?? According to the Bamboo Book Chronicle: "The Yellow Emperor collapsed, and his minister Zuo Che took the crown of clothes and worshiped it in the temple."

This is the **** of ancestors, and since then, the emperors of all dynasties have attached importance to the sacrifice of their ancestors. Offering food to express one's heart is a common way in China, and the form of ancestor worship may be different due to religious beliefs, but the meaning of worshipping ancestors is the same, and one's ancestors should be worshiped seriously like heaven, earth, gods, and Buddhas. Because the "spirits in heaven" of the ancestors are always caring for and watching the descendants of future generations, earthly people must pray and repay their protection and protection through sacrifices.

To fulfill filial piety, Confucianism regards "ancestor worship" as a line of "filial piety": "death is like life, death is like survival, and filial piety is also caused."

The basic meaning of ancestor worship is to ask future generations to be filial to their deceased elders, and the expression of filial piety not only includes the sacrifice during life, but also includes the sacrifice after death, starting from the burial and continuing the sacrifice after the burial, so as to show the respect and filial piety of the descendants to the elders.

"Cautious end" is a cautious attitude towards death, and it is handled cautiously at the time of death; "Chasing the distance" is a commemoration that continues after death.

The expression of filial piety ranges from burial at the end of life to worship after death, and for Confucianism or Chinese cultural traditions, it is mainly to express respect and nostalgia for ancestors; Another important significance of maintaining the clan is ancestor worship is to strengthen the blood ties of the clan and maintain the identity of the family, which is to a considerable extent a ritual that keeps the basic unit of society, the family, intact and permanent.

Ancestor worship activities indirectly promote the close unity of future generations, form a mutually helpful clan, and have a deeper sense of identity and centripetal force for their own family, so as to maintain the clan and make people of the same blood and surname more united and mutually helpful; Settle down and strengthen the state: As far as governing the country is concerned, under the ancient feudal system, filial piety is the same as the family and the country.

It is undeniable that the extent of Confucian ancestor worship is not purely ethical, because it also has a somewhat religious overtone.

Chinese people believe that the soul is immortal after death, and even believe that people can bring disaster or blessing after death, "King Wen is not there, in the emperor's right", in order to bury the ancestors, comfort the living, must hold a funeral, leaving many tombs and burial goods; In order to support the ancestors, it is necessary to build family temples and ancestral halls, and never be stingy.

Every year in the New Year's worship of ancestors, the family tree must be rebuilt and compiled, and the population of the family will change a little every year, which will be recorded in the family tree on this day.

Meng Xiaoya's meaning that she must come over is obvious, and she wants to get the official recognition of the Zhen family, although Meng Xiaoya is not the wife that Zhen Qianming is marrying, and she cannot enter the Zhen family tree, according to the provisions of the patriarchal system, the essence of the relationship between wife and concubine is a master-servant relationship, and the concubine must be respectful to her wife and must not exceed the rules.

However, the concubine born to the concubine is a child in the patriarchal sense of the wife, and it is a legal mother-child relationship, that is, the concubine does not give birth to offspring for herself but for her wife. The concubine and her offspring are only related to each other by blood, not to the patriarchally recognized mother-child relationship.

However, the concubine also needs to be recognized by the Zhen family, otherwise the child she gave birth to can only be a maidservant child, which is similar to the illegitimate child of later generations, and cannot be recognized by the family, so for the sake of her future children, Meng Xiaoya still endured the pain and appeared outside the Zhen ancestral hall.

The ancestral hall of the family is not entered randomly, even the wife is the same, and the wife can only enter the ancestral hall once in her life, that is, when she first marries into the family.

Of course, if a woman chooses to observe the festival after her husband's death, the woman can enter the ancestral hall every year to worship her ancestors, but at this time, she sacrifices her ancestors on behalf of her deceased husband, so Xiaomei and Meng Xiaoya can only stand at the door of the ancestral hall and watch Zhen Qian walk into the ancestral hall from a distance with envy.

There are two kinds of ancestor sacrifices: family sacrifices and family sacrifices.

The family sacrifice is to sacrifice to the distant ancestors, and the spring and autumn sacrifices of a year or a sacrifice and a sweep of the tomb are very grand.

The scale of the family sacrifice is generally not large, because it is a close ancestor, there are not too many descendants, and most of them do not hold large sacrifices, but worship on the day of death and the New Year's Festival, which is called an offering. During the family sacrifice, both men and women, their sons and daughters-in-law are allowed to come and worship without wearing sacrificial clothes.

Since it is to worship the ancestors, there are many kinds of sacrifices, mainly the following: the general family sacrifices are mainly food: the people take food as the sky, and the original sacrifice takes food as the main means. Said: "At the beginning of the husband's ceremony, the beginning of the diet. Its burnt millet and dolphins, degrading and drinking, and drumming with clay drums, can still pay homage to ghosts and gods." In other words, the ritual originated from offering food to the gods, and by burning millet and offering pork to the gods, digging the ground into a hole as a kettle, holding water in your hands, and beating an earthen drum to make music, you were able to convey people's prayers and respect to the spirits.

Among many foods, meat became the main sacrifice to the gods. In ancient times, the carnivorous animals used for sacrifice were called "sacrifices", referring to horses, cows, sheep, chickens, dogs, pigs and other livestock, and later generations were called "six animals". The most commonly used of the six animals are cattle, sheep, pigs and three livestock. In addition to the "sacrifice", the food used as a sacrifice also includes grains and grains, which are called "Shomori". Fresh fruits and vegetables are also commonly used in folk sacrifices, and they are repeatedly mentioned. After Buddhism was introduced to China, the fruits in the "fasting sacrifice" were more abundant. In addition, wine is also a common sacrifice to the gods.

But ordinary people can not use the six animals to sacrifice their ancestors, the Tang Dynasty generally used sheep as offerings, after the Song and Ming dynasties, sheep and pigs were used as offerings, horses and cattle can only be used by the royal family.

As an offering, jade silk can only be used by the royal family: the gods pay attention to clothing and accessories, and jade silk is indispensable among the sacrifices. contained: "Sacrifice jade silk, Fu dare to add also". Yun: "The ghosts and gods of the matter are also, and the Guibi currency is silky, and I dare not fail to measure it." Jade silk includes a variety of jade ritual vessels and leather silks, which are the most commonly used sacrifices outside of food.

In ancient times, people were also sacrificed as offerings: people were sacrificed to the gods, which was called "employing people" in ancient times and "human sacrifice" in later generations. According to ancient books, Qin Linggong once used the princess to marry He, and the farce of "Hebo marrying" in Yedi of Wei during the Warring States Period is a powerful proof. There is also the phenomenon of sacrificing boys and girls to gods in human sacrifices. The use of childhood human bodies as sacrifices is associated with the pursuit of immortal family volleys against the wind and immortality.

In some places, blood is also used as an offering: blood is a special sacrifice. The ancients believed that blood has a soul, that blood can sustain the life of a person or animal, and that blood has a magical power. The blood of the sacrifice was human blood and the blood of animals.

The place of worship is always held at certain specific places. 1. The grave of an ancestor, it is a more primitive and simple method to worship the ancestral gods in the cemetery, commonly known as going to the grave. The second is their own ancestral hall, most of the major surnames have built large ancestral halls to worship their ancestors, and the rich are mostly high, great, grandfather, and father four generations of ancestors to build ancestral halls, and a few have built ancestral halls for themselves.

In ancient times, ancestor worship was a grand clan activity, and the village had to perform and entertain, which was very lively. In order to commemorate the ancestors, carry forward the ancestral virtues, unite the ancestors, and pray for the blessing of the ancestors, a shrine should be set up in the ancestral hall, and the "family god card" of the ancestors should be placed in the shrine. The shrine is about three or four meters high and about one and a half meters wide; The family god card is about one city foot high and three city inches wide. The Shrine is made up of two pieces of wood, painted with black or red paint, and the names of deceased ancestors written in gold dust. Where the two pieces of wood are closed, the date of birth and death of the god is written, and some of them also write official resumes.

The ancestors are placed in the middle of the highest level of the shrine, and the rest are arranged layer by layer. When worshipping ancestors, the sacred tablets of the objects of sacrifice are invited out and placed on the offering table. In some places, the worship of distant ancestors and the worship of close ancestors are combined, and the number of ancestors who are sacrificed is large, so they open the shrine door to worship, and do not invite out of the god's seat.

The ancestor worship ceremony is led by the head of the family or the elders, and the day before the ancestor worship, the sacrifice hall needs to be arranged.

Early in the morning of the day of ancestor worship, the whole pig, sheep and fish are placed on the offering table, and various sacrifices such as five animal offerings, candy boxes, rice soup, tea and wine are neatly placed on the offering table, and the descendants of the male surname who participate in the ancestor worship come to participate in the sacrifice in a neat and polite manner. Representatives of the branch or branch faction who participate in the sacrifice are very particular about etiquette, and there is a sequence of teams entering the venue.

The chief celebrant sang the salute and announced the beginning of the ceremony, and the chief priest "Zongzi" and the priests were in place.

When the priest performs all the rituals of worship, he must kneel down and prostrate, then prostrate, and prostrate three times. All the participants in the festival kneel down during the reading of the prayer and the ritual of "drinking and receiving blessings", and at the end of the "bow to the gods" and bow three times like the main priest.

The sacrificial rites include offering incense, reading blessings, offering rice soup, serving tea, offering silk, offering wine, offering food boxes, offering meat, offering speeches, burning blessings, and bowing to the gods.

At the end of the ceremony, the offerings such as pork and mutton are distributed to the delegates. Sacrifices were also used for banquets, and only a small number of sacrifices were distributed to the squires, elders, etc.

In normal times, if there is a dispute between the clan and a foreign clan with a foreign surname, or a lawsuit is won, or a weapon fight is won, or a sworn friendship with it, or there is a "bad descendant" in the clan, it is regarded as a major event that needs to be temporarily carried out to pay homage to the ancestors.

The ancestor worship scene was grand and complicated, and it didn't end until noon, which made Zhen Qian, who was used to a fast-paced life, very uncomfortable.