(Professor Yuan Guangguang, School of History, Capital Normal University)
Remnant of Lady Zhongshan (Photo by Cai Wenhua)
Rubbings of The Remnants of Lady Zhongshan (Photo by Cai Wenhua)
Pillar foundation found in Yaowang Village (Photo by Cai Wenhua)
If we search the literature, we will find that there are yao legends in many places in China. In addition to Heze in Shandong, Tang County and Xingtai Longyao in Hebei, Linfen in Southern Jinnan, and Gaoyou in Yangzhou, Jiangsu have literature and relics related to Yao. However, when the Han Dynasty royal family recognized their ancestors and returned to the ancestors, why did not choose the legendary places of other Yao cultures, and simply designated Heze Chengyang as the ancestral worship place?
1. National Treasure Heavy Light: Discovery of Yaoling And Chengyang City
In the spring of 2006, Wang Kechun, a villager in Yaowangsi Village, Huji Town, Heze City, inadvertently dug up a bluestone stele while collecting soil from an abandoned earth pit in the southwest corner of the village. The upper part of the stele is carved with two imposing coiled dragons, and the lower part is engraved with clear text. Wang Kechun has loved history and culture since he was a child, and his intuition tells him that this bluestone stele is not an idle thing. Therefore, he entrusted someone to report this important discovery to Mr. Pan Jianrong of the Heze Institute of History and Culture. Mr. Pan heard the news and immediately rushed to the scene. When he saw the four large characters "Lady Zhongshan" with obvious characteristics of the Han Dynasty Lishu on the bluestone stele, Mr. Pan was ecstatic and deeply felt that this discovery was of great significance! He deduced that the stele was most likely the stele of Lady Zhongshan mentioned in the Notes on the Water Classics, and the discovery of this cultural relic strongly proved that the "Yao Ling" of the "Notes on the Water Classics" and the "Yao Tombs" of the Book of Han were located in the YaoWang Temple. This is supported by the fact that in the spring of 2004, Mr. Zhao Guanglin, the former leader of the Beijing Municipal Cultural Relics Team, found a section of a rammed earth wall on the north wall of the river on the east side of the East Xu River in Chenlou Village. On the basis of these discoveries, Mr. Pan quickly associated the bluestone stele with the YaoLing and Chengyang City recorded in documents such as the Book of Han and the Notes on the Water Classics.
In the spring of 2007, the Heze City Cultural Relics Management Office and the Peony District Cultural Relics Management Office jointly formed a team to conduct preliminary exploration of the area where the city wall was discovered in 2004. The results of the exploration confirm everyone's previous judgment: this is indeed an ancient city site; and this ancient city is likely to be the ancient city of Chengyang. In April 2008, under the unified deployment of the Shandong Provincial Bureau of Cultural Relics, the Shandong Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology conducted a special archaeological survey of the suspected ancient city site and the Yaoling site, and the excavated remains once again confirmed the nature of the two sites.
Second, fruitful: rich relics to confirm the history books
The ancient city of Chengyang is located in the alluvial plain of the Yellow River, and most of the ruins are buried deep underground. The plan of the city site is rectangular, and the highest point at the top of the city wall is only 0.3 meters from the surface. The city site is 690 to 700 meters long from north to south, about 1457 meters wide from east to west, and covers an area of more than 1 million square meters, equivalent to the size of 2.5 Tiananmen Square. There are ring moats outside the city walls. Important relics such as large rammed earth platforms and inner city walls have been found in the city.
The city wall was built in the Spring and Autumn Period, and was rebuilt on a large scale in the Han Dynasty upwards and outwards, and then repaired many times. By the Jin Dynasty, the city walls were completely abandoned. From the age of the construction of the city wall and its supplementary construction and use process, it is speculated that the site of the city here should be the Chengyang City of the Han Dynasty recorded in the literature, and the Sui and Tang Dynasties were the seat of The Administration of LeiZe County.
The "Notes on the Water Classics" records: "There is a Yao Tomb in the west two of the present Chengyang City, and there is a YaoMu Qingdu Tomb in the south of the Mausoleum. Today, 1 kilometer east of the ancient city of Chengyang is exactly the Yaowangsi Village where the "Lady of Zhongshan" Yaoling Stone Stele was found. From early April to early August 2008, archaeologists conducted a preliminary test excavation of the Yaoling site and found it to be a ruins of a mound, with a circular plan and a high bulge in the middle. The site has gone through many periods such as Neolithic, Shang, Zhou, Han, Jin, Ming, and Qing dynasties. In the cultural layers of different periods, archaeologists have found a wealth of relics and relics: in the late Shang Dynasty, there were house foundations, ash pits and small platform foundations, and stone cymbals, remnants, sickles, knives, axes, etc.; in the Han and Jin Dynasties, ash pits and cushion surfaces were found, and architectural debris were excavated, of which a large building component was found in a Jin Dynasty ash pit - Shi Glazed Partridge, indicating that there were temple buildings here at that time. The lowest and earliest strata of the site are piled up by the Longshan culture, which is also consistent with the chronology of Yao Shun in the literature, and it seems that the ancient history records that Yao's activities in the Heze area are not fictional legends.
Regarding the location of Chengyang City, the Water Sutra Notes Yun: "Chengyang is more than ten miles southeast of Lei Ze. The "Chronicle of the Unification of the Ming Dynasty" "Yanzhou Capital CaoZhou Xia" article: "The ancient city of Chengyang is sixty miles northeast of Caozhou. "Wanli's "Yanzhou Fuzhi", Ming's "Shandong Tongzhi", and "Great Qing Yi Tongzhi" all clearly state that the ancient city of Chengyang is sixty miles northeast of Caozhou. According to these documents, the ancient city of Chengyang (Lei Ze) is in the area of Huji and Chen Lou villages in the northeast of Present-day Mudan District, Heze.
Under the article "Chengyang County, Jiyin County" in the Book of Han and Geography, Ban Gu wrote a note: "There are Yaozuka and Lingtai, and The Yugong Lei Ze is in the northwest." "From here, we know that during the Western Han Dynasty, Chengyang County already had Yaozuka and Lingtai. At the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the emperor overhauled the Yao Tomb and the Yao Mu Qingdu Mausoleum, leaving the Yao Temple Stele, the Di Yao Stele, the Yao Mu Lingtai Stele, the Chengyang Ling Tang Fu Stele and the Han Ting Wei Zhong Ding Stele for posterity. These five stele not only record the layout of the Yao Tomb and the Yao Mu Qing Du Mausoleum, but also clearly point out that the two tombs are near Chengyang City.
The reason why the emperors of the Han Dynasty overhauled the Yao Tombs was because they claimed to be descendants of Emperor Yao. The Book of Han records that in the third year of Yuan Feng (78 BC), the spectacle of "great stone self-reliance" appeared on Mount Tai, and Xiao Hong (a Western Han Dynasty person, because he was familiar with the scriptures, did the Yilang, official to the Fu Festival. ——Editor's Note) In the recital of the Shangquan Imperial Court, there is the words "After Han Jiayao, there is the fortune of the country". In fact, before Xiao Hong formally put forward the concept of "Han Jia Yao Hou", it had long become the general consensus of the han dynasty people. The Book of Han mentions that Liu Xiang of the Han Dynasty praised Liu Bang as "the Emperor of Han, from Tang Yao, descended to Zhou, and was Liu in Qin." To a certain extent, it reflects the identification of the Han Dynasty clan with the "Han Family YaoHou". The "Book of Han And Liu Xiang Biography" says: "The Yellow Emperor buried Qiaoshan, and Yao buried Jiyin. After identifying "Yao Burial into Yang", the Han Dynasty imperial family carried out large-scale repairs to the YaoLing Tomb and the construction of the entire Yaoling Area, which led to the establishment of the "Yaoling Five Monuments".
For Yaoling, successive emperors of the Han Dynasty sent envoys to carry out ceremonial and solemn worship activities. The Book of Later Han records that in the second year of Emperor Yuanhe of Han Zhang (85 AD), he sent emissaries to build the Tang Yao Ancestral Hall in Chengyang Lingtai. This is the first explicit record of the sacrifice of the Chengyang Yao Mausoleum. After that, during the reign of Emperor Guangwu of the Eastern Han Dynasty, some deliberators constantly suggested that local officials and emperors should repair the sacrifices to The Yang Yao Mausoleum; in the third year of Yanguang (124 AD), when emperor An of the Eastern Han Dynasty was on a hunting tour, he sent emissaries to Chengyang to sacrifice Tang Yao; when Emperor Huan and Emperor Ling, they successively sent Jiyin Taishou Meng Yu and Ting Wei Zhongding to renovate the Yang Yao Mausoleum, making it reach an extremely large scale for a time.
THIRD, hand shovel interpretation: why the Han Emperor worshipped his ancestors here
If we search the literature, we will find that there are yao legends in many places in China. In addition to Heze in Shandong, Tang County and Xingtai Longyao in Hebei, Linfen in Southern Jinnan, and Gaoyou in Yangzhou, Jiangsu have literature and relics related to Yao. Among these regions, Shandong Heze and Jinnan have the greatest influence. The "Zuo Chuan And The Sixth Year of the Duke of Sorrow" quotes the Book of Xia as saying: "But The Tao Tang, the handsome and the heavenly constant, have this side." "Jifang is Jizhou, and Jinnan once belonged to the scope of ancient Jizhou. In recent years, with the excavation of the site of Xiangfen Tao Temple in southern Jin, many scholars believe that it coincides with the record of "Yaodu Pingyang" in terms of geography and time.
Then, when the Han Dynasty royal family recognized the ancestors and returned to the ancestors, why did not choose the legendary places of other Yao cultures, and only designated Heze Chengyang as the ancestral worship place? Based on the literature and archaeological findings, we believe that the following aspects are worth paying attention to.
1. The eastern part of Puyang and the area around Heze were among the heavens and the earth at that time. Mr. Feng Shi believed through the study of the Warring States Bamboo Book "Baoxun" collected by Tsinghua University: "Among the heavens and earth that Shun sought, the land was in the area of Puzhou, Fan County, Juancheng, and Dingtao. He also pointed out that this is completely consistent with the concept of Fan Li "stopping at Tao and thinking that this is the world".
Heze is located in Luxi, bordering northern Henan and eastern Henan, and was historically known as "Yanzhou". In order to explore the origin of Chinese civilization, archaeologists have carried out a series of archaeological surveys and excavations in the North China Plain in recent years. In 2005, the Henan Provincial Archaeological Research Zi excavated an ancient city site from the Eastern Zhou Dynasty in Puyang, covering an area of about 9.16 million square meters, the top of the city wall was covered with 3 to 5 meters of silt sand, and the bottom of the city wall was more than ten meters deep from today's surface. In 2010, the Shandong Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology carried out rescue excavations of the tomb of Tao Han in Hezeding. This late Western Han Dynasty "A" glyph-shaped yellow intestine inscription mu mu mu tomb is the best preserved yellow intestine inscription tomb in China. However, the long-term siltation of the Yellow River has made the tomb sealed up to 11 meters deep. The diversion of the Yellow River has the greatest impact on environmental change in heze. However, due to the high terrain of Yaoling and Chengyang City, the impact of river troubles is relatively small, and the Yaoling Cemetery is still well preserved in the Northern Wei Dynasty. Archaeological excavations have confirmed that the city was not completely abandoned until the Jin Dynasty, and was not buried by the silt of the Yellow River after the Ming Dynasty.
The results of the work of archaeologists not only confirm the documentary records of the "Han Jia Yao Hou", but also outline for us that the ecological, economic and cultural aspects of the Heze area before the Han Dynasty have undergone tremendous changes compared with today. At that time, the area had a dense water network, convenient transportation, developed economy, and prosperous commerce and trade. Before the Han Dynasty, this place was "in the heavens and the earth", which can be described as veritable.
2. The development of early civilization. During the Longshan period, the ruins of the Guheji area, where the northeast of Luxi Yu was located, were densely populated, indicating that the population was large, the society was developed, and the degree of civilization was relatively high. Taking the Heze area as an example, the third cultural relics census found that there are as many as 148 Longshan cultural sites, which is one of the most numerous and densely distributed longshan cultural sites in Shandong, and this is the area where the Yellow River floods the most, and there are still a large number of sites that have not been discovered, and the actual number should be much more than this. The same is true of Puyang. The discovery of large-scale and high-density Longshan cultural sites fully shows that the Heji area has become a thriving and square-edged civilization area in the Longshan era.
3. Speculation of cultural homology: Yao Shunyu should be in the same region, the same culture. The Luxi area where Heze is located belonged to the Central Plains Cultural Circle during the Longshan Period and belonged to the scope of the Hougang Phase II culture. This is clearly reflected in the pottery excavated at the Heze Shilipu and Anqiu Kuidui sites. Taking the Shilipu site as an example, the pottery of the Longshan period is mainly gray, common jomon pattern, basket pattern, checkered pattern and other ornaments, and the type of vessel is deep-belly jars, urns, high-necked urns, bowls and pots, and the number of dings is small. These cultural characteristics are in stark contrast to the plain polished black pottery used in the typical Longshan culture period in central and eastern Shandong, but they are very close to the Hougang Phase II culture in Anyang Hougang, Puyang Qicheng, Tangyin Baiying and other places in Henan. The Longshan era is the Yao Shunyu era of ancient history and legend, and the Heze area has shown a face consistent with the culture of the Central Plains, and the reason for this is worth pondering. However, in the Dawenkou culture period, which preceded the Longshan era, the Heze area was different from the Central Plains culture and belonged to the Dongyi cultural circle.
4. Corroboration of legends. There are a large number of legends related to Yao Shunyu in the Heze area.
Yun: "Tao, then Chengqiu, in Jiyin." TaoQiu has Yao City, where Yao Yu lives. About "Shungeng Alexander". "Lishan" "Shangbo Jian" Rong Chengshi wrote "Mane Mountain", "Chu Jian" wrote "Mane Hill", and "Qinghua Jian" wrote "Mane Mao". Pan Jianrong speculated that its evolution process should be: Mane Hill - Mane Hill Mountain - Mane Hill - Mane Mountain - Alexandria. The "History of the Five Emperors" has a record of "Shun's cultivation of The Mountains, Fishing Lei Ze", and the "Ji Xie" quotes Zheng Xuanyue: "Lei Xia, Yan Zhou Ze, now belongs to Jiyin." "
The Yugong (禹gong) has a record under the Yanzhou strip that "Sang Tu is both silkworms; it is the soil of the descending hill house", and at the same time there is also "three years of doing ten". This is consistent with the records of "Thirteen Years of Yu Suppression of floods" ("Shi ji hequ shu") and "thirteen years of Yu Xiang flood" ("Hanshu Gou Huan zhi").
Combined with the archaeological discoveries of hill sites and the "hills" in ancient texts, we find that they are located in the Luxi area of eastern Henan and the "descending hill dwelling soil" under the Yanzhou entry of Yugong. It can be said that the flood phenomenon reflected in the archaeological data is generally consistent with the ancient literature. Although the legend of Yao Shunyu in the literature is quite mysterious, it is said differently. We believe that with the further excavation of the ancient city of Chengyang and the Taoqiu ruins and the in-depth investigation of archaeological sites around Guleize, these legends will be restored to the truth one by one by archaeology.
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