The writing of ancient Chinese history to "deify" the monarch is simply an insult to one's intelligence. In the form of the Book of Han. For example, in the GaoDi Ji, there are three different theories about Liu Bang's origins alone, namely: Liu Taigong was said to be wearing a green hat by the divine dragon, the son of the Red Emperor, and the descendants of Emperor Shangguyao.
At the beginning of the "Gao Di Ji", it is said that "the mother and the wife taste the misfortune of Osawa, and the dream meets the gods." It was time for thunder and lightning to be obscure, and when the father and grandfather looked up, they saw the dragon on top. Already there is a wife, so that the high ancestors. "What do you mean?" Liu Bang's confusion once closed his eyes and took a nap on the pond embankment, when the sky was dark and lightning flashed and thundered. According to common sense, such weather is usually accompanied by heavy rain, so Liu Bang's father, Liu Taigong, was afraid that his wife would not be able to return home in the rain, so he went out to pick up his wife. When Liu Taigong reached the edge of the pond, he saw a dragon wrapped around Liu Mi (that is, Liu Bang's mother). Soon after, Liu Mi became pregnant and gave birth to Liu Bang.
The author of the Book of Han was afraid that others would not see that he was expressing that "Liu Bang was the son of a dragon", so he added later that "Gao Zu is a man, Long Zhuan and Long Yan", Liu Bang has a high nose bridge and looks like a dragon. According to this statement, Liu Bang's origin is quite sacred, belonging to the mixed blood of the human and dragon tribes, but Liu Taigong can be sad. Not only was Liu Bang not his own son, but what was even more infuriating was that he actually saw that the divine dragon had given himself a green hat and was helpless. If Liu Bang saw this record, he didn't know whether to praise Bangu or kill Bangu ten times?
Or in the "Records of the High Emperor", soon after there was a second record of Liu Bang's life, that is, the so-called "Son of the Red Emperor beheading the white snake", I believe everyone is very familiar with it, the original record is as follows:
"Gao Zu was drunk, and in the middle of the night path, he ordered one person to go forward. The former also reported: "There was a big snake in the front, and I am willing to pay it back." Gao Zu was drunk, and said: "Strong man, what fear!" "Before that, draw your sword and cut the serpent." The snake split into two, and the road opened. Miles in the line, drunk and sleepy. When the descendants came to the snake's house, there was an old woman who cried at night. The woman was asked why she was crying, and the woman said, "Man kills my son." The man said, "What is a concubine who sees and kills?" The concubine said, "My son, the White Emperor, turned into a snake, and now the Red Emperor beheaded him, so he wept." "Man is dishonest in his concubine, and he desires to suffer, and the concubine is blind."
After Liu Bang became the commander of Surabaya Pavilion, he was ordered to escort the messenger to the service site, and as a result, like Chen Sheng, the date was delayed, so Liu Bang simply took these people into the Mangzhong Mountain and became a "rebel" of the Great Qin Empire. One day, Liu Bang was drunk and preparing to return to the station, and he came down from the road to report that there was a huge white snake in front of him, and no one dared to cross it. As the saying goes, wine is strong and courageous, Liu Bang listened to it, and suddenly issued a bold sentence: The big husband walks in the way, when he is invincible, what is there to fear of a snake? Before he could finish speaking, he drew his sword and cut the white snake into two pieces and continued to walk. Didn't go far, the wine went up and he fell to the ground drunk.
The men took the opportunity to see the severed white snake, but when they arrived at the place, they saw an old woman crying, so they asked why. The old woman sobbed, "My son was killed. My son was the son of the White Emperor, who transformed into a white snake to block here, and was killed by the son of the Red Emperor. "After saying that, the person immediately disappeared.
According to this statement, Liu Bang was also the "son of the Red Emperor". Regardless of who this Red Emperor is, in short, he is a god. So the problem is, since Liu Bang has been portrayed as a hybrid of the human race and the dragon tribe at the beginning, and then said that he is the son of a great immortal, it is inevitable to contradict himself. But despite this, it is not impossible to explain, if the dragon of Green Liu Taigong before was the Red Emperor, then everything makes sense. But is there a saying in ancient Chinese mythology that "the Red Emperor is a dragon"? Not really.
Only one-third of the length of this era, Liu Bang's origin has been said to have two different accounts. Even if there is no justification between the two claims, Ban Gu seems to feel that this is not enough to shape Liu Bang's "divinity". Therefore, at the end of the "Records of the High Emperor", Ban Gu put forward a new view of Liu Bang's bloodline:
"The Han Emperor is from the Tang Emperor. Descended to Zhou, in Qin as Liu. Involved in Wei and the east, he became the Duke of Feng. ”
In this way, Liu Bang became a descendant of the ancient emperor Tang Yao.
Let's comb through it, in Ban Gu's records, Liu Bang was both a mixed-race man and a dragon, the son of the Red Emperor, and a descendant of Tang Yao. As analyzed before, the first two statements can be said to some extent, if and only when the Red Emperor is a dragon. But after adding a third theory, Bangu's system of explanation immediately collapsed.
The first two theories are based on the same premise, that is, Liu Bang is a "hybrid" of Liu Mi and non-human creatures, and is not related to Liu Taigong. The third theory directly traced the origin of Liu Bang's lineage, and finally recognized Emperor Yao, one of the implicit logics is from Emperor Yao to Liu Bang, and the bloodline has not been broken for thousands of years. So the problem is, you Ban Gu said on the one hand that Liu Bang was not a relative of Liu Taigong, so naturally it had nothing to do with the ancestors of the Liu family, but on the other hand, he said that Liu Bang's direct ancestor was Tang Yao, and his body flowed with the noble blood of the ancient emperors. Combined, Liu Bang was neither The son of Liu Taigong nor Liu Taigong, which was simply ridiculous.
As for Liu Bang's true identity, he was probably only a descendant of an ordinary peasant, without any prominence. Ban Gu did not know that if Liu Bang's life was recorded according to the facts, and the "Chronicle of the High Emperor" was written as a grassroots history of struggle, it would be easier to arouse the reader's reverence for Liu Bang.
Such historical writing was formed under the influence of the "divine view of history", and its distinctive feature was the deification of the character to be recorded, the establishment of a connection between him and the supernatural higher creatures, with the aim of highlighting his differences from ordinary people, thus providing legitimacy for his privileged position. But the cost of this way of writing is also very heavy. Under the ancient Chinese system of family world, the legitimacy of the imperial family lineage was based on blood. Under the "divine view of history", the blood relationship between the previous monarchs and the future monarchs was forcibly severed, because each monarch was a product of the creation of the mother and God, so that the legitimacy of the bloodline was shaken; at the same time, the "dignity" of the previous monarchs was sacrificed.
This is the ridiculousness of the official revision of history in ancient times, everything in the service of consolidating the monarchy's rule. No wonder Liang Qichao once sighed: "Twenty-four Shi Fei Shi Ye, twenty-four surnames Family Tree!" ”
