Jingchu culture is an important part of Chinese national culture, which inherits many characteristics of Shang and Zhou cultures. It has a long history, extensive and profound, distinctive regional characteristics and great economic and cultural development value. Chu Ci is regarded as the source of China's romantic literature, which has a more direct influence on later Han Fu. "Writing Chu language, Chu sound, gathering Chu land and making famous Chu utensils", together with other Chu culture essences, has built a magnificent and peculiar Chu culture.
Jingchu culture is a regional culture with distinctive characteristics, and it also refers to the historical culture with Hubei as the main body. Its time range is from ancient times to today and even the future. During the Shang and Zhou Dynasties, people in the Central Plains called southerners in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River Man Jing, Chu Man or Jingchu, and Jingchu people were already quite powerful in the Shang Dynasty. The Book of Songs once mentioned "attacking Yan Wu and vigorously cutting Jingchu". Zhou Wuwang made Xiong Yi, the leader of Jingchu tribe, Zi Chu in Danyang, Jingshan, marking the beginning of Chu history.
At first, Chu ranked lower among the vassal States and controlled a small area. In the late Western Zhou Dynasty, Chu gradually became powerful, and through constant wars, it gradually controlled the middle reaches of the Yangtze River and became one of the "five tyrants in the Spring and Autumn Period". Hubei is the birthplace and development center of Jingchu culture.
Significance of Jingchu culture
Chu people inherited the Zhou culture, absorbed the southern culture, respected the advanced culture of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, and formed the Chu culture with distinctive times and regional characteristics. Chu culture is an important part of Chinese civilization and reached its peak in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period. Representative works include Songs of the South, Laozi and Zhuangzi.
In the middle and late Spring and Autumn Period, Wu Qi, a politician of Chu State, and Lao Zi, a thinker, founded the Taoist school and put forward the ideas of "Taoism is natural" and "governing by doing nothing", which provided rich philosophical thoughts for later generations. Jingchu culture has also made important contributions in art, such as Li Sao and Jiu Ge in Songs of the South, which express the history and culture of Chu in a romantic way and become the treasures of China culture.