There is a very new trend in the field of historiography, that is, the evaluation of the Ming Dynasty seems to be turning. The ming dynasty in the past seemed to be backward and degenerate, but now it seems to have a new style of historiography, that is, the Ming Dynasty may not be so cowardly and dark.
Now let's start with one of the earliest cartoons in China: "Three Camels", from this picture, we see a little movement, that is, it seems to herald the rise of the market economy and the decline of a dynasty.
Three short, chubby old men, one of them looking back and carrying a basket and a cane, the other two closely followed, one pretentious, one clapping with both hands. They gathered together, as if they were talking, and as if they were making fun of each other, and this is the content of the painting "Three Camels".
The picture is extremely simple, and there is no background except for the three characters. The figures are painted in the shape of a ball, as if rolling on the ground, which is very funny.
At the top of the picture there is an inscription poem by Qian Yunzhi, Lu Shiren, and Wen Qianguang, who were contemporaries of the author Li Tuda. Qian Yunzhi's poem reads:
Zhang Camel went to visit his relatives with a basket, and Li Camel met and asked the cause. Zhao Huo clapped his hands and smiled, there was no straight person in the world.
Lu Shiren's poem is:
Poor sick turned to blind dates, a laugh before the wind thin worldly causes. Mo Dao this man has no pride, and his pure heart is better than others.
Wen Qianguang's poem is:
The shape is more intimate, and the gathering of three camels seems to have a cause. But he envied Yuan Ming and thought early, and only saw people bending their waists in the world.
The poems of the three men have different angles, but they all borrow the allusion of the Eastern Jin Dynasty poet Tao Yuanming", who "does not bend his waist for five buckets of rice", or satirize the ugliness of the world's slaves and bones, or praise the physiologically hunchbacked and proud "straight man", or slightly self-deprecating.
The seemingly easy "oiling" verses of the three poems are actually a ruthless mockery of the late Ming society. If you contact the historical era in which the painter Li Tuda and the inscription poets lived, and combined with Li Shida's personal experience, you can find out what this "Three Camels" really wants to tell people.
Those who have a little understanding of the history of the late Ming Dynasty know that the incompetence of the emperor and the dictatorship of eunuchs are one of the characteristics of the defeat of the late Ming dynasty. Eunuchs not only despised hundreds of officials and interfered in government affairs, but also often went out of the capital and extorted money from the localities. During the Ming Dynasty, a eunuch named Si Suming, in order to collect money, greatly increased the tax revenue of Dibai during his inspection of Suzhou, which triggered a large-scale organized weaver rebellion in Suzhou Prefecture. This event is recorded in the Records of the Ten Thousand Calendars of the Ming Dynasty, the Notes of the Ming Dynasty, and the Chronicles of the Places.
Suzhou in the late Ming Dynasty was a prosperous city of commerce, of which the textile industry in the handicraft industry was particularly developed, and the products were sold throughout the country in addition to supplying the needs of the court, and the number of people engaged in this industry was also very large. The imperial court saw the huge profits of the textile industry in Suzhou, so it imposed heavy taxes and stepped up exploitation. This measure seriously harmed the interests of the vast number of weavers, industrial and commercial households, and small and medium-sized landlords, so that "the resale of Wuzhong is becoming scarcer, the opportunities of the weavers are decreasing day by day, the water is boundless, and the poor people who rely on weaving for a living are precarious and have no way to survive" (Wanli Records).
In the twenty-ninth year of the Wanli Calendar (1601), "the weaving eunuch Sun Long from Hangzhou to ... His attendants, along with Huang Jianjie, paid bribes to Wuzhong's rogue Tang Xin and Xu Cheng, and ordered the people to pay three monthly taxes; and he also commissioned Xin and twenty-two others to grab merchants according to the Six Gates of Water and Land KongDao" (Suzhou Fu Zhi).
Sun Long and others "took the committee to check the tax, levied it without authorization, and vainly negotiated one piece per machine, and the tax was three dollars." People's feelings were fierce, and false rumors were everywhere, so the machine owners all went on strike" (Wanli Records). At this time, Ge Xian, a Kunshan man who was working as a weaver in Suzhou, stepped forward and shouted with his arms: "I should be the leader, suppress the chaos for Wu Min" "Lead dozens of people, enter the Xuanmiao Temple to set the date, if the generation moves, they all look at what Wu Basho Fan refers to, and everyone knows: No." ”
Thus began the largest civil revolt in the history of the Ming Dynasty.
The rioting weavers killed Sun Long's minions Huang Jian with stones, and then burned down the residences of Sun Long's other two dogs, Tang Zhao and Xu Cheng, and jing beat the two to death, and then threw them outside the gates of Zhao and Xu, and all the tax officials who were in the local area were beaten and killed" (Shen Zhan killed. Ge Xian then led the crowd to Zhongheng and demanded that the tax be stopped. Sun Long and the others were frightened and hid, and fled to Hangzhou overnight.
Afterwards, the prefect severely suppressed and hunted down the rioters, and Ge Xian voluntarily surrendered himself and was imprisoned for 12 years. He was released in the fortieth year of the Wanli Calendar (1613). After his death, he was buried next to the tomb of the five people in Suzhou Tiger Hill, known as the "Tomb of the Six Righteous Soldiers".
So, what is the relationship between this weaving riot and Li Shida's "Three Camels"? This involves the attitude of the painter Li Tuda in this incident.
According to the history of the painting: "Li Shida, yang huai, a native of Wu County. He is good at characters and also writes landscapes. Can be self-love heavy, the magnate to seek, in the end can not get. During the Wanli Dynasty, weaving Sun Long in Wu, gathering the history of the crowd, Xian bent his knees, and dushida came out. Seek to be captured, and exempted from shelter. (Xu Qin's "Ming Paintings")
From the above text, we can clearly see the character of the painter Li Shida. Sun Long was a hot magnate at that time, and Li Shida only bent down to make a gesture when he was received by Sun Long, which required a lot of courage. In the subsequent anti-riot action of Suzhou weavers and citizens, Li Shida was on the opposite side of Sun Long, so he was hunted down by the authorities and survived thanks to the protection of someone.
Understanding the above historical background, we will have a more accurate and in-depth understanding of the painting when we look at the painting and the inscription poem on the painting. On the canvas, the author's signature is "Wanli Ding Weidong wrote, Li Tuda". Ding had been in the forty-fifth year of the Wanli Calendar (1617), 16 years after the Suzhou weaver Tai dong and 4 years after Ge Xian was released. Li Tuda drew this map, both in praise of the anti-riot hero Ge Xian at that time, and with the intention of satirizing the person who bent his knee to Sun Long, so the Yinglong banner has specific events to point to satirize the dark politics of the late Ming Dynasty.
Because the characters in the painting are quite exaggerated and the content is ironic, "Three Camels" can be regarded as the earliest comic in China. Looking closely at the history of this cartoon, we can really see that the market economy is rising, while the Ming Dynasty is gradually declining.