Why did the Tang Dynasty get its name?"Dirty Don"？Why? Just because of the openness of the people?
The classic masterpiece "Dream of the Red Chamber" once praised the two most powerful dynasties in Chinese history, the Qiang Han and the Tang Dynasty, as "dirty Tang and stinky men", a title that originated from the two dynasties, when there were many "desolations" between men and women.
The reason why later generations used "dirty" and "smelly" to describe the Han and Tang dynasties was mainly because the folk thinking and the relationship between men and women in these two dynasties were relatively open. However, the formation of this phenomenon was not simply due to the openness of the relationship between men and women, but was influenced by the "exemplary" role of the Tang Dynasty rulers and the open-mindedness of the time.
So, why was the Tang Dynasty called the "Dirty Tang"? Let's take a look at this question.
In the Tang Dynasty, the atmosphere of openness of thought not only influenced the ruling class, but also led to the atmosphere of the people. To understand how open the folk customs of the Tang Dynasty were, one need only take a look at the great poet Li Bai's "Mo Shang Presents Beauty".
In the poem, a young man riding a horse meets a beautiful woman in a carriage on the way to spring outing. Originally, the beautiful woman wanted to reprimand the young man, but after seeing the young man's appearance, her anger disappeared, and she warmly invited the young man to her house for tea.
Although the poem ends here, this encounter between a man and a woman caused by a traffic accident is enough to show the openness of the folk customs and minds of the Tang Dynasty, which I am afraid that modern people cannot compare.
The Tang Dynasty was open-minded, and the ruling class played an important role, taking Tang Taizong Li Shimin as an example, he had a relatively open mindset in terms of men and women. After the Xuanwumen Incident, he not only killed his brother and younger brother, but also killed all his nephews, and confiscated the female dependents of his brother and brother's family into the court as slaves, the most famous of which was that he married his younger brother-in-law Yang as a concubine, and did not give Yang a name, only called her Princess Chao.
The Yang family gave birth to Li Shimin's youngest son, Cao Wang Li Ming, but even so, she failed to get a name, and even after the death of Zhenguan in the later period, Li Shimin also ordered her to be buried with Li Yuanji.
This calls into question the open-mindedness of the Tang Dynasty and the morality of the ruling class.
After Li Shimin's death, his son Tang Gaozong Li Zhi succeeded to the throne, and surprisingly, he also made up for his father. After Li Zhi succeeded to the throne, he ordered his younger brother Cao Wang Li Ming to be succeeded to Li Yuanji as his heir, so as to pass on the incense.
This move further complicates the relationship, as Li Ming was originally the child of Li Shimin and Li Yuanji's wife, Yang. In contrast, Li Zhi is not inferior to his father in love.
He once fell in love with Wu Zetian, a martial artist who was once in Li Shimin's harem. According to the generation, Wu Zetian is Li Zhi's mother-in-law, but this did not stop Li Zhi's deep love for her.
Regardless of everyone's opposition, he made Wu Zetian the queen. Wu Zetian later relied on Li Zhi's favor to successfully usurp the imperial power of Li Tang after his death, further disturbing the relationship between the nobility.
It is said that she once fell out of favor in Li Shimin's harem, so she had a connection with Li Zhi. After Li Zhi's death, she completely let herself go, surrounded by many handsome guys, including the monk Xue Huaiyi, the imperial doctor Shen Nanxuan, the beautiful man Zhang Changzong and Zhang Yizhi's brothers.
Among them, the brothers Zhang Changzong and Zhang Yizhi are the most well-known. They were originally the face of Princess Taiping, and were later recommended to Wu Zetian by Princess Taiping.
Wu Zetian's satisfaction with Zhang Changzong and the care of his brother Zhang Yizhi opened a new period. And during that period, her daughter Princess Taiping also gradually opened up.
Although she was still a lady during her first marriage, Xue Shao's death changed her attitude. In her second marriage, she chose Wu Youji, despite the fact that he was a loyal and uninteresting man.
In Princess Taiping's opinion, such a choice made her more self-indulgent and socialized with many handsome men and guys. However, these people are very purposeful, and she not only values their appearance and abilities, but also goes specifically to find handsome and important ministers in the court to strengthen her power.
And her granddaughter, Princess Anle Li Bao'er, is also a bold and open person, and even had an affair with Wu Chongxun, the son of Wu Sansi, when she was a teenager, and did not marry him until she became pregnant, and their marriage lasted only six months before giving birth to a child, this story caused many jokes at the time.
Wu Chongxun's cousin Wu Yanxiu often came to the house as a guest, and after a long time, Li Bao'er was attracted by his handsome appearance, and then Wu Chongxun's father and son were killed by the crown prince Li Chongjun, and Li Bao'er, who lost her husband, married Wu Yanxiu.
Li Bao'er's mother, Empress Wei, was very open, and she and Tang Zhongzong were a husband and wife in distress, so Tang Zhongzong trusted her very much, and Empress Wei also began to imitate her mother-in-law Wu Zetian and control the government.
In order to win over the henchmen, Empress Wei had an ambiguous relationship with her in-law Wu Sansi when Tang Zhongzong was still alive. However, Wu Sansi was later killed by Li Chongjun, who was not Empress Wei's biological son, which prevented Empress Wei from taking sole power, so she killed Li Chongjun on the grounds of rebellion.
After killing Li Chongjun, Empress Wei and Princess Anle's mother and daughter controlled the government without scruples, and later even got bored with Tang Zhongzong and joined forces to poison him. Soon after Tang Zhongzong's death, his nephew Tang Xuanzong Li Longji avenged him, killed Empress Wei and Princess Anle together with his aunt Princess Taiping, and proclaimed Tang Xuanzong's father, Tang Ruizong Li Dan, as emperor.
Tang Xuanzong successfully controlled the imperial power by virtue of the abdication of his father Tang Ruizong and the removal of his aunt Princess Taiping. Although he pioneered"Kaiyuan prosperous", but his style of doing things is as good as that of his predecessors.
He fell in love with his daughter-in-law Yang Yuhuan, and despite the fact that she was the wife of his eighteenth son, Shouwang Li Qi, he forcibly made her a nun and let his son marry the daughter of the minister Wei Zhaoxun as his wife, so as to consolidate his position.
After letting his son make arrangements, Tang Xuanzong openly included Yang Yuhuan in the harem and became a concubine. The ruling class in the early and middle Tang Dynasty was absurd and chaotic, but the ruling class in the middle and late Tang Dynasty improved slightly.
However, the absurd atmosphere of the ruling class in the early and middle Tang Dynasty had already laid the foundation for the open folk customs of the entire Tang Dynasty, and at the same time remained"Dirty Don"The legend of the legend.
It is believed that the conservative thinking of the ancient Chinese is due to the increasingly binding force of etiquette and law in later generations, and the modern people's views on the Tang Dynasty are also reflected in the dirty Tang Dynasty in "Dream of Red Mansions".
Some people think that the Li Tang royal family has an open side because of the nomadic blood after sinicization, but this is not the case. In fact, regardless of the origins of the Li and Tang royal families, the Qing Dynasty, as a dynasty founded by the Jurchens of fishermen and herders, was more pure than the Tang Dynasty in terms of nomadic customs.
The Qing Dynasty was also stricter than the Tang Dynasty in observing Confucian etiquette, for example, the princesses of the Qing Dynasty were not allowed to remarry after losing their husbands, and they had to be widowed for their husbands until they died. Therefore, we cannot assume that the ancients were conservative simply because of their behavior during the Tang Dynasty.
Just because of the nomadic origin, it cannot be concluded that the Tang ruling class ignored the rules of etiquette. The Han Dynasty, the pure Han regime, also had its own understanding and practice of etiquette.
The Han Dynasty was even more open than the Tang Dynasty, allowing women to initiate divorce, which can be seen in the idiom that is difficult to harvest. The princesses of the Han Dynasty did not have to be widowed to death like the Qing Dynasty, they could remarry, and even marry three husbands in a row like Princess Pingyang.
In general, neither the Han nor the Tang Dynasty were bound by rituals, and their folk customs were more open-minded.
The feudal shackles of etiquette reached its peak in the Ming and Qing dynasties, and the ideas of etiquette and law originating from the middle of the Northern Song Dynasty and the Southern Song Dynasty did not mature during the Song Dynasty. In the early and middle Song Dynasty, the people were open-minded, for example, Zhao Heng of Song Zhenzong could marry Liu E, a second-married woman, as the empress, indicating that people did not attach importance to women's marital status at that time.
However, in the middle of the Song Dynasty, Cheng Hao and Cheng Yi's brothers' scientific thought of "preserving heavenly principles and destroying human desires" was carried forward by the Confucian thinker Zhu Xi in the Southern Song Dynasty, forming the theory of Cheng Zhu Lixue, which became a tool to bind people's thoughts.
After the establishment of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang, the Taizu of the Ming Dynasty, in order to avoid the problem of traitors and rebels when the Han regime was harassed by nomads during the Song and Song dynasties, reformed the people of the world ideologically, advocated the idea of loyalty to the monarch and patriotism and women's observance, so as to further promote Cheng Zhu's thoughts.
During the Ming Dynasty, women must remain faithful to their marriage, and husbands must not cross the line, which became the mainstream idea of society. The memorial arch of chastity and the measures to encourage widows to keep widows are the embodiment of the Ming Dynasty's promotion of Cheng Zhu Lixue, and its core idea is to "preserve the principles of heaven and destroy people's desires".
Although the Qing Dynasty was established by the Jurchens, it gradually became sinicized after entering the customs, and in order to consolidate its rule over the Han people, it fully inherited the etiquette and law ideas of the Ming Dynasty. Therefore, although the Qing Dynasty was established by the Jurchens, it was stricter than the Han and Tang dynasties in following the system of etiquette.
The origin of the term "dirty Tang stinky man" in Dream of Red Mansions reflects that Cao Xueqin lived in the "prosperous era of Kangqian" in the Qing Dynasty, which was the peak of the Qing Dynasty's national power and the heyday of feudal etiquette.
Cao Xueqin compared the open-mindedness of the Han and Tang dynasties with the conservative thinking of the Qing Dynasty, so he called the Qing Dynasty a "dirty Tang stinky man". Before the emergence of Cheng Zhu Lixue, the ancient Chinese folk customs and ideas were relatively open, the Han and Tang dynasties were the most prosperous period of national strength, the Han and Tang dynasties embraced hundreds of schools, and the feudal etiquette thought had not yet risen, so the Han and Tang dynasties compared with the Ming and Qing dynasties when the feudal etiquette and law ideas were at their peak, it was naturally a "dirty Tang and stinky man".
It is not nonsense that the Tang Dynasty was revered as the "Dirty Tang" because of its open-mindedness and behavioral style. The "dirty" of the Tang Dynasty was not only reflected in the leading example of the ruling class, but also in the freedom and openness of the social atmosphere.
At the same time, feudal etiquette did not form a climate in the Tang Dynasty and had little impact on the people, so that the ruling class and the people of the Tang Dynasty enjoyed a high degree of freedom. This made the Tang Dynasty appear more "dirty" in comparison, compared to the Ming and Qing dynasties, when feudal etiquette was more strictly constrained.
By telling the history and culture of the Tang Dynasty, we can better understand and appreciate the openness and freedom of this period.