[10:21](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jijUmOLQdx4&t=621s) Information Recording First: The Vulnerability of Unearthed Artifacts
The discussion opens with a counterintuitive principle of modern field archaeology: when an artifact first emerges from the soil, the excavator's immediate priority should not be physical protection or conservation, but the exhaustive recording of its information. As the archaeologist explains, the moment a relic is exposed, its shape, structure, material composition, and contextual state must be captured without delay. Rushing into standard preservation protocols can inadvertently obliterate irreplaceable evidence. For example, if an ancient brush mark was painted onto a porous substrate, the ink may have long since seeped deep beneath the surface. While invisible to the naked eye, modern analytical instruments can still detect and reconstruct those absorbed pigments. However, if a well-meaning excavator immediately submerges the artifact in distilled water or washes it with ethanol to stabilize it, that delicate, soaked-in pigment data could be washed away forever.
Ma Weidu and the host acknowledge that while water immersion is a standard protective measure—especially for waterlogged artifacts from southern China or underwater shipwrecks, where keeping items wet prevents sudden shrinkage and isolates them from ambient oxygen—information capture must always precede treatment. Artifacts undergo violent transformations when exposed to open air. The group reflects on the famous tragedy of the Terracotta Warriors: when first uncovered, the terracotta figures were adorned with vibrant, delicate mineral pigments. Within a few hours of air exposure, rapid oxidation and humidity shifts caused the paint to curl, flake, and disappear right before the archaeologists' eyes.
- Submerging artifacts in distilled water or ethanol is traditionally used to block oxygen and stabilize moisture levels, particularly for relics excavated from southern, water-saturated strata.
- Modern non-destructive diagnostic tools can recover seeped ink and chemical traces hidden inside materials, provided chemical washes do not strip them away first.
- The sudden oxidation of unearthed artifacts—exemplified by the Terracotta Warriors losing their original colors within half a day—demonstrates why high-fidelity photography and digital documentation must happen in the opening seconds of discovery.
---
[12:12](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jijUmOLQdx4&t=732s) From Bare Hands to Ancient DNA: The Paradigm Shift in Excavation Technology
Reflecting on the evolution of archaeological methodology over the last two decades, the archaeologist notes a profound philosophical shift: "The me from 20 years ago and the me excavating today—my excavation methods, philosophies, and techniques are all very different." When Yinxu's famous Tomb of Fu Hao (妇好墓) was first excavated, archaeologists and onlookers were mesmerized by the exquisite bronzes and jade carvings, frequently picking them up and handling them with their bare hands. Today, he strongly opposes touching excavated artifacts bare-handed. Artifacts like the smooth, finely polished jade figurines from Fu Hao's tomb were held and cherished by Fu Hao herself over 3,000 years ago. If modern researchers handle them, their modern skin oils and epithelial cells contaminate the surface, potentially overwriting Fu Hao's 3,000-year-old fingerprints and extractable ancient DNA.
```mermaid
flowchart TD
accTitle: Scientific Extraction of Archaeological Residues
accDescr: Flowchart showing how modern scientific instruments extract ancient organic residues and biological data from artifacts.
subgraph Sampling["Artifact Recovery"]
A["6,000-Year-Old Pottery Shards<br/>(ShenZhong Link Site)"]
B["3,000-Year-Old Bronze Crane<br/>(Ritual Vessel)"]
end
subgraph Analysis["Laboratory Diagnostics"]
C["Pyrolysis & Gas Chromatography<br/>(Peking University Lab)"]
D["Patina & Surface Lipid Analysis<br/>(Untouched Human Handling Zone)"]
end
subgraph Insights["Historical Recoveries"]
E["Identification of Ancient Diet:<br/>Boiled Meats, Fish Soup & Honey"]
F["Preserved Ancient Human Oils<br/>& Potential Ancient DNA"]
end
A --> C
C --> E
B --> D
D --> F
```
The speaker illustrates how technological leaps extract secrets from seemingly mundane fragments. During archaeological rescue work for the ShenZhong Link (深中通道, the Shenzhen-Zhongshan passage), excavators uncovered 6,000-year-old Neolithic pottery pits. Collaborating with Professor Wei from Peking University, researchers crushed tiny pottery shards and subjected them to pyrolysis coupled with gas chromatography. Because porous earthenware absorbs lipids from cooking, the tests analyzed ancient fatty acid residues and proved that the prehistoric inhabitants of Shenzhen were boiling meat, fish soup, and even honey.
He shares another discovery: an excavated Shang dynasty bronze crane-shaped vessel. The upper spout was heavily corroded, but the lower body was completely free of bronze rust. The lower portion remained clean because the ancient user had repeatedly held it by hand; the natural oils from their skin formed a protective 3,000-year-old patina (包浆) that blocked corrosion. Those undisturbed ancient skin oils could potentially yield ancient DNA. When someone jokes that future scientists might clone an ancient Shang dynasty human from that patina, the table laughs, noting that what sounds like the plot of a sci-fi horror film is now within the realm of scientific possibility.
- Bare-handed handling of smooth jade and bronze items introduces modern skin cells and sebum, obliterating ancient contact traces and DNA.
- Gas chromatography and pyrolysis of lipid residues in 6,000-year-old pottery from Shenzhen revealed evidence of cooked honey, fish, and meats.
- Differential patination on bronze vessels directly reflects ancient human ergonomics: areas frequently grasped by ancient hands absorbed body oils, creating corrosion-resistant patinas that survived millennia underground.
---
[15:37](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jijUmOLQdx4&t=937s) Archaeology vs. Antique Collecting: Preserving Social Context and Truth
Dou Wentao pivots the conversation to Ma Weidu, asking how antique appreciation and collecting differ fundamentally from scientific archaeology. Ma explains that the core mission of archaeology is not the treasure hunt, but using rigorous, scientific excavation to reconstruct historical truth. Antique connoisseurship often fixates on the aesthetic or monetary value of an isolated object, but once an artifact is wrenched from its original archaeological context (such as its stratigraphic layer or burial position), it loses at least half of its historical information. In a ritual tomb, whether an object is placed on the left side or the right side carries specific social, hierarchical, and ritual meanings. When an object is looted or displayed without its archaeological matrix, that entire web of social context is permanently severed.
Ma and the guests observe that scientific field archaeology has a relatively brief history in China—barely a century old, tracing back to the landmark excavations at Anyang's Yinxu in the late 1920s. Before modern Western stratigraphic archaeology was introduced, China possessed a rich indigenous tradition of epigraphy and antiquarianism (金石学), exemplified by Northern Song scholar Lü Dalin's (吕大临) *Kaogu Tu* (《考古图》). However, traditional Chinese epigraphy focused almost entirely on textual verification, calligraphy, and bronze inscriptions rather than systematic dirt excavation. The guests dismantle the romantic public illusion of archaeology: while television audiences imagine an exhilarating adventure filled with dazzling tomb treasures, real field archaeology is physically punishing, deeply repetitive, and predominantly dull.
- An artifact ripped from its archaeological stratum loses over 50% of its scientific value because spatial positioning (e.g., left vs. right orientation in a grave) encodes specific ritual and social relationships.
- China's indigenous study of antiquities was primarily Song dynasty epigraphy (*jinshixue*), centered on paleography and bronze rubbings, whereas scientific stratigraphic archaeology was imported from the West roughly a century ago.
- The popular image of archaeology as romantic and thrilling is an outsider's illusion; real fieldwork consists of months of exhausting, monotonous labor and meticulous documentation.
---
[16:58](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jijUmOLQdx4&t=1018s) The Cowrie Shell Conundrum: A Week of Tedious Counting and Hidden Failures
To illustrate the grueling reality of archaeological fieldwork, the archaeologist shares an anecdote from his early career concerning the debate over Shang dynasty cowrie shells (贝). Scholars long argued whether cowrie shells buried in Shang tombs functioned as genuine currency or merely as decorative ornaments. He reasoned that if cowries served as standardized money, there ought to be an identifiable mathematical or numerical pattern in their burial arrangements—perhaps clustered in standard units of threes, fives, or tens.
Determined to crack the mystery, he spent an entire week during the sweltering heat of summer painstakingly counting and logging cowrie shells across more than one hundred excavated Shang tombs. Two days into the project, his senior colleague and mentor, Mr. Yang, walked over and asked what he was doing. The young archaeologist proudly outlined his hypothesis: finding the numerical grouping that would prove cowries were currency. Mr. Yang said nothing, but quietly returned every day to watch him work.
By the end of the week, exhausted and covered in sweat, the young researcher found absolutely no numerical pattern or consistent mathematical ratio. Deeply discouraged, he admitted defeat when Mr. Yang came by to ask for his results:
> "How is it? Are you done? Did you finish?"
> "I'm finished."
> "Is there a pattern?"
> "I didn't find any pattern."
> "I already did that long ago."
The table erupts in laughter as Dou Wentao teases: "So he was just watching you make a fool of yourself!" The archaeologist explains that academia is filled with this kind of unrecorded failure. Many previous scholars had conducted the exact same tedious shell counts, found nothing, and were too embarrassed to publish their negative findings. Because failed experiments are rarely recorded, each new generation of ambitious researchers innocently repeats the same dead-end labor.
- Cowrie shells found in Shang tombs were hypothesized to be currency based on suspected numerical groupings (such as multiples of three or five).
- A week-long inventory across more than 100 Shang graves revealed zero mathematical regularity in shell distributions, failing to prove monetary clustering through burial counts alone.
- Negative archaeological results are seldom published, leading young researchers to repeat exhausting investigations that senior scholars had already disproved decades earlier.
---
[18:46](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jijUmOLQdx4&t=1126s) The Commercial Soul of Shang: Linguistic Roots and the Shusizi Ding
The conversation shifts to the deep cultural and linguistic ties between cowrie shells, the Shang dynasty, and the very concept of business in China. Dou Wentao notes that the Chinese character for shell, *bei* (贝), serves as the semantic radical for nearly all traditional Chinese words relating to wealth, value, commerce, and transaction—such as *cai* (财, wealth), *gui* (贵, expensive/noble), *dai* (贷, loan), and *mai/mai* (买/卖, buying/selling). Ma Weidu points out with amusement that even the character for thief, *zei* (贼), contains the shell radical, proving that criminal intent was historically defined by coveting someone else's shells.
Dou Wentao brings up the common cultural theory regarding the origin of the Chinese word for commerce, *shang* (商). Folk tradition holds that the concept of commerce and merchants (*shangren* 商人) traces directly back to the people of the Yin-Shang dynasty (殷商). According to this view, the Shang people were China's earliest dedicated traders, introducing the very practice of bartering, negotiation, and discussion (*shangliang* 商量). Dou Wentao asks whether this theory is historically grounded, noting that true commerce cannot exist without a recognized medium of exchange.
The archaeologist confirms that most contemporary scholars, himself included, agree that cowrie shells served as this early currency. While counting them in grave pits failed to reveal a tidy numerical formula, epigraphic evidence from Shang bronze inscriptions provides undeniable proof. He points to the famous Late Shang bronze vessel known as the *Shusizi Ding* (戍嗣子鼎), whose inscription was deciphered and studied by the renowned historian Guo Moruo (郭沫若). The inscription explicitly records that the Shang King rewarded an official named Shusizi with twenty *peng* of cowrie shells (贝廿朋). This inscription confirms that cowries were standardized into countable, stringed units of value (*peng*) granted by the royal court, solidifying the monetary role of cowries at the dawn of Chinese commercial history.
- The radical *bei* (贝) forms the semantic core of Chinese commercial vocabulary, reflecting an ancient economic reality where marine shells served as prime tokens of value.
- The cultural origin of Chinese commerce (*shang* 商) and negotiation (*shangliang* 商量) is traditionally linked to the mercantile practices of the Yin-Shang people.
- The *Shusizi Ding* (戍嗣子鼎), deciphered by Guo Moruo, preserves explicit written evidence of Shang royal rewards denominated in shells: the king rewarded Shusizi with "20 peng of shells" (贝廿朋), proving cowries were counted in standardized units of monetary value.
```mermaid
flowchart LR
accTitle: 商代贝币与青铜铭文的价值流转
accDescr: 展示海贝从沿海进入中原成为货币，再到商王赏赐并铸为青铜礼器的流转路径。
subgraph S1["产地与流通"]
A["沿海天然海贝"] -->|"长途商贸转运至内陆"| B["中原商王朝稀缺贝币"]
end
subgraph S2["王权与礼制"]
B -->|"商王赏赐臣下"| C["赏赐之财富 (贝数朋)"]
C -->|"出资采铜冶炼"| D["铸造青铜宗庙重器/作宝尊彝"]
end
```
[30:40](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jijUmOLQdx4&t=1840s) From the "Five Zones" to an Awakened East Asian Periphery
In ancient political thought, the Zhou dynasty conceptualized the world through the framework of the "Five Zones" (*Wufu*), in which concentric circles radiated outward from the royal court. At the outermost fringe lay the "Wild Zone"—territory inhabited by people regarded as uncivilized barbarians whom the Zhou court did not even bother to govern. Under this worldview, the Zhou Son of Heaven stood at the absolute pinnacle of civilization, and the further one moved away from the capital, the lower the level of culture dropped. Crude as this schema was, it accurately reflected early East Asian reality: the Huaxia civilization of the Central Plains was indeed the undisputed cultural beacon of the continent.
By the 11th century, however, this landscape had fundamentally transformed. The surrounding populations whom Central Plains scholars reflexively labeled "barbarians" were no longer primitive nomads drinking blood and eating raw meat. Their economies had diversified far beyond simple animal husbandry: large numbers of Khitan people engaged in settled agriculture, while other border societies developed sophisticated commercial networks. More crucially, these peripheral peoples cultivated distinct literary traditions and independent writing systems. As noted in *The Cambridge History of China: Alien Regimes and Border States, 907–1368* (covering the Liao, Western Xia, Jin, and Yuan), centuries earlier during the Sui dynasty, the only neighbor along the border that could remotely be considered an organized state was Goguryeo, which possessed a relatively stable institutional framework. Aside from Goguryeo, the perimeter of the Sui empire consisted almost entirely of nomadic tribes lacking enduring state institutions and written scripts.
```mermaid
flowchart TD
accTitle: Evolution of East Asian Geopolitical and Cultural Landscape
accDescr: Contrast between the Sui dynasty unipolar order and the late Tang to 11th-century multipolar order of literate border states.
subgraph Sui_Order["Sui Dynasty: Unipolar Model"]
CP_Sui["Central Plains Empire"] -->|"Beacon of literacy"| Border_Nomads["Nomadic Tribes (No written script)"]
CP_Sui -.->|"Sole stable peer"| Goguryeo["Goguryeo"]
end
subgraph Multipolar_Order["Late Tang to 11th Century: Cultural Awakening"]
Song["Song Dynasty (Central Plains)"]
Liao["Liao (Khitan Script, 920)"]
Xia["Western Xia (Tangut Script, 1036)"]
Jin["Jin Dynasty (Jurchen Script, 1119)"]
Tibet["Tibetan Empire / Tubo"]
Nanzhao["Nanzhao / Dali (Square Bai Script)"]
end
Sui_Order ==> Multipolar_Order
```
---
[32:25](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jijUmOLQdx4&t=1945s) The Script-Creation Boom and the Rebellious "Teenagers" of East Asia
Following the cataclysm of the An Lushan Rebellion in the mid-8th century, the geopolitical equilibrium shifted irrevocably. By roughly 750 AD, late Tang China found itself encircled by institutionalized, literate political entities: Nanzhao in Yunnan; an aggressive Tibetan Empire (Tubo) pressing against the borders of Sichuan, Gansu, and modern Xinjiang; the Abbasid Caliphate to the far west; the Turkic and subsequent Uyghur Khaganates on the Mongolian steppe; Balhae in the Northeast; Silla on the Korean Peninsula; and Japan across the sea. The political elites of these neighboring states were thoroughly literate, whether conducting statecraft in Classical Chinese or developing indigenous orthographies.
A shared consensus emerged among the state-founders of this era: the creation of an independent national script was an indispensable prerequisite for true sovereignty.
- In 907 AD, upon establishing the Liao dynasty, Yelü Abaoji immediately commissioned the development of the Khitan script.
- In 1036 AD, prior to declaring himself emperor of Western Xia, Li Yuanhao rushed the invention of the complex Tangut (Western Xia) script, completing the monumental philological project in only three years.
- The Jurchen founders of the Jin dynasty followed the exact same path: founded in 1115, the dynasty unveiled its new Jurchen script by 1119.
- Earlier still, Nanzhao in the southwest developed its own "Square-character Bai" script, which ultimately vanished over time.
Inventing a writing system from nothing was an excruciatingly difficult, inefficient, and costly undertaking. It required not merely designing glyphs, but enforcing bureaucratic adoption, establishing school systems, and translating massive canons of classical literature. Founding monarchs willingly paid this immense price because an indigenous script fostered an internal cultural awakening and consolidated political loyalty. Western Xia designated its newly minted script as the national language, translating official archives and recording its dynastic history strictly in Tangut characters.
The East Asian continent had entered a condition of cultural decentralization. Although Chinese civilization retained considerable prestige, its dominance was no longer absolute. Surrounding peoples acted like rebellious teenagers who sought not merely to equal their elders, but to assert their distinct identity: "I’ve grown up, I want to rebel, I want to awaken." Geopolitics was no longer a winner-takes-all arena; hard power had reached a stalemate, and in terms of soft power, no party was willing to defer to another. This shattering of monolithic authority, far from being a purely destructive breakdown, sowed the foundational seeds for the next cycle of civilizational synthesis.
---
[37:14](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jijUmOLQdx4&t=2234s) The Tang Dynasty Did Not Die—It Shattered
When viewing history strictly through a traditional Central Plains-centric lens, one sees a singular dynastic thread: pre-Qin, Han, Wei-Jin, Sui, Tang, Song, Yuan, and Qing. Viewed this way, the Song dynasty appears comparatively frail and defensive, a disappointing comedown from the cosmic grandeur of the Han and Tang. However, shifting perspective to look down from "ten thousand meters up," a completely different historical reality emerges: the Tang dynasty did not simply vanish—it shattered into pieces like an extended clan dividing up an estate, with each successor regime taking a share of the imperial inheritance and independently advancing Chinese civilization.
When Zhu Wen deposed the Tang court to establish the Later Liang in 907 AD, contemporaries did not accept that the Tang legacy was extinguished:
- In Hedong (modern Shanxi), the Shatuo Turk military governors Li Keyong and his son Li Cunxu refused to acknowledge the Later Liang, insisting that they were preserving legitimate Tang continuity under the imperial Li surname, culminating in their founding of the Later Tang.
- Decades later, following the fall of the Later Tang in 936, the Southern Tang was established in 937–939 AD, with its founding ruler explicitly claiming direct descent from the Tang imperial house and asserting that the mandate of the Great Tang resided with him.
- In the northern steppes in 907 AD—the exact year the Tang throne fell—Yelü Abaoji was elected Khagan of the Khitans. As modern scholarship and Professor Lin Hu have demonstrated, Abaoji had no intention of building a purely pastoral nomadic confederation; he consciously adopted Han administrative models to subtly claim the mantle and universal status of the Great Tang.
These border regimes did not see themselves as outside opportunists cynically exploiting a foreign name; their institutions and identities had been forged through intimate ties with the Tang state. At its zenith, the Tang managed peripheral ethnic groups through the *Jimi* (loose-rein) administrative system. The term itself derived from animal husbandry—*ji* signifying a horse's bridle and *mi* a cow's nose ring—symbolizing an imperial governance model that bound border peoples within the empire's political orbit while allowing them internal autonomy.
[41:43](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jijUmOLQdx4&t=2503s) The Cost of Empire: The Jimi System and Frontier Dilemmas
The dynamic of controlling peripheral peoples is compared to holding a beast by a halter and a nose ring. During the Tang Dynasty, the imperial court established "Jimi prefectures" (*jimi zhou*) across the borderlands, co-opting local tribal chieftains as the official military and administrative heads of these frontier districts. Under this arrangement, chieftains held official commissions recognized by the Son of Heaven, but unlike standard Tang bureaucratic postings, these titles were hereditary and passed from father to son. The native rulers enjoyed virtually complete autonomy over their internal affairs: they did not submit population census registers to the imperial capital, and they paid no agricultural taxes.
To sweeten the deal, the Tang emperor periodically bestowed lavish imperial gifts upon them. Yet the underlying power dynamic remained explicit: the halter and nose ring remained firmly gripped in the central court's hands. The broader dilemma, however, was financial. Maintaining this precarious imperial hegemony required pouring in veritable "mountains of gold and seas of silver." Whether this colossal investment was truly worthwhile was not merely an anxiety for the later Song Dynasty; nearly every imperial dynasty throughout Chinese history grappled with this same intractable calculation. To understand how the empire actually weighed the costs and benefits of frontier expansion, one must look at the career of Zhang Qian, the Marquis of Bowang.
---
[42:47](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jijUmOLQdx4&t=2567s) The Hero's Journey of Zhang Qian: Legend vs. Reality
In modern middle school history textbooks and popular consciousness, Zhang Qian is universally celebrated as a towering national hero, a pioneering diplomat, and an intrepid explorer who inaugurated the Silk Road. His biography appears custom-built for the classic hero's journey, which typically demands three essential narrative elements:
1. **An Underdog Origin:** Zhang Qian began as a lowly palace attendant (*lang*) under Emperor Wu of Han. A *lang* was essentially an attendant standing in the palace corridors waiting for imperial commands, holding very little status. When Emperor Wu sought an envoy willing to venture into the completely uncharted Western Regions—a mission with near-zero odds of survival—Zhang Qian stepped forward from the corridor and volunteered.
2. **Extreme Adversity:** Upon reaching the western frontier, he was intercepted and captured by the Xiongnu, who held him captive for more than a decade. During his detention, he assimilated to the point of marrying a local woman and fathering children, yet he maintained his mission and eventually seized an opportunity to escape.
3. **Glorious Historical Achievements:** His two expeditions opened diplomatic ties across the Western Regions, imported agricultural staples like grapes and flax to the Central Plains, introduced Western music and dance, and laid the foundations of the Silk Road.
Yet this heroic veneer obscures how his own contemporaries viewed him. To the people living during the Western Han dynasty, Zhang Qian was far from an unblemished hero; many resented him, looked down on him, and considered his adventures an unmitigated disaster.
```mermaid
flowchart TD
accTitle: Zhang Qian Proposed Southwestern Route
accDescr: Flowchart illustrating the impractical route proposed by Zhang Qian to bypass the northern steppes and reach the Western Regions via India.
subgraph Origin ["Starting Point"]
A["Sichuan Basin / Chengdu"]
end
subgraph Impassable_Terrain ["Geographical Barriers"]
B["Southwest Mountain Ranges / Guizhou"]
C["Qinghai-Tibet Plateau Borderlands"]
end
subgraph Foreign_Territories ["Projected Foreign Waypoints"]
D["Shendu (Ancient India)"]
E["Bactria / Modern Afghanistan"]
F["Western Regions (Tarim Basin)"]
end
A --> B
B --> C
C --> D
D --> E
E --> F
```
---
[45:02](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jijUmOLQdx4&t=2702s) "Bu De Yao Ling": Why Han Contemporaries Resented Zhang Qian
The primary reason his peers harbored contempt for Zhang Qian was that his primary mission was an outright failure. Emperor Wu had dispatched him specifically to forge a military alliance with the Da Yuezhi so the Han and Yuezhi could execute a pincer attack against their common enemy, the Xiongnu. Instead, Zhang Qian spent over ten years living among the Xiongnu, raised a family, and when he finally reached the Yuezhi, they flatly refused to wage war against the Xiongnu.
When Sima Qian chronicled this mission in the *Records of the Grand Historian* (*Shiji*), he coined the enduring idiom *"Bu De Yao Ling"* (不得要领)—literally meaning that Zhang Qian completely failed to grasp the critical objective. While his journey demonstrated tremendous personal endurance, it yielded zero tangible political or military merit (*you lao wu gong*). Underneath his humble origins burned a relentless, burning ambition to climb the imperial hierarchy and make a name for himself. Upon his return to Chang'an, unable to sit idle as a failed envoy, Zhang Qian immediately pitched a brand-new, extravagant scheme to Emperor Wu.
---
[46:06](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jijUmOLQdx4&t=2766s) The Ill-Fated Southwest Passage and Ruinous Imperial Ambitions
Zhang Qian claimed that based on his observations, there had to be an alternative southern passage connecting the Han Empire to the Western Regions without traversing the dangerous northern grasslands controlled by the Xiongnu. He proposed departing from Sichuan, heading southwest across the rugged highland peripheries of what is today the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, dropping down into India (*Shendu*), ascending north through modern Afghanistan, and entering the Western Regions from the south.
To modern eyes looking at a topographic map, the sheer absurdity of traversing these mountain systems with ancient engineering is immediately obvious. Yet Emperor Wu, captivated by grand visions, leaped at the suggestion. Prior to this, the Han court had already attempted to carve an imperial road southward from Chengdu through Guizhou with the objective of striking Guangzhou (the Nanyue Kingdom). That project had already consumed staggering amounts of wealth, brought misery and death to countless conscripts, and had ultimately been abandoned halfway. Energized by Zhang Qian's promises of reaching India and flanking the Western Regions, Emperor Wu ordered work on the southwestern corridors to resume, squandering vast numbers of lives and depleting the empire's treasury on an impossible engineering pipe dream.
---
[47:55](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jijUmOLQdx4&t=2875s) Fall from Grace: The Rise and Loss of the Bowang Marquisate
Popular belief often assumes Zhang Qian was awarded the noble title of Marquis of Bowang (*Bowang Hou*) for opening up the Western Regions, but this is a historical misconception. He received no aristocratic title for his western mission because it achieved no diplomatic results. His marquisate was awarded strictly for military contributions while serving under General Wei Qing during campaigns against the Xiongnu. Because Zhang Qian had lived among the nomads for over a decade, he knew the desert terrain, pasture locations, and water sources intimately, allowing him to serve as an invaluable guide.
His triumph was remarkably short-lived:
- Just one year after receiving the title of Marquis of Bowang, Zhang Qian marched out on another military expedition against the Xiongnu.
- During the campaign, he lost his way, arrived past the designated military rendezvous deadline, and was sentenced to decapitation under Han military law.
- Under Han statutes, doomed commanders could commute capital sentences by paying an exorbitant cash ransom and forfeiting all official ranks and aristocratic titles.
- Stripped of his noble status and newly impoverished, Zhang Qian became a laughingstock in the capital, where contemporaries gloated over the fall of a man they considered an opportunistic schemer who constantly fed disastrous ideas to the emperor.
---
[49:05](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jijUmOLQdx4&t=2945s) The Second Western Mission and the Exhausted Han Treasury
Rather than fading into obscurity, Zhang Qian waited for his next opening. He approached Emperor Wu once more, proposing an alliance with another powerful steppe nation: the Wusun. Intrigued by the prospect of isolating the Xiongnu, Emperor Wu agreed and authorized a second expedition to the Western Regions.
This second mission differed fundamentally from the first:
- While the maiden voyage had been an uncertain gamble staffed by roughly one hundred men, the second expedition in 119 BCE (the fourth year of the Yuanshou era) was a massive state mission featuring over three hundred personnel and vast stores of gold, silk, and treasury wealth intended to shower local chieftains with gifts.
- The expedition was structured with Zhang Qian as chief envoy alongside numerous imperial deputy envoys. Whenever the mission encountered an intersection, deputy envoys split off in different directions to establish ties with whatever kingdom lay along their route.
Despite later romanticization regarding the introduction of western music, dance, and grape seeds, the expedition produced no tangible strategic victories during Zhang Qian's lifetime; he died without seeing any of his alliances bear fruit. More crucially, the mission coincided with the immediate aftermath of the titanic, ruinously expensive Mobei Campaign against the Xiongnu in 119 BCE. While modern readers praise the cultural exchange of the Silk Road, ordinary Han taxpayers living through the era saw only astronomical government expenditure drained from an already exhausted national treasury for the sake of exotic novelties they could neither eat nor use.
[51:07](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jijUmOLQdx4&t=3067s) The Dark Side of Western Expansion: Rogue Envoys and Court Resentment
Following the Han Dynasty's decisive military victory that drove the Xiongnu deep into the far northern steppes, the empire found itself severely drained. A victory of such scale carried an enormous butcher's bill: tens of thousands of imperial soldiers perished in a single campaign, and the realm's prized warhorses were practically wiped out. In the wake of this costly triumph, Zhang Qian once again urged Emperor Wu of Han to venture into the Western Regions, proposing diplomatic and trade overtures that required lavish expenditures. To the imperial ministers and court officials already reeling from the astronomical costs of the northern wars, Zhang Qian’s schemes were infuriating. They watched him scatter national treasure across the wastes and ground their teeth in outright contempt.
Even worse, Zhang Qian’s diplomatic success inadvertently established a dangerous blueprint for every opportunistic rascal, grifter, and social climber in the empire. Countless opportunists flooded the palace with memorials boasting that they possessed secret knowledge of distant kingdoms that could yield immense riches and alliances if contacted. Emperor Wu, driven by an insatiable appetite for imperial grandeur and vast frontiers, paid little attention to their backgrounds or character. In the emperor’s eyes, the wider the roads stretched and the more envoys he dispatched, the greater the empire became. Anyone bold enough to fabricate a story about a foreign realm was granted official envoy status, handed imperial gifts, and permitted to recruit an entourage.
This reckless open-door policy quickly devolved into a predatory, self-sustaining racket. Unsurprisingly, the ranks of these newly minted Han envoys filled with thieves, swindlers, and bankrupt gamblers seeking fortune through high-risk adventurism. If an envoy returned empty-handed or failed their mission, Emperor Wu punished them by demanding heavy fines to redeem their crimes. Once drained of their personal savings by these fines, the disgraced envoys would simply invent another foreign venture, pleading for a new imperial commission to recoup their losses. Emboldened by desperation, these so-called ambassadors felt no compunction about breaking laws. Upon reaching the Western Regions, they frequently pocketed and sold off the imperial treasures meant as diplomatic gifts, using the proceeds for personal dissipation. The local kingdoms quickly recognized these Han emissaries for what they were—brazen scoundrels and thugs—and refused to even offer them food, prompting the envoys to resort to outright extortion, theft, and violent clashes. The noble road to the West was rapidly turning into an international embarrassment.
```mermaid
flowchart TD
accTitle: The Vicious Cycle of Han Dynasty Rogue Envoys
accDescr: A flowchart illustrating how opportunists exploited Emperor Wu's expansionist ambitions to enrich themselves through reckless foreign missions.
subgraph Frontier ["Western Regions"]
B --> C["Envoys Embezzle/Sell Treasures<br/>and Extort Local Kingdoms"]
C --> D["Missions Fail;<br/>Diplomatic Conflict Breaks Out"]
end
subgraph Reprisal ["Punishment & Relapse"]
D --> E["Emperor Imposes Fines<br/>to Redeem Guilt"]
E --> F["Envoys Go Bankrupt"]
F -->|"Petition for Another Mission"| A
end
```
- **Cost of the Northern Campaign**: Tens of thousands of elite Han soldiers died in decisive battles against the Xiongnu, almost completely depleting the empire's supply of warhorses.
- **Imperial Envoy Policy**: Emperor Wu prioritized the sheer volume of embassies and geographical reach over candidate vetting, allowing recruits to assemble their own retinues.
- **Frontier Fallout**: Diplomatic gifts sent by the Han court were routinely fenced by envoys for private gain, turning foreign missions into extortion rings that alienated native states.
---
[53:55](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jijUmOLQdx4&t=3235s) A Thousand Years of Contempt: From "Petty Flatterer" to the "Disastrous Tomb"
Because Zhang Qian’s pioneering journeys opened the floodgates to rogue envoys, frontier extortion, and massive state expenditure, domestic opinion during the Han Dynasty and for centuries afterward viewed him with profound cynicism. Contrary to modern perceptions of Zhang Qian as an untarnished national hero, traditional Chinese historiography and scholar-officials frequently treated him as a reckless instigator of imperial overreach. During the Southern Song Dynasty, the renowned scholar Huang Zhen dismissed Zhang Qian with a scathing epithet, characterizing him as a petty, fawning flatterer who pandered directly to the emperor’s worst vices, arguing that he was willing to do anything to indulge Emperor Wu's unrestrained appetite for expansion.
This deep-seated hostility was vividly illustrated in 1075 by the prominent Song Dynasty poet and painter Wen Tong (a cousin and close confidant of Su Shi). While traveling through Hanzhong, Wen Tong passed by Zhang Qian’s burial mound and penned a stinging critique titled "Disastrous Tomb" (*Huo Zhong*). Looking upon the weed-choked, desolate mound visited only by local cowherds along a narrow dirt track, Wen Tong mocked Zhang Qian’s long-faded grandeur:
> "Back then you traveled to remote lands; today your grave is overgrown with weeds. Lying here in lonely solitude, with only a narrow, winding path leading to your tomb, seen only by common folk. Don't you see, the Martial Emperor's desire for expansion wasted the nation's wealth and caused the people's resentment. Everyone, come and see; this is the man. Back then, Emperor Wu wanted to expand the borders, emptying the nation's treasury—it was all this man's doing. He was the one who gave those terrible ideas."
To the Song scholar-bureaucrats, whose political philosophy emphasized domestic fiscal prudence and moral restraint over expensive foreign adventurism, Zhang Qian was not a bold pioneer. He was the man whose grandiose schemes drained the imperial treasury, exhausted the people, and ushered in generations of frontier bloodshed.
- **Huang Zhen’s Condemnation**: The Southern Song scholar branded Zhang Qian an imperial sycophant who weaponized foreign intrigue to satisfy Emperor Wu's hubristic impulses.
- **Wen Tong’s 1075 Poem**: Titled "Disastrous Tomb" (*Huo Zhong*), the verses explicitly blame Zhang Qian for instigating Emperor Wu’s ruinous border wars and squandering the empire's wealth.
- **Song Literati Worldview**: Mainstream Confucian officials viewed territorial expansion through the lens of domestic cost, considering frontier campaigns an engine of popular misery and fiscal ruin.
---
[55:42](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jijUmOLQdx4&t=3342s) Historical Reversal: The 1939 Monument Amid National Crisis
The bitter condemnation of Zhang Qian persisted until Chinese civilization faced an existential crisis roughly 900 years later, prompting a dramatic reassessment of his legacy. In 1939, during the darkest days of the War of Resistance Against Japan, a group of scholars and students made their way to Zhang Qian’s tomb in Hanzhong, Shaanxi. Just the year prior, in March 1938, Shanxi had fallen to Japanese forces. Invading troops seized control of strategic gateways like Fenglingdu and Tongguan, directly menacing the Guanzhong heartland. Faced with imminent invasion, the National Xi'an Temporary University had executed an emergency evacuation across the Qinling Mountains to Hanzhong, reforming as the Northwest Associated University.
Standing before the ancient, neglected burial ground, faculty and students from the university's Department of History saw Zhang Qian not through the narrow lens of imperial fiscal ledgers, but as an emblem of enduring national resilience. They erected a commemorative stone tablet with an extensive inscription honoring his memory:
> "His legacy shall endure, immortal forever. By reflecting on the past and looking to the future, we honor the blessings of Huaxia; we commit ourselves to the great cause of national rejuvenation."
In that moment of national peril, standing before the tomb evoked the sweeping torrent of Chinese civilization that had surged forward for over two millennia. They recalled the ringing of desert camel bells, the distant sound of the pipa along the Silk Road, and Zhang Qian’s unyielding tenacity through thirteen years of captivity and hardship. At a historical juncture when the nation's survival hung in the balance, his legacy was radically transformed: he was no longer an imperial flatterer who squandered the treasury, but an indomitable pioneer whose memory could inspire the despondent to stand tall and rally the nation toward rejuvenation.
- **Wartime Context (1938–1939)**: Following the fall of Shanxi and the enemy occupation of Tongguan and Fenglingdu, Xi'an Temporary University retreated to Hanzhong, forming the Northwest Associated University.
- **The 1939 Inscription**: Erected by Northwest Associated University historians, the monument re-anchored Zhang Qian's image as an immortal patron of civilizational survival and national renewal.
- **Historiographical Shift**: The evaluation of historical actors shifts fundamentally depending on whether they are judged by contemporaries measuring short-term material losses or by later generations seeking spiritual and cultural resilience.
---
[58:32](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jijUmOLQdx4&t=3512s) Sima Qian's True Metric: Shattering Myths and "Boring Through" the Unknown
The stark divergence between the Song Dynasty's contempt and modern veneration highlights why assessing territorial expansion remains so contentious. The immediate ledger of a ruling state—measuring troop casualties, grain consumption, and tax deficits—often clashes irreconcilably with the civilizational ledger, which operates over centuries. Yet the most profound, constructive evaluation of Zhang Qian came from his younger contemporary, the grand historian Sima Qian. Though Sima Qian was roughly a dozen years younger than Zhang Qian and witnessed Emperor Wu's costly campaigns firsthand, he chose not to write a standalone "Biography of Zhang Qian." Instead, he embedded Zhang Qian’s narrative within the "Account of Dayuan" (*Dayuan Liezhuan*) in the *Records of the Grand Historian*, concluding with a philosophical reflection on knowledge:
> "I used to read ancient books that claimed the Yellow River originated from Mount Kunlun—a mountain 2,500 li high, where the sun and moon meet, home to various gods, divine springs, and the Jade Pool. But ever since Zhang Qian of our era embarked on his mission and explored the source of the Yellow River, we discovered no such Mount Kunlun exists. I no longer dare to discuss those strange accounts recorded in ancient books."
With these measured words, Sima Qian cut to the core of Zhang Qian's true civilizational contribution. His lasting significance was neither the volume of trade goods, the exotic seeds he carried back, nor the new musical instruments introduced to the capital. Rather, his real achievement was epistemological: he completely shattered the insular worldview that had previously confined Chinese thinking. Mount Kunlun was not the mystical edge of reality; an entire populated world thrived far beyond it, with endless paths leading into the horizon.
To describe this monumental breakthrough, Sima Qian coined the term *Zaokong*—"boring through." Zhang Qian had taken a drill to the seemingly impenetrable intellectual and geographical wall surrounding early China, opening a passage to the broader world. This represented the first great amplification of Chinese civilization: the amplification of knowledge and geographical imagination.
This conceptual breakthrough laid the groundwork for the second amplification of the empire: the transformation of imperial governance. To administer an empire spanning vast territories, Emperor Wu needed literate bureaucrats capable of reading court decrees and executing centralized policies. Because noble clans held a near-monopoly on literacy, these early administrative officials inevitably emerged from aristocratic lineages. Over time, these elite families formed close-knit social networks anchored in mutual trust, shared privilege, and mutual recommendation—planting the seeds for an entirely new administrative dynamic across the realm.
- **Sima Qian’s Demystification**: By exploring the western riverways, Zhang Qian proved that Mount Kunlun was neither 2,500 *li* tall nor the mystical abode of gods and the Jade Pool, debunking centuries of mythological geography.
- **The Concept of *Zaokong* (凿空)**: Sima Qian's term for Zhang Qian’s career, literally meaning "boring through the void," signifying the piercing of China's insular boundaries.
- **The Dual Amplification**:
1. *Epistemological Amplification*: Expanding the intellectual and spatial horizons of Chinese civilization to encompass foreign civilizations.
2. *Administrative Amplification*: The growing necessity for literate bureaucrats to manage expanded territories, leading to aristocratic monopolies on civil administration and mutual-recommendation networks.
[01:02:01](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jijUmOLQdx4&t=3721s) Social Networks and Industry Monopolies: From Ancient Reciprocity to Modern Guilds
The discussion begins by examining how self-reinforcing networks function when individuals trade favors: "after my son, I recommend your nephew, you speak highly of my brother." Once such a reciprocal cycle takes hold, its compounding momentum becomes immense. This phenomenon is far from being just an ancient curiosity; it thrives in modern society through regional specialization and tight-knit trade monopolies.
The speaker recalls growing up and observing how specific trades in a single city were completely dominated by people from distinct locales: almost all the riverboat captains hailed from Hubei along the Yangtze River, the bathhouse operators were invariably from Yangzhou, and the optical shop owners selling glasses were overwhelmingly from Wenzhou. Even in contemporary China, roughly nine out of ten independent copy and print shops across the nation trace their owners back to Xinhua County in Hunan. This clustering is an inherent feature of social networks: the echo-chamber reinforcement among trusted kin and townsfolk inevitably locks up entire industries, creating impenetrable local monopolies built on mutual familiarity.
- **Regional trade monopolies cited:**
- Riverboat captains: Hubei river communities
- Bathhouse proprietors: Yangzhou, Jiangsu
- Eyeglasses and optometry shops: Wenzhou, Zhejiang
- Copy and print shops: Xinhua County, Hunan (commanding roughly 90% of the market nationwide)
---
[01:02:53](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jijUmOLQdx4&t=3773s) The Prestige Algorithm: How Elite Status Self-Reinforces
Beyond mutual reciprocity and network monopolies lies a much higher-level amplification mechanism: social prestige. Raising one's own social standing fundamentally relies on a single principle—aligning oneself with entities that already possess high prestige. Whether it is attending an elite university, breaking into exclusive social circles, frequenting luxury venues, securing a post at a prestigious corporation, posing for photographs with dignitaries, dressing impeccably, or engaging in elevated discourse, every one of these actions is designed to borrow or "leech" off an established reputation. This dynamic can be termed the "prestige algorithm," a process wherein social prestige functions as an asset that consolidates and multiplies itself over time.
A modern illustration of this algorithm can be seen in elite academic institutions like Peking University and Tsinghua University. Decades and centuries of distinguished history and exceptional graduates create a towering institutional reputation. This aura attracts the nation's top high school students, whose subsequent achievements ensure that the alumni pool remains extraordinary. That sustained excellence, in turn, draws world-renowned faculty, massive philanthropic endowments, and first-rate academic resources, rendering the universities virtually unassailable. It is not merely the intrinsic quality of the schools that sustains them, but rather an oscillating feedback loop operating across generations.
Simultaneously, this dynamic imposes an intense gatekeeping mechanism: top universities fiercely safeguard their admissions thresholds and the purity of their brand, because any dilution would compromise the collective prestige that both faculty and alumni rely upon.
```mermaid
flowchart TD
accTitle: The Self-Reinforcing Prestige Algorithm
accDescr: A feedback loop illustrating how elite institutions accumulate social prestige, attract top talent and resources, and protect their status through strict gatekeeping.
subgraph InstitutionalPrestige["1. Established Prestige"]
A["Historic Reputation & Elite Brand"]
end
subgraph TalentAttraction["2. Talent & Resource Flywheel"]
B["Top Students & Scholars Recruited"]
C["High-Achieving Alumni & Donations"]
end
subgraph GatekeepingProtection["3. Boundary Maintenance"]
D["High Entry Barriers & Group Purity"]
end
A --> B
B --> C
C --> A
A --> D
D -.->|"Protects against dilution"| A
```
---
[01:05:27](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jijUmOLQdx4&t=3927s) The Lineage of Prestige: Bolin Cui, Xingyang Zheng, and the West Chamber
This exact prestige algorithm governed the great aristocratic clans of Chinese antiquity. Their core asset was not brute military force, but centuries of accumulated soft power—the universal cultural recognition that "everyone looks up to our family." During the Three Kingdoms era, whenever Yuan Shao's family was mentioned, people spoke in awe of their "four generations of three excellencies, with students and subordinates across the land," adopting the same reverent tone people use today when discussing century-old elite universities. To prevent their status from being diluted by outsiders hitching a ride on their pedigree, these clans fiercely guarded their ranks through strict endogamy.
A classic illustration appears in the beloved dramatic tale *Romance of the West Chamber* (*Xi Xiang Ji*). Folk tradition often paints Cui Yingying’s mother as a shallow snob who broke her promise and refused to let Scholar Zhang marry her daughter simply because he was poor. In reality, the Cui household was itself in financial decline, making it debatable who had more wealth; the refusal was entirely about pedigree and clan standing.
Set during the Tang Dynasty, the story attributes Cui Yingying's lineage to the illustrious Bolin Cui clan (博陵崔氏), a family dating back to the Western Han Dynasty that endured for over a millennium and produced fifteen chancellors during the Tang Dynasty alone. Whenever someone in the Tang era introduced themselves with the surname Cui, listeners immediately perked up to ask: "Are you *that* Cui? Are you *that* Cui?" Furthermore, Yingying's mother belonged to the Xingyang Zheng clan (荥阳郑氏), another millennium-old aristocratic house that produced ten Tang chancellors. From the standpoint of that era's prestige calculus, marrying the daughter of such an extraordinary union to an unproven commoner scholar like Zhang was utterly unthinkable.
- **Bolin Cui Clan (博陵崔氏):** Traced to the Western Han Dynasty; spanned over a thousand years; produced 15 chancellors during the Tang Dynasty.
- **Xingyang Zheng Clan (荥阳郑氏):** Traced to the Western Han Dynasty; spanned over a thousand years; produced 10 chancellors during the Tang Dynasty.
- **The Core Conflict of *Romance of the West Chamber*:** Not petty materialism, but the structural impossibility of diluting elite clan prestige by admitting an ordinary commoner into a multi-generational aristocratic lineage.
The aristocratic obsession with preserving prestige went so far that the great clans routinely refused marriage alliances with the imperial house itself. A prime historical example is Emperor Wenzong of Tang, the fifteenth emperor of the dynasty, who sought to marry off two of his imperial princesses to the leading aristocratic houses, only to be flatly rebuffed. Emperor Wenzong lamented bitterly to his chancellor: "I, of the Li clan—we are the Li Tang royal family, the Sons of Heaven—am I really not as good as their Cui or Zheng clans?"
While imperial princesses carried a notorious reputation for extravagance, arrogance, and unruly behavior—making noble households understandably reluctant to bring such unmanageable daughters-in-law into their homes—the resistance ran both ways. When Emperor Wenzong later attempted to select a crown princess for his heir, he reviewed prospective candidates from top official families and set his heart on daughters from the eminent Xingyang Zheng clan, yet the Zheng officials refused to offer their daughters. The emperor once again complained: "Our Li family has been a prestigious clan of officials for hundreds of years; putting aside the fact that I'm the Emperor, we're a great family, aren't we? Why is it that nobody is willing to marry into my family?"
Popular memory often attributes this attitude to mere aristocratic arrogance, but the real explanation lies in cold survival calculations and differing time horizons. If a family has maintained local roots, cultural authority, and ministerial prominence for a thousand years across multiple dynastic shifts, an imperial dynasty that has existed for only two or three centuries looks like a temporary phenomenon. To the clan, the dynasty's sovereign is merely "flowing water," while the clan itself is an ironclad, permanent foundation.
The speaker illustrates this disparity with a vivid analogy: an ancient aristocratic clan views an emperor much like a venerable local squire views a powerful mountain bandit king who has seized territory nearby. The bandit king possesses weapons, armies, and immediate power, so the squire naturally complies with demands for grain and taxes. But the squire knows that bandit kings come and go. Enduring families do business with the ruler of the day, but they do not tie their survival to his fleeting regime through marriage. Becoming imperial in-laws binds a thousand-year clan to a single dynasty's fortunes; when the next regime arrives to purge the old ruler's allies, that deep marital alliance guarantees complete destruction.
[01:11:39](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jijUmOLQdx4&t=4299s) The Logic of "Fayue" and the Aristocratic Monopoly
When exploring why great aristocratic clans were historically reluctant to form marital alliances with the imperial house, the issue goes far beyond mere inconvenience or court drama. While an ordinary commoner might assume that becoming an imperial in-law would be the ultimate honor and an unrivaled bragging right, ancient noble clans viewed the matter through an entirely different lens: they considered it "fan-bu-shang" (犯不上)—simply beneath them and not worth the bother. These lineages possessed centuries or even millennia of documented history. Their sense of honor and pride did not require external validation from an upstart ruling house; they derived it purely by returning home and flipping through their own genealogies, marveling at generations of legendary ancestors.
```mermaid
flowchart TD
accTitle: The Architecture of Aristocratic Power
accDescr: Diagram illustrating how ancient noble clans converted a knowledge monopoly into political leverage over imperial power.
subgraph Foundation["Foundational Base"]
M["Monopoly on Knowledge"]
end
subgraph Levers["The Three Levers of Aristocratic Power"]
L1["Family Cultural Inheritance"]
L2["Social Network Alliances"]
L3["Exclusive Reputation Algorithms"]
end
subgraph Result["Institutional Dominance"]
D["Domestication of Imperial Power<br/>('Addictive' Administrative Dependency)"]
end
M --> L1
M --> L2
M --> L3
L1 & L2 & L3 --> D
```
This aristocratic pride is rooted in the traditional concept of *fayue* (阀阅). Both Chinese characters feature the "gate" radical (门), originating from two tall stone pillars stationed outside the main entrance of a noble residence. The left pillar, known as *fa* (阀), recorded the family’s monumental achievements and contributions toward the founding of the state—a concept grounded in merit, as seen in compound words like "school merit" (勋阀) or "warlord" (军阀). The right pillar, called *yue* (阅), recorded the family's accumulated credentials, pedigree, and endurance across historical epochs—a concept grounded in time, which survives today in the word for personal experience (*yueli*, 阅历). A true family of *fayue* was one that possessed both historic merit and multi-generational survival. Against such enduring pedigree, the fleeting favor of an imperial dynasty paled in comparison.
Behind this thousand-year endurance lay a formidable structural mechanism. While these clans often started with substantial economic wealth, their true power derived from an initial monopoly on knowledge, which was systematically magnified through three self-reinforcing layers of leverage:
- **First Layer:** The institutionalized continuity of family cultural inheritance and education.
- **Second Layer:** The tight consolidation of cross-clan social networks and intermarriage.
- **Third Layer:** An exclusive, self-governing "reputation algorithm" where noble peers alone decided who held moral and social standing.
---
[01:14:35](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jijUmOLQdx4&t=4475s) Domesticating the Throne, Cheap Books, and the Keju Revolution
Rather than existing in open military contention with imperial power, these elite clans effectively "domesticated" the throne. Emperors relied on aristocrats out of sheer administrative necessity: noblemen were literate, cultured, possessed established social infrastructure, and commanded local respect. When early emperors surveyed their empires for administrative talent, there was simply no alternative talent pool available. The relationship between the throne and the aristocracy functioned much like an addiction to sugar: "My enemy is sugar; I love fruit and sweets, and I truly hate it." It was a hatred born not of military intimidation, but of inescapable structural dependency—the throne was effectively hijacked because it could not govern without them.
```mermaid
flowchart LR
accTitle: The Decline of Aristocratic Hegemony
accDescr: The twin mechanisms of woodblock printing and imperial examinations breaking the aristocratic monopoly.
subgraph Shocks["The Catalysts of Decline"]
A["Late Tang Rebellions<br/>(Physical Annihilation)"]
B["Woodblock Printing<br/>(Book Cost: 100 to 13 Catties Grain)"]
C["Imperial Examinations<br/>(Throne Monopolizes Legitimacy)"]
end
subgraph Outcome["Societal Transformation"]
D["Collapse of Soft Power Root"]
E["Song Dynasty Commoner Society<br/>('Swallows of Wang and Xie')"]
end
A --> D
B --> D
C --> D
D --> E
```
The collapse of this aristocratic monopoly by the late Tang Dynasty operated across both violent and structural dimensions:
- **Physical Annihilation:** Late Tang peasant uprisings slaughtered high-ranking aristocrats wholesale, violently severing bloodlines that had persisted for centuries.
- **Technological Disruption:** The invention and proliferation of woodblock printing drastically reduced the cost of transmitting knowledge. In the Tang Dynasty, a hand-copied manuscript cost the equivalent of 80 to 100 catties (斤) of grain, making personal libraries an elite luxury. By the Song Dynasty, a printed book cost only about 13 catties of grain, allowing ordinary commoners to afford literature and severing the clans' exclusive monopoly on intellectual soft power.
- **Institutional Realignment:** The expanded Imperial Examination (*Keju*) system delivered the decisive blow. It spurred individuals across all social strata to study, and it established imperial power as the sole arbiter of social prestige. Lineage, illustrious grandfathers, and ancient pedigrees ceased to guarantee official standing; without passing the examination to become a scholar-official, one was reduced to a nobody.
By the advent of the Song Dynasty, the thousand-year aristocratic families had vanished, permanently inaugurating China's age of the commoner. This historic transition was immortalized in Liu Yuxi's celebrated verse: "Swallows that once graced the halls of the Wangs and Xies now fly into the homes of ordinary people."
---
[01:17:58](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jijUmOLQdx4&t=4678s) The Snub of Empress Dowager Liu: Low Standards, Proud Rejections
This historical dissolution of noble pedigree sets the stage for a curious paradox during the regency of Empress Dowager Liu (Liu E) in the Northern Song capital of Kaifeng. Seeking to bolster her legitimacy, Empress Dowager Liu attempted to establish kinship with prominent lineages bearing the Liu surname, setting her sights on the prominent official Liu Ye (刘烨). However, historical scrutiny reveals that Liu Ye's family possessed a relatively modest pedigree:
- Their lineage could only be traced back roughly a dozen generations to the Northern Dynasties, spanning a modest 500 years.
- Genealogically, the family was not of Han Chinese origin, but descended from Sinicized Xiongnu roots.
- Their most notable ancestor was Liu Zhenghui (刘政会), an early Tang meritorious official who was awarded a dukedom; subsequent generations had achieved few prominent appointments.
- Compared to the legendary "Five Surnames and Seven Houses" (五姓七望) of the Tang Dynasty, Liu Ye's lineage was by no means an ancient, untouchable clan.
Yet despite these modest credentials, Empress Dowager Liu treated Liu Ye's household like an invaluable treasure, openly praising them as a "renowned clan." An even more telling incident occurred around the death of Emperor Zhenzong in 1022. While Zhenzong was still alive, the court attempted to connect Liu E with an official named Liu Zong (刘综). Liu Zong's sole credential was passing the imperial examination as a *jinshi* in the second year of the Yongxi era (985 AD); his household came from an entirely commoner background with no aristocratic heritage whatsoever.
Empress Dowager Liu was not attempting to force her way into genuine millennium-old aristocratic houses like the Cuis or the Wangs; her standards were extraordinarily low, asking only for a household with respectable social standing. Yet, in an astonishing twist, both the modestly pedigreed Liu Ye and the commoner-born Liu Zong flatly rejected the connection with the imperial matriarch. How ordinary Northern Song scholar-officials—bereft of true ancient lineage—managed to exhibit the haughty pride and aloof independence once reserved for Tang Dynasty noble clans remains one of the era's most fascinating cultural questions.
[0:00] What kind of people would you say the
[0:01] Shang dynasty people were? For instance
[0:02] , there's a common saying that Shang
[0:04] people loved to kill.
[0:05] Human sacrifice was a normal phenomenon
[0:07] .
[0:07] True, but why did Confucius say... "
[0:10] How brilliant and glorious are the Zhou
[0:12] !" Why did he want to restore the Zhou
[0:14] rites? He didn't want to restore the
[0:16] Shang rites.
[0:17] Mhm.
[0:18] This shows there was a huge difference
[0:19] between the Shang and the Zhou.
[0:20] Exactly.
[0:21] Of course, I should call it the
[0:22] Shang-Zhou,
[0:23] Shang-Zhou.
[0:24] There’s a huge difference because the
[0:26] Shang were killers; they really didn't
[0:28] value human life. Just think about the
[0:30] many people killed in the royal tombs,
[0:33] grouped in tens. The Shang were very
[0:36] good at math, extremely good at
[0:38] decimal-based math. Look at the steps
[0:40] of their houses, the distances between
[0:42] steps are roughly equal, and they
[0:44] bundled those bronze arrowheads in
[0:46] groups of ten—the decimal system was
[0:49] no problem for them.
[0:50] Mhm.
[0:51] You see, the oracle bone scripts show
[0:53] they were good with numbers, but the
[0:55] Shang loved to kill.
[0:56] Under what circumstances did they kill,
[0:59] and why?
[1:00] On occasions of important matters.
[1:02] In every ritual, they would kill some
[1:04] people.
[1:05] At the very least, they would kill a
[1:07] dog, but for grand ceremonies, they had
[1:09] to kill humans. When we excavate tombs
[1:11] —and I’ve excavated many, leading
[1:13] my archaeological team—we’ve seen
[1:15] plenty of this, which by traditional
[1:18] standards isn't very good.
[1:19] But, but,
[1:21] When I look, I see that as long as the
[1:23] tomb is from the Shang dynasty, it
[1:26] basically involves human sacrifice;
[1:28] people were buried alive inside. If
[1:30] it’s from the Western Zhou period,
[1:32] this phenomenon basically disappears.
[1:35] Some even use this as a standard to
[1:37] determine if a tomb is Shang or Zhou.
[1:39] Oh.
[1:40] They say this tomb is hard to identify.
[1:43] If there are sacrificial victims inside
[1:46] , it’s Shang. If there are none
[1:48] inside, it’s Zhou.
[1:49] Who were the people they killed?
[1:51] Regarding the people killed, we have
[1:53] done some research. Actually, the
[1:55] oracle bones have records. We have
[1:57] already organized the oracle bone
[1:59] records. The ones killed the most were
[2:01] the Qiang.
[2:02] Mhm.
[2:03] The Qiang tribe, the Qiang people—as
[2:05] recorded in the texts.
[2:07] The Qiang were shepherds from the
[2:09] western regions.
[2:10] They were their enemies.
[2:12] The Shang dynasty was centered in Henan
[2:14] , right?
[2:14] And they were to the west.
[2:16] Where were the westerners? They were
[2:19] over in the Shaanxi region. So they
[2:21] mainly killed people from that area;
[2:22] this is in the oracle bones, though
[2:24] there were others too. Besides the
[2:26] oracle bones, we have also conducted
[2:28] much research, for example, using
[2:30] isotopes. Isotopes have a unique
[2:32] feature: they can be tracked. For
[2:34] example, I am a Hunan native, but I
[2:37] grew up on the border of Hong Kong. Mhm
[2:40] .
[2:40] So the water I drank was from the Hong
[2:42] Kong border area.
[2:43] So, in my bones,
[2:47] and the isotopes in my tooth enamel are
[2:50] local,
[2:51] a memory.
[2:52] Right, right, right.
[2:54] But later, when I went to Peking
[2:56] University, studied in Beijing, and
[2:58] lived in Beijing, my bone isotopes
[3:00] gradually changed to those local to
[3:03] Beijing.
[3:03] Ah.
[3:04] But the isotopes in my tooth enamel
[3:07] remain unchanged.
[3:09] Yes, it's true—the isotope levels in
[3:11] teeth and bones can record exactly
[3:14] where you've been or where you've
[3:16] traveled from.
[3:17] Uh-huh.
[3:18] So, we’ve conducted isotope analysis
[3:21] on Shang Dynasty human bones. The
[3:23] results we have now, we've done quite a
[3:26] few. They aren't the same as the local
[3:29] people—the local Anyang people. The
[3:32] Shang people themselves were from Henan
[3:34] , right? But the ones who were killed,
[3:37] were,
[3:38] prisoners of war?
[3:39] For instance,
[3:40] uh,
[3:41] Gansu, the southeast, the Shang west,
[3:43] and even the south, but mainly from
[3:45] those regions.
[3:46] Foreigners captured by them.
[3:47] Captured, captured prisoners.
[3:49] Prisoners, yeah, prisoners.
[3:51] You think they just killed them? They
[3:53] even chopped off their heads and boiled
[3:55] them in steamers.
[3:56] How do you know they were in steamers?
[3:58] I saw it.
[3:59] You saw it? Did you time travel and see
[4:02] them boiling in the steamer?
[4:04] Let me tell you how it is. The first
[4:07] time I went to the Anyang team, that
[4:10] scene,
[4:11] when I went, I saw a human head in a
[4:14] bronze steamer. Then in '99, a
[4:17] colleague of mine dug up a tomb and
[4:19] found another steamer with a human head
[4:22] inside. I saw both of them. I said,
[4:25] seeing these two heads in the steamers,
[4:28] I said, this isn't a joke; human heads
[4:31] in steamers are a real phenomenon.
[4:34] Right.
[4:35] They chopped off heads and steamed them
[4:37] —this is an important phenomenon, I
[4:39] have to study it. A steamer is a
[4:40] steamer, it has a grate in the middle,
[4:42] and you add water.
[4:43] It can be heated until it glows. But
[4:45] can't you just prove it was steamed
[4:47] based on that? I took a small blade and
[4:49] removed a tiny piece.
[4:50] Mm.
[4:51] And I compared it to human bones,
[4:53] because I've handled many bones—I'm
[4:55] not joking, I even handled Cao Cao's,
[4:57] right?
[4:57] Mm.
[4:58] Then, I took this small bone fragment
[5:01] and compared it. Because after a human
[5:03] head has been steamed, the
[5:05] cross-section is even; it's basically
[5:07] flat.
[5:08] Ah, I see, it’s soft.
[5:11] But, if it were a fresh human head,
[5:13] it's very hard to cut, and the edge
[5:16] would be serrated.
[5:17] What are we even talking about?
[5:19] Archaeology.
[5:20] This, this is academic.
[5:22] Right, it's an academic issue.
[5:24] And then, this is a, you see, if it's
[5:26] been boiled, its composition will
[5:28] actually be different.
[5:30] Some parts will be lost, like leakage
[5:32] or something, that's this research. So
[5:35] what is the question? Can you prove
[5:37] that it was boiled, and who is
[5:39] relatively easy to prove?
[5:40] You’ve seen all of this.
[5:42] But isn't it isotopes? See, you
[5:45] immediately think of isotopes. Whether
[5:48] they were outsiders, of course I can't
[5:50] answer your question about why they
[5:52] boiled them.
[5:52] Hmm.
[5:54] This still requires further research.
[5:56] Of course, perhaps all primitive
[5:58] peoples once went through a
[6:00] particularly murderous stage. Take
[6:02] South America, for example, the Aztec
[6:05] or Maya cultures; when we go to those
[6:07] sites, it's the same, they would kill
[6:10] people and have a special platform for
[6:12] it. They'd lie on the altar, and I
[6:15] imagine the bloodstains at the time
[6:17] were like a frenzy. Later, Confucius
[6:19] had a saying: "He who made the burial
[6:22] figurines, would he have no...""...
[6:24] descendants?""
[6:25] Making the figurines"—figurines
[6:27] meaning using pottery to make figures.
[6:30] Pottery or wood.
[6:31] Wooden figurines, they all replaced
[6:34] them.
[6:34] Right, the earliest were human.
[6:36] The earliest were human; this primitive
[6:38] , barbaric phenomenon is a common
[6:40] phenomenon for all of humanity.
[6:42] Civilization is something recognized
[6:44] bit by bit.
[6:45] The main difficulty in explaining this
[6:47] is why they had to boil them. You can
[6:50] infer it based on our current thinking,
[6:52] because human thought has consistency.
[6:55] First, surely, either they wanted to
[6:57] make it pure, to make it clean; after
[7:00] boiling, things are clean, aren't they?
[7:02] Otherwise, it’s revenge—like,
[7:04] I’ll boil you into a thousand pieces,
[7:06] I’m heating you up to vent my anger.
[7:09] If it’s about being clean, then it
[7:10] could be for sacrifice. Do you know, do
[7:13] you know? They want clean things. Look
[7:16] at sacrifices now; sometimes in Hong
[7:17] Kong movies, they slaughter a raw
[7:19] animal in front, and they keep
[7:20] everything clean. You see, they have to
[7:22] clean it.
[7:23] So you can slowly infer it; these are
[7:25] all speculations.
[7:27] That's why they say the Simuwu Square
[7:29] Ding might have been used to boil whole
[7:31] animals. It’s just that big.
[7:33] A whole pig, a whole cow, or even......
[7:36] boiling them inside it.
[7:38] There is some, there is some truth to
[7:40] this. Yes, there's a point there. What
[7:42] you just said is also right, there are
[7:44] clues, but since you didn't say it, I
[7:46] said I wouldn't answer. I returned
[7:48] because my studies are quite intensive.
[7:53] However, regarding the matter of this
[7:55] person being killed, we are all
[7:57] familiar with oracle bone script, but
[8:00] there is another type of writing called
[8:03] skull inscriptions—carving characters
[8:05] onto human skulls.
[8:08] Ah.
[8:09] What kind of inscriptions? I’ll give
[8:12] two examples. One is called "Zu Yi Fa".
[8:16] It means his ancestor "Fa" is...
[8:19] Ah.
[8:20] Looking at the head.
[8:22] The head was cut off.
[8:24] And another is "Fang Yong". "Fang Bo"
[8:27] means— "Fang" refers to another small
[8:30] state; for the Shang Dynasty, that was
[8:33] called a "Fang."
[8:35] Hmm.
[8:36] That state's "Bo" refers to its leader
[8:40] or another king. "
[8:43] Fang Yong"—these two skull caps both
[8:46] belonged to leaders of states outside
[8:48] the Shang Dynasty. So, if you combine
[8:52] these, it might be about revenge, or
[8:54] sacrificial rituals, or something
[8:57] similar. This can be inferred, but
[8:59] academically speaking, I can only say
[9:02] this much.
[9:03] You mentioned discovering these Shang
[9:05] Dynasty remains; does that mean there
[9:07] are glorious moments, like finally
[9:09] finding something after digging, but
[9:11] are there also long periods of waiting,
[9:13] or even times where the effort seems
[9:15] futile? Actually, this inference—or
[9:18] rather, I have to spend a lot of time
[9:20] on it.
[9:21] Most of the time, I am just working
[9:23] quietly and persistently, that’s for
[9:25] sure. But where does the pleasure lie?
[9:28] The pleasure lies in knowing something
[9:30] that others don’t; it’s knowing a
[9:32] secret that no one else knows.
[9:34] If you tell me, won't I know it too?
[9:36] That’s why I haven't said it yet.
[9:38] There’s still more? No way, what else
[9:41] is there to say?
[9:42] I have done many things that ended in
[9:44] failure. Things that didn't work out.
[9:46] Or things that were botched. I’ll
[9:48] find a time to specifically talk about
[9:50] my failures. This brings up the issue
[9:52] of lack of protection. Hmm.
[9:54] Because doing archaeology now is
[9:56] actually very difficult, especially
[9:58] regarding many conceptual issues. I...I
[10:00] will talk about this topic soon. I was
[10:03] at a live broadcast session with CCTV,
[10:05] and when I brought it up, a group of
[10:07] scientists immediately said, "Hurry and
[10:10] protect it!" Don't you realize that
[10:13] protection itself is a dangerous job?
[10:16] Don't you know that your protection
[10:18] might cause a loss of a lot of
[10:19] information? Or even damage the
[10:21] artifacts? The first thing, the very
[10:24] first moment, don't think about
[10:26] protection. Since it has been excavated
[10:28] , the first thing is to record it—its
[10:31] shape, its structure, its material, and
[10:33] all its information. What if...What if
[10:36] you lose it while trying to protect it?
[10:39] What will you do then? This is a...this
[10:41] is a ring, right? Ink from a brush is a
[10:44] different realm. If it's painted on
[10:46] this kind of base, the ink will seep in
[10:49] . You can't see it on the surface. But
[10:51] it may have penetrated into the
[10:54] substrate.
[10:54] Mm.
[10:55] With the right equipment, I can bring
[10:58] it out.
[10:58] Mm.
[10:59] That’s called technology. But if you
[11:03] soak it in liquid to protect it.
[11:06] Yeah, that would be gone. Soaking it in
[11:09] water is one method of protection.
[11:11] Distilled water.
[11:13] Soaking in distilled water.
[11:14] Or using things like ethanol or similar
[11:16] agents. Right.
[11:18] Oh.
[11:19] Brother, our show should include some
[11:20] scientific knowledge.
[11:21] That's right.
[11:22] Water isolates it from the air. Mm-hmm.
[11:25] Because some artifacts, especially
[11:26] those unearthed in the south, are
[11:28] naturally wet. You've seen the
[11:29] underwater archaeological sites, right?
[11:31] Everyone has seen those. Everything is
[11:33] completely submerged in water, so when
[11:35] you take it out, it's best to keep it
[11:37] in water to isolate it from the air;
[11:39] it's a form of protection. But as you
[11:41] mentioned, you must first capture the
[11:44] information. If you can see it at the
[11:46] time, even just a photo works, because
[11:48] we have a lot of public info, like the
[11:50] Terracotta Warriors having colors when
[11:52] first unearthed.
[11:53] Color information; if you just leave it
[11:55] out...
[11:56] In about half a day, the color fades
[11:57] away.
[11:58] Yes, oxidation happens very quickly.
[11:59] Very, very quickly.
[12:01] Artifacts are especially afraid of
[12:02] oxidation.
[12:03] That archaeological report said that
[12:04] once it was out, you could watch it
[12:06] vanish right before your eyes.
[12:07] It just doesn't last.
[12:09] Ah, so if you take a photo the very
[12:10] first moment it comes out.
[12:12] The me from 20 years ago.
[12:13] Mm.
[12:14] And the me excavating today. My
[12:17] excavation methods, philosophies, and
[12:19] techniques are all very different.
[12:21] Academic progress is constant. After
[12:23] the Fu Hao tomb was excavated, we were
[12:26] like, "Wow, how beautiful, look!"
[12:28] Actually, I don't really advocate for
[12:31] that. I don't really support us
[12:33] touching it with our hands today. Do
[12:37] you know why? The bronze wares from the
[12:41] Fu Hao tomb, and other objects, were
[12:44] likely touched by Fu Hao herself.
[12:48] When Fu Hao touched them—for example,
[12:50] say a jade figurine from her tomb.
[12:52] It's very beautiful and polished quite
[12:55] smooth.
[12:55] Mm.
[12:57] Maybe she touched it. And if you go and
[12:59] touch it, saying "Oh my god, so pretty,
[13:02] " and rub it, what if one day I could
[13:04] extract her DNA from it? Then it
[13:06] becomes yours.
[13:08] If she touched it, her DNA and
[13:10] fingerprints might have lasted for
[13:13] 3,000 years.
[13:14] You can't rule out that possibility
[13:16] given the development of technology.
[13:18] Let me tell you, I recently conducted
[13:20] some research. I was working on the
[13:23] channel, building a passage from Sheng
[13:26] to Zhongshang. While digging near
[13:28] Zhongshang, we discovered several pits
[13:30] from 6,000 years ago. A bunch of
[13:32] pottery was unearthed. Is this, is this
[13:34] a pottery shard?
[13:35] Yes.
[13:36] I took these pottery shards, these
[13:39] 6,000-year-old ones from Shenzhen. And
[13:41] performed pyrolysis using a device
[13:44] called a gas chromatograph, because for
[13:46] instance, if it had cooked fish soup.
[13:49] Yes.
[13:50] It was constantly used to boil meat or
[13:52] fish soup, and the fats from back then.
[13:55] Those fatty acids would have seeped
[13:57] inside.
[13:58] After I crushed it,
[13:59] Yes.
[14:00] And collected the gases,
[14:02] Yes.
[14:03] We could roughly determine what had
[14:04] been cooked in it.
[14:05] Goodness,
[14:06] What was cooked thousands of years ago?
[14:08] I worked with Professor Wei from Peking
[14:11] University, and we discovered that
[14:13] people in Shenzhen 6,000 years ago were
[14:15] cooking honey.
[14:17] Oh, so you can actually extract those
[14:19] molecules?
[14:20] So, it's not impossible that one day we
[14:23] could extract,
[14:24] well-preserved DNA.
[14:26] With the advancement of technology,
[14:28] this is actually,
[14:29] unpredictable for us.
[14:30] We need to collect all these clues now.
[14:33] For example, let me tell you something
[14:34] I'm sure you'd be interested in. Yes.
[14:37] We once excavated a bronze crane.
[14:40] Yes.
[14:43] After digging it out, you see this part
[14:45] here grew rust, but the bottom half
[14:48] didn't.
[14:50] Yes.
[14:52] You might think it's simple, but it
[14:54] didn't grow rust because when they used
[14:57] this crane, they always held it like
[14:59] this.
[15:00] Human oils and such,
[15:03] wrapped around it.
[15:05] It was clean, and because they didn't
[15:07] touch the spout as often, it stayed
[15:09] clean, whereas...
[15:10] Yes.
[15:11] It grew rust.
[15:13] Right.
[15:13] This part had no rust at all.
[15:15] It's a patina.
[15:16] That is a 3,000-year-old patina from
[15:18] that era. I think this is worth paying
[15:20] attention to; perhaps one day we'll
[15:22] extract ancient human DNA from it.
[15:24] Yes, and decades later, as technology
[15:27] advances, maybe even clone one.
[15:29] We can look forward to that.
[15:31] Sounds like the plot of a horror movie.
[15:34] Yes, exactly. Wow, this...
[15:37] Master Ma, you love antiques so much;
[15:39] what do you think is the relationship
[15:41] between them and archaeology?
[15:43] The most important significance of
[15:45] archaeology is using scientific methods
[15:48] of excavation to restore historical
[15:50] truth. Once an artifact is removed from
[15:52] its environment—there are many types
[15:54] of artifacts, some passed down through
[15:56] generations, others unearthed. Let's
[15:58] focus on excavated artifacts; once they
[16:00] leave their environment, at the very
[16:02] least, half of their information is
[16:04] lost. Let's put it simply, if you place
[16:06] an artifact on the left versus the
[16:08] right, it carries a different meaning,
[16:11] right? And if you throw that away,
[16:13] you've lost the social context. So
[16:15] archaeology—of course, the history of
[16:17] archaeology isn't that long, maybe a
[16:18] little over 100 years, starting from
[16:20] the time of Anyang.
[16:21] Right, archaeology hasn't been around
[16:23] for that long. In our archaeology, like
[16:24] the archaeological diagrams of Lü
[16:26] Dalin, Chinese archaeology was
[16:27] originally about textual research and
[16:29] argumentation. Exactly.
[16:31] Later, we borrowed this term; this word
[16:33] existed very early, didn't it, since
[16:35] the Song Dynasty?
[16:36] In fact, as a science, archaeology was
[16:38] introduced to our country from the West
[16:41] . Moreover, while you might hear people
[16:44] talking about it with such passion, it
[16:46] is actually a very grueling process.
[16:49] It’s like onlookers watching the
[16:50] excitement; those who talk about it
[16:52] being thrilling or stimulating are
[16:54] wrong—it’s not that thrilling or
[16:56] stimulating, as most of the time it is
[16:59] dull and tedious.
[17:00] That's right.
[17:01] So, to distill it down and answer your
[17:03] question now.
[17:05] Without that experience, let me give
[17:07] you an example from the past, like the
[17:09] Jiaozi—the Northern Song Dynasty's
[17:12] Jiaozi—or copper coins, or perhaps
[17:14] the cowrie shells from the Shang
[17:16] Dynasty.
[17:17] Right.
[17:18] But some say cowrie shells weren't
[17:20] necessarily currency. What makes them
[17:23] currency? So, I thought, if Shang
[17:25] Dynasty cowrie shells were money, there
[17:28] must be a numerical relationship at the
[17:30] excavation site.
[17:31] Hmm.
[17:32] Right? Are they in groups of three or
[17:35] groups of five? I looked at over 100
[17:37] tombs. Then I went to count the cowries
[17:40] —how many in this part, how many in
[17:42] that part. Just imagine, over 100 tombs
[17:44] , unpacking each one bit by bit.
[17:47] I spent a week on it, it was summertime
[17:50] , but after working on it for two days,
[17:52] my predecessor, Mr. Yang, came over and
[17:55] asked, "What are you doing?" I said, "
[17:58] I'm seeing if there's a numerical
[18:00] relationship with the cowrie shells. If
[18:03] there is, it’s money; if not, it’s
[18:06] not. One has to consider this." And I
[18:08] noticed he would come to look once
[18:10] every day. Then, finally, I finished it
[18:13] . I was exhausted after a week. But I
[18:15] didn't find any pattern at all. I felt
[18:18] quite discouraged.
[18:19] Hmm.
[18:20] Then Mr. Yang came over and asked, "How
[18:22] is it?""Are you done?""Are you finished
[18:24] ?" I said, "I'm finished.""Is there a
[18:27] pattern?" I said, "I didn't find any
[18:28] pattern.""I already did that long ago."
[18:31] So he was watching you make a fool of
[18:33] yourself.
[18:33] No, it’s just that many people have
[18:35] done this and failed; they were just
[18:36] too embarrassed to say so.
[18:37] They didn't tell me.
[18:39] And so I failed again. How many
[18:41] failures are there in this research?
[18:42] Archaeology requires a great deal of
[18:44] imagination. In other words, you...
[18:47] This topic is very interesting, the
[18:49] character "bei"(shell), it should be
[18:50] related to currency. Yes, how could it
[18:53] be unrelated? Some parts are...
[18:55] Not related. Having looked at all the
[18:57] characters, I believe they represent
[18:58] currency.
[18:59] Do many of our characters contain the "
[19:00] bei" radical?
[19:01] Yes, anything related to "bei" must be
[19:03] related to money. Even the character
[19:06] for "thief" has it. There’s also a
[19:08] folk theory, and since you are an
[19:10] expert in this field, let's talk about
[19:12] the character "Shang." The character "
[19:14] Shang" is very important in our lives;
[19:16] it represents the concept of commerce.
[19:18] They say it comes from the Shang
[19:20] merchants, from the Yin-Shang period.
[19:22] To be precise, the Yin-Shang is the
[19:23] origin of China's earliest commerce;
[19:25] people before that had no commercial
[19:27] concept. Commerce is exchange; it's you
[19:29] and me "shangliang"(discussing/
[19:30] negotiating). I buy something, you say
[19:32] five dollars, I say ten; this is the
[19:34] process of negotiation. This, at the
[19:36] very least, is a common folk saying:
[19:39] that commerce, merchants, the Yin-Shang
[19:41] people, were the pioneers of Chinese
[19:43] business, which is why later Chinese
[19:46] commerce is all called "Shang."
[19:48] That’s the meaning.
[19:49] Does this theory hold water?
[19:51] It’s like this.
[19:53] So currency appeared during that period
[19:55] ; without money, there is no commerce.
[19:57] Most of our scholars, including myself,
[19:59] believe that cowrie shells were used
[20:01] then. For example, there is a bronze
[20:04] ding from the Shang period. A very
[20:06] beautiful ding, very famous. Guo Moruo,
[20:10] Elder Guo, personally studied those
[20:13] characters. This ding is called the
[20:16] Shusizi Ding. It mentions that King Wu
[20:20] rewarded Shusizi with shells. It means
[20:26] the Shang King rewarded Shusizi with 20
[20:29] peng of shells, right? "
[20:32] Peng" means two strings, and then he
[20:34] used these...
[20:35] Shells...
[20:37] To make a bronze vessel. Do you see the
[20:39] transition relationship here?
[20:41] These shells come from the sea. Why
[20:44] could seashells serve as money? It’s
[20:46] because the place where the Shang lived
[20:47] had nothing to do with the sea. They
[20:49] couldn't see this stuff. If you were a
[20:52] coastal nation, everyone would pick
[20:53] them up and they wouldn't be money. So
[20:55] by transporting shells from the coast
[20:57] to this inland nation, they became
[20:59] precious, right? And they turned into a
[21:01] concept of money. You can see these in
[21:03] various museums; they had bronze shells
[21:05] and pottery ones, so they must have
[21:07] served a functional purpose, not just
[21:09] as simple decorations.
[21:11] Mm.
[21:12] You know? Mm.
[21:14] So you have to take note, the history
[21:16] of currency is particularly interesting
[21:18] . Theoretically, the advancement of the
[21:20] Shang Dynasty was driven by commerce,
[21:22] which is the greatest engine for social
[21:25] civilization, as it makes everything
[21:27] run rapidly.
[21:28] Is there any evidence that the Shang
[21:30] people were exceptionally skilled in
[21:32] business?
[21:33] Well, it's mentioned in the literature.
[21:35] They speak of Wang Hai trading cattle,
[21:37] and I believe the most direct evidence
[21:39] comes from bronze inscriptions. The
[21:41] King, the Shang King, bestowed rewards,
[21:44] and they made a...
[21:45] This is just too direct, money.
[21:48] Right, reward money. Also, look at
[21:51] Sanxingdui, those sea shells in the
[21:54] bronze vessels—I’ve looked at them,
[21:57] and those precious items in Sanxingdui
[21:59] were all offerings.
[22:02] Since you mentioned Sanxingdui,
[22:04] everyone has been debating it. Do you
[22:06] think the Sanxingdui civilization was
[22:08] imported?
[22:09] No, no. The Sanxingdui civilization
[22:13] truly possessed a powerful ability to
[22:16] absorb elements from other
[22:18] civilizations. You can see influences
[22:21] from the northwest. You can see
[22:24] influences from Hubei’s Shijiahe
[22:26] culture or later cultures. You can even
[22:29] see connections to India; for instance,
[22:31] those large fang-shaped items are quite
[22:33] common in the Indian Harappan
[22:35] civilization. Ah.
[22:37] But the strongest influence on the
[22:39] civilization still comes from the
[22:41] Central Plains.
[22:42] From the Shang in the Central Plains—
[22:44] that’s indisputable. I’ve
[22:46] researched this period, and I can tell
[22:48] you that the bronzes excavated at
[22:49] Sanxingdui are quite numerous, right?
[22:51] Yes.
[22:52] Right? You know that too.
[22:54] Bronze.
[22:55] Lots of it. Look along the Yangtze
[22:59] River line, all those zun and lei
[23:01] vessels in Hunan, Jiangxi, and Anhui—
[23:03] where did that drive along the Yangtze
[23:06] come from? From the dynasty, from the
[23:10] Shang Dynasty.
[23:11] Hey, can I share an amateur observation
[23:14] ? Because I really don't know much, but
[23:16] my personal feeling is that for their
[23:19] own unique styles, like the
[23:20] bulging-eyed figures, they did an
[23:22] excellent job. But for the vessels like
[23:25] the zun and lei that resemble the
[23:27] Central Plains Shang style, my feeling
[23:29] is they aren't, how should I say, as
[23:32] exquisite as those from Henan, the
[23:34] Central Plains.
[23:35] Your intuition is right, it really is.
[23:37] But you can't entirely put it that way.
[23:40] Look, when I look at the Sanxingdui
[23:42] artifacts, they really are, just as you
[23:44] said, divided into two sets. One set is
[23:46] , what, the large figures?
[23:48] Yes.
[23:49] The divine tree?
[23:50] Yes.
[23:50] The eyes?
[23:51] Yes.
[23:52] These, these, these, these masks.
[23:54] Or perhaps things like this bronze
[23:56] standing figure.
[23:57] Yes.
[23:58] These items are part of the local
[23:59] cultural tradition of Sichuan.
[24:01] The ancient Shu State.
[24:02] It was a specific cultural demand of
[24:04] the ancient Shu State itself. However,
[24:06] the*zun*and*lei*vessels mentioned are
[24:08] imitating the Central Plains region.
[24:10] Oh.
[24:11] So, their imitation wasn't quite the
[24:13] same.
[24:13] Ah.
[24:14] If you look at the cloud patterns, like
[24:16] the ones I saw today.
[24:17] Hmm.
[24:18] Looking at the cloud patterns from
[24:20] Sichuan, Hunan, and Jiangxi, the style
[24:22] is completely different from those in
[24:25] the Central Plains. There are many
[24:27] complex factors; one is that the
[24:29] craftsmen were likely just learning,
[24:31] that's one point. Furthermore, the
[24:33] bronzes made in the South are very
[24:35] large; their forms are bigger than
[24:36] those in the Central Plains, look at
[24:37] the ones from Sichuan.
[24:38] Yes, they are 50, even over 70
[24:40] centimeters tall, very large.
[24:42] But I feel they are a bit crude.
[24:44] They are crude because the surface area
[24:45] is so large.
[24:46] True.
[24:47] It’s just like writing with a
[24:48] calligraphy brush.
[24:49] Writing small characters is fine, but
[24:50] writing large ones is a completely
[24:51] different concept.
[24:52] The surface area is large, and there is
[24:54] another issue: if these bronzes were
[24:56] cast in the Central Plains, they could
[24:58] be made very well.
[24:59] Because the Central Plains is a region
[25:02] covered in loess. This loess, we just
[25:05] call it "loess" in one word, but if you
[25:08] break it down, what is it? It contains
[25:13] silt, fine sand, medium sand, coarse
[25:17] sand, and clay. When casting, you must
[25:22] wash away the clay, discard the coarse
[25:25] and medium sand, and keep the silt. You
[25:28] use the silt to make the molds, and
[25:31] after firing them, you cast the bronze.
[25:34] It has relatively good thermal
[25:36] conductivity.
[25:37] Hmm.
[25:38] It won't explode.
[25:39] Ah.
[25:40] That is the loess of the Central Plains
[25:42] . But what kind of soil do you have in
[25:43] Sichuan? The soil is different; the
[25:45] same goes for Hunan. Hunan also has
[25:47] loess, but unlike the Central Plains '
[25:49] clay for molds—the craftsmen there
[25:51] are very skilled—if you look at the
[25:53] Hunan bronze figures, they are made...
[25:54] They have a lot of sand holes. The
[25:56] surface of the vessels has many sand
[25:58] holes. If you don't believe me, look
[26:00] closely; the figures are full of sand
[26:02] holes. So, when I went to Hunan for a
[26:04] lecture, I said, "These figures were
[26:06] cast locally in Hunan." They asked, "
[26:08] How do you know?" I said, "The sand is
[26:11] different."
[26:14] I feel that the work of archaeology
[26:16] should be very grounded; have you
[26:18] considered their relationship with the
[26:20] local villages? Think about it, if you
[26:26] find something in the ground and decide
[26:29] to dig, you have to deal with the local
[26:31] authorities. But it’s not just that;
[26:35] do the local villagers actually support
[26:37] what you’re doing? Sometimes, like
[26:40] when I visited the Baoji Museum, I saw
[26:42] that pit—I forget which year it was
[26:45] unearthed—the atmosphere was
[26:47] extremely tense. It was just a pit, a
[26:49] whole hoard of bronze ware. I read
[26:52] their report on the discovery; they had
[26:54] to report it to the superiors
[26:55] immediately. Then, the villagers
[26:57] started gathering around. But before
[26:59] the An Lushan Rebellion, back when the
[27:01] Tang Dynasty was at its peak during the
[27:03] Kaiyuan and Tianbao eras? They actually
[27:06] couldn't conquer Nanzhao. At least
[27:08] 200,000 Tang soldiers died; it was a
[27:11] crushing defeat. Well, a defeat is a
[27:14] defeat, but the King of Nanzhao was
[27:16] really spiteful. He dug a mass grave by
[27:19] Erhai Lake to bury the corpses of
[27:21] 100,000 soldiers and even had a stele
[27:24] carved next to it, claiming, "I didn't
[27:27] want this war, but the Tang Dynasty
[27:30] bullied us too much. My rebellion is a
[27:33] last resort, and I carve these words so
[27:36] future generations know my reasons." So
[27:38] , when the Song Dynasty was founded,
[27:41] Emperor Taizu, Zhao Kuangyin,
[27:42] supposedly made that bold statement: "
[27:45] How can I allow others to snore beside
[27:47] my bed?" Then why did the Dali Kingdom
[27:49] sleep soundly right there for 300 years
[27:52] ? Why didn't the Emperor make a move
[27:53] against them? He didn't even seem to
[27:56] consider it. Was it because their
[27:58] snoring sounded pleasant? It’s hard
[28:00] to understand. Isn't there a legend
[28:03] about this? It’s said that when the
[28:06] Song army pacified Sichuan, the next
[28:08] stop should have been Dali. Someone had
[28:10] already laid out the map of the Dali
[28:13] Kingdom in front of Zhao Kuangyin,
[28:14] asking him to decide whether to attack.
[28:17] He looked at it for a long time,
[28:19] holding the jade axe he often played
[28:21] with. It was just a small toy, and he
[28:24] used it to draw a line along the Dadu
[28:26] River on the map. He said, "Forget it,
[28:29] the land beyond this line is not meant
[28:32] for us to possess." So today, if you go
[28:35] to the Daguan Pavilion in Kunming, you
[28:38] can still see that famous couplet,
[28:40] which includes the line: "Han ships
[28:42] planted iron pillars; the Song
[28:44] emperor’s jade axe marked the
[28:47] boundary." The term "Song emperor's
[28:49] jade axe" refers specifically to this
[28:51] event. Zhao Kuangyin personally used
[28:54] his jade axe to draw a line at the
[28:57] river. So why didn't Emperor Taizu
[29:00] unify Dali? To put it bluntly, it's
[29:02] just because he realized the Tang
[29:04] Dynasty's attempt to pacify Yunnan by
[29:05] force had ended in a disastrous defeat;
[29:08] the lesson was simply too painful. Sure
[29:10] , it was the Great Song, but they
[29:11] weren't certain of success, so they
[29:13] just drew a line on the map and left it
[29:15] at that. Hey, now this is interesting.
[29:18] If we synthesize all the information
[29:20] mentioned above, you'll find that
[29:22] during this historical stage, the two
[29:24] major powers on the East Asian stage,
[29:26] the Great Song and the Great Liao,
[29:28] actually couldn't handle their
[29:30] neighbors with military force. The
[29:32] Great Song couldn't handle Dali and
[29:34] Western Xia, and the Great Liao
[29:36] couldn't handle Western Xia and Goryeo.
[29:38] In the past, we always said the Great
[29:40] Song was weak, but now we see there
[29:42] were external factors; that was simply
[29:44] the style of the era, as the
[29:46] surrounding neighbors had changed by
[29:48] the 11th century, and the level of
[29:50] civilization of various tribes on the
[29:53] East Asian continent had risen
[29:54] significantly. The original relative
[29:57] advantages of the Han people in culture
[29:59] , economy, and the military—and I
[30:01] mean relative advantages—were no
[30:03] longer that great. The level of
[30:04] internal integration among various
[30:06] ethnic groups was far beyond what it
[30:08] used to be. The era where everyone
[30:10] followed whoever appeared to be the
[30:13] leader on the street had ended, never
[30:15] to return. Look at the pre-Qin period;
[30:17] the sense of superiority of the Central
[30:20] Plains' Huaxia was immense, and there
[30:22] was the concept of the "Five Zones of
[30:24] Submission." What are the Five Zones?
[30:27] It was drawing five concentric circles
[30:29] outward with the Zhou Emperor at the
[30:31] center. The closer you were, the more
[30:33] civilized you were: the Royal Domain,
[30:35] the Nobility Zone, the Pacification
[30:36] Zone, the Allied Zone, and the Wild
[30:38] Zone. The further out you go, like the
[30:40] "Wild Zone" at the end, it meant
[30:41] uncivilized barbarians I couldn't be
[30:43] bothered to govern. These together are
[30:45] called the Five Zones; I, the Zhou
[30:46] Emperor, am the most civilized, and the
[30:48] further away from me, the lower the
[30:49] level of civilization. You see, this
[30:51] division, while crude, was essentially
[30:54] the reality of that era. Indeed, early
[30:56] on, the Huaxia civilization of the
[30:58] Central Plains was the beacon of light
[31:00] for the entire East Asian continent.
[31:03] But when time progressed to the 11th
[31:05] century, if you take another look at
[31:07] the East Asian continent, the situation
[31:10] had completely changed. First, the "
[31:12] barbarians" in the mouths of the
[31:15] Central Plains people were no longer
[31:17] those nomadic tribes who ate raw meat
[31:19] and drank blood. Their economic forms
[31:22] were no longer just simple animal
[31:24] husbandry. Many Khitan people had
[31:27] shifted to farming, and many other
[31:29] ethnic groups had developed powerful
[31:31] commercial traditions. More importantly
[31:36] , at this time, those who the scholars
[31:39] of our Central Plains might still call
[31:41] "barbarians" had started to have their
[31:43] own culture, and even their own writing
[31:46] systems. In this quite thick book
[31:49] called The Cambridge History of China:
[31:51] Liao, Xi Xia, Jin and Yuan, it mentions
[31:54] that if you go back several hundred
[31:56] years, to the Sui Dynasty, what was
[31:58] around the Central Plains dynasty?
[32:00] There was only one, Goguryeo, which
[32:03] could barely be called a state. Because
[32:06] at the very least, it had some kind of
[32:08] stable system. As for the other
[32:10] residents around China, if you looked
[32:12] all along the borders of the Sui
[32:14] Dynasty, they were all nomadic tribes.
[32:16] They lacked any long-standing,
[32:18] large-scale government institutions and
[32:20] had no written language of their own;
[32:23] the disparity was that great, but after
[32:25] the An Lushan Rebellion in the Tang
[32:28] Dynasty, this situation changed
[32:30] completely. Let me read you a passage
[32:33] from the book. It says by 750, this
[32:36] situation had been entirely transformed
[32:40] . Late Tang China was surrounded by a
[32:42] series of stable states. Nanzhao in
[32:46] Yunnan, the highly aggressive Tibetan
[32:48] Empire along the long border of Sichuan
[32:50] , Gansu, and today's Xinjiang, the
[32:53] Abbasid Caliphate in the Western
[32:55] Regions, the Turkic Khaganate and later
[32:57] the Uyghur Khaganate on the Mongolian
[32:59] steppe, Balhae in the Northeast, Silla
[33:02] on the Korean Peninsula, and Japan in
[33:04] the distance—all these states had
[33:06] elites who were literate in a written
[33:09] language. Some used Classical Chinese
[33:13] as their written language, while others
[33:16] used their own writing systems. This
[33:20] was an epoch-making change, and the
[33:22] founding monarchs of this period seemed
[33:24] to have reached a consensus. As long as
[33:27] I want to build a country, one thing I
[33:30] absolutely must do is create a writing
[33:32] system for my own people. Look at 907
[33:35] AD, when Yelü Abaoji founded the Liao,
[33:37] he immediately started working on
[33:40] Khitan; in 1036, which we will discuss
[33:42] later, before Li Yuanhao officially
[33:45] declared himself emperor of Western Xia
[33:47] . He rushed to create the Western Xia
[33:49] script; that was also a rapid project,
[33:51] finishing such a complex writing system
[33:53] in just three years. Even the very
[33:56] underdeveloped Jurchen Jin Dynasty was
[33:58] the same. Founded in 1115, by 1119,
[34:01] they announced they had created the
[34:04] Jurchen script. Actually, even earlier,
[34:07] Nanzhao, which we mentioned just now,
[34:09] also created its own script called "
[34:11] Square-character Bai," but this script
[34:13] is now completely lost. Think about it,
[34:16] creating a writing system out of thin
[34:18] air, how difficult that is! Creating a
[34:21] script isn't just about inventing it,
[34:23] deciding how this character or that
[34:25] character is written; it’s not like
[34:27] that. You have to organize learning,
[34:29] you have to force its promotion, and
[34:31] you also have to translate all those
[34:34] original classic texts on a large scale
[34:36] —only then is it a living, usable
[34:38] writing system. Just think about it:
[34:40] back in those days, for surrounding
[34:43] dynasties like the Jin or the Liao,
[34:45] doing these things was incredibly
[34:47] costly and inefficient. But all the
[34:49] founding monarchs seemed to understand
[34:52] that even though it was difficult, it
[34:54] had to be done. Why? There is only one
[34:58] explanation: a cultural awakening of
[35:00] their people. They wanted to complete
[35:03] their internal cultural development in
[35:05] their own way. Take Western Xia, for
[35:08] example; as soon as they created their
[35:10] own script, they immediately honored it
[35:13] as the state language. All important
[35:15] documents of Western Xia were rewritten
[35:18] in the Western Xia script, and their
[35:20] own history was also recorded entirely
[35:23] in it. They were very clear that
[35:25] cultural identity within a nation is a
[35:28] crucial source of power. Even if we are
[35:30] few in number, once we are united, our
[35:33] strength becomes immense. Right. In
[35:36] this historical period we are
[35:38] discussing, the entire East Asian
[35:40] continent seemed to be falling into a
[35:42] state of cultural disintegration, with
[35:44] no one yielding to anyone else. As for
[35:46] Chinese culture, while we must admit it
[35:49] still held a huge advantage at the time
[35:51] . But compared to the earlier Qin, Han,
[35:55] or Tang dynasties, this advantage was
[35:58] no longer absolute. The surrounding
[36:01] peoples were like teenagers—not only
[36:04] did they want to surpass the past, they
[36:06] wanted to be different from it. "I’ve
[36:09] grown up, I want to rebel, I want to
[36:12] awaken." The more culturally awakened I
[36:15] am, the stronger my internal cohesion,
[36:17] and the less you can do about me. That
[36:20] was the situation at the time.
[36:22] Geopolitics on the East Asian continent
[36:24] was no longer a "winner-takes-all" game
[36:27] of total dominance. It had entered a
[36:29] state where no one could overpower
[36:32] anyone else in terms of hard power, nor
[36:34] would anyone submit to another in terms
[36:37] of soft power. Please note, this was by
[36:40] no means a bad thing, because within
[36:43] this very state, the next round of
[36:45] integration for Chinese civilization—
[36:48] it might look shattered, but...No, the
[36:51] seeds for the next round of Chinese
[36:53] civilization's integration had actually
[36:56] been sown. Just now. Our previous
[37:14] narrative might have left you with the
[37:17] impression that back in the Han and
[37:19] Tang dynasties, our civilization was so
[37:22] formidable, but by the Song dynasty, it
[37:24] became weak and dim, with its cultural
[37:27] edge over surrounding nations no longer
[37:29] so obvious. So, may I ask, is that how
[37:34] you see it? If you view it that way,
[37:36] then I suspect that in your mind, all
[37:39] of Chinese history is just a single
[37:41] thread. A thread connecting dynasties
[37:45] like the pre-Qin, Han, Wei-Jin, Sui,
[37:48] Tang, Song, Yuan, and Qing. If that is
[37:52] how you think about it, then indeed it
[37:54] is, isn't it? That was the magnificence
[37:57] of China's Tang Dynasty, and then China
[37:59] was reborn under the Song Dynasty. But
[38:01] once you take a look, oh my, why does
[38:04] it look like this? It's so weak, a much
[38:07] frailer version of China. Its strength
[38:11] is not what it used to be, and all
[38:13] kinds of bad news keep coming in, so
[38:15] when we look back at the earlier Tang
[38:17] Dynasty, we don't think very highly of
[38:20] the Song Dynasty we are in now. But if
[38:22] you look at the problem this way, I
[38:24] must remind you that this is too
[38:27] Central Plains-centric. This
[38:29] perspective is too narrow, so we should
[38:32] step up, how high? Ten thousand meters
[38:35] up, to look down at the land of China
[38:38] 1,000 years ago. You will see a
[38:40] completely different scene. What do you
[38:43] mean the Tang perished? No, the Tang
[38:45] Dynasty just shattered. Shattered into
[38:48] pieces, it’s like a large family that
[38:50] originally lived under one roof, now
[38:52] split up, with each small household
[38:54] inheriting a bit of the Tang legacy,
[38:56] and each small household independently
[38:59] driving the development of Chinese
[39:01] civilization. Is that really the case?
[39:04] Let me show you a few simple facts.
[39:06] Let's go back 100 years from the year
[39:11] 1010 AD to 907 AD. In that very year,
[39:14] Zhu Wen wiped out the Tang Dynasty and
[39:17] established the Later Liang. Right,
[39:19] that’s what history books all say, so
[39:21] did the Tang Dynasty really just die
[39:24] like that? The people at the time
[39:26] didn't see it that way. Almost at the
[39:28] same time, in the year 907 AD, a few
[39:31] things happened simultaneously. First,
[39:34] in Hedong, which is the Shanxi area
[39:37] today, Li Keyong and his son Li Cunxu
[39:39] simply did not recognize this Later
[39:42] Liang. What do you mean the Tang
[39:44] Dynasty perished? We continue to serve
[39:47] the legitimate Tang emperor, isn't that
[39:49] right? I'll take over; my surname is
[39:52] also Li. Later they established the
[39:54] Later Tang—you see, it’s still "
[39:57] Tang." Simply put, they considered
[39:59] themselves the heirs to the Tang
[40:01] Dynasty. The Later Tang eventually
[40:03] perished, right? In 936, and three
[40:06] years later in 939. Look, another Tang
[40:09] emerged in the South. The founding
[40:11] emperor of the Southern Tang directly
[40:13] declared, "I am surnamed Li, I am a
[40:15] direct descendant of the Li family, and
[40:17] the legacy of the Great Tang is now
[40:19] mine to inherit." This banner was
[40:21] carried on once again. And don't forget
[40:24] , there was more in the North. Yelü
[40:26] Abaoji in the North became the Khan of
[40:28] the Khitans. In which year? Please note
[40:31] , it was exactly 907, the year the Tang
[40:34] Dynasty fell. I won't go into the
[40:36] specific textual research; you can
[40:38] refer to this book and the viewpoints
[40:40] of Professor Lin Hu. Yelu Abaoji did
[40:43] not intend to build a steppe nation; he
[40:45] wanted to create a state modeled after
[40:48] the Han Chinese, and he subtly aimed to
[40:51] inherit the status of the Great Tang.
[40:53] You see, all these small regimes at the
[40:55] time felt they were the ones who
[40:57] inherited the legal legitimacy of the
[40:59] Great Tang—that they were the true
[41:01] successors. So, one might ask, were
[41:03] they just being delusional? Or were
[41:05] they simply rushing to ride on the
[41:07] coattails of a prestigious name?
[41:09] Actually, there was a basis for why
[41:11] they thought and acted that way. The
[41:13] relationship between these small ethnic
[41:15] minority regimes and the Great Tang was
[41:17] much deeper than we might imagine. To
[41:20] understand this, we have to look back
[41:22] to the time when the Tang Dynasty was
[41:24] at its peak. Many people living on the
[41:26] borders of the Tang were from ethnic
[41:28] minority tribes, and the Tang’s
[41:30] method of managing them consisted of
[41:32] two words: Jimi. These two characters
[41:34] are quite difficult to write. "Ji"
[41:36] refers to a horse's halter, and "Mi"
[41:38] refers to a cow's nose ring. To put it
[41:41] plainly, the strategy was to control
[41:43] and win them over, much like using a
[41:45] halter and a nose ring. The Tang
[41:47] Dynasty established "Jimi prefectures"
[41:49] on the borders, appointing local tribal
[41:51] leaders as the military and political
[41:53] heads of these prefectures. Don't
[41:55] forget, the official post you held was
[41:58] under the Great Tang; I was your Son of
[42:00] Heaven, your Emperor, but this position
[42:02] was different from others in the Tang
[42:05] —it was hereditary and could be
[42:07] passed down. You had full autonomy over
[42:09] your internal affairs and enjoyed
[42:10] significant self-governance. You didn't
[42:12] have to report your population census
[42:13] to the central government; simply put,
[42:15] you didn't have to pay taxes, right?
[42:16] Moreover, the Tang Emperor would
[42:18] occasionally bestow gifts upon you,
[42:20] which were substantial benefits. But
[42:22] never forget what the price you had to
[42:24] pay was. Always remember that the
[42:27] halter and the nose ring were in my
[42:29] hands, yet at the same time, immense
[42:31] amounts of wealth—veritable mountains
[42:34] of gold and seas of silver—were
[42:36] poured into it; was it really worth it?
[42:39] This wasn't just a problem for the Song
[42:41] Dynasty; almost every dynasty in
[42:43] Chinese history had to face this
[42:45] difficult dilemma. So today, I would
[42:47] like to spend some time talking to you
[42:50] about someone you might be familiar
[42:52] with. Through this person, you can get
[42:54] a sense of how the empire's
[42:56] calculations for frontier expansion
[42:58] were actually made. This person is no
[43:01] stranger; he is Zhang Qian, the Marquis
[43:04] of Bowang. Whenever we mention Zhang
[43:06] Qian today, we look up to him as a
[43:08] great national hero; he is in our
[43:10] middle school history textbooks, after
[43:12] all. Indeed, the story of Zhang Qian
[43:15] fits the narrative of a hero's journey
[43:17] perfectly. If you think about a hero's
[43:20] story, it must contain three elements,
[43:22] right? First, his background must be
[43:25] that of an underdog. And Zhang Qian
[43:27] fits that—he started as a "Lang"
[43:29] official for Emperor Wu of Han. What is
[43:31] a "Lang"? He was just a servant
[43:34] standing in the palace corridors,
[43:36] waiting for orders at any time; he held
[43:38] a very low status under the Emperor. At
[43:40] that time, Emperor Wu of Han wanted to
[43:42] send someone as an envoy to the Western
[43:44] Regions. No one had ever been there, so
[43:46] it was a mission with a slim chance of
[43:48] survival. Zhang Qian stood in the
[43:50] corridor and raised his hand, saying, "
[43:51] I'll go." So, his background was indeed
[43:54] very humble. A hero's story must also
[43:56] have a second element: as a hero, you
[43:59] have to face immense difficulties. This
[44:01] applied to Zhang Qian too. Upon
[44:03] reaching the Western Regions, he was
[44:05] captured by the Xiongnu and held for
[44:07] over a decade. He even took a wife and
[44:09] had children there. It was only after
[44:11] more than ten years that he finally
[44:13] seized an opportunity to escape.
[44:15] Wouldn't you call that difficult? Since
[44:17] it's a heroic tale, it must have a
[44:19] third point: the achievements must be
[44:21] exceptionally glorious. Look at Zhang
[44:23] Qian's two missions to the Western
[44:25] Regions—what were the results? Not
[44:28] only did he secure strategic
[44:29] cooperation for the Han Dynasty from
[44:31] the Western Regions, but he also
[44:33] brought back seeds like grapes and flax
[44:35] , improving the agricultural structure
[44:37] of the Central Plains. Moreover, he
[44:39] made incredible cultural achievements,
[44:41] bringing music and dance from the
[44:43] Western Regions to the Central Plains.
[44:45] This was what later led to the
[44:47] emergence of the Silk Road. So, would
[44:49] you say Zhang Qian's contributions were
[44:51] significant? That is why today,
[44:53] whenever we mention Zhang Qian, we call
[44:55] him a great diplomat, a great traveler,
[44:57] and a great explorer, among other
[44:59] things. But what I’m about to say
[45:02] next is the main point. If you lived in
[45:04] the Han Dynasty, if you were a
[45:06] contemporary of Zhang Qian, you
[45:08] wouldn't see him that way; you might
[45:10] even dislike him or look down on him.
[45:12] Why? First of all, what did he actually
[45:15] accomplish? Nothing at all. Why did
[45:18] Emperor Wu send him on a mission to the
[45:20] Western Regions? It was to have him
[45:22] contact the Yuezhi to attack the
[45:24] Xiongnu. But Zhang Qian took a wife and
[45:26] had children while among the Xiongnu,
[45:28] and he failed to complete that mission.
[45:30] When Sima Qian wrote the "Records of
[45:32] the Grand Historian," he even coined an
[45:34] idiom specifically for this, which we
[45:36] still use today: "Bu De Yao Ling,"
[45:38] meaning that when Zhang Qian did this
[45:40] job, he failed to grasp the key point.
[45:42] So, Zhang Qian's journey could be
[45:44] considered hard work, but it was
[45:46] without merit. This wouldn't have been
[45:48] a big deal, but you can probably sense
[45:51] what kind of person Zhang Qian was. He
[45:53] was the kind of person who came from an
[45:55] ordinary, humble background. Yet, he
[45:57] possessed an endless drive, a fierce
[45:59] ambition to climb the social ladder and
[46:01] to make a name for himself. So, after
[46:04] he returned, he couldn't stay still. He
[46:06] gave Emperor Wu of Han an idea. The
[46:09] reason we say the people of the Han
[46:11] Dynasty must have hated this man is
[46:13] because of this very suggestion he made
[46:16] to the Emperor. He said, "I took a trip
[46:18] to the Western Regions, and I think
[46:21] there's likely another route from the
[46:23] Great Han to the Western Regions." That
[46:26] route. To put it in today's terms, it
[46:28] would mean setting off from Sichuan
[46:30] toward the southwest, crossing the
[46:32] Qinghai-Tibet Plateau—though they
[46:34] didn't know it as that at the time.
[46:36] Regardless, by heading southwest, one
[46:38] could reach today's India, then head
[46:40] north to reach today's Afghanistan, and
[46:43] continue north to arrive in the Western
[46:45] Regions. People today only need to
[46:47] glance at a map to immediately realize,
[46:48] "Wow, how could anyone possibly take
[46:50] that route?" Given the technological
[46:52] conditions of that time, there was
[46:53] absolutely no possibility of it! The
[46:55] entire path was filled with high
[46:57] mountains, but people back then didn't
[46:59] know, and neither did Emperor Wu. The
[47:01] Emperor had originally wanted to open a
[47:03] path to the southwest, not to reach
[47:05] India, but to build a road from Chengdu
[47:07] through Guizhou in order to attack
[47:09] Guangzhou. They really worked on
[47:11] building that road, pouring in
[47:12] countless amounts of wealth and causing
[47:14] massive disasters, yet the road was
[47:16] never finished and was abandoned
[47:18] halfway. Well. Now that Zhang Qian has
[47:21] returned, hearing this, Emperor Wu got
[47:23] an idea again. "Right," he thought, "
[47:25] didn't we build a half-finished road
[47:27] back then?""Let's keep at it! Let's
[47:29] continue to open up the southwest
[47:31] corridor, we’re going to India, and
[47:32] from India we’ll go to the Western
[47:34] Regions!" They started the work again.
[47:36] Just think, with current human
[47:38] engineering capabilities, going from
[47:39] Sichuan up to the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau
[47:41] to reach India is an incredibly
[47:43] difficult task—how could it have been
[47:45] possible back then? So, you can imagine
[47:47] just how many lives and how much wealth
[47:49] Emperor Wu’s forced restart of this
[47:51] project would waste—an immense amount
[47:53] . Alright, let’s turn our attention
[47:55] back to Zhang Qian himself. We all know
[47:58] Zhang Qian held a noble title, the
[48:00] Marquis of Bowang. But don't get it
[48:02] wrong; this had absolutely nothing to
[48:04] do with his mission to the Western
[48:06] Regions. He had no merit from that
[48:08] mission. Then why was he ennobled? It
[48:11] was because he followed Wei Qing to
[48:12] fight the Xiongnu and achieved military
[48:14] success. Since he had lived among the
[48:17] Xiongnu for over a decade, he knew the
[48:19] roads well, so he was granted the title
[48:21] . But he was quite unlucky; just one
[48:24] year after being ennobled for his
[48:26] military achievements, he went out with
[48:28] the army again the next year, got lost,
[48:31] arrived late, and was sentenced to
[48:33] death. However, when Han Dynasty
[48:35] generals lost battles and were
[48:37] sentenced to death, they could pay a
[48:38] fine to avoid execution. So for Zhang
[48:41] Qian, the title of Bowang he had just
[48:43] freshly received was gone, and the
[48:46] money was obviously—well, I imagine
[48:48] there were quite a few people gloating
[48:51] at the time. After all, who are you,
[48:54] Zhang Qian? You haven't accomplished
[48:56] anything; you only know how to give the
[48:58] Emperor bad advice that harms everyone.
[49:00] What right do you have? Aren't you
[49:02] ashamed of yourself? But a man like
[49:05] Zhang Qian wouldn't just give up that
[49:07] easily. He seized the opportunity. This
[49:10] time, he went to Emperor Wu of Han
[49:13] again and said, "How about I make
[49:15] another trip to the Western Regions? I
[49:17] know of a country called the Wusun
[49:19] Kingdom; it's quite powerful.""What if
[49:22] we form an alliance with them to strike
[49:24] at the Xiongnu again?" Well, his words
[49:26] got Emperor Wu excited again, and he
[49:28] said, "Fine, you're familiar with the
[49:30] job, go make another trip." This was
[49:32] Zhang Qian's second mission to the
[49:34] Western Regions. I’ll just jump right
[49:37] in. The first time, he didn't know if
[49:39] the route was viable, so he only took
[49:40] about a hundred men. It was really just
[49:43] a gamble for the Han Dynasty. This time
[49:45] , Zhang Qian took three hundred men and
[49:48] a huge sum of money to win over the
[49:50] various kingdoms in the Western Regions
[49:52] . This mission had an interesting
[49:54] arrangement: the entire team not only
[49:56] included Zhang Qian as the chief envoy
[49:58] but also a large group of deputy envoys
[50:00] appointed by the Han court. What was
[50:02] the purpose of that? It was so that if
[50:04] they encountered a fork in the road,
[50:06] one group could go one way; whoever
[50:08] they bumped into, that would be the
[50:09] country they were tasked to visit.
[50:11] After all, they were all deputy envoys
[50:13] of our mission. Right. So, did this
[50:16] mission to the Western Regions yield
[50:19] any results? Not at all. At least by
[50:22] the time Zhang Qian died, not a single
[50:24] result had been seen. As for what we
[50:27] read in history books today—about
[50:29] bringing back grape seeds, introducing
[50:31] dance and music, and opening the Silk
[50:33] Road—those are all perspectives from
[50:36] later generations. Do you really think
[50:38] the people of the Han Dynasty at that
[50:40] time would feel grateful just because
[50:42] you brought back some grapes? Don't
[50:44] forget how much money you spent from
[50:46] our Han treasury; would the people of
[50:48] Han care about that? So what did the
[50:50] people of the Han Dynasty see at that
[50:52] time? Zhang Qian's second mission to
[50:54] the Western Regions, as some scholars
[50:57] have verified, took place in the fourth
[50:59] year of Yuanshou, which is 119 BCE.
[51:01] What was happening then? At that time,
[51:03] the Han Dynasty had just finished a
[51:05] decisive battle against the Xiongnu. It
[51:07] was a truly glorious victory, driving
[51:10] the Xiongnu to the far north. But since
[51:12] it was a decisive battle, the Han side
[51:14] paid a heavy price; tens of thousands
[51:16] died in one fight, and the country's
[51:19] warhorses were almost all gone. Right.
[51:21] Now that Zhang Qian was once again
[51:23] advising Emperor Wu of Han to go to the
[51:26] Western Regions and throw money away,
[51:28] how do you think the ministers around
[51:30] him felt? They were grinding their
[51:32] teeth in absolute hatred. And what was
[51:35] even more deadly? Zhang Qian’s story
[51:38] became a blueprint for all the
[51:40] power-hungry and opportunistic
[51:42] scoundrels across the country.
[51:44] Countless people petitioned the emperor
[51:47] , claiming, "I know of such and such a
[51:49] foreign country; if we establish
[51:51] contact, it will bring us such and such
[51:54] benefits." Given Emperor Wu’s
[51:55] personality, would he care about the
[51:58] details? As long as someone dared to
[52:00] say they knew of a foreign land, he
[52:02] would grant them the title of envoy and
[52:04] let them recruit their own followers.
[52:06] Emperor Wu didn't ask about their
[52:08] backgrounds; as long as the numbers
[52:10] were right, he sent them on their way.
[52:12] The emperor was always gazing into the
[52:15] distance, thinking, "The wider the
[52:18] roads to foreign lands, the better; the
[52:20] more envoys sent, the better." That was
[52:23] all he cared about. You can imagine
[52:26] that with so many envoys, it was a
[52:28] mixed bag—thieves, profiteers, all
[52:30] sorts of people. But Emperor Wu didn't
[52:33] mind; if they returned without results,
[52:35] he’d find them guilty and make them
[52:37] pay to redeem themselves. Once you’ve
[52:39] paid to redeem your crimes, aren’t
[52:41] you broke? What do you do then? You ask
[52:43] to be sent on another mission. See, it
[52:46] became a vicious cycle. As time went on
[52:48] , these people stopped caring about
[52:50] breaking the law. After all, they were
[52:53] already gambling with their lives,
[52:55] seeking wealth through risk. So, all
[52:57] the braggarts in the country became "
[53:00] official envoys." Even those who
[53:02] couldn't lie well could scrape together
[53:05] a living, and every nonsense-talking
[53:07] opportunist started following this path
[53:09] . In the end, the so-called Han envoys
[53:13] traveling the road to the Western
[53:15] Regions were nothing more than
[53:17] scoundrels, thugs, and the destitute.
[53:20] The gifts the imperial court sent for
[53:21] foreign nations were simply sold by
[53:23] these people as soon as they reached
[53:25] the Western Regions, and they spent the
[53:27] money on themselves. Naturally, the
[53:28] countries in the Western Regions
[53:30] weren't stupid. Seeing the true nature
[53:33] of these Han envoys, they wouldn't even
[53:35] offer them meals. So, these people
[53:37] would resort to robbing them and often
[53:39] got into fights with the local nations.
[53:41] Just imagine, what kind of mess had
[53:43] this become? Exactly. This was the
[53:46] consequence the Han people saw from
[53:48] Zhang Qian’s mission to the Western
[53:50] Regions. Could they be happy about it?
[53:52] How could they not hate this Zhang Qian
[53:55] ? In fact, not just during the Han
[53:57] Dynasty, but for a long time in Chinese
[53:59] history, Zhang Qian’s image was not
[54:01] very positive. For example, Huang Zhen
[54:03] of the Southern Song Dynasty gave Zhang
[54:06] Qian a title, calling him a petty man
[54:08] who pandered to the emperor's vices.
[54:10] What does that mean? It means that to
[54:13] cater to the emperor's base desires,
[54:15] there was nothing he wouldn't do. No
[54:18] need to look that far back; take the
[54:20] year 1075, when a great living poet and
[54:23] painter named Wen was around. Wen was
[54:26] actually Su Shi’s cousin. He once
[54:29] wrote a poem. He mentioned passing by
[54:32] Zhang Qian's tomb and casually threw
[54:34] out a few disparaging remarks. Take a
[54:36] look. "Back then you traveled to remote
[54:39] lands; today your grave is overgrown
[54:41] with weeds." He's saying, "Back then,
[54:43] you, Zhang Qian, went to the Western
[54:44] Regions to scatter money—how
[54:45] impressive you were! And now? How are
[54:48] things?""Lying here in lonely solitude,
[54:51] with only a narrow, winding path
[54:53] leading to your tomb, seen only by
[54:55] common folk.""Don't you see, the
[54:57] Martial Emperor's desire for expansion
[55:00] wasted the nation's wealth and caused
[55:01] the people's resentment.""Everyone,
[55:04] come and see; this is the man. Back
[55:06] then, Emperor Wu wanted to expand the
[55:08] borders, emptying the nation's treasury
[55:10] —it was all this man's doing.""He was
[55:12] the one who gave those terrible ideas."
[55:14] This poem by Wen has another title, "
[55:16] Disastrous Tomb." A tomb that brings
[55:19] disaster—that just shows you how much
[55:22] the Song Dynasty scholar-officials
[55:24] looked down on this Zhang Qian. Hearing
[55:27] this, you might be a bit surprised that
[55:30] our national hero, Zhang Qian, was
[55:32] treated this way by people in the Song
[55:34] Dynasty. Don't be impatient; let the
[55:37] truth settle for a moment. Let Zhang
[55:39] Qian wait a little longer in the depths
[55:42] of time. About 900 years later, another
[55:46] group of scholars came to Zhang
[55:48] Qian’s tomb in Hanzhong, Shaanxi.
[55:51] They erected a monument for Zhang Qian.
[55:54] The inscription on the monument is very
[55:56] long, and it contains these lines. "His
[55:59] legacy shall endure, immortal forever."
[56:03] "By reflecting on the past and looking
[56:05] to the future, we honor the blessings
[56:08] of Huaxia; we commit ourselves to the
[56:10] great cause of national rejuvenation."
[56:12] What does that mean? It means that
[56:15] everyone who comes to Zhang Qian’s
[56:17] tomb should see it. Buried here is a
[56:19] man whose name will live forever.
[56:21] Looking at this man's achievements can
[56:24] inspire us to look forward, allowing
[56:26] our generation to continue the
[56:28] uninterrupted civilization of Huaxia.
[56:30] It can make the weak among us stand
[56:32] tall and the dispirited among us rise
[56:35] up, to complete the great cause of
[56:37] national rejuvenation together. This
[56:39] was a monument erected at Zhang Qian's
[56:42] tomb 900 years later. You might be
[56:45] calculating; we said 900 years later,
[56:48] what year is this? To be precise, it
[56:51] was the year 1939 AD. What year is this
[56:55] ? This was a difficult year during the
[56:57] Chinese War of Resistance Against Japan
[57:00] . Who came to Zhang Qian’s tomb to
[57:02] erect this monument? It was the
[57:03] scholars from the History Department of
[57:05] the Northwest Associated University.
[57:07] The year before, in March 1938, Shanxi
[57:11] fell. Japanese invaders occupied
[57:13] Fenglingdu and Tongguan, and the
[57:15] Guanzhong region was soon under threat.
[57:17] The then-National Xi'an Temporary
[57:19] University urgently relocated to
[57:21] Hanzhong, establishing the Northwest
[57:23] Union University. As these teachers and
[57:26] students stood before Zhang Qian’s
[57:28] tomb, they saw more than just the
[57:30] shadow of an ancient figure. They saw
[57:33] the vast torrent of Chinese
[57:35] civilization rushing toward them from
[57:38] over 2,000 years ago; they heard the
[57:40] pipa and camel bells echoing from the
[57:43] distant desert; they felt Zhang Qian's
[57:46] indomitable spirit, standing tall
[57:48] despite every hardship he faced. Look,
[57:52] over 900 years have passed, and the
[57:55] assessment of Zhang Qian has undergone
[57:58] such a dramatic reversal. However, in
[58:01] my opinion, the person who gave the
[58:08] weightiest and most constructive
[58:09] evaluation of Zhang Qian was actually
[58:12] none other than his contemporary. Just.
[58:32] Earlier, through the example of Zhang
[58:34] Qian, you should have sensed that "
[58:36] opening up territory" is a particularly
[58:38] difficult account to settle. Why?
[58:41] Because the perspective of
[58:43] contemporaries versus the long-term
[58:44] view, and the ledger of a state versus
[58:46] the ledger of a civilization, lead to
[58:48] vastly different conclusions—and this
[58:51] is a matter that will never be truly
[58:52] settled. Speaking of which, I admire
[58:55] one person even more: Sima Qian. Sima
[58:59] Qian, like Zhang Qian, was a figure of
[59:01] Emperor Wu of Han’s era, and he was
[59:03] even a dozen years younger than Zhang
[59:06] Qian. Sima Qian's evaluation of Zhang
[59:08] Qian far exceeded the height reached by
[59:11] their contemporaries. Actually, Sima
[59:13] Qian did not provide a direct
[59:15] evaluation, nor is there a "Biography
[59:18] of Zhang Qian" in his Records of the
[59:20] Grand Historian. Instead, he wrote
[59:23] Zhang Qian's story in the "Account of
[59:25] Dayuan." At the end of the text, he
[59:30] said something profound: "I used to
[59:33] read ancient books that claimed the
[59:35] Yellow River originated from Mount
[59:38] Kunlun—a mountain 2,500 li high,
[59:41] where the sun and moon meet, home to
[59:44] various gods, divine springs, and the
[59:46] Jade Pool.""But ever since Zhang Qian
[59:52] of our era embarked on his mission and
[59:55] explored the source of the Yellow River
[59:57] , we discovered no such Mount Kunlun
[60:00] exists. I no longer dare to discuss
[60:04] those strange accounts recorded in
[60:06] ancient books." Did you catch that?
[60:09] Sima Qian was using a very subtle way
[60:12] to acknowledge Zhang Qian's historical
[60:15] contributions. Exactly. Where does
[60:18] Zhang Qian's true contribution lie? It
[60:21] is that the knowledge he brought back
[60:23] completely shattered the Chinese
[60:25] people's previous worldview. So, the
[60:28] Kunlun Mountains aren't the end of the
[60:31] world. Oh, so there’s a world of
[60:34] people beyond them too. The world is
[60:37] truly vast, and from where we stand,
[60:40] there are endless paths leading into
[60:43] the distance. Indeed, Zhang Qian’s
[60:45] achievement wasn't just about trade
[60:47] figures, nor was it the exotic plant
[60:50] seeds or new musical instruments he
[60:52] brought back. It wasn't those things;
[60:54] it was that he allowed Chinese
[60:56] civilization to see the outside world
[60:58] for the first time, expanding the
[61:00] boundaries of our imagination. That is
[61:02] why Sima Qian created a new term for
[61:04] Zhang Qian’s life’s work, calling
[61:06] it "boring through." Wow, what a
[61:09] fitting term. Zhang Qian took a drill
[61:12] and literally bored a hole through the
[61:14] seemingly impenetrable wall that
[61:16] Chinese civilization once thought
[61:18] defined its boundaries. This was the
[61:21] first step of amplification. The
[61:23] amplification of knowledge. Following
[61:26] that, another amplification effect
[61:28] emerged. Imagine you are the Emperor,
[61:30] trying to govern such a massive empire.
[61:33] I have to employ officials, and these
[61:34] officials must be literate, right? They
[61:36] at least need to be able to read
[61:38] documents issued by the imperial court.
[61:39] So, where would these officials come
[61:41] from? At first, they could only come
[61:43] from the noble clans, as we mentioned,
[61:45] because they held a monopoly on
[61:47] literacy. Alright. Over time, these
[61:50] families formed social networks
[61:53] characterized by mutual trust, mutual
[61:55] care, and mutual recommendation. This
[61:59] is where it gets critical. You look
[62:01] after my son, I recommend your nephew,
[62:04] you speak highly of my brother. Once
[62:07] this cycle of mutual maneuvering formed
[62:09] , its power became terrifying. Let's
[62:12] not just talk about ancient society;
[62:14] this phenomenon exists in modern
[62:16] society too. When I was a child back
[62:18] home, I noticed that in our city,
[62:21] almost all the boat captains were
[62:23] people from Hubei along the river.
[62:25] Those running bathhouses were mostly
[62:27] from Yangzhou, and those selling
[62:29] glasses were mostly from Wenzhou. Even
[62:32] today, if you ask, you'll find that
[62:34] nine out of ten print shop owners
[62:37] across China are from Xinhua, Hunan.
[62:39] Yes, this is the nature of social
[62:42] networks. The echo-chamber
[62:44] reinforcement effect of social networks
[62:46] eventually leads to an entire industry
[62:49] being monopolized by a group of people
[62:51] who trust each other. But we aren't
[62:53] done yet; we’ve discussed two
[62:55] amplification effects, and there is an
[62:58] even higher-level one. This is social
[63:01] prestige. There is a very interesting
[63:05] question: how can a person raise their
[63:07] own social prestige? There is only one
[63:10] way. That is to align yourself with
[63:12] things that already have high prestige.
[63:14] Yes, the source of prestige is simply
[63:17] being associated with other
[63:18] high-prestige things. Have you noticed?
[63:21] Attending a top university, joining
[63:23] elite circles, frequenting high-end
[63:25] venues, working at major companies,
[63:28] posing for photos with celebrities,
[63:30] dressing impeccably, discussing elite
[63:32] topics—what are all these behaviors
[63:34] essentially? They are all effective
[63:37] ways to boost prestige. Their
[63:40] underlying logic is the same: by
[63:42] standing with high-prestige entities,
[63:45] one can acquire or "leech" off that
[63:48] prestige. You could call this law the "
[63:51] prestige algorithm." And what is the
[63:54] result of this algorithm? It is that
[63:56] social prestige, as a resource, can
[63:59] self-reinforce and self-consolidate.
[64:01] Let me give you a contemporary example.
[64:03] Take prestigious universities like
[64:05] Peking University or Tsinghua
[64:06] University; they have long histories
[64:08] and produce brilliant graduates, which
[64:10] is why they hold such prestige. As a
[64:11] result, more outstanding high school
[64:14] students aspire to join this community
[64:16] of Peking or Tsinghua graduates. This
[64:19] ensures the graduates remain even more
[64:21] exceptional, which in turn attracts
[64:23] more renowned professors, social
[64:26] donations, and academic resources,
[64:28] ensuring the schools grow ever stronger
[64:30] in the future. Right? It is almost
[64:33] impossible to imagine a scenario where
[64:36] top schools like Peking or Tsinghua
[64:38] would collapse. They seem destined to
[64:40] only grow more prestigious over time,
[64:43] with consistently excellent graduates.
[64:46] Do you think it’s just the school
[64:48] itself that’s excellent? No, it’s
[64:50] that oscillating amplification effect,
[64:52] which ensures they evolve and endure
[64:54] through time. Of course, there is an
[64:56] inverse effect as well. That is, Peking
[64:59] and Tsinghua have very high thresholds.
[65:02] Not just anyone can stand with them and
[65:04] bask in their prestige. You can ask
[65:06] around—graduates of Peking and
[65:08] Tsinghua are very conscious of
[65:10] maintaining the purity of their
[65:12] collective. Right? Would Peking or
[65:15] Tsinghua ever lower their admission
[65:17] standards? The school wouldn't agree,
[65:19] and the graduates wouldn't agree. We
[65:21] are an elite group; we must ensure the
[65:23] longevity and durability of this
[65:25] prestige. Well, once you think of it
[65:28] this way, it becomes clear. The great
[65:30] noble families of the past were just
[65:32] the same; this is a phenomenon of
[65:34] prestige accumulated over time. The
[65:36] core resource they held was that "
[65:39] everyone looks up to our family." This
[65:41] is prestige; it’s not hard power,
[65:44] it’s soft power. Just like in the
[65:46] Three Kingdoms period, whenever Yuan
[65:47] Shao's family was mentioned, it was
[65:49] said they had "four generations of
[65:50] three excellencies, with students and
[65:52] subordinates across the land." Yes,
[65:53] mentioning Yuan Shao’s family back
[65:55] then—isn't it the same envious tone
[65:57] we use today when speaking of the
[65:59] century-long history of Peking and
[66:01] Tsinghua and their graduates spread
[66:03] across the world? By the same logic,
[66:05] the great noble families of the time
[66:08] would not let ordinary people hitch a
[66:10] ride on their prestige, for instance,
[66:12] by marrying their children. They also
[66:15] had to maintain the purity of their
[66:17] group; yes, this is an inevitability of
[66:19] the prestige algorithm. Let me give you
[66:22] an example so you can get a feel for it
[66:24] . You must know the story of "Romance
[66:27] of the West Chamber." Cui Yingying and
[66:32] Scholar Zhang liked each other, but why
[66:34] did Yingying's mother refuse to bless
[66:37] the marriage? The common folk
[66:39] interpretation is that the old lady was
[66:42] a snob who looked down on the poor and
[66:44] disliked Zhang because he was a nobody,
[66:46] but that wasn't it; the Cui family was
[66:48] also in decline, and in terms of money,
[66:51] it's hard to say who was richer. It was
[66:53] because the Cui family's social
[66:56] standing was just too high. The story
[66:59] of "Romance of the West Chamber" takes
[67:01] place in the Tang Dynasty. Who was Cui
[67:04] Yingying's father, at least according
[67:06] to the legend? He was from the Bolin
[67:08] Cui clan. Back in the Tang Dynasty, if
[67:11] you said your surname was Cui, everyone
[67:12] would perk up— "Are you*that*Cui? Are
[67:15] you*that*Cui?" The Bolin Cui clan was
[67:17] an incredible family; it could be
[67:19] traced back to the Western Han Dynasty,
[67:22] a lineage that lasted for over a
[67:23] thousand years. In the Tang Dynasty
[67:26] alone, this Bolin Cui clan produced
[67:28] fifteen chancellors. Right, that's the
[67:30] father's side of the Cui family. Then
[67:32] there is Cui Yingying's mother, who
[67:34] came from the Xingyang Zheng clan,
[67:36] which was also formidable. In the Tang
[67:38] Dynasty, if you said your surname was
[67:40] Zheng, that was a big deal, wasn't it?
[67:42] This Zheng clan could also be traced
[67:43] back to the Western Han, spanning over
[67:45] a millennium, and it also produced ten
[67:47] chancellors during the Tang. With a
[67:49] father like that, a mother like that,
[67:51] and such a background, it was
[67:53] inconceivable by the standards of the
[67:55] time to intermarry with a mere common
[67:58] scholar like Zhang. They were a family
[68:00] with prestige; they had to ensure their
[68:02] entry threshold remained high so others
[68:04] couldn't siphon off their reputation.
[68:06] Let alone commoners, the noble families
[68:08] of the time were even unwilling to
[68:10] intermarry with the imperial family.
[68:12] Isn't there a famous example of this?
[68:14] It’s Emperor Wenzong of Tang. The
[68:16] fifteenth emperor of the Great Tang. He
[68:18] wanted to marry his two princesses off
[68:21] to these noble families, but no one
[68:23] wanted them. Emperor Wenzong once said
[68:25] something very dejected to his
[68:27] chancellor. He said, "I, of the Li clan
[68:30] —we are the Li Tang royal family, the
[68:33] Sons of Heaven—am I really not as
[68:36] good as their Cui or Zheng clans?" Of
[68:39] course, there were excusable reasons
[68:41] for this, as the Tang princesses often
[68:43] led extravagant lifestyles and were
[68:45] known for acting recklessly. After such
[68:47] princesses married into a family, their
[68:49] status was so high that respectable
[68:51] noble households were unwilling to
[68:53] invite such trouble, which is
[68:54] understandable. Conversely, if the
[68:56] imperial family wanted to marry a
[68:59] daughter from an aristocratic clan, it
[69:01] was quite difficult. Take the Tang
[69:05] Emperor we mentioned earlier, who
[69:07] wanted to find a crown princess for his
[69:09] heir and asked his officials to submit
[69:11] the names of their daughters. After
[69:15] looking them over, he set his heart on
[69:17] the prominent aristocratic families,
[69:20] specifically the Xingyang Zheng clan we
[69:22] mentioned, but none of the Zheng
[69:24] officials were willing. The Tang
[69:26] Emperor complained to his chancellor,
[69:28] repeating the same old line. He said, "
[69:31] Our Li family has been a prestigious
[69:32] clan of officials for hundreds of years
[69:34] ; putting aside the fact that I'm the
[69:36] Emperor, we're a great family, aren't
[69:37] we?""Why is it that nobody is willing
[69:40] to marry into my family?" You might say
[69:42] , "Wow, these aristocrats are far too
[69:45] self-important! Even the Emperor's face
[69:48] is ignored—is it really because they
[69:51] look down on the royals?" In the past,
[69:53] many of us understood it this way,
[69:55] thinking the great aristocratic clans
[69:57] were arrogant and disdainful. No, I
[69:59] don't think it was about looking down
[70:01] on them. It was about not being able to
[70:03] afford the trouble and finding it not
[70:05] worth the risk. If you put yourself in
[70:07] their shoes, imagine you were part of a
[70:10] thousand-year-old clan that had been
[70:12] rooted in a region for generations.
[70:15] Your family had produced high-ranking
[70:17] officials for centuries. How would you
[70:20] look at the current Emperor? The
[70:22] Emperor is powerful, of course, and you
[70:25] certainly can't oppose him, but his
[70:26] family has only been around for what?
[70:28] Maybe two or three hundred years at
[70:31] most. When compared to your family in
[70:33] terms of longevity, they fall far
[70:35] behind. Therefore, in your eyes, your
[70:37] own family is the real ironclad,
[70:40] enduring foundation. The Emperor is
[70:42] just "flowing water." To use a slightly
[70:45] imperfect analogy, it’s like a local
[70:48] squire looking at a mountain bandit
[70:51] king who has claimed territory nearby.
[70:54] The bandit king has weapons and power,
[70:57] so when he demands taxes, the squire
[71:00] has no choice but to obey. But the
[71:02] squire's family has lived there for
[71:05] generations. In his eyes, the bandit
[71:08] king rises and falls; he's bound to
[71:11] leave or be replaced, so it's best to
[71:14] just play along. But if you were to ask
[71:18] that squire to marry into the bandit
[71:20] king's family and become in-laws, well,
[71:23] the squire likely wouldn't be very
[71:25] happy about it. If he had a choice, he
[71:28] really wouldn't want to. Think about it
[71:31] : if the next bandit king arrives, and
[71:33] you're tied to the previous one through
[71:35] marriage, wouldn't you be a target for
[71:37] destruction? Because the time scales
[71:39] with which they view issues are
[71:41] different, it leads to this result:
[71:43] great aristocratic clans weren't
[71:44] necessarily willing to take on the
[71:46] status of imperial in-laws. It was a
[71:48] matter of being unable to afford the
[71:50] trouble. But we can look at this issue
[71:52] on a deeper level, there are three
[71:55] words, called "fan-bu-yi." From the
[71:57] perspective of ordinary people, they
[71:59] would think, "Oh my, to become the
[72:00] emperor's son-in-law or daughter-in-law
[72:02] , what an honor that would be! It would
[72:04] be something to boast about, right?"
[72:06] But don't forget, we are talking about
[72:09] noble families, those ancient
[72:10] aristocratic clans with centuries or
[72:12] even millennia of history. Where do
[72:14] these people derive their sense of
[72:16] honor and glory from? It comes from
[72:18] their own family history. I don't need
[72:20] to look elsewhere; I just go home and
[72:22] flip through the family records. Look
[72:23] at my great-grandfather's
[72:24] great-grandfather—they were such
[72:26] legendary figures! That sense of pride
[72:28] wells up from the bottom of my heart.
[72:30] Yes. There is a term called "fa-yue" of
[72:33] a family. "Fa" is the same as in "
[72:35] warlord," and "yue" is the same as in "
[72:37] reading." What did these two characters
[72:39] originally mean? Have you noticed that
[72:42] both characters have the "gate" radical
[72:44] ? What does that mean? "Fa" and "yue"
[72:47] originally referred to two pillars
[72:49] standing in front of the gate of an
[72:51] aristocratic household. The one on the
[72:53] left is called "fa," and the one on the
[72:55] right is called "yue." What is that "fa
[72:58] " pillar for? It is for recording the
[73:00] family's contributions to the founding
[73:02] of the state, while "yue" is for
[73:04] recording the family's accumulated
[73:05] credentials. Do you understand the
[73:07] distinction? "Fa" is a concept of
[73:09] achievement, while "yue" is a concept
[73:11] of time. So, things like "school merit"
[73:13] or "warlords" are brought about by
[73:14] achievements, while "yue" is
[73:16] accumulated over time. When we talk
[73:17] about "experience"(yue-li) today, it
[73:19] means, hey, I’ve seen things for a
[73:20] very long time; that’s what we call
[73:21] having experience. "Yue" is a time
[73:23] concept. So you see, what is an
[73:26] aristocratic family of "fa" and "yue"?
[73:28] It means that not only have we made
[73:30] many contributions and accomplished
[73:32] many things, but we have also endured
[73:34] for such a long time. This is the true
[73:37] source of our sense of honor and glory.
[73:40] Why would we consider intermarrying
[73:42] with the imperial family such a great
[73:45] honor? To us, that is nothing. What do
[73:48] we call this? We call this "
[73:50] fan-bu-shang." Alright, now that
[73:53] we’ve broken it down, you understand
[73:55] what a noble family that lasts for
[73:57] hundreds or thousands of years really
[74:00] is. They might have started out
[74:02] economically strong. But they were a
[74:04] group of people who started with a
[74:06] monopoly on knowledge and then
[74:08] constantly strengthened themselves
[74:09] through three layers of leverage. As
[74:11] for those three layers of leverage, the
[74:13] first layer is what we just talked
[74:15] about: the reinforcement of family
[74:17] cultural inheritance. The second is the
[74:19] reinforcement of social network
[74:21] interaction, and the third is the
[74:23] exclusive reinforcement of reputation
[74:26] algorithms. It is a powerful social
[74:28] group consolidated layer by layer over
[74:31] hundreds or thousands of years. Alright
[74:33] , now that I’ve explained it, you
[74:35] understand. So, how did these powerful
[74:38] aristocratic families contend with
[74:40] imperial power? Strictly speaking, that
[74:42] term isn't even right. It wasn't
[74:44] contention, so what was it? They
[74:47] domesticated imperial power; the throne
[74:49] used these aristocrats simply because
[74:51] it was convenient. Using their people
[74:53] as officials—look, they were cultured
[74:55] , had social networks, and held
[74:57] prestige; it was so easy. Besides, when
[74:59] the emperor looked out across the land,
[75:02] good heavens. There was really no one
[75:05] else available to choose from. So, what
[75:08] kind of relationship did these clans
[75:10] have with imperial power? Think of it
[75:12] like an addictive substance; once you
[75:14] use it, you can't quit. There were no
[75:16] other options. That is why we say
[75:18] aristocrats "kidnapped" the throne—in
[75:20] that sense, not that they were military
[75:22] equals capable of standing against it.
[75:25] It’s like saying today, "My enemy is
[75:28] sugar; I love fruit and sweets, and I
[75:30] truly hate it." Exactly, that's the
[75:33] kind of hate—it's that you can't live
[75:35] without it, not that the sugar could
[75:37] actually fight you. Alright, now you
[75:40] understand why, by the late Tang
[75:43] Dynasty, the decline of these clans was
[75:46] inevitable. A relatively superficial
[75:49] reason was the peasant uprisings at the
[75:52] end of the Tang, which physically wiped
[75:54] out many aristocrats and forcefully
[75:56] severed the continuity of these
[75:58] lineages. If your family line is
[76:01] destroyed, how can you remain a
[76:03] powerful clan? What is the deeper
[76:05] reason? It’s technology. Yes. The
[76:09] spread of printing technology caused
[76:11] the cost of spreading knowledge to
[76:13] plummet. Commoners could finally afford
[76:16] to read books. I’ve seen statistics
[76:19] from scholars. In the Tang Dynasty, a
[76:21] hand-copied book cost roughly the
[76:23] equivalent of 80 to 100 catties of
[76:26] grain. But by the Song Dynasty, with
[76:28] printed books and woodblock printing, a
[76:30] book was much cheaper, costing only
[76:33] about 13 catties of grain. With more
[76:35] people able to afford books, the clans
[76:38] 'monopoly on knowledge—the root of
[76:40] their soft power—was severed. Once
[76:43] that root was cut, all the subsequent
[76:45] reinforcing effects naturally collapsed
[76:48] . Of course, what is even more
[76:50] important? It’s the imperial
[76:53] examination system. Its role had two
[76:55] aspects: first, it motivated everyone
[76:58] in the realm—regardless of whether
[77:00] you were an aristocrat or a commoner—
[77:03] to study desperately, further breaking
[77:06] the clans' monopoly on knowledge. That
[77:08] is one function of the exams; now, what
[77:11] is the other? The imperial examination
[77:13] system meant that there was only one
[77:15] source of social prestige: imperial
[77:18] power. Don't talk to me about your "
[77:20] thousand-year lineage" or who your
[77:22] grandfather or great-grandfather was—
[77:24] that's irrelevant. If you couldn't pass
[77:27] the exams and become a scholar-official
[77:30] , I'm sorry, you were nobody. Step
[77:33] aside. This cut off the roots of the
[77:35] aristocratic families at the source of
[77:38] their prestige. By the Song Dynasty,
[77:40] the thousand-year-old clans had
[77:43] vanished, and Chinese society had
[77:45] irrevocably entered the age of the
[77:47] commoner. That’s why there’s that
[77:49] famous line of poetry, isn't there? "
[77:51] Swallows that once graced the halls of
[77:53] the Wangs and Xies..." how does it go?
[77:55] "...now fly into the homes of ordinary
[77:57] people." Alright, let’s get back to
[77:59] the story—back to Empress Dowager
[78:01] Liu’s temporary foster family in
[78:03] Kaifeng, and Liu Ye, whom she wanted to
[78:06] claim as a relative. Let’s return to
[78:08] that. In reality, the Liu Ye family
[78:10] could only trace their lineage back
[78:12] about a dozen generations to the
[78:14] Northern Dynasties; it was a family
[78:17] history of only about 500 years. If you
[78:19] trace them back even further, you’ll
[78:22] find that this branch of the Liu family
[78:24] wasn't even Han Chinese—they were
[78:26] Xiongnu. Were their ancestors
[78:29] high-ranking officials? The most
[78:31] prominent was a man named Liu Zhenghui,
[78:33] a meritorious official from the early
[78:35] Tang Dynasty who was granted a dukedom.
[78:38] That was the peak of their status;
[78:39] their subsequent generations held few
[78:41] significant posts. They were a far cry
[78:43] from the true illustrious clans of the
[78:45] Tang like the "Five Surnames and Seven
[78:48] Houses." Yet, Empress Dowager Liu
[78:50] treated this family like a treasure,
[78:52] even praising them as a "renowned clan.
[78:55] " Do you detect something strange here?
[78:58] This clearly wasn't a major family, so
[79:00] why did the Empress Dowager value them
[79:03] so highly? Even more extreme was the
[79:06] story we covered in our previous
[79:08] episode on the year 1022, bidding
[79:10] farewell to Emperor Zhenzong. When
[79:13] Emperor Zhenzong was still alive, he
[79:15] also hoped to find a family for Empress
[79:17] Dowager Liu to claim as her own. And
[79:19] who did they find? That man was named
[79:22] Liu Zong, whose background was simply
[79:24] that of a jinshi from the second year
[79:26] of the Yongxi era. His family was even
[79:28] more of a commoner background, with
[79:31] absolutely no pedigree. Don't you find
[79:33] that strange? Empress Dowager Liu
[79:35] wasn't looking to join the Cuis or the
[79:37] Wangs—those clans with thousand-year
[79:40] histories. Her standards were actually
[79:42] quite low, weren't they? She just
[79:44] needed them to have a shred of social
[79:46] standing. Take Liu Ye, or even the
[79:49] commoner-born Liu Zong—you see, this
[79:52] is essentially having no requirements
[79:55] at all. Yet, both of these Liu families
[79:58] refused the connection. It’s quite
[80:00] strange, isn't it? How did they manage
[80:03] to pick up the arrogant habits of those
[80:06] Tang Dynasty aristocratic clans? What
[80:09] is the real reason behind this? Yeah.
