person's official position due to the different animals embroidered on it.
There are nine kinds of birds on the official uniforms worn by civil officials in the Ming Dynasty, representing different high and low official positions. According to the data, the first-pin official embroidered the crane, the second-pin official embroidered the golden chicken, the third-pin official embroidered the peacock, the fourth-pin official embroidered the cloud goose, the five-pin official embroidered the white quail, the six-pin official embroidered the heron, the seven-pin official embroidered the partridge, the eight-pin official embroidered the yellow oriole, and the nine-pin official embroidered the quail.
The beasts embroidered on the clothes of military attachés also have different kinds, representing different official positions. For example, one pin military attaché embroidered qilin, two pin military attaché embroidered with foxes, three pins with painted tigers, four pin officials embroidered with leopards, five pins embroidered bears, six and seven pins embroidered with Biao, eight pins are rhinoceros, and nine pins are seahorses.
In the early years of the Ming Dynasty, the crown of officials embroidered with animals and animals was a symbol of rank, which was envied and respected by the common people, because everyone wanted to wear such a crown, and wearing such clothes was a court official. Only by becoming an official of the imperial court can you honor your ancestors and be enviable.
<h1>evolution</h1>
But by the middle of the Ming Dynasty, the phrase "dressed in clothes and animals" had changed its flavor. Because after the middle and late Ming Dynasty, Ming officials were corrupt, and the government was in a mess.
At that time, Ming officials used their official positions to bully the common people, and civilian officials formed a party to cause chaos in the government. The common people were very angry at the corruption of Ming officials, so they used "dressed as beasts" to mock Ming officials, wearing official clothes embroidered with animals and animals, but doing things that were inferior to animals. So the "cloaked beast" phrase has changed from here.
At the end of the Ming Dynasty, Chen Ruyuan wrote in his novel The Book of the Golden Lotus: "The scale of makeup into Taoism, flying language hurts people... Everyone scolded me for being a dressed animal, and everyone recognized me as a relic(thief). "Here has become a derogatory term for the dressed animal.
Li Ruzhen of the Qing Dynasty once wrote in "Mirror Flower Edge": "Since it is not filial piety, the so-called cloaked beast, what is the use of that talented woman." "The Qing Dynasty's clothed beasts have completely become a derogatory term.
At this time, the perogatory meaning is actually a scandal of the common people's dissatisfaction with the government and politics, believing that being an official is a wrongdoer and does not do things for the people, so that officials are inferior to animals.
<h1>Specifically</h1>
After "cloaked beast" evolved into a pejorative term, it was a rather serious event. The official clothes of the great Ming Dynasty were actually ugly and ridiculed, if this had to be killed several times during the Zhu Yuanzhang period. However, during the Zhu Yuanzhang period, corruption was vigorously punished, Zhu Yuanzhang killed many corrupt officials, no one dared to corrupt, and the "crown" at that time truly reflected public power and became a kind of clothing that the people respected and aspired to.
We all know that each derogatory word has a different meaning, and after the dressed beast became a derogatory term, it later did not only refer to the officials in the imperial court, but specifically to those who were polite on the surface, well-dressed, and beautiful in appearance, but in fact they were good at disguise. Some are superficially set, but behind them they do things that lack morality, and even animals are not as good as animals. Later, the term was used more often for those who played with women, or abused women.
Synonyms for "cloaked beasts" include shameless people, community rat city foxes, cattle ghosts and snake gods, human-faced beast hearts, etc., but none of them are more appropriate than the derogatory terms of cloaked beasts.
Some people say that "clothed animals" is a curse word, but if we understand the origin of this idiom, we will understand that in fact, the word "clothed animals" is used in a person, then this person even loses the basic bottom line of being a person, and is not worthy of being a person, like "animals".
Just now we have interpreted the word "dressed in animals and beasts", from which we can see that the original meaning of this word was good, but it was ruined by the corruption of Ming officials. Some people say that ordinary people ridicule Ming officials and then evolve the term into a pejorative meaning. If we also contact the relationship between water and boats of Li Shimin in the Tang Dynasty, we can also see from this that any official who does not do private affairs, the public not only ridicules, but also causes a word evolution, which may change an era.
Why was the Qing Dynasty able to enter the customs smoothly? In fact, it is directly related to the corruption of the Ming Dynasty. Zhu Yuanzhang did not know that the official uniform system he founded not only made officials play badly, but also his unfilial descendants did not even keep Jiangshan.
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