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The era of ancient Chinese history and legends is history or legend, which is a major problem in the long-term lawsuits in the study of ancient Chinese history.
After two weeks to "hierarchical creation" of in the Han Dynasty, and later generations believed in the past and cluttered the ancients. By the beginning of the last century, with the introduction of modern historical views, the ancient history system, which the ancients, especially the Zhou people in the Ji surname, took great pains to manage, collapsed in an instant with the rise of the trend of doubting ancient thoughts. Fortunately, the introduction and development of modern archaeology , as well as the hard exploration of archaeology by archaeologists on the land of China, have strongly proved the ancient Chinese history and legends with a large amount of physical information. Except for the "hidden" imperial lineage bloodline, most of its content is in line with the historical development status at that time, and is by no means a false creation of the ancients, which plays a good role in rectifying and reversing the excessive doubts about the ancients and non-ancient thoughts.
1. Did the third generation of Yu, Xia, Shang or Xia, Shang and Zhou?
Nowadays, when discussing the history of the pre-Qin period, the historical community often uses the term "Three Dynasties" to refer to "Xia, Shang and Zhou".
This term was first seen in " Analects of Confucius·Duke Ling of Wei ":
" Yan Yuan asked about being a country, and the Master said: When you go to Xia, you should take advantage of the Yin throne and submit to the crown of Zhou"; "This is the people, and the reason why the three dynasties go straight and go straight."
Here, the meaning of "three dynasties" is limited to Xia Shang and Western Zhou . However, in the pre-Qin classics and other early documents, there are different terms of "second generation", "third generation" and "four generations".
" Analects of Confucius·Bayi ":
"Zhou is depressed by the second generation, and I am from Zhou."
refers to the mistakes of the Western Zhou monarch borrowed from the Xia and Shang dynasties, which is the so-called "the learning of the Yin is not far away."
However, in most cases, the content covered by the "three generations" in early literature is still qualitatively different from the content covered by the "three generations" of today's people.
"Mozi·Ming Guixia":
"In the past, the sage kings of the three dynasties of Yu, Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties must choose the main body of the country and set it up as a ancestral temple."
regards Yuxia as a generation and competes with Shang and Zhou dynasties.
"Mozi·Shangxianzhong":
"As in the past, the three sages of saints Yao, Shun, Yu, Tang and Wenwu are the same."
merged the six sages, " Yao, Shun, , Yu, Tang and Wenwu" into three generations.
"Mozi"'s "Shangxian", "Heavenly Zhizhong", "Guiyi", " Luwen " and other articles are all viewed in this way, which shows that the meaning of the "Three Dynasties" at that time was not fixed.
After that, the "Three Dynasties" seemed to be fixed as "Yu Xia Shang", such as "Xunzi·Wangzhi": "The Tao cannot be used for three generations, and the law does not be used for the next king."
The so-called "Xunzi" actually refers to the Zhou king, so the "Three Dynasties" should be limited to "Yu Xia Shang"; "Huainanzi·Panju": "Today's Confucian and Mohist people call it "Three Dynasties", but civil and military people do not practice it"; " Preface to Taishigong ": "The Spring and Autumn Animation": "The Spring and Autumn Annals" collects good and criticizes evil, promotes the virtues of the three generations, and praises the Zhou Dynasty."
More clearly excludes " Zhou Hou " from the "Three Dynasties".
The various differences in the connotation of the "three dynasties" in ancient and modern times are largely due to the introduction of Marx and Engels' theory of origin of the country. According to the academic community, the Xia Dynasty was recognized as the first dynasty in Chinese history; Yu Shun adopted the abdication method because of the "inheritance" and "transmission" of the "throne", which is said to be "not in line with the power replacement model defined by the theory of origin of the country", so it was excluded from the early countries.
2, Yu, Xia, Shang and Zhou
review the relevant literature's statements on Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors , and you will find an interesting phenomenon in regularity:
Its manifestation is that the older the ancient emperor is, the later it appears, and the description is relatively simple.
In terms of the Five Emperors, from Huangdi to Emperor Ku , there are only a few words, and the description of Emperor Yao is only a rough framework. Only Emperor Shun has relatively systematic and specific deeds.
Therefore, in the eyes of the Confucian and Mohist families who "ancestored Yao and Shun", Yu and Shun, who succeeded Emperor Yao and created "a model of national governance for future generations to imitate," originally had little to do with the so-called " Five Emperors " that lacked empirical evidence. As a generation of emperors, Yu and Shun were not far back in ancient times, and he left relatively rich specific historical materials, which made it possible for the narrator to distinguish him from the emperors before him, so he was collectively referred to as "Yu, Xia, Shang and Zhou" as the four generations.
For example, " Great Dai Li Ji " has special chapters on "Yu Dade" and "Four Generations". The Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties were able to prosper by inheriting the laws and regulations established by Yu Shun. Therefore, the joint name of "Four Dynasties" became the most common expression during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period.
"Guoyu·Luyu":
"There is the Yu family, the Yellow Emperor and the ancestors Zhuanxu , the suburbs of Yao and the ancestors of Shun; Xia The Hou clan was the ancestor of the Yellow Emperor Zhuanxu, and the Jiao Gun was the ancestor of Yu; the merchant Yu Shun (Wei Zhao's annotation of the sacrifice method cited the merchant Yu Ku) was the ancestor of Qi, and Jiao Ming was the ancestor of Tang; the Zhou people were the ancestor of Jiao Ji, and the ancestor King Wen was the ancestor of King Wu.
Mu, who can command Zhuanxu, the Yu clan will report Yan; Zhu, who can command Yu, the Xiahou clan will report Yan; Shangjiawei, if he can command Qi, the merchants will report Yan; Gao Yu, Da Wang, who can command Ji, the Zhou people will report Yan. "
This is what Dr. Lu Zhanqin said when he criticized those in power for indiscriminately setting up national sacrifices. It is clear that in the eyes of Zhan Qin and the people at that time, "Yu, Xia, Shang and Zhou" were four successive dynasties. This way of expression is often seen in pre-Qin classics, especially in Confucian narratives. The ancient history contained in " Shangshu " is compiled in the order of the "Four Dynasties" of Yu, Xia, Shang and Zhou. "Dadaili" even uses "Four Generations" as the chapter title.
These examples all regard the Yu generation as the head of the "four generations" of dynasties established in sequence, and all regard Yu Shun as the founder of state power and related regulations and systems and a model for later generations to follow.
3. Compare ancient Chinese history with Morgan's theory
Compare the general positioning of relevant figures in the history of human social development in the legendary era:
has Chao's major It is approximately in the ancient period when man and ape bid farewell to each other;
The stage of social development represented by Suiren's is approximately equivalent to the lower stage of the savagery era, that is, the early Paleolithic Age;
The era in which the Pa Xishi lived is approximately the middle to high stage of the savagery era, which is equivalent to the middle and late Paleolithic Age.
The historical meanings expressed by the names of Shennong's , Tao and Tang's are settlement, farming and pottery making. These three points are the symbols of the distinction between the Neolithic and the Paleolithic Ages.
In other words, the Five Emperors from Shennong onwards, including the Yellow Emperor, should all belong to the Neolithic Age in the broad sense of archeology.
The era that Shennong lived in should belong to the early stage of the Neolithic Age, which was about the lower stage of the barbaric age.
The archaeological community has not yet reached a complete consensus on the division of the development stages of the Neolithic Age.
According to the overall development status of different archaeological cultures , with reference to the relatively fair opinions of the academic circles such as the Yangshao era, the Longshan era and the "co-use of gold and stone" era. See, we regard the period from 12,000 years ago to about 8,000 years ago as the early Neolithic Age; the period from about 8,000 to 6,000 years ago as the middle Neolithic Age; and the period from about 6,000 to 5,000 years ago as the late Neolithic Age, that is, the Yangshao Age.
The period from 5000 to 4000 years ago was the Longshan Period. Sporadic copper utensils had appeared, so it was distinguished as the period when gold and stone were used together. The subsequent period, from 4500 to 4000 years ago, was also called the "Longshan Culture Period".
According to the definition of ancient social development model by American ethnologist Morgan, the above stages are roughly equivalent to the transition period from matrilineal society to patrilineal society in cultural anthropology , the prosperous period of matrilineal society, the period of rapid development of patriarchal society, and the period of military democracy. The latter is also called the "heroic age".
4000 years later, it has entered the range of the Xia Dynasty's accumulation. Various data from the
Civilization Source Exploration Project also show that the absolute age of the " Longshan Era " is also late at 4,000 years.
Therefore, the accumulation range of the Youyu generation should be approximately in the early Longshan era, namely the late stage of the Dawenkou culture and the early Longshan culture.
1877, in the book "Ancient Society", Morgan divided human society into three historical development stages based on the level of productivity development.
According to blood ties and marriage status, social organization forms are divided into clans, corps, tribes and tribal alliances, as well as corresponding marriage and lineage expression forms, such as matriarchal society, patriarchal society, dual marriage system, etc.
and further subdivided the ignorance and barbarism into three stages of development in junior high school and high school.
believes that the characteristics of the initial stage of Mengwei are that humans live on plant fruits, and the segmented language has been produced;
Intermediate stage begins with eating fish and using fire, and finally the invention of bows and arrows;
Advanced stage begins with bows and arrows, and finally the invention of pottery making.
The primary stage of barbarism begins with pottery making, and finally domesticates animals or uses irrigation to plant and use adobe and stone to build houses;
Intermediate stage begins with animal feeding, irrigation agriculture, and finally the invention of iron smelting;
Advanced stage begins with iron manufacturing, and finally the invention and use of text.
After Morgan's "Ancient Society" was published, it attracted widespread attention from the academic community and was regarded as the basic theory of related disciplines for a long time.
5, China's starting point of civilization and Marx's view on social development model
Marx also attached great importance to Morgan's theory and once made detailed reading summary and commentary. On the premise of basically affirming Morgan's view, it emphasized the connection between monogamous family and private ownership, the emergence of class, and the origin of the state. believes that the transformation from clan system to state is not only due to the change of clan members from blood to regional connection in residence, but more importantly, the confrontation arising from differences in property within clans.
Engels further elaborated on Marx's views in "Family, Private ownership and the Origin of the State", and based on a large number of historical materials, he explained the basic characteristics of primitive society.
analyzes the process of private ownership , the emergence of classes and the disintegration of primitive society, reveals the origin, class nature, and the laws of development and extinction of the country, and explains Morgan's research results materialism .
Morgen's theory, after the consecration and analysis of Marx and Engels, quickly became the dominant idea of the study of ancient history in my country. In particular, Engels' "The Origin of Family, Private Property and the State", which is still regarded by many scholars as a guiding theory for studying issues such as ancient society, the origin of civilization and the formation of states.
Under the guidance of this theoretical framework, archaeological, historical and social anthropologists have conducted many useful explorations and put forward different cognitive standards for the formation of Chinese civilization.
can be summed up in two main types. One opinion focuses on Morgan's theory, using the invention of text, the use of metal smelting technology and the emergence of cities as a symbol of the formation of the country.
In China, it is roughly equivalent to the Longshan era in the late Five Emperors period. Various archaeology generally showed cities of different specifications, while the mature bronze smelting technology and mature text were found in the Xia and Shang dynasties respectively. According to the above standards, the "Five Emperors era" can only be classified into the "military democracy" stage.
Another opinion is based on the theory of Marx and Engels, and regards social division of labor, the development of private ownership, the emergence of class and special public power (legal violence) as a symbol of the formation of the state. According to this, social differentiation is serious, and there have been class opposition and urban archaeological cultures that are equivalent to the late Dawenkou culture and the entire Longshan era were given the meaning of "country" by different scholars.
The statement "Five Thousand Years of Chinese Civilization" is based on this understanding.However, since this standard also has the definition of "dividing its citizens by region rather than blood ties", let alone the Five Emperors, even the Xia and Shang dynasties with clearer blood ties, and even whether the Western Zhou Dynasty could be called "a country in the true sense" became a "problem".
Over time, some researchers have found that the clan structures of certain islands or mountain backward ethnic groups are very different from the situation described by Morgan.
6, Chief State Theory and Ancient Chinese History
html In the mid-220th century, Western scholars, mainly American anthropologists, such as Elman R. Severus and Morton H. Fried, in order to overcome this confusion, based on the comprehensive research results of ethnology, anthropology, anthropology, , archaeology and other related research results around the world, proposed a set of " Chief State Theory" that is different from the Morgan system.
believes that the primitive social organization depicted by Morgan is an equal, classless, communist organization based on blood ties. There is a corresponding development stage between the equal clan society and the unequal class society , giving people a sudden "jump directly from primitive society to political society."
In 1957, Fried proposed in his article "Classification of Common Single-System Succession Groups":
They are at different levels of development of cultural complexities. On this basis, after systematic research and sorting, the "chief state theory" of four continuous development stages, including travel groups, tribes, chief states, and states, explained by Sevis in "The Organization of Primitive Society" and "The Origin of State and Civilization". Sevis praised it as another major achievement in cultural anthropology after Morgan.
The so-called "gathering group" refers to a social organization in the hunting and gathering economic period. It is a simplest, small-scale and unfixed mobile social organization; a "tribe" is an equal clan social organization, composed of paternal or matriarchal lineage groups, implementing an external marriage system, and the relationship between tribal members is equal; "chief state" is manifested as an unequal stratified conical clan social structure. And because of its internal "blood relationship combination" and "no legal violence", it is different from the state form that uses "geo-related relationship combination" and "legal violence".
"Chief State Theory" was formed in the 1960s. In 1983, Chinese-American scholar Zhang Guangzhi first introduced this theory to domestic readers, which attracted the attention of some domestic scholars.
Tong Enzheng designated Severus as the chief state of the primitive society into a class society; the residents of the "Central Plains Longshan Culture" are based on tribes and form a country or state with "city" as the core, which should be the earliest form of the country - the chief state.
emphasized that Morgan's theoretical model of linear development from matrilineal clan society , patrilineal clan society, tribal alliance to the state has basically been abandoned by the Western academic community. The chief state is "a common historical phenomenon in human society" and "a necessary stage in the evolution of human society."
Xie Weiyang regards social organizations in the Chinese legendary era as a "tribal union" according to the chief state theory. It emphasizes that China's early countries were transformed from chief states, not tribal alliances. Therefore, it has a strong sense of authoritarianism at the beginning of its formation.
cites the concepts of the former Soviet Union and the West regarding "early countries", and defines the Xia Dynasty, Shang and Zhou , and Spring and Autumn and Warring States Period as the occurrence period, typical period and transformation period of early Chinese countries.
7. Why does the theory of chief states conform to the reality of ancient Chinese history?
believes that "the formation and development of the early countries transformed by the chief states and the relationship between conquest and annexation constitutes a major feature of the chief state model of the formation of the state." The young and middle-aged scholars in also began to use the "chief state theory" to discuss ancient Chinese history, regarding the Hongshan culture and Dawenkou cultural relics of the Longshan era, or earlier, as "chief state culture". Some scholars even included the Xia Dynasty in the category ofchief states.
Archaeological discoveries and research show that the gap between the rich and the poor in society has become very obvious around 5500 to 4500 years ago.
In the late Yangshao era, castle buildings similar to states had appeared in some areas, forming social communities with capital, county and gathering structures; in the Longshan era, many "city-state countries" composed of city sites were discovered in various places.
These phenomena show that Emperor Yao "harmonizes all nations"; Emperor Shun leads the princes in various places with the "patriarchs of the Twelve Prefectures"; Dayu 's "Those who hold jade and silk" and other records are basically in line with the social development situation at that time rather than groundless.
is very consistent with the "conical hierarchical structure" described in the "Chief Statement". In this sense, we can use the concept of "chief state" in a subversive way before forming a suitable new concept.
Specifically, compared with tribal and tribal alliances, the expression of the Chief State theory on "conical hierarchical structure" is more in line with the development trend of ancient China. can therefore borrow the concept of "chief state" from this sense, eliminate its definition of "not legal violence", and give it the connotation of class society, and include the "chief state alliance" in the category of early countries.
To the late Yangshao era, tribes, city-states, or chief countries composed of multiple communities or cultural types have been formed in each archaeological cultural area; each tribe or chief countries has its own "cone" structure:
First, the class stratification within the clan, and then the political structure stratification of capital, town and gather forms different tribes or chief countries. The further integration of these tribes or chief states (cultural types) forms a larger "cross alliance".
Compared with the "tribal alliance" used in the past, the most significant connotation of the "Chief Alliance" is "a multi-level social stratification , and a cone structure that enjoys legal violence." The "tribal rotation" during the Five Emperors period is this "conical structure" alliance of chieftains. It is the prototype of the early state form of China and marks that the ancestors of China have reached the ranks of civilized society.
However, in terms of the specific structure of the power system, the Confederacy Union does not yet have a truly "three-dimensional structure", but rather is like a dynamic planar disc structure similar to a cosmic galaxy. For example, Huangdi's wartime system "with military troops as the camp", Shaozhu's Bird Officer divided his posts until Emperor Yao's Four Mountains and hundreds of officials were generally a kind of clan leaders centered on the alliance member units, and the tribal leaders of the alliance member units assumed certain management powers, forming a paved disk structure power system, which continued until the Yu Shun era.
Emperor Shun's "There are twelve states at the beginning, and the establishment of Four Mountains , group pastors, and group queens" was established under the top-level power level, in the form of "twelve state pastors", a middle-level power system equivalent to later counties, prefectures, roads and provinces was established. Under the prefectures, tribal leaders such as group pastors and Fang Bo were established. The formation of a three-level management system in
has enabled the power system of the "Chief Alliance" to have a three-dimensional layered conical structure in the full sense for the first time.
Special public power and the use of "legal violence" mark the basic formation of the state machine and ancient Chinese society has officially entered the era of civilization.
(end of the text)
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