Why do historians doubt "three emperors and five emperors"?

Recently, there has been a resurgence of academic tendency to doubt the ancient and oppose the ancient in domestic historians, and there has been a dispute over the existence of traditional stereotypes of historical views such as "Chinese nation", "Three Emperors and Five Emperors" and "Huangdi clan" and a dispute over monism and pluralism.

On March 18, I published the latest research results of Mr. Wu Rui, the leader of the new army of ancient skepticism and a researcher at the Institute of History of China Academy of Social Sciences, in "Playing Phoenix under the Wu Tong Tree". Wu denied the traditional historical view of "three generations" and questioned that "the unification of the Yellow Emperor" was a "model of United front historical view".

Wu further pointed out that "Huaxia" has nothing to do with the orthodox Xia nationality in the Central Plains, and Huaxia does not represent Huaxia people; Huangdi, the traditional ancestor of China, was not the ancestor of Han nationality at first, but the leader of ethnic minorities (see the article "Is Huangdi the Ancestor of Chinese Nation").

In Wu Rui's view, the so-called "Three Emperors and Five Emperors" are also suspicious. Obviously, such a subversive view is hard to be accepted by orthodox historians! Not only that, ordinary netizens who love "My Motherland" don't accept it. They use vicious language to call "Bian Xiao" after my article.

In fact, academic views can be different. If they are all the same, there is no need to study them and debate them openly.

Recently, I received an e-mail from Mr. Zhang Guoan, a domestic "anti-doubt" historian and a doctor of history at Beijing Normal University. He denied Wu Rui's point of view, and pointed the finger directly at Hu Shi, Gu Jiegang and others, leaders of anti-skepticism and historians of the Republic of China. Zhang's views are included in his forthcoming book "Ending Doubting the Ancient".

Here is an excerpt from the book Re-examination of Ancient Imperial Studies to see how Anti-Doubting the Ancient explains "Three Emperors and Five Emperors".

Re-examination of the study of ancient emperors

The study of ancient emperors (mainly five emperors) in the legendary period can be described as a group of historians and giants such as Lin (such as Gu Jiegang, Meng, Miao, Xu, Yang Kuan, Sun Zuoyun and Liu Qi? Wait for Mr.). Among them, Gu, Meng, Fu and Fu are the most influential and representative.

Mr. Gu Jiegang is the questioner, mainly from Kang Youwei's study of Confucian classics. In the debate on China's theory of ancient history, more attention is paid to the judgment of the time when ancient books were written, while the nature of books is basically ignored, and the question of ancient emperors is ignored in the structure and function of ancient history, which has become a wrong academic trend of thought and a harmful research method. This also denied the unified ancient history system of the five emperors and three generations, and denied the unified political identity in the five emperors' era. This view has caused widespread rumors, and it goes without saying that the historical system can be fabricated by people at will.

Meng and Xu are well received by domestic academic circles. Mr. Meng's way of thinking comes from the combination of classical Chinese and Confucian classics, and his way of using materials is explained from the perspective of ancient Chinese, but its scientific nature needs to be improved. Mr. Meng proposed three groups of theories:

-There are "Jianghan Nationalities" (represented by, Shennong, Sanmiao, * * Gong, Zhu Rong and Chiyou, with Jiang as the main name);

-"Heluo Ethnic Group" (represented by Huangdi, Zhuan Xu, and Ji surname) is active in Heluo area, so it can also be called it;

-"Haidai" (Sui Renshi, Fuxi, Nuwa, Wife? There's less? , Emperor Shun, as the representative, with Feng, Yan and Won as the main surnames).

Fu Sinian's theory of "Yi Xia Dong Xi" mainly comes from positivism, and the use of historical materials is not explained in detail. Mr. Fu Sinian's "Yi Xia Dong Xi said" originally said:

-"Three generations ago and nearly three generations ago, there were basically two different systems. These two systems fight because of confrontation, merge because of fighting, and make cultural progress because of integration. Yi and Shang belong to the eastern system, and Xia and Zhou belong to the western system. "

-"On the whole, the eastern economy is good, so the culture is excellent. The west is good, so it is strong. "

Teacher Fu's conclusion comes from the perspectives of history, literature, archaeology, anthropology and geography. Unfortunately, influenced by the ideological trend and ethos at that time, Mr. Fu still thought that "thinkers in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, although not putting Dongyi in the three-generation system, put Boyi, Boyi in the imperial court, posing as Gengge, which shows that they are qualified to compete.

The so-called gifted scholars and non-gifted scholars in Zuo Zhuan, and books? Yao Dian? The monarchs and ministers mentioned in Hao Tao's Hume were originally tribes that fought with each other and the chiefs or gods in different periods, while philosophers built a temple of the gods, so that they were all listed in the same court. The' head of state' is not limited to thousands of miles away, but between thousands of years. This is really like the church of the Greek gods, which is pluralistic. The comprehensive beliefs of the Greeks forced them to enter a large department. It's just that the world outlook of all nationalities in Xia Dynasty has not been completely lost, so today we can analyze the pluralistic state of tribes from the comprehensive system of philosophers. "

Xu's method is mainly the history of science, and Mr. Xu and Mr. Su put forward a set of systematic views on the treatment of documents. The foundation of its success-the handling of materials has not been valued by the latecomers. In fact, whether it is for or against it, this cannot be ignored.

Huaxia (Yellow Emperor), Zhuan Xu, You (Shun), businessman Zhu Rong, etc. ), Dongyi (Tai Hao, Shao Hao, Chiyou), Miao Man (Sanmiao, Fuxi, Nuwa,? The third group said.

Mr. Yang Kuan combined Theology with Mr. Fu's "One by One" theory.

Among them, Miao's opinion is noteworthy and the most neglected: "There were five kings in Xia and Shang Dynasties, but they were fixed in the Spring and Autumn Period and were not called' Five Emperors'. ? The original "five emperors" theory? Consolidate the ancient meaning of pre-Qin. ? Nearby, the world is late, the ancient history is complicated, the younger brother is late, and the ancient history is good. " He also said: "Not many people know the meaning of Da Dai and Taishi Gong Shu (only Ma Duanlin passed the exam)? The "Five Emperors" listed in the Chronicle of the Five Emperors is the first in the imperial examination, which was only seen on the cover after the Song Dynasty. What about the old subjects in the pre-Qin period? The world is late and ancient, and ancient history is confusing and unreasonable. "

Other predecessors were mostly confined to the combination of the Five Emperors, and paid little attention to the differences in order and national culture. Because they think a priori that there can be no such order and unified political identity. According to their own opinions, they reorganized the characters (or gods) in the legendary era into different groups, even if the same literature became different groups or stages, without explaining the basis or demonstrating. This theory is inappropriate in the literature, which is exactly what this paper wants to correct and develop.

The first question involved is whether the emperor era exists. There are many explanations of the word "emperor" in philology, so I don't intend to repeat them.

Judging from the development of human history, every nation that has developed into a civilized society has experienced the process of recording the contents of the era without words into words, and the earliest prehistoric part is the sacred mythological era. For example, Collingwood pointed out in the section "Theocracy History and Myth": "God is conceived by analogy with the monarch on the earth. God directs the actions of kings and leaders just as kings and leaders direct their human subordinates; The hierarchy of government is pushed up by externalization. ? The government is conceived by theocracy.

I suggest that this kind of history be called theocratic history? A statement of known facts for reference by people who don't know these facts; But as worshippers of the God they are talking about, they should know what kind of behavior God shows himself through.

While China's feeling of "suspecting the past" is high, some foreign scholars are more calm. For example, Latimer said, "On the edge of China's oldest history, there are some vague numbers, or they seem to appear. Among them are Pangu, the legendary creator, Fuxi in the animal husbandry era, and Shennong in the agricultural era. Animal husbandry and agriculture mentioned here are naturally idioms. Then came the Yellow Emperor, Shao Hao, Zhuan Xu, Di Ku and Zhi. Next is Yao and Shun in the golden age of China? Yu.

""If we can make rational use of all the legends about the early Shang emperors, the legends about the Xia Dynasty before them, and the more ancient and vague' emperors' before the Xia Dynasty, then we should realize that these legends can be traced back to the real Neolithic Age, and may even reach an earlier era.

In the era of Three Emperors and Five Emperors, many scholars ignored the historical facts contained in it, and thought that the mythical era was illusory or even invented, so it is hard to say that Mr. Gu was the extreme representative.

There is a paradox in the interpretation of ancient emperors by modern historians. To break the monism, arrange all the emperors in the classics into a series. In the case that the literature can't be ruled out, they insist that these emperors are all fabricated, and then come to the conclusion that the five emperors were selected.

In the field of mythology, there are mythological historical school and historical mythological school, both of which have noticed the changed part. Scholars who advocate the historization of myths or historical myths ignore the most important point: although its plot and details can be greatly changed beyond recognition, its proper nouns, whether it is the name of a god or a place name, rarely change, its main structure remains unchanged, and its internal ethics are universal.

Lu Xinsheng said: "In ancient witchcraft history, because of the fear of heaven and punishment, we dare not tamper with or even forge historical facts with extremely pious religious psychology. It is from this professional ethics that the realistic spirit of historians has been cultivated, which has a great influence on later generations and has become a scholar for thousands of years. But at the same time, we should also see that the fundamental starting point of "seeking truth" has been eroded and destroyed under the long-term oppression of "politics" as the first priority, and it is shrinking day by day.

This situation still exists, which is worrying.

It is conceivable that all the documents we can see now are records of China's growth process, mainly concentrated in China, and there are also ethnic groups such as Dongyi. Before the Yellow Emperor, emperors of all ethnic groups did not know how many there were. After reunification, the appellation of Han and Yi nationalities may not be restricted as Qin Shihuang did, but some people still call the chiefs of non-unified countries emperors. Just as the supreme head of state of the Russian Federation is called the president today, so are its federal constituent units such as autonomous regions and republics. Of course, we can't put them together, and we can't exclude them from saying that these characters are fabricated.

After Dayu, although the leaders of reunification were called Xia Hou and Wang Shang, some ethnic groups still called them chieftains by the emperor, and Chinese people still called them emperors when they offered sacrifices and talked about history.

It is wrong to easily deny the emperor we occasionally see.