We know that the Black Death in the European Middle Ages caused a sharp decline, but also triggered a spiritual breakthrough for people, the people of Europe, mainly the upper class rulers, began to break through the shackles of religion and divinity, discovered human nature, liberated human nature, began the Renaissance, and gradually ended the dark Middle Ages.
Similarly, between the Three Kingdoms at the end of the Han Dynasty in China, disasters were frequent, several plagues broke out for a long time and had a large impact area, and the actual disasters also stimulated humanistic creation and stimulated the rise of the humanistic spirit.
The background of the plague at the end of the Han Dynasty.
According to the Continuation of the Book of Han and the Five Elements Chronicles, in the summer and April of the sixth year of Emperor An's first year, there was a great epidemic. In the fourth winter of Yanguang, there was a great epidemic in Kyoto. "Later Han Shu Huan Emperor Ji" records, "Jiashen in November of the third year of Jianhe, the edict said: '...Today, the Beijing division is in the house, the dead are pillowing each other, the county is strange, and there are ...... everywhere'Continuation of the Hanshu Five Elements Chronicles" has, in the first month of the first year of Emperor Huan Yuanjia, the Kyoto epidemic, and in February, there was an epidemic in Jiujiang and Lujiang. In the first month of the fourth year of Yanxi, the epidemic. In March of the fourth year of Emperor Ling's Jianning, there was a great epidemic. In the first month of the second year of Xiping, there was a great epidemic. In the spring of the second year of light and the great plague. In February of the fifth year, the Great Plague. In the first month of the second year of Zhongping, there was a big epidemic. In the twenty-second year of Emperor Jian'an, the great epidemic.
The darkness of "Huan Ling" is not only because of the pro-villain, but also because of the Yuanxian minister. Before Tianwei, manpower was so small. Since the twenties of the second century A.D., plagues have been frequent in the Central Plains, and since then, natural and man-made disasters have occurred frequently.
What is even more desperate is that during the Jian'an period, the outbreak of the plague was even more violent. According to scholars' statistics, from the period of Emperor Ling to the early Cao Wei period, the frequency of plague occurred from once in nearly three years to once in nearly one year. After the plague, the population also decreased sharply, and there was no one in ten households in the Central Plains. Of course, it cannot be ruled out that the phenomenon of concealing the hukou in times of turmoil, or turning good into cheap, but the plague is definitely a major cause of the sharp decline in the population.
The generation of plague is, first of all, a natural disaster. According to Mr. Zhu Kezhen's research, from the Eastern Han Dynasty to the Three Kingdoms period, it was a stage when China's climate gradually turned cold, and the climate was cold, so "it was not up to the year", extreme weather was frequent, and the ecological environment such as forests and rivers (the Yellow River) deteriorated, so that the people were hungry and cold, and social contradictions intensified.
The occurrence of extreme weather, persistent cold, or directly or indirectly affects the spread of plagues, such as natural disasters, and "great plagues are followed by great plagues".
According to scholars' statistics, from the first year of Emperor An of the Eastern Han Dynasty to the last year of Emperor Jian'an, there were 34 floods, 35 droughts, and 19 locust plagues. And that is precisely the breeding ground of the plague.
The second is the human calamities such as war. The living conditions in the barracks were difficult, with large crowds and poor sanitary conditions, which facilitated the spread of the plague; The war caused a large number of deaths, and the dead could not be dealt with in a timely manner or in an improper manner, and the plague was rampant; The war caused a large movement of people, so that if the protection was not properly done, the plague spread. "Since the beginning of the day, the number of troops marched, or in the event of an epidemic, the officials died and did not return", such a tragic situation hides a great hidden danger of the spread of the plague.
It is also important to take into account that the war has destroyed the original social relief. During the strong period of the Eastern Han Dynasty, if there was a plague, it was still possible to dispatch relief to the local area, and the local rich or invited fame or profit, and they always had to take on the obligation to help the people. However, under the loss of power and the displacement of the people, the cost of gathering enough forces to maintain the previous order is too great.
In the end, it was also due to the limitations of the medical level at that time. Zhang Zhongjing saw his family withering due to the epidemic, so he wrote "Treatise on Typhoid Fever and Miscellaneous Diseases" and became a generation of medical saints. The limitations of the medical level made the plague pervasive but unstoppable, and it could only wait for it to "flourish and decline".
The effects of the plague.
As mentioned in the title, the epidemic at the end of the Han Dynasty affected the rise of the humanistic spirit in the Jian'an period, so this section only discusses the direct impact of the plague in addition to spiritual culture.
1. The plague caused the population of the Central Plains to drop sharply at that time.
The phenomenon of the population being decimated by epidemics was often seen in the literary creations and written records of the time. Zhang Zhongjing mentioned that the Yu clan has a lot of Su and two hundred to Yu. Since the beginning of the Jian'an era, it has not yet been ten years, and two thirds of its deaths have been recorded, and seven of them have typhoid fever. Wang Can sighed that "when he went out, he saw nothing, and his bones covered the plain", and he himself died later because of this, which was a great loss in the history of literature. The Book of the Later Han Dynasty said that during the period of Emperor Huan, "there was no year old, and there were difficulties in floods, droughts, and epidemics, and the dead of Sili and Yu were four or five".
It is even more shocking if these general exclamations are translated into concrete figures. The Book of Jin records that Emperor Huan's longevity for three years was more than 10 million households, with more than 56 million households. During the Three Kingdoms period, the numbers were scattered and complicated to calculate, so they were left aside for the time being, but in the early days of the unification of the Western Jin Dynasty, this number became "2.77 million Jin households." ”
From the Han Dynasty to the Western Jin Dynasty, the three kingdoms were plagued with epidemics and wars, and the population was bound to not have much chance of recovery, but this gap was still staggering, and there were certainly reasons for war, but plague was indispensable.
2. The plague affected the development of warfare at that time.
Taking the famous Battle of Chibi as an example, there are many reasons why Cao Cao lost the Battle of Chibi. One is that the northerners are not accustomed to water warfare, the second is that they have fought for thousands of miles, and the soldiers are tired, the third is that there are new people in Cao's soldiers who have not returned to their hearts, and the fourth is the plague. "Chronicles of the Three Kingdoms" recorded, "Gong to Chibi, and the preparation for war is not good, so the epidemic, the officials and soldiers are many dead, but the army is returned", "When there is another epidemic, the northern army dies, Cao Gong returns", "The soldiers are hungry and the epidemic, most of the dead are dead". Pei Zhu sighed, "Heaven is really doing it, how can it be human?" ”
The plague affected the course of the war, far more than between the six dynasties. The Qin Emperor raised troops in South Vietnam, and many soldiers were not adapted, and the miasma was rampant in the army, which caused the Qin soldiers to suffer great losses, and even indirectly accelerated the demise of the Qin army. In addition, as mentioned earlier, the war has caused a large number of deaths, and if the dead bodies are not disposed of in time, the epidemic will only be exacerbated.
The humanistic spirit of the Jian'an period.
1. Literary and artistic creation in the Jian'an period.
From the end of the Han Dynasty to the Jian'an period, plagues were rampant, wars were frequent, and people, whether rich or poor, men and women, old and young, were always facing the threat of life and death. This is reflected in literary and artistic creation, which are two tendencies. One is the impermanence of life, long sighs, and the other is timely and extravagant. The former is such as "born less than 100 years old, often with a thousand years of worries", and the latter is such as "the seats are always full, and the wine in the bottle is not empty".
Later, when he came to the Eastern Jin Dynasty, Wang Xizhi lamented in his famous "Lanting Collection Preface" that "solid knowledge of a death and life is a fantasy, and Qi Peng's death is a vain", and the Eastern Jin Dynasty has a person who is dead and alive, and Qi Peng's death is impermanent, and the chaos is the same, which is similar to the Jian'an period.
Of course, in such a pessimistic atmosphere, there is still no shortage of people who work hard. Since there are people in the world of Les Miserables who are busy weeping, and some people numb themselves with wasted time and drugs, it is natural that there are also people who know the shortness of life and want to make contributions in time in order to be immortal. However, they did not indulge in poetry and songs, and left relatively few works.
However, whether it is lamentation or optimism, literary and artistic creation reflects the rise of the humanistic spirit in this period to a certain extent. In other words, during this period, people's self-consciousness began to awaken, the value of human beings was discovered and valued, and more care for "people" and thinking about life were added to the works. It cannot be said that this is all due to the plague, but the overall atmosphere caused by the plague and war is indeed a major reason for people to reflect on themselves and awaken their individuality.
2. Social religion in the Jian'an period.
Considering that this time coincided with the period of the coexistence of the three religions, and the decline of Confucianism at the time of the war, Buddhism and Taoism were greatly developed, and the social religion of the Jian'an period, only Buddhism and Taoism are discussed here.
Buddhism had already spread to China in the Western Han Dynasty, but it was not until the late Han Dynasty, Wei and Jin dynasties that it gradually integrated into Chinese society and achieved better development. Buddhism advocates that all things are empty, the form is extinguished, and the gods are immortal, and believes that the torture and suffering of reality are not only the punishment for the sins of one's previous life, but also the guarantee of peace and wealth in the next life.
This just caters to the mentality of the world during the Jian'an period. However, it should also be noted that Buddhism, as a foreign religion, was not well localized in the early days, so during the Jian'an period, compared with Taoism, Buddhism was not widely involved in the treatment of the people's plague and disease, and it was still "sitting on the Diaoyutai" after the two Jin Dynasty.
In the face of long-term turmoil, Buddhists learned their lessons and learned that Taoism gradually developed, so the religion that was affected by the plague and developed during the Jian'an period can almost refer to Taoism in particular.
If literary and artistic creation reflects the world conditions of Jian'an and the anguish of the literati, then religion caters to the needs of more people, providing spiritual comfort and social care for both high-ranking officials and ordinary people. Taoism's extensive participation in the treatment of the plague and its response to the social and psychological needs of the people under the plague is the embodiment of humanistic care and humanistic spirit.
The development of Taoism during this period was mainly manifested in the development and perfection of Taoist rituals and theories, and the vitality of religious activities. Due to the large number of people dying from the plague, funeral activities were frequent. At this time, Taoism developed commentaries and land purchase vouchers. Chao Yuanfang's "Notes on Illness" mentions that those who note live also, saying that their illness is stagnant and dead, and they are also interested in others.
The annotation is the text of the tomb at that time, and the so-called commentary, referring to the quotation, is to get rid of the "dwelling" of the epidemic, so that the epidemic on the dead does not harm the living. The land purchase voucher is also to inform the underground world of the death of the person, so that the soul of the deceased does not linger in the world. In addition, Taoism also developed many rituals to exorcise plague spirits, which inevitably had primitive witchcraft overtones, but this was the key to the development and popularization of Taoism among the people in the early days.
If the plague has enriched Taoist thought, it is the proposal of the theory of the end. At that time, many schools of Taoism put forward the theory of endism. To put it simply, the slogan of the Yellow Turban Uprising, "The sky is dead, the yellow sky should stand, the year is in Jiazi, and the world is auspicious" is an elaboration of the final theory. The White Lotus Sect revolted in later generations, saying that Maitreya Buddha was the future Buddha and would change the heavens and the earth, which was also similar to this, of course, it is unknown whether there was a Buddha's plagiarism and internalization of the Tao.
Since the peasant uprising of the time has already been mentioned, it must be said that a seditious religion is very likely to provoke a popular revolt once it is tinged with revolt. To explain the vigorous development of Taoism during the Jian'an period, the Yellow Turban Rebellion and the development of Tianshijiao (Wudou Mijiao) and Taiping Sect are inseparable.
The Book of the Later Han Dynasty records that the giant deer is ......The charm of the water is said to cure the disease, and the sick are quite healed, and the people believe it. Before the Yellow Turban Uprising, Zhang Jiao developed the congregation through Taoist rituals, curing diseases and saving people, and finally developed to "hundreds of thousands of disciples in more than ten years," which brewed into the Yellow Turban Uprising.
3. The development of medicine in the Jian'an period.
As mentioned above, one of the reasons for the rampant plague during the Jian'an period was that the level of medicine was underdeveloped, and there was no way to prevent and control the plague. One of the important achievements is Zhang Zhongjing's "Treatise on Typhoid Fever and Miscellaneous Diseases".
The meaning of miscellaneous diseases can be known at a glance, and the meaning of typhoid fever is, according to the interpretation of the people of the Northern and Southern Dynasties, "Cloud typhoid fever is the name of the gentleman, and the cloud and heaven are the ears of the field house, not to mention the similarities and differences between diseases." "The times are more recent, and they should be credible.
The emergence of the Treatise on Typhoid Fever and Miscellaneous Diseases is conducive to the formation and independence of the science of typhoid fever, and it has also innovated the medical theory and clinical methods since the Eastern Han Dynasty, which systematically analyzes the symptoms of typhoid fever and puts forward the principle of syndrome differentiation and treatment of typhoid fever "Six Classics Classification", which provides theoretical support for the treatment of plague, and can also obtain a large number of practical opportunities, so as to further improve.
Life and health are the most basic human rights, and under the rampant plague, the progress of medicine is the most prominent embodiment of the humanistic spirit.
Brief summary. Due to various natural and man-made disasters, plagues have been rampant in the Central Plains since the second century AD, posing a great threat to people's lives and health, and having a great impact on social changes and political and economic development. In the midst of extreme darkness and despair, the oppression of the plague also stimulated the rise of the humanistic spirit in the Jian'an period, which was mainly manifested in the freedom of literature, the development of thought, the universality of religion, and the progress of medicine.