The four corners of the world is an idiom handed down from ancient China, often used to refer to all parts of our country, and sometimes used as a metaphor for unity. So, do you know the origin of "all over the world" and what it refers to?
"Five Lakes and Four Seas" was first said separately, that is, separate "Five Lakes" and "Four Seas".
The "Five Lakes" are found in the Zhou Li Xia Guan Zhi Fang Clan: "Southeast Yangzhou ... Its three rivers, its immersion in the five lakes. ”
The "Four Seas" are found in the Erya Shidi: "Seven Rongs, Six Barbarians, Nine Yi, Eight Di Shapes, in short, the Four Seas." and the Analects of Yan Yuan: "Brothers in all corners of the world." ”
From the Tang and Song dynasties, "five lakes and four seas" began to be connected as an idiom.
The ancient terms "five lakes" and "four seas" reflect people's understanding of the geographical scope and the waters of lakes and seas in history. In fact, there is a difference between what was said in ancient times and what is said in modern times.
Historically, the term "Five Lakes" is divided into two main categories: one considers Taihu Lake (in present-day Jiangsu Province) to be the Five Lakes; the other believes that Taihu Lake plus the nearby four lakes are the Five Lakes.
Today, the five lakes we call refer to Dongting Lake, Poyang Lake, Taihu Lake, Chao Lake, and Hongze Lake, which are also the five famous freshwater lakes in China.
Historically, the controversy over the "Five Lakes" is not great, but there are various theories about the term "four seas".
The four seas refer to the sea that surrounds our country, that is to say, the four seas are the east, south, west and north seas. In this way, China has also called itself "Hainei" since ancient times, while for other countries and regions, it has been called "overseas", which has been used to this day.
China now has four seas: the Bohai Sea, the Yellow Sea, the East China Sea, and the South China Sea. However, in ancient times, the four seas referred to and today's four seas were also very different.
Today's Bohai Sea was called the North Sea in the pre-Qin era. According to the "Four Years of zuo chuan and the fourth year of the Duke of Qi", the state of Qi planned to attack the state of Chu, and when the king of Chu learned of it, he sent someone to say to the Duke of Qi Huan: "The king is in the North Sea, and the widow is in the South China Sea, but the wind, horses and cattle are not in harmony." ”
It can be seen that during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, the Bohai Sea in the north of the State of Qi was called the North Sea. Moreover, during the Han Dynasty, the Han Dynasty also set up Beihai County on the west side of the Bohai Sea.
Today's Yellow Sea, because it is located in the east of the lower reaches of the Yellow Sea, was called the East Sea in ancient times. According to the "Mencius Li Lou" record: "Taigong avoided the silk and lived on the coast of the East China Sea. "The East China Sea referred to here refers to the Yellow Sea in the east of juxian County, Shandong Province today.
The Book of Yue Jie (a miscellaneous history of the local history of ancient Wuyue) records: "The Gou Dynasty wuba guandong started from the Lang Evil Platform, and the Seven Mile of the Tai Zhou Dynasty, looking at the East China Sea. "Lang evil is in the southeast of Zhucheng, Shandong, on the coast of the present-day Yellow Sea.
According to the above two paragraphs, we can know that the East China Sea referred to in ancient times is actually today's Yellow Sea. During the Qin and Han dynasties, Donghai County was also set up on the shores of the Yellow Sea in Tancheng, Shandong and Haizhou, Jiangsu.
Today's East China Sea was once known as the South China Sea in ancient times. This is because in the pre-Qin era, the northern states regarded the land of Jingchu as a barbarian in the south, and called the sea area around Wuyue the South China Sea. According to the previous records, the King of Chu himself acknowledged that the State of Chu was located in the South China Sea.
In the "History of Qin Shi Huang Benji", it is also recorded that Qin Shi Huang "went to the meeting, sacrificed Dayu, and looked at the South China Sea." "Huiji was a county set up during the Qin Dynasty, and the county was ruled in Wu County (present-day Suzhou, Jiangsu), so during the Qin Dynasty, the so-called South China Sea was our East Sea today.
In 214 BC, the soldiers of the Great Qin Empire unified the Lingnan region and set up Nanhai County there, so that from the Qin Dynasty onwards at the latest, the ancient so-called South China Sea was equivalent to today's South China Sea.
The most difficult location in the "Four Seas" is the West Sea, because china faces the sea in the east and south, so the ancient East Sea and the South China Sea are easy to determine, but the West Sea and the North Sea are not so certain.
The Ancient and Modern Book Integration, Mountains and Rivers, and Haibu generally points out: "From ancient times, it is said that the four seas are spoken, while the West Sea and the North Sea are far away, and the heirs are rarely confirmed." ”
Although the North Sea referred to today's Bohai Sea in the pre-Qin era, from the Han Dynasty onwards, due to the continuous expansion of its territorial scope, the North Sea became today's Lake Baikal (located in the southern part of present-day Siberia, Russia).
Even in the Yuan Dynasty, when the scientist Guo Shoujing made large-scale geographical measurements, the location of his North Sea survey site was in the lower reaches of the Lower Baptunguska River north of present-day Lake Baikal.
As for the location of the "West Sea" referred to in ancient times, it is even more uncertain, because, in different historical periods, the location of the West Sea is completely different.
The West Sea sometimes refers to Qinghai Lake, Lop Nur Lake, Bosten Lake, Salty Lake, Persian Gulf, and sometimes even the Red Sea and the Mediterranean Sea in the far west.
In short, the specific geographical location of the so-called "five lakes and four seas" in ancient times has changed with different times, but the meaning it represents has not changed: all brothers in the four seas!
This article refers to: "Common Knowledge of Ancient Chinese Geography"