The Historical Value and Significance of Houma Joint Letter
The Book of After Mamoun is one of the top ten archaeological achievements in China in the past half century and has become a national treasure. These cultural relics add fresh materials to the study of the history of China in the pre-Qin period at the turn of the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, especially the history of the late Jin State. Learning Hou Ma's book of alliance can make people gain all kinds of new knowledge. If we put the rich contents embodied in the League Book in the social and historical background of the late Eastern Zhou and Jin Dynasties, we can further understand its great historical value and significance. The author believes that we can at least understand the original appearance of social life at that time from three aspects: political struggle, economic activities and ideology.
First, the League Book reflects the fierce and cruel struggle between the upper-level politicians in the late Jin Dynasty, highlights the historical role of "evil", and reflects the historical trend of "ritual collapse and bad music" at that time, thus reflecting the difficult and tortuous course of the development of the Chinese nation. Throughout the history at the turn of the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, the internal struggles of Zhao and other six big noble evolved into the coexistence of four big noble until the Jin Dynasty split. Today, it seems to be just a small wave in the long river of history. However, it is in this short historical link that, due to the intensification of social contradictions and social unrest, there has been a shocking scene of ups and downs and changes in the field of political struggle. Zhao Yang, as one of the representatives of the emerging forces in the State of Jin, is a lean man. For the rise of Zhao and the expansion of clan power, he tried his best to maintain and consolidate his power. In order to claim compensation from 500 households, he ignored the orders of the Jin army and killed Wu, a fellow Zhao, which aroused the armed resistance of Zhao in Handan. The use of violence became his only means of dependence, which reflected the brutal nature of his aristocratic power. In order to strengthen his own strength, he did a lot of things, contacted sects and recruited and surrendered. In order to unite the internal forces, he called the same clan and took refuge in his different surname, and repeatedly "sought alliance" (repeatedly raised alliance) to gather people's hearts. Under the pressure of violence, the participants in the alliance were terrified and swore to the gods to express their loyalty to Zhao Yang with their own lives, including their own. If someone breaks the oath, the whole family will be wiped out. They also said that they would never collude with the enemy to prevent the enemy from entering the state of Jin again. The oath also ridiculously curses the enemy to make him suffer, so as to strengthen his spirit and balance his heart. In the eyes of the authorities like Zhao Yang (of course, so do his opponents), the life and property of people in the same camp are equivalent to a chicken feather, and the slaves of the lower class are regarded as dirt, so everything of these people should be sacrificed and dedicated to the seizure of their political rights. This is not only a perverse and autocratic thing under the traditional rights of the Emperor of Zhou and the King of Jin at that time, but also shows the bad manners and music. In our view, it is totally inhuman to treat people as people. No wonder Mencius later lamented "the battle between cities, the battle between land and the battle between the wild". It can also be seen from here that Confucius advocated benevolent policies such as "kingly way" and "benevolent people love others" and rediscovered the value of "human", which is of practical significance. In fact, no matter how Zhao Yang and his colleagues repeatedly formed alliances and swore, bloody interests struggle is the nature of the ruling class. When faced with the balance of interests, they will betray their faith and turn against each other from their own interests. After Zhao and other four clean-ups wiped out Fan and Bank of China, there was internal strife and fighting to the death in the four clean-ups, which is an obvious example. The historical progress of China society was made in such a bloody battle, and the people of China paid a huge price for the development of social civilization with the profound disasters they experienced, which we can't forget when we look back on history today.
Politics is the concentrated expression of economy, political struggle serves economic interests, and the victory of political struggle often depends on economic strength. When Zhao Yang was in the State of Jin, he said in front of everyone: "Shu Ren stopped working, the palace was extravagant, the road was opposite to the State of Jin, and the women were rich." As a result, "the people heard of public life, such as fleeing the enemy's revenge" ("Uncle Zuo Gong for three years"), and the official position of Jin declined greatly. Three years later, it was "six expensive and strong, and the official position was low." When the Qing Palace was in power, "the Qi people and the Yangtongue people in the Jin Dynasty hated each other, and Liu Qing was strong, taking his city as ten counties, and Liu Qing made his son a doctor." (History records Wei et al. ), it can be seen that the fields of Qi and Yang Sheshi will be seized. Zhao Yang launched a denunciation of the Zhao family in Handan for the aristocratic family, which was caused by asking for 500 families. The houses mentioned in these five hundred books are all units of economic measurement, and the documents or fields, fields and properties refer to the sum of labor, manpower, land and property, which is the expenditure of exploiting the income of Qing Dafu and may be converted into troops and equipment in wartime. Therefore, there are many records in the literature that the winners in the upper struggle "take their houses", "divide their houses" and "occupy their houses" to the losers, and the so-called aristocratic ministers and urban butchers are the leaders they sent to manage and control these families and fields. Zhao Yang emphasized in the pledge that the leader should not accept his wife privately. If they know that their clan brothers have committed the act of accepting their wives without being arrested or handed over to their wives, they will be punished by the gods. This clearly shows Zhao Yang's great appetite for safeguarding his own economic interests and greedy possession and exploitation of people's wealth in the political struggle, which is the basic economic strength to ensure his victory. Zhao Yang vowed to give property to the "defeated" in the bloody battle, which can clearly reflect that the struggle for economic interests runs through the whole process. It is precisely because of Zhao Yang's economic rewards and personal liberation of the people that the fighting spirit of the Allies was greatly aroused, thus eliminating Fan and the Bank of China, and forming a situation in which the four Qing Dynasties (Zhao, Wei, Han and Zhi) coexisted. The so-called pledge content in the alliance book means that participants pledge their lives and those of their families to the leader of the alliance to show their loyalty, which naturally includes all the property (such as labor, land and property) occupied by their families, that is, taking the life and material wealth of their families as capital to participate in the struggle of Zhaoyang Group. In short, fundamentally speaking, the number of economic interests and the strength of economic strength often determine the rise and fall of both sides of the struggle, which is a fact that can be seen from Hou Ma's study of the book of alliances.
From the content of Hou Ma's League Book, we can also examine the ideological changes of his time. At the end of the Spring and Autumn Period, Confucius had clearly pointed out that the whole society was in turmoil, lacking in honesty and morality. Confucius' warning that "everyone has died since ancient times, and the people will stand if they don't believe" and "I don't know what to do if I don't keep my word" is aimed at the reality that "honesty" swept the floor and harmed the people at that time. The silk book "Laozi" says: "Therefore, it is peaceful and righteous to abandon the Tao; Wisdom comes out, there is harmony (big holiday): six parents are not harmonious, there is filial piety; The country is in a daze, and you still have ministers. " There is an example in the cursing language of the League Book that a man named "No Clothes" was cursed because he "disrespected" the Lord and secretly colluded with Yin of the Bank of China. It can be seen that there was no faith in the rulers at that time. It is precisely because of the decline of morality that a large number of treacherous words and deeds have appeared, and people who are allied need to be bound by vows and the like, so as to unite people's hearts and consolidate internal affairs. The ancients said: "The world is in mourning, and there is no need to learn from the world" ("Gu Liang Chuan Yin Gong Eight Years"). It is not difficult to understand why as many as 5,000 copies of Hou Ma Meng's book have been unearthed. According to statistics, the alliance has 65438+ participants. Obviously, the disintegration of this moral concept is a reflection of great social turmoil and great changes. A large number of Hou Ma League letters are conclusive empirical materials for the drastic changes of this era.
From the book of the alliance, it is reflected that the participants of the alliance should invite the deceased ancestors and gods to inspect it clearly, and it also shows that their fashion has the universal concept of ghosts and gods left over from ancient times to occupy people's minds. However, in the era of Zhao Yang, the concept of ghosts and gods was only a psychological factor of awe and a soft constraint. The alliance book emphasizes that participants should use their own lives to guarantee, which is the strongest guarantee and hard constraint. This also shows that the concept of ghosts and gods serves the needs of practical interests, which is very different from the situation of divination and obedience to God's will in the Yin and Shang Dynasties. This is also why Zheng said that "the country is rich and the people are safe; The death of the country is resigned to fate. In the era of Zhao Yang, the concept of ghosts and gods began to waver, which is consistent with the general trend of social consciousness changing from "matching nature with virtue" to "valuing human beings and neglecting nature". According to the analysis of the existing data of Hou Ma's league book, there are 5 14 cases in the league, 75 cases in the league, 58 cases in the league, only 4 cases in the curse category and 3 cases in the divination category. Obviously, the content of personnel greatly exceeds the content related to the surreal concept of ghosts and gods, which shows that "ignoring God and valuing people" has become a Communist Youth League member.
In addition, Hou Ma Meng Shu can be further studied from multiple levels and angles. The couplet book provides the standard written text of the couplet book style of official documents at the end of Jin Dynasty, which is a link in the development of ancient official documents and a material for studying ancient literature and stylistics. It can also be further discussed from the aspects of philology, calligraphy art, calendar, sociology, customs and habits. The site of Houma Shumeng is very large, and there must be a lot of unearthed materials. I believe that more valuable information will be found in the future. Further scientific research on it will supplement, enrich and perfect the existing achievements, so it can be said that the research on a large number of precious cultural relics here has many values and significance, and it will be a great regret for those who study Jin culture today not to study it. Its updated achievements remain to be observed by peers and future generations.