Zhao Dongmei, graduated from Peking University with a doctorate in history, is now a professor and doctoral supervisor in the history department of Peking University, and a director of the Song History Research Association of China.
He once talked about Kou Zhun, Sima Guang and other historical figures in CCTV Lecture Room. He has published works such as Kou Zhun, Sima Guang and Their Times, Between Civil and Military Officers: A Study of Military Officers in the Northern Song Dynasty, and The Change of the Great Song Dynasty: 1063- 1086.
No wonder the most mentioned in this book is The Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival, and the most vivid one is the basic necessities of life in Song Dynasty.
The book consists of six chapters: basic necessities of life, traditional women and traditional men. The author digs into the daily life of the ancients from words and paintings, tells the historical evolution of food, clothing, housing and transportation, and sees the system and culture at that time from the smallest daily things, so as to understand life through daily life.
I made a simple and rough mind map, because my sharing will not include all the contents, so if you want to have an overall understanding of this book, you can take a look at this.
I think the classic paintings of the ancients shown in the illustrations and their interpretation are the biggest highlights of this book. When we look at these paintings in museums and art galleries, laymen will only look at the names of the painters and say "They are really well painted", while historians will see the people in the paintings and the daily life in those years.
If we can read the Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival carefully, we may really get a glimpse of life in the Song Dynasty.
Because this book has a lot of content and a wide range, (I have a little doubt that the author wrote it in prose and wrote whatever comes to mind). I only choose what I find particularly interesting and touching to share with you. If you are interested in this book, you can read it on WeChat.
Say the preface first.
"Just like modern media, traditional historical records tend to record those unusual emergencies and major turning points."
In traditional historical works, daily life is invisible. Because for people at that time, food, clothing, housing and transportation were common things, and everyone knew that records were worthless.
But with the change of years and dynasties, what people did at that time is very strange to us today.
The excavation of daily life is a great progress in the field of history now.
The author divides daily life into two parts: one is "daily life" including food, clothing, housing, transportation and entertainment, which reflects the material conditions and customs of the ancients; The other is "daily life", which pays attention to people's life trajectory, observes the different restrictions of different sexes in politics, system and culture in ancient times, and bets on the understanding and sympathy of ancient people who are also struggling between ideal and reality.
Traditional daily life is a combination of stillness and movement. Some habits and appliances may be ingrained, while others are varied.
"No matter whether it changes or remains the same, it will eventually fall on specific individuals. Individuals can't choose their own gender, family and times. The only thing they can do is to accept what their families give them and try to live their lives according to the rules of gender and times. The life story of an ordinary individual is insignificant in traditional historiography, but it is the chapter that most easily touches the heartstrings of ordinary readers. Without him, it is because today we are also experiencing the same struggle for love, as before. "
1 opening story
The first paragraph of this opening made me very shocked. The author begins with a short story. When she and a German colleague lamented the rupture of China culture in modern times, the German colleague objected, "You are wrong. When you look at the dining table in China, the culture continues there. "
After reading this sentence, I feel like crying. Think about the difference in diet between myself and my roommates in the north. For example, when I eat glutinous rice balls on the solstice in winter and they want to eat jiaozi, I feel that culture flows in my blood.
"Compared with the history of temples and palaces, the history of daily diet is the most tenacious and popular. The improvement of nutrition promotes people's health and mental state; The expansion of knowledge, the transfer of ideas and commercial marketing have changed the value of food; Etiquette at the dinner table laid the foundation for one's education, and also laid one's initial cognition of social order. The recipes and cooking methods we are familiar with since childhood determine our standards for measuring the quality of diet. "
I understand why the author put "food" in the first chapter. Because all other order and development must be based on worry-free food.
2 Hunger and overcoming hunger
Before talking about the evolution of food, the author told a history of hunger.
"In the history of China, those large-scale hunger and deaths caused by hunger mainly occurred in the cold period of the earth's climate. In the history of China, it is roughly Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, Song Dynasty, Late Yuan Dynasty, Early Ming Dynasty and Late Ming Dynasty. "
With climate change and official corruption, natural disasters and man-made disasters are intertwined at these times, even to the point where "people eat people".
I always remember the evaluation of Shennong in Zi Tong Zhi Jian, that is, "brave the world is the emperor" and Shennong's "teaching grain to promote agriculture", which is one of his greatest achievements. Solving the food problem is a great virtue.
Wheat was planted in Guanzhong in Han Dynasty, and high-yield Zhancheng rice was introduced and popularized in Song Dynasty. The introduction and popularization of sweet potatoes and corn from America in the Ming Dynasty were all efforts made by the ancients to overcome hunger.
3 The evolution of staple food
"During the pre-Qin and even the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, the staple food of northerners was mainly millet, and the staple food of southerners was mainly rice. During the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, the status of wheat began to rise. In the Tang and Song Dynasties, it became the staple food in the north, but Xiaomi retired to a secondary position. Formed the staple food structure of northern wheat and southern rice, and continues to this day. "
After reading this book, I realized that the first food in the north was not wheat, but millet.
4 evolution of non-staple food
"From the Song Dynasty to the Ming Dynasty, an interesting change has taken place in the field of non-staple food. The main course of ordinary people has changed from sunflower (cold dish in winter) to cabbage and radish. Before the Yuan Dynasty, sunflower was always the most important vegetable of the Chinese nation. "
When I was studying Yuefu poem Long Songs, I learned that there were few vegetables in ancient times, and ordinary people generally only ate sunflower. I began to eat the Book of Songs in the Western Zhou Dynasty, and it remained unchanged for thousands of years in the Song Dynasty. "The Book of Songs, Wind and July": "In July, it is the same."
In the Ming Dynasty, the status of sunflower declined sharply. Li Shizhen's Compendium of Materia Medica reduced sunflower to grass: "I stopped eating and moved here."
5 evolution of spices
Since the Neolithic Age, China ancestors used natural molds and yeasts to make koji and koji products, including sauce, sauce, bacon, pickles, wine and vinegar. Plums are a natural source of sour taste. "
I really want to marvel at the wisdom of the ancients! So there are so many spices so early. It's my gardener's rabbit!
"The' pepper' mentioned in ancient books refers to pepper, and the pepper unearthed in Mawangdui Han Tomb in Changsha is the pepper of the Western Han Dynasty."
In fact, I think of Jiaofang Temple, the residence of the Empress of Han Dynasty: the walls of the palace are all painted with powder made of pepper. The color is pink, which has fragrance, can protect the wooden palace and has the function of moth prevention. On the other hand, there are many seeds in peppers. Take the meaning of "many children".
6 Volkswagen quit
We are all familiar with the word "popular". But the more common a word is, the more we forget its original meaning. Fresh, finely cut fish, meat and other ingredients; "Knowledge" is a cognitive word, that is, we should use the two components of this word to understand its meaning. That is, open fire cooking refers to barbecue. Popularity is what people like, and later praised poetry as "popularity".
During the Qin and Han Dynasties, the main kinds of meat were pigs, dogs, sheep, chickens and various game. Pigs and dogs are the most common sources of meat. Since the Northern Dynasties, with the nomadic people going south, the meat-eating habits in the Central Plains have undergone major changes-mutton has become the favorite of the ruling class. People seldom eat meat, so they are naturally not picky. The daily sources of animal protein are mainly small fish, shrimp and eggs.
Before frying was invented and popularized, meat was mainly stewed and roasted.
As famous as roasting, it is actually raw fish, and the most common ingredient is freshwater fish. In the Tang Dynasty, although the Yi people were still connected to the north and south, they had already begun to retreat from north to south. Therefore, it has become the hometown dish of southerners. After living in the north for a long time, eating it has become a good way to comfort homesickness.
In the Northern Song Dynasty, the fuel supply around Kaifeng was already very tight, so speculation prevailed.
7 dining alone or in combination
During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, even in the Tang Dynasty and China, people ate separately. Qi Mei is a typical example. The food sharing system matched the family form at that time. In the era of sharing food, people eat and live on the floor, and they need to take off their shoes when they enter the door.
The evolution of China's family system began in the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, and only in the Song Dynasty did it enter the era of high tables and big chairs. It turns out that the new furniture was not invented by China, but imported from the west, so it is called "Hu Chuang".
The appearance of high tables and big chairs almost at the same time, of course, does not mean that high tables and big chairs will definitely lead to the joint food system.
On the one hand, the large surface area of the high table provides convenience for the cooking of food. On the other hand, the emergence of the common food system also benefits from the increasing variety of food and the relatively sufficient food supply.
In the 1980s, critics of the joint catering system thought that the separate dining system was more hygienic, but the separate dining system appeared obviously not because of the need of hygiene, but because of the limited food supply.
If it is not distributed in advance, some people may eat more, and some people may not have enough to eat. Only when the quantity and variety of food are enough can people enjoy it happily and vividly around the table.
8 kinds of drinks: wine, tea and juice.
"The tradition of brewing in China can be traced back to the Xia Dynasty. The original purpose of wine is mainly to entertain gods and sacrifice; After the Qin and Han dynasties, wine gradually became secular and civilian, and became a national drink. "
That's understandable. When food was scarce, it was a luxury to use it to make wine. Later, grain gradually increased and wine entered thousands of households.
"Compared with wine, tea takes a quiet and elegant route. China people have a long history of drinking tea. Southwest China is one of the cradles of wild tea trees. Before the Han Dynasty, people in Ba, Shu and Nanzhong had begun to pick and drink tea. "
"The mainstream of tea in the Tang and Song Dynasties was not the tea we are used to today, but cake tea, also known as" slice tea "and" group tea ". Tea became the mainstream of drinking tea until the Ming Dynasty. "
The book introduces the making method of cake tea in detail, which I find very interesting. Tea drinking in the Tang and Song Dynasties had a complete set of ritual procedures. I think I can study hard. I wonder if there is a video of restoring the boss in Mile Mile.
Maybe this chapter is closest to my daily life, or maybe because it is the first chapter, I read it most carefully, so I think most. There will be much less sharing in the future.
What impressed me most in the chapter "Clothing" was the symbolic function of clothing.
Keeping warm, preventing sun, hiding shame and keeping fit are the most basic functions of clothing. The extended function of clothing is symbol.
First of all, it can mark wealth, status and power. Different colors represent different identities. After the Tang Dynasty, bright yellow became the emperor's exclusive color.
The system of distinguishing official ranks by the color of official uniforms was also formally established in the Tang Dynasty. In the Tang Dynasty, more than three official uniforms were purple, and four or five were Zhu, all of which belonged to your officials. "Zhu Zi calls himself expensive", and Zhu Zi refers to senior officials by the color of his clothes.
Second, it can be used to mark identity or living conditions. All kinds of uniforms are obvious identity signs. The colors of military uniforms are red in Han Dynasty, black in Eastern Jin Dynasty, crimson in Southern Dynasty, yellow in Sui Dynasty and black in Tang Dynasty.
I remember there was a merchant's rule in the Han Dynasty that merchants could not wear silk.
Thirdly, it can also express the position and relative relationship of individuals in a certain social hierarchical order. Traditional mourning is a strict symbol system.
At the end of this chapter, we talked about female foot binding. There is a passage that I think is particularly reasonable.
The ban on foot-binding in the early Qing Dynasty was as follows: "Anyone who resists foot-binding will have his husband or father stick eighty miles." Things happened on women's feet, but men were punished. It should be said that this is a very logical rule. Because, in the matter of not binding feet, although the beneficiaries are women, it is still men who play a decisive role.
In ancient times, whether or not to bind feet was actually stipulated by men, and women could not choose independently. So of course, the punishment should be men.
This kind of punishment reflected the extremely low social status of women at that time, which made people cry.
The author divides the living conditions of China elites in the traditional period into three stages.
The first stage is the pre-Qin period. In the feudal Western Zhou Dynasty, nobles usually lived in their own fiefs. The Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period are the transition period from the first stage to the second stage. The emerging taxi class wandered around looking for jobs. Those who find jobs will build new houses in the prince's capital. If they are granted fiefs, they may return to fiefs after losing political power.
The second stage of Qin and Han Dynasties was from autumn to Sui Dynasty, which was characterized by central officials living in the capital and its surrounding areas. Local governors are appointed by the central government, but the number is small and they live in the city where the administrative region is located; A large number of local officials are local elites, living in the local area and leading an idyllic life.
After the Sui and Tang Dynasties, the living conditions of traditional elites entered the third stage, and all officials were appointed by the state and uniformly deployed to all parts of the country. The professional income of officials, such as wages, has become the main source of their lives. After being appointed, more and more officials will be uprooted from their hometowns, buy houses and land outside their hometowns, and will not be buried in their hometowns after their death.
This chapter introduces housing from rural and urban aspects.
Rural life began when Tao Yuanming returned to his rural home, but rural life was not as happy and comfortable as Tao Yuanming wrote. Because there are many inconveniences in rural life, such as backward medical care and dietary conditions. Another example is the lack of like-minded friends.
City is mainly about the urban development in Song Dynasty. There are not only the prosperity in Tokyo's dream, but also the riverside scene in Qingming Festival, and more urban problems such as fire and sewage caused by urban expansion and dense population in Song Dynasty.
"The war and political turmoil in the late Tang and Five Dynasties wiped out the aristocratic families. Since the Song Dynasty, the state has no longer intervened in land annexation. Imperial examinations are open to almost all men, and the imperial court selects officials through relatively fair examinations. Personal struggle and the success of the imperial examination became the decisive factors for the rise and fall of the family.
The mobility of people's classes is enhanced, and their economic status, political status and social status can be gained or lost. Some people go up, others go down. People living in this kind of society should continue to struggle and have a normal heart, cheer for those who are upward and accept those who are downward. "
I think this passage is particularly good. Isn't the advantage of the imperial examination system social mobility? I didn't expect this kind of social mobility to bring about changes in people's values.
In the two chapters of "residence" and "travel", the author tells about many changes in people's residence and travel after the popularization of the imperial examination system. Official tourists from all over the country are also the product of the unified deployment of officials by the state.
"Life" and "travel" are closely related. In the chapter "Life", we talk about post offices and hotels, and in the chapter "Travel", we talk about roads, postal services and passes. These are complementary infrastructures.
The chapter "Travel" not only talks about infrastructure such as roads and checkpoints, but also talks about pedestrians such as soldiers and officials. Military service forces people to stay away from home, while imperial examinations make people take the initiative to embark on a journey.
The most terrible things in the journey are illness and death. In the traditional period, the medical level was poor, and birth, old age, illness and death often appeared together. Children who travel with their parents are usually the first to be knocked down.
People on business trips are originally a group with difficulties and enterprising spirit. They are employed by the emperor's country and care about the whole world. They share joys and sorrows with their wives and children and write down the joys and sorrows of their careers.
This chapter is the farthest from my life, so it touches me the least.
This chapter first talks about the concubines system. The change of concubines' status in different dynasties and periods reflects the change of etiquette and political control. The loosening of the boundary between wives and concubines is actually one of the manifestations of the collapse of the feudal system.
"The wife, Qi also." Explain that husband and wife are equal in monogamous families. But strangely, the ancient mainstream values did not advocate love.
In the traditional period, the wife shared her husband's family responsibilities. The first duty is to serve parents-in-law, and the second duty is to raise and educate children at home, especially boys. It's good to raise it yourself, but it's not absolutely necessary. Children left by ex-wives and children born to concubines are also acceptable, as long as they are the blood of their husbands. The wife's third duty is to take care of her husband's relatives and friends, including the difficult elder sister and relatives in the countryside.
These traditional requirements still bind women even in modern times, which makes people feel angry.
Next, the author talked about chastity. Chastity is a unilateral loyalty requirement for women in a patriarchal society, which emphasizes women's unilateral obligations to men and their families.
Next, we need to clarify a fact.
Modern scholars have a flattering saying that they like to call it "Song and Ming", ignoring the Yuan Dynasty for more than a hundred years and directly connecting Song and Ming together. For example, when it comes to the concept of chastity, the most convenient way to say it is "under the influence of Neo-Confucianism in Song and Ming Dynasties", and there are such extreme words as "the least starvation and the greatest infidelity".
This sentence was indeed said by Cheng Yi, a Neo-Confucianism scholar in the Song Dynasty. However, it is impossible for the Song Dynasty to carry this pot only for the Ming Dynasty.
Cheng Yi himself holds that the highest ideal of marriage is that men and women are faithful to each other. The "dishonor" he refers to includes both the dishonor of women and the dishonor of men, rather than unilaterally accusing women.
In fact, "Cheng Er" does not oppose women's remarriage. Cheng Yi can appreciate and praise women's knowledge and talent. He even thinks that a good woman might as well be single if she can't find a suitable partner.
Since the Han Dynasty, there have been so-called "heroines among women" and "virtuous daughters" among the objects of recognition of imperial China, and they have been regarded as female role models.
However, the "fierceness" of a heroic woman and the "chastity" of a virtuous woman are not necessarily related to chastity, which can refer to women's special achievements in various aspects, such as being good at educating their children and maintaining family style. The female role models in the Song Dynasty are basically still in this state of pluralistic values.
People in Ming and Qing dynasties stared at women's bodies like thieves, but what Song people saw was women's contribution to family and society.
I once again feel the author's preference for the Song Dynasty. He deserves to be a professor who studies the history of Song Dynasty.
"Compared with women, men's life choices are much richer, families are built around them, and the vast world of society is open to them.
Giving birth to sons to maintain the biological continuity of the family; Make a name for yourself, and maintain and honor the family's reputation with personal social achievements. This is a common requirement for men in traditional China.
Specific to the standard of establishing a name and showing relatives, it is actually relatively simple, in short: being an official. You must establish direct contact with the emperor's country to succeed.
The standard of being an official was later narrowed. Generally speaking, after the Song Dynasty, only Jinshi were truly glorious civil servants. "
I thought of Song Jiang in Water Margin. I have seen a saying before, which seems to be the Water Margin mentioned by teacher Bao Pengshan. In fact, it is his rational choice for Song Jiang to go to Liangshan. Because Song Jiang was a petty official, at that time, the boundaries between officials and officials were clear, and petty officials could never become serious officials. Song Jiang didn't want to be a small official forever, so he found another way, first went to Liangshan, and then sought to win over, thus becoming an official.
"All technical jobs related to practice and requiring long-term knowledge accumulation have not received due encouragement and support in the traditional bureaucratic system.
The imperial countries refused to separate this part from the bureaucratic system and set up an evaluation system that is independent of the bureaucratic system and basically equivalent to the bureaucratic system.
As a result, technocrats are always at the bottom of the bureaucratic system, and positions with high professional knowledge are mixed among ordinary positions, promoted by the same standards, and finally lost their jobs, failing to establish the dignity of technical occupations, thus hindering the development of technology.
Before the Song Dynasty, being a soldier was still a good choice. After the Song Dynasty, "a good iron does not nail, a good man does not serve as a soldier", and the road to joining the army is still possible, but the glory that can be achieved is becoming more and more scarce.
Glory belongs to the literati officialdom and the success of the imperial examination.
But what can the imperial examination winners do?
It is nothing more than being an official, doing all kinds of officials who lack technical content and only have high and low status, listening to the emperor's orders and looking at the boss's face, and trying to be a senior official. The road for the best young men in China is getting narrower and narrower.
At the same time, men also narrow the way for women. When men begin to accept unconditional loyalists, what they want from women is unconditional chastity. "
No matter ancient or modern, there is always a huge gap between ideal and reality.
The introduction in the book is only a small part of thousands of years of history, and my introduction today only contains a small part of the book. If you are interested in history and traditional culture, you might as well read this book and other related books.
Thank you all.