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Text | History
Edit | History
Preface
Although the torture of the "sheep ceremony" is cruel, it also allows us to see the truest humanity under the ruthless face of war.
Whether it is the emperor who is high, or the important ministers of the pillars of the court and the opposition, or even the delicate concubine of the palace,
They all had to survive in humiliation under the obscenity of foreign rulers.
And those devastated women of the Northern Song Dynasty, under the shackles of feudal etiquette, could only defend their last dignity by martyrdom.
Let us look through the fog of history and relive those tragic years,
Go listen to the sorrow of the next dynasty of the golden man and iron horse, and feel the joys and sorrows of countless women in the net of etiquette!
The golden soldiers pressed the border, and the tragic scene of Bianjing City was broken
In the last years of the Northern Song Dynasty, politics was corrupt and armaments were abolished.
At the same time, the northern nomadic Jurchens rose to prominence and established the Jin dynasty in 1115.
The iron hooves of the Jin people who went south soon pointed the finger at the poor and weak Northern Song Dynasty.
The monarch and the ministers were all taken prisoner, and once they were reduced to prisoners
In 1126, Wan Yansheng led a large army to invade Bianjing (now Kaifeng), the capital of the Northern Song Dynasty.
In the first month of 1127, the Jin army approached the city, and Bianjing was in danger.
Song Huizong and Song Qinzong, the two mediocre monarchs, saw that the general trend was gone, so they had to lead hundreds of civil and military officials out of the city to surrender.
The second emperor, who was accustomed to food and drink, also had to kneel down to those "barbarians" who were disdainful in the past.
As everyone knows, this is just the beginning of their tragic life.
The Jin people arrogantly took the second emperor and more than 3,000 clans into custody and prepared to escort them north.
At that time, the cold wind in the north was biting, and the nobles of the Song family were wearing thin silk and satin, how could they resist it?
Along the way, hunger, cold, and hardship became the norm for the monarchs and ministers.
The Jin soldiers sometimes deliberately made things difficult and forced them to move forward barefoot.
On the way, many people died, and the people suffered heavy losses. The young and beautiful palace maids and concubines were even more molested and humiliated by Jin Bing.
Many people would rather die than give in, and commit suicide. Some of those who survived could not escape the doom of dying in a foreign country in the end.
By the time the team arrived at the capital of the Jin Kingdom, the Northern Song Dynasty clan had less than 1,500 people.
The former Heavenly Empire was reduced to a prisoner in this way.
The ranks of the ruling class were completely lost in this battle.
This not only heralded the fall of a dynasty, but also showed the cruelty of war.
However, greater humiliation was yet to come.
A cultural clash of humiliation and faith trampling
The scheming Jin people will never easily let go of the opportunity to humiliate the monarchs and ministers of the Northern Song Dynasty.
In the early morning of the second day after arriving in the capital, these prisoners were rudely driven to the square of the Jin Guozu Temple.
A savage and cruel sacrifice awaited them.
Etiquette and religion were trampled, and Chinese civilization was on the verge of a desperate situation
I saw that on the altar of the Kingdom of Jin, there were pieces of white cloth hanging high,
The words "Capture the Second Emperor of the Song Dynasty", "Capture the Second Empress of the Song Dynasty", "Capture the Mother and Wife of the Traitor Zhao Gou", "Capture the Dependents of the Two Palaces of the Song Dynasty" and so on.
The minister of the Jin Dynasty read out a "decree", ordering Song Huizong, Song Qinzong and the ministers to take off their fancy clothes.
He changed into Jurchen clothes, and tied a white scarf with "repentance" written on his head.
What happened next trampled the dignity of the Northern Song Dynasty people into the dust.
I saw that Jin Bing forced everyone to take off their shirts, expose their upper bodies, and then put on sheepskins.
For men, it is tolerable; But for the female dependents, this is tantamount to public humiliation.
They cried and clutched their chests in shame, but the savage golden soldiers could not bear to say anything, and they were whipped with leather whips to force them to submit.
Then the Jin soldiers drove the sheep to the crowd and asked them to personally lead the sheep into the temple for a worship ceremony.
For a while, the mourning and joy were everywhere, which was creepy.
This is the whole process of the "sheep ceremony".
It has its roots in the nomadic tradition of the Jurchens and is a perverted humiliation of the captives by the conquerors of the Jin Kingdom.
In their eyes, the defeated are no different from livestock, and leading sheep to worship ancestors is just a demonstration of their own martial arts.
However, this kind of rude ritual has a strong conflict with the etiquette of the Central Plains.
Etiquette collapsed, and the ruins were devastated
According to Confucian etiquette, there is a difference between monarchs and ministers, and men and women are guarded.
The dignity of the emperor is even more inviolable. However, at the sheep ceremony, all this was completely turned upside down.
All kinds of taboos adhered to by the Chinese Rites and Religions were broken by foreign conquerors.
This massacre of civilization is tantamount to a torture of the Central Plains culture.
The Northern Song Dynasty, although there is no lack of erosion of indulgence and pleasure, after all, it still continues the bloodline of Chinese etiquette.
Now that the emperor star has fallen, the rites are broken, and the eyes are full of devastation.
The originally high-spirited civil and military generals were reduced to prisoners in an instant, and they were allowed to be mermaids.
The once graceful and luxurious concubine is now unclothed, and life is worse than death.
The sheepskin on their bodies has become the shroud of Chinese civilization.
What remains for future generations is nothing more than the ruins of civilization.
However, for the people of the Northern Song Dynasty, greater suffering was yet to come.
After this battle, their bodies and minds were broken.
And the insults that intensified followed them like shadows.
What kind of hell will it be under the rule of the Jin people in the future?
Physically and mentally damaged, sinking into a hellish life of humiliation
After the torture of the sheep ceremony, the spiritual defense line of the Northern Song Dynasty monarchs and ministers has completely collapsed.
Since then, the Jin people have intensified their abuse of these captives.
The great Confucian giant, who was once a great minister, has now become a slave of the Jin people and is bullied all day long;
In the past, the three thousand pink beauties have now degenerated into playthings for their desires and are wantonly ravaged.
From Emperor to Prisoner, the last moments of the Sunset Dynasty
As for the second emperor of Huiqin, the Jin people first deposed his throne.
He was also renamed "Dude Gong" and "Heavy Dusk", and imprisoned in a simple courtyard.
Song Huizong was old, already frail and sickly, and now he was always facing the threat of death, and died of depression within a few years.
Before he died, he was almost insane, sometimes fainting, sometimes mad and talking nonsense.
This once high emperor ended up in such a bleak end, it was simply unbearable.
Song Qinzong, who is slightly younger, has a fate that is not much better.
Under the strict surveillance of the Jin people, he was like a trapped beast in a cage, with no freedom at all.
How could those alien masters give him the slightest respect, and the humiliation of changing methods would only make him miserable.
According to historical records, Song Qinzong wanted to commit suicide several times, but was discovered by the Jin people in time.
This deceased monarch finally survived until 1161 and died in a foreign land.
If it weren't for the Jin people, he would have already found a short-term view.
From the ninety-five supreme under one person and above ten thousand, he has become a prisoner and a caged beast,
Song Huizong and Song Qinzong can be called the saddest kings in history.
The wheels of history have been ruthlessly run over, and these two dumb emperors are destined to pay a heavy price for their mistakes.
However, they are, after all, symbols of Chinese civilization.
Their tragic fate also heralded the end of the entire Northern Song Dynasty civilization.
Women who are worse than death, who pities the tragic fate
The court beauties of the Northern Song Dynasty also could not escape their fate.
The harem concubines and palace maids have all become playthings under the power of the golden people.
Those noble ladies who were once pampered and proud can now only be humiliated at the will of foreign conquerors.
According to historical records, the empress of Song Huizong was raped at the sheep ceremony, and she hanged herself that night after being humiliated.
Her tragic experience is just a microcosm of the Song family's daughters.
Life is better than death, but death cannot be sought - in that era under the constraints of etiquette,
Although these women have lost all hopes, they are also trapped in the concept of chastity.
Suicide has become the only way for them to defend their dignity for the rest of their filthy lives.
But some people can't even keep that dignity.
More palace maids can only survive under the inhuman devastation, until they have a mental breakdown, and then die.
The fall of a dynasty is ultimately manifested in the suffering of countless individuals.
The children of the Northern Song Dynasty had already suffered from the scourge of war and the struggle of the ruling class, and now they had to suffer the humiliation of the slaves of the country.
And those weak women, who were originally beauties waiting for words, were dragged into the torrent of the rise and fall of the dynasty.
They are powerless to control their own fate, and can only be at the mercy of others and sink in the quagmire of ugly reality.
Reflections on the Tilting of Civilization: The shackles of etiquette and religion are trampled on by foreign races
The cruelty of the golden man holding the sheep makes us wonder: what made this human tragedy happen?
Is it just the result of a war between two peoples?
No, at the simple political and military level, this is actually the result of a fierce collision between the two cultures.
From meat to sheep to unyielding martyrdom, the inheritance and collision of hidden cultures
As a nomadic people, the Jin people are culturally different from the farming Central Plains.
They advocate simple and rough customs, and are more accustomed to solving problems by force.
Therefore, in war, they tend to treat prisoners and booty in the most brutal way.
The "sheep ceremony" is nothing but a continuation of the Jurchen tradition.
The deprivation of the dignity of captives as animals is a manifestation of nomadic culture.
However, this kind of primitive custom should not have appeared in the relatively civilized Central Plains.
During the Spring and Autumn Period, there was indeed a surrender etiquette of "meat and sheep".
But after hundreds of years of Confucian ethics, this humiliating practice has long been outdated.
Unexpectedly, it reappeared in a more crude form under the rule of the Jin, and became a tool for the conquerors to pour out foreign cultures.
As everyone knows, this move not only stimulated the Han people's sense of resistance, but also deepened the national hatred.
From another point of view, the collective martyrdom of women in the Northern Song Dynasty is not the imprint of Confucian civilization?
The feudal etiquette of the Three Principles and Five Constants has always regarded women as subordinate to male power.
The concept of chastity "from the beginning to the end" is a shackle that imprisons women for a lifetime.
The palace maids who couldn't help themselves would rather die than give in, and used their own blood to bury the dynasty,
It is nothing more than a distorted way to fulfill the mission given by Confucian culture.
The absurd tragedy has become a model of feudal morality.
After all, civilization is needed to heal the wounds
It can be said that the "sheep ceremony" is not only a contradiction between the two sides of the war and the ruling class.
It also reflects the conflict between agrarian civilization and nomadic civilization.
The arrogance of the Jin people and the blasphemy of Chinese etiquette are all stimulating the nerves of civilization.
The remnants of the Northern Song Dynasty, who had lost their dignity and spiritual home, expressed their struggle in different ways:
Most of the men are treacherous, forbearing, and waiting for an opportunity to move;
The women were martyred, defended with their deaths, and yet, whether they were unyielding in struggle or in grief and indignation,
It is difficult to hide the trauma of the times.
The fall of the Northern Song Dynasty certainly had its own corrupt factors, but the deeper tragic roots,
I am afraid that we will have to find it from the rigidity of the long-term accumulation of agricultural civilization.
The land of the Central Plains, ravaged by the sheep ceremony, is not only devastated, but also devastated countless lives.
Although the Southern Song Dynasty survived in the future, it could not hide the dilemma of dying.
It wasn't until the alien iron cavalry went south again that this once glorious dynasty finally passed away with the wind.
However, the process of civilization never stops.
The fall of the Song Dynasty may herald the end of an era.
But those essences hidden in Chinese culture will eventually bloom with new brilliance.
After this battle, both the remnants of the Northern Song Dynasty and the people with lofty ideals in the Southern Song Dynasty all ignited the hope of reviving China.
Just struggling in the quagmire of reality, they still need more time to reflect and awaken.
epilogue
The humiliating history of the fall of the Northern Song Dynasty is not difficult to find: any kind of civilization that pours out against dissidents will eventually lead to fire;
Any kind of concept that deviates from human nature will eventually be spurned.
The Jin people exchanged barbaric conquests for short-lived victories, but they were destined to be eliminated by history;
The monarchs and ministers of the Song Dynasty were born in troubled times, but they had to pay for feudal etiquette.
Friend, have you ever been struck by a tragic moment in history?
Do you feel the direction of civilization development from this? Feel free to leave your thoughts in the comment section!