What kind of dispatch was used in ancient times?
Is there any special craftsmanship in the inscription on the "Du Hu Fu"?
What other shapes are there in the ancient "runes"?
Photo/Art Newspaper Shaanxi History Museum
The "one-of-a-kind" tiger charm
Have you ever thought about it?
The ancients relied on the tiger charm to dispatch troops,
So why didn't anyone copy it?
In fact, the reason is very simple
Because the Tiger Charm is so hard to forge!
01 Few people have seen the tiger charm, and the special charm is dedicated. The Tiger Rune can mobilize the army, not a child's play, so the custodian will generally put the Tiger Rune in a hidden place. In addition to the emperor and the generals, it is also difficult to see others. Moreover, the tiger rune was divided into two halves, even if someone had seen the tiger rune, it was only half of it, and it was very difficult to see the other half want to forge the entire tiger rune.
02 The production process of tiger charms is not something that ordinary people can do. Tiger charms are generally cast from gold or bronze, and in ancient times, smelting technology was firmly in the hands of the central government, and ordinary people simply could not get them.
03 The text on the tiger symbol is difficult to imitate, and at the same time there is a special pattern, the two halves are tightly sewn together, and there are many bumps and concave points distributed on the tiger symbol, and a small point is not matched, and the tiger symbol is useless. (Just like the keys and locks we have today)
04 In ancient times, forging tiger runes was a major crime to destroy the Nine Tribes, and ordinary people would not bear such a risk to forge tiger runes.
As a relic carrying a confidential mission, the tiger symbol is a simple form of ancient password parsing. Tiger runes cleverly create random information, and in a society where information is not smooth enough, casting tiger runes into irregular halves can produce sufficiently complex random information. The tiger charm plainly conveys the ancient people's yearning for information security, contains the principle of one-to-one unique information encryption, and can be described as the "originator" of cryptography.
Wrong King Du Tiger Charm
Collection of Shaanxi History Museum
Excavated in 1975 in Shenjia Village, Beiqiao, a southern suburb of Xi'an City, Shaanxi Province, it is 9.5 cm long, 4.4 cm high and 0.7 cm thick. "Du" was Du County in the Qin Dynasty, located in the Chang'an District of present-day Xi'an. Fu is a special certificate used by the ancient imperial court to convey orders and mobilize troops, divided into left and right halves (this tiger symbol is currently only found on the left half), and the two halves can be combined to dispatch troops, usually in the shape of a tiger, so it is called a tiger symbol.
Stealing charms to save Zhao
Tiger's "encryption" system is so tight
It can be seen that it has an important military position
The historical allusion of "stealing the symbol to save Zhao"
It reflects the role of the tiger charm
"Stealing Symbols to Save Zhao" comes from the "Chronicle of the Duke of Wei"
In 257 BC, the Qin army attacked the State of Zhao, and the soldiers approached the city of Handan, and the State of Zhao asked for help from the State of Wei, and the State of Wei sent the general Jin Yi to lead an army of 100,000 to save Zhao. At this time, the state of Qin exerted pressure on the state of Wei, and the king of Wei submitted and ordered Jin to remain still. In a hurry, Wei Wujie listened to Hou Ying's plan, and with the help of Ru Ji, the concubine of King Wei, stole half of the tiger charm that King Wei personally held, falsely passed on the king's order, killed Jin, seized the military power, and then led 80,000 troops, successfully defeated the Qin army, rescued the State of Zhao, and also consolidated the position of the State of Wei at that time.
The development and evolution of "Foo"
Does the soldier only have the appearance of a tiger?
Not really
Tang Gaozu Li Yuan avoided the name of his ancestor Li Hu
He changed the tiger charm to a fish charm
Tang Left Inner Rate Copper Fish Charm
The tomb of Yang Quanjie was excavated
Source: Shaanxi Institute of Archaeology
The Fish Charm was originally a tool for dispatching troops
Later, it evolved into a kind of "identity card" for officials.
In the Tang Dynasty, the left and right fish symbols were engraved with the word "tong"
The difference from the previous dynasty is that
In the Tang Dynasty, the left symbol was in the imperial court, and the right symbol was awarded to the local military governor
In the case of the examination, the word "tong" must be closed before the command can be executed.
The word "contract" derives from the lettering and meaning on the fish symbol.
In the Tang Dynasty, in addition to the fish symbol, there was also a turtle symbol
In the Southern Song Dynasty, the use of the Tiger Charm was resumed
The Yuan Dynasty used the Tiger Head Card
During the Ming and Qing dynasties, it gradually evolved into tokens
Animal-shaped symbols have withdrawn from the stage of history.
Less than ten centimeters of Du Hu Charm, vivid shape, exquisite craftsmanship, inscription small seal corner Zhou Zheng. Du Hufu embodied the highly centralized military power of the Qin state, laid a solid foundation for "sweeping through the six kingdoms" and establishing a unified centralized state, and also had a far-reaching impact on the political system of subsequent dynasties.
To this day, the "cryptography" behind the tiger charm still runs through our daily life, fingerprint unlocking, face brush authentication, gesture password, etc., our country's pursuit of information security has never stopped, with the wisdom of the ancients, we must be able to stand higher and see farther.
Link: Wrong Gold Craft
The inscription on the Du Hu rune uses a special process - wrong gold
Let's take a look at the wrong gold process
"Wrong gold" is a process of gold and silver inlay. A metal process developed in the Spring and Autumn Period is to use gold, silver or other metals to make silk, pieces, strips, embedded in the surface of copper to form ornaments, and then use grinding stones to flatten and polish, from the current excavation of the wrong gold artifacts, in the Warring States period the Qin people have been very skilled in this technology. There are many types of artifacts with wrong gold, and the craftsmanship is delicate and exquisite.
Warring States Wrong gold and silver copper pot
Collection of Nanjing Museum
Today's bronze wrong gold, wrong silver, in ancient times called gold wrong, silver wrong.
"Salt and Iron Theory of Scattered Deficiencies": "Golden Wrong Shu Cup",
"Hanshu Food And Commodity Chronicle": "The wrong knife is wrong with gold",
"Four Sorrowful Poems": "The beauty gave me the wrong knife of gold, how to repay the silver QiongYao",
Later Han Shu Yufu Zhi: "Sabre... The princes are golden wrong",
The Book of the Later Han Dynasty: "The cure should be given to jin with a wrong sword."
Western Han Dynasty Wrong Gold copper Boshan furnace
Collection of Hebei Museum
The Han Dynasty was the era when the wrong gold and silver craft was most prevalent in China. The Han Dynasty's Shuowen Jiezi has only one interpretation of the word "wrong": "wrong, Jin Tuye, from Jin Xisheng". It shows that the wrong gold and silver at that time means to paint gold and silver on bronze.
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