Since the Accounting: A Chronicle of the Roman Khanate

Chapter 562 Ancestral Temple
Along the way, although Guo Ponu harassed him from time to time, Guo Kang always focused on his work and successfully completed the scheduled work within the planned time.

This result made him quite proud.

However, Guo Ponu was very dissatisfied with this. When they arrived at the destination, Guo Kang sorted out the documents and made a summary, but she looked quite angry.

"Don't be unhappy. You see, even though we are tired all the way, our work efficiency is actually no lower than in the office." Guo Kang comforted: "I will tell everyone when I get back, they will definitely admire us."

"Work, work, work, you know work." Guo Ponu said unhappily: "Is this the only thing in your mind? When you sleep and dream at night, do you have to calculate your watch?"

"what?"

Guo Kang was confused by her and didn't know how to answer.

During this time, the people around him were not in a good temper. Not to mention Guo Ponu, who has always had a grumpy personality, even Theodora, who always adheres to etiquette and manners, at least looks gentle on the outside, no longer pretends to be so, she looks angry all day long, and Don't know what happened. Guo Kang had a headache about this, but he couldn't care about it and could only ignore it.

After getting off the bus, everyone prepared to stay temporarily in the town. Guo Kang packed his things, but Guo Ponu seemed to be angry and ran away. He didn't know where he went. Guo Kang wanted to comfort her at first, but his adoptive father and uncles quickly came to the door and took him to visit relatives and friends, so he had no time to care.

This holding can be said to be literal.

Guo Kang nodded quickly, politely thanked others for trusting him.

"It doesn't look like I need to take care of you..." Guo Kang said helplessly.

His two sons also came with him. Because he failed to live up to his father's expectations, Guo Ru was very fond of them. The eldest brother is named Guo Xianwen, and the second child is named Guo Xianliang. They were named after Mr. Huang, which means "gentle, courteous, courteous, and humble." I hope they can study hard and become educated, knowledgeable, and capable people. Unfortunately, perhaps because they were not good enough in teaching by words and deeds, the literary level of these two people was also not very good.

Although I don’t know why my uncle Guo Ru is so confident about me, his statement is indeed important. Guo Di had outstanding achievements, and Guo Ru himself participated in many wars. He expressed his support and asked his son to obey Guo Kang's command. After that, things in the family became much easier to handle.

Guo Zhaowen scratched his head angrily and didn't know how to answer.

"I think I also need to adopt an adopted son. My wife has always disagreed before and got into trouble whenever she said it, but I can't spoil her anymore." Uncle Guo Zhaowen, the seventh uncle, looked at him with a little envy and patted Guo Zhaowen. Kang: "Big brother still has the discernment to pick out such a good boy..."

"okay!"

"Okay, okay. Hey, it's like a street performer..." Guo Julius was a little dissatisfied, stopped them, and said to Guo Kang: "You two silly brothers, their martial arts are enough, don't worry about it. "They!"

"Come on, Xianwen, Xianliang, give your elder brother some work." He turned around and ordered.

Guo Xianwen immediately stood on his head and then started somersaulting on the spot. Guo Xianliang ran to the side, hugged the stone lion in front of the archway, lifted it up with a loud shout, and walked around there.

After a few people exchanged greetings, the adoptive father also came over and told them that they were ready. Everyone followed him into the town.

After everyone gathered, Guo Ru seized the opportunity and introduced them to Guo Kang, hoping that he could take care of these two younger brothers.

Wutang Shu Guo Ru is the biological son of his uncle Guo Di. However, except for his face, he looks nothing like his father. He has a big beard and a sturdy figure. Even the loose dress can't hide his strong figure. Guo Kang was already relatively tall, but he turned out to be half a head shorter than him.

"I've told you several times, how can you listen to women about such a big matter?" Guo Ru muttered from the side: "But my brother can't help you with this kind of thing, you can figure it out yourself."

"Hey, we two brats, one is less brainy than the other, neither of them are good at studying. The weather is killing me every day." Guo Ru replied: "I heard from your father that you have already started strategizing for this war. When the time comes, give your two brothers more opportunities - they are quite capable of fighting."

"Come right now, dad." Guo Xianwen and Guo Xianliang responded immediately.

Guo Zhaowen has no sons, only two daughters. Both Guo Ru's sons and Guo Kang himself couldn't help but let him get up.

Guo Xianwen is taller than his father, and Guo Xianliang is already a head taller than Guo Kang, looking like a giant. The two of them stood there, sandwiching Guo Kang in the middle, making him look a lot thinner.

This place was originally an ordinary farm. Before Guo Gai died that year, he visited various places for the last time. He came here, climbed a mound by the river, looked at the newly renovated fields and newly planted vineyards around him, and told his sons that this place is good. He doesn't expect to return to his hometown in the Central Plains. He can just treat this place as his new home and bury him on this hill.

It is said that Guo Gai and several founders of the Purple Horde Khanate have already discussed it. Although they had sworn to share wealth and adversity, when they died, they still had to be buried and sacrificed separately instead of together.

Because the country has risen, it is conceivable that the family temple of each pillar country will become a center, bringing more resources to the nearby area. This kind of opportunity should be given more places. Moreover, this can create multiple "foundations" and enhance the country's stability. The old brothers have fought side by side for too many times when they were alive. It is better to make more contributions after death, and there is no need to force themselves to join together. Therefore, after the first Great Khan Boyan Timur died of a serious injury, his mausoleum was placed in the north of the Danube River, where they organized the first farm; after the death of Prime Minister Guo Gai, he was buried in the south of the Danube River, where he had chosen. On the mound; after Marshal Li Tianying died in the battle, he was buried near a tributary of the Oort River, next to the dam they built; after Taishi Yexianbuhua died in the battle, he was buried in the city of Yesansarai in Crimea Outside... Just like this, they each returned to their own places, and each family also had a new "home" in different places.

Since then, most members of the Guo family have been buried here after their deaths. They built a cemetery and a family church here, and just as Guo Gai originally expected, they led to the development of a circle of surrounding villages and formed a market town nearby.

As time went by, some families also chose to migrate. Perhaps because they were originally wanderers from outside the region and opened up new homes in Western Europe, they did not have much resistance to changing the location of their ancestral graves.

For example, after the territory of the Purple Horde Khanate gradually expanded, the Li family moved from Hebei and took the people in their hometown to the newly conquered western foothills of the Carpathian Mountains. It was also there that they quickly recovered from the decline after being hit by Queen Mother Helena. Although the Cao family has not moved yet, General Cao has left a will. From now on, he and his wife will be buried in the Ross area, where they were exiled.

Even Guo himself is like this. Guo Di's burial place is actually not here, but in the new city he built north of Novgorod. It's just that it's too far over there, so he still has a memorial tablet in the family church here, so that people who work in Dadu can come and worship.

As for the great Khans of the past dynasties, the tombs are even more scattered.

The first Khan, Boyan Timur, was buried in the center of the Khanate. According to his original request, too many facilities and mausoleum guards were not arranged. Every year, only local ale and wine were used for sacrifices, and people from nearby villages took care of the maintenance. Starting from the second generation of John VII, the Purple Horde Khanate determined the location of the cemetery based on needs, and moved people to protect it.

After John VII died of excessive drinking, he was buried in East Thrace. Under the auspices of Patriarch Zhang, in accordance with local customs, a Christian church was built and the Khan was buried in the church. Six hundred families of wealthy, brave and prosperous people from the Romanian area migrated to settle next to the church. , while protecting the Great Khan's cemetery, while also intimidating the nearby Greeks who had just been brought under control.

This habit continued thereafter. When Basil III, the most powerful king in history, passed away, according to his will, the Khan sent his coffin to the Hungarian region he conquered. More than a hundred miles east of Buda City, the local Catholic church was demolished and a huge church was built. Catholic church.

Patriarch Yin presided over the consecration ceremony of the church and named it "Brother Tian's Salvation Cathedral" as a cemetery. The construction of the church began a few years before the death of Basil III. During this period, the Khan's court successively moved more than 5,000 families of wealthy families, powerful men, and wealthy merchants from Serbia, southern Greece, Trabzon and other places to live in many nearby areas. Work in villages and towns, completing tasks such as building churches and guarding tombs. Including the time of organizing manpower, reclaiming wasteland, and building tomb-keeper villages and towns, it took ten years to complete. When the project was completed, Lama Wang became the Patriarch.

People from different places and speaking different languages ​​mixed together in this way. The tombs and tablets of ancestors, like the living people of later generations, were scattered to various places with the rise of Rome. Until now, Guo Kang feels a little emotional when he thinks of this.

Everyone passed through the archway with the words "Pillar of the Country" written on it, and local provincial officials, battle regiment officers, and various local dignitaries had already come to greet them. The adoptive father continued to represent the family, greeting them one by one and expressing his greetings.

As is customary, local representatives have already arranged a luncheon to give them a refreshment. Naturally, we will not deny face to others here. After the invitation, everyone headed to the church. And Guo Kang knew that the next few days would probably be spent in such entertainment.

The size of Guo's church is not large. Although it has been expanded once, it is still much smaller than a building like the Empress Temple.

Of course, it is actually good to have a family temple.

The ancestral temple system was established and gradually improved in the Western Zhou Dynasty: the customs of ancestor worship in the previous Shang Dynasty were too different from those of later generations, so let's not ignore them; after the Zhou Dynasty, changes were basically based on the Zhou rituals.

According to Zhou rites, nobles of all levels, from the emperor to the scholars, had their own ancestral temples. Common people did not have fiefdoms or titles, so they did not have temples set up on fiefdoms. They could only perform sacrificial activities in the main room of their homes.

After the establishment of the Qin Dynasty, all concepts of "noble feudal states" were abolished across the board, and the ancestral temples of the nobility also disappeared. In the whole country, only the emperor has an ancestral temple. The Han Dynasty followed the system of the Qin Dynasty, but relaxed it slightly. Kings and princes could set up ancestral temples in their fiefdoms, but others still could not. Even high-ranking officials and nobles could only set up sacrificial temples next to their tombs, or with them, if they did not have a title. Common people also offer sacrifices at home.

The loosening of this restriction roughly began during the Three Kingdoms period. After Zhuge Liang's death, according to the laws of the Han Dynasty, sacrifices should only be made within his own territory, otherwise he would have exceeded the ritual system and enjoyed the status of a king.

But Zhuge Liang's prestige was too high, and people asked for the establishment of temples. If the government does not allow it, they will perform sacrifices privately on the road according to the season, which is beyond their control. The imperial court could only relax restrictions and allow the establishment of Zhuge temples so that everyone could have a place to worship, so as to avoid indiscriminate worship in various places, which would make it more difficult to manage.

Since then, restrictions on senior officials have been gradually relaxed. By the Song Dynasty, many officials also had temples, but they were restricted to civilians. In the history that Guo Kang knew, it was not until the Jiajing period of the Ming Dynasty that restrictions were completely abolished, and civilians were allowed to set up family temples to worship their ancestors. At this time, the Central Plains side has not yet let go.

The Purple Horde Khanate is actually an exception. According to the Tang Dynasty classics they copied, only high-ranking officials should have the privilege of setting up family temples. However, this place is in a special situation after all.

The Khan's court hoped to encourage filial piety, call on the people to abide by etiquette and worship their ancestors, so as to promote enlightenment and change the barbaric cultural status quo here. Because filial piety is the most basic morality, and worshiping ancestors is the easiest etiquette to understand. Starting from here, it should be the easiest to implement.

On the other hand, the nobles in the West have their own surnames and well-documented family inheritance; the common people do not have surnames and often do not know who their ancestors are. If this continues, it will naturally help maintain the rule of the old aristocracy, but it will not help the Purple Horde Khanate to crack down on powerful people and manage household registration. Therefore, when the Khanate was first established, what was promoted at the same time as ordering people to choose surnames was to directly open family temples to common people and encourage them to worship their ancestors, thereby eliminating the advantages and privileges of the old aristocracy.

And all this has received good results. Under the rule of the Purple Horde Khanate, many educated people with some spare money began to worship their ancestors and tried to trace their ancestors back to the nobles who migrated from the east.

Now, there are a lot of people here who claim to have the surname of Jiebu, Xianbei Yang, Xiongnu Li, etc., ranging from civilians to officials, and they are quite popular. The stories they identified were similar. They all said that their ancestors were of the Yanhuang lineage and had fought with Xia Jie or guarded bonfires for Emperor Zhou. Later, due to bad luck, they ran to the grassland and finally migrated all the way here. It's a pity that it's so old, and mixed with the people along the way, it's hard to see what it looked like back then.

Considering that since ancient times, people from the Central Plains have indeed been fleeing to the grasslands; tribes on the grasslands have indeed often migrated westward in waves. Therefore, it really cannot be said that these people are all making it up, and there is no way to verify them one by one... As time goes by, this kind of ancestral halls and genealogies attached by the locals themselves are everywhere, and they are also beyond control.

(End of this chapter)