At the end of 1427 AD, a political proclamation was issued in the name of Nguyen Chi, the founding hero of the Later Le Dynasty in Vietnam and the leader of the Vietnamese uprising army, Le Li. ), in the ancient East Asian Confucian cultural circle, it was a common practice for various political forces to issue proclamations to express their positions. However, Ruan Lai probably never thought that his article would become the history of the entire Vietnamese nation. The most important article on the Internet, this is "Ping Wu Da Gao"!
In today's Vietnam, this article is known as "Eternally Magnificent"! Moreover, it is the most important article in the ancient literature section of the junior high school Chinese textbook for Vietnamese middle school students (the article was written in Chinese at the time, but now of course it is translated into Latinized Vietnamese), but this article has been held in such a high status, It seems that it is not only for literary reasons, but also for political reasons.
So is this article worthy of its name? First, let’s talk about what this article is about. To know this, we first need to understand the historical background.
At the beginning of the 15th century, due to the civil strife in Vietnam that seriously threatened China's interests, in 1406, Zhu Di, the Yongle Emperor of the Ming Dynasty, sent a large army to conquer Annan (today's Vietnam). The following year, he conquered the entire territory of Vietnam and established Jiaozhi. The Chief Envoy officially annexed Vietnam. However, the Ming Dynasty's rule over this new land was not successful. Rebellions continued in the southern border. Le Li, a wealthy family in the Blue Mountains of Vietnam, launched an uprising and quickly became the core of the anti-Ming forces in Vietnam. In 1427, Le Li defeated the Ming Dynasty. Army, Vietnam regained its independence. On the 17th day of the twelfth lunar month of that year, after the Ming Dynasty army retreated, Le Li ordered his core think tank Ruan Lai to issue the political proclamation "Ping Wu Dayao". Let's talk about what Wu is here. Meaning, since Zhu Yuanzhang called himself King Wu before establishing the Ming Dynasty, Vietnam also called the Ming Dynasty the Wu Dynasty. To this day, "Wu" as a name for the Chinese still remains in Vietnamese.
Vietnam commemorates the victory of Li Li against the Ming Dynasty, proclaimed the emperor and founded the country
Seeing this, we can naturally understand the important position of this article in the history of Vietnam: This is a "Declaration of National Independence"? , symbolizing the spirit of patriotism, Vietnam's founding leader Ho Chi Minh also praised this article as "Vietnam's Declaration of National Independence". In Vietnam today, this article is naturally praised by everyone and widely publicized.
So, is this article just a political statement?
In fact, this cannot be said, because even from a literary point of view (classical Chinese, of course), this article may be regarded as an absolute masterpiece.
"Ping Wu Da Gao" (This picture is from Volume 5 of Pei Huibi's "Selected Works of Huangyue")
First of all, let's talk about the ideological nature. The core idea of ??this article is very clear and targeted. Extremely strong. The article is full of patriotism and Confucian thoughts of benevolence and righteousness. This is actually aimed at the Ming Dynasty. It was not wise for the Ming Dynasty to annex Vietnam at that time (Vietnam has been independent for more than 500 years, and the locals have long been accustomed to being their own country). Therefore, the article severely criticized the irrationality of the Ming Dynasty's annexation of Vietnam; and the Ming Dynasty's rule of Vietnam was also quite failed (at least in the early stage), which resulted in the Vietnamese people being miserable. Therefore, Le Loi's anti-Ming actions were not a rebellion against the main culprit, but a righteous act to defy the people and attack crime.
The full text of "Ping Wu Da Gao" lists in detail Vietnam's victories in the war with the north in the Five Dynasties, Song Dynasty, Yuan Dynasty and other periods (of course some of them are bluffs), which is quite impressive and points out the essence of Vietnam's victory in the anti-Ming war. It is: "With great justice, one can overcome cruelty, and with great kindness, violence can easily be overcome."
But there is also a big problem with this article, which is that it is excessive. This article made a mistake that should not be made: a personal attack on the emperor of the Ming Dynasty (which made Xuande a cunning boy and an insatiable soldier). In the basic political ethics of ancient East Asia, this is an extremely disrespectful behavior (even if they are hostile parties, as long as both parties still consider themselves to be etiquette, they will not do such a thing, especially in ancient times, the emperors of the Central Plains Dynasty belonged to the Han civilization The leader of the circle, even after Vietnam became independent, surrendered to the Ming Dynasty and became a vassal. It is very inappropriate to attack the emperor of the Central Plains Dynasty).
A wise man at that time commented on this article: Whoever wrote this article will have incomplete descendants! However, coincidentally, Ruan Lai was later involved in political infighting and was killed by the three barbarian tribes. This can be described as karmic retribution.
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In the Qing Dynasty, most people also criticized this article. Xu Yanxu in it The book "Vietnam Collection" mentions that after the Le Li forces established power, they wrote the "Ping Wu Da Gao" in their country, declaring that their people were particularly rebellious. This article extremely exaggerates the failure of the Ming Dynasty and Vietnam's previous victory, and humiliates the Ming Dynasty. This will naturally be regarded as heroic in the hearts of Vietnamese people, but a bit ridiculous in the eyes of outsiders such as the Chinese. Because if you are truly confident and confident, you will not act so hysterical.
Of course, the shortcomings do not hide the good points. The overall quality of this article is really good. It is a good piece of Chinese literature and can be compared with some good articles in Chinese literature. Many contemporary Chinese scholars also admit this. Yu Longyu, Meng Zhaoyi and others "History of Oriental Literature" mentioned the significance of this article: "Ping Wu Da Gao" is the founding document written by him (Nguyen Lai) on behalf of Le Li to inform the people of Vietnam. It has high artistic and documentary value and is known as ?Eternal Xiongwen?
However, this actually reflects another problem. Ancient East Asia was indeed dominated by the Han civilization. Even the surrounding Vietnamese, Koreans, and even the Japanese and Ryukyus, among others, Their Chinese proficiency is quite high. Even if it is anti-Ming, it has no rejection of its own Han cultural attributes.