The word "county hope" is a combination of "county" and "hope". County King is an administrative division, "County King" is an aristocratic family, and the combination of "County King" refers to the aristocratic family within a certain geographical range.
After the Qin and Han Dynasties, with the family's reproduction and migration, the cultural connotation of surnames, which was originally based on blood, gradually faded, and the family's search for the connotation of nobility and inferiority became the most prominent feature of surnames culture. Wang Di, commonly used in ancient surnames, refers to aristocratic families in various counties from Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties to Sui and Tang Dynasties, indicating that living in a county is looked up to by local people and is different from other people with the same surname. One of the surname books in the past dynasties is based on the theory of geographical outlook (for example, Liu Fang's clan theory in the Tang Dynasty and Liu's Shi Shuo Xin Yu in the Southern Dynasties). The lettering of hundreds of surnames often indicates "County Hope" in front of each surname. For example, from the Wei, Jin, Sui and Tang Dynasties, there were four counties in northern China: john young (now Baoding, Hebei Province), Lushi, Qinghe (now Qinghe, Hebei Province), Cui Shi, Xingyang (now Zhengzhou, Henan Province) and Wang Shi (now Taiyuan, Shanxi Province).
"County" is a local administrative division gradually formed from the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period to the Qin Dynasty for hundreds of years. During the Spring and Autumn Period, Qin, Jin, Chu and other countries set up counties in the border areas, and then gradually implemented them in the mainland. After the end of the Spring and Autumn Period, countries began to set up counties in border areas, with an area larger than that of counties. During the Warring States period, there was a county under the county, which gradually formed a two-level administrative division system. After Qin unified China, it was divided into 36 counties, and then increased to more than 40 counties, with counties under it. Counties and county heads are appointed and removed by the central government and become part of the authoritarian regime organization. From Han Dynasty to Sui and Tang Dynasties, the county system of Qin Dynasty was inherited, but the specific division of counties was different. During the Sui and Tang Dynasties, the names of states and counties were often interchangeable, but in most periods, the name of "states" was not called "counties". By the Song Dynasty, the administrative division of "county" had become invalid.
However, as an idiom referring to a prominent family, "county hope" still exists in some areas. It is closely related to the gate valve system and has been used in feudal society for a long historical period.
The so-called gate valve, that is, gate valve reading, refers to the surname family with great influence and high authority in feudal society. Generally speaking, these so-called "noble families" are naturally caused by the status, authority and prestige of family figures. Once formed, it is extremely prominent and majestic and passed down from generation to generation. Sometimes the government clearly stipulates that a surname is the most important surname of a noble family, and even divides the family hierarchy of surnames and determines the order of the door and door. The rights and interests of each surname family are different. This is the so-called gate valve system.
The city gate system began in the Western Han Dynasty. In the Han Dynasty, Liu's royal family quoted classics and proved that it was Emperor Yao, and it was of noble descent, claiming that he was born an emperor. At the end of the Western Han Dynasty, Wang Mang usurped the throne and created public opinion, saying that Wang was born emperor because of Shun Di, and publicly declared that they were the highest surnames in the world by legal means.
During the Eastern Han Dynasty, the concept of family hierarchy was very popular, and the gate valve system was initially formed. The clan relatives of some officials and celebrities are often high-ranking officials and rich people, passed down from generation to generation. For example, Hong Nong Huayin Yang IV had four officials to three fairs, Ruyang Yuan IV in Runan had five people to three fairs, and Runan Pingyu Xu III had three officials to three fairs, all of which became enviable aristocratic families at that time. Their influence and prestige in society have been passed down from generation to generation, boasting about their own family history and flaunting each other, and forming a social group with special status and rights. During the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, these aristocratic families were called Daxing, Gaomen, Literati, Zhu Xing, Guanzu and Youxing. Even if the descendants of aristocratic families migrate to other places, it is customary to use the county name of their origin or ancestral birthplace as a symbol, which is called "county hope" by future generations.
Because there is more than one place of origin, residence and change of a surname, a surname often has more than one county, but usually one of them is given priority to distinguish between master and slave. For example, Zhao, Tianshui, Nanyang, Jincheng and Xiapi, Tianshui Zhao is the most distinguished. Li has two views: Longxi view and Zhaojun view, which are regarded as dignitaries. However, due to various branches of Wang Xing's surname, there are as many as 2 1 counties, among which Taiyuan Wang and Langya Wang are the most famous. In this way, the county appearance has become an important symbol to distinguish sects, relatives and friends, and honor and inferiority. In the later writings on surname research, the county view has been listed as the main content, and a detailed textual research has been carried out.
During the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, the door valve system prevailed. Compared with aristocratic families, families with humble origins were called "poor families" and "common people". Even if they own certain land and property, their members have the opportunity to become officials, but generally speaking, they are extremely depressed in political life and their social status cannot be compared with that of gentry. At that time, the "nine-product system" used to select officials was the concentrated embodiment of this gate valve system.
The so-called "nine-grade Zheng Zhi system" means that "Zheng Zhiguan" in various places adopts rural public opinion according to their family background and moral character, and selects talents into nine grades to appoint officials.
The gentry who were entrenched in the local area on the basis of their families soon monopolized the right of recommendation, and as a result, they only talked about their family background, regardless of their personality. "Well-dressed children" from aristocratic families, even if they have no talent and virtue, are always given priority as top-level officials and have to be awarded aristocratic positions. Shu Ren's children, born in a lonely family, are classified as inferior even if they have superior talent and virtue. Even if they enter the official position, they can only serve as humble positions despised by the gentry, thus forming a situation of "top-grade officials have no poverty, and inferior officials have no gentry".
The gentry not only controlled the local power, but also controlled the state affairs. The national laws and regulations clearly stipulated that the gentry had various privileges such as Yin's family, attacking nobles and exemption from service. There are strict differences between scholars and ordinary people. The so-called "the difference between scholars and Shu Ren is also a chapter of the country". The gentry thought highly of themselves and did not marry civilians. If a gentleman marries a commoner, or holds an official position held by an ordinary person, it is a very shameful thing to be called "marrying an official and leaving the class", which will lead to exclusion and ridicule.
Under the gate system, not only the boundary between scholars and ordinary people is very strict, but also different surnames are divided into high and low levels, and even the clans of different counties and halls with the same surname are divided into high and low levels. In the Tang Dynasty, Liu Fang made a clear exposition of this in his Clan Theory: in the Northern and Southern Dynasties, "crossing the river was the surname of overseas Chinese", with Wang, Xie, Yuan and Xiao as the most important; The surname of Wu is in the southeast, with Zhu, Zhang, Gu and Lu as the largest. Shandong is the "county surname", and Wang, Cui, Lu, Li and Zheng are the biggest; Guan Zhong is also a "county surname", along with Wei, Pei, Liu, Xue, Yang and Du Shouzhi; Represents the north, surnamed Lu, named Yuan, Yu Wen, Yu, Lu, Yuan and Dou. The above "overseas Chinese surname, Wu surname, county surname and Lu surname" are collectively called "four surnames", and "scholar, state principal book and county meritorious service are not selected unless they are four surnames".
Even among the four surnames mentioned above, there are different grades because of their family background: the third one is called "paste beam", the other one is called "Hua Yi" with servants (shooting), the other one is called "A surname" with ministers, leaders and guards, and nine wives are called "B surname" with Fang Bo, and there are also scattered riding attendants.
In order to maintain and carry out the system of gate and valve, it is very popular to record the genealogy of families and ethnic groups. Dozens of genealogies and biographies were quoted in Shi Shuo Xin Yu written by Liu Zhu in the Southern Dynasties. This kind of family system to distinguish between noble and noble was not only very popular in the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, but also had a far-reaching influence, which became the norm and custom to maintain the hierarchical system of feudal society. During the Southern Song Dynasty, Zheng Qiao had a very incisive exposition on this issue in "A Brief History of Clans": "Since Sui and Tang Dynasties, officials have books and families have pedigrees. The selection of officials must be in the form of books, and family marriage must have a pedigree. There are atlas bureaus in all dynasties, which are placed in the hands of practitioners and officials. They know how to write genealogy in the way of Confucianism in the past and present, so that "the monarch has eternal respect and the monarch has equal respect." "
In feudal society, the most honorable surname is the surname of the emperor, which is called the "national surname". The emperor praised meritorious officials by giving them "national surnames", and all those who accepted surnames were proud of it.
During the Liu Han period, it was clearly stipulated that anyone surnamed Liu could be exempted from all corvees and enjoy the treatment of "six hundred stone" intermediate officials. Li Tang also clearly defined the arrangement of surnames when compiling surnames books. In the 12th year of Zhenguan in Tang Dynasty, when Gao Shilian, the official minister, wrote a letter to revise the genealogy, he followed the old example of Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, with Shandong Cui as the first and Royal Li as the second. Emperor Taizong was furious and personally intervened, changing Li as the first, consorts as the second and Cui as the third. When Wu Zetian was in power, she compiled "Surname Records" and changed Wu's position as the first.
In the Tang Dynasty, Longxi Li, Zhaojun Li, Qinghe Cui Shi, Boling Cui Shi, Fanyang Lushi, Xingyang Zheng and Taiyuan Wang were also called "five surnames and seven families", and their family status was the highest. Children's marriage comes first. Even as a prime minister, Li Yifu was rejected when he proposed to Cui Shi for his son, because he didn't belong to "five surnames and seven families".
The Book of Surnames, which can best illustrate the nobility and inferiority of surnames, is the Hundred Surnames compiled in the Song Dynasty. The first eight surnames among the hundred surnames are "former Sun Zhaoli, Zhou Wang and Zheng Wu". Zhao is the country's surname, of course, ranking first, Qian is wuyue wang xing, and the other six surnames are the surnames of the empress' consorts.
Under the door-to-door system, surnames directly affect a person's social status, marital problems, and even his future and destiny. Even the daily communication and scene attendance are obviously different. Zuo Si, a writer in the Western Jin Dynasty, sharply criticized this unreasonable phenomenon in his poem "Ode to History", saying: "The valley is depressed and the grass stays on the mountain. With an inch in diameter and a rhizome, you can cover the hundred feet. The world is tall and handsome. Because of the terrain, the origin is not once. Zhang Jin was born in the old Shang Dynasty, a seven-leaf marten. Feng Gong is not arrogant, and his bald head is not seen. " "Zhang Jin" in the poem refers to Jin Ridi and Zhang Anshi, powerful people in the Western Han Dynasty when Emperor Xuandi was proclaimed. Their descendants, relying on the inheritance of their ancestors, were all senior officials of the Han Dynasty for seven generations. However, Feng Tang ("Feng Gong" in the poem), who is extremely versatile, was born in a humble background, so he succumbed to others all his life and could not display his talents.
To some extent, this phenomenon is that surnames continue the ancient tradition of judging nobility by surnames; Listing county names also makes surnames have a clear mainstream and tributary vein in the process of development and reproduction. In history, there were many counties in general surnames, indicating that they were branches and collateral lines derived from the same root or roots in ancient times in different periods.
During the Sui and Tang Dynasties, the imperial clan lost its political privileges, but it produced a large number of new aristocratic families and heroes, that is, new gentry groups. By the Song Dynasty, the administrative divisions of counties and counties had been abolished, and the "county outlook" marked in Hundred Family Names followed the geographical distribution of famous families formed in Wei, Jin, Sui and Tang Dynasties. However, due to the long-term influence of surnames and county looks to indicate birth and social status, the custom of showing surnames by county looks is still very popular. Wang Shizhen's "On the Red Monument" in the Qing Dynasty said: "People in the Tang Dynasty were Taiyuan, Zheng Xingyang, Zanhuang, Du Jingzhao, Liang Anding, Zhang Ze, Dong, Qinghe and Cui Zeboling. Although the biographies are all the same. " Here, Wang talked about an important issue, that is, because the literati in the Tang Dynasty attached great importance to the county, the compilation of official history did not examine the hometown of the characters in detail. Instead, it has become the so-called "principle" of compiling history, which has caused great confusion to the birthplace of historical figures. Liu Zhiji, a famous historian in Tang Dynasty, was quite dissatisfied with this system. He was involved in the compilation of national history. When writing Li Chuanshi, because three generations lived in Changle, Weizhou, he wrote truthfully: "He is also a teacher of Lele, the governor of Weifang." Therefore, the invigilator accused him of violating the principle of writing history and asked him to change it to "a man who has been a discipline in Longxi" according to Li's County Records (see history).
In the Song Dynasty, people often turned their eyes to the county. For example, Liu Ban has two works, namely Pengcheng Collection and Poems of Zhongshan. Pengcheng and Zhongshan here are the county scenes of Liu, not his native place, and his native place is in Xinyu, Linchuan (now Xinyu, Jiangxi). Yao Xuan was originally from Luzhou, but he called himself "Xing Wu".
During the Ming and Qing dynasties, there were also many examples of people marking counties. For example, Edy Zheng was originally from Yinxian County, Zhejiang Province in the Ming Dynasty, but his other anthology is called Collection of Foreign History in Xingyang, written by Zheng County. In Qing Dynasty, Suzhou native Xue Xue called himself "Hedong".
The phenomenon of looking at the county is still not extinct, which is attributed to the concept of seeking the roots and thinking about the ancestors. Nowadays, people still attach great importance to the origin and county prestige of their surnames, especially modern Chinese living in foreign countries. Most of them regard their surnames, county prestige and genealogy as their lifeblood and often come to Lianzong to identify with their relatives. According to statistics, among the 22 million people in Taiwan Province Province today, the Han nationality accounts for more than 96.4%, and almost every surname retains the traditional Wang Jun surname to show their affection for their native ancestors. Whenever Taiwan Province compatriots meet weddings and funerals, they often hang lanterns marked County Hope in front of their doors to show the world. Especially in recent years, with the rise of global root-seeking fever, overseas Chinese descendants have returned to China, and they are looking for their roots and ancestors first. The surname Wang Jun became an important basis for them to pursue their family origins and pay homage to their ancestors. The traditional historical and cultural heritage of "Hope of Surnamed County" is still of practical significance for uniting Chinese people at home and abroad, enhancing the cohesion and centripetal force of the Chinese nation and promoting the great cause of peaceful reunification of the motherland.
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