Tang Dynasty Crossing Guide: Chang'an and People's Life Manual

Chapter 11 Do as the Romans do, you must have basic life knowledge (1)
Tired of standing and want to sit down?Sorry, you may not be able to find a chair!

坐具
After learning the basic life-saving skills and eating all kinds of pure natural and pollution-free organic food, do you think your journey through the Tang Dynasty will be smooth sailing?Heh heh, not so far.If you don't study hard, even if you just go out to stroll the streets, go to a friend's house to chat and have a meal, you may kill someone.

For example, you, who have become a child of a royal family, ride a horse and bring your servants to visit relatives and friends in Chang'an City on a sunny day in spring and Jingming.When you arrive at the door of someone's house, ask the savior to let you in. After a while, the host comes out to greet you. After bowing to each other, you enter the hall, and the host and guest sit down.

Wait a minute, although the host is full of "please sit, please sit", you look around, where is the chair in the big hall?
If you have traveled to the early prosperous Tang Dynasty before the Anshi Rebellion, in all likelihood, there are only a few flat, short overhead square platforms with mats on the green brick floor, and this is the place for you to sit on. "Couch".If the host you are going to visit has a relatively poor family background, or is a retro lover, then you may not even have a couch, just throw a few seats on the ground, please.

Reluctantly, you gritted your teeth, and with the help of your servants, you took off your shoes, went to the hall in socks, walked to the couch or seat, and then humbly knelt down on your knees, pressing your buttocks on your calves and ankles, and sat upright— Ouch, how uncomfortable.

① The gatekeeper, the gatekeeper.

This way of kneeling, squatting①, and sitting upright is the most solemn and dignified sitting posture.In a formal occasion, if you want to sit in front of your elders, that's the only way you can abuse yourself.If your senior boss wants to punish you, he can order you to sit upright while nagging and admonishing you, watching your leg muscles oppress the blood vessels, causing numbness in your waist and knees, dizziness, and falling over after a while. After a while, I fell down again until I passed out and finished the job.

If you want to avoid this miserable experience, you'd better make friends with the host in front of you.Enough flattery, before you kneel down and pass out, the host kindly suggested that we are familiar with each other, so let’s relax (I’m so tired from sitting too).

So the two sides changed their sitting postures, pulled their legs out from under their bodies, and coiled them together in front of them.For most of the ancients, sitting cross-legged in meditation is already a relatively relaxed and comfortable posture, so sitting on the couch or on the ground for several hours does not cause much pressure.

It's a pity that you are not a real ancient person, you are a modern person who has just passed through and is used to sitting on a chair.

After chatting politely with the host for a while, your buttocks are sore, your waist is also sore, and your whole body can't stop shrivelling.The master saw it, clapped his hands, and asked the servants to send you a "how much" to come up.

①Cross sitting, that is, the above-mentioned sitting posture of "kneeling down with the buttocks pressing down on one's calf and ankle", which is synonymous with "sit on kneeling, sitting upright".

What is it based on?

You see the master’s servants bring up a wooden product like a small bench. There is a narrow board on the top and two or three legs on the bottom. It may be a straight guy, or it may be a semi-circular shape just enough to surround you. waist.The servant puts this thing on your couch or mat, notice, it is in front of you.You lie forward, put your arms on it, and rest your entire weight on this bench—oh, it's so comfortable.

In the era of kneeling and sitting in the Middle Ages, people's body center of gravity was used to pressing forward, so the weight is usually placed in front of the body.Of course, if you are tired from lying forward and want to change the center of gravity to lean on, and the owner doesn't mind, you can also move the bench to your side to lean on.In the Tang Dynasty, there was also a kind of "hidden pouch" made of cloth, similar to the "hidden pouch" of modern pillows, which can also be used to recline, but it is more private and less serious. Generally, the hosts who meet for the first time will not take it out to wait. guest.

If you talk more harmoniously with your host, meet each other late, cover up as before, clap your hands and laugh from time to time, and even start calling you brothers, you can quietly move your legs when he is not looking, sit down on the edge of the couch, or curl up with one leg Standing with one leg hanging down, like some people sit on a chair.This posture of sitting on the edge of the couch is a very affectionate, relaxed and casual body language. From this, the owner may feel that "we are no longer outsiders", or may think that you are so rude. Offend me - bet on your character.

When we chatted about the meal time, the host said that he would invite you to have dinner together.

According to the polite and traditional way, when the two of you dine indoors, the host will place a small rectangular table "cooking table" in front of each couch. Put your own portion of food on the food table in front of everyone.The rich and wealthy families with big budgets will also invite diners to accompany the meal, and order the family-raised tricksters to play music and dance in the center of the restaurant, so that the guests can enjoy material civilization and spiritual civilization at the same time.

However, on this sunny spring day with the fragrance of flowers and plants, the host enthusiastically proposed: Let’s bring some friends and go for a picnic outdoors.

If it is simpler, we can set up a table of wine and food in the back garden of the owner’s house, enjoying flowers and having fun; if it is more fashionable and petty bourgeois, then we will go to Qujiang Pond, the largest wild natural park in the city, or even go out of Chang’an City to the suburbs The shore of the Wei River and the foot of Zhongnan Mountain.In spring, these picnic hot spots can be seen everywhere with barricade curtains surrounded by noble families, full of aristocratic men and women who come out to get close to nature.

If there are female relatives in the group, after choosing a picnic spot, the slaves will start to surround the place with a fence, or surround it on three sides, leaving one side facing the river, flowers and trees to enjoy the scenery.If they are all free and easy gentlemen, just remove the stuffy things like curtains.

Of course, the consequence of not using the fence may be to attract a bunch of villagers and beggars to watch intensively.

Ignore them, everyone is here, the food and drink are ready, let's sit down and have a banquet.Um, sit... where?

Similarly, if the host is a straightforward and simple retro lover, once the mats and blankets are laid, everyone's seats will be designated.Or to be more advanced, give each person a beard bed, that is, a horse bed that is still commonly used in modern times. Everyone sits on a small horse bed, with a food table in front of them, watching the scenery and chatting, while eating their own meals .

Before the Tang Dynasty, people on outings came here in this way, but after entering the Tang Dynasty, the west wind was blowing eastward, and the people felt that this "eat each meal" food sharing system was not lively enough.As a result, the most popular meal in the Tang Dynasty became like this: a large and large student food table was placed in the center, which was basically the same as our current dining table, and everyone's meals were all placed on the table.Three wide, long and large seats are placed beside the table. You can call it a couch according to the traditional rules. I think it is the most intuitive image to call it a big bench directly.

After entering the table, the guests sit around the table on the bench. Those who observe etiquette can sit cross-legged and meditate, those who are free and easy sit with their legs hanging down, and those who are not polite and dare not sit cross-legged and hang their legs freely... In short, everyone is a gathering Together, eating the meals in the plates and bowls on the table has changed from the "sharing system" to the "joint food system", and it continues to this day.

The above is the scene of being a guest for dinner outside.You played with your friends for a day, and you came home drunk at night, and the lady at home greeted you with a smile on her face: Your husband has worked hard, whether to kneel on the iron mat, kneel on the bed, or kneel on the pier, choose yourself.

In the inner room of the big family in the early Tang Dynasty, in addition to sitting on the couch, bed and mat, there was also a common modern sitting pier, which was called "Sheng hoof" at that time, or porcelain or wood, barrel-shaped or crescent-shaped. The earliest high seat.Women in the family usually sit cross-legged when they sit on couches, beds, or mats. Only when they use this kind of pier can they hang their legs down to relax muscles and activate blood circulation.

However, the power of custom is powerful.From the late Tang Dynasty to the Song Dynasty, even though high tables and back chairs have been widely used, social etiquette still generally believes that the most dignified sitting posture is the most uncomfortable sitting method, followed by cross-legged sitting, and finally revealing the leg lines Sitting with feet hanging down.Especially for women who are demanding on etiquette, sitting on a chair with their feet hanging down in front of outsiders is a sign of poor family education.

In short, the Tang Dynasty was an era of transition from short furniture such as couches, seats, and low tables to tall furniture such as tables and chairs.In the early stage, low furniture such as couches, beds, and tables were mainly used, and chairs with long legs and backs were basically invisible to you.When the later period was close to the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, chairs with backrests and high-leg tables became popular in the whole society. But even then, even in the Song, Ming and Qing Dynasties, couches for people to sit cross-legged did not disappear. It is widely used in the social class—the "arhat bed", which is very popular in the mahogany furniture market now, is a couch for people to sit cross-legged.

Therefore, in some ancient costume TV dramas, no matter which dynasty of the Han and Tang Dynasties, all the tables, chairs and benches are flying around. Sitting on the mat and sleeping on the mat is also misleading.Although short-footed furniture is short, it is also furniture, right? It has materials and structures of pure natural wood, environmentally friendly craftsmanship, and is purely handmade.

References & in-depth understanding recommendations for this article:
Gao Qi’an. From the murals of Mogao Grottoes, Dunhuang people’s sitting and eating postures in Tang and Five Dynasties. Dunhuang Studies, 2001 (3)

Household register, temporary residence permit, unit introduction letter, all of which are indispensable

Household registration system
We once introduced that if you travel to the Tang Dynasty and land in the city, then you must remember to guard against city management and hide from night bans.In fact, if your time travel is only for a fixed time and you don't care much about the location, then the probability of falling directly into the city is not high.

The reason is simple. Among the national territory, the percentage of urban area is very small.

The Tang Dynasty in Chinese history was established in 618 and perished in 907. It existed for 290 years, with a population of only 8000 million at its largest and a territory of more than 1000 million square kilometers.Even if the average population density is eight people per square kilometer, due to the aggregation and division of labor in human society and the proportional relationship between population density and living resources—simply put, most areas within the territory of the Tang Dynasty are sparsely populated wilderness.

Well, the donkey friends who don't follow the group have successfully crossed the field.I opened my eyes and saw that the mountains were high and the forest was dense, and I was not in a hurry. I took out my own compass in the bag, and there was a Beidou navigator in the sky. I determined the direction and left decisively.After walking for a day or two, ten days or eight days, the official road appeared in front of him, and if he walked along the official road, he would definitely be able to enter the city.

The khaki-colored city tower is far away, and the little brother is happy thinking about worshiping the boss, accepting the younger brother, the aura of domineering, and unifying the galaxy. The girl Le Taotao wants to seduce the elder brother and fascinate the emperor. The whole universe revolves around her, thinking and rubbing Drooling, he arrived at the city gate unconsciously, walked across the bridge on the moat, and came to two or three gatekeepers holding spears.

It's impossible to go unnoticed with a weirdly dressed and ridiculously behaving figure like you.The doorman stretched out his hand to stop it, and asked directly: "What are you doing? Where did you come from? The 'public inspection' is used for inspection!"

You don't understand what a "public test" is?It is the identity certificate of the Tang Dynasty, such as ID card, driver's book, military officer's card, passport, unit introduction letter... Hey, if you show the second-generation ID card of the People's Republic of China, people will not recognize it.Not even a United States of America passport.Can't get anything else out?If you can't get it out, you're either a fugitive slave or a vagrant, someone will tie you up and send you to the government office to lock you up!

I said, you don't need to pass cigarettes to others, people in the Tang Dynasty have never heard of this stuff, if you want to be careful, you might as well give a few doses of Wushi powder.Quickly call the phone to find an acquaintance?You are mighty, are you planning to travel with China Unicom and China Telecom?

Even if you managed to get a valuable gadget out of your body to offer a bribe, would the guards dare to accept it casually?Do you think these people are free to extort money?The law of the Tang Dynasty clearly stipulates that if the gatekeeper releases a person who has not passed the "public inspection", he will be sentenced to one year of hard labor in exile. If the released person commits other crimes, the gatekeeper will also commit additional crimes.

Of course, if there is a legal "public inspection", the Tang law also protects the rights of pedestrians. It stipulates that if the gatekeeper eats a card for no reason, he will keep the pedestrian. .

This is a law against guards. Do you think you, a blind streamer without "public verification", can go unpunished?How can there be such a good thing!Going through the border without a "public inspection" is called "the crime of crossing the border without permission", and if you are caught, you will be sentenced to one and a half years in prison.Even if you just reached the checkpoint and didn't break through it, or even just approached the checkpoint and didn't start breaking through, you have to be sentenced.Or if there is a problem with your "public inspection", it has expired, or you have brought items that are not stated on the "public inspection", you will be criminalized, and it is very strict.

Do you know how powerful it is?Then why bring a few bank notes and hire a taxi to travel around the world, so let's rest early.

You still don't give up?What does this "public test" look like?How can I get it?
Well, we have to start from the beginning.

I won’t mention soul time travel or time travel from reincarnation. I only say that a modern adult man’s physical body travels to the Tang Dynasty. After waking up in the deserted wilderness, please be prepared to survive in the wild for a few years.

You can eat wild fruits, beat rabbits, and be a white-haired man while quietly approaching nearby villages.Not to make you sneaky, okay.See if there is a decent family in the village, or a widow household that is well-to-do and in short supply of strong men is better, tell them that you sneaked out of your hometown to evade taxes, and ask for a meal, you have plenty of strength , can help work.

If you are lucky, they may take you in secretly without telling the government.This matter must be kept low-key and kept secret. If civil servants such as the Lizheng County Captain find out and lead someone to arrest you, you will have to be beaten and sent back to your hometown.No country of origin to send?Those exiled to the front line of the war or deep in the mountains and old forests to do hard labor and fight in the war.In short, the travelers who traveled through the Tang Dynasty probably enjoyed the way that modern developed countries in Europe and the United States deal with illegal immigrants.

So if you want to sneak into the village, there is really a widow in the village, let's say the surname is Zhang. Her husband died and left her with a few children. The family is relatively well-off, with fields, large animals, and slaves.Seeing your fair complexion, tall stature, and sincere language, this woman is not aware of her spring heart. First, she secretly leaves you to work as a long-term worker, and then on a night of heavy thunderstorms, that... here is a mosaic of a thousand words.

After a few years of messing around like this, a major event happened in Chang'an, thousands of miles away. Maybe the emperor's mistress was righted, or his wife gave birth to a son. Innocent, you black households are allowed to register in the local area for free.

Mrs. Zhang and you were overjoyed, and hurriedly wrote a "handbook", which is the household registration book of the Tang Dynasty, and reported it to the workshop.This is what is written in the account book:

The household advocated that in three or three years, thirty-one-year-old widow Ding had a mole on his right cheek and took over the household on behalf of her husband.
Male Li Ada is a [-]-year-old boy
Daughter Li Axiao is an eight-year-old girl
Nu Afu Nian Shi Lu Sui
Nuamai is seventeen years old
Maid Ah Hua is five years old
The person on the right sees a registered permanent residence (this sentence means that the above-mentioned mother, child, Sanliangmin and three slaves currently have regular household registrations)

Husband Li four-year-old thirty-three-year-old died after Kaiyuan two-year registration (this is to explain the situation of Mrs. Zhang's ex-husband)
Husband, Tang Chuan, [-] years old, Ding Nan, a brain idiot, and the fifth year of Kaiyuan, after being pardoned, I will add the omission (this means you, write down your gender, age, physical condition, and then write down the time when you registered)

Heshou Changbutian (the following is the field owned by Mrs. Zhang's family)
A section of [-] mu, [-] miles north of Changtian City, Xinxing, East Canal, West Road, South Road, North Cao Junding (this means the area, nature, and borders of her family’s land, which borders on the cultivated land, the following three lines are the same)

A section of one mu of Butian Sanyi City West Qili Shayan Canal East Canal West Zhang Yanshou South Di Yanshou North Qu Shanliang
A section of one mu of Butian Sanyi City West Wuli Madui Canal East Zhang Samizi West Zhang Azhong South North Canal

A section of one mu of Butian Sanyi City West Wuli Humajing Canal East Canal West Quwen Jinan Canal North Caosudui
A four-step living garden house (this line refers to the area of ​​her homestead)
(End of this chapter)