The Japanese are low in stature, which should be certain in history, and can be said from both the historical and geographical points of view.
Let's start with the historical side. Wuguo is the ancient name of Japan in our country. Later Han Shu Xiao'an Emperor Ji: "The first year of the Yongchu Dynasty... In the winter of October, the Uighurs sent envoys to dedicate. "Old Book of Tang And Dongyi Biography": "The Uighurs, the Ancient Uighur Kingdoms." Go to Kyoshi for fourteen thousand miles, in the southeast sea of Silla. Song Yingxing of the Ming Dynasty, "Tiangong Kaiwu Haizhou": "The sea vessel of the Wuguo Kingdom, the two columns of hand railings reach the water, and people transport capacity in it." ”
These materials tell us at least two pieces of information: 1. The Uighur state is the Uighur state, in the east of China; 2. The name of the Uighur state still existed at least in the Ming Dynasty, which shows its length. No matter how people understand it, the word "倭" has the meaning of short stature in both modern times and ancient times; in addition, this word also means means meandering, turning, and traveling far. It should be more appropriate to understand the uighur state of ancient Chinese in this way: a country to the east of China, far from China, a country made up of people who were not very tall.
First, how low is it? Under 1.5 meters
Judging from the available information and cultural relics, the name Ofughan was called at least during the Eastern Han Dynasty. In 57 AD, the Uighur State sent envoys to see Emperor Guangwu, expressed his willingness to submit to the Han Emperor, and asked Emperor Guangwu to give him a name, and Emperor Guangwu gave him the name "Uighur Kingdom" because of his short stature, and the emissary asked for a title, and Emperor Guangwu gave him the title of "King of Wunu". This incident is recorded in the Later Han Shu Dongyi Lie Biography: "In the second year of the Jianwu Dynasty (57 AD), the Uighur kingdom paid tribute to the pilgrimage, made people call themselves doctors, and Guangwu gave them the seal silk. It can be seen that the Uighurs called themselves "Doctors" at that time, which is the meaning of adults, and had expectations for height.
This story has a follow-up, or is later confirmed by cultural relics. It is said that the Uighurs were very happy to receive the seal given by the Guangwu Emperor, and the Uighur King also further established his authority on the throne because of the Han Dynasty, but soon because of civil unrest, the whereabouts of the Seal were unknown. It was not until 1784 that incomori was discovered by two sharecroppers named Hideharu and Kihei while digging trenches. In 1979, it was donated to the Fukuoka City Museum in Japan by the descendants of a large family. This seal is the golden seal of the King of Han Weinu, the printing surface is square, the side length is 2.3 cm, the height of the printing table is about 0.9 cm, the table is attached with a snake-shaped button, the whole body is about 2.2 cm high, and the words "King of Han Weinu" are engraved on it.
However, these are not enough to let people see how low the Han Dynasty and its predecessors were, and can only rely on some notes or novels. The Liezi Tang Qian mentions a gaunt country, saying that this place is "four hundred thousand miles east of Zhongzhou, and the man is one foot and five inches long." This place was called "Short Man Country" by later Chinese. The "Youyang Miscellaneous Tricks" also tells a story related to this place: "Li Zhangwu has a human wax, more than three inches long, the head is rib achievement, and Yun is a servant of the country." "This means that there was a man named Li Zhangwu who collected a dry corpse, which was about three inches long, and people said that he was a member of the Li Dynasty. When this dry corpse was alive, he did not know why he was exiled to Luoyang, and Li Zhangwu took him in. When he died, he wanted to return to his hometown, "overseas sea, foreign countries", so he asked Li Zhangwu to mummify himself, hoping that Li Zhangwu would one day bring himself back.
The story is not followed here, but today's scholars estimate that this Yuguo should be today's Japanese (there is also a saying that it is today's Koreans, but Mr. Hu Shi prefers Japan, because after all, the ancient Japanese were short in stature). The Later Han Dynasty Book of Ma Rong says: "... Suiqi Fenghuang yu Gaowu, Su Qilin in the West Garden, Na Shu Yu Zhi Zhen Yu, by the Queen Mother's White Ring..." Tang Dynasty Commentary: Emperor Ji Yue "Yao Shi Ya Shi Jia Lai Gong Wu Yu." The Queen Mother of the West Mu Shun's virtue, came to offer the white ring "also." Meaning: When Yao was in power, the State of Yan sent someone to send precious feathers to Yao, which is said to be able to "meet the water without getting wet". Yao gave back a "White Ring of the Queen Mother". He also said that the place was covered with water on all sides, and that the man was one foot and five inches long. The foot mentioned here should be the "one ruler head" said by the ancients, it should be the width of a piece of cloth, the loom in ancient times was more than 2 feet, "one foot and five inches" should be below 1.5 meters, and the three inches of Li Zhangwu's collection of mummies were also about such a change algorithm.
Also, let's talk about geography. Facts have proved that the height of people is also closely related to latitude, which is roughly proportional to latitude, that is, it increases with the increase of latitude, such as the south china and southwestern people in the low latitude areas of China are medium to short, the figure of the people in the middle latitude and east China is medium, and the figure of the northeast, northwest and north China in the higher latitudes is medium to high. Japan is in the southeast of China, in the low latitude area, and of course it will not be tall enough. Secondly, because Japan is an island country, the inconvenience of transportation in ancient times and the lack of a single ingredient are also one of the reasons why they are not tall.
Second, when will it start to grow taller? Around the Tang Dynasty
There is no clear historical record of this, only inference and analysis.
Pei Shiqing, also known as Pei Qing, was a native of Wenxi, Hedong (present-day Shanxi), and a chancellor of the Sui Dynasty. There are few records of this man's political achievements in history, but he led the first government-level friendship mission of the Sui Dynasty to visit Japan and contributed to the development of Sino-Japanese friendly relations.
In the third year of the Sui Dynasty (607), the Sui Emperor sent Wen Linlang and Pei Shiqing, the head of Hongxuqing, to lead a delegation of thirteen people to visit. On August 3, he entered Beijing under the grand welcome of the Japanese government. The Sui and Tang Dynasty Chronicles of Dongyi says: "The King of Wu sent Xiao De'adai to set up honor guards from hundreds of people and beat drums and horns to greet him. On the next ten days, he sent the Great Gift of Godobi to serve from more than two hundred horses. On August 12, Pei Shiqing met with the Uighur King, expressed the sincerity of the Sui Dynasty's friendship with Japan, praised the situation in which the Uighurs were in harmony with each other, and affirmed the efforts made by the Uighurs to develop friendly relations between Japan and China. Pei Shiqing stayed in the capital of the Uighur Kingdom for a month. He was majestic in appearance, elegant in conversation, dignified in his conduct, and measured in his contacts, fully embodying the demeanor of an envoy of a great power, and was deeply welcomed by the King of Wu and his courtiers, and successfully completed his glorious mission, that is, to resign to the King. The King of Wu set up a feast for him. On September 11, Pei Shiqing and others set off from Namba and set off for China. Pei Shiqing thus became a figure who made outstanding contributions in the history of the development of Sino-Japanese friendly relations.
However, when reading the relevant historical materials of this visit, people cannot see Pei Shiqing seeing the Uighurs, and there is no record of surprise because of the short stature of the Uighurs, which may show from one side that the Uighurs were not very short at that time. In addition, we find that it was after this that Japan began to be called Japan, and the Old Book of Tang, Vol. 199, records that the Japanese state is also a different species of the Uighur kingdom. It is named after Japan because its country is on the Japanese side. Or: The Uighur Kingdom changed its name to Japan. Or Cloud: The old small country of Japan and the land of the Uighur Kingdom. This means that Japan is a continuation of the Uighur kingdom, and the reason why it was changed to Japan was that they said that their country was next to the sun. Or, the Japanese felt that the name of the Uighur Kingdom was not good, so they changed it to Japan; or Japan was a small country of the Uighur Kingdom, which later grew and grew and annexed the Uighur State.
In the Tang Dynasty's "Historical Records of Justice", there is also a record that "Wu Hou (Wu Zetian) changed the kingdom of Wu to the state of Japan", that is to say, the name of the country "Japan" may also have been given by the Central Plains Dynasty. However, whether it was given by Wu Zetian or spontaneously by the Japanese, people at this time could not see the "Wo" and had no problem of being a man, or they could show from another aspect that the size of the Japanese at that time was not much different from Chinese. There are two important reasons for this: 1. At that time, the Japanese state and China had very close exchanges, cultural exchanges and population flows; 2. During the Qin and Han dynasties, there were indeed groups of Chinese who went to Japan through the Korean Peninsula, in addition to the famous Xu Fudongdu in history, there were also Qin and Liu (Eastern Han).
The Qin clan is an ancient Japanese clan, and is an influential clan along with the Eastern Han clan. The people of this clan claimed to be descendants of Qin Shi Huang, and according to the Japanese Shoji, the ancestor of the Qin clan, Gong Yuejun (the King of Rongtong in the New Records of Surnames), led the people of the twenty-seven counties of the 27 prefectures in the Area of Baekje (Lelang County) on the Korean Peninsula to be naturalized in Japan in the 14th year of emperor Yingshen.com. According to the newly written surname records, some people say that the Qin clan was the royal family or nobles of the former Qin Fujian during the Five Hu and Sixteen Kingdoms period who traveled through the Korean Peninsula to Japan to avoid chaos due to war, and another theory is that King Sun Gongman, the fourth emperor of Qin, came to Emperor Zhonglai when he was emperor. This clan contributed greatly to the development of Japanese society and still exists today, and during World War II, the chief of the general staff of the Japanese Kwantung Army, Qin Yansaburo, was from this clan.
The Eastern Han clan, a Han clan with Lord Azhi as its ancestor, is a Japanese surname whose ancestors came from China and were descendants of Liu Hong, the Ling Emperor of the Eastern Han Dynasty. They were recruited by the Su I clan in the sixth century for their high status as weavers who introduced handicrafts from Baekje and recruited from Gangnam. Japanese scholars believe that the Eastern Han clan is a joint clan with many Han clans, and many of the surnames derived from the clan are: Sakagami clan, Hirata clan, Uchiha clan, Ōho clan, Tanba clan, Bunshi clan, Ōshi clan, Bunbu clan, Tani clan, Minshi clan, Satai clan, and so on. The Eastern Han dynasty is recorded in the Japanese history books "Japanese Secretaries", "Ancient Sayings", "Continuing Japan Chronicles", and to this day, there are still "Han Taigong Temples" in some parts of Japan, and their descendants claim to be descendants of Liu Bang, and they have also made great contributions to the development of Japanese society.
The movement of people will inevitably lead to the prosperity of culture, science and technology and commerce, first of all, it can promote the change of the closed problem of the Japanese island nation and improve the standard of living through science and technology; secondly, it can indeed inject fresh "blood" into Japan and breed some tall people. This should be a factor that japanese people "grow tall" and do not ignore. Therefore, during the Tang and Song dynasties, the Uighur kingdom also came to Japan.
Are these two things true? Pure rumors
Regarding the size of the Japanese, two things must be clarified.
The first thing is that according to the Song "Qingbo Magazine", "The Uighur kingdom (Japan) was adrift in a boat on the (Song) territory, with a group of three or twenty people. (Japan) Women are sent to meet zhongzhou (Chinese) people, and choose the beautiful one to sleep, and the name is 'degree seed'". This record is that Japanese women came to Song Dynasty China, and when they met a dignified and beautiful man of the Song Dynasty, they took the initiative to give them a hug, with the purpose of giving birth to offspring to improve the race for Japan.
Another theory is that after Japan's defeat in World War II, the United States sent large soldiers to be stationed in Japan, and some Japanese women and these American soldiers gave birth to mixed-race offspring and became taller. This is also the so-called racial improvement plan of some netizens. In fact, it is the same as the first thing, it is a rumor or a misunderstanding, the truth is that how can a small group of people make a country's population generally improve in height? This is more or less a bit of a cup of water, which is imagined by netizens.
So, how did the modern Japanese improve their stature? There is only one reason for this, after the defeat in World War II, Japan was completely Westernized, began to live like Westerners, drank milk like Westerners, and loved sports, especially like Americans. According to the data, milk is rich in nutrients and helps people's body growth. After the defeat of Japan, although it was very poor, the government still ensured that the Japanese insisted on drinking a cup of milk every day from an early age, which was the most important reason for their rapid growth. Playing basketball, volleyball, swimming, running and other sports is also one of the best ways to increase heights, and Japanese people who drink milk every day insist on these sports, of course, they will grow tall quickly. (Wen | Lusheng)