The Yangtze River flows eastward, and the waves wash away the heroes. Right and wrong turn around in vain. Today, let’s talk about the story of the queen mother of the West.
In mythology and legend, the West Queen Mother is a great existence. She is as famous as the East prince. She is in charge of the fairy in the sky. In addition, she is also in charge of the undead medicine, which has the function of punishing evil and predicting disaster.
However, is this really the case?
I: the credibility of the biography of the son of Mu
In 279 A.D., a famous tomb robber in the history of the Eastern Jin Dynasty was not allowed (read “no sign”), and fortunately opened the tomb of King Wei’an.
After he left, local officials found a large number of bamboo slips when investigating the scene. After rescuing, sorting and revising, the ancient chronicle history book “bamboo Secretary year” which has been handed down to the present was formed.
“Bamboo Secretary year” includes “biography of the emperor Mu”. In “biography of the emperor Mu”, there is a story about the meeting between King Mu of Zhou and the mother of the west king.
“Bamboo Secretary year” is not a myth, but a historical book recorded, collected and sorted out by the historian of the state of Wei. Similarly, the biography of the son of mu, which comes from the year of the bamboo secretary, is certainly not a myth. It is more like a diary, recording a period of history when King Mu of Zhou visited the West.
So how credible is this period of history? King Mu of Zhou is the son of heaven. As for the son of heaven, China has long had historians who specially record the words and deeds of emperors and state events. How early can this be?
“Lu’s spring and autumn first knowledge survey” said: the history of the Xia Dynasty ordered the ancient to show its graphic method, holding it and crying.
What do you mean?
After Xia, Jie was obscene and immoral. Xia Taishi ordered to take out the code and cry. No matter how sad he cried, we only need to pay attention to the three words “Taishi order”.
What is Taishiling?
Record historical events, compile historical books, and take charge of national classics, astronomy and calendar, and sacrifice.
In other words, since the Xia Dynasty, the court has had historians who record the words and deeds of emperors and state events. Such a fine tradition has been maintained. In business, in the Zhou Dynasty and even in the Qin and Han Dynasties, although the grades and official titles have changed a little, this position has always existed.
However, what does this have to do with the biography of the son of mu?
In his book from urban countries to China, Japanese scholar takaro Hirasawa believed that:
The history books of the Zhou Dynasty, after moving eastward, fell to Jin, and after the three families divided Jin, they fell to Wei.
In this way, the sources of the biography of Mu Tianzi, collected and sorted out by the historian of the state of Wei, about Zhou and the emperor of Zhou, are relatively reliable. Therefore, the content inside should be roughly credible.
Therefore, we can take “the son of Mu” as the main clue to gradually uncover the mystery of the West Queen Mother.
II. Where is the West Queen Mother from
To study who a person is?
You have to refer to the method of checking her household registration and compare her native place, gender, appearance and characteristics.
As for the West Queen Mother, it is called “emperor daughter” in the biography of the son of mu. No matter how you understand it, the gender can be seen from the name, which is undoubtedly.
Then, what we need to know next is only the place of origin, age, appearance and characteristics.
Among them, the place of origin that bears the brunt may as well adopt a more primitive method to do a fuzzy mathematical operation with a few words in the biography of the son of Mu as a clue.
Say: Jiawu, the emperor’s expedition to the west, is the pass of juezhi… Guihai, as for the state of the West Queen Mother.
What do you mean?
On the day of the Jiawu Festival, the emperor of Zhou began his western expedition and crossed the pass of Yanmen mountain… On the day of Guihai, the emperor arrived in the country of the West Queen Mother.
The so-called pass of Yanmen mountain is in Dai County, Shanxi Province, that is to say, King Mu of Zhou went west from Shanxi until Guihai day to reach the country of the queen mother of the West.
From the day of Jiawu to the day of Guihai, it took about a year and a half and more than 500 days.
So how fast did King Mu of Zhou travel?
King Mu of Zhou is the son of heaven. He must have a huge team when he travels, so he can only calculate according to the normal marching speed.
As for the marching speed, Sun Wu said in sun Zijun’s contention in the spring and Autumn Period:
If you fight for profit for a hundred miles, you will catch three generals. The strong one will come first, and the tired one will come later. The method will come at eleven; If you fight for profit for fifty miles, you will be defeated by the general, and the method is half to half; Thirty Li for profit, then two-thirds to.
What do you mean?
Fifty kilometers is basically the limit of a day. Let’s adopt the following statement and take an average value. If we calculate by 30 kilometers, more than 500 days is more than 16000 kilometers.
Is this sixteen thousand yuan the distance from Dai County in Shanxi to the country of the West Queen Mother?
It needs to be explained that the matter between King Mu of Zhou and the country of the West Queen Mother. From Volume 1 to volume 3, the biography of the son of Mu said nothing else, just how King Mu of Zhou turned, how to repair, how to watch the wind and the moon, how to communicate with various countries and tribes along the way, and even how to hold large-scale sacrificial activities.
In other words, he had no clear purpose for this trip to the west, and basically walked around without delay, wherever he went.
Moreover, at that time, there was no expressway, no mature highway network, and the road condition was very bad. In addition, there were many adverse factors along the way, such as wind, frost, rain and snow, mountains and rivers.
More than 500 days, according to the records of the biography of the son of mu, it is very good to use a quarter, that is, more than 100 days. In this way, it is about threeorfour kilometers from Shanxi to the mother country of the Western King.
After the rebellion of Xu state in southern Jiangsu, King Mu of Zhou returned home to pacify the rebellion. Driven by my father, it took me a month.
More than 500 days have been changed into a month, and the time has been reduced to about one tenth. On the one hand, they have known the path of coming and going, and they have taken a lot of wrong roads less. On the other hand, it also reflects from the side that King Mu of Zhou went to the country of the West Queen Mother, how sluggish he was.
Similarly, King Mu of Zhou can’t go back alone. He will definitely take a team, a capable team. Therefore, although there is a father driving, we can only calculate according to the highest peak of grandson, which is 50 kilometers. In this way, it is about 2000 to 3000 kilometers.
Add up the two numbers and take the middle value, about 3000 kilometers, considering the azimuth based on 3000 kilometers,
It can only be in the western regions, that is to say, the queen mother of the West should be from the western regions.
III: what are the characteristics of the queen mother of the west
After confirming that the queen mother of the west is from the western regions, we can see what the queen mother of the west looks like next?
Western women must be very beautiful, but how can they be beautiful?
According to the biography of Mu Tianzi:
The queen mother of the west is like a human, with tiger teeth, hair covered and wearing victory, and is good at roaring.
Human shape, with tiger teeth, fluffy hair with jade hair accessories, especially like Changxiao.
In this regard, a similar description is made in the “mountain and sea Sutra and Western Mountain Sutra” written by an anonymous surname in the pre-Qin period, saying:
The queen mother of the west looks like a person, with a leopard tail and tiger teeth, and is good at roaring, and her hair is covered with Dai Sheng.
Compared with the description in the biography of the emperor mu, there is only one more “leopard tail”.
Lu Xun said in a brief history of Chinese Novels:
Someone Dai Sheng, tiger tooth and leopard tail, named West Queen Mother at the cave.
There is another “acupoint”
Such as people, leopard tails, tiger teeth, acupoints, pengfa Dai Sheng, shanxiao.
This is the appearance and characteristics of the queen mother of the West. How do you think it is inhuman.
However, in the Western Zhou Dynasty, there was no doubt that the culture of the western regions was backward than that of the Central Plains.
Since it is called the country of the West Queen Mother, we can fully understand that it was still in the matriarchal clan period at that time.
The matriarchal clan, living in caves is very normal, and because of backward production, there is no cotton, hemp, silk and other things, so even if you are as noble as the queen mother of the west, you have to wear clothes made of animal skins. Therefore, there are strange appearances such as leopard tail and tiger teeth.
For this reason, King Mu of Zhou offered “Jin group Baichun, ? (missing word) group 300chun (pure, horse end name also)” after seeing the West Queen Mother
Gifts such as rich silk and white silk showed that it was a good material for making clothes, which made the queen mother of the west very happy and even “worship and accept it again”
After paying tribute twice, it is obvious that this is imitating the etiquette of the Central Plains and expressing gratitude to King Mu of Zhou.
Taken together, the queen mother of the West was a little barbaric, but King Mu of Zhou didn’t care. The earliest exchange between the Central Plains and the western regions came like this. So, what was the result of this exchange?
Four: beautiful love
One is the king of the western regions and the other is the king of the Central Plains. They have the same identity and different beauty, so naturally, they are deeply attracted to each other after meeting each other.
But as for singing every day and forgetting to return, until an official named Jifu reported to King Mu of Zhou that the state of Xu was rebellious and you needed to go back to fight the rebellion, the two were reluctant to say goodbye.
On this day, it is recorded in the biography of the son of Mu that it is the second day of ugliness,
The prince of heaven, the queen mother of the west, is on the yaochi lake.
The two said goodbye in yaochi. The West Queen Mother, who was good at singing and dancing, first sang:
The white clouds are in the sky, the mountains come out from the mountains, the roads are far away, and between mountains and rivers, the son is not dead, and he can still come back.
White clouds are floating in the blue sky, and cattle and sheep are running under the white clouds. I was going to live a fairy life with you in this fairyland on earth, but you have to return home because of domestic affairs. From now on, the road is long and mountains and rivers are blocked. Will you still miss me when you live and come back.
Facing the affectionate singing of the West Queen Mother, King Mu of Zhou replied:
Return to the eastern land, rule the summers with harmony, and the people are equal. I’ll see you. After three years, I’ll return to the wild.
After I return home, I will come back to see you after dealing with domestic affairs. It will take me about three years to go.
Before leaving, he made a three-year agreement with the West King’s mother.
However, three years later, did King Mu of Zhou return?
During the Warring States period, Liezi, King Mu of Zhou, said that King Mu of Zhou soon put down the rebellion when he was ready to resume the front line with the queen mother of Xi.
The ministers were very dissatisfied with his “not caring for the country, not happy with ministers and concubines, and wanton travel”. What should we do if we are very dissatisfied. One after another wrote to advise, and even compared him with the faint king.
King Mu of Zhou had no choice but to give up the idea of going to the western regions again, because in the heart of a responsible emperor, love was certainly not as important as rivers and mountains, so he never went out again.
The queen mother of the West was so anxious that she sent messengers to pay a return visit the next year, saying:
I’ve seen him for years, and I’m here at Zhao palace.
King Mu of Zhou gave a warm reception at Zhao palace. It is estimated that during this reception, King Mu of Zhou euphemistically said his true thoughts. What can the West Queen Mother do, as the song tells:
The son of the people, only the hope of heaven.
When I miss you, I can only look up at the white clouds in the sky and drag him to bring a little greetings.
This kind of yearning can only be deeply buried in the bottom of my heart.
According to the legend, King Mu of Zhou was grandly received by the West queen mother after his death, but the legend is only a good wish after all. In fact, the two never met again.
Therefore, the West Queen Mother: it may really exist in history, but also leave a beautiful love story.
The West Queen Mother, like King Mu of Zhou, may be real, and the West Queen Mother loves King Mu of Zhou. King Mu of Zhou loves the West Queen Mother, but she cannot meet for life, and can only leave a beautiful love story for the world. Disclaimer: the above content originates from the network, and the copyright belongs to the original author. Please inform us if your original copyright is infringed, and we will delete the relevant content as soon as possible.