Chinese people call themselves descendants of Yan Huang.
"Yan" and "Huang" refer to the two ancestors of ancient times, Emperor Yan and Emperor Huangdi, respectively.
But in fact, the sons and daughters of China have three ancestors.
This third place is Chiyou.
It is recorded in the "Classic of Mountains and Seas: The Great Wilderness of the North" that the Yellow Emperor and Chiyou experienced a great battle in Zhuolu, and finally Chiyou was defeated and killed.
Some people worship Chiyou as the god of war, while others call him a curse.
What exactly is Chiyou?
Why did there be such a big battle between the Yellow Emperor and Chiyou?
After defeating Chiyou, why did the Yellow Emperor exterminate his people?
Chiyou. Many people may be a little unfamiliar with this name.
It first appeared in the Classic of Mountains and Seas.
So is Chiyou a mythical character?
Maybe he wasn't real?
After all, Chiyou and the Yellow Emperor in "The Classic of Mountains and Seas" both appear as images of "gods", who can call the wind and rain and drive the divine beasts.
However, there are a large number of records of Chiyou in many classics.
At this time, the image of Chiyou and the Yellow Emperor returned to the level of "human king".
After checking the classics, it is easy to find that in the records of the pre-Qin period, the mythological color of the Chiyou story is very strong.
This is related to the early oral transmission of myths, in which the ancestors unconsciously used their own imagination to reprocess the myths.
But the story of Chiyou is real, and the narrative of the ancestors is not completely fabricated out of thin air.
"Chi You Chaos", "Chi You Rule", "Yellow Emperor Wars Chi You" ......
These are the real things that our ancestors experienced.
Therefore, the existing records of various classics are also inherited and developed on this basis, and processed in combination with folk oral tradition.
But it is also because of this that the records of Chiyou stories in the classics are different in details.
The first is the description of Chiyou's appearance.
It is recorded in the "Dragon Fish River Map" that before the regency of the Yellow Emperor, there were 81 Chiyou brothers, and the beast body and human language, copper head and iron forehead, sand and stone ......
Chiyou here is not the image of a "human" at all, but a beast.
The record in "Returning to Tibet: Enlightenment" is: Chiyou comes from amniotic fluid, and the eight humerus and eight toes are sparse.
In other words, Chiyou has eight arms and eight legs.
The one in "The Narrative of Differences" is different again, it has become "people come from the hooves of the ox, with four eyes and six hands", "Qin and Han Dynasty say that Chi You's family, the ears and temples are like swords and halberds, and the head has horns".
In addition, there are some fragmented descriptions, which will not be repeated here.
But it can be roughly seen that Chiyou's appearance is very different from that of humans, and it is a "non-human" image.
This is related to the image symbol of Chiyou.
In a large number of records, Chiyou and the Yellow Emperor are both assigned to the two ends of black and white, good and evil.
This is because the essence of the Chiyou myth is a myth of struggle.
The Yellow Emperor is a positive antagonistic character, while Chi You is a negative ** character.
Therefore, it is not surprising that the folk regard Chiyou as a demon, and many demonic labels are added to his description.
In fact, the name Chiyou refers to a tribe that was opposed to the Yellow Emperor.
Guangya Commentary said: "Chi, chaos also." ”
Said the text: "Worms, insects also." ”
Therefore, it is likely that Chiyou's real name is not called Chiyou, which may just be a scornful name that was reformulated after the Chiyou tribe began to rebel.
And the tribe to which Chiyou belonged should have been called, Jiuli.
The battle between the Yellow Emperor and Chiyou was terrifying.
Legend has it that Chi You at that time was a soldier master and a god of war, and his methods were tyrannical and he kept conquering the surrounding small tribes.
"Chi You is the most violent, Mo Neng. ”
This is the record of Chiyou in the "Five Emperors Benji".
And the battle of Zhuolu was a protracted and dark ancient war.
At that time, Chiyou had trampled on many tribes by force, and everywhere he went, there was a cry.
The Yellow Emperor and Chiyou are also tribal leaders, and the flames of war will sooner or later burn to the Yellow Emperor's clansmen.
The Yellow Emperor held high the banner of justice and benevolence and began the war with Chiyou.
In fact, it is difficult to judge the military strength of the two sides.
At the beginning, the Yellow Emperor summoned Ying Long, hoping to use the rain to confuse Chi You and obtain the fighter.
But I didn't expect Chiyou to summon the wind master and Yubo to rain a storm.
The violent rain that covered the sky and the sun not only made it difficult for the Yellow Emperor's subordinates to move an inch, but also caused tribes near and far to suffer.
The Yellow Emperor's army could hardly confront Chiyou under such a natural disaster.
Therefore, the Yellow Emperor also asked for the Nulu, a god who can bring drought, so that the wind and rain were stopped.
So Chi You lost cover and was killed by Ying Long.
However, there are also records that the Yellow Emperor personally killed Chi You.
Both of these are the evolution of myths, but the end of Chi You, which ultimately points to it, is very tragic.
When Chi You died, his body was in a different place, and even his body was divided and buried in different places.
In this myth, the Yellow Emperor was able to make good use of the rain, and although Chiyou also wanted to use the rain, he invited disaster.
This also seems to reflect a tendency to think that Chiyou represents a natural disaster that is unregulated and difficult for human beings to resist.
For primitive tribes that depend on natural resources for survival and development, natural disasters are the greatest threat.
The story of the Yellow Emperor's battle against Chiyou also seems to reflect the fighting spirit of the ancient ancestors.
Even under natural disasters, he still insisted on resisting and was tenacious and unyielding.
After Chi You's death, the Yellow Emperor did not forget him, and the Yellow Emperor recognized Chi You's ability in war and invention and creativity, and painted Chi You's image on the battle flag.
It is recorded in the "Dragon Fish River Map" that after the death of Chiyou, there was a war in the world, and the Yellow Emperor would use the battle flag of Chiyou to deter the world.
It's a pity that history has always been that the winner is king, and the loser is the villain.
Chiyou was finally gradually forgotten and demonized in the long river of history.
The people of the Chiyou tribe, that is, the Miao people in later generations, still retain many of the sacrificial rituals of the ancient period.
Many of the humanities and customs of the Miao people are deeply related to the Chi You recorded in the pre-Qin period.
According to legend, Chiyou has eighty-one brothers, but this is not the case.
The real situation is that Chiyou has eight brothers of the same mother, and there are seventy-two brothers of the same clan, so that there are a total of eighty-one people, which also represents the eighty-one sub-clans of the Jiuli tribe.
In primitive society, people's scientific and technological level was limited, and people's survival faced too many risks.
As a result, a tribe tends to take root in an area and occupy all of its natural resources.
However, resources are finite, so competition is inevitable.
The overall development trend of primitive society is integration and sharing, and only the formation of alliances between tribes can maximize resources.
And the Yellow Emperor's battle against Chiyou can also be understood as the first national integration in prehistory.
Wars often end in convergence as well.
Then the Yellow Emperor's extermination of the Chiyou tribe has become very understandable.
This is the inevitable development from the perspective of ethnic integration, and it is the only way for tribal integration.
The Yellow Emperor must master all the forces represented by Chi You in order to realize the growth of his tribe and truly achieve "pacification".
At the same time, the Chiyou tribe at that time was actually not weaker than other tribes, and even had a strong level of scientific and technological development and the manufacture of weapons.
Even the Yellow Emperor recognized this, and after Chi You's death, he was named the "King of Soldiers".
But Chiyou's turmoil is not something that can be completely calmed down by killing Chiyou.
As mentioned earlier, the Jiuli tribe where Chi You is located is a very large clan, with eighty-one subordinate branches alone.
With such a large clan system, it is impossible to completely submit to it because of the death of the leader.
The Yellow Emperor's "extermination" of the Chiyou tribe is reflected in the fact that he used many methods to incorporate the remaining forces and resources of Chiyou.
In this process, Chiyou Banner also played a great role.
The Yellow Emperor used the Chiyou Banner as a deterrent, which frightened many of Chiyou's brother tribes.
However, there are still many tribes in Jiuli who do not recognize the Yellow Emperor and will continue to make trouble.
The Yellow Emperor must continue to fight them in order to completely eliminate or absorb all of Chiyou's forces.
In the final analysis, the war between the Yellow Emperor and Chiyou has gone through a long time, and this is also a war in which the Yellow Emperor annexed the Chiyou tribe.
The Chiyou tribe was wiped out, so that only a small number of the descendants of the Chiyou tribe remained, which was also something that had to be done in order to compete for resources at that time.
But in fact, many remnants of the Chiyou tribe were not actually killed by the Yellow Emperor, but joined the Yellow Emperor's tribe.
Otherwise, how could the people of Chiyou still be active today?
In pre-Qin mythology, the Yellow Emperor has always appeared as a benevolent image, while Chiyou is a symbol of tyranny and immorality.
Therefore, many folk legends will specially arrange the plot of the Yellow Emperor to kill Chiyou, which is used to reflect the distinction between good and evil, and also reflects the tall image of the Yellow Emperor.
In other words, the Yellow Emperor's extermination of Chiyou is a manifestation of royal power.
In history, there have been many stigmatization writings in the records of Chiyou for a long time, so the extermination is not a real extermination, but just a stigmatized reference.
Throughout the long history and inheritance and development of Chinese culture, the Yanhuang period is the undisputed source of Chinese civilization.
The myths and legends of this period, as well as real people and real events, have had a profound impact on the Chinese and Han culture in later generations.
The primitive society was tribal in nature, and the various tribes in the vast land constantly confronted and merged, and finally formed a unified culture.
And the Battle of Huangqi is obviously the largest national integration of primitive societies.
After the research and analysis of ancient books and classics, most of the modern studies believe that the myth of the battle of Huangqi is actually very related to sacrifice.
What Chiyou symbolizes is an abnormal celestial phase and a disaster.
The Yellow Emperor represents the image of driving away calamities for the people.
And the female slug who played a decisive role in the battle of the Yellow Worm is the embodiment of drought in mythology.
After helping the Yellow Emperor quell the Chiyou Rebellion, Nulu did not leave, but stayed in the world for a long time.
This led to a severe drought, which was also devastating for the people of the primitive societies who relied on agriculture.
Therefore, the Yellow Emperor held a grand sacrificial ceremony to drive the female hermitage to the north, and the arid land was restored to life.
The record of this story in the "Classic of Mountains and Seas" is somewhat detailed, and the ancestors in order to get rid of the drought, the sacrificial ballad composed by the ancestors includes "God travels north!" ".
If there is a flood, the flood will be remediated; In the event of drought, it is necessary to drive out drought.
This is the spirit of resistance that has been handed down since ancient times, and it is also the unique idea of "man conquers heaven" embodied in very traditional Chinese mythology.
This is the wisdom generated by the ancient ancestors in the process of communicating with nature, understanding nature, and using nature.
Prehistoric civilization was formed in this kind of continuous struggle, continuous creation, and continuous progress.
Embodied in the Battle of Huangqi, there is also the idea of "Heavenly Dao" in Chinese culture.
The ancients began to understand the "way of heaven" very early.
The understanding of the "way of heaven" made the ancestors fully realize the importance of conforming to nature.
The reverence for nature and the worship of "gods" are all important parts of Chinese culture.
On this basis, people can really come into contact with the laws of the operation of all things, and can better exert their own initiative to deal with everything.
The gods of the battle of Huangqi are Nulu, Fengbo, Yushi, and Yinglong, all of whom are gods who have mastered the power of nature, which also represents that the ancestors have a preliminary understanding of the wind, rain, and drought in the natural world.
This is also because Chinese culture was nurtured in the Yellow River Valley, and these natural forces are closely related to agricultural civilization.
And the reason for the battle of Huang Chi recorded in the "Five Emperors Benji" is that "Chi is especially chaotic, and there is no need for the emperor's order".
At that time, the natural environment was relatively stable, and the constant chaos became a factor that destroyed the people's happy life and needed to be eliminated.
So, the Yellow Emperor appeased the people, taught the use of agricultural tools and weapons, and finally sent troops to conscript, and finally killed Chiyou in Zhuolu.
This means that the leaders of the primitive tribes must also conform to the way of heaven.
The leader needs to shoulder the responsibility given by the "heavens", lead the people, and save the people from fire and water.
The address where Chi You died is recorded in the Classic of Mountains and Seas as the wilderness of Jizhou, which is also very heavenly.
This is the place where Nuwa "kills the black dragon", and the Yellow Emperor kills Chiyou who is as chaotic as the black dragon here, which coincides with the creation myth.
Chiyou is often depicted in ancient mythology as the opposite of good, but Chiyou is not a single flat demon.
As the leader of a tribe, he also made a lot of contributions to the survival and development of the ancestors.
The cultural value of the Battle of the Yellow Worm is very deep, and it is not just a confrontation between good and evil.
In this myth, people's spirit of resistance, their desire to develop in harmony with nature, and the wisdom of nature are all treasures that have been inherited by the Chinese nation to this day.
1] Hao Jingyi, Sang Ningxia. **The genetic genealogy of Chinese culture shown in the historical narrative - the Yellow Emperor in the classics [J].Journal of Shanxi Radio and Television University,2021,26(03):46-53.
2] Huang Junjun. The prototype and rheology of the Chiyou myth in the pre-Qin and Han dynasties[D].Shandong University, 2022