This tapestry is a rectangle with rounded corners, with a length of 18.5cm and a width of12.5cm. It is made of the tapestry of "Five Stars Coming from the East, Benefiting China", and its edge is inlaid with white silk. Three white ribbons with a length of about 2 1cm and a width of about 1.5cm were sewn on each of the two long sides, and three of them were broken. There are eight characters in the seal script: "Five stars come from the East, which is beneficial to China." Because of its gorgeous colors, exciting words, mysterious patterns and magical meanings, it immediately attracted many people's attention after being unearthed, and some netizens and even cultural relics experts gave it many "mysterious" interpretations. But now it seems that it is also very important to make a simple return to the meaning of this document.
The pattern of the brocade is this: a border is reserved on the right side of the brocade. Starting from the right, the pattern is a pair of rare birds, and the male bird stands under the moire with his head held high. It has a five-character seal on the top of its head and a corner pattern on the left cloud pattern on its chest. The female stands on the moire and hangs her head to face the male. Above her neck is a white circular pattern symbolizing "lunar", above her back is a "star" and below her tail is a dogwood pattern. There is an angular pattern between the word "Chu" and the word "Star". The word "East" is above the gap between two moire patterns. On the lower left of the word "East" and above a moire, there is a red circular pattern symbolizing "Sun". On the lower left of the "sun" is an upside-down moire. In the concave part of moire, there is a unicorn with an open mouth, a tongue sticking out, a drooping tail and a wing on its back. It may be an "evil spirit". The moire above the animal horn has a square top. The word "Li" is separated by a cloud on the upper left of the word "Fang". On the left of the moire under the word "Li" is a tiger-shaped animal with vertical stripes and wide leopard eyes. Its hind right foot stepped on the moire and moved to the right, and its tail was towering and powerful. On the right side of its tail is the word "Zhong" and on the left is the word "Guo".
The eight words "Five Stars Going East and Benefiting China" also have a source, that is, Sima Qian, a historian of the Western Han Dynasty, said in Historical Records and Official History that "Five Stars are divided into the sky, accumulated in the east and benefited from China; Western accumulation, foreign users (soldiers) benefit. The five stars are all gathered in one room from the stars, and the country that gives up can pass through the world. " The ancient "five stars" refer to old stars, twinkling stars, complementary stars, white stars and morning stars. Heaven and earth turn, the sun and the moon pass, and the five stars are hard to get together. However, in October of the first year of Han Dynasty, the five stars gathered in Tokyo, which was recorded in The Book of Heaven, The Book of Han Dynasty, The Biography of Zhang Er and The Biography of Han Ji.
In the first year of the Han Dynasty, Liu Bang proclaimed himself emperor, not in 202 BC, but in 206 BC, which lasted for five years, but didn't even have a name. Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty designated the year 206 BC, when Liu Bang got the imperial seal, as the first year of the Han Dynasty, that is, in October of that year, Zi Ying, king of Qin, presented the imperial seal to Liu Bang next to Dao Ji (now Xi City, Shaanxi Province), marking the end of the Qin Dynasty. In order to connect Qin and Han Dynasties, the history books of later generations have always followed the statement that 206 BC was the first year of Han Dynasty.
"Five stars out of the east" refers to the phenomenon that five planets appear in the eastern sky at the same time in a period of time, that is, "five-star alignment" or "five-star convergence"; "When the five stars leave the East, it will be beneficial to China", that is, when the five stars see the East, it will be beneficial to China's military. This is the result of the attachment of Confucian scholars in Han Dynasty. They believe that the prosperity of the Han Dynasty was due to the convergence of the five stars in the East in October of the first year of the Han Dynasty.
What puzzles modern people is that Shu Brocade was produced in Sichuan, which is now Sichuan. Why did Shu Brocade go to Xinjiang with the phrase "Five Stars Go East to Benefit China"? The only reasonable explanation is that this is something transferred from the state treasury. Anyone familiar with history knows that Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty launched a war against the Huns and opened the western regions. At that time, a group of people in the imperial court thought it was a waste of people and money, and it didn't make much sense, including Sima Qian, the author of Historical Records, who also opposed it and expressed dissatisfaction with the wars in many places in Historical Records. Sima Qian and Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty were contemporaries. It can be seen that the phenomenon of "five-star alliance" or "five-star party" in the first year of Han Dynasty was deeply rooted in the hearts of the people at that time. As Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, there is nothing wrong with using it as a propaganda article.
China Brocade is the silk fabric with the highest technical level in China. It is made of colored gold thread and woven into various patterns, hence the name brocade. Brocade appeared in the silk fabric of Zhou Dynasty, with colorful patterns and mature technology. In the Han dynasty, there were weaving rooms and brocade departments, which specialized in weaving brocade for the imperial court to enjoy. After Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, China brocade was introduced to Persia (now Iran), Daqin (Roman Empire) and other countries through the Silk Road. After Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty opened up the Silk Road, Shu produced a batch of silk, which was transported to today's Xinjiang with the weaving method of "five stars coming from the east and benefiting China" to declare the "rationality" of opening up the Silk Road. People from the western regions, in our current words, should be ethnic minorities. They may not know the Chinese characters on silk books, and because Chinese characters are natural and beautiful, it is natural and normal to be used as decorations, made into clothes, and even taken to the grave as funerary objects.
What can prove this point even more is that the tapestry fragments of "Looking for the Southern Qiang" were also found in the ancient tomb where the Han Dynasty tapestry guards were found. According to experts' research, the fragment and the brocade armguard are made of the same batch of silk. That is to say, the slogan of "five-star eastbound, benefiting China" also had the words "seeking southern Qiang", which should be "five-star eastbound, benefiting China south". However, in today's study, perhaps for the sake of national unity, the words "please be strong in the south" have been omitted by some people and far-fetched by others.
According to the people attached to the conference, "Seeking the South Qiang" refers to the battle between Zhao Chongguo, a general after the Han Dynasty, and the Qiang people in Pingxi from April to November in the first year of the Western Han Dynasty (6 1 year BC). The knighthood (6/kloc-0 BC/March-58 BC) was the fourth knighthood of Emperor Gaozu Xuan Di, which lasted for four years. The war mainly took place in the area from Lanzhou to Xining today, which was a large-scale battle to pacify Xiqiang in the Han Dynasty. What I want to say is that this matter has nothing to do with the "five-star eastward expedition to benefit China", but is aimed at the west, not the south. Then, "Nanqiang" is a historical proposition-people living in Tarim Basin used to call the ancient Qiang people of Karakorum Mountain and Kunlun Mountain Nanqiang and Nanshan Qiang, but geographically, Karakorum Mountain and Kunlun Mountain are indeed in the south of Tarim Basin, just like Zhangye area in Hexi Corridor still calls Qilian Mountain Nanshan. Therefore, the "South" of "Southern Qiang" should be a geographical concept, and "Qiang" was the Qiang people who lived in this area at that time.
What I want to say is that the survival of Qiang people before and after the Han Dynasty is a very broad regional concept, even including the whole western China. During the period of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, they not only lived in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, but also existed in the Hexi Corridor and the Western Regions. In the Tarim Basin in the Western Regions, historical records record that they should live together with Yueshi and Saizi, and they are one of the nationalities in this region. After Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty opened up the Western Regions, the trade route with the Central Plains began to prosper. At that time, the Qiang people obviously wanted to do something to cut off the Silk Road and pluck the geese. Therefore, ensuring the smooth flow of the Silk Road should be a realistic problem that the Han Dynasty had to face at that time, and this is also a reasonable explanation of "seeking southern Qiang", which has nothing to do with what we call national unity today.
Drought and lack of rain in Xinjiang are conducive to the preservation of underground organic matter. Especially in ancient tombs along the Silk Road, such as Tarim Basin, Lop Nur Desert and Turpan Basin south of Tianshan Mountain, a large number of brightly colored and well-preserved textiles have been unearthed, among which silk in Han and Tang Dynasties is the most abundant. Before the Han Dynasty, the silk embroidery of phoenix birds in the Warring States period was unearthed in the Alagou tomb in Tianshan Mountain near Urumqi. In addition, silk remains were also found in Quman Cemetery in Tashkurgan Tajik Autonomous County, Kashgar, and silk remains were also found on the surface of bronzes unearthed from Calassou Cemetery in Habahe County, Altay region. At the same time, a large number of jades, including more than 700 nephrite from Xinjiang, have been unearthed from the symbol tomb of Shang Dynasty in the southwest of Group C, Zongmiao District, Yinxu Palace, Anyang City. Although there is a lack of written records, the colorful scales left by the years illustrate an important thing-the history of the Silk Road is much earlier than that of the Western Han Dynasty. Therefore, it should be the historical mission and responsibility of the Western Han government to "please Nanqiang" and ensure the smooth flow of the Silk Road again.
In 2020, more than 700 paper documents and wooden slips of the Tang Dynasty were unearthed at the Kuduke beacon tower site in Chiac, Yuli County, Xinjiang. According to Hu, deputy research librarian of Xinjiang Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology and leader of the archaeological team of Fengfeng Site in Kuduke, Chiac, most of the paper documents were unearthed in a mass. After a preliminary interpretation, it is confirmed that this Fengfeng site is the residence of an amusement park. The military defense line on the east line of Peacock River beacon group may be called "Loulan Road". This beacon tower is stationed along the "Loulan Road", which manages several beacon towers and is responsible for the nearby defense. The nature of the document is mainly the military documents between the Friendship Institute and its subordinate beacon tower shops and the higher authorities during the period from Wuzhou to Kaiyuan in the Tang Dynasty, in which the names of military facilities at all levels related to beacon towers along the Peacock River are recorded in detail. [I]
More detailed historical data are as follows: After 670 AD, Tubo took control of Tuguhun area in Qinghai and opened the gateway to four towns in Anxi. At this time, the eastern border of Yanqi was at the forefront of the struggle between the Tang Dynasty and Tubo, and it was the throat of Anxi and Beiting, which needed strict defense. In order to prevent Tubo from attacking Yanqi Town along Loulan Road, military facilities at all levels were built along the Peacock River in the town east, and a cordon was set up. The defense of "Loulan Road" in the Tang Dynasty is actually the inheritance and continuation of "seeking the south to be strong" in the Han Dynasty to ensure the smooth flow of the Silk Road. Nanqiang is just a reference, different nationalities in different times.
Here, the purpose of Emperor Wu's political propaganda has been very clear. Silk embroidered with "Five Stars Going East to Benefit China and Seeking South Qiang" was transferred from the national treasury and delivered to the Western Regions. People wear them on their bodies, which not only achieves the propaganda effect, but also makes silk once again light up the civilized trade of the Silk Road and create unprecedented prosperity of the Silk Road.
In this way, it is more normal that "the princes marry and the descendants live forever" appears in the hometown of the Han Dynasty in the depths of the Taklimakan desert in Xinjiang, which not only shows the very active business activities on the Silk Road and the close relationship between the Han Dynasty and the city-states in the western regions, but also provides valuable physical materials for people to study the silk history and decorative patterns in China today. At this time, history does not need those far-fetched explanations, because historical events never exist in isolation, and each historical event has its own distinct theme of the times, and it does not need the narcissism of future researchers.
[i] Zhang Xiaolong's "More than 700 pieces of paper documents and wooden slips of Tang Dynasty unearthed from Kuduke beacon tower site in Chiac, Yuli County, Xinjiang", Xinhuanet, July 2020-16.