Chapter 132: The Dragon with Wings

The reverence of the gods comes from the fear and the fear of the unknown.

But what exactly the gods are, no one knows, and it is difficult to describe the concept of the gods.

Therefore, the people of ancient times combined the gods with their ancestors, so the earliest gods were all father gods, or mother gods, which means that human life is given by the gods.

The gods of Donghu are the same as the gods of China, the Three Emperors and the Five Emperors, Fuxi Nuwa, but in the mythology of Donghu, they are the children abandoned by the father and mother gods, the siblings of their ancestors, and after expelling them from the ancestral land, they no longer accept them.

Let them survive tenaciously in a difficult environment.

Therefore, in the process of the formation of Donghu mythology, the father god was Emperor Yan at first, and then Xia Wei, because the descendants of these two emperors were all tribes who were expelled to the north after the defeat.

However, due to the rapid development of the Central Plains civilization, the Donghu civilization has been unable to continue to develop due to geographical factors and environmental restrictions, but has gradually been affected by the harsh living environment and returned to barbarism and primitiveness.

However, Donghu still maintains the worship of ancestral gods, as well as the civilization customs before Xia and Shang, such as the totem of the Donghu royal family, which is a dragon with wings, and this dragon is naturally not as detailed and specific as the image of the dragon perfected in later generations, and there is no antlers, horse face, eagle claws or anything.

The winged dragon of the Donghu royal family is the image of the jade pig dragon in the Hongshan culture with a pair of wings.

The Chinese people's worship of the dragon is the foundation of national cohesion, and how this national totem came to be has always been an important topic in the field of historiography, but few experts dare to come out and make a definitive conclusion.

The mainstream saying is that the dragon totem comes from totem fusion, the earliest snake totem swallowed up other tribes, for the sake of racial harmony, the totems of other tribes were absorbed and fused together, and finally formed the image of the dragon.

There must be some truth to this theory, but there is a fundamental question, if the dragon tribe is really so powerful, why did all the national totems until the Han Dynasty use birds as totems?

Whether it is the Shang, Zhou, Spring and Autumn Kingdoms located in the Central Plains, or the Chu State, which is known as the Jing of the Barbarians, it is the sacred bird that is most admired in the history books, not the divine dragon.

However, the history of the dragon totem is indeed similar to the bird totem, as early as the Shang Dynasty, there was a 'Kui dragon pattern' was engraved on the bronze, and the more ancient dragon-shaped jade is the jade pig dragon unearthed from the Hongshan cultural group.

The Hongshan culture is located in the cultural group originating in the northeast of China, and the geographical location should be close to the location where the Battle of Hanquan took place, and the Battle of Hanquan is the most important war of Chinese civilization, and the opponents are the famous Yan Emperor and Yellow Emperor.

In the end, this battle ended with the victory of the Yellow Emperor, officially opening a chapter of Chinese national integration.

And it was at this time that the dragon totem appeared in the Central Plains culture.

Among them, in the history of ancient mythology, the most common occurrence is a person named Ying Long, this person is the first god of war under the Yellow Emperor, and Chi You and Kuafu both died at the hands of this person.

From this, it can be inferred that this tribe was a powerful tribe even in antiquity.

And the image of this Ying Long happens to be a dragon with wings, combining the totemic characteristics of Hongshan dragon culture and Yangshao phoenix culture, even on the painted pottery of Yangshao, this kind of dragon and phoenix combination of 'bird and snake' pattern has been found.

Therefore, it can be reasonably reasoned that the Yinglong tribe in ancient times should be the first case of tribal totem fusion in China, but it may have failed later, because whether it is Xia, Shang or Zhou, or even Qin, they are all respected by phoenixes and supplemented by dragons, which are equal to tigers, turtles, frogs and other sacred beasts.

It was not until the Han Dynasty that the worship of the phoenix was overthrown and the status of the dragon was elevated.

And the name of Yingzheng's ancestral dragon seems to be the first time to come from Tai Shi Gong's "Historical Records".

However, with Yingzheng, a descendant of Yin Shang Xuanniao, who is upright and red, even though he is an emperor through the ages, he should not do such a rebellious thing as correcting the worship of his ancestors.

And the Han Dynasty respected the dragon as a totem, Liu Bang even did not hesitate to make up his father, saw his mother and a dragon in the wild, and staged a real 'husband and eye' plot, but also to confirm the status of the dragon totem.

The main thing is to completely erase the mark of Great Qin and confirm the legitimacy of the Han Dynasty, and it is the fastest way to start directly from totem worship and ancestral gods.

However, the totem of Donghu should not be too directly related to Ying Long, but the way of formation is similar.

The aborigines of Donghu still inherited the Hongshan cultural group, and then absorbed the Central Plains culture that fled from the Xia Dynasty.

So this winged pigloon became the totem of the Donghu royal family.

But after all, this winged dragon is also derived from the phoenix totem, so Murong Qian had an inexplicable sense of familiarity and closeness when he saw the Xuanniao totem banner of the Lonely Bamboo Country.

Especially after learning about Wang Xu's identity as the Emperor of Yin Shang, the royal bloodline that he was proud of seemed to have become humble.

The Yin Shang dynasty impressed Donghu too deeply, so that the Donghu royal family could never get around this dynasty when inheriting history.

This is mainly because the Yin Shang period was too ferocious to the ancestors of Donghu, leaving a shadow with Donghu, while the Zhou Dynasty and the subsequent Spring and Autumn Kingdoms were mostly in a state of being invaded by Donghu.

This is also the main reason why Donghu dared to raise troops to invade Yan this time.

The education he received since he was a child, coupled with the tragic defeat at the hands of Wang Xu this time, made Murong Qian unable to afford to regard him as an enemy.

On the contrary, after watching the city under the manipulation of Wang Xu, there are new changes almost every day, whether it is a slave or a resident, it seems to be completely different, he began to slowly believe, maybe this is the power of the gods.

Murong Qian has been following his clansmen to sacrifice and pray to the gods since he was a child.

The content of the prayer is nothing more than to keep the disease away from the tribesmen, let the cold away from the tribesmen, let the water and grass be abundant, let the cattle and sheep be fat, let the wolves in the forest die violently, so that the tribesmen can be fed and clothed, survive the winter, and reproduce these good wishes.

But after praying for so many years, every year when the tribe migrates, it will always be attacked by wolves and beast tides, large and small, and countless warriors will die in the belly of the beast.

Every year, all kinds of people die of disease, sometimes severely, and the whole tribe is infected by evil spirits, and then the great shaman burns the whole tribe to death.

Similarly, every year there will be people starving to death, freezing to death, after the winter is because there is no pasture, seeing the cattle and sheep begin to lose fat, cubs and young children are even more difficult to survive the winter, most of the babies in swaddling clothes, are in the mother's milk after a night of snowstorm, quietly lost their young life, and then by the great shaman as a gift to the gods burned.

Murong Quan's biological mother and two younger brothers were frozen to death on a snowy night because they didn't have enough tools to keep warm, and by the time Murong Qian found out, their bodies were already stiff.

Since then, Murong Jian no longer prayed to the gods, preferring to use his own hands to obtain something.

King Donghu once summoned all the princes to ask what the glory of King Donghu was.

"As the king of Donghu, the greatest glory is to give the people a place to live away from wild beasts and cold." This was Murong Quan's answer at the time, even though he knew that it would be difficult for him to inherit the throne.

But he became the most valued son of King Donghu.

Before the king of Donghu decided to go south to conquer Yandi, he once called him to the king's tent alone, and had a very strange conversation with him, although he could not remember the specific content, but he would never forget the longing and sad expression on his father's face at the end.

"If Donghu is defeated this time, then it means that Donghu's curse has not been forgiven by the gods, if you can lead the tribes in the future, remember not to make your father's mistake again."

Murong Jian thought that his father was cowardly, but now that he thinks about it, maybe his father had foreseen the outcome of this battle.

The Central Plains is really blessed by the gods.

Murong Quan's favorite thing to do every day is to sit on the tower of the city wall, looking down on the increasingly lively city, and watching the city change every day.

Look at the rows of houses outside the city that look very warm and rise on the ground.

looked at the slaves who shouldn't have been wearing clothes, and they all wore animal skin coats that the Donghu people might not be able to wear.

Finally figured out what he was going to do.

So when Wang Xu returned to the city, he stopped his carriage.

"Looking for death?" Wang Li reined in the frightened war horse, stood up and turned around, looking at Murong Jian who broke out and knelt in the middle of the road with anger on his face.

"Touching porcelain?" Wang Xu lifted the curtain and asked with a chuckle.

"I figured it out." Murong Qian lowered his head, but his voice was very loud.

"Do you want to know how to die?" Wang Liwo scolded on fire, if he hadn't tried to get the secrets of the Donghu Department out of Murong Quan's mouth, he would have been stabbed to death with a sword.

"Give him a horse and talk about it when he gets back." Wang Xu raised his eyebrows slightly, gave an order, and the convoy bypassed Murong Qian and continued to walk towards the inner city.

Qiu He jumped off the war horse with a smile, led the horse to Murong Exhaust, and stretched out his hand to pull him up, "Your Highness." ”

Murong Qian glanced at Qiu He coldly, patted his trouser leg and stood up, took the reins and turned over on the horse, and when he sat firmly on the saddle, his body suddenly stiffened.

Stroking the saddle with several layers of cushioning, the original tragic state of mind became even more desperate.

"Your Highness will not regret today's decision, Donghu was originally my Yin Shang Fangguo, and now it can be regarded as a wanderer returning home." Qiu He kept a smile on his face.

"There is no Donghu, there will only be exhaustion in the future." Murong snorted coldly, and rode away towards the inner city with a clamp on the horse's belly.

"I'll find myself under the stairs." Qiu He shrugged his shoulders and shook his head and sneered.

"Where are you going, noble? Sending you there? A man pushing a trolley approached and greeted him with a warm face.

This kind of trolley is the latest means of transportation made by the Ministry of Transport, and the apprentices of the Ministry of Transport first master this kind of trolley to transport grain, and then learn to drive a horse-drawn cart ox cart.

So recently, there are many such trolleys in the city, not only to transport goods, but also to transport people, a bit like the rickshaws of later generations.

Qiu He thought about it, didn't refuse, got on the trolley and started chatting with him.