If it were put to this day, some people would randomly cling to an ancestor for the sake of so-called success and say that the descendants of a certain celebrity in history would not be uncomprehensible. Even if it is exposed in the end, at most it will be sneered and said that this person is so brainless.
But if it were put into Han Dynasty , people at that time would probably find it difficult to understand this behavior.
Because according to the laws of the Han Dynasty, they recognize their ancestors and cling to the royal relatives, they will be punished! Besides, people’s worldview at that time would not think that anyone would do this! What is the so-called title of marquis and ministers, and the so-called power over the court and the public in the end? Is it just for glory and wealth, good food and good clothes? Of course not! One of the big reasons why the ancients had to struggle was to glorify their ancestors!
But if you even change your ancestors, what is the meaning of this kind of success?
Moreover, the era when Liu Bei lived was in the late Eastern Han Dynasty. The Han Dynasty was a very interesting dynasty in history. Since the Emperor Wu of Han 's era, the 'abolished all schools of thought and respected Confucianism', Confucian culture has become the governing concept of the Han Dynasty. In Confucian cultural thought, the word "filial piety" is quite deeply rooted in people's hearts.
Especially since the era of Emperor Wu of Han, Emperor Wu of Han developed a system called ‘ 月 月 月 月 月 月 月 月 月 月 月 月 月 月 月 月 月 月 月 月 月 月 月 月 月 月 月 月 月 月 月 月 月 月 月 月 月 月 月 月 月 月 月 月 月 月 月 月 月 月 月 月 月 月 月 月 月No matter what political considerations are behind the operation of this system. Just talking about this system itself, if the people at that time wanted to become officials through this system and improve their social status. The only choice is to compare who is more filial.
As long as you are the most filial in your villages, and you are famous for being filial, you are very likely to be pulled out by the government to be an example and then become an official in the court.
Therefore, in the Han Dynasty people's concept, you must be filial first and respect your ancestors first, and then you can achieve the success you want and get the so-called "glory, wealth and honor" or "high officials and generous salaries".
is because of this special concept that later the Han Dynasty fought to compare who is more filial and spared no expense. It is said that at the most exaggerated time, in order to show their filial piety, the Han people would use all the valuable things in their families to bury their elders. As a result, one-third of the production results of the Han Dynasty were buried in the soil by the Han Dynasty.
From the era of Emperor Wu of Han to the late Eastern Han Dynasty, this idea has been continuously strengthened. Therefore, it was basically impossible for people at that time to think that they would tamper with their ancestors to gain any benefits for themselves, because this was not in line with the three views of most people at that time.
Back to the question itself, there are actually not no doubts about Liu Bei's background. After all, although most people at that time did not dare to cling to their ancestors, it was not ruled out that a small number of scumbags would take risks. So when Liu Bei raised his background, some people actually checked this problem.
This person who actively verified Liu Bei's background was Liu Bei's mortal enemy, Cao Cao .
According to historical records, after Liu Bei established himself, Cao Cao really sent someone to verify his origin and wanted to prove that he was not a descendant of the Liu family. This matter is naturally beneficial to Cao Cao. Once it is proved that Liu Bei is lying, then Boss Cao can morally accuse Liu Bei of the future. Moreover, according to the values at that time, if Liu Bei really lied and was proved to be accomplices of the royal relatives, it would definitely be a devastating blow to Liu Bei's own reputation.
But the problem is that Boss Cao went to Liu Bei's hometown to search, but still found no evidence to prove that Liu Bei's background was problematic. This result, indirectly proves that Liu Bei is indeed a descendant of the royal family.
Speaking of this, some people may say: Since this matter can hit Liu Bei's reputation, why didn't Cao Cao just make up a result and then ask the people below to do all kinds of perjury to prove that Liu Bei was lying? Anyway, Liu Bei's hometown was within Cao Cao's control later. Is it easy for Cao Cao to do this?
is actually not.
Because Chinese people have the habit of recording family genealogy.
From Western Han to Eastern Han , it has been more than two hundred years since then. However, there has always been a habit of recording family genealogies in ancient China. Every generation, who is the descendant of whom, will be recorded clearly. Although some accidents may occur during the war, clans in some places may undergo large-scale migration, resulting in the loss of their own family genealogy.
But the problem is that Liu Bei and his family have never experienced such large-scale unrest in the past two hundred years.
From the Western Han Dynasty to the Eastern Han Dynasty, the only large-scale chaos was the Green Forest and Red Eyebrow Uprising in the late Western Han Dynasty. However, the Green Forest and Red Eyebrow Uprising was mainly in chaos in Shandong, Henan and Hebei. Liu Bei and his family lived in Zhuozhou, Hebei, and this place was not in chaos at that time.
So, the genealogy of Liu Bei and his family should have been very complete at that time. By the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, although Liu Bei and his family were already 100,800 miles apart from the emperor's lineage, they had no blood relationship. But genealogy is still very reliable.
Since the genealogy is clearly recorded, unless Cao Cao forcibly asked the Liu family to change the genealogy, or Cao Cao directly killed all the distant relatives of Liu Bei and his family, otherwise it would be impossible to fake it. But if Cao Cao wanted to do this, it would probably cause a lot of controversy again, and everyone in the world knew about Cao Cao's thoughts.
Especially in the late Eastern Han Dynasty, the powerful local forces were too powerful at that time. In order to strengthen their own strength, the Han Dynasty's central government began to reorganize the genealogy of the Lao Liu family, with the purpose of clarifying how many relatives the Lao Liu family had and seeing if these descendants of the Lao Liu family could help stabilize the Han Dynasty's regime.
So at that time, under the intervention of the central government of the Han Dynasty, the Liu clan families in various places began to report their genealogy to the central government. Officials from all over the country also began to assist. During this process, officials at all levels still made a lot of efforts. In addition, the Han Dynasty attached great importance to the genealogy, and basically there would be no scammers or other people pretending to be royal families. It is precisely for this reason that a very strange scene happened later. In "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", when mentioning Liu Bei, Luo Guanzhong, , , directly wrote Liu Bei's ancestor name from King Jing of Zhongshan to Liu Bei clearly. However, in " Three Kingdoms ", it only records that Liu Bei is the one who is the one who is the one who is the one who is the one who is the one who is the one who is the one who is the one who is the one who is the one who is Liu Bei's grandfather and father.
This shows that when Chen Shou was writing "The Three Kingdoms", he did not consider the identity of Liu Bei as a royal family. It might be a fake or forged situation. Because according to the social morality and system at that time, this situation was simply impossible.
Moreover, whenever Liu Bei's family background has a little mistake, with Cao Cao's personality, I guess it was found out later, and it was known to everyone in the world! How could we wait until later generations to doubt this problem?
