During the Han and Tang Dynasties, the characters were from emperors to soldiers. Like Bai Juyi's well-known long poem "Song of Eternal Sorrow", the whole poem is about the love story of Emperor Tang Ming and Yang Guifei, but the first sentence is "The emperor of China, lust may shake the beauty of an empire". The emperor of the Han Dynasty was originally Liu Che, and the poet said that Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty was "bent on finding beautiful women", but in fact he meant what Li Longji, Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty, had done. There are also Du Fu's "The frontier court is bleeding into sea water, and there is still Emperor Wu's heart for war" in Che Dian and "The banner of Emperor Wu in his eyes" in Eight Poems of Autumn Prosperity. "Huang Wu" and "Emperor Wu" originally referred to Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty and were borrowed by poets to refer to Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty.
When describing the generals in the Tang Dynasty, poets often refer to the famous Li Guang in the Han Dynasty. Liu Yuxi's Cai Pingzhou tells the story that Li Su captured Cai Zhou but Wu Yuanji. "Fei Han's family came the next day, and the door opened with a wave of his hand." The Fei Han family here is Li Guang, who was called "Fei Jiang" in the Western Han Dynasty, and the poet used it to refer to Li Su. In Wang Changling's frontier fortress, "only make the Dragon City fly, but don't teach Huma to cross the Yinshan Mountain", and also call the Tang Dynasty general who can defend the frontier fortress as "Dragon City flies" Li Guang. In "Ge Yanxing", Gao Shi praised Li Guang, a famous soldier in the Han Dynasty, with the poem "Now I heard the battle in the desert, named Li, the general of the ancient times", and satirized the generals in the Tang Dynasty for not caring for their soldiers. As for the general use of "Han soldiers", "Han generals" and "Han soldiers" in the Tang Dynasty, it is more common in Tang poetry. In Liu Zongyuan's "East Gate", "Thirty-six generals from the Han Dynasty will shake the East Cloud", in which thirty-six generals originally meant that thirty-six generals from Zhou Yafu sent by Emperor Gaozu would attack Wu Chu, and the poet used it here to refer to the scale sent by Tang Xianzong. In the poems of frontier poets in the Tang Dynasty, poets such as Han Jiang often mentioned Tang Bing and Tang Jiang's poems, such as "The northeast border is smoky, I will leave my hometown" in Gao Shi's Travel, and "Looking at the north of the wheel tower, the smoke is rolling, and the place where China's army is camping" in Song of Wheel Tower Farewell to General Feng of the Western Expedition.
In addition, in Tang poetry, Liu Han's war with the northern "Xiongnu" is often used to refer to the conflict between the Tang Dynasty and ethnic minorities. For example, Wang Wei's Works on the Great Wall refers to the struggle between the Tang Dynasty and Tubo through the confrontation between the Han Dynasty and the Huns. In Complaining for Women, Zhang Ji reflected the cruelty of the war in the Tang Dynasty, and there was also a poem "In September, the Xiongnu killed the frontier generals, and the Han army did its best to leave Liaohe". In Wang Changling's "Joining the Army", "Not far from the Broken Loulan" describes the situation of soldiers on the battlefield in the Tang Dynasty, but "Loulan" is the political power of ethnic minorities in the western regions in the Han Dynasty. In Cen Can's poems, there is also a saying that "Loulan was beheaded the year before last, and last month's support". The usage of "Moon" and "Loulan" are exactly the same. There is also "Khan", originally the leader of the northern Xiongnu in the Han Dynasty, and it is also often used to refer to the leader of the northern ethnic minorities in Tang poetry. In Gao Shi's Ge Yanxing, "The Tatar Tusi's hunting fire flashed along the Wolf Mountain" said that the Xiongnu army arrived at the Wolf Mountain, actually referring to the Qidan in the north of the Tang Dynasty. Xin Li's "An Ancient Warsong" eulogized the history of the Han Dynasty, but satirized the rulers of the Tang Dynasty for rashly waging war, which led to the ruin of soldiers' lives. "Every year we bury bones in the desert without numbering, and it is empty to see Pu Tao enter the Han family." It is meaningless to say that the lives of countless soldiers are only to pay tribute to the Han Dynasty.
It is another aspect of the Han and Tang Dynasties to refer to the buildings in the Tang Dynasty with some architectural names of the Han Dynasty. Bai Juyi's Song of Eternal Sorrow is the most representative one. Taiye Pool, Weiyangguan, Jiao Fang, Hongdumen and Zhaoyang Palace mentioned in the poem are all palace names in the Han Dynasty, which were borrowed by poets to refer to ponds and palaces in the Tang Dynasty. Changyang and Zhang Jian in Wang Changling's Young Travels and Nagato mentioned in Du Mu's The Early Goose are also borrowed from the palace names in the Han and Tang Dynasties.
There are so many Tang poems in the Han Dynasty, which have historical reasons. As far as poets in the Tang Dynasty are concerned, it is not convenient for people in this dynasty to describe their own affairs. In ancient China, when writing, monarchs and people they respected should not be called by their first names, but by other names. This strict "taboo" makes it inconvenient for poets to talk about Chen Qi, and satirical and exposed poems can't even name names and express their feelings directly. Therefore, the poet adopted the metonymy method of referring to the Tang Dynasty, and created a kind of artistic conception with the association method that transcends time and space-writing Han in the poem is illusory, and the meaning of Tang outside the poem is real.
Then, why should Tang poetry use Han instead of Tang, and even call those things that have nothing to do with Han and Tang "Han"? For example, "Han emissary is rare", "Han emissary" and "Han moon" in "Can shine on Yinshan at the same time". This is because, in the history of China, although the Qin Dynasty unified China for the first time and established a feudal monarchy, the vigorous development of a unified, multi-ethnic and centralized feudal country was unique to the Han Dynasty. The prosperity of the Han Dynasty (especially the Western Han Dynasty) not only inspired all directions at that time, but also had a far-reaching impact. Only from the fact that China's spoken and written languages have been called Chinese characters, Chinese characters and Chinese since the Han Dynasty, and spread to later generations, we can see the great influence of the prestige of the Han Dynasty. From the Han dynasty to the Tang dynasty, although there were hundreds of years, in the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, the society was in turmoil for many years. Sui dynasty was a short-lived dynasty; It was not until the Tang Dynasty that the Chinese nation began to be truly reunified and powerful. People in the Tang Dynasty also clearly saw their own strength. Looking back at history, people in the Tang Dynasty unequivocally believe that the only one that can be compared with the Tang Dynasty is the Han Dynasty, which enjoys a long-standing reputation in politics, military affairs, economy and culture. Historical facts also prove that this conceit of the Tang people is justified-although Han and Tang dynasties were separated by hundreds of years, they did have many similarities and were world-famous. Therefore, "respecting the Han law in the Tang Dynasty" is not only a starting point for the rulers of the Tang Dynasty to establish and consolidate their feudal monarchy, but also an important reason why people in the Tang Dynasty often mention the Han Dynasty and the Tang Dynasty.