China is a country with extremely rich surnames, I believe that many people have memorized "Hundred Family Names" when they were young, and China's surnames are more than a hundred. In the huge surname system, some surnames have a particularly large population, isn't there such a saying, Zhang Wang Li Zhao, everywhere Liu. That is to say, the population base of these five surnames is very large. When it comes to the Li surname among the hundreds of families, everyone will think of a lot of celebrities, once the richest man in Asia, Li Ka-shing, Robin Lee, etc., even north Korea, Singapore and other places also have a lot of Lee surname people, such as the prime minister Lee Kuan Yew who single-handedly built Singapore into a developed country and so on.
An important reason why there are so many talents in the Li family is that there are too many people with the surname Li, and the probability of celebrities is naturally large, so where does the surname Li come from? The history books of the Tang Dynasty have been explored. Everyone knows that the emperors of the Tang Dynasty are surnamed Li, and naturally they will find a capable and capable ancestor for themselves in the history books. According to the historical records of the time, the surname Li originated from the figure Gao Tao in the ancient period, and he was surnamed Li. This person was in the same era as Yao Shun and was a capable vassal who assisted Yao Shun.
Gao Tao is also known as the originator of the judicial community, he once controlled punishment during the reign of Yao Shun, was a righteous person, and later became a saint with the same name as Yao, Shun, and Yu. Another saint from the Li clan was Laozi, whose original name was Li Er and was the founder of Taoism, so the imperial court attached great importance to Taoism in the early Tang Dynasty. Lao Tzu's idea of ruling without doing anything has influenced future generations for thousands of years and is one of the outstanding representatives of the Li family.
The peak of the Li family's development should have been in the Tang Dynasty, because the emperors of the Tang Dynasty were surnamed Li, and Li became the national surname. During the Tang Dynasty, Tang Taizong Li Shimin and Tang Xuanzong Li Longji were both very accomplished emperors. After the efforts of several emperors of the Tang Dynasty, the Tang Dynasty was finally pushed to the peak and became a powerful and rich empire, with a hundred rivers, prosperity and strength, and was envied by the world. Because the people's customs were open during the Tang Dynasty, even the women of the Tang Dynasty were very capable. Therefore, when the descendants of the Li clan of the Tang Dynasty inherited the throne from generation to generation, Wu Zetian turned out to be the emperor who replaced the emperor surnamed Li himself, but her daughter Princess Taiping and her granddaughter Princess Anle, surnamed Li, were not fuel-saving lamps. Because their Great Tang Dynasty hall has not suffered less turmoil.
Because the surname Li was a national surname in the Tang Dynasty, it was able to grow rapidly, and a large number of talents surnamed Li were also produced by the people, such as the famous poet Li Bai, the poet Ghost Li He, and Li Shangyin in the middle and late Tang Dynasty. They were the brightest stars of their time, and their poems have been passed down through the ages and praised by countless people.
Because of the strength of the Tang Dynasty, many surrounding countries sent students to study in the Tang Dynasty, and the most pious one should be Japan. A large number of Japanese students studied in the Tang Dynasty and then returned to Japan to carry out reforms modeled on various aspects of the Tang Dynasty, and it is said that even the capital of Japan at that time was modeled after China's Chang'an City. Therefore, today's ancient style architecture and traditional costumes and kimonos in Japan are very similar to the architecture and clothing of the Tang Dynasty.
In addition, because of the far-reaching influence of the Tang Dynasty, Chinese later went overseas to settle down, and the place where they concentrated in a foreign country was called Chinatown. There are Chinatowns in Japan, Thailand, Malaysia and other places. Most of the people living in Chinatown are Chinese, where you can hear people speaking Chinese, writing Chinese characters, eating Chinese food, and living traditional Chinese festivals. The larger Chinatown abroad is like a Chinese town, and the Chinese with Chinese style and yellow skin and dark eyes can be seen. Only overseas Chinese can find their sense of belonging in Chinatown.
The surname Lee has not only existed as a national surname in China, but also in North Korea. Everyone should not be familiar with the Lee Joseon Dynasty on the Korean Peninsula. It was also the last feudal dynasty on the Korean Peninsula. From the late 14th century to the beginning of the 20th century, the dynasty existed for more than 500 years, and after more than 20 monarchs, it left a strong mark on the history of the Korean Peninsula.
After the establishment of the Ming Dynasty, Lee's Joseon dynasty has always regarded the Ming Dynasty as its suzerainty, and when dealing with China, it has also tried to learn the advanced culture of the Ming Dynasty. I still remember that a few years ago, when the costume drama "The Legend of the Female Doctor Mingfei" was popular, many people were complaining about how the costumes of the characters in the play were so similar to the traditional costumes of South Korea. In fact, this really can't blame the props personnel of this drama, not our costumes like people's homes, but people's costumes like us.
During the Joseon Dynasty, Lee fully imitated the crown of the Ming Dynasty and created his own traditional costumes. Therefore, even the traditional costumes of Korea today are very similar to the costumes of the Ming Dynasty. In South Korea today, there are probably more than 6 million people with the surname Li, plus China's huge population of Li surnames and overseas Chinese surnamed Li, and the Surname Li has become the world's largest surname.