What's so special about Gongmen?

"Zhumen wine stinks, and the road has frozen bones." Du fu's famous sentences. Wine and meat are smelly, and those who note it are released as wine and meat; Many readers prefer to understand that within Zhumen, the wine pool is full of meat, inexhaustible, rotten and smelly. This can form a strong contrast.

Bai Juyi's poem "House of Mourning for the Past": "Who started the first house and chased Zhumen Avenue? There are rows of houses, and there are loops outside the high walls. There are six or seven halls, connected by words. ..... The master has been a big official for ten years, and there is rotten meat in the kitchen and bad money in the national treasury. " This can be translated into the explanation of the word "Zhumen wine stinks". After ten years as a high official, Zhai Zhai's door naturally won't open in the alley door like ordinary people, but open the door straight to the street; The color of the door is also unusual-painted scarlet.

In feudal times, the palace was the Zhumen Gate. Zhumen is a symbol of rank. Wei Hong's Nine Meanings of Han Dynasty said: The Prime Minister "listened to the official pavilion and called it the Yellow Pavilion, but did not dare to open the Zhumen to show the difference, so he painted it yellow and called it the Yellow Pavilion". The official department does not paint scarlet to distinguish it from the son of heaven.

The red painted gate was once a symbol of supremacy, so it is very easy to use. As a result, Zhu Hu was included in the list of "Nine Tin". The so-called nine tin, refers to the emperor's highest courtesy to princes and ministers, that is, giving nine kinds of utensils. The biography of Korean poetry says:

The princes have virtue, and the emperors have tin. A tin chariot and horse, followed by tin clothes, three tin warriors, four tin musical instruments, five Sinabi, six tin hoops, seven tin bows and arrows, eight tin iron cymbals and nine tin (straw tools) are called Nine Tin.

"Nine tin" things, so you have to wait for the son of heaven to give it, not necessarily because the princes or ministers have less money and can't afford it. For example, Zhu Hu, who ranks sixth, can be painted red as long as the emperor has this gift, indicating "giving". Those who receive such courtesy are fully capable of strengthening their own portal by themselves. Zhu Hu's gift is a high-standard treatment.

In the Han Dynasty, He Mu commented on The Biography of the Ram, saying "Nine Tin Rites" and ranked Zhu Hu in the fourth place.

As for the yellow gate, it is also very noble. Even in the Tang dynasty, "imperial court" was used to refer to the prime minister's house, and "imperial court" was used to refer to the prime minister. Hong Chu and, according to the system of later generations, "people should be yellow, people should be Zhu". The Qing Dynasty's "Tea Room Copy" talked about this situation, and the so-called "ancient and modern are different, not in the same breath".

In the early years of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang declared that the residence system of officials and civilians also had clear regulations on the paint color of the gate. Ming Hui Dian contains: In the twenty-sixth year of Hongwu, it was stipulated that Qi Huangong had "three rooms and five frames, with golden animal faces painted on the door and tin rings"; An official with one product and two products, "the gatehouse has three rooms and five frames, and the door is a green animal with a tin ring"; Three to five products, "three doors and three racks, black doors and tin rings"; Six to nine products, "a front door with three shelves and a black door with iron rings". At the same time, it is stipulated that "the doors and windows of Yipin's official residence ... are not allowed to be painted. The house where ordinary people live has only three rooms and five frames, and it is forbidden to use bucket arches and colorful decorations.

In the old society, black doors were common, which was the color of unofficial families. With the movie "Hanging the Red Lantern High" famous, the scale and momentum of Qiao Family Courtyard in Qixian County, Shanxi Province are really extraordinary. The door of this house is painted black because it is a residential building. The quadrangles in the old city of Jinan are decorated with the most gatehouses, which are called "gatehouses" by local residents. Its hue, dark gray tile roof, gray steps, and the gate are painted black. The red couplets on the door are brightly colored in this black ash.

In some places in the northeast, the black door of the house is called the "black door". Although it is black, it is not painted, but it looks like a colorful door god painting-a symbol of "darkness". Folks describe the "black gate" as "black evil". It is said that "black evil" is the gate, and it is difficult for evil spirits to invade. The color of the door became the door god.

In the Southern and Northern Dynasties, Bao Zhao wrote the Wu Cheng Fu, in which "Zao Zhang Fu" was embroidered account and Zao Fu was painted door. This painting may be a painting of flowers and plants, or a painting of dragons and phoenixes.

In sharp contrast to the splendor of the painted portal is the whiteboard leaf. Tian Jia, a poem by Wang Wei in Tang Dynasty: "A bird's milk grows moss, and a chicken crows on the whiteboard"; In the Southern Song Dynasty, Dai Fugu's poem "Stay at Tianjia" said: "Night buckles Tianjia's whiteboard". The door is not painted, the color of the log. Compared with painted doors, "whiteboard leaves" are naturally not as shabby. This is a portrayal of farmer simple living. In the seventy-second episode of Jin Ping Mei, "Li Pinger's family holds a dream", Ximen Qing "passes through Kettle Lane and sees a double whiteboard door in the middle". There seems to be a "whiteboard" in the city.

2. Door hairpin

In ancient times, ladies combed their hair in a high bun and often wore flowers and gold hairpin in their hair.

In ancient times, the front of the house was also decorated with "hairpin"-a door hairpin with a protruding sill at the gate. The door hairpin is a component that fixes the coupling used to install the upper shaft of the door leaf to the upper threshold. The head above this door is slightly like a hairpin on a woman's head, ranging from two at least to four at most and several at most, playing a decorative role and becoming a common component of the old door. Therefore, the door nails on the doors of many residential buildings are just for beauty and have no structural function.

There are squares, rectangles, diamonds, hexagons, octagons and other styles, and the front is carved or painted with patterns. Four Seasons Flower is the most common pattern on the door hairpin, and four pieces are engraved with Chunlan, Xiahe, Qiuju and Dongmei respectively. "Good luck", "Fulu defends morality" and "world peace" are also common words in the pattern. When there are only two doornails, the word "auspicious" is engraved.

Door hairpin appeared in the Han Dynasty. Liu Dunzhen, an archaeologist, wrote in "Investigation of Ancient Buildings in Northern Henan": "Among the Liao and Song ruins investigated by China Architecture Society, the number of door bolts is two. Only this temple (Shaolin Temple) was trained by teacher Xitang in the second year of Jin Dynasty. In the third year, it was agreed with the Thai people that the number of public pagodas would be increased to four, which proved that the number of door bolts in Jin Dynasty was the same as that in Ming and Qing Dynasties. " Only those located on both sides at that time, although square, can have two in the middle, can also be made into diamonds or circles, but they cannot be unified. Maybe this is a transitional style. "The change in the number of doornails reflects the transition from practicality to decoration. As a structural component, only two door bolts are needed to fix a hole. At first, a pair of doornails were installed, focusing only on fixing the door leaves. People pursue beauty and make it decorative, but there are still only two kinds. Later, people paid more attention to the decorative effect of the door pin, strengthened the four pieces themselves, and reduced the structural function of the door pin to the second place. As for those doornails that are purely for beauty, they are just for decoration, nothing else.

3. The face of the beast is ominous: paving the way.

The door handle is installed on the door leaf to facilitate the opening and closing of the door. Metal doors can be used for this purpose, which is a kind of decoration. An audible knocking sound indicates that a pair of knockers are cast on the knocking door (Figure 18).

Door knockers with practical value are often equipped with decorative bases, that is, paving heads-traditional door ornaments with exorcism significance. In Han Dynasty Mourning for the Emperor, "The bronze tortoise and snake shop at the temple gate of Xiao Yuan rang first", and Yan Shigu in the Tang Dynasty noted: "The shop of the door is the first, so the person with the rank ring is also."

Most paving heads are made of copper and iron. A nursery rhyme written by the Emperor of the Han Dynasty refers to the copper-green paving head: "The wooden door is surging, the swallows come and peck at the emperor's grandson ..." This ballad alludes to Empress Zhao's love for Yan Fei. As a result, Ban Gu, who wrote Hanshu, said: "The wooden door is the root of Canglang, which means the bronze cymbal of the palace door, and the word will be respected." Covering the wooden doors of the palace with bronze implies that Zhao will become a queen. Yan Shigu explained: "The color of copper is blue, so it is called Canglang." It is called "root" because it is paved by the title ring. "The three characters' Canglanggen' have both shapes and colors, especially the word' root'. These three words were passed down by later generations as different names for paving heads.

In ancient times, the shape of the shop head was to install the shape of tortoise and snake in the temple gate of Hannanyuan, one of the four northern elephants-Xuanwu. The image of South Suzaku is also embedded in the door. In recent years, the selected Han Dynasty patterns have been published, including Suzaku, Shuangfeng and Yangtoupu. Tigers, lions, stingers and other wild animals opened their heads, glared and bared their teeth, bringing a majestic atmosphere to the door. In the early days, there were bronze castings of Xianyang Palace site in Qin Dynasty, which looked like a deformed tiger's head, with wide eyes and smooth casting lines, and were already fine products.

Spread a dignified head to denounce this vision. In this form of door decoration, there are rich cultural contents. For the evil thing of the door, as Zi Gu said in Qing Dynasty: "The door is paved with steel as an animal face and attached to the door, so it is ominous and defensive."

Paving the head of an animal is about the evolution of a spiral shape. Its invention right was recorded by the ancients in the name of Lu Ban, the founder of the construction industry. This seems to be a routine practice and it is not difficult to understand. Gao Cheng's "Things of the Era" in the Northern Song Dynasty lists two statements:

"History of Etiquette in the Later Han Dynasty" says: Give the door a decoration instead of a decoration. The merchant's water virtue is carefully blocked with a screw head to make it look like a screw. "Hundred Books" said, "Seeing water is like a disaster, it is called" seeing the shape at the beginning ". "When I debuted, I drew it with my feet, so I closed the door and couldn't open it. Because of the effect, it is located in the portal, so it needs to be so dense. Two is different. " Popular literature says: the decoration of door leaves is called the bedding of the head.

"Merchant Shuide" chose snails to decorate the portal, which is to pull the five flags for businessmen. The story of the first story of Luban's painting creation was later than that of Shang Dynasty. By the weekend, it was an era later, but it was more popular. Loop, also known as snail. Although the two theories are different, they reach the same goal, not only taking the snail, but also paying attention to its shielding and careful hiding, with the same emphasis.

In the works of people in the Yuan Dynasty, there is a description of "eight peppers at home". The lyrics of "selling wine" at the end of Wang Shifu's "The West Chamber" drama are: "The door is facing Hummer, and every household has eight peppers. They married a prime minister's daughter with four virtues and three obedience, and they are willing to be satisfied all their lives, relying on relatives and friends. " Sima Che and Ba Jiao Tu describe dignitaries. Bai Renfu's Immediately Climbing the Wall: "You are a third-grade official and have listed eight pepper maps." Same usage. It is worth mentioning that there are a lot of materials about paving in Riluwen written by Li Zhen in Yuan Dynasty, but it is not as good as pepper map.

What is a pepper map? Lu Rong's Miscellaneous Notes of Tang Garden in Ming Dynasty talked about "different names of ancient artifacts" and listed 14 kinds, such as "it looks like a turtle, so it bears a heavy load, so it is used to carry a monument", "it looks like an animal, so it stands in the corner" and "it is licensed to look like an animal and is good at being imprisoned." Speaking of pepper maps:

Pepper is like a snail, so it is wrong to stand on the door and shout "drum" today. ..... The lyrics and songs all have the phrase "the door welcomes the carriage, and the households list eight peppers". No one can understand the eight pepper map. Today, in the name of pepper map, there are also some.

The story about the origin of the first store is that it closed like a snail; The map of pepper mentioned by Lu Rong has these characteristics. "Chili peppers are like snails", and things are not over yet. In the Ming Dynasty, Yang Shen's "Yilin Felling Mountain" wrote the legend that the dragon gave birth to nine sons, and the pepper map changed from "shaped like a snail" to a dragon son. Yang Shen wrote:

Nine dragons don't make a dragon, each has its own advantages, such as kissing. At the door stood a closed map of pepper that looked like a snail. Everyone doesn't know the lyrics and the song "welcome horses and chariots at the door, and every household lists eight peppers." Today, the name of the pepper map also came out. See Miscellaneous Notes of Lonely Country. Also, according to "corpse quotations", snails and clams are closed. In the book of etiquette at the end of Han Dynasty, water is king and the portal is made of snails. Then the map of pepper looks like a snail, so I believe it.

There are no dragons in the world, and the myth of dragons is created by people. Making dragons complements the branches and vines of the dragon myth, so there are "carp yue longmen" and "giving birth to nine sons". There are two theories about Longsheng Jiuzi: Young, Prison Bull, Paizi, Play Style, Sister-in-law, Baxia, Sister-in-law, Kissing, and the other is Charter and Gourmet. The latter series includes a pepper map.

The image of Jiao Tu is also the street ring of the animal head (Figure 19). As one of the nine sons of the dragon, it is "shaped like a snail, so it stands on the door". From the imitation of snails by Shang and Zhou people to the "shaped like snails", the form has not changed, only the origin has changed. Snails are aquatic animals, it should be said that they belong to dragons by nature. When you become a dragon, call it a pepper map. The content contained in the form is like old wine, which has been cellared for several years, that is, the so-called "sexual closeness"-the closing of the screw is used to emphasize the closing of the door. The overwhelming image of the majestic head of the animal, the combination of abstinence and demonstration, reveals the mellow at the beginning of brewing. People can taste it like this. It seems to be the same as the outside world, but in fact it is just hiding in the "snail shell" and becoming unified, just "defensive" and cautious. Closed and carefully hidden, a spirit of spreading the head has been displayed on the black painted door of cinnabar for several years, which reveals what belongs to the essence of China Gate culture.

By the way, nine sons born in the dragon is an ancient legend, and its prototype should be related to the story contained in the biography of Nan Man Southwest Yi:

First of all, there is a woman named Sha Yi who lives in Prison Hill. What did you feel when you tasted fishing water and touched Shenmu? In October, I gave birth to ten men. After the Shenmu dragon, the water comes out. Sha Yi suddenly heard the dragon say, "If I have children, where do I know now?" Jiuzi was too scared to leave when he saw the dragon, but the only boy couldn't. He sat with his back to the dragon, which was licked. Its mother bird said that the back is nine and the sitting is a dragon, because its name is nine dragons. When they grew up, the two brothers were embarrassed by their father's nine dragons and were promoted to king.

The dragon gave birth to ten children, one of whom was named "Nine Dragons". This legend, as early as "Custom Tong" and "Huayang National Records". Ailao Yi people are Yi people in Ailao Mountain area of Yunnan Province.

Ten sons, nine dragons, and later passed down as nine sons born among the dragons. Wang said in the second issue of China Taoism 1995 that this can also be found in the folk beliefs of the Yi people in Ailaoshan. As for Doom, the Taoist God, the Book of the Beidou Shouxin Monument says: "Long, long ago, in the Han Long Dynasty, there was a country with three Zhou Yu's and a woman named Princess Ziguang. Born lotus nine colors, turned into nine sons. The second eldest son became the Great Emperor and the Purple Emperor, and the seventh youngest son was the Seven Stars. The Madonna Purple Light is known as the Queen of the Beidou Jiuzhen Shengde. " The Yi people in Ailaoshan area combined the legend of Jiulong in Ailao with the legend of Doumu's nine sons, and turned Doumu into their ancestor god, thinking that Sha Yi, who gave birth to ten people, was Doumu, who gave birth to nine sons. In the Book of the Later Han Dynasty, the legend of how the dragon gave birth to ten sons became that the dragon gave birth to one son, and the folk beliefs of the Yi people were annotations.

Let's talk about the first store. The head of the store is exquisite in shape and is the representative of the users of palace door decoration in Ming and Qing Dynasties. This bedding (Figure 20) is rectangular, and it is divided into upper and lower layers under the animal head. The upper layer, like a ring, is decorated with a dragon playing with beads, which is called "YueYang Millennium". Only decorative function, no doorbell function. Under this floor, there is a dragon pattern to set off "climbing the moon for thousands of years" It is spread on the red painted palace door, and set off by golden doornails, showing the royal style of royal architecture.

Store manager alias Lu Jinjinpu. Sima Xiangru's "Changmen Fu" in the Han Dynasty: "Squeezing a jade door and shaking a gold shop is like a silver bell." Describe the knocking sound of the knocker, the visual effect of Yuhu Gold Store, the auditory effect of metal collision, and the sound added to the picture. Feng Xue, a poet in the Tang Dynasty, wrote the palace poem "Golden toad chain mail" in a static way.

Shopping with skins is money. The door is cymbal-shaped, and its periphery is generally round, hexagonal and octagonal. The middle part bulges like a sphere with a button ring on it. The cymbals on the doors of ordinary people are simple in style, but there is no lack of decorative beauty. Some of them also have auspicious symbols, such as wishful patterns on the outer edges (Figure 2 1) or carved bat patterns.

4. doornail

The palace gate of the Forbidden City in Beijing, two kinds of door decorations are very eye-catching. Besides the head, Jean Valjean is a shining doornail. The doornails are lined up vertically and horizontally, round and quite large, commensurate with the heavy door leaves, and spectacular enough. Door nails originally came from the technological requirements of wooden doors, and later the decorative significance of door nails seems to be more important. Moreover, its form of beautifying the facade is endowed by China culture in many aspects.

The number of doornails is specific. Yan Dou magazine once published Yin Wenshuo's stand-up comic dialogue "Say Yanjing";

Even the doornails on the gate are graded. There are nine doornails on the gate of the palace, each door has nine rows, one row of nine, one * * * 9981. In ancient times, "nine" was the largest yang number, just like "heaven", so the doornail of the palace was 998 1. Alas, only the doornail of Donghuamen is missing a row, which is 8972. Why? At that time, hundreds of civil and military officials went to the East Gate, which was for civil and military officials, so nine doornails were missing, leaving 72. There are 7963 doornails in Wang Fu; The duke, 49 years old; Official, 25 years old ... come to our common people's home, none of them! Don't believe it? You see, as long as it's not the government, how rich people are-grinding bricks and sewing screens, bright red paint on the door, and there's not a doornail on that door! Or how to call ordinary people "Ding Bai"? Ah, it left it here!

"Ding Bai" is just a joke. The number of doornails reflects the concept of hierarchy, which is very good. According to the Qing dynasty, only the imperial palace can decorate the nine-way doornail, the seven-way doornail can be used by the pro-Wangfu, and the five-way doornail can be used by the pro-Wangfu. The palace gate is decorated with 998 1 nail, because "nine" is the largest positive number. In the ninth five-year plan, the flying dragon is in the sky. In ancient times, it was called "the glory of the ninth five-year plan".

The number of doornails in the Qing palace is horizontal and vertical, with the exception of Donghuamen, which has 8972. This naturally attracted attention and gave birth to many explanations. In the crosstalk, it was said that nine officials were missing because they came in and out through this door. Some people speculate that the craftsman made a mistake and the nail became bigger, so he had to install an eight-way nail. This kind of speculation is difficult to establish. Donghuamen is an important gate of the Forbidden City. Besides, can you treat working for the royal family as a joke? That will make you lose your mind. One explanation is that the coffin of the Qing Empress came from Donghuamen, born as Yang, died as Yin, and the doornails were even, even belonging to Yin. Otherwise, there are 32 nails in the Daqing Gate of Shenyang Forbidden City, even number; Donghuamen faces the east, and the number of doornails is chosen in this way, which is an intentional echo and reflects the nostalgia of the Qing Dynasty for the birthplace.

Regarding the number of doornails, Yang's "Luoyang Galand Ji" recorded that the stupa of Yongning Temple "has six windows on all sides, five rows of golden nails on the door and fourteen doors, totaling 5,400 pieces". According to this calculation, there are five rows of nails on each door, and each row is nine nails.

However, Liu Dunzhen 1936, an expert on ancient architecture of China Architecture Society, found in Shaolin Temple, Henan Province that the number of nails in ancient pagodas in Jin and Yuan Dynasties was extremely free, regardless of vertical and horizontal, and there was no habit of using only odd numbers in Qing Dynasty. For example, in the second year of Jin Dynasty (1 15), Xitang Teacher Tower had two doors, each with four rows of doornails, and each row had four nails, so the two doors counted as 3 12 nails. Earlier, it was the gate of the North Monk Hall in Wutai Mountain, Shanxi Province. There were many inscriptions of the Tang Dynasty behind the gate. There are five blessings on the back of this board door, and each blessing nails a row of door nails in front of the door leaf, with eleven in each row. This reflects the structural function of the doornail, and also shows that it is later to pay attention to the number of doornails.

Ding Bai Ding is white, and there is no doornail at the gate. Although it is a joke, it is not out of thin air. Pu Songling's "Liaozhai Jiao Na" describes the magical house of Fox Fairy, with only a few words: "Golden lotus floating nails, like a noble family". Here, the doornail corresponds to the aristocratic family, reflecting a social existence and a realistic pen and ink in fiction.

Door nail, commonly known as "floating nail" in ancient times. Its source is mixed with the legend that Lu Ban invented the paving head. Legend has it that Luban imitated Li's kindness and closeness and opened his first shop. The doornail is also like a snail. Please look at the numerous performance records of Cheng Dachang in the Song Dynasty:

Those who stand in rows and stand out from this door are also decorated like an open defeat. Yi Xun: "Door decoration, gold for the shop, shop for the area, the area for the European sound." Now it is called a floating nail. "

"Upright protrusion" refers to the doornail. Floating, with bubbles on the water surface; The common name of "floating nail" should sum up the name of the door-inlaid shape-decorated on the door leaf, such as a bubble floating on the water. "Love Slave from Lonely Studio" has a sentence "Nail an animal's ring to make it look like a family", which should be regarded as a doornail and a foreshadowing. In other words, Pu Songling's "nailing" refers to the doornail, not the paving head.

Door nails are included in folk activities. "Miscellaneous Notes on Ten Thousand Parts of Shenbang in Ming Dynasty" said: "In the first month, women traveled in groups, praying for blessings and avoiding disasters, ... secretly raised their hands to touch the doornails, and those who touched them were considered auspicious." A woman walking together is called "walking with illness" and crossing the bridge is called "deserved". If you are sick, you will get sick. Try your luck again, touch the doornail of the city gate and smile at it. This should be an interesting scene.

The doornail has a mysterious meaning in folk activities. Touched, the sick get sick, and the childless have children. Please look at the "golden bronze nail" in Chang 'an Hakka dialect in Wanli period of Ming Dynasty:

On New Year's Eve in Kyoto, tourists compete for trees along the road, and women gather at Xuanwu Gate to scatter gold. It is customary to treat diseases and have children. When Peng Jiyun tried the gift cymbals, he also walked with the guests. The guest said, "What is this scene like?" Peng Dao said, "Although it is a silver flower, it is a gold and copper nail." This is a sentence from Su Weidao's "Flowers on Fire" and Cui Rong's "Today's Dingling City".

The literary game of "Golden Bronze Nail" and "Today is the same ..." relies on homophones. This homophonic way, at least the "nail" and even the homonym of "gold" and "copper", can be used to explain the custom of touching the doornail. American scholar W. Berhard noticed this in the book "China Symbol-Symbol Hidden in China People's Life and Thought":

Hammer nails into things, which is not only a method of reinforcement, but also a method to ward off evil spirits. Once upon a time, people in China often saw Medusa-style devil's head nailed with nails. It is said that this is to prevent diseases or promote early childbearing. This is probably because "nail" is homophonic with human "ding".

American scholars also talked about doornails and paving heads, and said the folk significance of the sound of "nails".

The custom of touching the gate nail implies the legacy of reproductive worship. During the Chongzhen period of the Ming Dynasty, Liu Dong and Yu Yi recorded in The Scenery of the Imperial Capital that women "went to the gates of various cities and secretly touched nails, calling them Manji and saying that they touched nails". The shape and volume of the doornail are easily reminiscent of this. Therefore, when touching your nails, you always have to sneak around with your hands, and you are secretly happy. There is a "Yuanxiao Qu" in "A Brief View of the Imperial Capital", which records:

My aunt, who is here, asks the front door and pretends not to know.

The cage hand touched the door, and his heart exulted, but Lang Bian did not speak.

The custom of touching doornails is not limited to the north. 1930 "Jiading County Continued Recording":

On the Mid-Autumn Festival, people jostle to burn incense, and the atrium consecrates aged fruits and moon cakes. A woman touches Ding Dong on the moon. Touch Ding Dong, and touch the log on the door of Confucius Temple at night, which means it is suitable for men. After the middle period of Guangxu, this trend gradually failed.

In the "Xinghua Putian County Records" published by Fujian in the 1920s, it was the custom to cross the bridge and touch nails in Izayoi in the first month. ..... Sneaking around the doornail is a good omen.

Decorative doornails were touched by the ancients and polished into the glory of believing in folk customs. This is the brilliance of ordinary people, and it flows into the brilliance of Chinese culture.

5. The prison door is embarrassing.

Xu Li's Essays on the Old Man in Jiean in Ming Dynasty, Volume II, talks about painting animal heads in prison doors, and quotes two statements. 1. Lu Rong's "Miscellaneous Notes on the Dragon Garden": "The Charter stands on the prison door because it looks like an animal, and it is powerful and kind." On the other hand, Li Dongyang's "Huailu Hall Collection": "The armadillo has always been good at litigation, and the lion's head on the prison door is his portrait." Yang Shen's Collection of Mountaineering Temples, which was contemporary with Li Dongyang, said: "The armadillo looks like a tiger and has strength, so it stands at the prison gate."

The legends of the ancients left two lists, and the Charter and the Armadillo belong to one series respectively. In contrast, armadillos are more famous.

The image of armadillos looks like the head of a lion and the head of a tiger (Figure 22), and is usually decorated above the prison gate. There is a picture of a "literary house" in the Pearl Tale, which will be published in the next year of Ming Dynasty, which preserves the prison scene of Ming Dynasty. The outer door and the second door of the prison are both voucher doors, and there are huge numbers on the prison door (Figure 23), which reminds people of a tiger-headed prison. Hongtong County, Shanxi Province has the oldest prison in China, that is, the Tiger Head Prison Gate, although it is not original in the Ming Dynasty; Su San sang on the stage of Beijing Opera: "Bow your head from the prison of Tiger Head." .

The theory that the dragon gave birth to nine sons was only compiled in the Ming Dynasty. They are two different groups. The names listed in Jiuzi have been recorded in the documents of Han Dynasty, and the armadillo is one of the earlier ones. Han Yang Xiong's My Eyes: "Does the beaver terrier make people pay more attention?" Beaver stems refer to prisons.

"Lin" is not only the name of an animal, but also a prison. For example, "Confucius is Lu Da's master, with father and son, and the master hugs together." It means that father and son are in the same prison. "Yi" is also the name of a wild animal, which also refers to prison. For example, in Xunzi, "if a prison is not cured, it cannot be punished", and Yi is a prisoner. The compound words "yi" and "yi" did not become a mixture of two animals, but unequivocally referred to prisons. It was not until later that nine sons were born that the armadillo was used as the name of the dragon son.

The armadillos on the prison door are probably related to the custom of painting tigers to ward off evil spirits. In the Han dynasty, the custom of painting tigers on door leaves prevailed in the palace and among the people. Draw a tiger on the door to ward off evil spirits and use the tiger's deterrence. It is conceivable that people prefer to exert a deterrent force on this special place, and it is possible to draw a tiger at the gate of the prison. In the future, the folk houses were changed to draw door gods on the door leaves to ensure peace; The prison gate is still a tiger painting, pursuing the brutal effect, in order to play a deterrent role. From generation to generation, no one thought of giving it a special name. When "Nine sons of Dragon" needs to be included, the roster will write "Armadillo".

In the Ming Dynasty, Hu Shi's Pearl Picking Boat said: "Armadillos are litigious, and the animals on the prison door swallow their mouths and paint their portraits." Equate armadillos with fragrant mouths. In some places in southwest China, the swallow mouth is still a popular door decoration. People hang swallows' mouths on the lintel to ward off evil spirits. The folk custom of hanging swallows' mouths will be discussed in the door gods chapter of this book. What I want to say here is that in the eyes of Ming people, the armadillo on the prison door is related to the swallow mouth on the lintel, which is a clue. Using this line, we can connect the tiger painted on the door, the swallow mouth hanging on the lintel and the prison door, which will help us understand the origin of the armadillo.

Recruit new people at the door

The city sign is called Gai, and the golden signboard is called Sapporo. This is the advertisement that the store hangs in front of the door to drum up.

As an ancient advertisement in front of our country, the wine flag was recorded in the pre-Qin period. "Everything is done by Han Feizi, the Foreign Reserve said, Top Right" said: "People who drank wine in the Song Dynasty were all promoted to Jinbe ... The flag was held high." Hanging a flag is a wine flag, or a wine curtain. This kind of advertisement in front of the restaurant has the most connection with poems, songs and poets, and also reflects the cultural charm of the market in front of the restaurant.

"Selling restaurants by the bamboo lock bridge", painters in the Song Dynasty painted propositional paintings, while mediocre people painted pubs with pen and ink. Only one master painted a wine curtain with the word "wine" on it.

This is reminiscent of the Yuan Dynasty's interest in Ouyang Xuan's poems. His "Not Being a Nephew" wrote: "Pukou returned to the sail and Shatou returned to the guest." The wine flag is flying in the forest, and a shot is coming. "Wine in front of the restaurant, beckoned boat people ashore for a drink.

The Water Margin describes that Song Wu killed a tiger. He saw a flag flying in front of the hotel, which read five words: "three bowls can't pass the post", and he led some feasts before killing a tiger; When it was Jiang Menshen's turn to get drunk, Song Wu saw Jiang Menshen's hotel. In front of the eaves stood a watchpole, on which hung a wine table with four big characters "Sunshine and Romance by the River". There are two gold flags hanging in front of the door, each with five gold characters, which say, "Get drunk and dry, Kun is big, and the sun and the moon grow in the pot." While narrating the characters, the novel outlines the scene of "dancing with the wine and the golden wind". In the Qing Dynasty, the poem "Red Bridge" by Confucius said: "When drinking, watching the bamboo road and painting a boat is mostly a flower gate." A wine sieve is a wine flag.

In addition, "get off the horse when you smell the fragrance, stop when you know the taste", which is a punch line to attract customers; Li Bai has hundreds of poems about fighting wine, calling himself a "fairy in wine". To take advantage of the celebrity effect, he might as well write a sentence "Taibai Legacy" or "Li Bai answers that it is high here" (Figure 24). Song Shi Lu Yuan has been published for thirty-eight years. Wang Kui is a local official in Fuzhou. The most proud poem in his life is two poems chanting wine flags: "The lower part is wide and the dangerous building is 100 feet high." There is an old man who often makes good wine. Someone came up with an idea to let the old people "treat the market as a wine curtain". A good book writer wrote two poems by Wang Kui on the wine curtain and tried to make Wang Kui see the wine curtain when traveling. When asked by Wang Kui, the old man said, "People who come to drink often recite these two sentences, saying that they are poems that look forward to their children." Wang Kui was overjoyed and awarded 5,000 yuan as a wine book. Wine curtain is a much-told story. Write poems and chant wine flags. "Jiuwangzi" is also another name for the wine flag, which is far away and very vivid.

In the Song Dynasty, restaurants were decorated with "Xifu Gate". Wu's Meng Lianglu (Volume 16): "Let's talk about the door and ceremony of the restaurant: wooden fences and patterns are tied to the door, and half a pig and sheep are hung on it. The window near the facade is decorated with bright red and green, called Happiness Gate. "

The development of business will inevitably bring rich and colorful market conditions. Han Dacheng's book "Research on Cities in Ming Dynasty" talks about the wide spread of commerce and is fascinating, citing many historical materials. Objects hanging outside this small profit gate, such as embroidery works hanging outside the wool shop and fishbones hanging outside the incense sales. Rich businessmen and tycoons, with deep pockets, struggle for power and profit. The signboard of "Zhengyangmen (Outer) East-West Street" in Beijing is more than three feet high. Clay gold decorative powder, or inlaid with spotted bamboo; Or carve the images of Taurus, Aries and Black Donkey as horizontal plaques connecting water chestnuts in logos restaurant, and the rest are hung with tin lamps decorated with tassels. It can be seen that the shops in front of frontice were all competing for luxury and style.

By the Qing Dynasty, the market was more developed. In the Qing Dynasty, the story of the front cover of The Journey to the West Zhongmianpu tells: "There is a wind bead in Fujian. According to legend, when Mr. Zhou Liyuan was a vassal in Fujian during the Kangxi period, it was windy on the day he went out, and the signboards and manhole covers on both sides of Nanmen Street were shaking. The only cotton shop has hung cotton balls for many years, but it still stands. Mr. Wang looked different and bought it without pricing. However, there is an Okumo with a big ball in his stomach, in the wind of repeated attempts. Second, the cotton shop hangs cotton balls. Third, the lids of some shops have not been changed for years, so there are spiders making cotton balls with wind beads hidden in their bellies. The common cover of Xu He's Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival;

Shops put signs on the doors to mark the market, commonly known as signboards, mostly for special words. Some people use Manchu, Hui and Tibetan characters, while others use useful characters to draw shapes. Some even use words without drawing shapes, directly exposed outside the door, or use hieroglyphs instead, because many people can't read. For example, a wine seller hangs a pot of wine, a charcoal seller hangs a handful of charcoal, a noodle shop hangs a note, and a fish shop hangs a wooden fish.

The city beckons with objects, which is intuitive and takes care of the illiterate. Small tin bowls tied in strings with red stripes are tin shops; Stone carving extra-large candles and lampstands, this is a candle shop. In front of the famous "Kite Wei" in Tianjin, there are sand swallows made of wood paste and sky blue cloth. The shoe store is called Wooden Boot Cloud, which contains the blessing of ascension (Figure 25). The merchants displayed in the Otsu Folk Museum waved, and there were a bunch of waist gourd-shaped boards hanging in the sauce garden, which read the words "old vinegar"; There is a wooden sign hanging in the tobacco shop with the words "Yan Kui" written vertically on it. Notes on Old Beijing in Qing Dynasty: "In the old days, shops and shops also paid attention to the art of advertising ... Lei Wanchun's antler glue, with big antlers hanging on the door. A big fan hangs on the eaves of a shop. "

Market recruitment is not limited to business transactions. Yangzhou Bookstore in the Qing Dynasty, "calligraphy strokes are hung on the door, and the top three words are written horizontally, which is the name of the critic, and the bottom four words are written directly, writing' opening words'". , dou "yangzhou painting fat record" volume nine. In The Journey to the West's eighty-fourth description, the Monkey King saw that "the lantern of a China family was written with the words' for business to rest' and the words' Wang Xiaoer Store' were written below." Only then did the monkey know that he owned a restaurant. "Lantern hanging in front of the hotel, advertising at night. Although I saw it in ghost novels, this detail was taken from real life.