Chapter 82 Some Thoughts on Shan Hai Jing
There are two interpretations of the book Shanhaijing. One is to regard it as a myth, and the other is to regard it as an encyclopedia and history book.
Generally speaking, Shanhaijing has a strong mythological color, but I always believe that any natural myth is mostly a phenomenon actually observed by the ancients. The older the myth, the more so it is. It must have a prototype.
In my eyes, Shanhaijing is an objective record. It is all-encompassing and covers dozens of fields. It is completely the crystallization of the wisdom of the ancients.
Some of them are regarded as myths, which is purely due to the differences in cognition, observation angles, and description methods between ancient and modern people.
Lack of vocabulary, vague description by patchwork analogy, and then easy to cause misunderstanding.
In short, the describer is too subjective, but the things he describes are objectively existing, not imagined.
What the facts are depends on the attitude of the interpreter.
If the interpreter thinks it is fictional, then the content interpreted is naturally fictional.
However, since it is allowed for some people to presume that it is fictional, it is natural to directly assume that it is a real record and interpret it.
People who choose the former are the mainstream, but there are also people who choose the latter interpretation attitude, and I am one of them.
For example.
"Classic of Mountains and Seas·Great Wilderness Southern Classic" records: "In the Great Wilderness, there is a person named Huantou. Gun's wife is Shi Jing, Shi Jing's son is Yan Rong, and Huantou was born. He has a human face and a bird's beak with wings. He eats fish in the sea and walks with wings. Wei Yi Ju, Xiang Yang are his food. There is a country called Huantou."
The meaning is very simple: In the Great Wilderness, there is a person called Huantou. Gun's wife is Shi Jing, Shi Jing has a son named Yan Rong, and Yan Rong's descendants are the people of Huantou. Human face and bird's beak with wings, he eats fish in the sea, and walks like a cane with wings. They travel in groups, often holding wings to patrol the seashore, waiting for an opportunity to catch fish with their bird's beak to eat.
From the perspective of gods, ghosts, and monsters, it is entirely possible to imagine a kind of bird-headed person who cannot fly, and his appearance can be very strange.
But if we take it as objective and reliable history, then it is completely about penguins, with wings on both sides of the body and upright bodies that sway when walking.
Penguins are too much like humans in both manners and appearance. They are monogamous, line up when going to the beach, and are accompanied by little penguins, just like when humans migrate.
Early South American natives also regarded penguins as humans, and believed that a large group of people lived on the white island in the south.
These are two ways of interpretation.
The former can say that the latter is unscientific. How can the Shanhaijing from China describe penguins in Antarctica? Thousands of miles away, is this so-called south of the wilderness the Antarctic? It is really hard to believe. You have to know that if there were no Internet and no aquariums, most modern Chinese people would not have seen penguins.
As for the latter, it can also be said that the former is too conceited. Why is it impossible for ancient people to have seen penguins? Maybe there were penguins in the South China Sea in the past, or maybe the original version of Shanhaijing existed earlier than we thought, and it brought together the experiences of early human migration. Or maybe, thousands or ten thousand years ago, humans had the ability to go to Antarctica!
There must be some truth behind this, and existence has its reason, and this book is there. How to interpret it, right or wrong is no longer testable, and everyone has their own worldview.
In this extra chapter, at the request of book friends, I will tell you about Shanhaijing in my mind.
Before telling the story, we must first start with the book itself.
The original version of Shanhaijing has long been lost.
The version circulating today is the version compiled by Liu Xiang and Liu Xin, and passed down to Guo Pu in the Jin Dynasty.
As early as in the Records of the Grand Historian, there was a description of Shanhaijing. Unfortunately, Sima Qian said that the content in it "I dare not say it", and his cowardice made us miss the complete version of Shanhaijing.
Shanhaijing was not originally a book, but a collection of many similar books that recorded various knowledge. Some strange books don't even have words, only pictures. That's why it's so all-encompassing, sometimes talking about geography, sometimes talking about folk customs, sometimes talking about geology, and sometimes talking about history.
Later, Liu Xiang and Liu Xin, father and son of the Han Dynasty, sorted and edited it into a Shanhaijing, a total of 18 chapters.
At this point, I have to talk about Liu Xin, because he is the culprit for us not being able to see the complete Shanhaijing.
Both father and son are great masters of classics, and Zhang Taiyan even evaluated Liu Xin as the greatest figure after Confucius.
Their status in classics is top-notch.
Among them, Liu Xiang was ordered to lead the proofreading secretary during the reign of Emperor Cheng of Han, specializing in proofreading a large number of ancient books and scriptures in the Han Palace. The reason for sorting is that almost all the classics since the pre-Qin period are preserved in the Han Palace, but most of those classics are not complete, that is, scattered. A piece of bamboo slip in the east records a sentence, and a piece of bamboo slip in the west records a sentence. A large pile of bamboo slips piled together may come from more than a dozen different books.
Many of them have blurred handwriting, and some of them were burned to only half a sentence or a few words because Xiang Yu set fire to Xianyang.
The bamboo slips piled up in countless palaces are a treasure. Scholars often go to the palace to look for bargains.
During the reign of Emperor Wen, a fire broke out in the palace, burning a lot of things, so Emperor Wen wanted to protect these things and ordered people to sort them out, calibrate and integrate them into books, but the progress has been very slow because it is too difficult to sort out and there are too many of them. It often takes more than ten years to sort out a set of books.
It was not until the period of Liu Xiang and Liu Xin that the efficiency improved by leaps and bounds, and it took only two generations to complete the compilation. All the classics circulated after the Western Han Dynasty were basically edited and collated by these two people, so they were masters of classics.
In other words, after the Western Han Dynasty, reading the works before the Western Han Dynasty basically depends on the version decided by them.
How efficient were they? So fast that the bamboo slips that were originally stored in more than a dozen palaces were finally stored in only one palace.
I am not saying that they deliberately cut corners and deleted, but some bamboo slips really could not be sorted out, and only one sentence or half a sentence was left in a certain article.
However, it is by no means ruled out that they had selfish motives when they deleted.
When they proofread books, they would write an appendix, which is the explanation of the deletion.
For example, "Xunzi" originally had 322 chapters, and after Liu Xiang proofread, there were only 32 chapters left.
This deletion was too outrageous. No wonder two generations of his father and son finished what had not been completed for two hundred years.
As for the reasons for the deletion, he wrote the explanation of the deletion and kept it on file, which can be roughly divided into three types.
The first is that it was deleted because of duplicate chapters.
The second is that Liu Xiang thought it was a fake, so he deleted it.
The third is that it was deleted because it did not conform to some ideas of the time that only respected Confucianism.
Dong Zhongshu advocated the interaction between heaven and man, great unification, and the exclusive respect for Confucianism. By the time of Liu Xiang and Liu Xin, it had become the mainstream thought.
Xunzi advocated that "the way of heaven is constant, it does not exist for Yao, nor does it perish for Jie." This sentence is not in line with the theory of interaction between heaven and man, but fortunately, because it is too famous, everyone knows it without him sorting it out, so he can't delete it.
But it is conceivable that some hidden chapters hidden in countless bamboo slips, unknown to the public, as long as they do not conform to the general environment at the time, were deleted during the sorting.
Xunzi's works shrank ten times in this way.
The same is true for the Classic of Mountains and Seas, and there are also such deletions.
After Liu Xin finished the calibration, he wrote a "Table of the Classic of Mountains and Seas", which means: I calibrated 32 chapters of the Classic of Mountains and Seas, and now I have 18 chapters.
He edited the Shanhaijing and deleted fourteen chapters!
As for the content of those fourteen chapters, he did not mention them at all. They have been completely lost and are completely unknown to future generations. Unless the Qin Shihuang Mausoleum, which has not yet been excavated, gives a surprise in the future.
Liu Xin is the master of Confucian classics. His compilation has allowed many classics to be passed down and preserved to this day.
But it also caused many chapters to be lost directly from his hands.
Moreover, Liu Xin's character is really not very good. In his eyes, the scriptures are just tools.
He is the biggest contributor to Wang Mang's usurpation of the throne. Wang Mang relied on public opinion to rise to power. Among the countless people who praised Wang Mang at that time, Liu Xin was the leader and the highest authority in the academic and cultural fields at that time.
The two had known each other for decades and were close friends. In order to realize his political desires, Wang Mang needed a new doctrine as his theoretical weapon. The ancient classics advocated by Liu Xin contained some content that was conducive to his usurpation of power in the Han Dynasty. Therefore, Wang Mang used the power of the regime to strongly support Liu Xin in promoting the ancient classics, and at the same time exchanged Liu Xin and others for using the ancient classics to consolidate their positions, usurp power, and create public opinion for ancient reforms, providing a theoretical basis.
After Wang Mang usurped the throne, he made Liu Xin his national teacher, which basically made Liu Xin his mouthpiece for public opinion.
However, during the period when Wang Mang was a "fake emperor", Liu Xin did a stupid thing.
He was so unlucky that when he was successful and at the peak of his life, for some unknown reason, he changed his name to Liu Xiu. Some people say that he also wanted to rely on public opinion to become emperor, but who knows, let's just assume that he doesn't know the reason.
In short, after Wang Mang usurped the throne, a prophecy in society became more and more popular, which generally meant that Liu Xiu should be the emperor.
Who is Wang Mang? A man who is committed to reform, he has already achieved his first step as an emperor, how can he allow a "Liu Xiu" to come out and make trouble? So he did not care about the old friendship at all, and directly killed Liu Xin, the most important propaganda worker, on the charge of plotting to assassinate the emperor.
What a good name, change this name to a deadly one.
When Liu Xin was killed, the real Liu Xiu was still a farmer, herding cattle at home, and joked with people: "How do you know that the Liu Xiu who will become the emperor will not be me? '
Of course, it is unknown whether Emperor Guangwu really said this, but there was indeed that prophecy at the time, and almost everyone believed that the Liu Xiu in the prophecy was Liu Xin.
Liu Xin's name is so good, taken from the Book of Songs·Da Ya: "The fragrance begins to rise, and the God lives in Xin." As a result, he had to change his name, and his integrity was lost.
I have said so much, in fact, I just want to say that with his character, I think Liu Xin deleted a lot of very important ancient history in Shanhaijing.
Originally, there should be a lot of descriptions about the deeds of the Five Emperors in the Classic of Mountains and Seas, but now only a few words are left.
Why did Liu Xin delete the fourteen chapters? If it was just mythology, why did he bother to fight with a book of supernatural powers?
Combining the three reasons for his deletion of the book, there may be duplicate chapters, but it is impossible that they are all.
He thought it was a forgery? This is completely impossible. If he wanted to say it was a forgery, wouldn’t he just think it was all forgery? For such a magical book, even the author is unknown, there is no such thing as forgery or not.
In the end, there is only one thing left: something that does not conform to Confucian propaganda.
And this thing is not of the same nature as the existing eighteen chapters, otherwise it would have been deleted together.
Therefore, in the fourteen chapters deleted from the Classic of Mountains and Seas, there may be a lot of remarks similar to "Yao's virtue declined and was imprisoned by Shun" and "Da Yu occupied Xia land to resist Shun" in the Bamboo Annals.
This kind of speech was the ultimate disharmony in the Western Han Dynasty, and it was basically banned after that. Only now can we freely Baidu it.
After all, this statement directly overthrew the foundation of Confucianism. Confucius spent his whole life calling for a return to three generations ago, crazily praising the beauty of the prosperous age of the sage kings Yao, Shun, and Yu.
If your Classic of Mountains and Seas is the same as the Bamboo Chronicles and spreads that Shun exiled Yao and Yu forced Emperor Shun to death based on his merits, then it would be normal for Liu Xin to delete fourteen chapters.
However, no matter how banned some things are, they will still be spread. For example, there are ancient books such as Bamboo Chronicles that leave behind family stories. For example, Li Bai wrote a poem called "Far Away and Farewell": ... or it goes like this: Yao was imprisoned in seclusion, and Shun died in the wild. Nine doubts are all similar, but what is the solitary grave with double pupils? The emperor's son wept among the green clouds, and went away with the storm without ever returning. Weeping and looking into the distance, I saw the deep mountains of Cangwu. Cangwu Mountain collapses and the Xiang River is extinguished, and the tears on the bamboo can be extinguished.
Li Bai's poem shows that in the open-minded Tang Dynasty, there were still a few classics or fragments circulating about another theory that ancient history subverted the three views.
So far, the above discussion...
Through Liu Xin's character, Liu Xin's actions, as well as his original intention and selfishness in revising books.
I personally think that there is a lot of ancient history hidden in the Classic of Mountains and Seas, and the main parts of it have been deleted. Leave some geography, animals, plants, gods and monsters, religious customs, etc.
Among them, there is still a small amount of "history" that Liu Xin thinks is no problem and innocuous, and those histories are what we think of as unrealistic myths and legends!
I believe that the Classic of Mountains and Seas must contain a lot of historical truth!
Liu Xin used his own method to hide and bury the real historical text, creating a blank millennium in ancient times.
You must know that Sima Qian was writing a history book back then. If the Classic of Mountains and Seas was just an encyclopedia, then he would not have written it. Why did he mention the Classic of Mountains and Seas? Why do I have to say, "Yu Benji and Shan Hai Jing, I dare not speak about it?" ’
What is his position and what kind of complicated mentality does he have when he writes such words? I have no idea.
But at least, Sima Qian himself believed that the Classic of Mountains and Seas contained history and was qualified to be included in the historical records, or at least affect the content of the historical records! Otherwise, he wouldn’t even need to mention it.
When writing historical records, he referred to Yu Benji and the Classic of Mountains and Seas, and finally decided not to speak out.
Perhaps that goes against his worldview.
You must know that Sima Qian and Dong Zhongshu had a master-disciple relationship. In "Historical Records: The Chronicles of the Five Emperors", the mainstream Confucian theory was chosen.
If the various legends recorded in the Classic of Mountains and Seas were contrary to it, he would naturally have to choose one of them and not dare to speak about the other.
The purpose of Sima Qian's saying this is because the Classic of Mountains and Seas is related to the history book he wants to write. He is giving an explanation for how he wrote the Chronicles of the Five Emperors.
The Classic of Mountains and Seas, in its unabridged version, may be another kind of historical truth.
…
In order to let everyone understand, maybe it is a little wordy. I haven't written a paper before, sorry.
But I have to dwell on this, because all my personal understanding of Shan Hai Jing will be based on the above central idea.
All my interpretations of the Classic of Mountains and Seas will be based on this ‘first impression’!
Due to limited space today, I will only talk about one story "Kuafu Zhuri" for the time being.
This story first came from the Classic of Mountains and Seas. Some people say that the Classic of Mountains and Seas was only written during the Warring States Period. I think it is earlier, at least some of the chapters are earlier.
My reason is simple, because Liezi also told this story.
In the third chapter of Liezi Tang Wen, it is written: "Kuafu does not know his strength, and wants to chase the sun's shadow in the corner of the valley." If you are thirsty and want to drink, go to the river and Wei to drink. If there are not enough rivers and rivers, we will go north to drink from Daze. Before he arrived, Tao died of thirst. He abandoned his staff and soaked it in corpse paste and flesh, and Deng Lin was born. Deng Lin is thousands of miles wide. ’
So how was the Classic of Mountains and Seas written?
"The Classic of Mountains and Seas: Overseas Northern Classic": "Kuafu and the sun are walking away. When he enters the sun, he is thirsty and wants to drink. He drinks from the river and Wei. When the river and Wei are insufficient, he drinks from Daze in the north." Before he arrived, Tao died of thirst. Abandoning his staff, he transformed into Deng Lin. ’
It’s clear who quoted whom.
The Classic of Mountains and Seas is concise, with no description of Kuafu's mentality and no excessive details. Some are just calm words without any statements of subjective thoughts.
In comparison, Liezi wrote "Kuafu overestimated his ability", "Kuafu chased him to Yugu", and wrote details such as "the flesh was soaked in plaster" and "Deng Lin covered the area thousands of miles wide".
As we all know, "Liezi Tangwen" is a book of fables written during the Warring States Period. Yanshi performed his skills, Foolish Old Man moved the mountain, Bian Que changed his mind, False people worried about the sky, Confucius saw two children arguing with the sun... all come from it.
Lie Yukou is a person who especially likes to take some things he sees, adapt them, express his own opinions, make them into fables, and spread some thoughts and feelings.
Of course, he also wrote a lot of hidden truths, because he has definitely read the complete version of The Classic of Mountains and Seas, and like Laozi, read many books in the Zhou royal palace.
There is not enough space for some things about Liezi, so I won’t talk about them for now.
It’s just that moving mountains, changing hearts, and Confucius are all obviously allegories.
The Kuafu Zhuri he wrote is a typical one that contains thoughts and feelings, and he added a subjective touch.
But the Classic of Mountains and Seas is not the case. The Classic of Mountains and Seas uses cold words to describe Kuafu's affairs lightly.
Someone may say that the "Classic of Mountains and Seas: Great Wilderness Northern Classic" wrote: "In the Great Wilderness, there is a mountain named Chengdu Zai Tian. There is a man with two yellow snakes on his ears, holding two yellow snakes, named Kuafu. Hou Tu gave birth to Xin, and Xin gave birth to Kuafu. Kuafu did not measure his strength and wanted to chase the sun, and caught it in Yugu. He was about to drink from the river but it was not enough, so he went to the big marsh, but died before he reached it. '
The same Classic of Mountains and Seas mentioned here that Kuafu wanted to catch the sun.
Compared with Lie Zi's Tang Wen, I can assert that this sentence in the Great Wilderness Northern Classic is a fake. Or, it was Liu Xin who added Lie Zi's statement into this classic without authorization when he was compiling it.
There are two reasons. First, it is repeated. The Overseas Northern Classic is extremely concise and there is no subjective comment. In the Great Wilderness Northern Classic, the same thing has subjective comments such as "not measuring strength" and "wanting to chase the sun".
Second, this subjective comment is exactly the same as Lie Zi's Tang Wen, which is pure plagiarism.
Liezi Tangwen, the whole article is a classic, full of originality, how could it be almost exactly plagiarized from Shanhaijing?
So is it possible that Liezi wrote it first, and Shanhaijing was not yet a book, and later generations saw Liezi's story and added it to Shanhaijing?
In my opinion, it is impossible.
At least in the pre-Qin period, the real author of Shanhaijing did not do this.
Because the overseas Beijing, that rational and not subjective description of the same thing is there. It is definitely not something that someone would write after reading Liezi's story with subjective text.
Only after reading rational text, can you associate complex subjective stories.
It is impossible to read a complex subjective story, write it down, and then write rational and calm rhetoric in another classic.
I always believe that in the real version of Shanhaijing, all the details and thoughts and feelings described in the later myth of Kuafu chasing the sun do not exist!
It is the later generations who made something that was not originally a myth into a myth. Through artistic processing techniques, the record of this short sentence is enriched.
And Liezi, the fable writer, is the first person to do this. He teased Confucius, teased Bian Que, and madly criticized the people of Song and Qi. He didn't mind further criticizing Kuafu's IQ.
The myth of Kuafu chasing the sun, which is widely circulated today and well known to us, all originated from Lie Zi's fables and Lie Zi's purposeful and educational statements.
Rather than the real records in the Classic of Mountains and Seas.
The real records in the Classic of Mountains and Seas only have a very simple description: "Kuafu chased the sun, set in the sun, thirsty, wanted to drink, drank from the Yellow River and Wei River, the water was not enough, went north to drink from the Great Lake. Before he arrived, he died of thirst on the way. He threw away his staff, which turned into Denglin. '
Basically, there is no need to translate, and junior high school students can understand it. Among them, "chase" means running, or chasing. Denglin is the peach forest.
So if you translate it without any emotion, that is: Kuafu chased the sun, and the sun set; he was thirsty and wanted to drink water, so he drank the water of the Yellow River and Wei River. Not enough! He went north to drink water from the Great Lake. Before he arrived, he died of thirst on the way. The walking stick fell and turned into a peach forest.
Such plain words, the records in the Classic of Mountains and Seas are actually recorded truthfully, with very little imagination.
It’s just that the way of expression is limited by vocabulary and is very vague, so it is easy to misunderstand.
First of all, we can think that the author of the Classic of Mountains and Seas, at least the author who wrote this sentence, understands the content expressed in the entire Classic of Mountains and Seas.
At least, he did not impose his own ideas on Kuafu like Lie Zi did, nor did he impose his own ideas on Kuafu like the sentence in the Great Wilderness Northern Classic.
A few words are missing, and subjective thoughts are missing. Broadly speaking, isn’t this still the same as the myth?
In fact, it is not. First of all, the myth says that he chased the sun, but that is unrealistic.
The original text only wrote "enter the sun", which does not mean entering the sun. If he wants to enter the sun, where can he drink the Yellow River and Wei River? Could it be that the Yellow River is in the sun?
"Enter the sun" refers to time. Since ancient times, sunrise represents daytime, and sunset represents nighttime. Putting "enter" in front means that it is nighttime. Similarly, "out of the sun" means that the sun has come, that is, it is daytime.
Shanhaijing never wrote that Kuafu was thirsty because of the sun, nor did it write how hot the sun was, let alone that Kuafu dried up the river.
If the first sentence "chasing the sun" is removed, it is also possible to directly say that Kuafu entered the sun, was thirsty, and wanted to drink water...
Liezi can also associate it with: Wow, Kuafu entered the sun, and then he was thirsty and wanted to drink water...
But Shanhaijing did not write that, because Shanhaijing never wanted to say that Kuafu entered the sun, which was impossible.
The entire subsequent behavior has nothing to do with the sun.
Chasing the sun means that Kuafu walked to the west, and entering the sun means that it was night.
Some people may say: Why say "chasing the sun"? Why not just write walking to the west?
It's very simple, it contains a huge amount of information.
Chasing the sun not only expresses the direction, but also expresses the time, that is, "walking during the day"!
There is no sun at night, how to chase the sun?
The meaning of this sentence is that Kuafu followed the sun during the day and rested at night.
This is a very simple description of a state with ancient habits, including people still have this description habit later: "You follow the sun" and "You follow the North Star".
Modern people who are trapped in the desert also rely on the sun to locate.
The ancients did the same.
The Shanhaijing records and describes it in this way, which makes me see that Kuafu is on a long journey, even leaving his hometown. He is doing an activity alternating day and night.
Otherwise, he would not have had to walk along the river in the direction of the sun, which would have taken him far away from his hometown and the place he was familiar with.
I personally think that Kuafu, or the Kuafu clan, was migrating.
Kuafu traveled during the day and rested at night. He was naturally thirsty at night.
In ancient times, people who traveled far away from water sources must not be far away from water sources, and they all followed the water and grass. If they rested in a place far away from the water source, they would inevitably end up miserably.
Clan migration is even more so, and they must look for places with water sources. After all, this is something that even animals know when they migrate!
But in the end, Kuafu still committed such a taboo.
They traveled during the day, rested and drank water at night, and went west along the Yellow River to the upper reaches of the Wei River.
Then they had to go north to the Daze.
It would be fine to walk along the river, as they could drink water all the way. But they had to stay away from the mother river, cross unfamiliar areas, and look for the big lake.
In the end, didn't they die of thirst?
After death, the peach branches they brought with them on their trek did not "die of thirst", but grew into peach trees next to their bodies, and the peach trees bore fruit, fell seeds, and grew up again, eventually turning into a peach forest.
The vitality of peach branches is stronger than that of the Kuafu tribe.
This passage in the Overseas Classics of the North only says so much.
In short, Kuafu or the Kuafu tribe walked westward during the day, rested at night to replenish water, and continued to walk during the day, drinking the water of the Yellow River and the Wei River along the way. Later, they wanted to go north to find a big lake, but they died of thirst halfway, and the crutches they left behind later grew into a peach forest.
It is so simple, such a simple thing.
The description of the Overseas Classics of the North is very rational, it is just describing simple facts.
But behind this incident, there are many mysteries. Why did this great migration take place?
Walked along the Yellow River to the Wei River, and then left the Wei River and went north.
That is, from a place that might be south of the Yellow River, walked to Shaanxi, and then went north into Gansu?
Why "drinking from the Yellow River and Wei River, the Yellow River and Wei River are not enough"?
It is definitely not what later generations imagined that the giant drank the Yellow River and Wei River dry and still felt thirsty.
If Kuafu could drink so much, how did he live to be so old? Countless clans in the Yellow River Basin died? This is not much weaker than the Great Flood. Dayu did not need to control the flood, and asked Kuafu to drink.
If explained in this way, five words can express: "drinking the Yellow River and Wei River dry, thirsty", or "the Yellow River and Wei River are dry, and I also want to drink".
It's all right, but Shanhaijing did not indicate that the Yellow River was drunk dry.
So the fact is definitely not the case. The meaning of the Yellow River and Wei River being insufficient should be that the Yellow River and Wei River cannot be the water source for the Kuafu clan to survive from generation to generation.
Migration must settle in places with water sources. Kuafu clan searched the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River and walked along the Wei River, but there was still no place for them in the world. Then they had no choice but to leave the mother river and go north to find a big lake to settle.
Kuafu could not stay in the Yellow River Basin, so he ran to the Wei River Basin, but still could not stay there, so he had to go north.
They were forced to do so, they were excluded by the forces in the entire Yellow River Basin, and they were being hunted down.
It was not that Kuafu wanted to chase the sun, but that he was forced to chase the sun, and someone was chasing Kuafu.
Fortunately, the evidence is in the Classic of Mountains and Seas.
Liu Xin did not delete the text left by the perspective of another force in this incident.
"Classic of Mountains and Seas·Great Wilderness East Classic": "In the northeast corner of the Great Wilderness, there is a mountain called Xiongli Tuqiu. Yinglong came out of the South Pole and killed Chiyou and Kuafu. '
And the sentence that said that the "Great Wilderness North Classic" was a fake was not finished. The full text should be: "In the Great Wilderness, there is a mountain called Chengdu Zaitian. There is a man with two yellow snakes on his ears, holding two yellow snakes, named Kuafu. Hou Tu gave birth to Xin, and Xin gave birth to Kuafu. Kuafu did not measure his strength and wanted to chase the sun, and caught it in Yugu. He was about to drink from the river but it was not enough, so he was about to go to the big marsh, but he died here before he arrived. Yinglong had killed Chiyou and Kuafu, so he went to the south to settle down, so there was a lot of rain in the south. ’
Seeing this, I am afraid that some people should understand why I say that this sentence in the Northern Classic is a fake chapter.
This is a very random addition. It contains both Liezi's artistic expression of the Overseas Northern Classic and the statement in the Great Wilderness Eastern Classic.
No matter how you look at it, it seems that Liu Xin added a summary of Kuafu's fate, that is, how he died later, after the passage "Chengdu Zai Tian has Kuafu, Hou Tu gave birth to Xin, and Xin gave birth to Kuafu", which should only introduce the origin of Kuafu.
Moreover, in the same sentence, "two ways of death" appeared.
This is completely a combination of several chapters, summarized at the end.
I guess it was a problem that Liu Xin sorted out, adding unnecessary details.
Of course, it is not ruled out that there were several early authors of the Classic of Mountains and Seas, who completed this work in a relay manner.
The Overseas Northern Classic was completed, and Liezi was not born yet. By the time the Great Wilderness Northern Classic was co-written, it was already after the time of Lie Zi, so there appeared texts with Lie Zi's subjective comments and summary speeches.
This possibility is also possible, but it can only reduce the credibility of the Great Wilderness Northern Classic.
The Overseas Northern Classic and the Great Wilderness Eastern Classic are both quite rational.
In short, following a logic, the credibility of those without subjective judgment is higher than that with subjective judgment.
So the sentence "In the northeast corner of the Great Wilderness, there is a mountain called Xiongli Tuqiu. Yinglong came out of the South Pole and killed Chiyou and Kuafu. ' is credible.
It is still very plain, where Yinglong came from and where he went, and what he did.
Then it's over, there is no comment, and it doesn't write what Yinglong thinks.
Based on this sentence and the previous interpretation.
It is known that it was Yinglong who chased Kuafu, and he killed Kuafu, or killed Kuafu.
Kuafu ran along the Yellow River and reached Shaanxi. Yinglong wanted to kill all of them. In the end, he had no choice but to go north to find a big lake, hoping to live near the lake and stay away from the Central Plains.
It's a pity that he was being chased, so he ran too fast, didn't drink enough water, and didn't bring enough supplies.
So in the process of migrating north, the road was unfamiliar, and there was no water source, so I died of thirst.
Yinglong killed Chiyou and Kuafu. It shows that the two sides are opposites, and Chi You and Kua Fu are on the same side.
And Yinglong was undoubtedly the greatest helper to Huang Di in defeating Chi You.
He is Huang Di's loyal supporter.
The Yanhuang Group defeated the Jiuli Group, and Chi You's allies were naturally left in the cold.
At least in the Yellow River Basin, there is no longer a place where the Kuafu family can live and settle down.
Yinglong drove the Kuafu family out of the Yellow River Basin and died in the process of migrating north.
And this process also completed the export of fruit tree varieties.
Near Daze in the north, peach tree varieties from the Central Plains were brought.
It's over, that's it.
So much for Kuafu.
This is not a new statement. Simply combining the myth of Kuafu, the need for ancient tribes and clans to live by water, and the sentence that Yinglong killed Kuafu, anyone can summarize the above sequence of events.
I just want to say that the truly calm words in Shan Hai Jing are not exaggerated at all.
It was completely recorded from an overlooking perspective.
Of course, such objective words are not all. There are also a lot of subjective elements in the Classic of Mountains and Seas. When interpreting those things, the credibility should be reduced by half.
Different sutras, different parts, may even have multiple descriptions of one thing.
And even the names are different and the words are different. They are not the same person at all. So it must have been written by multiple authors at different times.
Those with subjective comments can basically be considered to be summarized into the Classic of Mountains and Seas at a relatively late stage. They may be filled in by later generations or added indiscriminately. This should be taken out separately when interpreting.
And the remaining ones are objective words like "Kuafu and Ri Zhuzuo...".
It is the essence of Shan Hai Jing.
And the appearance of that part must definitely be earlier than the era of Liezi, that is, the Warring States period.
Because Liezi really has many stories, inspired by the Classic of Mountains and Seas.
In addition to Kuafu Zhuri, there is also Donghai Guixu.
The opening chapter of "The Classic of Mountains and Seas: The Great Wilderness East" reads: Beyond the East China Sea lies the great ravine, the country of Shaohao. Zhuanxu, the Shaohao Ru Emperor, abandoned his harp and harp here.
Liezi became interested in this large ravine again, and he expanded it and wrote: To the east of the Bohai Sea, hundreds of millions of miles away, there is a large ravine. It is actually a bottomless valley with no bottom below it, and it is called Guixu.
This is completely based on the Classic of Mountains and Seas, written as if he looked at the map and knew there was the Mariana Trench.
On the contrary, the author who wrote this sentence in the Classic of Mountains and Seas was much calmer and gave it the word "大呑". If it were after the time of Liezi, it would be unreasonable and would be cutting corners too much.
But no matter what, Lie Yukou is a very important person who leads future generations to interpret the Classic of Mountains and Seas.
Because he must have seen the complete version, the early version, the version of Shan Hai Jing that has not been 'harmonized' by Liu Xin.
And that version is something we can't see.
If you interpret the Classic of Mountains and Seas with an attitude of trusting history, your world view will be refreshed. For example, you will find that the Yellow Emperor was a super thick and dark man, a very sinister and ruthless king like Liu Bang and other founding kings.
In ancient times, civilization was beyond our imagination.
With all these things, I really don’t know where to start, so I ended up writing more than 9,000 words inexplicably, wasting the time spent on typing the main text.
I don’t know if this extra chapter will be written in the future. If you want to see it, please leave a comment and tell me which story you'd like to see me interpret.
After all, I really don’t know where to start. A story must have a beginning, but the story of Shan Hai Jing has no beginning.
The timeline is extremely complex, spanning over thousands of years.
As for the ending, it is very obvious that Cheng Tang defeats Xia Jie.
So I say that Liu Xin must have deleted a very important period of history, not just one paragraph, but several paragraphs, making the entire Classic of Mountains and Seas fragmented and rambling, making it extremely difficult to integrate.
Anyway, maybe if I want to watch this episode, I can only urge me like crazy to update it.
Tsk, above.
…
p.s: Sorry. Let's go to the main text, and I have to apologize.