An Academic History of the Origin of the Qin People

An Academic History of the Origin of the Qin People

Liu Siyuan

(School of Archaeology, Peking University)

Abstract: In the early study of Qin culture, the issue of the ethnic origin of the Qin people has always been the focus of scholars' attention. The "West" and "East" have not faded to this day. Sort out the research ideas and methods of scholars from both sides, and put forward views and problems on the current research status.

Keywords: early Qin culture; Qin people; Genealogy Received in November 2016

Medium figure classification number: k232 Document identification code: a Article number: 1671-1351 (2017) 01-0052-03

In the process of exploring the early history of the Qin people, the origin of the Qin people has always been one of the problems that cannot be ignored. The Qin people rose up in the Longyou area and grew in the Weihe Plain, which has now become the consensus of the academic community. However, were this Qin people living in the northwest region indigenous, or did they migrate from the east? The discussion of this issue has not stopped since the 1920s and 1930s. We often call the former view "West Talk" and the latter "East Talk".

The initial controversy was focused on literature. Sima Qian's account of the Qin people has both relevance to Dongyi and no shortage of words that classify the Qin and Xirong as one. Coupled with the varying degrees of recognition of the literature among scholars, this debate was once very glue. Later, as archaeological data became more and more abundant, many archaeologists used excavated materials to add more arguments to the supporting party. The scholars who support the "Western Speaking" are represented by Meng Wentong, Yu Weichao, and Neng Tieji, while the "Eastern Speaking" camp includes Fu Sinian, Wei Juxian, Huang Wenbi, Lin Jianming, Han Wei, and others. In recent years, from the perspective of argumentative logic and archaeological materials, most scholars tend to "talk about the East"

First, the West.

The "Ancestor of Qin, from Rong Di" at the beginning of Wang Guowei's "Qin Du Yi Kao" is often used as a sign of the appearance of "Western Speaking", but Wang Shi did not discuss it in detail. Liang Yun believes that the meaning of "originating from Rong Di" may be "rising from Rong Di", which cannot be simply regarded as "originating from Rong Di". It is clearly advocated that the Qin people originated in the northwest region, which should be Mongolian Wentong, and associate the Qin people with the Rong people from the perspective of literature. Yu Weichao later started from archaeological materials and found more evidence for the "West Talk". In general, the "Xi Lai" camp mainly demonstrates the relationship between the Qin people and the Qiang Rong cultural sites such as Rong in the literature or Xindian in the Ganqing area in archaeology, which boils down to the following two points:

First, the "History of Qin Benji" mentions that Shen Hou said to King Xiao of Zhou: "In the past, the daughter of LiShan, the wife of Rong Xuxuan, was born in The Middle, and returned to Zhou with her relatives, Bao Xi Chui, and Xi Chui was harmonious with her old causes. Now I am back with the wife of the great Luo, and I have a suitable son. Shen Luo was bigamous, and Xi Rong obeyed, so he was king. This passage obviously links the parents of The Ancestor of Qin, Zhongzhuo, with the Rong people.

Second, the Qin people are closely related to Rong in terms of customs and titles, which are reflected in both literature and archaeological data. The customs of the Qin people are recorded in the literature that "father and son are no different, living in the same room", and "the customs of the Qin Miscellaneous Rongdi, first violent, then benevolent", Mr. Meng Wentong has listed them one by one, and will not be repeated here. 1 In addition, it is also common for the Six Kingdoms of the East to refer to Qin as Rong Di. In terms of archaeological data, scholars regard "flexed limb burial", "cave tomb" and "shovel-shaped bag foot mane" as the main archaeological features of the Qin people, and determine their source as the Xindian culture in the Ganqing area. 12]

Second, the East

The origin of the "Eastern Speak" can be traced back to Fu Si Nian, who clearly pointed out in the Yixia East-West Theory that Qin was an oriental nation.

"Qin Zhao established a state with the West, and those who used the surname of the East, gai Shang Dynasty to the west to expand the land, and won the surname Dongyi under the banner of the merchants into Xi Rong. The Qin Benji said that this matter was very clear. Shao Hao was the emperor of the West in the Yueling system, and when the ancestors of Qin Zhao moved their legends to the western soil, they became indigenous for a long time, and later generations became system theorists, forgetting that they were not native."

Later, many scholars developed and supplemented this view, and Wang Xueli and Liang Yun have already summarized it in the book "Qin Culture":[3]

The legend of the "birth of the bird" as the ancestor of the Qin people is the same as that of the Yin people and Dongyi, reflecting that they have a common bird totem worship.

The second is that Qin is the surname of Win, and the surname of Win lives mostly in the East.

The third is that the "History of Qin Benji" mentions "the Miao descendants of Qin Huan", and Qin Xianggong also believes that he is the god of the main Shaohao

Fourth, many of the ancestors of the Qin people were Yin Chen.

In addition to the literature, there is also a lot of evidence in the archaeological materials, such as the waist pit of the tomb, the martyrdom of dogs, the customs of martyrdom, and the characteristics of the different burials of carriages and horses from the Zhou people. The ruling class of the Qin people uses waist pits, martyrs, and dogs, which is similar to the Dongyi people, the Zhou people hardly see these characteristics and the Qin people generally do not follow the burial of the chariot and horse tools in the tombs of the Qin people, and most of the chariots and horses are in the chariot and horse pits; Cars and horses placed in the pit into a multi-vehicle and horse are arranged horizontally or vertically, and the Qin people obviously inherited the characteristics of yin shang culture in terms of carriage and horse burial, which is consistent with the Yin remnants. [14]

Third, the dispute between "speaking from the West" and "speaking from the East"

When the two doctrines are arguing, they have not only been adding powerful material to their own views, but also refuting each other's arguments. In this debate, "Donglai" gradually gained the upper hand. There are two main points to sort out:

First, whether the description of the ancestors of the early Qin people in the "Records of History" is credible.

"Western" scholars argue that early myths and stories cannot be easily trusted, perhaps later. In this way, it denies the main historical materials on which the "Eastern Sayings" are based, such as the "Miao descendants of the Emperor", and the great cause of the female concubine swallowing the eggs of the birds and giving birth to children. 15]

The attitude of Eastern scholars towards early legends can be represented by Mr. Lin Jianming, that is, it is neither trustworthy nor unbelievable. Mr. Lin believes that "there is no need for cumbersome research on this legend." And then they must not be regarded as absurd and useless in the study of history." When talking about the origin of the Qin people, Mr. Lin had this expression: "Among the various myths about the ancestors of the ancient clans, only the legends of Qin and Yin are so similar, which is by no means accidental, nor can it be arbitrarily made up by any one person." [6]

Second, the relationship between Qin and Rong.

As mentioned above, the main method of argument for "speaking in the West" is to link the Qin people with the Rong people, so as to prove that the Qin people originated in the West. The "Eastern Speaking" scholars tried to distinguish the Qin and rong people

The "Dong Lai" camp believes that it is a fact that the six eastern countries put together the words "Qin and "Rong" and "Rong Di", but "Rong" and so on do not necessarily mean Xi Rong, but also have the meaning of "contempt". Although Qin and Rong are similar in some customs, it is not known whether it is the result of cultural dissemination, and for a long time afterwards, there were frequent wars between Qin and Rong, and even Qin Zhong died in battle with Rong, how could this be between the same ethnic group? 17] As for the three characteristics of flexed limb burial, shovel-shaped bag foot bristles and cave tombs, they are not the cultural characteristics of the Qin people themselves. Because the burial of the limbs is rarely applied to the customs used by the Qin aristocratic class, that is, the non-Qin gong clan, the cave tomb and the shovel-shaped bag foot mane appeared in the early and middle Warring States period, and the era was too late, so it cannot be used as evidence. [18]

In the discussion of both issues, it can be seen that both sides have shortcomings in their arguments. The use of bird totem worship to associate with Dongyi is one of the most crucial arguments in Dongyi. The "Western" scholars have completely denied the veracity of the early myths, but have failed to provide a reasonable reason, and the longer and mythological descriptions are geometric, which is a big problem and is still difficult to solve.

Trying to distinguish the Qin people from the Rong people is one of the most popular research work in the "East Speaking", even more than "how to explain the relationship between the Qin people and the East". However, it must be noted that even if the reasons for the rebuttal are correct for the time being, the two things that prove that the Qin people have nothing to do with Xi Rong and the Qin people coming from the east cannot be equated. [9]

Fourth, the advent of new materials

In recent years, a large number of ten documents have appeared, bringing more possibilities for the discussion of the origin of the Qin people. Among the most important materials are the excavation of the LiYa site and the publication of the materials of Tsinghua Jian's "Department Year".

The Liya site covers an area of more than 1 million square meters and is mainly a relic of the middle Western Zhou Dynasty. Among them, the excavations of the Shang-style bristle with square lips and crotches, the burial of straight limbs on the back, the west head, and the martyrdom of the waist pit are particularly striking,[10] and Mr. Liang Yun believes that the Li Ya site may be related to the Qinyi sealed by Feizi. [11]

In the third chapter of Qinghua Jian's "Department Year", it is recorded: "Flying ... It was the Ancestors of Qin. According to this, Mr. Li Xueqin believed that the Qin people were originally shangfen people from the east, and when they became kings in the early Zhou Dynasty, they were forced to migrate to the Zhuku Mountain area in Gangu to fight in the west. [12] Other scholars have also taken this view as true.

These two pieces of material are strong evidence for Donglai, but there are a few issues that can still be revisited:

First of all, the reasons for the appearance of Shang artifacts in the LiYa site are more diverse, which may be due to the influence of The Shang culture, or because the two are of the same ethnic group. However, due to the earliest Qin royal family mu that we know at present, the era is in the early Spring and Autumn Period, and the traces of shang tools can no longer be seen at this time. The earlier Qin royal family Mu has not yet appeared in the world, and the specific circumstances are unknown.

Second, the characteristics of several early Qin sites are not consistent. Liang Yun once divided the early Qin culture into "Xishan type" and "Li Ya type", and the interpretation of the difference between the two is difficult to determine in 1131. Are they two stages of development of the same family? Or are they two groups of the same ethnic group, or different ethnic groups? These are all questions worth thinking about

Third, the rough age of Qinghua Jian is the Warring States period, the era is earlier, so once it came out, it was used as a benchmark to add, supplement and change previous literature. However, it is difficult for any literature to truly reflect the situation at that time, and Tsinghua Jian is no exception. When the contents of the jane are different from other literature, we also need to be careful to distinguish. Here's an example:

In the third chapter of the "Year of the Lineage", there is such a passage that records that "the Zhou Room is ..." The "Qin Zhong" mentioned here is collated and believed to be Qin Xianggong, because the historical time can correspond. However, according to the historical situation, it is not Qin Xianggong who coincides, but Qin Zhong, the grandfather of Qin Xianggong in the "History of Qin Benji". There is much discussion in the academic circles, and the main views are as follows:[13]

First, it is believed that the Qin Zhong of the "Department Year" is the Qin Zhong in the "History of Qin Benji", and as for the time problem, it is because the narrative of the "Department Year" may not follow the chronological order. This passage of the record refers to the events of the zhou li king and the zhou xuan king, not after the ping king moved east.

Second, it is believed that the bamboo recorder recorder is wrong. Because according to the "History of Qin Benji", Qin Xianggong had an elder brother named Shi Father, but did not succeed to the throne, but gave way to his younger brother Qin Xianggong and concentrated on his own crusade against Xi rong. If Qin Xianggong still had a younger brother, he might also be called Qin Zhong, but in this way, he would have the same name as his grandfather, and it was not appropriate for the ancient people to be humane. However, if there were only two of them brothers, then Qin Xianggong could only be called Qin Ji, so it should be a mistake in the record.

Third, the finisher's point of view. It is believed that Qin Zhong, that is, qin xianggong, the Qin Benji records that qin zhuang had three sons, and the eldest son shifa reported the revenge of the eldest father, "let his brother Xianggong and Xianggong be crown princes." ”

Of these three views, the author tends to be misrepresented. According to the first point of view, how should the other chronological records in the Annals be interpreted? In general, most of the history of the "Series Year" is written in chronological order, and it is rare to reverse the chronological order. To recognize Qin Zhong here as the Duke of Qin Xiang cannot explain the problem of having the same name as his father, and besides, the Qin Kings in the other chapters of the "Family Year" have never used such a title, and they all use the title or abbreviation of Qin King, which seems strange.

In short, the records in Tsinghua Jane that Fei Lian and others went to the East to find rescue were not found in other literature in the past. The new information can be used as one of the arguments for Dongyan, but if it is said that the Qin people have no objection to donglai, there is still a distance. The support for "Western Talk" in archaeological data is indeed very small, and there are many logical points that are difficult to explain and seem to be difficult to establish. In the next stage of the Qin people's exploration of the origin of the qin, more information is needed to make the "East Speak" more convincing.

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