What is the meaning of the phrase "the swallow in front of the hall in the old days is flying into the common people's house"?

Let's start with a few sayings about swallows: "Swallows don't come into a cold house", "Swallows are rich and noble, but they don't fall into a sad house".

The swallow, like the magpie, is regarded as a very auspicious animal in folklore. Swallows are very particular about the environment in which they build their nests. A family is considered lucky to have swallows living in it. A noisy and disunited family will not attract swallows because they are a small animal that likes to be quiet.

Connecting with this poem, "In the old days, the swallows flew into the homes of the common people". At least we can know that Wang and Xie must be rich and noble families based on the above proverb.

The Eastern Jin Dynasty had four major families, namely Wang, Xie, Huan and Yu, whose sons and daughters had been high-ranking officials for generations. These families were typical of the gentry and scholarly clans.

First of all, Wang Guan, a member of the Wang family, was one of the founding fathers of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, having served in the reigns of Emperor Yuan, Emperor Ming and Emperor Cheng. He and his brother Wang Dun one inside and one outside, forming the "Wang and Ma, **** the world" pattern, the famous calligrapher Wang Xizhi is the nephew of Wang Guide.

"Guanzhong good minister but Wang Mang, Jiangnan ten thousand people look forward to Xie An", the poem mentioned in the Xie family's typical character Xie An.

The famous battle of Interfluo, which is known in history as the Battle of Interfluo, was commanded by Xie An, and it was he who saved the dynasty of the Eastern Jin Dynasty. After the Battle of the Interfluve, the Xie family had four dukes in one family, and from then on they were honored beyond measure, becoming the top prestigious family of the Eastern Jin Dynasty.

Later also Xie An contact Taiyuan Wang and Langya Wang, firm opposition to Huan Wen usurpation of power, but also take the opportunity to marry with each of the great families, to strengthen the strength of the family, and from then on Xie's children married basically do not go out of the great families.

The famous poetess Xie Daoxun of the Eastern Jin Dynasty was Xie An's own niece. Her husband was the second son of the famous calligrapher Wang Xizhi, Wang Ningzhi. That's how it came to be called "the right family" and "the right family". Of course, these big families were ultimately ruined by the family. This will be mentioned later.

In this poem, the rise and fall of the gentry in the Eastern Jin Dynasty is conveyed. The clan originated in the Western Han Dynasty, flourished in the Eastern Han Dynasty, peaked in the Three Kingdoms and the Two Jin Dynasties, continued to decline in the Northern and Southern Dynasties, and perished at the end of the Tang Dynasty. In this way, the entire clan has lasted for nearly a thousand years in China.

Let's start with a brief introduction of the origin of the clan.

Since Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, who revered only Confucianism, the system of selecting officials has been based on a system of examination, and the prerequisite for being elected to the civil service is that one must be familiar with the Confucian classics. However, there was no printing and paper-making at that time, and it was very difficult for the common people to have access to education, so academics were monopolized in the hands of a small number of people. These families, which possessed scholarship, knowledge and books, passed them down from generation to generation, thus forming the "accumulated Confucianism". The members of these families, because of their academic knowledge, were naturally qualified to serve in the government.

In this way, the "recurring Confucianism" was transformed into the "recurring officialism". At that time, there were two pillars outside the gate of an official's house, the left one was called "Valve" and the right one was called "Read", which were used for posting certificates of merit. Later generations of officials called the family valve reading, gate valve family, the scholarly family. In this way, they formed the "Gate Valve Shi Clan".

The development and prosperity of the clan

This brings us to Liu Xiu, the founding emperor of the Eastern Han Dynasty. Liu Xiu was the founder of the Eastern Han Dynasty, and he relied on the gentry clans to establish the Eastern Han Dynasty. At that time, the gentry did not distinguish between north, south, east and west, and all of them contributed to the construction of the Han Dynasty. But these powerful landlords, in the Eastern Han Dynasty, enjoyed political and economic privileges.

Politically, they held the central and local governments. Economically, they annexed land, operated estates, and gradually became a cutthroat, and gradually became a famous family. In the late Eastern Han Dynasty, a number of clans began to form among the scholars. Among them, the Sima clan of Hanoi was known as a thousand-year-old family. These people were large landowners and held high positions, and their disciples and officials were all over the world, so they were the leaders of the scholars.

Until the end of the Han Dynasty, the world was in turmoil, and the Han Dynasty was divided into three kingdoms: Wei, Shu and Wu. Cao Cao of the Three Kingdoms, Sun Quan likewise relied on the power of the scholarly clans to establish power, and Liu Bei had to rely on the support of the scholarly clans of Yizhou. In the end, it was the Sima clan of the north that came out on top, taking over Cao's Wei for three generations and pacifying Shu and Wu.

This was when the status of the gentry clans changed.

They began to ascend to the center of power and to the peak of their lives.

In the Western Jin Dynasty, Sima Yue, the last victor of the "Rebellion of the Eight Kings," took his power to the end of his life. But his supporters, the Langya Wang clan, embraced Sima Rui, the king of Langya, and took his population and troops south across the Yangtze River.

This group included the Luangya Wang Clan, the Chen County Xie Clan, the Lanling Xiao Clan, and the Longkang Huan Clan, who held everything in the Eastern Jin Dynasty. Here the Wang clan of Luangya and the Xie clan of Chen County are the Wang and Xie families mentioned in this poem by Liu Yuxi.

The sons and daughters born to these families were guaranteed a lifetime of food and clothing as long as they were born. Once he grows up he can become an official, and in this life there will surely be a full ministerial position waiting for him.

They economically sealed off the mountains and forests, and the farmland, lakes, beasts, and population of this land are all private products of the family, and no longer have any relationship with the state. This is the Jiangnan scholar clans. The Eastern Jin Dynasty was founded on these Jiangnan scholar clans.

At that time, the clans and their rule were at their peak. The king and the horse, **** the world". Because of the excessive power of the clans, the emperors had to rely on the support of the clans. The power of the clans and the power of the emperor stood side by side, and even once exceeded the power of the emperor.

There is a saying that when prosperity is extreme, it will decline.

By the time Liu Yu established the Southern Song Dynasty, he still relied on the clans, but he was not as controlled by them as he was in the Eastern Jin Dynasty. After he became emperor, he emphasized the use of the humble clans, which to some extent curbed the influence of the clans on the government. At that time, the scholar clans were still economically strong, but military power was no longer within their grasp.

When did these families decline? It had a lot to do with one man, a general named Hou Jing from the Southern Liang Dynasty.

Hou Jing, who came from the Capricorn tribe of the Xianbei tribe outside the Seychelles, was originally a general under Gao Huan of the Northern Qi Dynasty, but later surrendered to Emperor Wu of Liang in the Southern Dynasty. Considering himself to be of great service to the Southern Dynasty, he made many requests to Emperor Wu of Liang, and most of them were met by Emperor Wu of Liang. Later, in order to raise his stature, Hou Jing requested to marry a woman from two famous families in Jiangnan, Wang and Xie, as his wife.

But he didn't know how serious the idea of a family was in the Jiangzuo southern dynasty at the time. Emperor Wu of Liang, even though he was the king of a country, did not dare to do Hou Jing this favor for fear of offending the famous families. Emperor Wu of Liang politely told Hou Jing:

"Wang and Xie are not even. You can visit them below Zhu and Zhang."

This means that Wang and Xie's families are too high, and you can't match them. The first time I saw this was when I was a student at the University of California, Berkeley, and the second time I was a student at a university. This y hurt Hou Jing's self-esteem. He was so indignant that he said, "I will match Wu's children with slaves." That is, he wanted to send the women of Jiangnan to the soldiers as slaves in the future. Soon after that, he started a rebellion and attacked Jiankang, the capital of Liang Dynasty, and starved Xiao Yan, the Emperor of Liang Dynasty, to death.

The rebels "killed and plundered, and stuffed the roads with corpses. The rich and powerful families were plundered at will, and their children, wives and concubines were brought into the barracks.

Hou Jing's rebellion not only physically eliminated a part of the clansmen, but more importantly, it caused a series of wars that completely disintegrated the network of contacts on which the clansmen of the Southern Dynasty relied to survive. Therefore, when the empire of the Southern Dynasty was reorganized in the hands of Chen Baxian, there were no longer a few members of the lineage to be found in the temple, and even the function of decorating the temple was regarded as a liability by the new emperor. Of course, the Wang family and the Xie family were also implicated, and did not return to their former glory.

In this way, the roots of the traditional scholarly clans were uprooted. Though the tree would not wither away immediately yet. The swallows of the Wang and Xie families could finally fly to the homes of ordinary people as well.

A poem contains a piece of history. Indeed, ancient poems are rich in meaning and endless in charm!