The opening words of ancient imperial edicts

In many popular historical film and television works, there are often scenes of eunuchs reading out imperial edicts: "By God, the emperor decrees...", which is incredible to hear. Because before the Ming Dynasty, the "opening remarks" of imperial edicts did not contain these eight words at all. This was a complete "joke" and "travel"!

In ancient China, imperial edicts were not always called "imperial edicts" ". According to the book "China's Imperial Edicts", during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, imperial orders were called "Ming", "Ling", and "Zheng" respectively. It was not until the Song Dynasty that imperial orders began to be commonly referred to as "Imperial Edicts". The opening words of imperial edicts are not always "Inherited by heaven, the emperor decrees", but each dynasty has its own differences: in the Tang Dynasty, the opening words of imperial edicts were mostly "menxia", because imperial edicts were generally reviewed and issued by the Menxia Province at that time, such as The opening sentence of the imperial edict "Su Zong Orders the Crown Prince to Supervise the State System" is: "The family is the foundation of the world...".

There are also words such as "I Shao Yingjun's destiny" and "I Ying Haotian's spring destiny" as the opening words. During the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, the opening words of imperial edicts often used the eight words "Ying Tian obeys the times, and accepts the Ming's orders" to clarify the emperor's "orthodoxy". The highest god of the Mongolian people is Changshengtian, so the opening words of imperial edicts during the Yuan Dynasty are always: "In the power of Changshengtian, great blessings will protect you, the emperor's decree...". The first person to use the eight words "Fengtian Chengyun Emperor's edict" as the opening sentence of the imperial edict was Zhu Yuanzhang, Taizu of the Ming Dynasty. In other words, the eight words "Fengtian Chengyun Emperor's edict" appeared in the imperial edict and began in the Ming Dynasty.

According to the book "Wanli Yehuobian" written by Shen Defu of the Ming Dynasty, after Zhu Yuanzhang established Nanjing as his capital, he changed Nanjing's name to "Yingtian Mansion" and named the largest Jinluan Hall in the palace "Fengtian Hall". ". In order to demonstrate the legitimacy of his "Emperor", he called himself "Fengtian Fazu" and engraved the four characters "Fengtian Fazu" on the jade guide he held.

Later, in order to find the "theoretical basis" and strong evidence for "Fengtian Chengyun", Zhu Yuanzhang personally wrote the article "Imperial Dream", in which he vividly described his sleepwalking in the Heavenly Palace and seeing the "Tao". "Three Purities of the Law", the Taoist priest in purple teaches the story of real people's clothes and magic swords.

From then on, Zhu Yuanzhang began to call himself "Fengtian carries the emperor's edict". When he issued the imperial edict again, he used these eight words as his "opening remarks." Since then, it has been passed down through the generations and the fixed form of the opening words of the imperial edict has been formed.

It needs special emphasis that the eight characters "Fengtian carries the emperor's edict" is not the reading of "Fengtian carries the emperor's edict" in current film and television works. The correct sentence should be "Fengtian carries the emperor's edict" Carrying the emperor, the edict said."