Five Thousand Years or Ten Thousand Years - A New Exploration of the History of Chinese Civilization

Five Thousand Years or Ten Thousand Years - A New Exploration of the History of Chinese Civilization

How long is the history of Chinese civilization? Traditionally, it is 5,000 years. However, since the 1970s, new discoveries have been made in archaeological work, indicating that some civilizations in the north and the south originated more than 5,000 years ago. in August 1997, the Fourth Cross-Strait Historians' Symposium on the History of the Chinese Nation put forward the idea that the history of Chinese civilization can be traced back 10,000 years ago. In August 1997, the Fourth Cross-Strait Historians' Symposium on the History of the Chinese Nation put forward the argument that "the history of Chinese civilization can be traced back to 10,000 years ago. After the meeting, the author and the famous Taiwanese historian Prof. Huang Dashou*** drafted the "Proposal for Rewriting the Ancient History of China", advocating that the ancient history of China should be written 10,000 years ago. This proposal was signed and recognized by more than 100 historians, archaeologists, anthropologists, ethnographers and folklorists at home and abroad, and was published publicly. The process of discussing this issue is now summarized and published for the benefit of experts and readers at home and abroad.

The Origin of the Five-Year Theory

For the past hundred years, when we refer to our own history, we would say "5,000 years" and "5,000 years of Chinese civilization". If we ask where this number of 5000 years comes from, we can answer with certainty: it is the traditional Chinese civilization. We can answer with certainty: it is the traditional saying, following the Sima Qian "Historical Records" years of an old saying, the Yellow Emperor is the beginning of ancient history, there is no other source. Because a hundred years ago, China's archaeological work has not yet begun, with carbon 14 dating method has not yet been invented, some Western scholars

Yellow Emperor lived five thousand years ago. Did Sima Qian say this? No. Sima Qian wrote the "Records of the Grand Historian" and instead of listing Huang San, he listed Huang Di at the top of the "Five Emperors' Book" as the originator of our human race, which is good. As for the exact time when Huang Di was alive, he did not say. A.D. The Historical Records. In the year of the Table of the Three Dynasties, he said, "The Yellow Emperor has been on the throne for several years. However, there is no record of the years of the Five Emperors' Benji. Probably he thought that the figures of those years were not reliable, so he did not adopt them, showing that he was rigorous in his academic research and did not speak lightly of unfounded historical materials. In this case, where did the years of the Huangdi era used by later generations come from?

Nowadays, some historical tools have a chronology of major events at home and abroad, including the number of years of Huangdi's reign. According to the explanation in the "Comparison Table of the Yellow Emperor's Era Used in the Xinhai Revolution" attached to the Dictionary, the source of this chronology is as follows:

"In each calendar year, the year of the Minbao was accepted by the majority of revolutionaries. After the Wuchang Uprising, the proclamations of the Hubei military government were based on it, and the proclamations of the provinces in response also adopted this theory. When Sun Yat-sen assumed the office of the provisional president, telegrams to the provinces, the Yellow Emperor 469 years for the first year of the Republic of China."

But where did the age of the Minzu come from? It was initially extrapolated from relevant figures in ancient texts. The process of this calculation was:

First, according to the Song Dynasty book, Shao Yong's Huangji Jingshi, the Yao Yuan year was called the year, and then Lu determined that this year was equivalent to 2357 BC. In other words, Shao is not a historian, but a philosopher who is well versed in the study of the elephant numbers. The credibility of this book can be imagined as another "Shu Shu" book. Moreover, the so-called "review determination" lacks reliable data.

Secondly, the first year of Yao is known to be 2357 B.C. According to the projection of the year of Huang Fu Qui of the Jin Dynasty, there were five emperors above Yao, which lasted 341 years. Among them, Huangdi reigned for 100 years, Shaohao Jintianshi reigned for 84 years, Zhuanxu Levin reigned for 78 years, ?àcu Gaoxin reigned for 70 years, and Zhi Zhi reigned for 9 years. According to this projection, the first year of the Yellow Emperor should be 2698 BC. This Huang Fu Qui was not a historian, but a doctor in Jin Dynasty who was proficient in acupuncture and moxibustion. His book "The Century of the Emperors" is an amateur work. Whether it is credible or not depends on the years of the reign of the five emperors, and it is not difficult for us to speculate. Not to mention that this is the number of years of the reign of the five emperors, even the life expectancy of the five emperors, it is difficult to believe

The so-called "Yellow Emperor era" is just a bold guess, there is no credible basis. From 2698 BC to this year, there are 4,697 years, less than 5,000 years, nearly 5,000 years, which is the real source of the "5,000 years" theory. The adoption of the Yellow Emperor's era is just "using the past for the present". It was put forward by the revolutionary party at the end of the Qing Dynasty out of the propaganda need of "expelling Tartar and restoring China". It has not been carefully verified, so it is certainly not credible.

Besides the traditional old stories, what else is new in the millennium story? Some may suggest that the Hongshan culture site in northeast China is only 5,000 years old, and Su, a famous Chinese archaeologist, also says it is an ancient country with a 5,000-year history. But all these new theories emerged only in the 1980s and 1990s, and the "5,000 years" theory started with the Xinhai Revolution. So the traditional ancient language is the only source of 5,000 years of ancient language.

The absence of the Yellow Emperor as the beginning of ancient history

Sima Qian was penalized for his painstaking efforts to write a book, establish a family, and create a style of writing that has been used for thousands of years. Setting an example is essential. This is in terms of the entire Century of Emperors. But to take the Yellow Emperor as the beginning of ancient history is rather lacking. We sincerely do not want to criticize the ancients, but in order to explore the truth of ancient history, we cannot help discussing its shortcomings.

Sima Qian ignored Fuxi and Shennong, who originated in the south before the Yellow Emperor, and honored the Yellow Emperor, who originated relatively late in the northwest, as the founder of humanity and the beginning of ancient history. Whatever the reason, the claim that the Yellow Emperor was the beginning of ancient history is divorced from the truth of history and has left at least two sequels for future generations.

One is the monism of Chinese civilization and history. It creates a view of history with one ancestor -- the Yellow Emperor, one mother river -- the Yellow River, and one birthplace -- the Central Plains. This is inconsistent with historical facts. Not to mention the fact that archaeological discoveries in recent decades have completely broken this monism, even when archaeological work had not yet begun and the older generation of scholars were still examining ancient history on the basis of antiquities, Meng pointed out in his book "Minbao" (The People's Newspaper) that the Han nation was formed by the fusion of the three nationalities of the Heluo, the Jianghan, and the Haidai. Mr. Xu pointed out in his book Historical Records that the Han race was formed by the fusion of three ethnic groups: the Huaxia, the Dongyi, and the Miao barbarians. Thereafter, Mr. Lin's Ancient History Zhenwei identified the origin of the Han as a four-in-one - the fusion of the Huaxia, Dongyi, and Baiyue ethnic groups. Whether it's three in one or four in one, it's not a dollar.

Sima Qian, who established a monolithic view of history, failed indeed in his book The Age of Legends in Ancient Chinese History when he tried to fabricate a genealogy for the founder of mankind, the Yellow Emperor, so that the ancient sage kings who originally belonged to different ethnic groups would all be positioned as descendants of the Yellow Emperor. In the year of the History of the Chinese Nation, he had already admitted that "a hundred schools of thought talk about the Yellow Emperor, the prose is uninhibited, and it is difficult for the teachers of the scholarly race to speak". He remembered the deeds of the Yellow Emperor and had to "choose the one with particularly elegant characters". How could he compile a genealogy for such an obscure legend? It is neither necessary nor possible to compile a genealogy for a legendary figure. The genealogies of the Yellow Emperor fabricated by the Shiji and the Five Emperors' Benji cannot be justified. For example, Yao and Yu were the fourth grandsons of the Yellow Emperor, and Shun was the eighth. The result was a big joke that Shun married Yao's daughter to his great-grandmother, and Shun gave way to his fourth grandparent. It is difficult to arrange all the famous people belonging to different ethnic groups in different regions into a single person's descendants and make a tit-for-tat genealogical table. Even if it can be done, it has nothing to do with historical facts and is just a play on words.

The second is to set limits and cut off history. If you write history, you should start at the beginning. When you write a biography of a person, you should start from birth, not from the moment of his success. Many peoples of the world have their own myths and legends that would be recorded in the history books of their people. Only the Historical Records is different. There are neither myths nor legends. The first sentence at the beginning is "Huang Di, son of Shaodian." "This 'Yellow Emperor' is the Son of Heaven who 'caresses the multitude', the same Son of Heaven who 'caresses the multitude' as Han Wu in the time of Sima Qian's existence. In that case, the history of Chinese civilization before the Yellow Emperor was cut off, and so was the childhood of the Chinese nation. Many beautiful and touching myths and colorful legends are not to be found in the Da Dai Li Ji. The Book of the Emperor's Lineage is not to be found. There used to be a discussion in our literary circles that ancient China lacked gods and epics. Compared with the rich Greek mythology, our short stories "Gong Yu Moving Mountains" and "Jing Wei Filling the Sea" are inferior.A The Historical Records is just an anthology of folk songs from all over the world. Naturally, it cannot catch up with the magnificent epics that others have been singing for months. This is true as far as our historical records are concerned. If we look to the people, among the minorities, especially in the South, we will be surprised to find that there is a wealth of myths and epics preserved in the folklore, resting on the oral tradition. In the past, they were not known because the "official history" was not accepted and recognized. What should have been a favorite masterpiece turned out to be an outcast.

To frame the beginning of ancient history in terms of the Yellow Emperor is to set your own limits and cut off history. Before any nation in the world establishes a dynasty or a state, there is a long history of civilization development and nation formation. Ever since our history books were written by the Yellow Emperor, the history of civilization and nation formation has been cut off. Every nation has a long history of matrilineal society. Our history books have been written from the Yellow Emperor, who entered the patriarchal society, and the history of the matrilineal society before that has been cut off. On the stage of the history of the Chinese nation, the first protagonist, the Yellow Emperor, is depicted as a great emperor who hangs his hand and arches his garment and rules the world. All the inventions and creations were concentrated in him alone, and all the culture and martial arts of ruling the country were recorded in his account. Isn't it too sudden? Just like the folklore of "Laozi", he was born as a white-bearded old man, so he was called Laozi. In fact, this is not the case in real history. Before the Yellow Emperor, there must have been a long history of civilization development and nation formation. Archaeological discoveries can now confirm that it lasted for thousands of years. Since our history books take the Yellow Emperor as the beginning of ancient history, we have to try our best to compress the previous thousands of years into the hundred years of the Yellow Emperor's existence. How can this be surprising!

If we want to restore history as it was, and gradually restore the artificially compressed history based on archaeological discoveries, we should let the ancient history move forward realistically, instead of using the Yellow Emperor as the beginning of ancient history.

Western scholars say

Since the Westerners gained hegemony over the sea and their fleets could sail freely all over the world, Western scholars have shown unprecedented concern for the history and culture of many peoples in the world. While it cannot be said that all these scholars are doing their research with the intention of serving the invasion, there will always be some white superiority and racial bias. Therefore, when they put forward new arguments about our history and culture, we should really give more thought to them and not be gullible. An example of this is the book compiled by Terriende Lacouperie, a professor at the University of London, in 1894. He compared the ancient history of Babylon with that of China and concluded that the Chinese nation came from Babylon. Its conclusion borders on arbitrariness, and the arguments cited are rather forced and unconvincing. For example, it is said that Babylonian cuneiform was the source of Chinese bagua and writing, and that Chinese wheat was imported from Babylon. All the seasons, leap months, 12-year cycles, and 60-year cycles came from Babylon. In 2282 BC, the Babylonian chieftain Nakunth led the Biker tribe eastward. This chief was the Yellow Emperor; the Baks were the so-called "common people" of China. This theory holds that the Chinese civilization and the Chinese people are foreign and have no roots in the local area, completely erasing historical events such as Fuxi and Shennong, which preceded the Yellow Emperor. For Chinese scholars who respect ancient texts, it should be said that it is unacceptable. But after being advocated by Japanese scholars and imported into China, even Zhang Taiyan and others bought into the idea.

After more than a decade of debate, the "Western theory" gradually disappeared until China's archaeological work was initiated and the Yangshao ancient cultural site was discovered. He Bingsong's book, "Chinese Ancient Civilization Comes from the West," is a scathing critique of the "West. He said, "Europeans were shocked by China's long history and its importance in world history, so they tried to express China's cultural origins to the West in order to show that Westerners had made a great contribution to China. Whether or not Larkspur's initiative to "come to the West" was motivated by this motive is not clear, but his attitude toward the study of Chinese civilization was very imprudent, so it is undeniable.

In recent centuries, among the world's four major ancient civilizations, Egypt ranks first in time, with more than 6,000 years of history. For Babylon, more than 5,000 years; again, India, 5,000 years; and finally, for the Chinese civilization, more than 4,000 years. Some Western scholars who are biased against us do not even admit that our civilization has a history of more than 4,000 years; instead, they think it is only 3,000 years. How is the length of civilization history calculated? What is the order of the four ancient civilizations? This depends on how the concept of "civilization" is interpreted, and the power of interpretation has long been in the hands of Western scholars. They believe that to say that a place, a people into the "civilization", must have four conditions at the same time, one without the other. These four conditions are:

First, there has been a systematic writing.

Secondly, there were already bronzes.

Third, there was already a city.

4. There was already a temple.

Without regard to the way of life of this people, the geography of this place, the different paths of social development of each people, it's one size fits all anyway. Those who meet my rules are admitted, otherwise they are shut out of "civilization". As Mr. Ho-Lin said in his letter to me on February 24, 1998:

"

Western culture has its roots in the culture of nomadic peoples, whose basic spirit is very different from that of the agricultural peoples. To measure the time of entry into "civilization" according to their standards, the ancient civilizations of China and India, which had their origins in the cultures of the farming peoples, were bound to suffer greatly. When the four ancient civilizations were in order, Indian and Chinese civilizations always lagged behind. This is why. It seems that in order to fight for fair treatment, we need to have a voice, and many peoples of the world need to have a voice. We can't always be passive and accept others' decisions.

How long is the history of Chinese civilization? Western scholars say:

First, at the beginning of the 20th century, they put forward the idea that "Chinese civilization came from the West", arguing that Chinese civilization originated from the ancient Babylonian civilization, which was more than 4,000 years long.

Secondly, in the middle of the 20th century, they restricted us by making it a condition for entering the age of "civilization". According to the standard they set, our civilization history can only be counted from "Pan Geng's migration to Yin", with a total length of only 3,400 years.

Third, the situation changed dramatically in the late 20th century. Thanks to decades of quiet efforts by Chinese archaeologists, a large number of archaeological discoveries finally forced Western scholars to change their views of Chinese civilization again and again. How long is the history of Chinese civilization? To this question, they can only say: Keep quiet for now.

Please read the Chinese version of "Western OriginoftheearlyChineseCivilization" published by China Social Science Press in 1992, and the preface to the editorial of the financial mirror's exposure of the General Patron, and you will understand the reason for their "temporary silence". . This book by the British d Trey Reid and the United States of America Fei Zhengqing *** with the editor-in-chief, its representation is undoubted.

The Editor-in-Chief's Preface says: When planning the preparation of the New Myths of the Origins of the Chinese Nation more than a decade ago, it was of course intended to begin with the earliest period of Chinese history. However, in the years since we began writing the series, much of our knowledge of prehistoric China and the first millennium B.C. has changed as a result of numerous archaeological discoveries. These discoveries began in the 1920s and have made increasing progress since the 1970s. Time and again, this wealth of new material has changed our view of early history, and so far there has been no recognized synthesis between this new evidence and the traditional written record. Despite repeated efforts to try to plan and write a volume or volumes that would summarize the current state of our knowledge of early China, we have proved unable to do so. It may take another ten years to synthesize all the new discoveries that may be of lasting value. So, out of necessity, we wrote The Cambridge History of China in the Qin and Han Dynasties, starting with the two earliest imperial regimes, the Qin and the Han.

They knew, of course, that "the various institutions, literature and art, social patterns, and ideological beliefs of the Qin and Han are firmly rooted in the past, and cannot be understood without knowledge of this earlier history." They wanted to do it, but couldn't. "It has to be done, it can't be done." They started writing in the Qin and Han dynasties "out of necessity," out of necessity. Some Western scholars are confident, some are overbearing; sometimes it's lovely to be honest, and it's valuable to tell the truth "out of necessity."

Write your own history.

You should write your own history, that's the simplest thing. It is the sacred duty of historians to clear away the layers of doubt and restore history to its original colors.

Writing a new history book is not difficult. Many scholars at home and abroad have done a lot of preparatory work. Moreover, the framework of a new history book has already been proposed. Please refer to the passage in the article "Welcoming the New Century of Chinese Archaeology--Interview with Prof. Su, Chairman of the Chinese Archaeological Society," No. 1, 1991, Cambridge History of China. Prof. Su told the interviewer:

"Today, the task of reconstructing China's ancient history is formally mentioned to historians and archaeologists throughout the country, and the conditions are basically ripe. Its main sign is that the concept and lineage of reconstructing ancient Chinese history have become basically clear. From a macroscopic point of view, from the world's point of view, and from the height of the combination of theory and practice, the framework and lineage of ancient Chinese history can be summarized as follows: "The root of culture for more than a million years, the beginning of civilization for tens of thousands of years, the ancient state for 5,000 years, and the unified entity of China for 2,000 years. This is the basic national condition of our history.''

In the new history book, in addition to a brief account of the "cultural roots of more than a million years" and an introduction to the natural environment and early human living conditions of the Yuanmou people, the Wushan people, the Lantian people, and the Peking people, it enters into the scope of the history of the Chinese civilization and the history of the Chinese nation since 10,000 years ago. Ten thousand years ago, five thousand years ago, and two thousand years ago are three important milestones.

About 10,000 years ago, our ancestors gradually moved from fishing and hunting and gathering to farming, began to settle down, and entered a matrilineal society. Because of food security, we were able to invent and improve tools and develop production in our spare time. From then on, we entered the threshold of "civilization". This is the legendary Fu Xi Shen Nong era. From 5,000 to 10,000 years ago, many ancient cultural sites were excavated in the north and the south, indicating that our farming civilization had begun to spread. The main crops in the south were rice and millet in the north. Entering the age of civilization is evidenced by a large number of excavated artifacts, and we don't need others to identify them for us.

About 5,000 years ago, a number of square states - city-states - emerged one after another. Because of the competition for arable land and pasture, large-scale wars took place, and matrilineal society gave way to patrilineal society. Bronze and iron weapons appeared one after another. This was the legendary era of the five emperors led by the Yellow Emperor, allied with the tribes in the Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties. From 5,000 years ago to 2,000 years ago, many countries annexed each other, from many to few, and finally became unified feudal states.

From 2,000 years ago, many historical events are well known and there is no need to repeat them.

Because we are used to the expression "5,000 years" or "5,000 years of ancient civilization", when we suddenly say "10,000 years of Chinese civilization" or "10,000 years of Chinese history" or "10,000 years of Chinese history", it is not necessary to repeat them. When we suddenly say "10,000 years of Chinese civilization" or "10,000 years of Chinese history", we may think that these two expressions cannot ****exist. In fact, "10,000 years" and "5,000 years" are just two different stages in Chinese history.

The 10,000 years is the history of civilization, from the beginning to the gradual formation of Chinese civilization.

Five thousand years is the history of a nation, the history of the gradual amalgamation of many nations into a unified feudal state.

China's five thousand years of history has been written over, including the mainland, Taiwan Province and overseas, for at least a hundred years; ten thousand years of the history of Chinese civilization or the history of the Chinese nation has not been even one so far. Why not? It is also quite understandable. Because it was not until the 1970s that evidence sufficient to prove the existence of Chinese civilization for 10,000 years was unearthed one after another. Hunan Chengtoushan ancient cultural site report published on February 21, 1994, only five years ago. Would it not be self-aggrandizing to rush to write about a 10,000-year history when there is insufficient evidence? Now that the conditions are ripe and the turn of the century is approaching, it is a big deal to write a new history book in the new century. If you don't write it now, when will you wait?

We used to think that Chinese civilization originated in the hinterland of the Yellow River and that the Chinese people came from the Loess Plateau when we only knew about the "5,000 years". Our civilization is a continental civilization, yellow civilization, there are closed and conservative drawbacks, so envy others of the ocean civilization, blue civilization of the pioneering spirit. However, through the excavation of the 7,000-year-old Hemudu ancient cultural site, we know that the Baiyue nation of our ancestors, who ate rice, fish in soup and tattooed their hair, had already traveled to the sea by canoe at that time, and were the earliest maritime nation in the world. The Baiyue people were active in the vast Pacific Ocean by drifting island by island, and migrated to Southeast Asia and the islands in the 1960s

Before our archaeological work did not take off, and many inventions could not find their source. Western scholars pointed fingers and assumed they were all foreign. Rice cultivation, for example, is said to have come from India, because archaeological discoveries in India have found that rice was cultivated 7,000 years ago. Not long ago, the ancient cultural site of Pengtoushan in Li County, Hunan Province, where artificially cultivated rice was found 9,000 years ago, illustrated the point with facts. Many difficult problems in 5,000 years of history have been solved one by one in 10,000 years of history. Because many things that can represent Chinese civilization were conceived in this period.

In the past, it was believed that Chinese civilization originated in the northwest and gradually spread to the south. Although a few scholars, such as the elderly historian Wei Juxian, had said that Chinese civilization originated in the southeast and developed in the northwest, the lack of evidence didn't have much impact. Now archaeological discoveries have repeatedly confirmed that anything that can represent Chinese civilization, such as silk, tea, porcelain, lacquer, etc.. All originated in the south.

We often say that historical figures will be limited by history in their thinking, but seldom think that we will also be limited by history books when we think about the problem. Due to the misguidance of traditional history books, we tend to think that we are children of the Loess Plateau, peaceful and unambitious, so we lag behind others in everything and lack sufficient self-confidence, self-esteem and pride. If you read the new history books, you know that our ancestors opened up the rich land of fish and rice in the Jianghan Plain eight or nine thousand years ago. It is known that our ancestors had already sailed the Pacific Ocean one after another along the southeastern coast six or seven thousand years ago; and it is important to know that more than half of the 200 most important inventions of mankind in the world are the products of the Chinese civilization. How would every Chinese feel knowing that for 10,000 years, Chinese civilization has been in the lead, while we are only 4% behind others? These historical events cannot be deafening; they can be exciting!

We remember the past and look to the future. If we do not make up our minds to go forward and shoulder the historical responsibility of carrying on the past, we will forever be ashamed of our ancestors and future generations. As we can tell from the past, we can certainly draw strength and be inspired by an unprecedented and relatively true new history book, and move from the high slopes of the loess to the blue sky and the blue sea. The sea is wide enough for fish to leap, and the sky is high enough for birds to fly!