History of China-Yuan Dynasty

Before talking about the Yuan Dynasty, I have to talk about Mongolia, because it has a long history of separatism with the Yuan Dynasty. Mongolian Empire is the largest empire in the history of the world. How did such a big empire come about?

When the Liao State was overthrown by the Jin State, other nationalities in the Liao State became the younger brothers of the Jin State. This is probably the case in Mongolia:

Mongolian tribes live on the prairie, and they are very scattered with each other. Everyone has no entertainment except stocking, so when they are full and have nothing to do, they copy each other and hate each other. One of the tribes, whose eldest brother is Su Shi, one day he finally caught the eldest brother of another feuding tribe, Temujin Wu Ge, and it was time to cut him down. It's time to cut down Temujin Wu Ge, and his son was born. It's time to name his son Temujin as a souvenir. Before long, it was time to get involved in the tribal struggle and die. Young Temujin can only live with his tribe. No one expected that he had strong military and leadership skills and soon cleaned up all other tribes. The previously loose Mongolian tribes have since become a unified country: the Mongolian Empire. Temujin also became the boss of Mongolia, and was honored as the incomparably powerful Khan: Genghis Khan.

When Mongolia was born, there were only two enemies: one was called Xiliao in the west, and the other was Jin Guo, who bullied the Mongols for many years in the east. When Liao was defeated by Jin, the remaining Khitans fled to the west and established the Western Liao. Xiliao has nothing to do with Mongols, but when Genghis Khan unified Mongolia, an enemy fled westward to Xiliao next door. Escaping there actually won the appreciation of the king of Western Liao and became Xu. From then on, Western Liao became the scourge of Mongolia, so at this time, the Mongols fought with Guo Xu and Western Liao. It didn't take long for Xiliao to endure, and it was eaten by Mongols. After eating the Western Liao Dynasty, Mongolia met a country farther west, that is, the flower thorn submodule. Mongolia hopes to live in peace with Chimonanthus and become a friendly neighbor. But I didn't expect the caravan and messengers sent by Mongolia to be killed. Genghis Khan was very unhappy. He is at war with Xu Jinguo. Now, wait a minute, personally lead the team to turn around and run to the west to attack the thorn submodule. This time, the elimination of the flower thorn submodule was the first western expedition of the Mongolian empire. Whether fighting Jin Guo, Xiliao or Huatuo Mozi, the dominant thought of Mongols is revenge. However, after Mongolia conquered the flower thorn submodule, it was found that the world turned out to be such a dish, which had its own strength. Since then, the ambition of Mongols has been completely released and they have become the most terrible invaders in history. We can think that this is the starting point of the future Mongolian empire.

As can be seen from the above picture, the weak Xixia was the first to bear the brunt after Mongolia eliminated the flower thorn submodule. So the Mongols beat Xixia four or five times for various reasons, and finally raised their hands to destroy Xixia. But it was also at this time that Genghis Khan died in Xixia. After the Mongols wiped out Xiliao, Hualamozi and Xixia in the west, they cooperated with the Southern Song Dynasty in the east to wipe out the Jin State. After this operation, Mongolia has become a mobile phone in Asia.

The thorn submodule is in the westernmost part of Asia. When the Mongols were extinct, they rushed over their heads and came to the door of Europe. So the next step for Mongolians is to rush out of Asia and go to the world. This is the second western expedition of the Mongolian empire, and this time the goal is Europe. The western expedition was commanded by Genghis Khan's son, Xin Khan Wokuotai, all the way to Hungary in Europe today. When Genghis Khan's grandchildren came to power, there was the third western expedition of the Mongolian Empire. The main target this time is the Middle East, probably in today's Iraq and Syria. Well, by this time, the Mongols have conquered most parts of Eurasia, and the great Khan of Mongolia at this time is Mongo. Meng Ge is a good friend of Guo Jing in The Legend of the Condor Heroes. He is Tuo Lei, the youngest son of Genghis Khan, and his son is Meng Ge. Why mention Mungo? Because when the whole Mongolian empire was killing the quartet in the west, Mongo was in the east and personally attacked the hardest nail house: the Southern Song Dynasty. Why did he fight the Southern Song Dynasty? Because Mongolia conquered Europe and Africa, only neighboring Asia remained, so the map was relatively complete. But when Mongo attacked Chongqing Fishing City, he was killed. He also has two younger brothers, one is Ali Bug, who is in his hometown in Mongolia and is ready to take over as Khan. One is Kublai Khan, who attacked the Southern Song Dynasty with Meng Ge (but not in one place). These two younger brothers feel that they are the successors of Mongolian Khan. So Kublai Khan was anxious and wanted to run back to Mongolia to sweat. Back in Mongolia, Ali Bug was abruptly eliminated and became the great Khan of the Mongolian Empire. Kublai Khan went south again and finally destroyed the Southern Song Dynasty. At this point, the territory of the Mongolian empire was basically completed.

However, the Mongol Empire is not a formal title. Kublai Khan called this huge empire Dayuan Empire. However, the problem is as big as the territory of Dayuan Empire. Genghis Khan has many descendants. On the surface, such a large site is sweaty, but in fact it is divided and controlled by future generations. When Kublai Khan and Alibaba brothers were fighting for sweat, some people supported Kublai Khan and others supported Alibaba brothers. As a result, the huge Mongolian empire was separated from each other and divided into four khanates, namely Qincha khanate, Wokuotai khanate, Yili khanate and Chahetai khanate. Although Kublai Khan was a great Khan, he basically could not manage the four great Khan countries. Fortunately, after he successfully won the Southern Song Dynasty, there was a whole piece of private land in the east, which was the Yuan Empire and our Yuan Dynasty.

Eight, the Mongolian Empire of the Yuan Dynasty (I)

It took Mongolia decades to expand from a small tribe to a Eurasian giant. Historically, an empire as big as this usually experienced division. The Roman Empire was divided into two, and the Alexander Empire was divided into three. The Mongolian empire was divided into five pieces, four of which were given to the descendants of Genghis Khan, known as the Four Great Khan Kingdom; A piece of the Mongolian empire was personally occupied by Khan, known as the Yuan Empire. Originally, the Four Great Khan countries should listen to the Yuan Empire, but everyone didn't like Kublai Khan very much, so they went their own way. The Yuan Dynasty became the leader of an army.

The Yuan Dynasty had a characteristic: paying special fees to the emperor. It's only been 98 years, but it has experienced 1 1 emperors. There were 10 emperors in the middle 40 years. In order to quickly understand the Yuan Dynasty, we can divide it into three sections: the first section, the founding emperor Kublai Khan, the most prosperous period of the Yuan Dynasty; In the second paragraph, the "sects" of the Yuan Dynasty took turns to go into battle. During this period, they are only busy with one thing-transition; In the third paragraph, the last emperor Yuan Shundi was in office for a long time. Let's take a look at what happened in the Yuan Dynasty:

First, Kublai Khan period

At this time of the Yuan Dynasty, there was only one word: money. Because everyone's business is booming. In Eurasia at that time, many ethnic groups or small countries surrendered to the Mongolian empire and attached great importance to improving transportation, so it became very smooth for everyone to travel and do business. The most important thing is that Mongolians have no Confucian education, and there is no contempt chain for scholars, farmers and businessmen, which encourages business. At least under Kublai Khan's rule, the Yuan Dynasty was probably the most commercially developed dynasty in China's history. At the age of 17, a young man named Kelpolo came to the Yuan Dynasty with his father from Italy half a world away, and stayed in the Yuan Dynasty for more than ten years before returning to Europe. His story was written as The Travels of Marco Polo. This travel book blew the Yuan Dynasty to the sky, which triggered westerners' endless imagination of the East and finally opened the era of great European navigation.

However, the greatness of Kublai Khan, the emperor, is that he realized soberly and wisely that if he wants to dominate the territory of the Han people, the Mongols must be localized. Since then, the official establishment and state management in the Yuan Dynasty began to adopt the Chinese system. Everyone learned Chinese and China culture, and even the capital moved from Mongolia to the Yuan Dynasty (now Beijing). Since then, Beijing has become the political center of China, and it is still today.

Han people are good at farming, while Mongols only graze cattle and sheep. In the Yuan Dynasty, the rulers also began to encourage Mongolians to cultivate fields and cotton. Therefore, during Kublai Khan, the Yuan Dynasty not only developed commerce, but also miraculously restored agriculture after the war.

The Mongols wiped out the Southern Song Dynasty and spent all their luck. Since then, they have never won a battle. For example, in Japan, the Mongols sailed for Japan, and as a result, they encountered a typhoon and the fleet was overturned by the people involved. In addition to Japan, the Yuan Dynasty also fought in Vietnam and Myanmar. Either the Mongols were overthrown at sea or the local area was too hot to stay, and the final result was nothing.

But after this period, we found that the real problem of the Yuan Dynasty was not that mongolia navy was too strong.

Second, the various "clans" in the middle Yuan Dynasty.

The yuan dynasty was sinicized, and then it was fine. Mongolians are sinicized only to rule the Han people, but they don't understand the spirit of the Han people. The reason why the Yuan Dynasty kept the inventory for less than 100 years was that they didn't understand at least two things in Chinese. (1) succession to the throne. The Han dynasty can last for three or four hundred years. One of the reasons is that it attaches great importance to a rule: the old emperor is gone, the eldest son is gone, the eldest son is gone, the eldest son is on the throne, and so on. This is the eldest son inheritance system that began in the Zhou Dynasty. But the Mongols are different. If Khan dies, the whole family will sit down for a meeting and choose the most suitable person to be the next Khan. After the establishment of the Yuan Dynasty, Khan also began to appoint successors, but the Mongols still sincerely believe that whoever is the best can be Khan. So whenever a new Khan succeeds to the throne, there will be a coup. So in the 40 years after Kublai Khan's death, 10 emperors appeared one after another. So in the middle of the Yuan Dynasty, the country was never stable. ② National system. If the succession system is only a contradiction within the imperial court, then the biggest problem in the Yuan Dynasty is that it is not clear how Emperor Xian of Han played with so many nationalities. According to Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, all ethnic groups in China should be treated equally. Emperor Taizong was a very typical emperor with a great mind. However, Mongolians do things differently. He divided the Yuan Dynasty into four classes, and the status from high to low was as follows: Mongolians, Semu people, Han people and southerners. Grade difference means all-round three-dimensional inequality. For example, the punishment for Han people's mistakes is heavier in BiMeng than in BiMeng. More importantly, the lower the level, the heavier the tax. The Yuan Dynasty spent a lot of money. For example, Mongolian nobles don't pay taxes, but the court keeps giving them rewards. Almost all these huge expenses come from the exploitation of Han people, especially the Han people before the Southern Song Dynasty.

It is precisely because the society of the Yuan Dynasty was full of all kinds of inequality and political corruption that the most annoying role in the historical stage was forced out, that is, the peasant uprising. Therefore, the peasants in the Yuan Dynasty were revolting from beginning to end. Under the situation that the imperial court was in turmoil and the country was unstable, the Yuan Dynasty ushered in the last emperor: Yuan Shundi. Yuan Shundi was the longest-serving emperor in the Yuan Dynasty. He worked alone for 35 years, more than one third of the Yuan Dynasty. But we are not talking about his long service, but because he will be involved in a heavyweight legend in the history of China.

Nine, the Mongolian Empire of the Yuan Dynasty (Part Two)

It may be destiny takes a hand that Yuan Shundi can become emperor. His father was an emperor, but the emperor was killed by his brother, Yuan Shundi's uncle, within a few days. Yuan Shundi's uncle usurped the throne. Soon, my uncle's son died, so my uncle's conscience found that he returned the throne to Yuan Shundi's younger brother after his death, and then Yuan Shundi's younger brother died. As a result, only Yuan Shundi became emperor, when he was only 13 years old.

It is puzzling that when he became emperor, Bo Yan, the prime minister, was very happy because the emperor was still young. When he saw that the emperor was a soft persimmon, he took Yuan Shundi as a puppet and handled state affairs alone. However, Yuan Shundi has secretly found a good companion, ready to fight Bo Yan together, and this companion is Bo Yan's nephew, and his name is Tuotuo. One day, Bo Yan asked Shun Di to go hunting, and Yuan Shundi said I was ill. When Bo Yan went out alone, Tuotuo and Yuan Shundi immediately closed the door and staged a coup. After Bo Yan returned, Tuotuo listed a series of charges against him and dismissed him. Therefore, Tuotuo became the next prime minister. The detachment, known as a generation of famous ministers, brought many major reforms to the Yuan Dynasty. Such as resuming the imperial examination, reducing taxes and rectifying corruption. This combination of monarch and minister actually made the stormy Yuan Dynasty look a little bloody. Then, the Yuan Dynasty was exhausted, and just when politics improved slightly, the Yellow River burst its banks again. As soon as the Yellow River burst its banks, migrant workers were required to repair it. Governing the Yellow River was supposed to benefit the country and the people, but it turned out to be a disaster for the country and the people. The court forced150,000 migrant workers to work, but the low-level officials defrauded the court funds, and the migrant workers were not paid. The Yuan Dynasty finally faced a fatal impact: the peasant uprising at the end of the Yuan Dynasty.

In this peasant uprising, Anhui Anbaili Sect has two small leaders, one is Han and the other is Han. These two people usually have a lot of fans, and everyone rushed over and said they would follow. They are called the Red Scarf Army in history. Although the Red Scarf Army was originally initiated by Han and Liu, it is not a unified organization. In fact, it has many teams, scattered in various places. For example, the two most important Red Scarf Army: ① Han Liner &; (The founder Han Gang uprising was suppressed by the local police station, and later his son was on it, but the actual leader of this team is); (2) Xu Shouhui is in Hubei &; Xu Shouhui is a native of Huanggang, Hubei Province, and a monk from Jiangxi Province. His brothers call him monk Peng. Besides the Red Scarf Army, there are other uprising forces, such as Zhang Shicheng in Jiangsu and Fang Guozhen in Zhejiang. Everyone is busy with the work of rebellion. The following focuses on Han Liner &; Liu Futong this, this Red Scarf Army has a branch in another part of Anhui, and their leader is Guo Zixing. One day, a young man came to his army. He fought fiercely and soon became Guo Zixing's right-hand man. Guo Zixing even married his daughter. He is a legendary figure. When he was a child, he couldn't afford to eat, became a monk, and later, when he couldn't afford to eat, he simply came to the uprising: Zhu Yuanzhang. His wife is the future famous Ma Dajiao Ma Huanghou. Hint: Only two of the most important emperors in the history of China started from scratch: Liu Bang and Zhu Yuanzhang. They have one thing in common: they met the true love of life at the beginning of their business, and they shared joys and sorrows all the way. Bond girl Lv Hou&; Ma Huanghou Bigfoot. But after they became emperors, they never abandoned their wives, which made them godmothers and finally became a much-told story. )

At this time, Zhu Yuanzhang had two leaders, one was the big leader Liu Futong and the other was the little leader Guo Zixing. Guo Zixing, a small leader, later died of depression in his own team because of factional struggle. Liu Futong, the great leader, wanted to do great things, dreamed of overthrowing the Yuan Dynasty and fought in the north with his main force until he reached the capital of the Yuan Dynasty. But in the end the uprising failed and he died. Therefore, relying on the life practice of the leaders, the supreme leader of this Red Scarf Army finally became Zhu Yuanzhang. Zhu Yuanzhang's strength is getting stronger and stronger, and the pressure is getting bigger and bigger. Anhui is not enough. He needs to find a place to relieve the pressure. So he moved all the way and finally came to a new strategic location, which became Zhu Yuanzhang's base from then on. This place is called Qing Ji. When Zhu Yuanzhang came, he changed his name to Yingtian, which is Nanjing today. During his stay in Nanking, Zhu Yuanzhang managed his power attentively and made many important partners in the future, such as the famous Liu Bowen. The famous development strategy of "building a wall high, accumulating grain widely and becoming king slowly" was also determined during this period. With these nine words, Zhu Yuanzhang continued to develop in Nanjing and accumulated rich strategic resources when other rebel armies were high-profile kings.

The situation of the whole country at this time is like this. In the north, although the imperial court of the Yuan Dynasty did not fall, it was severely hit by Liu Futong and was dying. (Hint: The Prime Minister was very detached, but later he was framed by his political opponents and died. Yuan Shundi didn't take everything off completely, but became a bad king, eating, drinking and having fun every day, watching the rebels grow and develop. In the south, all the uprising teams have become warlords on the separatist side. In their eyes, the Yuan Dynasty was not worried. What we should consider now is how to defeat our competitors and become the terminator of the Mongols. There were three groups in the uprising: ① Zhu Yuanzhang was in Nanking, and his great leader Liu Futong was still fighting the Yuan Dynasty in the north, but he was not far from being killed. (2) Xu Shouhui, Jiangxi people, but at this time he has hung up. At this time, the leader of the Red Scarf Army was Xu Shouhui's younger brother Chen Youliang, Zhu Yuanzhang's greatest enemy in his life. (3) Jiangxi Zhang Shicheng, he is very rich and likes to stick to it. Zhu Yuanzhang found himself in a difficult position: between Zhang Shicheng and Chen Youliang. Zhu Yuanzhang finally made the decision to fight Chen Youliang first, so he killed Chen Youliang after a bitter battle, then turned the spear head around and successfully cleaned up Zhang Shicheng. With extraordinary strategy, Zhu Yuanzhang swallowed all two powerful opponents with different personalities and styles, and eventually became the king of all rebels. The remaining work is The Journey to the West, who killed the surviving Yuan Dynasty. But before that, there is another very important thing. Zhu Yuanzhang breathed a sigh of relief and announced on his own turf that a brand-new Han Dynasty was born, that is, the Ming Dynasty. The Ming Dynasty will be introduced in detail in later chapters.

X. Yuan Dynasty-Why was the Yuan Dynasty so short-lived?

From an economic point of view, let's talk about why the Yuan Dynasty was so short-lived. In its short life, its economic trajectory is very simple, just an irregular parabola. In the early period of Kublai Khan, the economy went up; In the second half, various "sects" took turns to go into battle, and the economy went down.

1, Kublai Khan's struggle history

Usually we look at the economy of a dynasty, mainly in two aspects: agriculture and commerce. Look at agriculture first. When Mongols first swept the world, they liked to turn cultivated land into pasture after grabbing territory. Later, during the Wokuotai period, under the influence of Lu Ye Chu Cai and others, the situation of changing cultivated land into pasture was greatly reduced. By the time Kublai Khan entered the Central Plains, he was completely enlightened, especially aware of the importance of agriculture, and made several landing plans: ① Persuade agriculture to farm, and Kublai Khan set up an agricultural persuasion department, whose daily duty was to persuade ordinary people to diversify their land. (2) Reclamation of wasteland, Kublai Khan encouraged everyone to reclaim wasteland, and whoever reclaims it will be returned, and the agricultural tax will be reduced or exempted. In addition, the imperial court also listed the increase of cultivated land area and the number of farmers as the assessment criteria for civil servants. (3) Technical guidance: Kublai Khan had people integrate the previous farming experience, made a planting technical guidance manual, and then invited civil servants from all over the country to the countryside for guidance. ④ Encourage cotton planting. Although cotton was introduced to China a long time ago, not many people planted it. There happened to be an aunt named Huang Daopo who came back from Hainan with gold plating and brought advanced textile technology, so the textile industry flourished. In addition, there are a series of measures such as building water conservancy projects and developing sideline businesses, so I won't talk about them one by one. In short, during the twenty or thirty years of Kublai Khan's rule, the war-torn agriculture recovered quite well.

Once the problem of food and clothing for ordinary people is solved, everyone can make time to do other things. Like business. For business, Mongols attach great importance to it in their genes. When they were still in the prairie, except meat and grass, other daily necessities had to be exchanged by doing business. Under the blessing of the mercantilist gene, Kublai Khan sent the commerce of the Yuan Dynasty to the peak in the history of the Central Plains. Then how did he do it? (1) Less tax. For businessmen, the biggest motivation for doing business is not to be busy in vain. The specific way for the court to encourage them is to pay less taxes. During Kublai Khan's reign, the business tax of the emperor's direct jurisdiction was reduced to 60 tax, that is, for every 60 yuan earned, only 1 yuan was paid. This ratio was relatively low in ancient times, and even he exempted some boatmen and boatmen from voluntary labor. (2) protect trade. When doing business at that time, businessmen often encountered the situation of "I opened this road, so I have to pass by from now on, leaving money to buy the road, etc." . Kublai Khan's approach was fierce, and he sent troops directly to escort him. ③ Improve traffic. As early as the Song Dynasty, water trade was very developed, and Kublai Khan skillfully inherited this game, foreign trade (port)+inland river (city). On this basis, water trade has further developed and more trading ports have been developed, such as Quanzhou Port. Internally, dredge the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal and Tonghui River Road. Moreover, the shipbuilding technology in the Yuan Dynasty was very developed, and merchant ships could go all the way through Southeast Asia to Egypt, Arabia and other places. In addition to maritime trade, Kublai Khan further developed the grassland Silk Road. It has built a land trade network from Siberia in the north, Central Asia in the west, Europe in the east, Northeast China in the east and the Central Plains in Nantong in the south. There are also post stations along the way to provide convenience for businessmen. The post office system. Such developed land and sea transportation conditions enabled the Yuan Dynasty to establish a trade circle across Europe, Asia and Africa. In addition to these operations, in order to support the further development of commerce, Kublai Khan has a bigger hand: issuing paper money. (Paper money existed in the Song Dynasty before the Yuan Dynasty, but it really began to circulate in the whole country from the Yuan Dynasty. )

2. Kublai Khan played with paper money

With the prosperity of trade in the Yuan Dynasty, a problem appeared: gold was too heavy to carry when trading internationally, which was very unfavorable for long-distance transactions. Inspired by Song Dynasty and Daikin, Kublai Khan issued paper money: unified paper money, supported by silver. In order to make people accept paper money, Kublai Khan banned everyone from trading in metal money. Use paper money when paying taxes. But the good times didn't last long, and it didn't take long for the paper money system to collapse. The reason is that Kublai Khan gradually slowed down the pace of external expansion, and he got less and less gold, silver and jewelry, resulting in insufficient fiscal revenue. So what should we do? Printing paper money However, with so many commodities on the market and so many paper money printed, the price can only rise, leading to inflation.

But as a man who once harnessed horses and shot sculptures on the grassland, Kublai Khan was unconvinced. So the currency reform was carried out and a set of banknotes was changed: yuan banknotes. There was inflation in the late Yuan Dynasty, but it was not very serious in Kublai Khan's time. But in any case, the circulation of paper money further promoted the development of commerce in Yuan Dynasty to some extent. Not only that, the banknotes of the Yuan Dynasty once flowed through Southeast Asia, a bit like the Asian dollar.

Kublai Khan worked so hard for more than 30 years, and finally pushed the Yuan Dynasty to a state where business was extremely prosperous and other aspects were not bad. However, as soon as Kublai Khan hung up, the Yuan Dynasty could not hold back and began to decline. ...

3. The economic collapse of the Yuan Dynasty.

As I said before, there were frequent coups in the Yuan Dynasty. Fighting to burn money is a matter of course. However, there is another custom of Mongols: once they are in the upper position, they will give a great reward to the princes and nobles. In the 40 years after Kublai Khan's death, there were 10 emperors. Therefore, during this period, the Yuan court spent a lot of money, and the national treasury often made ends meet. So what should we do?

Method 1: collect more taxes. All kinds of business taxes are rising. In just two or three decades, the salt tax has increased more than 20 times, and the tea tax has increased more than 240 times. Agricultural taxes are also rising, and farmers at that time were even worse. Mongolian princes and Han Chinese heroes occupy large fields, but they don't have to pay taxes, so heavy agricultural taxes fall on farmers or small landlords. Some people can't afford to pay taxes, so they have to borrow money, but in case the borrowed money is not paid, they can only take away the land. This was a land annexation at the end of Yuan Dynasty. In addition to land annexation in the Yuan Dynasty, there was a super abnormal game called fief system. That is, the emperor can arbitrarily set aside a large area of land for the Mongols, so after the mid-Yuan Dynasty, the faster the emperor changed it, the more things he gave to the land. Therefore, many yeomen and landlords lead a precarious life.

Method 2: print more banknotes. Printing more money has led to more and more serious inflation. In just a few years, prices rose by 10 times, and the economy of the Yuan Dynasty began to collapse in an all-round way. Soon, the weather was not beautiful, and it rained continuously for several years, and the Yellow River flooded. The imperial court levied 6.5438+0.5 million people to repair the Yellow River. But the country has no money, so it can only give you some useless paper money when it comes to disaster relief.

Therefore, the short life of the Yuan Dynasty seems to be a political issue, but it is actually an economic issue. The total economic collapse made it difficult for the people to survive, and then they rebelled.

Eleven, Yuan Dynasty-Yuan Qu

It is said that Yuan Qu is a pair of twins: Lao Yuan Sanqu (focusing on poetry, similar to a song) and Raul Yuan Zaju (focusing on drama, more like drama).

1, Yuan Sanqu

Dead vines, old trees, faint crows,

Small bridges and flowing water,

The ancient road and the west wind are thin.

The sun went down,

Heartbroken people are at the end of the world.

-Ma Zhiyuan's "Tianjingsha Qiu Si"

In fact, we learned it when we were young. How can it look so similar to Song Ci?

In fact, Song Ci and Yuan Qu are both ancient pop songs. The story goes like this:

In the Tang Dynasty, the music of the Han nationality and the western regions had a great cross-border integration and created a common name-Le Yan. But music itself is meaningless, so some people write lyrics, which are called tone words. This form became very popular as soon as it appeared. Instantly swept the entire entertainment circle and gradually divided into two schools: elegant and popular. Let's take a look at the elegant school first. First, a wave of intellectuals came, who improved the literary level of Ci and expanded its influence. Different tunes are different epigrams. Moreover, there are many requirements for lyrics, such as format and literary style. In this way, in the Song Dynasty, Ci reached the peak of life-Song Ci. Later, Ci became elegant literature and gradually had nothing to do with music. Let's look at the popular schools. After the Jin Dynasty occupied the north, some new elements were added to the folk songs: the music of nomadic people in the north. At the end of the Jin Dynasty, Yuan Sanqu was formally born, and its name was Qupai. Compared with Song Ci, the words filled in are more colloquial. And those intellectuals came again, which improved the literariness and influence of Sanqu. In this way, Yuan Sanqu reached its peak.

Although Song Ci and Yuan Sanqu look very similar, there are actually many differences, such as songs and formats. One of the most important points is that the language of Yuan Sanqu is straightforward and popular, and it is very colloquial, and the stories told can be understood by ordinary people. For example, I am a copper pea, which can't be steamed, boiled, beaten or fried. -Excerpt from Guan Hanqing's "A flower never grows old"

The music used in Yuan Zaju is similar to that used in Yuan Zaju, which can be roughly understood as: combining the music used in Yuan Zaju and performing it with traditional Chinese opera, it becomes Yuan Zaju.

2. Yuan Zaju

In fact, Yuan Zaju has existed for a long time, such as Dou E Yuan Qu: What is the land, regardless of good or bad? God, you are both smart and stupid! From Guan Hanqing's Feeling the Disturbance of the Earth.

The status of Yuan Zaju is quite high in the field of China opera, and the birth of Yuan Zaju marks the maturity of China opera. Why do you say that? China's operas can be traced back to the sacrificial activities in primitive society, communicating with ghosts and gods, and are called witches; Call [nuó] to scare away ghosts. After the Qin, Han, Tang and Song Dynasties, a variety of performance forms were born, such as: Pi [pái] Excellence in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, mainly performing songs and dances or telling jokes; The Chiyou drama in Han Dynasty, disguised as Chiyou confrontation, is a bit like wrestling. Song and dance in Sui and Tang Dynasties began to add some plots to the song and dance; The farce of the Southern Song Dynasty is mainly funny, and sometimes it satirizes current politics. There are various forms, but none of them are really mature operas. Wang Guowei, a famous scholar, once defined drama: a dramatist performs a story by singing and dancing. This means that a truly mature opera needs to meet three necessary conditions: singing and dancing, performance and story. Among these three conditions, singing and dancing performance is not a big problem, and the key lies in this story. Song and dance performances before the appearance of Yuan Zaju either had no story or the story was incomplete. Yuan Zaju was lucky, and storytelling helped him solve this problem. Storytelling, also called talking in ancient times, rose in the Song Dynasty, which is actually storytelling. Storytelling also had a far-reaching impact on later novels in Ming and Qing Dynasties. Some people think that The Romance of the Three Kingdoms was written according to the script of the storyteller. Of course, in addition to the above, Yuan Zaju has such a high status, and there are two assists contributed by the background of the times: one is the big city of Song and Yuan Dynasties, and the other is the cancellation of the imperial examination.

(1) the song and yuan dynasties "greatly greatly" city.

During the Song and Yuan Dynasties, commerce was very developed, and many important cities or ports were transformed into megacities with a population of several million. At this time, the night ban has been lifted, and millions of people live together and want to have some entertainment to relax. As a result, Goulan Washe was born and was deeply loved by the people. Here, there are all kinds of song and dance performances, storytellers, dancers and acrobats. In this way, with a special venue and a wide audience base, the development of traditional Chinese opera has also become very rapid.

(2) The Imperial Examination is gone.

The imperial examination system has always been the lifeblood of China literati. If you don't want to be abandoned by your peers, you have to study hard and rely on the imperial examination. But in the Yuan Dynasty, imperial examinations were not held for 80 years. The road for literati to be officials is blocked, but many literati have to write scripts for a living because of their livelihood. These literati produced a number of excellent works in Yuan Zaju, which established the status of Yuan Zaju.

Under the blessing of many conditions, Yuan Zaju began to break out, and its development created the first peak in the history of China opera. The development of Yuan Zaju is related to a kind of drama called Nanxi. Southern Opera was born in Song Dynasty, and it is also a kind of traditional opera. When the Yuan Dynasty and the Southern Song Dynasty coexisted, the pattern of drama circle was Yuan Zaju in the north, which developed well, while the Southern Opera in the south needed to grow. After the Yuan Dynasty destroyed the Southern Song Dynasty, there were exchanges between North and South operas, and under the influence of Yuan Zaju, Southern operas gradually grew. However, Yuan Zaju gradually declined, while Southern Opera developed. In the Ming Dynasty, the second peak of China opera-Ming Legend appeared. There are four major tunes in Ming legends, among which Kunshan tune developed into Kunqu opera. Kunqu opera is known as the ancestor of hundreds of operas, and later the formation of Peking Opera and other operas was related to Kunqu opera. Yuan Qu can be said to be a hundred flowers of poetry and drama, among which Yuan Zaju became the representative of China popular culture with its straightforward and popular language.

So much for Yuanqu. If you want to know more, you can look at Mr. Wang Guowei's History of Song and Yuan Opera.

Next topic-Ming Dynasty