The Xia Dynasty was the earliest dynasty with state form in China. This is advocated or recognized by the vast majority of domestic historical and archaeological scholars, but some foreign scholars do not recognize it or even deny it. . why is that?
Chinese scholars claim that the Xia Dynasty once existed, based on the historical documents left by the ancients and the auxiliary evidence of field archaeological results.
Some people think that Chinese historians blindly believe in "Historical Records" and Sima Qian. In fact, most of the earlier extant documents in China mention the Xia Dynasty or Dayu, which generally coincides with the Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties. Sima Qian only synthesized existing literature.
For example, there are many chapters in "Shangshu" about the Xia Dynasty and the Shang Dynasty. People in the Zhou Dynasty confirmed that the Xia and Shang Dynasties were orthodox dynasties that were appointed by heaven. Among them, "Book of Zhou" was produced in the early years of the Western Zhou Dynasty, only a few hundred years before the Xia Dynasty. In the later "Chun Qiu Zuo Zhuan", the Xia, Shang and Zhou Dynasties are parallel, and there are many references to the Xia Dynasty and the "Book of Xia". It also directly mentions the names of the kings of the Xia Dynasty (called queens during the Xia Dynasty, kings during the Shang and Zhou dynasties, and emperors later), such as Qi, Xiang, Gao, Kong Jia, Jie, etc.
I won’t give more examples. More importantly, the results of field archeology support the records of ancient Chinese documents to a considerable extent. According to records, the Xia Dynasty was a dynasty before the Shang Dynasty. Its central area was in western Henan, southern Shanxi and other places. It established a country, built palaces, and cast tripods as important national objects. The Erlitou site in western Henan was dated to 3900 to 3600 years ago according to 14c. Its era was just before the Shang Dynasty. It did begin to build quite large palaces and ancestral temples, as well as roads and drainage systems. Its bronze casting technology was already earlier than The culture of the Xia Dynasty has made great progress, and ritual vessels such as tripods and jue have begun to be cast. This is consistent with the historical records of tripod casting in the Xia Dynasty. From these archaeological findings, we can say with certainty that the Bronze Age, civilized society, and the emergence of a country were indeed reached at that time, which is quite consistent with the documentary records.
Although there is no field archaeological evidence that directly proves that the Erlitou site is the capital of the Xia Dynasty, from a chronological point of view, it is indeed a civilization site during the Xia Dynasty. In other words, it clearly proves that In the era of the Xia Dynasty recorded in the literature, the Central Plains region has indeed entered the Bronze Age. With the emergence of the country, even if Erlitou is not the capital of the Xia Dynasty, the civilization of the capital of the Xia Dynasty should not be worse than it, or even higher. develop.
In this way, according to rational considerations, it is no longer a difference in principle to confirm that the name of the dynasty at that time was Xia, or to be unable to confirm or deny this for the time being. There is no qualitative difference in calling it not Xia but, for example, the First Dynasty of China.
In this way, recognizing that the dynasty at this time was the Xia Dynasty, or another dynasty, became a matter of trust in ancient Chinese historical records. As mentioned above, there should be a considerable degree of belief in the records in ancient history. Why do some foreign scholars deny the existence of Xia? It’s not because they are more rigorous in their studies. They are unfamiliar with ancient Chinese books, and they are prone to prejudice if they are not familiar with them; another important reason is that they are limited by their experience.
They have made great achievements in studying ancient civilizations such as Egypt and Mesopotamia. Their research is based on archaeological results and there are almost no historical written records to rely on. are just some myths and legends. When they turn to look at East Asian civilizations and are not familiar with the vast Chinese literature, it is natural that they will treat the study of ancient history with the same mentality.
For example, in our view, one of the important contributions of the discovery of oracle bone inscriptions is to confirm the records of the Shang civilization in Chinese historical documents. In the view of European and American scholars, the excavation of the Yin Ruins discovered a new civilization— -Business civilization. The two words "confirmation" and "discovery" characterize the difference in scholars' attitudes towards Chinese historical records.
It is inappropriate to equate ancient Chinese history with ancient Western myths and legends. In history books such as "Zuo Zhuan", the elements of myths and legends are very weak. When the historians stood in the palace and recorded everything they thought should be recorded, and they may have been edited by scholars to form the Spring and Autumn Annals, and then the process of people explaining it was fundamentally different from making up myths. Failure to recognize this difference and treat Chinese historical records as the same as myths and legends can only lead to the wrong research route. Of course, we cannot be sure that the details of these historical records are accurate, but on major issues, such as the fact that Xia, Shang and Zhou are tied as three generations, we cannot say nonsense.
Wang Guowei, the greatest Chinese master of Chinese studies in the 20th century, proposed a two-fold evidence method, that is, giving equal weight to archaeological results and documents. This has played a great positive role in the study of ancient Chinese history. European and American scholars, on the other hand, can only have one piece of evidence—archaeology.
European and American scholars usually insist on their own opinions until the end. I have had contact with physics scholars abroad, and they are indeed like this. This is not a bad thing, but if the original view is not correct, we certainly do not need to blindly follow them just because they insist on it.
So, don’t be superstitious about the so-called mainstream. As mainstream scholars, they once believed that rice was introduced from India, that Chinese characters are descendants of Egyptian hieroglyphics, and that Chinese bronze casting technology was transmitted from Central Asia. Now it seems that these are all wrong.
The reason is also very simple, because when they came into contact with ancient Chinese culture, they had already studied the ancient civilizations of North Africa and Central Asia for a long time, and their minds were full of Western archaeological achievements. At that time, China did not have enough field archaeological results. Ancient Chinese literature is so unfamiliar and difficult to master, so it is not surprising that they came to such a conclusion.
They have the right to insist on their own opinions and the right not to study ancient Chinese classics. There is absolutely no need for us to follow blindly.