Ancient people's braids

Confirmed from archaeological materials. Zhou Dynasty has been the habit of combing hair braids, and there are double braids and single braids. Spring and Autumn and Warring States, Qin and Han Dynasties, women to comb double braid as much as the end of the Ming and Qing Dynasties women, to comb single braid as much. Combing this hair style, generally more for the middle and lower class unmarried women. In ancient times, children also had the custom of combing braided hair, with single braid, double braid, also three braids and multi-braid. Since 1840, the British colonialists with cannons to force open the door of China, in a long time, people of other nationalities in the world with different eyes staring at the Chinese men dragged behind the head of the long braid, feeling puzzled. An Englishman who personally took part in the Taiping Revolution in China, Eloquent, once said this: "For many years, all Europe considered the Chinese as the most absurd and peculiar people in the world: their shaved hair, braids, slanted eyes, strange clothes and women's disfigured feet have long supplied those who make comical caricaturists with subject matter. " [1] So much so that after more than a hundred long years of history, at the beginning of China's reform and opening up, people in some European countries were still posting braided hair and odd costumes as the inherent image of the Chinese people, as advertisements for traveling to China.

Shaved hair and easy to wear In fact, when it comes to shaved hair and braids, it is only a custom formed after the Manchurians entered the Middle Kingdom in the middle of the 17th century, and before that, Chinese people did not shave their hair and store braids. Han Fei Zi says: "The ancient people wore their hair and their bodies." This is the ancient times when the first people were not enlightened. Into the age of civilization, with the development of productivity levels and improve living standards, our ancestors have the concept of beauty, headdress also developed, and, slowly deduce a set of more elaborate etiquette. Since Confucius issued the "body hair and skin, by the parents, do not dare to damage" after the sermon, in defense of the top of the head on the silk, is not only an aesthetic needs, and has an ethical meaning. So, ò hair knot tassel wearing a crown, a serious matter, not the slightest sloppiness. Not only the requirements of the Central Plains people, and for the four sides of the ethnic minorities are also so required, such as the "Book of Han" said: "the end of the army on the book, please receive a large crown tassel, in order to restrain the king of South Vietnam and to the que. Is to make the king of Yue, the king of Yue please raise the domestic genus." The more the wind blazed, hair cutting also evolved into a form of punishment, only committed an unforgivable error before the execution of hair cutting to show punishment. Cao Cao in the Three Kingdoms violated his own military discipline by trampling on a wheat field, so he had his hair cut by a sword to thank the army. From the Qin and Han dynasties to the Ming and Qing dynasties, the ancestral motto that hair should not be destroyed is even more y rooted in the marrow of the bones and cannot be changed.

The Qing Dynasty started in the north of China, and the Manchus were a nation on horseback. Perhaps because of horseback riding, very early in the habit of braiding. The ancestors of the Manchu people, the Jin people, is to shave hair braids of the nation, its hair style is "half shaved half stay", in the forehead corner of the introduction of a straight line, the line in front of all the hair is shaved, the line behind the hair braid hanging in the back of the head. Exactly when this habit began, how long it has been maintained, it is difficult to confirm, but at least we can be sure that in the Song Dynasty has appeared. Li Xinchuan "Jianyan since the Department of the year to record" contains: "Jianyan three years, the Jin Yuan Shuafu ban people Chinese clothing, and ordered scalping hair is not as good as the style of the person to kill." The Song History recorded the Song general Liu Qi anti-Jin deeds, said: "is the evening, the sky wants to rain, electric light shooting, see the braided hair of the people can always wipe out. Jin soldiers retreated fifteen miles."

About this precedent of forced hair cutting, a few hundred years later, when the Manchurian Eight Banners crossed the Shanhaiguan Pass and drove into the customs, overthrowing the corrupt Ming Dynasty and establishing the rule of the Qing Dynasty, the rulers of the Qing Dynasty began to implement the system of shaving and braiding of the hair. 1645, the Shunzhi Emperor of the Qing Dynasty issued a decree declaring that "from now on, after the announcement of the capital, inside and outside, the provinces of Zhili, and the provinces of the capital, the shaved hair and braided hair will be shaved and braided," he said. Inside and outside the capital, directly under the provinces, limited to ten days to shave. If the circumvention of the hair, covertly arguing, will not be lightly loaned", the bureaucrats shall not be shaved, or "kill without amnesty" [2]. This is the history of the famous "shaving order". Since then, the hair of the stay, no longer a personal preference, is no longer an ethical issue, but rose into a serious political issue. Qing rulers in order to completely from the spiritual conquest of the Han people, is to shave the hair as a sign of submission, for this reason, at the risk of death threat, the slogan is: "stay head, not hair, stay hair, not head." This is for the Han people, of course, can not accept, a strand of green silk, not only by the parents, but also became a symbol of loyalty to the Ming Dynasty, which must not be shaved off. For this reason, the Han people rose up in revolt, with the slogan: "I'd rather be a ghost with bound hair than a shaved head!"

The braids of the Manchu Qing Dynasty The resistance was exceptionally fierce, and the suppression by the Manchu rulers was exceptionally cruel. Under the bloody wind and rain, the performance of how many tragic historical tragedies, Jiangyin ten days, Jiading three massacres, how many heads fall to the ground. The most tragic than the "Ten Days of Jiangyin", is the second day of June of the lunar calendar, Jiangyin people in Yan Yingyuan, Chen Mingyu led by the death of the head of the hair, sworn allegiance to the Ming Dynasty, defending the city for eighty-one days, killing 75,000 Qing soldiers, 67,000 strong men died in battle on and off the walls of the city. The city broke, the Qing army troops massacred ten days, until the city killed before sealing the sword. More than 170,000 soldiers and civilians died under the Qing soldiers, only fifty-three young and old survived. There is a poem for proof:

Eighty days wearing hair to serve, the table of the seventeenth dynasty of the character of the Great Ancestor.

Sixty thousand people died with one heart and one mind, saving 300 miles of the Ming dynasty.

Resistance, suppression, and then resistance, and then suppression. As the small Southern Ming court collapsed one by one, people's hope for recovery was dashed one by one. People no longer resist, finally accepted the reality of Manchu rule. And the braid, also one by one to stay up. With the passage of time, over time, people numb, used to, no longer feel bad, no longer think it is the custom of foreign barbarians. Even, the braid even became a Chinese custom of course. People are not only comfortable with the braid, accustomed to the braid, and how to braid, especially the family of officials and eunuchs and rich people's son of the family, decorative braids to a variety of decorations, the eye for the fashionable and flaunted through the market, string of doors and households. Literati also as the object of chanting, there is a description of shaving and braiding of the couplet on the cloud:

Twilight Dynasty, wash and brush shaving.

Stopping and stopping, light digging and knocking.

More than two hundred years later, when history entered the 1840s, the Chinese people had the opportunity to go out of the closed continent across the ocean, they were quite attached to the braid hanging around the back of the head. Lin Zexu, a philosopher of his generation who burned opium at Humen, spoke with contempt when he saw the foreign clothes in Macau: "It's really barbaric!" I am afraid that this evaluation is similar to the exclamation made by foreigners when they saw the Chinese braids. However, the foreigner's amazement, the foreigner's ridicule, and can not shake the Chinese people in the heart of the boast of self-complacency. Because, this is the sign of civilization, "the heavenly kingdom" of the symbol of the people.

The Manchu braid But, there are people have not forgotten. 1851 January, Hong Xiuquan and his "worship of God" brothers in Guangxi Jintian Uprising, the establishment of the number "Taiping Heavenly Kingdom". Taiping Heavenly Kingdom to anti-Qing phase call, and turned out the old account of more than two hundred years ago, in the name of the East King Yang Xiuqing and West King Xiao Chaogui issued the "Fengtian Hu Diao" declared: "China has China's image, this Manchuria all order to cut their hair, dragging a long tail in the back, is to make China's people into beasts also. China has China's clothes and crowns, this Manchuria set another top, Hu Yi monkey crown, bad generations of service crowns, is to make China's people forget its roots." Therefore, it is necessary to restore the "ancient system of the Central Plains", that is, to restore the Han's clothing and costumes. Taiping army officers and soldiers to store hair not shaved, restored the old system of the central plains of the Han people bundled hair on the top. In the Taiping Army, who's seniority length, a look at the hair will know, who participated in the uprising early, stay up the hair is long, who participated in the uprising late, the hair is short, the length of the hair, is to participate in the uprising of the army successively the best sign. This is the most prominent image characteristic of the Taiping Army which is different from that of the people at that time. Because of this, hair storage in the folk at that time is often commonly known as "long hair", and the official Qing court is falsely called "hair bandit", "hair thief", "hair against the" and so on. "

Since then, it has been a long time.

Since the Jintian Uprising, the Taiping Army in just over two years, across Guangxi, Hunan, Jiangxi, Anhui, Jiangsu provinces, its momentum as the rapid progress, but also the system of hair storage to the implementation of all places. In the view of the Taiping Army, hair and easy to dress, not only clothing issues, but also whether or not to support the Taiping political attitude of a kind of expression, therefore, they implement the same harsh, to save the head, you have to stay up hair, or else there may be killed. The Taiping Army's sudden rise was like a bolt of lightning that cut through the land of China in the middle of the 19th century, but it came and went quickly, and more than a decade later, with the defeat of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, the practice of growing hair and changing clothes disappeared, and everything returned to its original state for the time being.

In the age of agricultural civilization, it is difficult to find the bad side of the braid. But since the Opium War, with the old China's door was opened under the force, due to the traffic of the West and China, there is a comparison of Chinese and Western customs, the earliest contact with foreigners or the earliest touch of modern industrial civilization of certain Chinese began to realize that the braid is a kind of bad customs. However, no one dared to cut off their braids first. From the 1850s, the Chinese who settled overseas were the first to cut off their pigtails and change their western clothes, but they were all exceptions and did not form a trend. 1898, January, that is, New Year's Eve of the Lunar Calendar, the Chinese in Singapore organized the Chinese Pigtail Cutting Association and published a newspaper to advocate the collective cutting of pigtails. This move in the overseas Chinese community has produced a great stir, but also caused controversy. Those in favor of it "have said that plaited hair is not elegant; have said that plaited hair for a long time and do not wash that is to feel the smell of filth; have said that plaited hair is very harmful, such as the machine room in a moment of inadvertence in the service, to the machine by the button, not to avoid the risk of life; have said that the plaited hair or the wheels pulling, and thus subjected to run-over; there is a very much say that this is like the tail of the beasts; there is a say that such as the chain of the shape of the person." Therefore, they advocated cutting off the braid, "leave the whole hair and short." However, the opponents of the force is also very strong, especially some of the elderly, worried that once cut off the braid, will be regarded by the Qing as a foreigner, then, back to their roots, the idea of returning to the country will become a failure; and once the local community entangled, it is difficult to be protected by the Qing institutions abroad. Thus, the power of tradition prevailed again, and the initiative of cutting the braid was shelved. It was not until two years later that the Chinese in Singapore finally put the braid-cutting initiative into action. According to the "Chinese and foreign daily" reported on June 19, 1900: "Singapore a, there have been eighty Chinese cut off the braid, change suit, the rest of the braid cutter is still more, about that is now carry on." The trend of the times, the influence of industrial civilization, finally make the braid cutting break through the traditional "razor-sharp" old circle, mentioned in front of the world at that time.

The domestic public opinion at that time, such as Shanghai's "Yimin Lu", "Declaration", Tianjin's "Guo Wen Bao", Hunan's "Xiang Bao" and so on all reported the Singapore Chinese initiative to cut the braid in 1898. However, in addition to the headline "Cutting pigtails to create news", revealing that it was the first of its kind, and the comment "y surprised" to show surprise, the rest of the newspapers had no comment.

The braids of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, however, the domestic although no braid-cutting but does not mean that there is no call. 1898 summer, advocating for a new Kang Youwei boldly put forward to the emperor Guangxu hair cut, easy to wear, change the dollar proposition. The reasons for its advocacy of braid-cutting and Singapore Chinese are more or less the same, but he mentioned the braid-cutting to a broader vision and the height of the reform and strengthening of the country, that: "Although the hair cut began in India in the hotlands, created in the martial arts of the Roman, and the Tiber to the virtue, the end of the committee to rule Wu, why not first cut off the hair?" Moreover, the reforms of Peter I of Russia and the Meiji Restoration in Japan "are preceded by a hair cut and easy to wear", so he asked the Guangxu Emperor in the political, economic and cultural implementation of the full range of changes in order to order a hair cut and easy to wear, in order to "invigorate the spirit of the nation".

Kang Youwei was the first person in China to formally ask the emperor to cut off his hair and braid his hair.

In 1903, the Student's Union published an article entitled "Cutting the Braid and Changing the Clothes", which stated that cutting the braid would be conducive to "strengthening the army and the race", and in 1904, Ta Kung Pao published an article proposing that foreign students should be "remodeled and de-braided". In 1904, Ta Kung Pao published another article, proposing that Chinese students going abroad should "modify their pigtails" so as to "facilitate communication with Westerners". Although the author was careful to limit the scope of braid-cutting to foreign students, this kind of argument was still suspected of "changing clothes and revolutionizing Manchuria" at that time, and no more people dared to take this risk.

But the bourgeois revolutionaries, who took it upon themselves to "revolutionize Manchuria", dared to take this risk. Although the braid and the full dress have been inherited for nearly three hundred years, the memory of these three hundred years has not disappeared, especially the braid which is ridiculed as "dolphin's tail", is still regarded as the shame of the Han people by many people, so to get rid of this braid is the sign of breaking with the Qing court, which is the most powerful call for mobilizing the people to support the revolution when they are agitating against the Qing dynasty and propagandizing for the revolution. This was the most powerful call to mobilize the people to support the revolution. As early as 1895, Dr. Sun Yat-sen, Chen Shaobai and others shaved their hair and changed their clothes in Japan, where the Qing court could not reach them, in order to make clear their revolutionary aspirations. In 1903, the outbreak of the "anti-Russian movement", young students stayed in Japan have cut off their pigtails, in order to show the break with the Qing court. The trend became more and more intense, so that the Japanese students were proud to cut off their pigtails. Shanxi alliance member Jing Dingcheng (Mei Jiu) on a braid-cutting event in 1905 is quite representative of its cloud:

Shanxi second sent to the students, there are a few old Mr. Conservative braid, as if a life, would rather die than cut off. One day I took the opportunity of fellow villagers to open a plea meeting, sent a paragraph of discussion, then said: "This hair is a kind of trouble things, into a braid, resting on the back of the head, has not been a decency; now people pull him on the head, made a cover top situation, a good head, let him perched on top of the (insinuating that the Qing court), suppression of the whole body is not happy (insinuating that the people are not free), and now please everyone! Now, please make up your mind, painfully, cut him off (insinuating revolution), not only a head of round light, and the whole body is happy, what scruples we have, refused to give it up!" This speech, the revolution fellow, naturally understand, clapping and applauding welcome. But the old man was very unhappy, behind the back of the people said: "someone everything is good, just love to persuade people to cut pigtails some nasty!" [3]

After returning to China, the foreign students brought the new trend of braid-cutting back to the country. 1903, Jiangnan, young students who cut their braids have been not a few people, October 16, 1903, the Dagong Bao contained an article like this: "Jiangnan's new school of the nationals and foreign students more than to cut off the braids, that is, if not, then there are shortcomings in the form of. " Especially with the implementation of the New Deal in the early twentieth century, after the introduction of various reform measures, braid storage and some new rules of the contradiction between the increasingly large. 1905 June, the new army to implement the system of uniforms, many officers and soldiers wearing new uniforms in order to facilitate the wearing of hats will be braided hair will be cut off a bunch of; at the same time, the earliest implementation of the system of tianjin, has been "cut off the braid of hair a third of the At the same time, Tianjin, the first to implement the system, has also "cut off one-third of the hair plait. In view of the academic and military braid-cutting trend, May 6, 1907, by the Ministry of the approval, strictly prohibit students, military braid-cutting, in which the students "once found, that is, should be consulted with the Ministry of the punishment"; military "if you do not comply with the custom, change to other clothing, as well as cutting off the braid and other things, regardless of the official monks, soldiers, are That is to be reprimanded" [4]. This is the first order of the Qing central on the strict prohibition of braid cutting. This order is out, the braid cutting wind slightly killed. However, a new trend once spread, relying on an administrative order can not be stopped? Moreover, at that time, every sensible person has recognized, "China's braids have a hundred harms but not one benefit", even within the Qing court, some enlightened officials no longer adhere to the braid, which is the trend of the time.

October 3, 1910, as a product of the Qing dynasty's new government, the first standing committee of the senior government opened. Soon after the meeting, a member named Roger put forward the "cut braids and easy to serve with the world of the same" motion; then, from Hunan is a revolutionary X people Zhou Zhenlin and put forward the "cut braids and improve the dress" motion, the Reserve Court resolved that "the two cases of the main theme, all to China's braids and clothing impede the movement, the court of the whole army and the martial arts, not to cut the braids and hair, change the system of the crown and dress, not enough to be a new world! the eyes and ears of the world, to change the habit of luxury" [5]. In the end, it was passed with a majority of members in favor. Senior Government Council on cutting braids and easy to wear the resolution once passed, the news came, regardless of whether the Qing court approved the case, the civil braid-cutting will be "a moment of wind and clouds, there is an unstoppable trend". However, at this time, the braid cutting is still a free choice, there is no mandatory social pressure.

October 10, 1911, the Wuchang Uprising broke out, the provinces have responded to the revolutionary wave surging. Compared with the early Qing Dynasty, which forced the Han people to shave their hair, the Xinhai Revolution also regarded hair as a symbol of political division, and the independent provinces naturally took the braid, which marked the Han people's submission to the Manchu court, as a revolutionary target, and cutting off the braid had already become a symbol of removing the old and trying to build a new one. Xu Jincheng's "Wild History of the Republic of China" recorded: "Countless Han Chinese people happily cut off the braid, which was a symbol of slavery. There are also superstitious, choose an auspicious day in advance, worship ancestors, and then solemnly cut off the braid and burn it. There were even those who united many people to cut the braid on the same day and celebrated by setting off firecrackers and holding a public banquet." At that time, a magazine "Yue Feng" contained an article saying, "It is not a revolution if you don't cut your hair, and it is also not fashionable to walk into a big government office to talk, or walk into a school to study." In a moment, the wave of braid-cutting was like the wind rising up and sweeping through the north and south of the Yangtze River.

But the braid-cutting trend was gradually expanded after the establishment of the Republic of China, and a few months after Shanghai's independence, resistance to braid-cutting still continued to occur. At that time, some people pointed out: "Shanghai has been restored for more than two months, and compatriots from all walks of life are still hesitant to cut off their braids. The ugly custom of the Manchus still exists, and the prestige of the Republic of China has been damaged." [6] Shanghai was one of the most important cities in the world at that time. [6] Shanghai was the most enlightened city at that time, as for some remote towns and villages, there are many people who resisted to cut the braid, not only the Manchu aristocrats who do not want to cut the braid, not only those who are intoxicated by the imperial system, a considerable part of the common people out of a long time inertia habits, also not willing to cut the braid of the greasy and greasy. According to the "Declaration" reported on February 19, 1912, Hunan Xiangtan County, "braid cutters have been nine of ten, heard that there are one or two not cut but stubborn township fools", there is "a water picker is still hanging braids, the soldiers forced to cut", the result of quarrels and push and pull, water picker As a result, a quarrel broke out and the water-carrier died of his injuries. In view of this situation, in order to further eradicate the pigtail custom, Nanjing, the provisional president Sun Yat-sen in the North-South reunification, the order of the nation to cut the braid, the order cloud:

Manchu stole the country, easy my crown, forced the system of hair braiding, all the custom from the fishy. When it was first, the high priests or unyielding to be enforced, from the righteousness; or recluse into the Velvet stream, to end the rest of the year. ...... Now that the Manchu court has been overthrown, the success of the Republic of China, all my compatriots, it is appropriate to clean up the old stains of the dirt, as the people of the new country. It is found that there are many people who have cut off their pigtails in major cities and towns, but there are still many people who keep their pigtails in remote areas. The Ministry of the Interior has ordered the governors of all provinces to inform the local authorities that they are aware of this. All those who have not removed their plaits should be cut off within 20 days of the date of the order, and those who fail to do so should be regarded as having violated the law. The local officials do not tolerate hidden, dry national discipline. And check around the people have been to braid still shaving their four weeks, it is not, I look forward to the ministry and Oracle ban, in order to remove the captive custom, and spectacular look. [7]

The temporary decree, the wording is very harsh, for the country to cut off the braid has produced a great impetus. However, there were still those who kept their pigtails, including a very famous figure called Zhang Xun, the word Shaoxuan, a native of Fengxin, Jiangxi Province, who joined the Qing army at the age of thirty. At the time of the Wuchang Uprising, he was serving as governor of Jiangnan, stationed in Nanjing, was defeated by the revolutionary allied forces of Jiangsu and Zhejiang, retreated to Xuzhou. This person is stubborn, after the abdication of the Qing Emperor still expressed loyalty to the Qing Dynasty, the Ministry of the ban on braid cutting, known as "braid marshal". 1917 June 14, Zhang Xun led thousands of "braid army" into Beijing; July 1, Zhang Xun embraced the restoration of Puyi. Now, many people in the capital who cut their pigtails panicked, and there was a ballad: "I can't mix without cutting my pigtails, and I'm afraid of Zhang Xun after I cut my pigtails." For a while, fake braids were popular in Beijing.

Who knows, real and fake pigtails only twelve days. July 12, the Beiyang Premier Duan Qirui organization of the "rebel army" attacked Beijing, Zhang Xun was terrified as if the lost dog, fleeing into the Dongjiaominxiang Lane foreign embassies, Xuantong Emperor Puyi again announced the abdication of the throne, a farce soon ended.

There is also a song that says:

The Xuantong emperor has returned to the imperial court, and his bald head is going to be opened.

Xuantong ran away, the bald head is fine.

About the history of the braid, the Chinese were tossed around for nearly three hundred years, to which it finally came to an end.