Recently, I read the "Chronicle of the States of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty", and the last chapter, that is, chapter 108, is called "The Six Kingdoms Mixed One Public Opinion Map, the First Emperor Established Counties and Counties". Read this to discover a point of knowledge.
The text mentions that the Qin general Wang Qi attacked the Chu state, and after the great defeat of Xiang Yan, the army came to Xishan and encountered a strange thing.
The original text is recorded as follows:
So he led a large army to the south, and as for Xishan, the sergeant buried the pot to make rice, dug the ground to get an ancient stele, and there were twelve characters engraved on it:
There are tin soldiers, the world is in contention; Wuxi Ning, the world is clear.
Wang Qi summoned the natives to ask, saying: "This mountain is the eastern peak of Huishan Mountain, and since king Zhou Ping moved east to Luo, this mountain has produced lead tin, because of its name Xishan." For forty years, access has been inexhaustible. Production has been decreasing in recent days. It is also unknown who made this monument. Wang Qi sighed: "This monument has been exposed, and the world has gradually become quiet from now on!" Didn't the ancients first look at its fixed number, so they buried the stele to show it later? In the future, the name of this place will be Wuxi. "The name of today's Wuxi County actually began here.
Here we talk about a place name, that is, Wuxi. So is the origin of Wuxi place names really like this?
Looking at the relevant content, there is such a description, mentioning that Wuxi is related to the Chunshen Jun Huang Xie of the Chu State. According to relevant historical records, the place name of Wuxi first came from the Chu State Chun Shenjun Huang Xie said that "li Wuxi Pond, rule Wuxi Lake".
In the fifth year of Han Gaozu, that is, in 202 BC, the county began to be established, and the name of the county was taken as the name of the lake, that is, Wuxi County.
In this way, although Wuxi County was first proposed by Huang Xie, it was not he who finally established the county. Compared with Han Gaozu's ancestor Liu Bang, Wang Qi named Wuxi significantly earlier. But this is only the record in the "Chronicle of the States of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty", as a classical novel by Feng Menglong, although most of it follows the historical practice, but after all, there is an artistic processing component in it, and what is said cannot be fully believed.
There is also a saying that the clearest record that can be seen now comes from the "Huishan Temple Record" of The Tang Dynasty Tea Saint Lu Yu. According to the "Huishan Temple", the eastern peak of Huishan Mountain, that is, Xishan, was a large-scale production of lead and tin from the Western Zhou to the pre-Qin period, and it was not until the Han Dynasty that it was harvested, so Wuxi County was established here, which belonged to Huiji County.
From this point of view, whether it is named sooner or later, it is related to the mineral "tin". Is this true?
Continue to search for related claims to show that Wuxi does not produce tin here!
According to relevant geology experts, from the analysis of the geological structure, there is almost no possibility of tin ore formation in wuxi. Some scholars have found that even in the 1950s and 1960s, lead and zinc mines could still be found in the Wuxi area. Because lead and tin look very similar, it is likely that the minerals mined by the ancient people in Tin Mountain were lead, rather than tin passed down from generation to generation.
It turns out that Wuxi has nothing to do with "tin", but mistakenly believes that "lead", then Wuxi must be called "lead-free" today?!
Since tin and lead are easily confused, here we briefly popularize the difference between the two:
Tin ——)
it is a low melting point metallic element with a slight blueish white sheen, the element symbol Sn. In the earth's crust, the content of tin is less, the average content is only 0.004%, so tin is a relatively rare and precious metal, mainly used to make alloys.
Tin is not oxidized by air and is mainly present in the form of dioxides (cassiterite) and various sulfides (such as cassiterite). China is rich in tin mines, especially in yunnan old cities, which is the world-famous "tin capital". In addition, Guangxi, Guangdong, Jiangxi and other provinces also produce tin.
In fact, tin is one of the famous "hardware" - gold, silver, copper, iron, tin. Tin has been found and used since ancient times. In some ancient tombs in China, some tin pots, tin candlesticks and other pewters are often excavated. According to research, during the Zhou Dynasty in China, the use of pewter was very common. In ancient tombs in Egypt, daily necessities made of tin were also found.
Usually, people wrap cigarettes and candies in tin foil to prevent moisture. Since tin is afraid of cold, special attention should be paid not to freeze the tin in winter. There are many iron tools commonly used in tin welding, and they cannot be frozen. In 1912, a foreign Antarctic expedition team went to Antarctica to explore, the gasoline barrels used were soldered, in the antarctic ice and snow, the solder turned into powder strands of gray tin, gasoline was leaked.
Lead ——
Chemical elements, whose chemical symbol is Pb, are the non-radioactive elements with the largest atomic weight. The content of lead in the earth's crust is 0.0016%, and the main ore is galena.
Lead is a weak metal with strong softness and ductility, toxic, and heavy metals. The original color of lead is bluish white, and its surface in the air is quickly covered by a layer of dark gray oxides.
Compared with tin, lead is slightly light blue, very soft, and can be traced on its surface with fingernails. A stroke of lead on paper will leave a black path. In ancient times, people used pencils as pencils. The name "pencil" comes from here.
In fact, lead was known to humans as early as 7,000 years ago. Because it is widely distributed, easy to extract, easy to process, both high ductility, very soft, and low melting point. Lead is also one of the earliest metals used by humans, and by 3000 BC, humans had melted lead from ores.
From this point of view, lead and tin are indeed difficult to distinguish, and I am afraid that after comparison, I am afraid that it is still impossible to accurately distinguish between the two.
OK, back to the point.
The above statements make us have the illusion of the origin of place names, but also feel that the culture of place names contains infinite charm, and to delve deeply is to examine the history and culture, which is a university question.
However, no matter what, the name Wuxi has been used for more than two thousand years, and although it has been changed several times in history, it can finally be retained, which is also a respect and reverence for history. Historically, Wuxi even called it "there is tin".
After Wang Mang usurped the Han Dynasty, this famous Wang Mang established a new dynasty, and in the process of carrying out various reforms, many place names in the country were replaced, and his operation seemed particularly low, without a little technicality, and even to the realm of nonsense.
Wang Mang usurped the Han Dynasty, established a new dynasty, and implemented a series of unrealistic new policies.
For example, if he changes it in the way of antonyms, then Wuxi becomes youxi. Many of the contents of Wang Mang's new policy are unrealistic, and they are changed from day to time, just take the place names, change them back and forth, and finally they don't know where they are talking, so they have to put parentheses and the original names on the table to understand where they are said.
About Wang Mang's new things, everyone is interested in looking for them. Regarding the origin of Wuxi place names, I will talk about it here today.