"Color, sex, too".
Mencius's famous sayings have been passed down through the ages, originally intended to promote the path of benevolence and righteousness, but they have been misinterpreted by some people as a cover for their excessive pursuit of materialism and pleasure.
In ancient times, when the material pleasures of the powerful had reached their peak, and when all the treasures were in their hands, they created new ways of pleasure to satisfy their appetites, lusts, and ostentations—not only for the "sight and smell" of food, but also for the company of beautiful women.
This pursuit of appetite, lust and ostentatiousness could not even be regarded as the limit of the luxurious life of the powerful at that time.
Food is one of the symbols of people's social status, wealth status and power. In ancient times, ordinary people struggled to get "enough to eat", while the aristocracy pursued "good food".
"Food" can be divided into levels. Collecting delicacies from all over the world and enjoying them is a kind of "fine food".
Mencius was faced with the choice of fish and bear's paws, and the nobles wanted both. "As soon as you ride the red dust, the concubines drink together" has such a luxurious taste.
Ordinary ingredients are carefully cooked to create an extraordinary taste, and it is also a way to enjoy "food".
In the classic ** "Dream of Red Mansions", ordinary eggplant is intricately processed to make eggplant, which requires multiple complex processes, and is accompanied by various ingredients such as chicken, bamboo shoots, and mushrooms, and its delicacy is amazing.
Each meal has a variety of dishes, and it is undoubtedly a "food" to enjoy. This situation is well documented in the dietary records of successive emperors.
In the Qing Dynasty, for example, Qianlong spent a lot of food on his inspections, using 1,000 sheep, 300 cows, and 75 cows for each inspection. And Cixi's every meal can be called "the people take food as the sky", which is almost comparable to the diet of thousands of households.
The ministers showed more creativity and luxury in eating and drinking, far surpassing the emperor. Although the emperor could enjoy sumptuous delicacies, he was limited by ancestral teachings and popular supervision.
Emperors can enjoy sumptuous cuisine, but they don't dare to be too peculiar. Although it can be held for a while, it will surely be scolded for eternity.
In contrast, the status and resource management ability of the retainers sometimes even surpassed that of the emperor, but they were far less restricted, and therefore more able to experiment with various exotic ways of eating.
For example, Sima Yan's son-in-law, Wang Ji, entertained Sima Yan, who once provided food steamed with human milk. Although Sima Yan was not a faint monarch, he showed displeasure in this.
Powerful ministers often loot the people's fat and ointment, and squander them recklessly. Wei Zhi, who was the prime minister during the Suzong period of the Tang Dynasty, although he was capable, was "poor and ashamed", carefully selecting rice grains, and the food discarded after each meal was of great value.
Because his daily diet is too luxurious, when he arrives at a colleague's house, even if the other party's banquet is already exquisite, he rarely moves his chopsticks.
Due to the perennial extravagance of eating, delicacies from the mountains and seas have become commonplace, and it is difficult for these people to have an appetite that is aroused.
In the case of Zhang Juzheng, when he was ordered to be buried, "there were many kinds of dishes, but he had no interest in all the foods." Ordinary people may have been drooling for a long time, but Zhang Juzheng is indifferent to these dishes. This is a reflection of the level of luxury in his daily life.
When the appetites of the powerful were no longer satisfied with the rare delicacies, they began to look for other ways to stimulate their appetites.
One of the most common is to combine beauty with good food to satisfy a double desire. As a result, the luxurious scene of "meat plate" appeared.
Sun Sheng, a powerful minister in the Southern Tang Dynasty, once raised a large number of domestic prostitutes, and every time he held a banquet, he did not use an ordinary dining table, but let the prostitutes serve a dish each and serve him personally. This is the origin of the "meat plate".
It may sound like it's just a matter of using beautiful women to serve dishes, it's just that the number of beautiful women has increased. But why not call it a "waitress" and instead choose the term "meat plate"?
This slight difference seems to imply that it is not only the beautiful women who serve the plates, but also that they must be dressed very carefully in order to satisfy Sun Sheng's needs for luxury.
After Sun Sheng founded the "Meat Table Plate", this practice became a fashion among the elites, known as "Jiangnan nobles multi-effect".
This phenomenon is a unique atmosphere in the period of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms:
Despite the social turmoil, the ruling class has little regard for the people's livelihood, and they only greedily loot the people's fat and ointment to satisfy their own luxury desires. During this period, extravagance was rampant.
In troubled times, ordinary people were displaced from place to place, and countless women became domestic prostitutes. The magnates took these women into their homes as prostitutes. Their pursuit and enjoyment of lust has reached an unprecedented level that is simply unimaginable.
Perhaps because the emperors at that time only pursued temporary pleasure and did not consider the influence of later generations, this period can be described as "the joy of kings and ministers".
After Wang Yan, the last emperor of Former Shu, ascended the throne, he squandered his national power and wasted as much as he wanted. It is said that he once used tens of thousands of colored silk to build a colorful building.
This colorful building is built on top of a colorful mountain, which is full of palaces and pavilions. A canal leads down the hill to the Imperial Palace.
Wang Yan's daily life is full of luxury: during the day, he enjoys himself on the Cai Mountain, and climbs the Cai Lou to overlook the luxurious palace he built; Descend the mountain in the evening and take a boat back to the Royal Palace.
On his sailing route, thousands of ships carried palace maids, and thousands of candles lit up the water to greet his "dragon boat". As soon as you arrive at the palace, it's a night of revelry.
The emperor, who was not good at governing the country but was good at having fun, also created a dance called "Folding Red Lotus Team Dance" and organized hundreds of palace maids to perform collectively.
The sheer number of ladies in his palace is staggering. Later, when the Later Tang Dynasty destroyed Shu, almost every Later Tang general who rushed into the palace was able to capture dozens of palace maids.
However, even in the post-Tang palace, the number of palace maids was not inferior in any way. For example, when Li Cunqiao arrived in Yecheng, he recruited more than 1,000 beauties to enrich the harem in the local area alone, and set up a special teaching workshop. In addition to serving to him, the women were also used to entertain ministers.
Gao Baomian, the monarch of Nanping, not only abused women in his palace, but also had fun outside. He liked to summon prostitutes to the palace at night, and select sturdy soldiers to entangle with him, while he watched from the sidelines.
And Min Huizong Wang Yanjun integrates all kinds of obscenity. He often held banquets with the queen, and also did not set up tables and chairs, but let the palace maid carry wine glasses. When he was drunk, he often chased each other with the palace maid ** for fun.
The emperor took the "upward movement" as an example, and the ** people have "downward". During the Five Dynasties, it became customary to raise prostitutes, and it was embarrassing to entertain guests without dozens of beautiful prostitutes in the home.
Liu Chengxun of the Southern Tang Dynasty raised hundreds of domestic prostitutes, each of whom had to spend a lot of money to cultivate their talents, and not only that, but also spent a lot of wealth to buy brocade clothes and pearls for them.
Another important minister of the Southern Tang Dynasty, Han Xizai, also raised hundreds of domestic prostitutes in the mansion, and together they created an atmosphere of "heaven and earth", and people came to participate in banquets and entertainment every day.
These girls, who are accepted as domestic prostitutes, seem to enjoy gorgeous clothes and food, but in reality they are only tools used by rulers and "masters" to display their wealth, and they do not enjoy any "human rights" at all.
Whenever a guest came to the house, the prostitutes were always assigned to be in charge of entertaining them. The word "prostitute" is not without origin.
During the Xia and Shang periods, there was the idea of "food and body governance". The eating habits of the rulers actually reflect the socio-cultural side.
During the period of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, each regime did not exist for a long time, but almost every generation of rulers and ministers indulged in unbridled pleasures. This completely exposed the social and cultural corruption of the time.
During this turbulent period, many rulers could hardly be called "emperors", and they were at best short-lived warlords.
Although these actions may not be recognized in the canonical history, these rulers went to great lengths to call themselves "founding emperors" and tried to establish some "imperial atmosphere" in their own secession.
Take Liu Rengong as an example, he was originally just a party envoy, but he followed the example of Zhu Quanzhong of the Later Liang and proclaimed himself emperor in Yanjing.
Although the territory he ruled was not vast, he built extremely lavish palaces, plundered beautiful women to fill the "palaces", and searched for alchemists in search of immortality. Despite his limited status and lack of dominance, he indulged in the life of an emperor to the fullest.
Perhaps it was because there were too many separatist regimes at that time, and they did not have the strength to annex each other, so how to show the superiority of their own regimes? These warlord rulers invariably chose to flaunt their wealth.
For example, Liu Gong, the lord of the Southern Han Dynasty, was very fond of inviting merchants from all over the world to show off his wealth by showing them his treasure of pearls and jade. Li Sheng of the Southern Tang Dynasty adopted the method of "frugal flaunting wealth" and piled up a mountain of gold in the treasury.
Unlike the great unified dynasties, where at least the first three generations were able to see better emperors, and in these secessionist regimes, the founding emperor was a little frugal and it was good, and in the second generation, almost everyone indulged in pleasures in different ways.
Perhaps it is because they have no ambition to expand their territory at all, but are just greedy for immediate enjoyment and satisfying their appetites.
Even the literati, who were regarded as clean men, followed the trend in the chaos of the Five Dynasties period and deviated from traditional morality.
Some people sighed, "For Confucianism in troubled times, what do I want?" But after saying this, they were also attracted to the luxurious life, indulging in the sound and wine, and occasionally uttering a sour word or two.
As a chaotic period after the fall of the Tang Dynasty, the luxurious life of the Five Dynasties period continued the legacy of the Tang Dynasty.
For example, the "meat plate" was originally pioneered by Yang Guozhong, and he also invented the "meat screen" to let the maid block the wind for him. The rapid economic development of the Jiangnan region also made the literati of the Tang Dynasty indulge in food and pleasure.
However, the Tang Dynasty had its own heritage, and the pleasures of these "losers" were based on the vast wealth accumulated by previous generations. And in the era of war, although the people were exploited, they were at least able to "live in peace".
However, in the troubled times, the warlords of the separatist had all enjoyed themselves according to the emperor's standards, and the ministers below them were even better. In addition, years of war have caused great pressure on the lives of the people.
At that time, even words like "people don't have a good life" seemed too understated.
The endless wars led to large numbers of young men fighting and large areas of land being abandoned because they were uncultivated; War inevitably brings sacrifices, and the more people who die in battle, the fewer people who are able to work in agriculture, and the more exploitation the people at the bottom are experiencing.
This has created a vicious circle, and even the once thriving Central Plains has fallen into a state of emptiness in some places.
However, few people care about the lives of the people at the bottom. In 946 A.D., the world was hit by a drought and a plague of locusts, which caused "millions of people to die of starvation."
Despite this, the separatist forces continued to wage wars and exploit the common people, and some of them even looted with the goal of "huge amounts" of money. Selling official positions, heavy taxes, and even burglaries are not uncommon.
The exploitation of the people at the bottom by the separatist forces makes the people have no support for the rulers, and such separatist regimes are often easily destroyed by foreign enemies.
Even if a new separatist regime is born, the people will not be able to breathe, their hearts will still be empty, and such a regime can easily be overthrown by other forces.
This cycle led to the so-called "states" of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, which often had a lifespan of only a few years to a dozen years.
However, even during this brief reign, they plundered treasures and built magnificent pavilions. This cycle is constantly repeated, and folk life can be imagined.
Conclusion: During the late Tang Dynasty and the Five Dynasties, many similar gorgeous words emerged, such as "Huapao Qi Belt", "Jeweled Treasure", "Fushoutang", etc., which truly depicted the luxurious and hedonistic lifestyle of the powerful people in society at that time.
Anyone who has a little wealth in the family does their best to show their wealth and pursue the enjoyment of life.
Some scholars have tried to glorify this behavior as nostalgia for the prosperous era of the Tang Dynasty.
However, compared with the Tang Dynasty, they were more indulgent and extravagant, which shows that they did not really miss the Tang Dynasty, but went with the flow, under the influence of the social atmosphere, gave up self-restraint, and everyone indulged in the whirlpool of chasing power, wealth and lust.
The literati of the Song Dynasty harshly criticized this social phenomenon, for example, Lu Lu once denounced: "The world is in danger, the people have no way to survive, but the scholars are so extravagant." ”
It can be seen that in the eyes of traditional literati, the chaos and extravagance from top to bottom during the Five Dynasties period were definitely a shame for scholars.
In stark contrast to the prosperity of the rulers and the scholarly class, there was the misery of the people. As long as the ruler takes the slightest care of the people's livelihood, he may also feel guilty for what he has done.
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