Our understanding of Huangdi is based on two things. The first is the battle of Zhuolu in which the Huangdi fights Chiyou; the second is that the Huangdi defeated Chiyou and established a unified Central Plains tribal alliance and became a Chinese civilization. The ancestor is revered as the ancestor of the entire Chinese nation.
Before studying pre-Qin history, my knowledge of the Yellow Emperor was probably the same. I did not think about the primitive society of 4000 years ago. Why did such a big battle erupt? What did the result of this war bring to history? It took me more than half a year to read a lot of pre-Qin history books before I learned to think about the above questions and got my own answers. The significance of this war is definitely not so simple as the victor's writing history.
analysis and discussion are as follows.
The social scene in the Huangdi era
The social scene in the Huangdi era, we can draw a picture like this:
1. Handicraft: primitive, very primitive, bronze making is the most advanced technology of that era , But it is still in the early Bronze Age, only simple bronze tools or weapons can be smelted. A bronze knife unearthed from the Gansu Majiayao site is a product of this era. (If the myth is true, then the Jiuli tribe led by Chi You should be a group that has mastered high technology, because it can smelt metal weapons). Of course, the pottery craftsmanship of this era has been very mature. People's daily necessities are basically earthenware pots.
2. Agriculture: Prosperous, very prosperous. Compared with handicraft industry, agriculture is a completely different picture. At that time, agricultural production was mainly plantation and animal husbandry. Primitive agriculture began to appear 10,000 years ago. After more than 5,000 years of development, a large amount of farmland has been cultivated, planted with rice, barley and other crops; on the green grassland, there are herds of cattle/horses. / Sheep and other large animals, piglets are kept in captivity in people's farmhouses. The progress of agricultural production has directly brought about a result. It is not necessary for everyone to engage in labor production. This has led to the division of mental and physical labor.The rise of the wine industry just proved this point. Material abundance has brought another result, population growth, which is equally important, which will be introduced later.
3. Social structure: The Huangdi era was at the end of primitive society, and the entire Central Plains was divided into thousands of primitive tribes of different sizes. The primitive tribes are constantly fighting for survival based on instinct. The stronger tribes will continue to expand their sphere of influence. According to historical records, there were three largest tribes at that time, the Huangdi Xuanyuan tribe, Yandi The Shennong tribe and the Jiuli tribe of Chiyou.
Social contradictions in the Huangdi era
Primitive society is not without contradictions.
Engels pointed out in the book "The Origin of Family, Span1span Private Ownership, and the State " that when human society has reached the advanced stage of barbarism, "all cultural nations have experienced their own heroic age in this period."
In the era of the Yellow Emperor, mankind reached a barbaric advanced stage. The population continued to grow, constantly squeezing the living space of the tribe, and at this time the original system of enfeoffment emerged. It is said that the enfeoffment system is primitive because the enfeoffment in this period is based on the enfeoffment of the means of production and the enfeoffment of land. According to historical records of later generations, tribes in the period of the Three Emperors and Five Emperors stipulated that when a family grew to more than 100 people, it could be entrusted to open up new territories. This is different from the enfeoffment based on status and power in later generations.
At the same time, in addition to the increase in population, there are floods that squeeze the living space of the tribe. During the period between 4000-2000 BC, prolonged floods broke out all over the world. The story of Noah’s Ark is from this period, and Gonggong/Gun/Great Yu is also in this period. Ancient Greek mythology/Babylon and Greek mythology have legends of the great flood in this period (more on this in a later article)
Increase in population , The flooding directly led to the tension of living space. The Shanxi/Shaanxi/Henan area where the Yandi and Huangdi tribes are, constantly squeezing the living space of the Chiyou tribe (Shandong/Jiangsu) to the east, and friction between the tribes Constantly upgrade.
Primitives do not have "national borders", but they have territories. It is the instinct of animals to defend territories. Under this background, Chi You and the Huangdi Yandi alliance broke out in several battles, and were eventually defeated in the battle of Zhuolu. From this perspective, Chi You is not as terrible as the legend, he is a complete villain, on the contrary, he is the real victim.
The emergence of class
According to Engels's point of view, human beings are equal only in two stages-primitive society and communist society, which represent extreme material scarcity and material abundance. The period of the Yellow Emperor was at the end of primitive society, and the division of private ownership and class appeared. Legend has it that after the Huangdi defeated Chi You, in order to rule the people of the Jiuli tribe, the official position of "Li" was specially set up. The people of the Chiyou tribe were called "Limin" and the people of his tribe were called "people". The rank of the people was higher than that of the Limin. This is the origin of the "Lebanese people", but the idiom of later generations has slowly evolved to refer to the general public.
Shortly after the Battle of Zhuolu, the Huangdi and Yandi broke out in the Battle of Sakazumi . The Huangdi won again and expelled the Yandi forces to the south of the Yangtze River. If the war between Huangdi and Chiyou was to fight for living space, then there was only one reason for the war between Huangdi and Yandi-fighting for power.
Summary
The Battle of Zhuolu and the Battle of Sakazumi are the first two large-scale conflicts on the land of China recorded in later historical materials. The cause of the conflict is actually the inevitable result of the development of social productive forces and the end of primitive society. The inevitable result of the rise of the concept of private ownership is the inevitable result of the development of mankind into a class society.
Huangdi, Yao Shunyu era, it is in this period of slow transition. In the next article, I will introduce the first power struggle in history: the troubles of the Yellow Emperor-the power passed to his son or the hero of water control. Remember to follow me.
The words of the family do not represent traditional views.
.
